"Well, then! remain true to it for the future," said Fronsberg, and gave him his hand to depart. "Farewell! your horses are before the tent: may you arrive happily at your destination, and think sometimes, in friendship, of old Fronsberg."
Bertha took leave of this worthy man with tears of grateful thanks in her eyes; the men also were overcome when they took his hand, for they were well aware that, without his kind interference, their fate might have been of a very different stamp. George von Fronsberg followed the happy party with his eye until they turned the corner of the long lane of tents. "He is in good hands," said he, as he turned to Breitenstein. "Truly the blessing of his father rests upon him. Not a better or more beautiful wife, and more honourable son, will be found in all Swabia."
"Yes, yes!" replied Hans von Breitenstein, "but he has not to thank his own wits or foresight for it. He who seeks to better his fortune, let him conduct a wife home. I am fifty years old, and still on the look-out for a partner; and you, also, Dieterich von Kraft, are you not upon the same scent?"
"Not at all,--quite the contrary,--I am already provided," he replied, as if awoke out of a dream; "when one sees such a couple, we know what is next to be done. I am going to put myself, this very hour, into my sedan, on my journey to Ulm, there to conduct my cousin Marie to my home. Farewell, my friends!"
When the Swabian League had reconquered Würtemberg, they re-established their government, and reigned over the whole country, as in the summer of 1519. The partisans of the exiled Duke were compelled to swear neutrality, and were banished to their respective castles. Albert von Sturmfeder and his family were included in this mild destiny, living retired on the Lichtenstein; and a new life of peaceable domestic happiness fell to the lot of the loving couple.
Often when they stood at the window of the castle, overlooking Würtemberg's beautiful fields, they would think of their unfortunate Prince, who also once viewed his country from the same spot. It reminded them of the chain of events of their own history, and of the extraordinary means by which their union had been brought about; and which they did not fail to acknowledge, would perhaps not have happened so soon, had their fate been otherwise ordained. But they felt the joy of their existence incomplete when they thought of the founder of their happiness, living in the misery of banishment far from his country.
Some years after the fatal battle, the Duke succeeded in re-conquering Würtemberg. The stern lesson of adversity and misfortune brought him back a wiser Prince and a happier man. He re-established the ancient rights and laws of the land, and won the hearts of his people by judicious measures. He enforced the preaching of holy doctrines, and by his example recommended the practice of them. The religious principles he had imbibed in foreign lands, and which had afforded him the only consolation amidst his sufferings, he now infused into the laws of his country, as the only sure foundation-stone of a people's happiness. Albert and his pious wife plainly discovered the finger of a merciful God watching over the fate of Ulerich von Würtemberg. They blessed Him who thus veils futurity from the eye of mortals, and, as in the present instance, turns dark into light to those who seek his guidance and protection in faith.
The name of Lichtenstein in Würtemberg became extinct at the death of the old knight; but he lived long enough to see his blooming grand-children attain the age of bearing arms. And in this way generation after generation pass over the face of the earth, new comers thrusting out old ones, and after a short lapse of fifty or an hundred years, the fame of honest men and faithful hearts is forgotten. The rushing stream of time drowns the voice of their remembrance, and only a few brilliant names float down the tide of history and play upon its surface in partial glittering light. Far more happy is the man whose actions carry their own silent worth along with them, finding their reward alone in the purity of conscience, and passing through life without courting the praise or flattery of the times in which he lived, nor living for the applause of after ages. The name of the fifer of Hardt and his actions, have come down to us in simple garb, through the medium of successive generations of shepherds in the neighbourhood of the "Misty Cavern." They relate the deeds of the man who concealed his unfortunate Duke among its deep recesses, as they conduct the stranger through their gloomy paths, and talk of the romantic events of Ulerich's life. The writer of history disdains such stories as unworthy of his pen; but they are not the less credible. When recounted on the spot, such as on the heights of Lichtenstein, where the Duke came every night at a stated hour to the castle, and when the place is pointed out on the bridge of Köngen, whence the undaunted man took the fearful leap into the deep waters below for life or death, we listen to the details with believing ears.
The old castle of Lichtenstein has long since fallen into ruin. A huntsman's house now occupies its foundations, light and airy, like a castle in the air, which imagination builds upon the ruins of antiquity. Würtemberg's fields spread themselves before the enchanted eye, rich and blooming as formerly, when Bertha by the side of her lover gazed upon them, and the most unhappy of her princes cast a farewell glance on his country from Lichtenstein's windows. The subterranean apartments of the castle, which received the exile, are still to be seen, in all their pride and glory; and the murmuring streams, gushing through the mysterious depths at the foot of the rock, would seem to relate events long since buried in oblivion.