The question Nigel now put to Elspeth was as to her next destination. Her home was a little to the north of Eisenach, but her father was a man who concerned himself more to stand well in the eyes of his neighbours, and especially those who bought and sold with him, than one to stand up starkly for his daughter's good name and safety. He had made a protest of sorts against her being haled before the congregations on such a charge, but he had not stood out long before the onslaught of Pastor Rad and some of the lay brethren. What had happened before might happen again. Elspeth felt no surety in being restored at present to the parental homestead.
"Have you no more powerful friends who could give you refuge till Pastor Rad grows tired of his folly?"
"There is the Lady Ottilie of Thüringen!" said Elspeth. "I know not where we may find her just now. She comes and goes like the forest deer. She is sometimes at the Wartburg! If she were there, the Landgravine would take me in, and Pastor Rad would never lay hands on me."
A strange eager light came into Nigel's face as the name of the mysterious Ottilie fell innocently and naturally from the girl's lips.
"Who is she, this Lady Ottilie?" he asked in a tone of calculated indifference. "Is she of the Landgrave's family?"
Elspeth opened her own blue eyes more widely, and considered Nigel's face with a calm gaze as she replied—
"She may be of their kin. I do not know. She is possessed of influence with them, and they treat her with much honour."
They made plans together, for Elspeth knew every path through the forest, and after an hour or so Nigel gave orders to mount again. Sergeant Blick had improvised a pillion, and Elspeth was mounted this time behind a solid German trooper, to whose belt she held tightly. She rode a few paces behind Nigel, who was busy for a mile or two unfolding to Hildebrand the inner history of the incident, and his own plans.
So they rode on to a spot where a ridge of high open ground divides the thick forest valleys leading northwards from the one by which they had come. It is called Hohe Sonne. Here Hildebrand assumed command of the regiment, and was to lead them to the right by the road called Weinstrasse and halt them at the edge of the forest, two miles to the east of the town of Eisenach, while Nigel with Sergeant Blick and four trustworthy troopers should make their way on foot with Elspeth through the Annathal to the Wartburg. By this forest path they would be under cover all the way. Their task accomplished, Nigel and his party could rejoin the regiment. In the present state of Thüringia, stirred from end to end as it evidently had been, Nigel was bent on keeping as much as possible to the open road, and not allowing his force to be entangled in any tumult in the towns.
At first the pathway led gently downwards through a wide undulating area of forest, which gradually contracted to a long sinuous ravine flanked by steep walls of rock. The sound of voices carried far along this rock-bound way in the stillness, that was broken by nothing but the light splashing of the brook and the "pink-pink" call of the birds.