But Christina interposed an offer to go and take Koppel"s place beside his mother, and her skill was so much prized over all the mountain-side, that the alternative was gratefully accepted, and she was escorted up the steep path by her two boys to the hovel, where she spent the day in attendance on the sick woman.
Evening came on, the patient was better, but Koppel did not return, nor did the young Barons come to fetch their mother home. The last sunbeams were dying off the mountain-tops, and, beginning to suspect something amiss, she at length set off, and half way down met Koppel, who replied to her question, "Ah, then, the gracious lady has not heard of our luck. Excellent booty, and two prisoners! The young Baron has been a hero indeed, and has won himself a knightly steed." And, on her further interrogation, he added, that an unusually rich but small company had been reported by Jobst the Kohler to be on the way to the ford, where he had skilfully prepared a stumbling-block. The gracious Baroness had caused Hatto to jodel all the hay-makers together, and they had fallen on the travellers by the straight path down the crag. "Ach! did not the young Baron spring like a young gemsbock? And in midstream down came their pack-horses and their wares! Some of them took to flight, but, pfui, there were enough for my young lord to show his mettle upon. Such a prize the saints have not sent since the old Baron"s time."
Christina pursued her walk in dismay at this new beginning of freebooting in its worst form, overthrowing all her hopes. The best thing that could happen would be the immediate interference of the Swabian League, while her sons were too young to be personally held guilty. Yet this might involve ruin and confiscation; and, apart from all consequences, she bitterly grieved that the stain of robbery should have fallen on her hitherto innocent sons.
Every peasant she met greeted her with praises of their young lord, and, when she mounted the hall-steps, she found the floor strewn with bales of goods.
"Mother," cried Ebbo, flying up to her, "have you heard? I have a horse! a spirited bay, a knightly charger, and Friedel is to ride him by turns with me. Where is Friedel? And, mother, Heinz said I struck as good a stroke as any of them, and I have a sword for Friedel now. Why does he not come? And, motherling, this is for you, a gown of velvet, a real black velvet, that will make you fairer than our Lady at the Convent. Come to the window and see it, mother dear."
The boy was so joyously excited that she could hardly withstand his delight, but she did not move.
"Don"t you like the velvet?" he continued. "We always said that, the first prize we won, the motherling should wear velvet. Do but look at it."
"Woe is me, my Ebbo!" she sighed, bending to kiss his brow.
He understood her at once, coloured, and spoke hastily and in defiance. "It was in the river, mother, the horses fell; it is our right."
"Fairly, Ebbo?" she asked in a low voice.
"Nay, mother, if Jobst DID hide a branch in midstream, it was no doing of mine; and the horses fell. The Schlangenwaldern don"t even wait to let them fall. We cannot live, if we are to be so nice and dainty."
"Ah! my son, I thought not to hear you call mercy and honesty mere niceness."
"What do I hear?" exclaimed Frau Kunigunde, entering from the storeroom, where she had been disposing of some spices, a much esteemed commodity. "Are you chiding and daunting this boy, as you have done with the other?"
"My mother may speak to me!" cried Ebbo, hotly, turning round.
"And quench thy spirit with whining fooleries! Take the Baron"s bounty, woman, and vex him not after his first knightly exploit."
"Heaven knows, and Ebbo knows," said the trembling Christina, "that, were it a knightly exploit, I were the first to exult."
"Thou! thou craftsman"s girl! dost presume to call in question the knightly deeds of a n.o.ble house! There!" cried the furious Baroness, striking her face. Now! dare to be insolent again." Her hand was uplifted for another blow, when it was grasped by Eberhard, and, the next moment, he likewise held the other hand, with youthful strength far exceeding hers. She had often struck his mother before, but not in his presence, and the greatness of the shock seemed to make him cool and absolutely dignified.
"Be still, grandame," he said. "No, mother, I am not hurting her," and indeed the surprise seemed to have taken away her rage and volubility, and unresistingly she allowed him to seat her in a chair. Still holding her arm, he made his clear boyish voice resound through the hall, saying, "Retainers all, know that, as I am your lord and master, so is my honoured mother lady of the castle, and she is never to be gainsay"ed, let her say or do what she will."
"You are right, Herr Freiherr," said Heinz. "The Frau Christina is our gracious and beloved dame. Long live the Freiherrinn Christina!" And the voices of almost all the serfs present mingled in the cry.
"And hear you all," continued Eberhard, "she shall rule all, and never be trampled on more. Grandame, you understand?"
The old woman seemed confounded, and cowered in her chair without speaking. Christina, almost dismayed by this silence, would have suggested to Ebbo to say something kind or consoling; but at that moment she was struck with alarm by his renewed inquiry for his brother.
"Friedel! Was not he with thee?"
"No; I never saw him!"
Ebbo flew up the stairs, and shouted for his brother; then, coming down, gave orders for the men to go out on the mountain-side, and search and jodel. He was hurrying with them, but his mother caught his arm. "O Ebbo, how can I let you go? It is dark, and the crags are so perilous!"
"Mother, I cannot stay!" and the boy flung his arms round her neck, and whispered in her ear, "Friedel said it would be a treacherous attack, and I called him a craven. Oh, mother, we never parted thus before! He went up the hillside. Oh, where is he?"
Infected by the boy"s despairing voice, yet relieved that Friedel at least had withstood the temptation, Christina still held Ebbo"s hand, and descended the steps with him. The clear blue sky was fast showing the stars, and into the evening stillness echoed the loud wide jodeln, cast back from the other side of the ravine. Ebbo tried to raise his voice, but broke down in the shout, and, choked with agitation, said, "Let me go, mother. None know his haunts as I do!"
"Hark!" she said, only grasping him tighter.
Thinner, shriller, clearer came a far-away cry from the heights, and Ebbo thrilled from head to foot, then sent up another pealing mountain shout, responded to by a jodel so pitched as to be plainly not an echo. "Towards the Red Eyrie," said Hans.
"He will have been to the Ptarmigan"s Pool," said Ebbo, sending up his voice again, in hopes that the answer would sound less distant; but, instead of this, its intonations conveyed, to these adepts in mountain language, that Friedel stood in need of help.
"Depend upon it," said the startled Ebbo, "that he has got up amongst those rocks where the dead chamois rolled down last summer; then, as Christina uttered a faint cry of terror, Heinz added, "Fear not, lady, those are not the jodeln of one who has met with a hurt. Baron Friedel has the sense to be patient rather than risk his bones if he cannot move safely in the dark."
"Up after him!" said Ebbo, emitting a variety of shouts intimating speedy aid, and receiving a halloo in reply that rea.s.sured even his mother. Equipped with a rope and sundry torches of pinewood, Heinz and two of the serfs were speedily ready, and Christina implored her son to let her come so far as where she should not impede the others. He gave her his arm, and Heinz held his torch so as to guide her up a winding path, not in itself very steep, but which she could never have climbed had daylight shown her what it overhung. Guided by the constant exchange of jodeln, they reached a height where the wind blew cold and wild, and Ebbo pointed to an intensely black shadow overhung by a peak rising like the gable of a house into the sky. "Yonder lies the tarn," he said. "Don"t stir. This way lies the cliff. Fried-mund!" exchanging the jodel for the name.
"Here!-this way! Under the Red Eyrie," called back the wanderer; and steering their course round the rocks above the pool, the rescuers made their way towards the base of the peak, which was in fact the summit of the mountain, the top of the Eagle"s Ladder, the highest step of which they had attained. The peak towered over them, and beneath, the castle lights seemed as if it would be easy to let a stone fall straight down on them.
Friedel"s cry seemed to come from under their feet. "I am here! I am safe; only it grew so dark that I durst not climb up or down."
The Schneiderlein explained that he would lower down a rope, which, when fastened round Friedel"s waist, would enable him to climb safely up; and, after a breathless s.p.a.ce, the torchlight shone upon the longed-for face, and Friedel springing on the path, cried, "The mother!-and here!" -
"Oh, Friedel, where have you been? What is this in your arms?"
He showed them the innocent face of a little white kid.
"Whence is it, Friedel?"
He pointed to the peak, saying, "I was lying on my back by the tarn, when my lady eagle came sailing overhead, so low that I could see this poor little thing, and hear it bleat."
"Thou hast been to the Eyrie-the inaccessible Eyrie!" exclaimed Ebbo, in amazement.
"That"s a mistake. It is not hard after the first" said Friedel. "I only waited to watch the old birds out again."
"Robbed the eagles! And the young ones?"
"Well," said Friedmund, as if half ashamed, "they were twin eaglets, and their mother had left them, and I felt as though I could not harm them; so I only bore off their provisions, and stuck some feathers in my cap. But by that time the sun was down, and soon I could not see my footing; and, when I found that I had missed the path, I thought I had best nestle in the nook where I was, and wait for day. I grieved for my mother"s fear; but oh, to see her here!"
"Ah, Friedel! didst do it to prove my words false?" interposed Ebbo, eagerly.
"What words?"
"Thou knowest. Make me not speak them again."
"Oh, those!" said Friedel, only now recalling them. "No, verily; they were but a moment"s anger. I wanted to save the kid. I think it is old mother Rika"s white kid. But oh, motherling! I grieve to have thus frightened you."
Not a single word pa.s.sed between them upon Ebbo"s exploits. Whether Friedel had seen all from the heights, or whether he intuitively perceived that his brother preferred silence, he held his peace, and both were solely occupied in a.s.sisting their mother down the pa.s.s, the difficulties of which were far more felt now than in the excitement of the ascent; only when they were near home, and the boys were walking in the darkness with arms round one another"s necks, Christina heard Friedel say low and rather sadly, "I think I shall be a priest, Ebbo."
To which Ebbo only answered, "Pfui!"
Christina understood that Friedel meant that robbery must be a severance between the brothers. Alas! had the moment come when their paths must diverge? Could Ebbo"s step not be redeemed?
Ursel reported that Dame Kunigunde had scarcely spoken again, but had retired, like one stunned, into her bed. Friedel was half asleep after the exertions of the day; but Ebbo did not speak, and both soon betook themselves to their little turret chamber within their mother"s.