“O Lord God, why hast Thou appointed that I cannot beat back memory! It all awakes! Ah! save me from new temptation. I cannot bear after so long that I should fail, and pawn once more my soul and the soul of Sigismund, my son!”
CHAPTER IV
THE DOVE AT THE DRAGON’S DALE
WHEN Maid Agnes passed from dreams to the first slow waking, she did not open her eyes. Beneath her head was something soft and fragrant,—balmy furze and the sweet boughs of pine. Outside and all about was a crooning, witching sound,—the great pines and beeches talking. Memory throbbed back; but memory without a pang. Journey, fray, blood and slaughter, the Wartburg and its godless crew, all seemed an hundred years away. She could look back on them calmly, gladly, as do the saints on high upon the distant pains of the little, fading earth. Where was she? She did not know; still less did she care. Outside the pines kept at their sighing and talking. She could almost catch the words. Far, far away, as from a distant world, pealed out a bell,—the matin-bell of Eisenach; she stirred and opened her eyes. The little hut was dark, but athwart the doorway streamed a golden sunbeam enticing her. Short was the toilet; she was outside the hut. The great trees were bending overhead. Through the rifts in the boughs peered down the blue of clearest heaven. No human form was in sight, but before the hut a noble flame crackled; trees before, behind, to right, to left. But all was peace, and every tree seemed as a friend. Now her ears caught the noise of rushing water. A step down the slope brought her to a rill, where leaped a streamlet clear and cold from its fountain. She bathed hands and face in the little pool, and saw the buttercups drifting as tiny boats across the water. In the twinkling mirror she saw her own softly moulded face, and bound back the flying gold-brown hair. Then at last she knew she was hungry, even in heaven, and looked about her.
Feet were crunching the dead leaves of the forest. Out of the coppice came a man,—her deliverer of the night before. She ran to him with beaming face, and held out her hands.
“Oh! It is you who saved me from Baron Ulrich; and I know now who you are. My wits were straying last night, but to-day it is all plain! We are near Eisenach, and you are Saint Jerome of the Dragon’s Dale.”
“Who declared that?” and poor Jerome was wondering whether to open his arms and welcome the vision into them, or to flee as from the embrace of Satan arrayed like an angel of light.