Of geography they knew little more than the children, who cried out as each town came in sight, "Is that Jerusalem?" The patient oxen would suffice to carry them and theirs, they thought, to the Master's Grave!
The rich had loans to effect, lands to sell, affairs to arrange, stewards and agents to appoint, before they could commence the perilous journey with a fitting escort. Moreover, to them the Holy Land contained something more than the Sepulchre of Christ. It contained rich Moslem cities to be plundered, fertile lands to be possessed, fair provinces to be reigned over. To the poor it contained only the Master's Grave. And He who leadeth the blind by a way that they know not, led the people then as now.
The rich, for the most part, came back impoverished. The poor, for the most part, never came back at all: but from their graves sprang the first-fruits of freedom for Europe. The religious enthusiasm for which they died had begun the emancipation of their class. From chattels, attached to the soil like its crops and its stones, they had become men. The Master's Grave was theirs to die for, as much as it was their lords'; the Master's will was theirs to live for, as much as for the noblest.
Day by day the Lady of the Tannenburg had watched the pilgrim-bands passing slowly in irregular groups through the broad valley beneath her. Night by night she had seen the camp-fires gleaming through the pine-woods, and heard the "Dieu le veut" echo from crag to crag. Often she had sent her only child, young Rudolf, with a band of retainers, bearing bread and meat from her stores, fruit from her orchards, and wine from her vineyards, to be distributed among the pilgrims. And night by night, as the hosts passed by, they knew the Lady's castle by the one steadfast light from one arched window, which never failed to shed its faint glow over the castle wall.
It was well known among them that scarcely a year before, her husband, Sir Rudolf of the Tannenburg, had died. It was said that he had been on the eve of joining the Crusade; and many a vow was made to the young Rudolf that his father's name should be faithfully remembered at the Holy Sepulchre. The boy knew that the tears which came into his mother's eyes when he told her of those vows were tears that heal. But at last one evening, as he rose from his prayer at her knee, he looked up into her face, while a sudden light broke over his, and said,—
"Mother, are not all the people going to the same Holy Grave?"
"The same? Surely, my son," she said, bowing her head reverently. "The Grave of Christ, our Lord."
"We have our own holy grave, mother!" he replied—"thou and I. But have we no share in this Grave of Christ?"
"Surely; their Lord is ours," she said; "and His Holy Sepulchre is ours, in common with all Christendom."
"Then, mother! mother!" he exclaimed, gazing full into her eyes, "let us also go to the Grave, to weep there, with all His Christendom. Let us do what my father meant to do. Who will remember his name as we would there?"