“No, certainly, good Heinz; yet I would fain know by what tokens thou knewest his death.”
“Ah! Sir Friedel; when you have seen a stricken field or two, you will not ask how I know death from life.”
“Is a swoon so utterly unlike death?”
“I say not but that an inexperienced youth might be mistaken,” said Heinz; “but for one who had learned the bloody trade, it were impossible. Why ask, sir?”
“Because,” said Friedel, low and mysteriously—“my brother would not have my mother know it, but—Count Schlangenwald demanded whether we could prove my father’s death.”
“Prove! He could not choose but die with three such wounds, as the old ruffian knows. I shall bless the day, Sir Friedmund, when I see you or your brother give back those strokes! A heavy reckoning be his.”
“We all deem that line only meant to cross our designs,” said Friedel. “Yet, Heinz, I would I knew how to find out what passed when thou wast gone. Is there no servant at the inn—no retainer of Schlangenwald that aught could be learnt from?”
“By St. Gertrude,” roughly answered the Schneiderlein, “if you cannot be satisfied with the oath of a man like me, who would have given his life to save your father, I know not what will please you.”
Friedel, with his wonted good-nature, set himself to pacify the warrior with assurances of his trust; yet while Ebbo plunged more eagerly into plans for the bridge-building, Friedel drew more and more into his old world of musings; and many a summer afternoon was spent by him at the Ptarmigan’s Mere, in deep communings with himself, as one revolving a purpose.
Christina could not but observe, with a strange sense of foreboding, that, while one son was more than ever in the lonely mountain heights, the other was far more at the base. Master Moritz Schleiermacher was a constant guest at the castle, and Ebbo was much taken up with his companionship. He was a strong, shrewd man, still young, but with much experience, and he knew how to adapt himself to intercourse with the proud nobility, preserving an independent bearing, while avoiding all that haughtiness could take umbrage at; and thus he was acquiring a greater influence over Ebbo than was perceived by any save the watchful mother, who began to fear lest her son was acquiring an infusion of worldly wisdom and eagerness for gain that would indeed be a severance between him and his brother.