"They would have been pleasant neither to my ear nor to my memory," I replied; "yet, on my honour, I would have conveyed them faithfully to her."
"Acknowledge, however, that you asked for what you had no wish to hear."
"I confess that I did."
"Then, be assured, I have no such messages to send to Ernestine. For her I have indeed a true and tender love; but only such as I have for her sister—or as a father or brother might have for them both. Count Rupert is one of my oldest and earliest friends. He was my tutor and patron under Mansfeldt and Sir John Hepburn in the Flemish war. He would gladly see us more nearly and clearly connected than by the mere ties of comraderie, but that can never be; and Ernestine, with whom rumour has so often done me the honour to link my name, knows that well—though she knows not the reason why."
These words filled me with joy; for Kœningheim had so much that was brilliant and fascinating about him, that, had we both assailed the heart of Ernestine at the same time, I fear me much that the poor captain of Scottish musketeers, might have had but a poor chance of success when competing with the accomplished noble of the German empire.
"The reason—the reason," he continued, muttering under his thick mustaches: "Ah—Christi Creutz be about me!—if she, or thou, or he knew it, how you would all shrink from me!"
This was scarcely spoken—yet we heard it; and the priest bent his keen grey eyes on the count, whose gaze was lowered on the mane of his horse; for the memory of years long past was rising before him, and his thoughts were turned inward.
"Let us change the subject," said the Jesuit, bending over his mule towards me; "the gloomy fiend is uppermost, and his dark thoughts are upon him."
Amid Kœningheim's forced gaiety, I had frequently perceived a melancholy enthusiasm; at times, his laugh would cease abruptly, and his brow would knit; then his eye became clouded, and his voice sad. What secret thought was this that preyed upon the soul of the naturally gay and gallant soldier, souring his manner, and prematurely silvering his dark and curly hair? I was perplexed and interested; but courtesy compelled me to conceal what I observed. Animated by the same feeling, and to change the conversation, the Jesuit told us a legend concerning St. Knud, which he had lately learned from the MSS. of an old brother of his order. It related to the adventures of his saint, when first he came thither to preach among the Sclavi, who of old inhabited all Holstein, which derives its name from holt, an ancient word for a forest, the whole promontory of Chersonesus Cimbrica being then covered by dense woods of pine and beech, extending from the Baltic to the Western Sea.
Marvelling sorely at the wildness of the country and its inhabitants, St. Knud came to a place where there was a little green valley between two hills, which were covered to their summits by foliage, and there a little figure suddenly approached him.