University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

The female, enveloped in her mantle, had so well
profited by the timely interposition of Gottlob Frinck,
as to quit the hermit's hut without attracting the notice
of the Benedictine. But the vigilance of young
Berchthold had not been so easily eluded. He
stepped aside as she glided through the door, then
stooping merely to catch the eye of the cow-herd,
to whom he communicated his intention by a sign,
he followed. Had the forester felt any doubts as to
the identity of her he pursued, the light and active
movement would have convinced him, that age, at

least, had no agency in inducing her to conceal her
features. The roe-buck of his own forests scarce
bounded with more agility than the fugitive fled, on
first quitting the abode of the recluse; nor did her
speed sensibly lessen, until she had crossed most of
the melancholy camp, and reached a spot where
the opening of the blue and star-lit void showed that
she was at the verge of the wood, and near the
margin of the summit of the mountain. Here she
paused, and stood leaning against a cedar, like one
whose strength was exhausted.

Berchthold had followed swiftly, but without
losing that appearance of calmness and of superior
physical force which gives dignity to the steps of
young manhood, as compared with the timid but
more attractive movements of the feebler sex. He
seemed conscious of his greater powers, and unwilling
to increase a flight that was already swifter
than circumstances required, and which he knew to
be far more owing to a vague and instinctive alarm,
than to any real cause for apprehension. When the
speed of the female ceased, his own relaxed, and
he approached the spot where she stood panting for
breath, like a cautious boy, who slackens his haste
in order not to give new alarm to the bird that has
just alighted.

“What is there so fearful in my face, Meta, that
thou fleest my presence, as I had been the spirit of
one of those Pagans that they say once peopled this
camp? It is not thy wont to have this dread of a
youth thou hast known from childhood, and I will
say, in my own defence, known as honest and ture!”

“It is not seemly in a maiden of my years—it
was foolish, if not disobedient, to be here at this
hour,” answered the hurried girl:—“I would I had
not listened to the desire of hearing more of the
holy hermit's wisdom!”

“Thou art not alone, Meta!”

“That were unbecoming, truly, in my father's
child!” returned the young damsel, with an expression
of pride of condition, as she glanced an eye towards
the fallen wall, among whose stones Berchthold
saw the well-known form of a female servitor
of his companion's family. “Had I carried imprudence
to this pass, Master Berchthold, thou wouldst
have reason to believe, in sooth, that it was the
daughter of some peasant, that by chance had
crossed thy footstep.”

“There is little danger of that error,” answered
Berchthold quickly. “I know thee well; thou art
Meta, the only child of Heinrich Frey, the Burgo-master
of Deurckheim. None know thy quality
and hopes better than I, for none have heard them
oftener!”

The damsel dropped her head in a movement of
natural regret and sudden repentance, and when
her blue eye, softened by a ray of the moon, met
the gaze of the forester, he saw that better feelings
were uppermost.

“I did not wish to recount my father's honors,
nor any accidental advantage of my situation, and,
least of all, to thee,” answered the maiden, with
eagerness; “but I felt concern lest thou shouldst
imagine I had forgotten the modesty of my sex and
condition—or, I had fear that thou mightest—thy
manner is much changed of late, Berchthold!”

“It is then without my knowledge or intention.
But we will forget the past, and thou wilt tell me,
what wonder hath brought thee, to this suspected
and dreaded moor, at an hour so unusual?”

Meta smiled, and the expression of her countenance
proved, that if she had moments of uncharitable
weakness, they were more the offspring of the
world's opinions, than of her own frank and generous
nature.

“I might retort the question on thee, Berchthold,

and plead a woman's curiosity as a reason why
I should be quickly answered—Way art thou here,
at an hour when most young hunters sleep?”

“I am Lord Emich's forester; but thou, as there
has just been question, art a daughter of the Burgo-master
of Deurckheim.”

“I give thee credit for all the difference. Did
my mother know that I was thus about to furnish a
reason for my conduct, she would say, `Keep thy
explanations, Meta, for those who have a right to
demand them!”

“And Heinrich Frey?”

“He would be little likely to approve of either
visit or explanation.”

“Thy father loves me not, Meta?”

“He does not so much disapprove of thee, Master
Berchthold, as that thou art only Lord Emich's forester.
Wert thou as thine own parent was, a substantial
burgher of our town, he might esteem thee
much. But thou hast great favor with my dear
mother!”

“Heaven bless her, that in her own prosperity
she hath not forgotten those who have fallen! I
think that, in thy heart as in thy looks, Meta, thou
more resemblest thy mother than thy father.”

“I would have it so. When I speak to thee of
my being the child of Heinrich Frey, it is without
thought of any present difference between us, I do
affirm to thee, Berchthold, but rather as showing
that in not forgetting my station, I am not likely to
do it discredit. Nay, I know not that a forester's
is a dishonorable office! They who serve the
Elector in this manner are noble.”

“And they who serve nobles, simple. I am but
a menial, Meta, though it be in a way to do little
mortification to my pride.”

“And what is Count Emich but a vassal of the
Elector, who, in turn, is a subject of the Emperor!

Thou shalt not dishonor thyself in this manner,
Berchthold, and no one say aught to vindicate thee.”

“Thanks, dearest Meta. Thou art the child of
my mother's oldest and closest friend, and whatever
the world may proclaim of the difference that now
exists between us, thy excellent heart whispers to
the contrary. Thou art not only the fairest, but, in
truth, the kindest and gentlest damsel of thy town!”

The daughter, only child, and consequently the
heiress of the wealthiest burgher of Deurckheim, did
not hear this opinion of Lord Emich's handsome
forester without great secret gratification.

“And now thou shalt know the reason of this unusual
visit,” said Meta, when the silent pleasure excited
by the last speech of young Berchthold had a
little subsided; “for this have I, in some measure,
promised to thee; and it would little justify thy good
opinion to forget a pledge. Thou knowest the holy
hermit, and the sudden manner of his appearance in
the Heidenmauer?”

“None are ignorant of the latter, and thou hast
already seen that I visit him in his hut.”

“I shall not pretend to give, or to seek, the
reason, but sure it is, that he had not been a week
in the old Roman abode, when he sought occasion
to show me greater notice than to any other maiden
of Deurckheim, or than any merit of mine might
claim.”

“How! is the knave but a pretender to this
sanctity, after all!”

“Thou canst not be jealous of a man of his years;
and, judging by his worn countenance and hollow
eye, years too of mortification and suffering! He
truly is of a character to give a youth of thy age,
and gentle air, and active frame, and comely appearance,
uneasiness! But I see the color in thy
cheek, Master Berchthold, and will not offend thee
with comparisons that are so much to thy disadvantage.

Be the motive of the holy hermit what it will,
on the two occasions when he visited out town, and
in the visits that we maidens have often made to his
cell, he hath shown kind interest in my welfare and
future hopes, both as they are connected with this
life, and with that to which we all hasten, although
it be with steps that are not heard even by our own
ears.”

“It does not surprise me, that all who see and
know thee, Meta, should act thus. And yet I find
it very strange!”

“Nay,” said the amused girl, “now thou justifiest
the exact words of old Ilse, who hath often said to
me, `Take heed, Meta, and put not thy faith too
easily in the language of the young townsmen; for,
by looking closely into their meaning, thou wilt see
that they contradict themselves. Youth is so eager
to obtain its end, that it stops not to separate the
true from the plausible.' These are her very words,
and oft repeated too, which thou hast just verified
—I believe the crone fairly sleepeth on that pile of
the fallen wall!”

“Disturb her not. One of her years hath great
need of rest: nay, it would be thoughtless to rob
her of this little pleasure!”

Meta had made a step in advance, seemingly
with intent to arouse her attendant, when the hurried
words and rapid action of the youth caused
her to hesitate. Receding to her former attitude,
beneath the shadow of the cedar, she more considerately
resumed—

“It would be ungracious, in sooth, to awaken one
who hath so lately toiled up this weary hill.”

“And she so aged, Meta!”

“And one that did so much for my infancy! I
ought to go back to my father's house, but my kind
mother will overlook the dalay, for she loveth Ilse
little less than one of her own blood.”

“Thy mother knoweth of this visit to the hermit's
hut, then?”

“Dost think, Master Berchthold, that a Burgomaster
of Deurckheim's only child would go forth,
at this hour, without permission had? There would
be great unseemliness in such secret gossiping, and
a levity that would better suit thy damsels of Count
Emich's village: they say indeed, in our town, that
the castle damsels are none too nice in their manner
of life.”

“They belie us of the mountain strangely, in the
towns of the plain! I swear to thee, there is not
greater modesty in thy Deurckheim palace, than
among our females, whether of the village or of the
castle.”

“It may be true in the main, and, for the credit
of my sex, I hope it is so; but thou wilt scarce find
courage, Berchthold, to say aught in favor of her
they call Gisela, the warder's child? More vanity
have I never seen in female form!”

“They think her fair, in Hartenburg.”

“'Tis that opinion which spoileth the creature's
manner! Thou art much in her society, Master
Berchthold, and I doubt not that use causeth thee
to overlook some qualities that are not concealed
from strangers. `Do but regard that flaunting
bird from the pass of the Jaegerthal,' said the excellent
old Ilse, one morn that we had a festival in our
venerable church, to which the country round came
forth in their best array; `one would imagine, from
its fluttering, and the movements of its feathers, that
it fancied the eye of every young hunter was on its
plumage, and that it dreaded the bolt of the archer
unexpectedly! And yet have I known animals of
this breed, that did not so greatly fear the fowler's
hand, if truth were said!' ”

“Thou judgest Gisela harshly; for though of
some lightness of speech, and haply not without admiration

of her own beauty, the girl is far from
being uncompanionable, or, at times, of agreeable
discourse.”

“Nay, I do but repeat the words of Ilse, Master
Berchthold!”

“Thy Ilse is old, and garrulous, and is like to
utter foolishness.”

“This may be so—but let it be foolish, if thou
wilt—the folly of my nurse is my folly. I have
gained so much from her discourse, that I fear it is
now too late to amend. To deal fairly with thee,
she did not utter a syllable concerning thy warder's
daughter that I do not believe.”

Berchthold was but little practised in the ways
of the human heart. Free in the expression of his
own sentiments as the air he breathed on his native
hills, and entirely without thought of guilt, as respects
the feeling which bound him to Meta, he had
never descended into the arcana of that passion of
which he was so completely the subject, without
indeed knowing even the extent of his own bondage.
He viewed this little ebullition of jealousy, therefore,
as a generous nature regards all injustice, and he
entered only the more warmly into the defence of
the injured party. One of those sieve-like hearts
that have been perforated a hundred times by the
shots that Cupid fires, right and left, in a capital,
would probably have had recourse to the same expedient,
merely to observe to what extent he could
trifle with the feelings of a being he professed to
love.

Europeans, who are little addicted to looking into
the eye of their cis-Atlantic kinsman in search of
the mote, say, that the master passion of life is but
a sluggish emotion in the American bosom. That
those who are chiefly employed in the affairs of this
world should be content with the natural course of
the affections, as they arise in the honest relations

of the domestic circle, is quite as probable, as it is
true that they who feed their passions by vanity and
variety, are mistaken when they think that casual
and fickle sensations compose any of the true ingredients
of that purifying and elevated sentiment,
which, by investing the admired object with all that
is estimable, leads us to endeavor to be worthy of
the homage we insensibly pay to virtue. In Berchthold
and Meta, the reader is to look for none of
that constitutional fervor, which sometimes substitutes
impulse for a deeper feeling, or for any of that
factitious cultivation of the theory of love, that so
often tempts the neophyte to mistake his own hallucinations
for the more natural attachment of sympathy
and reason. For the former they lived too
far north, and for the latter it might possibly be said,
that fortune had cast their lot a little too far south.
That subtle and nearly indefinable sympathy between
the sexes, which we call love, to which all
are subject, since its principle is in nature itself, exists
perhaps in its purest and least conventional form
precisely in the bosoms of those whom Providence
has placed in the middle state, between extreme cultivation
and ignorance; between the fastidious and
sickly perversion of over-indulgence, and the selfishness
that is the fruit of constant appeals to exertion;
or the very condition of the two young persons that
have been placed before the reader in this chapter.
Enough has been seen to show that Berchthold,
though exercising a menial office, had received
opinions superior to his situation; a circumstance
that is sufficiently explained by the allusions already
made to the decayed fortunes of his parents. His
language and manner, therefore, as he generously
vindicated Gisela, the daughter of the person charged
to watch the approaches of Lord Emich's castle,
was perhaps superior to what would have been expected
in a mere forester.

“I shall not take upon myself the office of pointing
out the faults of our castle beauty, if faults she
hath,” he said; “but this much may I say in her
defence, without fear of exceeding truth; her father
is grown gray under the livery of Leiningen, and
there is not a child in the world that showeth more
reverence or affection to him who gave her being,
than this same bird of thine, with its flaunting
plumes, and the coquetry with the archer's bolt!”

“'Tis said, a dutiful daughter will ever make an
excellent and an obedient wife.”

“The luckier then will he be who weds old
Friedrich's child. I have known her keep the gates,
deep into the night, that her father might take his
rest, when the nobles have frequented the forest
later than common; ay, and to watch weary hours,
when most of her years and sex would find excuses
for being on their pillows. Now, this have I often
seen, going forth, as thou mayst be certain by my
office, in Count Emich's company, in most of his
hunts. Nay, Gisela is fair, none will deny; and it
may be that, among her other qualities, the girl
knows it.”

“She appeareth not to be the only one of thy
Hartenburg pile that is aware of the fact, Master
Berchthold!”

“Dost thou mean, Meta, the revelling abbé, from
Paris, or the sworn soldier-monk of Rhodes, that
now abide in the castle?” asked the young forester,
with a simplicity that would have set the heart of a
coquette at ease, by its perfect nature and openness.
“Now thou touchest on the matter, I will own,
though one of my office should be wary of opinions
on those his master loves, but I know thy prudence,
Meta—Therefore will I say, that I have half suspected
these two ill-assorted servants of the church,
of thinking more of the poor girl than is seemly.”

“Thy poor Gisela hath cause to hang herself!

Truly, were wassailers, like these thou namest, to
regard me with but a free look, the Burgomaster of
Deurckheim should know of their boldness!”

“Meta, they would not dare! Poor Gisela is not
the offspring of a stout citizen, but the warder of
Hartenburg's child, and there may be some difference
in thy natures, too—nay, there is; for thou art
not one of those that seek the admiration of each
cavalier that passeth, but a maiden that knoweth her
worth, and the meed that is her due. That thou
hast, in something, wronged our beauty of the hold,
I needs must say; but to compare thee with her,
either in the excellence of the body or that of the
mind, is what could never be done justly. If she is
fair, thou art fairer; if she is witty, thou art wise!”

“Nay, do not mistake me, Berchthold, by thinking
that I have uttered aught against thy warder's
daughter that is harsh and unseemly. I know the
girl's cleverness, and moreover I am willing to acknowledge,
that one cruelly placed by fortune in
a condition of servitude, like her's, may find it no
easy matter to be always what one of her sex and
years could wish. I dare to say, that Gisela, did
fortune and opportunity permit, would do no discredit
to her breeding and looks, both of which,
sooth to say, are somewhat above her condition.”

“And thou saidst, thy mother knew of this visit
to the hermit?”

“And said truth. My mother has never made
objection to any reverence paid by her daughter to
the Church or to its servants.”

“That hath she not!—Thou art amongst the
most frequent of those who resort to the Abbey in
quest of holy offices thyself, Meta!”

“Am I not a Christian! Wouldst have a well-respected
maiden forget her duties?”

“I say not that; but there is discourse amongst
us hunters, that of late the prior hath much perferred

his young nephew, Brother Hugo, to the duty of
quieting the consciences of the penitents. It were
better that some father, whose tonsure hath a ring
of gray, were put into the confessional, in a church
so much frequented by the young and fair of Deurckheim.”

“Thou wouldst do well to write of this to the
Bishop of Worms, or to our holy Abbot, in thine
own scholarly hand. Thou hast the clerkly gifts,
Master Berchthold, and might persuade!”

“I would that the little I have done in this way
had not so failed of its design. Thou hast had frequent
proofs of its sincerity, if not of its skill, Meta.”

“Well, this is idle, and leads me to forget the
hermit: My mother—I know not why—and now
thou makest me think of it, I find it different from
her common rule; but it is certain that she in nowise
discourages these visits to the Heidenmauer.
We are very young, Berchthold, and may not yet
understand all that enters into older and wiser
heads!”

“It is strange that the holy man should seek just
us! If he most urges his advice on you among the
damsels of the town, he most gives his counsel to
me among the youths of the Jaegerthal!”

There was a charm in this idea which held these
two young and unpractised minds in sweet thraldom
for many fleeting minutes. They conversed of the
unexplained sympathy between the man of God and
themselves, long and with undiminishing interest in
the subject, for it seemed to both that it contained a
tie to unite them still closer to each other. Whatever
philosophy and experience may pretend on such
subjects, it is certain that man is disposed to be superstitious
in respect to the secret influences that
guide his fortunes, in the dark passage of the world.
Whether it be the mystery of the unforeseen future,
or the consciousness of how much of even his

most prized success is the result of circumstances
that he never could or did control, or whether God,
with a view to his own harmonious and sublime
ends, has implanted this principle in the human
breast, in order to teach us dependence on a superior
power, it is certain that few reach a state of
mind so calculating and reasoning as not to trust
some portion of that which is to come, to the
chances of Fortune, or to Providence; for so we
term the directing power, as the mind clings to or
rejects the immediate agency of the Deity, in the
conduct of the subordinate concerns of life. In the
age of which we write, intelligence had not made
sufficient progress to elevate ordinary minds above the
arts of necromancy. Men no longer openly consulted
the entrails of brutes, in order to learn the will of
fate, but they often submitted to a dictation scarcely
less beastly, and few indeed were they who were
able to separate piety from superstition, or the
grand dispensations of Providence from the insignificant
interests of selfishness. It is not surprising,
therefore, that Berchthold and Meta should cling to
the singular interest that the hermit manifested in
them respectively, as an omen propitious to their
common hopes; common, for though the maiden
had not so far relinquished the reserve she still deemed
essential to her sex, as to acknowledge all she
felt, that subtle instinct which unites the young and
innocent left little doubt in the mind of either, of the
actual state of the other's inclinations.

Old Ilse had consequently ample time to rest her
frame, after the painful toil of the ascent between
the town and the camp. When Meta at length approached
to arouse her, the garrulous woman broke
out in exclamations of surprise at the shortness of
the interview with the hermit, for the soundness of
her slumbers left her in utter ignorance of the appearance
and disappearance of Berchthold.

“It is but a moment, Meta dear,” she said, “since
we came up the hill, and I fear thou hast not given
sufficient heed to the wise words of the holy man.
We should not reject a wholesome draught because
it proves bitter to the mouth, child, but swallow all
to the last drop, when we think there is healing in
the cup. Didst deal fairly by the hermit, and tell
him honestly of thy evil nature?”

“Thou forgettest, Ilse, the hermit has not even
the tonsure, and cannot shrive and pardon.”

“Nay, nay—I know not that! A hermit is a man
of God; and a man of God is holy; and any
Christian may, ay, and should pardon; and as to
shriving, give me a self-denying recluse, who passes
his time in prayer, mortifying soul and body, before
any monk of Limburg, say I! There is more virtue
in one blessing from such a man, than in a dozen
from a carousing Abbot—I know not but I might
say fifty.”

“But I had his blessing, nurse.”

“Well, that is comforting, and we have not wearied
our limbs for naught; but thou shouldst have
told him of thy wish to wear the laced boddice, at
the last mass, in order that thy equals might envy
thy beauty. It would have been wholesome to have
acknowledged that sin, at least.”

“But he questioned me not of my sins. All his discourse
was of my father's house, and of my good
mother, and—and of other matters.”

“Thou shouldst then have edged the boddice in
among the other matters. Have I not always fore-warned
thee, Meta, of the danger of pride, and of
stirring envy in the bosom of a companion? There
is naught more uncomfortable than envy, as I know
by experience. Oh! I am no longer young; and
come to me if thou wouldst wish to know what
envy is, or any other dangerous vice, and I warrant
thee thou shalt hear it well explained! Ay, thou

wert very wrong not to have spoken of the boddice!”

“Had it been fit to confess, I might have found
more serious sins to own, than any that belong
to dress.”

“I know not that! Dress is a great beguiler
of the young heart, and of the handsome face. If
thou hast beauty in thy house, break thy mirrors
that the young should not know it, is what I have
heard a thousand times; and as thou art both young
and fair, I will repeat it, though all Deurckheim
gainsay my words, thou art in danger if thou
knowest it. No, hadst thou told the hermit of that
boddice, it might have done much good. What
matters it to such a man, whether he hath the tonsure
or not? He hath prayers, and fastings, and
midnight thought, and great bodily suffering, and
these are surely worth as much hair as hath ever
fallen from all the monks in the Palatinate. I would
thou hadst told him of that boddice, child!”

“Since thou so wishest it, at our next meeting it
shall be said, dear Ilse; so set thy heart at peace.”

“This will give thy dear mother great pleasure;
else, why should she consent that a daughter of
her's should visit a heathenish camp, at so late an
hour? I warrant thee that she thought of the
boddice!”

“Do cease speaking of the garment, nurse; my
thoughts are bent on something else.”

“Well, if indeed thou thinkest of something else,
it may be amiss to say more at present, though,
Heaven it knows! thou hast great occasion to
recall that vain-glorious mass to thy mind. How
suddenly thy communion with the hermit ended tonight,
Meta!”

“We have not been long on the mountain, truly,
Ilse. But we must hasten back, lest my mother
should be uneasy.”

“And why should she be so? Am I not with thee?
Is age nothing, and experience, and prudence, and
an old head, ay, and, for that matter, an old body
too, and a good memory, and such eyes as no other
in Deurckheim of my years hath—I say of my
years, for thou hast better; and thy dear mother's
are little worse than thine—but of my years, few
have their equal. At thy age, girl, I was not the
old Ilse, but the lively Ilse, and the active, and, God
forgive me if there be vain-glory in the words! but
truth should always be spoken—the handsome Ilse,
and this too without aid from any such boddice as
that of thine.”

“Wilt never forget the boddice! here, lean on
me, nurse, or thy foot may fail thee in the steep
descent.”

Here they began to descend, and as they were
now at a point of the path where much caution
was necessary, the conversation in a great measure
ceased.

He who visits Deurckheim now, will find sufficient
remaining evidence to show that the town
formerly extended more towards the base of the
mountain than its present site would prove. There
are the ruins of walls and towers among the vineyards
that ornament the foot of the hill, and tradition
speaks of fortifications that have long since
disappeared, rendered useless by those improvements
in warfare that have robbed so many other
strong places of their importance. Then, every
group of houses on an eminence was more or less
a place of defence; but the use of gunpowder and
artillery centuries ago rendered all these targets
useless, and he who would now seek a citadel, is
most sure to find it buried in some plain or morass.
The world has reached another crisis in improvement,
for the introduction of steam is likely to alter
all its systems of offence and defence both by land

and sea; but be the future as it may, the skill of the
engineer had not so far ripened at the period of our
tale, as to prevent Meta and her attendant from
entering within walls of ancient construction, clumsily
adapted to meet the exigencies of the imperfect
state of the existing art. As the hour was early,
they had no difficulty in reaching the Burgomaster's
door without attracting remark.