"Don't speak so loud, worthy sir; the people will notice it. Do you suppose I would venture to say what I do not know to be certain truth? Only think, every night as the clock strikes eleven, she lets her lover into the castle. Is not that wicked enough for a well-bred young lady?"
"Mind what you say! Her lover?"
"Yes, alas! at eleven o'clock in the night, her lover. Is it not a shame, a disgrace! He is a tall man, and comes to the gate enveloped in a grey cloak. She has so well arranged it, that all the servants are out of the way at that hour except the old porter of the gate, who has assisted her in all her wicked tricks from her childhood. When the clock strikes eleven in the village, she always comes herself down into the court, cold as it may be, and brings the keys of the drawbridge, which she beforehand steals from her father's bed; the old sinner, the porter, then opens the lock, lets down the bridge, when the man in the grey cloak hastens to the presence of the young lady."
"And then?" asked Albert, who scarcely had any more breath in his breast, scarcely any more blood in his cheeks,--"and then?"
"Then she brings food, bread and wine: so much is certain, that the nightly lover must have an uncommon appetite, for many nights running he has demolished half a haunch of roebuck, and drank three or four pints of wine; what else they do, I know not; I guess nothing, I say nothing; but I suppose," she added, with an upward look to heaven, "they don't pray."
Albert was angry with himself, after a moment's reflection, for having doubted for an instant the falsehood of this narration, spun from some gossipping head; or, should there be any truth in it, it was impossible that Bertha could act with dishonour to herself. We are told that, though the passion of love in the young men of the good old times was not less ardent than in our days, it bore more the character of idolized respect. It was the custom, in those days, for the lady wooed to think herself not only not upon an equality, but far superior to her suitor.
If we look to the romantic tales and love stories in old chronicles, we shall find many descriptions of enamoured knights allowing themselves to be cut to pieces on the spot, rather than doubt the faith and purity of their mistresses. Judging therefore from this fact, it is not surprising that Albert von Sturmfeder could not bring his mind to think ill of Bertha, and however puzzling these nocturnal visits appeared to him, he clearly perceived it had not been proved that her father was ignorant of the transaction, or that the mysterious man was her lover. He mentioned these doubts to his hostess.
"Really! you suppose that her father is acquainted with it?" said she; "not at all--I know it for a certainty, because old Rosel, the young lady's nurse----"
"Old Rosel said so?" cried Albert, involuntarily: the nurse, being the sister of the fifer of Hardt, was well known to him. If she had really said so, the case was no longer to be doubted, for he knew that she was a pious woman, and devoted to her charge.
"Do you know old Rosel?" she asked, wondering at the warmth with which her guest inquired after that woman.