Without the small red and brown house, across the ribbon of brown garden, in the narrow street red-flushed from the red west, three fell to singing,—
“Down goes the old world,
Up comes the new!
Death on a pale horse
Rides down the proud—”
They sang with enthusiasm, but their ardour had youth and geniality. They were wandering students, humanists, not reforming monks.
Eberhard and Conrad Devilson did not sing, but talked. They dropped a little behind the big, fronting voices. Whatever was the one, Eberhard was something more than wandering student—a man beginning to work with a mind-moved hand. He walked now with a lit face. “They live there alone together—the old man and his daughter?”
“Aye. He taught Thekla all he knew, as though she were a boy. It is a mistake to say that women are not teachable! But they must keep knowledge at home when they have got it.... He is past earning now. She embroiders arms for the noble upon velvet, silk, and linen, and so earns for both. He has another daughter—Elsa—in a convent twenty miles from here.”
The wandering students were singing,—
“Round turns the wheel,
The wheel turns round!
Comes down the lord of all,
The wheel grows an orb—”
Now they were before the Golden Eagle, and out of door and window floated voices of Heinrich, Karl, and Johann.
That was December. In February Charles the Fifth made to be drawn an edict against Luther. The Diet sitting at Worms refused assent. April, and Luther, at Worms, stood in his own defence, spoke with a great, plain eloquence. Eloquence never saved a man against whom set the main current of his time. The main current of his time going with him, Martin Luther rode in a seaworthy boat. Storms there were, thunder and lightning, tempest and a lashed ocean—but the boat rode. May, and Pope and Emperor threatened that revolt and all who had share therein with fire in this world and in the world hereafter. The revolt made itself a stronger current.
In May, Eberhard Gerson came again to Hauptberg. He slept at the Golden Eagle, and in the bright, exquisite morning sought out the house where dwelled Gabriel Mayr and Thekla. The cherry trees were at late bloom, and the morning breeze shook down the white petals. The house seemed to stand among fountains.