Christina looked at the ring she had first seen lying on her own Eberhard’s palm, and felt as if to let it be used would sever the renewed hope she scarcely yet durst entertain; and at the same moment Maximilian glanced at his own fingers, and muttered, “None but this! Unlucky!” For it was the very diamond which Mary of Burgundy had sent to assure him of her faith, and summon him to her aid after her father’s death. Sir Kasimir had not retained the pledge of his own ill-omened wedlock; but, in the midst of the dilemma, the Emperor, producing his dagger, began to detach some of the massive gold links of the chain that supported his hunting-horn. “There,” said he, “the little elf of a bride can get her finger into this lesser one and you—verily this largest will fit, and the goldsmith can beat it out when needed. So on with you in St. Hubert’s name, Father Abbot!”
Slender-boned and thin as was Ebbo’s hand, it was a very tight fit, but the purpose was served. The service commenced; and fortunately, thanks to Thekla’s conventual education, she was awed into silence and decorum by the sound of Latin and the sight of an abbot. It was a strange marriage, if only in the contrast between the pale, expressive face and sad, dark eyes of the prostrate youth, and the frightened, bewildered little girl, standing upon a stool to reach up to him, with her blue eyes stretched with wonder, and her cheeks flushed and pouting with unshed tears, her rosy plump hand enclosed in the long white wasted one that was thus for ever united to it by the broken fragments of Kaisar Max’s chain.
The rite over, two attestations of the marriage of Eberhard, Freiherr von Adlerstein, and Thekla, Freiherrinn von Adlerstein Wildschloss and Felsenbach, were drawn up and signed by the abbot, the Emperor, Count Dankwart, and the father and mother of the two contracting parties; one to be committed to the care of the abbot, the other to be preserved by the house of Adlerstein.
Then the Emperor, as the concluding grace of the ceremonial, bent to kiss the bride; but, tired, terrified, and cross, Thekla, as if quite relieved to have some object for her resentment, returned his attempt with a vehement buffet, struck with all the force of her small arm, crying out, “Go away with you! I know I’ve never married you!”
“The better for my eyes!” said the good-natured Emperor, laughing heartily. “My Lady Bearess is like to prove the more courteous bride! Fare thee well, Sir Bridegroom,” he added, stooping over Ebbo, and kissing his brow; “Heaven give thee joy of this day’s work, and of thy faithful little fury. I’ll send her the bearskin as her meetest wedding-gift.”
And the next that was heard from the Kaisar was the arrival of a parcel of Italian books for the Freiherr Eberhard, and for the little Freiherrinn a large bundle, which proved to contain a softly-dressed bearskin, with the head on, the eyes being made of rubies, a gold muzzle and chain on the nose, and the claws tipped with gold. The Emperor had made a point that it should be conveyed to the castle, snow or no snow, for a yule gift.
CHAPTER XXIV
OLD IRON AND NEW STEEL
The clear sunshine of early summer was becoming low on the hillsides. Sparkling and dimpling, the clear amber-coloured stream of the Braunwasser rippled along its stony bed, winding in and out among the rocks so humbly that it seemed to be mocked by the wide span of the arch that crossed it in all the might of massive bulwarks, and dignified masonry of huge stones.
Some way above, a clearing of the wood below the mountain showed huts, and labourers apparently constructing a mill so as to take advantage of the leap of the water from the height above; and, on the left bank, an enclosure was traced out, within which were rising the walls of a small church, while the noise of the mallet and chisel echoed back from the mountain side, and masons, white with stone-dust, swarmed around.
Across the bridge came a pilgrim, marked out as such by hat, wallet, and long staff, on which he leant heavily, stumbling along as if both halting and footsore, and bending as one bowed down by past toil and present fatigue. Pausing in the centre, he gazed round with a strange disconcerted air—at the castle on the terraced hillside, looking down with bright eyes of glass glittering in the sunshine, and lighting up even that grim old pile; at the banner hanging so lazily that the tinctures and bearings were hidden in the folds; then at the crags, rosy purple in evening glow, rising in broad step above step up to the Red Eyrie, bathed in sunset majesty of dark crimson; and above it the sweep of the descending eagle, discernible for a moment in the pearly light of the sky. The pilgrim’s eye lighted up as he watched it; but then, looking down at bridge, and church, and trodden wheel-tracked path, he frowned with perplexity, and each painful step grew heavier and more uncertain.