A beautiful August morning spread its freshness and virginal splendor over the earth; turtle-doves cooed in the tall yew trees; and sparrows, pursuing each other among the lindens and lilac bushes, showered the dew drops which glittered upon the leaves in a rain of diamonds over the green turf; daisies lifted their little white heads and rosy crowns above the grass-grown graves; and the grim tombstones, and even the black crosses, seemed to cast aside their sombre look and to dress themselves almost gayly in the growing sunlight.
"If Gertrude were here, she would cease to tremble," murmured Otho, advancing. "Who could fear in the midst of the melody yon tiny songsters pour forth, or surrounded by this light, this perfumed air, and walking in so verdant a sod?"
There was, however, a dark stain amid all this splendor. In an angle at the foot of a lofty ash stood a man whose tall form and black attire were sharply outlined in the surrounding brightness.
"Yonder is my unknown," thought Otho, and with a few rapid strides he approached him.
The man stood motionless, his head bowed upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon an oblong space upon which the grass had not yet begun to grow.
"Thou art doubtless he who hath called me hither," said Otho. "I am the Baron of Arneck."
The stranger quickly raised his head and threw back the hood of his mantle, exhibiting to the young knight's gaze thin locks of snow-white hair, and a face on which sorrow had traced more furrows than age.
"Master Koerner!" cried Otho, joyfully stretching forth his hand. "But why so much mystery and solemnity? You needed but to call me to your side, dearest master, if grief or calamity threatened, and, whatever might have conspired to keep me back, I had obeyed the summons; and, indeed, I have heard that you were afflicted, but I hope that the Demoiselle Mina hath fully recovered from her illness."
"She is healed, indeed," replied old Sebald again, lowering his eyes to the bare spot of earth.