Now it happened that John of Hallwyl was not dead, as many supposed. On the contrary, he was even then on his way home to claim his estates. The monks, hearing this by accident, and determined to keep his property, hired highwaymen to lie in wait for him and murder him before he could reach Hallwyl and make himself known. This bold plan might have succeeded, had not the lord of Müllinen chanced to hunt near the place where the highwaymen were ambushed. Hearing the noise of a fight, he spurred rapidly forward, and perceiving a knight on the point of succumbing to a large force, made such a gallant charge that the robbers fled.
When Müllinen bent over the prostrate form of the man he had rescued, he found him grievously wounded, and had him carefully carried home. There, when the traces of blood had been gently removed, he recognised in the stranger his long-absent friend. Of course, he and the ladies now vied with each other in caring for Hallwyl, who, becoming aware during his convalescence of the affection existing between his friend and betrothed, generously released her and bade them be happy together.
As soon as he was sufficiently recovered he presented himself before the monks to claim his inheritance. They, however, pretended not to recognise him, but politely declared that if he could produce a fragment of ring exactly fitting the one entrusted to their keeping by the last lord of Hallwyl, they would gladly surrender the castle to him.
Hearing this, John of Hallwyl immediately presented the broken ring, and the monks sent for the casket in which they preserved the token left by the deceased. To John’s surprise and indignation, however, it failed to fit his half of the circlet, and the monks called him an impostor and dismissed him empty-handed.
Hallwyl and his friend now rode back to Müllinen, determined to appeal to the feudal court of Aargau for justice. There, both parties were called upon to expose their case and take their oath, but as the judge was entirely at a loss to decide which was right, he decreed the matter should be settled by a judiciary duel between John of Hallwyl and a champion selected by the monks.
On the appointed day, and in the presence of all the lords and ladies of the country, Hallwyl met his opponent in the lists, and after a fearful struggle and the display of almost fabulous strength and courage succeeded in defeating him. Then, while the monks’ champion lay where he had fallen, slowly dying from his many wounds, he suddenly confessed aloud that he and a band of assassins had been hired to waylay and kill Hallwyl on his return home.
Before he could add another word he expired, but the monks one and all solemnly declared that the poor man was raving, for they had always been willing to relinquish possession of the Hallwyl estates to any one who produced the right token. The mendacity of this statement was soon proved, however, for a dying jeweller confessed that he had been hired to make an exact copy of the broken ring, but altering its shape in such a way that the fragment in the young man’s possession would fail to fit it.
John of Hallwyl, having thus recovered his estates, soon went off to war again, and only when weary of fighting came home, married, and brought up several sons whose descendants still live in different parts of the country to-day.
The ring of Hallwyl is noted in Swiss art and literature, and the above story forms the theme of poems, paintings, and historical romances, which, bearing an unmistakable mediæval imprint, have a peculiar and enduring charm of their own.
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