“I would teach them true courage, not cruelty,” she tried to say.
“What should such as thou know of courage? Look here, girl: another word to daunt the spirit of my grandsons, and I’ll have thee scourged down the mountain-side! On! At him, Ebbo! That’s my gallant young knight! Out of the way, girl, with thy whining looks! What, Friedel, be a man, and aid thy brother! Has she made thee a puling woman already?” And Kunigunde laid an ungentle grasp upon Friedmund, who was clinging to his mother, hiding his face in her gown. He struggled against the clutch, and would not look up or be detached.
“Fie, poor little coward!” taunted the old lady; “never heed him, Ebbo, my brave Baron!”
Cut to the heart, Christina took refuge in her room, and gathered her Friedel to her bosom, as he sobbed out, “Oh, mother, the poor little wolf! Oh, mother, are you weeping too? The grandmother should not so speak to the sweetest, dearest motherling,” he added, throwing his arms round her neck.
“Alas, Friedel, that Ebbo should learn that it is brave to hurt the weak!”
“It is not like Walther of Vögelwiede,” said Friedel, whose mind had been much impressed by the Minnesinger’s bequest to the birds.
“Nor like any true Christian knight. Alas, my poor boys, must you be taught foul cruelty and I too weak and cowardly to save you?”
“That never will be,” said Friedel, lifting his head from her shoulder. “Hark! what a howl was that!”
“Listen not, dear child; it does but pain thee.”
“But Ebbo is not shouting. Oh, mother, he is vexed—he is hurt!” cried Friedel, springing from her lap; but, ere either could reach the window, Ebbo had vanished from the scene. They only saw the young wolf stretched dead on the snow, and the same moment in burst Ebbo, and flung himself on the floor in a passion of weeping. Stimulated by the applause of his grandmother and of Mätz, he had furiously pelted the poor animal with all missiles that came to hand, till a blow, either from him or Mätz, had produced such a howl and struggle of agony, and then such terrible stillness, as had gone to the young Baron’s very heart, a heart as soft as that of his father had been by nature. Indeed, his sobs were so piteous that his mother was relieved to hear only, “The wolf! the poor wolf!” and to find that he himself was unhurt; and she was scarcely satisfied of this when Dame Kunigunde came up also alarmed, and thus turned his grief to wrath. “As if I would cry in that way for a bite!” he said. “Go, grandame; you made me do it, the poor beast!” with a fresh sob.