Then Agnes had her own question. Who was Jerome? Had he always dwelt by the Dragon’s Dale? Was he not of all men very holy?
Witch Martha answered with all seeming candour that there was no man from Pomerania to Swabia more loved of God than he, so that Saint Gabriel had lately assured Saint Raphael how he had heard our Father say that when Jerome went to heaven he was to be His archchancellor, just as the Bishop of Köln was to Kaiser Rudolf. Nevertheless Jerome had only been by the Dragon’s Dale these seven years, but since coming he had charmed the wolves, the foxes, and the red deer so that they all served him like so many varlets.
“Yet who is he?” would ask Agnes; “was he never young? For I can never think how he looked when once a child, as I can think of you, Witch Martha.”
The little woman seemed to shiver and to sigh, as if she, too, had a war with memory, but answered:—
“Only Heaven knows his age, and Heaven will not tell! Yet I think this,—that once he was a man of strong deeds and of blood, like Graf Ludwig; that he has been in many distant lands, for he speaks the paynim tongue even better than the German. And I think that once he had a son.”
“A son? A little lad?”
“No; for his son had grown to be a tall knight, and though Jerome keeps all hid, I think that father and son had a bitter quarrel,—they parted in anger, and soon after the son died, still cursed of his father. Therefore Jerome has God’s anger weighing upon him heavily, and he fears for his son’s salvation.”
“And on this account did Jerome turn saint?”
“I think so.”
Agnes sighed and looked wise.