University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

Within the whole of these widely extended
states, there is scarcely a single vestige of the manner
of life led by those who first settled in the
wilderness. Little else is found to arrest the eye
of the antiquary in the shape of a ruin, except the
walls of some fortress or the mounds of an intrenchment
of the war of independence. We have,
it is true, some faint remains of times still more remote;
and there are even a few circumvallations,
or other inventions of defence, that are believed to
have once been occupied by the red man; but in no
part of the country did there ever exist an edifice,
of either a public or a private nature, that bore any
material resemblance to a feudal castle. In order,
therefore, that the reader shall have as clear a picture
as our feeble powers can draw, of the hold occupied
by the sturdy baron who is destined to act a
conspicuous part in the remainder of this legend, it
has become necessary to enter at some length into
a description of the surrounding localities, and of

the building itself. We say of the reader, for we
profess to write only for the amusement—fortunate
shall we be if instruction may be added—of our
own countrymen: should others be pleased to read
these crude pages, we shall be flattered and of
course grateful; but with this distinct avowal of our
object in holding the pen, we trust they will read
with the necessary amount of indulgence.

And here we shall take occasion to hold one moment's
communion with that portion of the reading
public of all nations, that, as respects a writer, composes
what is termed the world. Let it not be
said of us, because we make frequent reference to
opinions and circumstances as they exist in our
native land, that we are profoundly ignorant of the
existence of all others. We make these references,
crime though it be in hostile eyes, because they best
answer our end in writing at all, because they
allude to a state of society most familiar to our own
minds, and because we believe that great use has
hitherto been made of the same things, to foster
ignorance and prejudice. Should we unheedingly
betray the foible of national vanity—that foul and
peculiar blot of American character! we solicit
forgiveness; urging, in our own justification, the
aptitude of a young country for falling insensibly
into the vein of imitation, and praying the critical
observer to overlook any blunders in this way, if
perchance we should not manifest that felicity of
execution which is the fruit only of great practice.
Hitherto we believe that our modesty cannot justly
be impeached. As yet we have left the cardinal
virtues to mankind in the gross, never, to our
knowledge, having written of “American courage;”
or “American honesty,” nor yet of “American
beauty,” nor haply of “American manliness,” nor
even of “American strength of arm,” as qualities
abstracted and not common to our fellow-creatures;

but have been content, in the unsophisticated language
of this western clime, to call virtue, virtue—
and vice, vice. In this we well know how much
we have fallen short of numberless but nameless
classical writers of our own time, though we do not
think we are greatly losers by the forbearance, because
we have sufficient proof that when we wish
to make our pages unpleasant to the foreigner, we
can effect that object by much less imposing allusions
to national merits; since we have good reason
to believe, there exists a certain querulous class of
readers who consider even the most delicate and
reserved commendations of this western world, as
so much praise unreasonably and dishonestly abstracted
from themselves. As for that knot in our
own fair country, who aim at success by flattering
the stranger, and who hope to shine in their own
little orbits by means of borrowed light, we commit
them to the correction of a reproof which is certain
to come, and, in their cases, to come embittered by
the consciousness of its being merited by a servility
as degrading as it is unnatural. As they dive
deeper into the secrets of the human heart, they
will learn there is a healthful feeling that cannot be
repulsed with impunity, and that as none are so respected
as they who fearlessly and frankly maintain
their rights, so none are so contemned as those who
ignobly desert them.

During the time that Berchthold was holding converse
with Meta, on the mountain of the Heidenmauer,
Emich of Leiningen was at rest in his castle
of Hartenburg. It has already been said, that the
hold was of massive masonry, the principal material
being the reddish sand-stone, that is so abundantly
found in nearly the whole region of the ancient Palatinate.
The building had grown with time, and
that which had originally been a tower had swelled
into a formidable and extensive fortress. In the

ages which succeeded the empire of Charlemagne,
he who could rear one of these strong places, and
maintain it in opposition to his neighbors, became
noble, and in some measure a sovereign. He established
his will as law for the contiguous territory,
and they who could not enjoy their own lands, without
submitting to his pleasure, were content to purchase
protection by admitting their vassalage. No
sooner was one of these local lords firmly established
in his hold, by receiving service and homage
from the husbandmen, than he began to quarrel
with his nearest neighbor of his own condition.
The victor necessarily grew more powerful by his
conquests, until, from being the master of one castle
and one village, he became in process of time the
master of many. In this manner did minor barons
swell into power and sovereignty, even mighty potentates
tracing their genealogical and political
trees into roots of this wild growth. There still
stands on an abrupt and narrow ledge of land, in
the confederation of Switzerland and in the Canton
of Argovie, a tottering ruin, that, in past ages, was
occupied by a knight, who from his aerie overlooked
the adjoining village, and commanded the
services of its handful of boors. This ruined castle
was called Hapsbourg, and is celebrated as the cradle
of that powerful family which has long sat upon
the throne of the Cæsars, and which now rules so
much of Germany and Upper Italy. The King of
Prussia traces his line to the House of Hohenzollern,
the offspring of another castle; and numberless
are the instances in which he who thus laid the
corner-stone of a strong place, in ages when security
was only to be had by good walls, also laid the
foundation of a long line of prosperous and puissant
princes.

Neither the position of the castle of Hartenburg,
however, nor the period in which it was founded,

was likely to lead to results great as these just
named. As has been said, it commanded a pass important
for local purposes, but not of so much moment
as to give him who held the hold any material
rights beyond its immediate influence. Still, as the
family of Leiningen was numerous, and had other
branches and other possessions in more favored portions
of Germany, Count Emich was far from being
a mere mountain chief. The feudal system had become
methodized long before his birth, and the laws
of the Empire secured to him many villages and
towns on the plain, as the successor of those who
had obtained them in more remote ages. He had
recently claimed even a higher dignity, and wider
territories, as the heir of a deceased kinsman; but
in this attempt to increase his power, and to elevate
his rank, he had been thwarted by a decision of his
peers. It was to this abortive assumption of dignity,
that he owed the soubriquet of the Summer Landgrave;
for such was the rank he had claimed, and
the period for which he had been permitted to bear it.

With this knowledge of the power of their family,
the reader will not be surprised to hear that
the castle of the Counts of Hartenburg, or, to be
more accurate, of the Counts of Hartenburg-Leiningen,
was on a commensurate scale. Perched on
the advanced spur of the mountain, just where the
valley was most confined, and at a point where the
little river made a short bend, the pass beneath lay
quite at the mercy of the archer on its battlements.
In the fore-ground, all that part of the edifice which
came into the view was military, and, in some slight
degree, fitted to the imperfect use that was then
made of artillery; while in the rear arose that maze
of courts, chapels, towers, gates, portcullises, state-rooms,
offices, and family apartments, that marked
the usages and tastes of the day. The hamlet which
lay in the dell, immediately beneath the walls of the

salient towers, or bastions, for they partook of both
characters, was insignificant, and of little account in
estimating the wealth and resources of the feudal
lord. These came principally from Deurckheim,
and the fertile plains beyond, though the forest was
not without its value, in a country in which the ax
had so long been used.

We have said that Emich of Leiningen was taking
his rest in the hold of Hartenburg. Let the reader
imagine a massive building, in the centre of the confused
pile we have mentioned, rudely fashioned to
meet the wants of the domestic economy of that
age, and he will get a nearer view of the interior.
The walls were wainscoted, and had much uncouth
and massive carving; the halls were large and
gloomy, loaded with armor, and at this moment
pregnant with armed men; the saloons of the medium
size which suited a baronial state, and all the
appliances of that mingled taste in which comfort
and luxury, as now understood, were unknown, but
which was not without a portion of the effect that
is produced by an exhibition of heavy magnificence.
With few but signal exceptions, Germany, even at
this hour, is not a country remarkable for the elegancies
of domestic life. Its very palaces are of
simple decoration, its luxuries of a homebred and
inartificial kind, and its taste is rarely superior, and
indeed not always equal, to our own. There is still
a shade of the Gothic in the habits and opinions of
this constant people, who seem to cultivate the subtle
refinements of the mind, in preference to the
more obvious and material enjoyments which address
themselves to the senses.

Quaint and complicated ornaments, wrought by
the patient industry of a race proverbial for this description
of ingenuity; swords, daggers, morions,
cuirasses, and all sorts of defensive armor then in
use; such needle-work, as it befitted a noble dame

to produce; pictures that possessed most of the
faults and few of the beauties of the Flemish school;
furniture that bore some such relation to the garniture
of the palaces of electors and kings, as the
decorations of a village drawing-room in our own
time, bear to those of the large towns; a profuse
display of plate, on which the arms of Leiningen
were embossed and graven in every variety of style;
with genealogical trees and heraldic blazonry in
colors, were the principal features.

Throughout the whole pile, there was little appearance,
however, of the presence of females, or
even of the means of their accommodation. Few
of that sex were seen in the corridors, or offices,
or courts; though men crowded the place in unusual
numbers. The latter were chiefly grim and
whiskered warriors, who loitered in the halls, or in
the more public parts of the castle, like idlers waiting
for the expected movement of exertion. None
among them were armed at all points, though this
carelessly wore his morion, that had buckled on a
breast-plate, and another leaned listlessly on his arquebuse
or handled his pike. Here a group exercised,
in levity, with their several weapons of offence;
there a jester amused a crowd of sluggish
listeners, with his ribaldry and humor; and numberless
were those who quaffed of the Rhenish of their
lord. Although this continent had then been discovered,
the goodly portion which has since fallen to
our heritage was still in the hands of its native proprietors;
and the plant, so long known as the weed
of Virginia, but which has since become a staple of
so many other countries in this hemisphere, was not
in its present general use amongst the Germans;
else would it have been our duty to finish this hasty
sketch, by enveloping it all in mist. Notwithstanding
the general air of indifference and negligence,
which reigned within the walls of Hartenburg, without

the gates, in the turrets, and on the advanced
towers, there was the appearance of more than the
customary watchfulness. Had one been there to
note the circumstance, he would have seen, in addition
to the sentries who always guarded the approaches
of the castle, several swift-footed spies on
the look-out, in the hamlet, on the rocks of the
mountain-side, and along the winding paths; and
as all eyes were turned towards the valley in the
direction of Limburg, it was evident that the event
they awaited was expected to arrive from that
quarter.

While such was the condition of his hold and of
so strong a body of his vassals, Count Emich himself
had retired from observation, to one of the
quaint, half-rude, half-magnificent saloons of the
place. The room was lighted by twenty tapers, and
other well-known signs indicated the near approach
of guests. He paced the large apartment with a
heavy and armed heel; while care, or at least severe
thought, contracted the muscles around a hard
and iron brow, which bore evident marks of familiar
acquaintance with the casque. Perhaps this is the
only country of Christendom, even now, in which
the profession of the law is a pursuit still more honorable
and esteemed than that of arms—the best
proof of a high and enviable civilization—but at the
age of our narrative, the gentleman that was not of
the Church, the calling which nearly monopolized
all the learning of the times, was of necessity a soldier.
Emich of Leiningen carried arms therefore
as much in course, as the educated man of this century
reads his Horace or Virgil; and as nature had
given him a vigorous frame, a hardy constitution,
and a mind whose indifference to personal suffering
amounted at times to ruthlessness, he was more
successful in his trade of violence, than many a

pale and zealous student proves in the cultivation of
letters.

The musing Count scarce raised his looks from
the oaken floor he trod, as menial after menial appeared,
moving with light step in the presence of
one so dreaded and yet so singularly loved. At
length a female, busy in some of the little offices of
her sex, glided before his half-unconscious sight.
The youth, the bloom, the playful air, the neat coif,
the tight boddice, and the ample folds of the falling
garments, at length seemed to fill his eye with the
form of his companion.

“Is it thou, Gisela?” he said, speaking mildly, as
one addresses a favored dependant. “How fareth
it with the honest Karl?

“I thank my lord the Count, his aged and wounded
servant hath less of pain than is commonly his
lot. The limb he has lost in the service of the
House of Leiningen—”

“No matter for the leg, girl—thou art too apt to
dwell upon that mischance of thy parent.”

“Were my lord the Count to leave a limb on the
field, it might be missed when he was hurried!”

“Thinkest thou, child, that my tongue would
never address the Emperor without naming the defect?
Go to, Gisela; thou art a calculating hussy,
and rarely permittest occasion to pass without allusion
to this growing treasure of thy family. Are
my people actively on the watch, with or without
their limbs?”

“They are as their natures and humors tend.
Blessed Saint Ursula knows where the officers of
the country have picked up so ungainly a band, as
these that now inhabit Hartenburg! One drinketh,
from the time his eyes open in the morn until they
shut at even; another sweareth worse than the
northern warriors that do these ravages in the Palatinate;
this a foul dealer in ribaldry; that a glutton

who never moveth lip but to swallow; and none,
nay, not a swaggerer of them all, hath civil word
for a maiden, though she be known as one esteemed
in their master's household.”

“They are my vassals, girl, and stouter men at
need are not mustered in Germany.”

“Stout in speech, and insolent of look, my Lord
Count, but most odious company to all, of modest
demeanor and of good intentions, in the hold.”

“Thou hast been humored by thy mistress, girl,
until thou sometimes forgettest discretion. Go and
look my guests are informed that the hour of the
banquet is at hand;—I await the pleasure of their
presence.”

Gisela, whose natural pertness had been somewhat
heightened by an indulgent mistress, and in
whom consciousness of more beauty than ordinarily
falls to the share of females of her condition had
produced freedom of language that sometimes
amounted to temerity, betrayed her discontent in a
manner very common to her sex, when it is undisciplined,
or little restrained by a wholesome education.
She pouted, taking care however that Emich's
eye was again turned to the floor, tossed her head,
and quitted the room. Left to himself, the Count
relapsed into his reverie. In this manner did several
minutes pass unheeded.

“Dreaming, as usual, noble Emich, of escalades
and excommunication!” cried a gay voice at his
elbow, the speaker having entered the saloon unseen
—“of revengeful priests, of vassalage, of shaven
abbots, the confessional and penance dire, thy rights
redressed, the frowning conclave, the Abbey cellar,
thy morion, revenge, and, to sum up all, in a word
that covers every deadly sin, that fallen angel the
Devil!”

Emich forced a grim smile at this unceremonious
and comprehensive salutation, accepting the offered

hand of him who uttered it, however, with the frank
freedom of a boon companion.

“Thou art right welcome, Albrecht,” he replied,
“for the moment is near when my ghostly guests
should arrive; and to deal fairly by thee, I never
feel myself quite equal to a single combat of wits
with the pious knaves; but thy support will be
enough, though the whole Abbey community were
of the party.”

“Ay, we are akin, we sons of Saint John and
these bastards of Saint Benedict. Though more
martial than your monks of the hill, we of the island
are sworn to quite as many virtues. Let me see,”
he added, counting on his fingers with an air of bold
licentiousness; “firstly are we vowed to celibacy,
and your Benedictine is no less so—then are we self-dedicated
to chastity, as is your Limburg monk;
next we respect our oaths, as does your Father
Bonifacius; then both are servants of the holy cross;”
by a singular influence the speaker and the Count
made the sacred symbol on their bosoms, as the former
uttered the word, “and, doubt it not, I shall be
the equal of the reverend brotherhood. They say
sin can match sin, and saint should surely be saint's
equal! But, Emich, thou art graver than becometh
a hot carousal, like this we meditate!”

“And thou gay as if about to gallant the dames
of Rhodes to one of thy island festivals!”

The Knight of Saint John regarded his attire
with complacency, strutting by the side of his host,
as the latter resumed his walk, with the air of a bird
of admired plumage. Nor was the remark of the
Count of Hartenburg misapplied, since his kinsman
and guest had, in reality, expended more labor on his
toilette than was customary in the absence of females,
and in that rude hold. Unlike the stern and
masculine Emich, who rarely divested himself of all
his warlike gear, the sworn defender of the Cross

appeared entirely in a peaceful guise, if the long
rapier that dangled at his side, and which to a much
later period formed an indispensable accompaniment
of one of gentle condition, could be excepted
from the implements of war. His doublet, fully
decorated with embroidery, fringes, and loops, and
dotted with buttons, was of a pale orange stuff, that
was puffed and distended about his person, in the
liberal amplitude of the prevailing fashion. The
nether garment, which scarce appeared, however,
essential as it might be, was of the same material,
and cut with a similar expenditure of cloth. The
hose were pink, and, rolling far above the knee,
gave the effect of a rich coloring to the whole picture.
He wore shoes whose upper-leather rose
high against the small of the leg, buckles that covered
the instep, and about the throat and wrists
there was a lavish display of lace. The well-known
Maltese cross dangled by a red ribbon, at a button-hole
of the doublet; not above the heart, as is the
custom at present among the chevaliers of the other
hemisphere, but, by a vagary of taste, so low as to
demonstrate, if indeed there is any allusion intended
by the accidental position of these jewels, that the
honorable badge was assumed in direct reference to
that material portion of the human frame which is
believed to be the repository of good cheer; an interpretation
that, in the case of Albrecht of Viederbach,
the knight in question, was perhaps much
nearer to the truth than he would have been willing
to own. After poising himself, first on the point of
one shoe, and then on the other, smoothing his
ruffles, shoving the rapier more aside, and otherwise
adjusting his attire to his mind, the professed soldier
of Saint John of Jerusalem pursued the discourse.

“I am decent, kinsman,” he replied; “fit to be
a guest at thy hospitable board, if thou wilt, in the
absence of its fair mistress, but beyond that unworthy

to be named. As for the dames of our unhappy
and violated Rhodes, dear cousin, thou
knowest little of their humors, if thou fanciest that
this rude guise would have any charm in their refined
eyes. Our knights were used to bring into
the island the taste and improvements of every distant
land; and small though it be, there are few portions
of the earth, in which the human arts, for so I
call the decoration of the human body, flourished
more than in our circumscribed, valiant, and much
regretted Rhodes. Thus was it, at least, until the
fell Ottoman triumphed!”

“ 'Fore God, I had thought thee sworn to all
sorts of modesty, in speech, life, and other abstinences!”

“And art thou not sworn, most mutinous Emich,
to obey thy liege lords, the Emperor and the Elector
—nay, for certain of thy lands and privileges, art
thou not bound to knight's service and obedience to
the holy Abbot of Limburg?”

“God's curse on him and on all the others of that
grasping brotherhood!”

“Ay, that is but the natural consequence of thy
oath, as this doublet is of mine. If the rigid performance
of a vow is as agreeable to the body, as we
are taught it may be healthful to the soul, Count of
Leiningen, where would be the merit of observance?
I never don these graceful garments, but a wholesome
remembrance of watchful nights passed on
the ramparts, of painful sieges and watery trenches,
or of sickly cruises against the Mussulmans, do not
present themselves in the shape of past penances.
In this manner do we sweeten sin, by our bodily
pains, and by the memory of hours of virtuous
hardships!”

“By the three sainted Kings of Koeln, and the
eleven thousand virgins of that honored city, Master
Albrecht! but thou wert much favored in thy narrow

island, if it were permitted to thee to sin in this
fashion, with the certainty of tempering punishment
with so light service! These griping monks of
Limburg make much of their favors, and he who
would go with a safe skin, must needs look to an
indulgence had and well paid for, in advance. I
know not the number of goodly casks of the purest
Rhenish that little sallies of humor may have cost
me, first and last, in this manner of princely expenditure;
but certain am I, that did occasion offer,
the united tributes would leave little empty space in
Prince Friedrich's vaunted tun, in his ample cellars
of Heidelberg!”

“I have often heard of that royal receptacle of
generous liquor, and have meditated a pilgrimage
in honor of its capacity. Does the Elector receive
noble travellers with a hospitality suited to his rank
and means?”

“That doth he, and right willingly, though this
war presses sorely, and giveth him other employment.
Thy wayfaring will not be weary, for thou
mayst see the towers of Heidelberg from off these
hills, and a worthy steed might be pricked from this
court of mine into that of Duke Friedrich in a
couple of hours of hard riding.”

“When the merits of thy cellar are exhausted,
noble Emich, it will be in season to put the Tun to
the proof,” replied the Knight of Rhodes, “as our
esteemed friend here, the Abbé, will maintain, in
the face of all the reformers with which our Germany
is infested.”

In introducing another character, we claim the
reader's patience for a moment of digression. Whatever
may be said of the merits and legality of the
Reformation, effected chiefly by the courage of Luther
(and we are neither sectarian nor unbeliever, to
deny the sacred origin of the church from which he
dissented,) it is very generally admitted, that the

long and undisputed sway of the prevailing authority
of that age, had led to abuses, which called
loudly for some change in its administration.
Thousands of those who had devoted their lives to
the administrations of the altar, were quite as
worthy of the sacred office as it falls to man's lot
to become; but thousands had assumed the tonsure,
the cowl, or the other symbols of ecclesiastical duty,
merely to enjoy the immunities and facilities the
character conferred. A long and nearly undisputed
monopoly of letters, the influence obtained by the
unnatural union between secular and religious
power, and the dependent condition of the public
mind, the legitimate consequence of both, induced
all who aspired to moral pre-eminence, to take this,
the most certain, because the most beaten, of the
paths that led to this species of ascendency. It is
not alone to the religion of Christendom, as it existed
in the time of Luther, that we are to look for
an example of the baneful consequence of spiritual
and temporal authority, as blended in human institutions.
Christian or Mahommedan, Catholic or
Protestant, the evil comes in every case from the
besetting infirmity which tempts the strong to oppress
the weak, and the powerful to abuse their
trusts. Against this failing there seems to be no
security but an active and certain responsibility.
So long as the severe morality required of its ministers,
by the Christian faith, is uncorrupted by any
gross admixture of worldly advantage, there is reason
to believe that the altar, at least, will escape
serious defilement; but no sooner are these fatal
enemies admitted to the sanctuary, than a thousand
spirits, prompted by cupidity, rush rashly into the
temple, willing to bear with the outward exactions
of the faith, in order to seek its present and visible
rewards.

However pure may be a social system, or a religion,
in the commencement of its power, the possession
of an undisputed ascendency lures all alike
into excesses fatal to consistency, to justice, and to
truth. This is a consequence of the independent
exercise of human volition, that seems nearly inseparable
from human frailty. We gradually come
to substitute inclination and interest for right, until
the moral foundations of the mind are sapped by indulgence,
and what was once regarded with the
aversion that wrong excites in the innocent, gets to
be not only familiar, but justifiable by expediency
and use. There is no more certain symptom of the
decay of the principles requisite to maintain even
our imperfect standard of virtue, than when the plea
of necessity is urged in vindication of any departure
from its mandate, since it is calling in the
aid of ingenuity to assist the passions, a coalition
that rarely fails to lay prostrate the feeble defences
of a tottering morality.

It is no wonder, then, that the world, at a period
when religious abuses drove even churchmen reluctantly
to seek relief in insubordination, should exhibit
bold instances of the flagrant excesses we have
named. Military ambition, venality, love of ease,
and even love of dissipation, equally sought the
mantle of religion as cloaks to their several objects;
and if the reckless cavalier was willing to flesh his
sword on the body of the infidel, in order that he
might live in men's estimation as a hero of the
cross, so did the trifler, the debauchee, and even
the wit of the capital, consent to obtain circulation
by receiving an impression which gave currency to
all coin, whether of purer or of baser metal, since
it bore the outward stamp of the Church of God.

“Reformers, or rather revilers, for that is the
term they most merit,” returned the Abbé, alluded
to in the last speech of Albrecht of Veiderbach, “I

consign without remorse to the devil. As for this
pledge of our brave Knight of Saint John, noble
Count Emich, so far as I am concerned, it shall be
redeemed: for I am certain the cellars of Heidelberg
can resist a heavier inroad than any that is
likely to invade them by such means. But I am
late from my chamber, and I had hoped, ere this, to
have seen our brethren of Limburg! I hope no unnecessary
misunderstanding is likely to deprive us
of the satisfaction of their presence, Lord Count?”

“Little fear of that, so far as it may depend on
any disappointment in a feast. If ever the devil
tempted these monks of the hill, it has been in the
shape of gluttony. Were I to judge by the experience
of forty years passed in their neighborhood, I
should think they deem abstinence an eighth deadly
sin.”

“Your Benedictine is privileged to consider hospitality
a virtue, and the Abbot has fair license for
the indulgence of some little cheer. We will not
judge them harshly, therefore, but form our opinions
of their merits by their deeds. Thou hast
many servitors without, to do them honor to-night,
Lord Emich.”

The Count of Leiningen frowned, and, ere he
answered, his eye exchanged a glance with that of
his kinsman, which the Abbé might have interpreted
into a hidden meaning, had it attracted his observation.

“My people gather loyally about their lord, for
they have heard of this succor sent by the Elector
to uphold the lazy Benedictines,” was the reply.
“Four hundred mercenaries lie within the Abbey
walls this night, Master Latouche, and it should not
cause surprise that the vassals of Emich of Hartenburg
are ready with hand and sword to do service
in his defence. God's mercy! The cunning priests
may pretend alarm, but if any here hath cause to be

afraid, truly it is the rightful and wronged lord of
the Jaegerthal!”

“Thy situation, Cousin of Hartenburg,” observed
the wearer of the cross of Saint John, “is, in sooth,
one of masterly diplomacy. Here dost thou stand
at sword's point with the Abbot of Limburg, ready
at need to exchange deadly thrusts, and to put this
long-disputed supremacy on the issue of battle, while
thou callest on the keeper of thy cellar to bring forth
the choicest of its contents, in order to do hospitality
and honor to thy mortal foe! This beateth, in all
niceties, Monsieur Latouche, the situation of an
abbé of thy quality, who is scarce churchman
enough to merit salvation, nor yet deep enough in
sin to be incontinently damned in the general mass
of evil-doers.”

“It is to be hoped that we shall share the common
lot of mortals, which is to receive more grace
than they merit,” returned the Abbé, a title that in
fact scarce denoted one seriously devoted to the
Church. “But I trust this present meeting between
the hostile powers may prove amicable; for, not to
conceal the truth, unlike our friend the Knight here,
I am of none of the belligerent orders.”

“Hark!” exclaimed the host, lifting a finger to
command attention: “Heard ye aught?”

“There is much of the music of thy growlers in
the courts, cousin, and some oaths in a German that
needs be translated to be understood; but that blessed
signal the supper-bell is still mute.”

“Go to!—'Tis the Abbot of Limburg and his
brethren, Fathers Siegfried and Cuno. Let us to
the portal, to do them usual honor.”

As this was welcome news to both the Knight
and the Abbé, they manifested a suitable desire to
be foremost in paying the required attention to a
personage, as important in that region as the rich
and powerful chief of the neighboring religious establishment.