When the barber entered the room to which Agnes had conducted Oberntraut, he found her still kneeling by her lover's bed-side, and with her hand clasped in his; but the wound, from which the blood had been flowing when the young Baron left them, was now tightly bound up with a scarf, so that but a few drops trickled through, staining the bandage slightly. The lady withdrew her hand as soon as the door opened, and the barber proceeded to his examination, and, being not without skill, from long experience, to which science is but a handmaid, he did what was really best at the moment, in all respects but one. His look and his words certainly did not tend to reassure the wounded man, for, with a fault very ordinary in his calling, he was inclined to make the worst of any case presented to him, for the sake of some little additional reputation if recovery took place, and of security if a fatal result occurred.
Poor Agnes's heart sank at the doubtful shake of the head, and the still more alarming words, "A very bad wound indeed--I wonder where the point of the weapon went;" and not even the cheerful tone of Oberntraut, when he returned, could dispel her apprehensions.
"There, get you gone, sallow-face," said the Baron, addressing the barber. "There's a crown for you. Your dismal looks are enough to push a sick man into the grave, were he a mile off it. Well, my good friend," he continued, speaking to Algernon Grey, "you will be upon your feet as soon as I was, I dare say. We must get you to Heidelberg to-night, however, for this is an open place and without defence. You shall have a little wine before you go to keep you up, and I have told the men to make some sort of litter to carry you.--There, do not speak; they told me that speaking was the worst of all things. I will answer all your questions, without your asking. I found a man and a boy in one of the houses hard by; the man shot through the leg, just like yourself, and the boy with a wound through his cheek and two or three grinders lost; but they'll do very well, and can ride as far as need be. Did you come in a carriage, or on horseback, dear lady? I can find no carriage in the place, but horses enough to mount a regiment."
"On horseback," answered Agnes. "We had no time for carriages in quitting Prague."
"Ay, ay! a sad affair, that!" said the young Baron. "But tell me, what has become of the King and Queen, for here we are all in darkness."
Agnes gave him a short account of all that had taken place up to the time of her quitting Prague--under some embarrassment, indeed, for the keen eye of the young Baron of Oberntraut was fixed upon her countenance during the whole time, not rudely, but firmly. Shortly after her account was concluded, and before he could ask any more questions, one of the men came in to say that all was ready, and that the boy had pointed out the lady's horse.
Some wine was then procured, and Oberntraut insisted not only that Algernon Grey should take some, but that Agnes should partake, passing the cup from the one to the other with a meaning smile, not without some share of sadness in it. The hastily-constructed litter was then brought in, and the wounded man placed upon it and carried out. At the door of the little hostelry a number of the villagers had gathered together on the report of the enemy's discomfiture, and Oberntraut addressed them in one of his blunt short speeches, saying, "I have a great mind to burn your town, you knaves, to punish you for not defending it better; but look well to the wounded and I will forgive you. Keep a shrewd watch over the foreigners, and send them in to Heidelberg as they get better. I have left only one of my men with you, and if you do not treat him well I will skin you alive. There, bring the prisoners along;" and, placing Agnes on her horse, he mounted and rode away.
CHAPTER VII.
The long and weary hours of sickness fell heavy upon Algernon Grey. Never for a day during the course of life had he known the weight of illness before, at least within his own remembrance. Powerful in frame, and vigorous in constitution, moderate in habits, and inured to robust exercises from early youth, life had been hitherto all light activity; and if some sorrows and cares had touched him, they had not had power in any way to affect his corporeal frame. The aching head, the dim and dazzled eye, the fainting heart, the weary and powerless limbs of the sickly or the overstudious, he had never known. It had only been with him hitherto to will and to do; the body had been no clog upon the mind; and the active energies of both had seemed to give fresh strength and vigour to each other.
Now, day after day, and week after week he lay upon a sick couch in the castle of Heidelberg. Feeble, languid, full of pain, with every movement uneasy, with broken sleep at night, and drowsy heaviness by day, his cheek and his eyes dull, he lingered on under the unskilful hands of ignorant surgeons, who, with the wild phantasies of the time, only prolonged the period of sickness by the means which they employed to cure the wounds he had received.