The parchment had fallen to the ground. Reinhard picked it up, and offered to read the contents aloud. It was, even for the time when it had been composed,—about two hundred years before,—very clumsily written, and very badly spelled. The writer had evidently understood how to wield the hunting-spear better than the pen,—nevertheless an air of poesy breathed through the lines. They ran thus:
"Whoever you may be who are the first to enter this room, by all that is sacred to you, by everything that you love or that has a home in your heart, do not disturb her repose. She lies there sleeping like a child. The sweet face beneath the dark curls smiles again now that death has touched it. Once more, whoever you are, whether noble or beggar, descendant of hers or not, let my eyes be the last to rest upon her!
"I could not lay her in the dark, cold ground. Here the golden light will play around her, and birds will alight upon the branches of the tree outside with the breath of the forest ruffling their feathers, while the songs that hushed her in her cradle gush from their throats.
"The golden sunlight was quivering in the forest, and the birds were singing in the trees, when the graceful roe parted the bushes, and gazed with shy, startled eyes at the young huntsman who was lying in the shade. His heart beat quickly and wildly at sight of her; he threw his weapons from him, and pursued the maiden-form that fled before him. She, the child of the forest, a daughter of that people which the curse of God pursues making them wanderers upon the face of the earth, with no home for their weary feet, not a foot of land that they can call their own whereon to lay their dying heads,—she had vanquished the heart of the proud, fierce huntsman. Suing for her love, he haunted the camp of her tribe, day and night; he followed her footsteps like a dog, and entreated her passionately until she was touched, to leave her people and fly with him in secret. In the silence of night he bore her away to his castle, and, alas! became her murderer. He did not heed her prayers, when she was suddenly seized by the uncontrollable longing for her forest liberty. As the prisoned bird flutters wildly about its cage, beating its delicate wings against the confining wires, so she wandered in despair through the halls which had once resounded to her intoxicating song and the delicious music of her lute, but which now only echoed to her sighs and complaints. He saw her cheeks grow pale, saw her eyes averted from him in hate; his heart died a thousand deaths when she thrust him from her, and shuddered at his touch; despair possessed him, but he doubly bolted every door, and guarded them in deadly terror, for he knew that she was lost to him forever if once again her foot should press the woodland turf. And then there came a time when she grew less restless,—'tis true she glided past him as though he were a shadow, a nothing,—she never lifted her eyes when he approached her and addressed her in the tenderest tones of entreaty,—it was long since she had spoken to him, and still no words passed her lips; but she no longer beat her tiny hands against the window-bars, tearing her hair, and calling with shrill shrieks upon those who passed through the forest without, enjoying all the sweets of liberty. She no longer fled madly, like some hunted thing, through halls and corridors, nor mounted the castle wall to throw her fair body into the gloomy waters of the moat. She sat beneath the evergreen oak with a sad, patient look upon her lily-white face; she knew of the life within her own,—she was about to become a mother. And when night came, and the huntsman bore her up the broad stairway in his arms,—she did not resist, but she turned her face from him, that his breath might not touch her cheek, that no glance of his loving eyes might fall upon her.
"And one day the pastor of Lindhof came to the castle. The people declared that Jost, a lamb of his flock, had dealings with the devil, and he came to rescue the lost soul. He was admitted, and saw the creature for whose sake the wild huntsman had renounced his merry life in the forest, and heaven itself. Her beauty and purity touched him. He spoke to her in gentle tones, and her heart, paralyzed with suffering, melted at his addresses. For the sake of the child that was to come, she was baptized, and the unholy tie that had bound her to her lover was hallowed by the sanction of the church. And when her dark hour of pain had passed, she pressed her cold lips upon the brow of her child, and, with that kiss, her spirit burst its bonds,—she was free, free! The triumph of that moment transfigured the earthly tenement from which the soul had departed. The wretched man saw those glorious eyes darken in death; he writhed at her feet in an agony of remorse and despair, and implored her in vain for only one last glance of love.
"The boy was christened, and received his father's name,—my baptismal name. I gazed with a shudder into his eyes,—they are my eyes. Together we have murdered her. My old servant, Simon, has taken the boy away. I cannot live for him. Simon says, and the pastor also, that no woman can be found willing to nourish my child at her breast, for, in the eyes of the people I am lost,—doomed eternally to hell-torments. The wife of my forester, Ferber, has adopted the child without knowing whence it comes——"
Here the reader paused, and looked up over the parchment at the brothers. The forester, who, until now, had been leaning against the opposite wall listening with the greatest attention, suddenly stood by his side, and clutched his arm convulsively. The colour left his sun-burnt cheeks for one moment. It seemed as if his heart ceased to beat, so great was his agitation. And Ferber also drew near, testifying in his face and gestures extreme surprise.
"Go on, go on!" cried the forester at last, in stifled accents.
"Simon laid him upon the threshold of the forest lodge," Reinhard read further, "and to-day he saw Ferber's wife kissing and tending him like her own little girl. By the laws of my family, he has no claim upon the Gnadewitz estate, but my maternal inheritance will preserve him from want. My directions I have confided, in a sealed packet, deposited in the town-house at L——, to the public authorities. They will substantiate his claim to be my son and heir. May he, as Hans Jost von Gnadewitz, found a new race. The Almighty will provide kind hearts to protect his youth,—I cannot.
"Everything which adorned that lovely form in happier days shall surround it in death, and yield to the same decay. Her child has a claim upon her jewels, but my heart revolts at the thought that what has rested upon her dazzling brow, her pure neck, may perhaps be torn asunder and desecrated by faithless hands. Better to leave all here to fade and fall to ruin.