Many swore “he is dead,” and even the Graf’s Padua-trained physician was one of them. But Witch Martha brought him back to breath, though it took small wisdom in leech-craft to know that if he woke at all, it could not be for long. Nevertheless he did wake just as the afternoon shadows were falling in slanting glory across the hill of the Wartburg. Many stood by, hoping to be edified by the last words and moments of a very saint; but Graf Ludwig made a commanding gesture, and all vanished from the tent, saving he. Then he knelt down by the camp-bed, and a tear rolled down the iron cheek of Ludwig of the Harz, to fall on the iron cheek of Jerome of the Dragon’s Dale.
“My father.”
“My son.”
That was all for a very long time; and then Ludwig (for so men would call him still), that tall strong man, before whom robber-barons trembled, spoke, and his voice was nigh to sobbing.
“Father, father, I have sinned against heaven, and am not worthy to be called your son.”
“The fault was mine, Sigismund,—mine.”
Thus Jerome, but Ludwig answered him:—
“I was wilful and swift to wrath. I defied you at Antioch when we stood in the room where the form of my sister Agnes lay unburied. I have richly earned your curse. I strode from your presence impenitent. I rode away on the foray to Hems, and was taken prisoner. Amongst the infidels I was once close to winning liberty by renouncing Our Lord. What but the prayers of Mathilde, my sainted mother in heaven, of my angel sister, and of you held me steadfast? I escaped from captivity to hear that you had returned to Europe to bury yourself in a convent. I sought in every abbey in France and Italy, Germany and Spain, to fall at your feet, and crave but the two words, ‘I forgive.’ Finding you not, I was sure that you were dead, and at the throne of God would rise up, implacable, to accuse me; and your curse is dinning in my ears ever! ever!”
“They told me you were slain before Hems,” said Jerome, simply.
“I had disgraced your name. I took another. In the war and wrack, into which Germany fell, I found means of advancement. I married a woman, pure and good, but the wise God soon took her away. She left a little maid. I named her Agnes for my sister. Is she not an angel born?”