HIGH up in the Hartz Mountains there lived in a castle a knight who was known by the name of the White Egbert. He was about forty years old, rather below the middle height; and he obtained his name from the quantity of short, smooth, white hair which covered his pale haggard cheeks. He lived a peaceable retired life, never involved in feuds with his neighbours; indeed, he was seldom seen beyond the walls of his small castle. His wife loved quiet as much as he; they were passionately attached to each other; and their only cause of sorrow was that Heaven had not blessed their union with children.
It was seldom that a guest was seen at the castle; and if ever such an event did happen, it never was allowed to interfere with their ordinary way of going on. No advance was made upon the frugality—almost meanness—with which the establishment was conducted; the only difference being that at such times Egbert assumed an air of lightness and gaiety, whereas when alone he was observed to be reserved and melancholy.
His most frequent visitor was Philip Walters; a man to whom Egbert had attached himself, because he observed in him, on the whole, a general resemblance to himself in his ways of thinking. This person was a native of France, and spent the greater part of his time there; but he was often for more than six months together in the mountains in the neighbourhood of Egbert's castle, looking for grasses and minerals, of which he was a collector. He had a small property of his own, and was independent of every one. Egbert often accompanied him on these expeditions, and every year a closer attachment formed itself between them.
There are hours in every man's life in which, if he has a secret from his friend, he becomes suddenly in labour with it, and what before he may have taken the greatest pains to conceal, he now feels an irresistible impulse to throw out of himself—to lay bare the whole burden of his heart, that it may form a new link to bind his friend to him. Friendship ebbs and flows, and is subject to singular influences. There are moments of violent repulsion; there are others when every barrier is dissolved, and spirits flow together and mingle into one.
On a dark cloudy evening, one day late in autumn, Egbert was sitting with his friend and his wife Bertha round the fire in the castle-hall. The flame flung a bright ruddy glow along the walls, and played and flickered in the deep oak roof. The night looked in gloomily through the windows, and the trees outside shook with the wet and the cold. Walters complained of the distance he had to go to his house, and Egbert pressed him to stay and spend half the night talking over the fire, and then accept a room in the castle till next morning. Walters agreed to do so; wine and supper were brought in; fresh logs of wood were thrown upon the fire; and the friends' conversation became more and more easy and confidential.
When the things were taken away, and the servants had retired, Egbert took Walters' hand, and said, "My dear friend, you must let my wife Bertha tell you the history of her younger days; it is a very strange one, and well worth your hearing."
"With the greatest pleasure," said Walters; and they again drew their chairs round the fire-place.
It was toward midnight; dark masses of cloud were sweeping across the sky, and the moon looking fitfully out between. "Do not think I am forcing myself on you," Bertha said. "My husband tells me you are so noble-hearted a person, it is a shame to conceal any thing from you. Singular as it may sound, the story I am about to tell you is true.