CHAPTER X
THE EVENING LIGHT
WHEN the attackers moved once more on their prey they entered the great court of the Wartburg, and never a sword flashed forth to halt them. But as Freiherr Gustav at their head bade his men scatter through dungeon and attic, to drag the victims forth, lo! he and the three hundred at his back halted, then stood awed and reverent, as the figure of Jerome of the Dragon’s Dale moved to meet them. Then some doffed their basinets, some even fell on their knees, but all besought his blessing, for they knew that here was the saint of the Thuringerwald. And Freiherr Gustav, bowing the knee, with loud voice thanked Our Lady and Her Blessed Son who had released from sorest peril this holy man; then vowed to Jerome that his late oppressors should shortly have foretastes of their everlasting gehenna. But Jerome stayed him with a sign, forbidding the doing of this reverence.
“For I have come to confess mine own great fault when I cried to you to destroy this Ulrich and his men. I have heard by your glad shouts that Agnes the maid is found, and in the respite whilst you tarried, the Spirit of God, speaking from my mouth, has touched these despairing sinners, and they will submit themselves to you, expecting no mercy from man, but trusting even at the eleventh hour to the abundant mercies of God. Therefore I command you to be exceeding pitiful unto them, and let him that is guiltless himself cast the first stone against them.”
Now this exhortation to compassion Freiherr Gustav loved little; but who could say “no” to a living saint? So he ordered Jerome to be escorted down the slope to Ludwig, at whose mercy any captives lay; while the Freiherr’s men soon haled out Ulrich and Michael, Franz and Clement, and the four were speedily roped, and shiveringly awaiting the result of the holy man’s embassy.
Jerome found the Graf before a splendid tent, with pages and squires about him, himself, in his silvered hauberk, the tallest and proudest of them all; but nestled against his side, tattered, mud-stained, dishevelled, happy, stood Agnes the maid. When she saw Jerome she forgot that he had prayed to be delivered from her tempting. She gave the coo of a dove beholding its long-sundered mate, and ran to him, and he, never asking whether he staked his soul or not, reached down to her, closed his arms on her, and kissed her red mouth seven times. Some smiled, a few nigh laughed, a few nigh wept, but no man thought Jerome the less a saint. Then when Agnes saw so many eyes upon her she grew scared, and fled into the tent; but the great Graf himself had bended the knee before Jerome.
“Holy Father,” spoke Ludwig; and he lifted his plumed casque, so that the hermit could look fairly upon his proud, strong, bearded face. “Holy Father, you have saved from death or worse my only child. Florins or fief-lands you do account as vanities, or I would proffer them. Yet what shall be your reward? Shall I give doles to two thousand poor at Goslar? Shall I set crucifixes at three hundred cross-roads? Shall I give Saint Michaelis of Hildesheim pyx, chalice, and candlestick of pure red gold?”
“None of these things, though all such works are holy,” answered Jerome; yet as he spoke, and gazed upon the Graf, in some strange manner he seemed all unstrung, so that some whispered darkly, “Ulrich has tortured him.” But still he looked on Ludwig with wide, heart-searching eyes; and as he looked the chief was marvellously troubled also.