CHAPTER XIX.
The rugged rocks fantastic forms assume,
Seen in the darkling of the midnight gloom;
And the wild evergreens so dimly bright,
Seem to reflect a kind of lurid light;
This sight so strange may well our knight amaze,
He stops, upon the witchery to gaze.
Wieland.
The spot to which they had arrived in this large cavern, possessed one great advantage, that of being perfectly dry. The ground was covered with rushes and straw; a lamp hung on the side of the rock, which threw sufficient light on the breadth, and a great part of the length, of the grotto. Opposite the entrance sat the stranger upon a large bear skin, and near him stood his sword and a bugle horn; an old hat, and a grey cloak lay on the ground. A jacket of dark brown leather, and trowsers of coarse blue cloth, covered his person; an unseemly costume, but which did not the less set off the powerful shape of his body, and the noble features of his countenance. He was about thirty-four years old, and his face might be called still handsome and pleasing, although the first bloom of youth was worn off by hardship and fatigue, and his beard having grown wild upon his chin, imparted to his look an air of severity. Albert made these fleeting remarks as he stopped at the entrance of the grotto.
"Welcome to my palace, Albert von Sturmfeder," said its inhabitant, whilst he rose from his bear skin, and offering him his hand, begged him to take a seat beside him on a deer skin: "you are heartily welcome," he repeated. "It was no bad thought of our friend the musician, to introduce you into these lower regions, and bring me such agreeable society. Hans, thou faithful soul! thou hast been our major domo and chancellor up to this moment, from henceforth we nominate thee our head-master of the cellar and purveyor-general. Look behind that pillar, and thou'lt find the remains of a bottle of good old wine. Take my beech-wood hunting-cup, the only utensil left us, and fill it up to the brim, to the honour of our worthy guest."
Albert beheld the exiled man in astonishment; though he might have expected to find the energies of his mind unsubdued by the storms of life, still he was prepared to see him brooding over his misfortunes in sullen melancholy, driven by hard fate to seek shelter in these inhospitable regions. What, therefore, was his surprise to find him, on the contrary, cheerful and unconcerned, joking about his situation, just as if he had been merely overtaken by a storm in hunting, and had sought shelter from its violence in the grotto! It was a storm, indeed, more terrible than the fury of the elements which had driven him from the castle of his ancestors, for he was the prey that had taken shelter here from the shots of his murderous huntsmen.
"You look at me and my abode with astonishment, my worthy guest," said the knight: "you, perhaps, expected to hear me bewailing my hard fate--but of what use would that be? As no one can retrieve my misfortune in this moment, I think it the wisest plan to put a bold face upon what I cannot alter. But tell me, am not I as well lodged here as many princes in their palaces? Have you noticed the halls and saloons of this my palace? do not the walls shine like silver, and the vaulted ceilings sparkle as if they were set in pearls and diamonds? and the pillars, do they not glitter with emeralds, rubies, and all sorts of precious stones? But here comes Hans, my purveyor, with the wine. Say, my trusty subject, does that cup contain the whole of our cellar?"
"Your habitation can boast of water, as clear as crystal," answered the fifer, who well understood the cheerful mood of his companion; "the remainder of the wine in the cellar will fill more than three cups, and--as we have another guest to-day--we may indulge a little. Luckily, I brought a jug full of good old Uhlbacker from the castle to-night."
"You have done well," said the exiled knight, whilst a ray of joy flashed from his brilliant eye; "you must not think, Albert von Sturmfeder, that I am a wine-bibber; but good wine is a noble thing, and I love to see the full glass circulate in friendly society. Put the jug down here, worthy master of the cellar, we'll enjoy ourselves, as in the best days of our prosperity. Here's to you, and the former splendour of the house of Sturmfeder!"
Albert thanked the knight, and drank. "I wish I could return the honour, in drinking to your name," he said; "but, as you have already hesitated to give it me, I will not ask it now, sir knight. But here's to you, and may you return victorious to the castles of your fathers, and may your family live and nourish there for ever--huzza!" He pronounced the last word with a loud voice, and just as he set his cup down, he was astonished to hear it repeated by many sounds, which appeared to be voices, coming from the whole length of the grotto: "What is that?" he said, "are not we alone?"
"Those are my vassals,--spirits," answered the knight, smiling; "or, if you prefer it, the echo, which responds to your kind wish. I have often heard," he added, in a more serious tone, "in the days of my prosperity, the success of my house cheered by hundreds of voices; but I have never been more pleased, or more affected, than to have it drank to, by my only guest, and re-echoed among the rocks of these lower regions. Fill the cup, Hans, and drink, and if you can give us a good toast, let's have it."
The fifer of Hardt filled the cup, and glanced a significant look at Albert: "Here's to you, sir, and something which will please you more,--the Lady of Lichtenstein!"
"Hollo, right so, right so! drink, sir, drink!" cried the exile, and laughed so heartily, that the cavern appeared to tremble under it. "Drink out every drop! long may she live, and bloom for you! Well done, Hans! only look how the blood mounts up in the cheeks of our guest; how his eyes sparkle, as if he actually kissed her beautiful lips. You need not be bashful! I also have loved and wooed, and know the state of a light merry heart of four-and-twenty, on such an occasion!"
"Poor man!" said Albert, touched by a sigh of deep feeling which accompanied these last words.--"Have you loved and wooed also? and perhaps been obliged to leave a beloved wife and children to lament and bewail your present misfortunes!" As he said this he felt his cloak pulled from behind, when turning around, the countryman winked to him, as a sign, that it was a subject of all others the most painful to the knight to hear. Albert immediately saw the effect it produced on his features; and regretted having been the cause of giving him pain.
With a look of wild despair, and evidently trying to combat his feeling, he merely said, "Frost in September destroys the beautiful flower which blossoms in May, and we scarcely know how to account for it. My children are left in the hands of rough but faithful nurses, who will, with God's help, take care good of them till their father returns home again." He was so much affected when he spoke these words, that it required no small effort to enable him to resume his good humour. "Hans is witness," he said, after a pause, "how often I have wished to see you, Albert von Sturmfeder; he told me of your being wounded, on that occasion when you were surprised by a party of the League, who probably took you for one of us outcasts; but happily gave you an opportunity to escape."
"Yes, I had a narrow escape," answered Albert. "I almost believe they took me for the Duke, for they were on the look out for him at that time. I would willingly have suffered much greater loss, to be the instrument of saving him."
"Well, that is saying a good deal; are you aware, that the cut which was made at you might have cost you your life?"
"He who takes the field," replied Albert, "must settle all his accounts with the world beforehand. I would certainly prefer falling before the enemy in the field of battle, surrounded by friends and comrades, that I might receive from their hands the last offices of regard and love. But still, to parry the murderer's hand from the Duke, I would have sacrificed my life, at any time, had it been necessary."
The exile regarded the young man with emotion, and pressed his hand. "You appear to take great interest in the Duke," he said; "I should hardly have supposed it; because they say, your heart is with the League."
"As I know you are a partisan of the Duke," answered Albert; "I trust you will excuse me if I speak my mind freely. Well, then, I must tell you, I think the Duke has acted, in many respects, not becoming his high station; for example, he ought not to have meddled in the affair of Hutten in the manner he did, whatever might have been his reasons; and then, the treatment of his wife was excited by violence and an overbearing spirit; and you must admit, that it was rage and revenge, and not a just ground for attack, which moved him to take forcible possession of Reutlingen."
He paused, expecting to hear a remark from the knight, upon what he had just said; but as he remained silent, Albert continued: "Upon these reports I formed the idea of the Duke's character when I joined the ranks of the confederates, among whom he was vilified in still stronger terms; but, on the other hand, he had a warm advocate in the Lady of Lichtenstein, who was better acquainted with his virtues than his enemies, and who you may perhaps have already heard was the principal cause of my quitting their service. I will not, therefore, say more upon the subject further than she opened my eyes to the true state of existing circumstances. In consequence of her information, I gave myself some trouble to penetrate the ulterior views of the League, and found they were directed, not only to the dispossessing him of his dominions and banishing him his country, but, in order to gratify the real object of their views, they grasped at the partition of his sovereignty among themselves. With the impression of the injustice of their intentions strong in my mind, I viewed the Duke's cause in a light totally different to what I had hitherto done. His character was raised still higher in my estimation, when I also learnt, that though urged by the patriotism and love of his people to venture a battle in defence of his rights, he would not risk the blood of his faithful Würtembergers in such a hazardous game. And though possessing the power of extorting money from his subjects to subsidize the Swiss, he rather preferred exile for the good of his country. These are my reasons for befriending the ill-used Prince."
The knight, whose eyes had been fixed on the ground, now raised them upon Albert, and he seemed overpowered with the kind expressions which he had used towards the Duke. "Truly," he said, "your feelings are pure and generous, my young friend! I know the Duke as well as I do myself, and I may venture to say with you, that he rises superior to his misfortunes, and merits a far better name than report gives of him. Ah! if he had a hundred hearts such as yours, not a rag of the League's ensigns would ever float over the castles of Würtemberg;--could I but persuade you to join his cause! Far be it from me, however, to invite you to share his misery; it is enough that your sword, and an arm such as yours, do not belong to his enemies. May your days be happier than his! may heaven reward your good opinion of an unfortunate man!"
The spirit which breathed throughout the words of the exile, struck many a corresponding chord in the heart of Albert. He was flattered and encouraged to hear his own actions thus acknowledged.
The similarity which appeared to exist between the fate of his unknown friend and the impoverished fortunes of his own house, together with the prompting of the noble desire to espouse the weakest but honest cause in the pending struggle, in preference to taking the side of victorious injustice, were so many irresistible inducements to the manly mind of Albert to stand by the exile in his present deep distress.
Inspired by this feeling, he took his hand, and said, "Let no one henceforth talk to me of the imprudence,--let it not be called folly,-- of sharing the misfortunes of the persecuted! May others partake of the division of the Duke's fine country, and carouse in the spoils of the unhappy man's property,--I feel courage enough to suffer with him in his sufferings; and, when he draws his sword to re-conquer his lost possessions, I will be the first by his side. Take my hand, sir knight, as my pledge: let what may happen, I am the Duke's friend from henceforth, for ever."
A tear of gratitude started in the eye of the exile as he returned the shake of his hand. "You risk much, but you lose nothing by becoming Ulerich's friend. The country, beyond these inhospitable regions, is now in the possession of tyrants and robbers; but here below faithful hearts still beat true to Würtemberg. Forget for a moment that I am a poor knight and an exiled man, and figure me to yourself the Prince of the country, as I am lord of this cavern, with his knight and citizen standing before him. Ah! as long as these three estates hold firm together, be they concealed ever so deep in the lap of the earth, Würtemberg still exists. Fill the cup, Hans, and join your rough hand to ours; we'll seal the alliance in a bumper!"
Hans replenished the jug and filled the cup, "Drink, noble sirs, drink," said he; "you cannot pledge yourselves in a more noble wine than in this Uhlbacher."
The knight having emptied the cup by a long draught, ordered it to be filled again, and presented it to Albert. "Does not this wine," asked Albert, "grow about the castle whence Würtemberg's royal blood sprang? I think the heights about it are called Uhlbacher?"
"You are right," answered the exile; "the hill is generally called the Rothenberg, at the foot of which the vine grows; the castle stands upon its summit, built by Würtemberg's ancestors. Oh! the beautiful vallies of the Neckar, the luxuriant hills of fruit and wine! Gone, gone for ever!" He uttered these words with a voice which bespoke a heart almost broken by suffering and grief; he could scarcely conceal the anguish of his soul, which his inflexible mind had hitherto veiled under the mask of a forced hilarity.
The countryman knelt beside him, took his hand, and to rouse him from a state of painful wandering, in which he was lost for some moments, said, "Be of good cheer, sir; you will return to your country again happier than you left it."
"You will behold the vallies of your home again," said Albert. "When the Duke regains his lost rights, and reoccupies the castles of his ancestors, the vallies of the Neckar, and its richly clothed hills of vineyards, will echo with the rejoicings of his people, and you also will be able to join in the jubilee. Banish gloomy thoughts from your mind, nunc vino pellite curas; drink, and let us hope for better times. I pledge you in this Würtemberg wine,--'to the Duke's happy return with his faithful followers!'"
These words seemed to reanimate the sunken spirits of the knight, and like a ray of sunshine shed a smile over his features. "Yes!" he cried, "sweet is the word which sends comfort to the broken-hearted; it is like a drop of cold water to refresh the weary wanderer in the desert. Forget my weakness, my friend; pardon it in a man who otherwise never gives place to grief.
"But if you had ever looked down from the summit of the Rothenberg, shaded by its green woods, into the heart of Würtemberg, and beheld the gentle stream of the Neckar winding its course along its richly cultivated banks; with its fields of high standing corn waving in the breeze; the red roofs of its villages peeping out from a forest of fruit trees, with their industrious inhabitants, consisting of strong men and beautiful women, busily employed in their gardens or dressing their vines on the heights; had you surveyed all this, and with my eyes, and then been compelled to take refuge from the bloodthirsty hands of ruffians in these inhospitable regions, surrounded by the benumbing chill of these walls, outlawed, condemned, banished.--Oh! the thought is terrible! too overwhelming for man's heart to bear!"
Albert, fearful lest the recollection of his past days, and the keen sense of his present situation, might a second time have too powerful an effect upon the mind of the exile, sought by changing the subject of conversation, to divert his mind and calm his thoughts.
"As I suppose you have been often with the Duke," he said, "pray tell me, now that I am his declared friend, what is his disposition? what is his appearance? is it true, as is reported, that he is of a very changeable and capricious temper?"
"No more upon that subject at present, if you please," answered the exile; "you will soon have an opportunity to judge for yourself when you see him. We have already spoken enough upon these matters, but you have said nothing about your own affairs; not a word about the object of your travels, nor of the beautiful lady of Lichtenstein? You are silent and look confused when that delicate subject is mentioned. Do not suppose I wish to be curious when I ask that question; no, it is solely because I think I can be of use to you."
"From what has passed between us this night," replied Albert, "I have nothing to conceal from you; secrecy is no longer necessary. It strikes me, that you must have long known I love Bertha, and that she likewise is faithful to me?"
The exile answered, smiling, "O yes, there was no mistaking the symptoms of her feelings, for when you were mentioned her confused look bespoke the secret of her heart, and the blush which accompanied it was an evident witness of the truth of it. When she named you it was with a peculiar tone of voice, as if the strings of her heart sounded in full accord to that key-note."
"This observation of yours will encourage me to go to Lichtenstein without further delay. It was my original intention, after I had quitted the service of the League, to go direct to my home; but as the Alb is about half way between Franconia and this place, and the desire I had to see my love once more was uppermost in my thoughts, I determined to endeavour to accomplish it. This man Hans conducted me over the Alb; you know the cause which delayed me eight days on my journey. To-morrow, at day-break, I purpose announcing myself at the castle, and I trust I shall now appear before the old knight in a more welcome light than I should otherwise have done, had I not performed my promise to the League of remaining neutral fourteen days, and now joined his colours."
"You may be assured of his welcome," said the knight, "particularly if you go as the friend of the Duke, for he is his faithful and most devoted adherent. But, may be, he would not trust your word, unsupported by some introduction, being, so it is said, rather incredulous, and shy of strangers. You know upon what terms I am with him. He is the kind-hearted Samaritan to me; and when I creep out of my hole at night, he nourishes my body with warm food, and my heart with still warmer consolation for the future. A couple of lines from me will be better received by him than a passport from the Emperor. Take this ring, which he and many others know and respect, and wear it in remembrance of the time we have passed together; it will announce you as a friend of Würtemberg's good cause." With these words, he took a broad gold ring from his finger. A large red stone was set in the middle, upon which was engraved, in the armorial helmet, the three stag horns,[1] with the bugle, which Albert recognised as the arms of Würtemberg. Around the ring were the letters, U.D.O.W.A.T. in relievo, the meaning of which he could not comprehend.
"Udowat? what does that name signify?" he asked. "Is it a parole for the followers of the Duke?"
"No, my young friend," said the exile. "The Duke has worn this ring long on his finger; he valued it much; but as I have many other souvenirs from him, I can best spare it, and could not place it in worthier hands. The letters mean, Ulerich, Duke of Würtemberg and Teck."
"I shall value it as long as I live," replied Albert, "as a relic of the unfortunate Prince whose name it bears, and as a pleasing remembrance of you, sir knight, and the night we passed together in this cavern."
"When you come to the drawbridge of Lichtenstein," continued the knight, "deliver a note which I will write, and this ring, to the first servant you see, and desire them to be conveyed to the lord of the castle, when he will certainly receive you as the Duke's own son. But for the lady, you must use your own passport, for my charm does not extend to her: a tender squeeze of the hand, or the mysterious language of the eyes, or perhaps still better, a sweet kiss on her rosy lips, will serve the purpose. But in order to appear before her as she would wish to see you, you need some rest, for if you pass the whole night without sleep, your eyes will be heavy. Therefore follow my example, stretch yourself on the deer skin, and make a pillow of your cloak. And you, worthy major domo, grand chamberlain and purveyor, Hans, faithful companion in misfortune, give this Paladin another glass for his nightcap, it will soften his deer-skin, and enchant this rocky grotto into a bed-room. And then may the god of dreams visit him with his choicest gifts!"
The men drank a good night to each other, and laid themselves to rest, Hans taking up his position as a faithful dog, at the entrance of the rocky chamber. Morpheus soon came with light steps to the aid of the young man, and as he was dropping off to sleep he heard, in a half doze, the exile saying his evening prayer, and, with pious confidence in the Disposer of events, imploring him to shower down his almighty protection on him and his unhappy country.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER XIX.:
[Footnote 1]: Three stag horns, the two upper ones having four ends and the lower one three, were the ancient arms of Würtemberg.