"Know all men!" shouted Nigel in the temporary silence, "this maiden, Elspeth Reinheit, is as pure as snow. Your Pastor lies foully when he says other. It is true she succoured me when I was in sore need in Magdeburg. But do not your Scriptures say—'If thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink'? This did she, and for this I spared not only her life, but the life of her slanderer, Pastor Rad. Is this true, maiden?"
"Before God, it is true!" said Elspeth.
"Nevertheless, I leave her not here to your ruthlessness and your religion! Maiden!"
She sprang up at the word! Nigel lifted her upon his saddle, and giving his horse the spur, bore her to the regiment, who, understanding nothing of what had gone before, manifested a jovial indifference not unmingled later with some rough jokes, which would perhaps have put Nigel to the blush. For a woman, especially a woman in her youth, not ill-looking, was the ordained prey of the soldier of fortune, who having abducted her in one hour, as willingly dropped her in the next to patch up her life and the rags of her honour as she would.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
INTO THE FOREST'S HEART.
Before Elspeth Reinheit was aware of the providential character of the deliverance from her persecutors, she found herself descending the familiar, tortuous, narrow valley of the Erbstrom, along which the houses of the village of Ruhla are strung for fully a couple of miles. After a stony descent the regiment reached a tolerable inn, wherein Nigel could gain speech in something like connected fashion with the girl.
It seemed that from the day that Nigel burst into the house at Magdeburg Pastor Rad had conceived a violent jealousy in regard to Elspeth, to whom previously he had paid such attentions as indicated a project of marriage. Elspeth had till that time received his attentions with a kind of dutiful acquiescence; but as from that time his manner towards her changed into one of sullen suspicion, out of which arose interminable inquiries as to her relations with the Scottish captain of musketeers, so her mood of acquiescence had changed also into one of complete indifference, not altogether free from a little feminine spite. Unable to get any definite confession from her which would have condemned her, the minister had brooded over his own fancied wrongs along with the very real wrongs done to his fellow Lutherans at Magdeburg, and had finally concluded that she was possessed by a lying devil, who took pleasure in defeating him. This was a blow to his spiritual pride, and he had arranged to bring the matter to the test of a public discipline. To what lengths he might have gone in his extraordinary fury, supported as he was by the general renown he was just then enjoying as a prophet of Protestantism, it was impossible to say. He was a fanatic, and a genuine believer in his own fanaticism, spurred on by a bitter residuum of admiration and desire for the maiden he had once fully intended to marry. As for the congregations he had summoned from every hamlet, little and big, for miles round, it was sufficient for them to have heard the bruit of the possession to believe it implicitly. Even the very lawyers believed in such things, and unlearned persons were not prone to doubt what lawyers and clergy unitedly agreed was so. That she was a girl of the richer class of farmers, and therefore above most of themselves in social consideration, was in itself an inducement to believe ill of her. They had come to the assembly as to a holiday, with their wives and provisions, their pipes and tabors. There was to be a general muster afterwards of a military character, for had they not promised to raise a corps in aid of John George the Elector of Saxony, who was on the eve of rebellion against the Emperor?