University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

When Ulrike found herself fairly closeted with
the Count and her husband, and was quietly seated
on the stool which the former, spite of the latter's
protestations to the contrary, had insisted on her
taking, she cast her mild eyes about her, with that
expressive and touching appeal that a woman is apt
to make, when she feels called on to act as the adviser,
if not the guardian, of him whom nature intended
and the law presumes, is both able and willing
to discharge those offices for her. Notwithstanding
Heinrich's obstinacy and masculine swaggering,
many occasions had arrived, in the course of their
matrimonial life, to produce a latent conviction in
both, that the order of things was a little inverted,
as respects judgment and moral authority, by inclining
one to lean, though with but an indifferent grace,
where he should have supported; and tempting the
other, at times, to overstep her sex's duties, though
it was always done with an intuitive perception of
her sex's seemliness and means.

“For this condescension I thank my Lord Emich,
and thee, Heinrich,” commenced the thoughtful matron;
“for it is not, at all times, advisable for the
wife to intrude unbidden even to her husband's
presence.”

A significant ejaculation, which might almost
merit a coarser term, was the manner in which the
Burgomaster expressed his assent, during the brief
pause that succeeded this excuse of Ulrike. The
more courteous host bowed with sufficient respect,
though, even by his manner, it was evident he was

getting impatient to know the real motive of the interruption.

“We are too well pleased to receive thee, to remember
the usages and rights of manhood,” answered
the latter, with a kindness of manner that
was insensibly extorted by the winning and feminine
qualities of her he addressed, and which, in some
degree, softened the pretensions of his language—
“Proceed with thy matter, for none can be more
ready to listen.”

“Thou hearest, good Ulrike! the Herr Count is
willing to remember thou art a Burgomaster's consort;
and, as he is pleased to say, we are truly impatient
to be let into the cause of thy sudden visit.”

The thoughtful Ulrike received this encouragement
like one accustomed to be treated, in some
measure, as a being inferior in capacity and force
to her husband, but not without a shade like that
which is produced by unmerited humiliation. Smiling—and
few, even in early and attractive youth,
had so sweet an expression, when her countenance
thus gleamed, whether it were in pleasure, or in
melancholy—smiling, as it might be, partly in female
gentleness, and partly in sadness, she commenced
the purport of her visit, coming, however, to her
true object with great reserve and with the caution
of a woman accustomed to influence, rather than to
control.

“For the great kindness and condescension of the
Herr Emich, in behalf of Heinrich Frey, and of all
that are his, no one is more grateful than I,” she
said; “if I may now seem to trouble him with the
concerns of a family on which he has already so
freely lavished favors”—

“And friendship, good Ulrike.”

“And friendship, since you permit me, noble
Count, to use the word—but, if I now seem to trespass
beyond breeding, by troubling your mind with

a concern that is so remote from your own interests,
I trust you will remember a mother's tenderness,
and think of the highborn Ermengarde, whose anxiety
for her own offspring may furnish some excuse
for that I feel for mine.”

“Hath aught befell the blooming Meta?”

“God's my life!” exclaimed the troubled Heinrich,
abandoning his much-prized seat, in the suddenness
of paternal alarm. “Hath the wench suffered
from the over-rich eels of the Rhine? or is
she massed to death by these accursed monks?”

“Our child is well in the body, and, the blessed
Maria be praised! she is pure and innocent in mind,”
returned Ulrike. “I have little cause for aught but
gratitude in either of these behalfs;—but, she is of
an age when girlish fancies become unsettled, and
the flexible female spirit seeks impressions from
others than those whom nature hath made its guardians.”

“This is some of thy usual incomprehensibilities,
good woman, and language that is not easily understood
by any but thyself. The noble Graf hath no
leisure to hunt up new ideas to maintain a discourse
in subtleties. Had the girl indeed tasted too freely
of the rare dish which the honest Burgomaster of
Mannheim so kindly sent me, as I at first feared, no
doubt the means to cure might be found in Hartenburg;
but thou askest too much, wife of mine, when
thou wouldest have any but thine own husband enter
into all the cunning niceties that sometimes beset thy
imagination.”

“Nay, Master Heinrich, here may be more urgent
matter than thou thinkest; thy dame is not a
woman whose opinions are to be neglected. Wilt
proceed with thy recital, good Ulrike?”

“Our child is at that period of life,” continued the
mother, too much accustomed to the manner of her
husband to permit it to divert her thoughts from

their main intention—“when the young of every
sort begin to think of the future. It is a principle
that God hath implanted, Herr Emich, and therefore
it is for good; and we, who have watched over the
infancy of our offspring with so much anxiety, have
trained their youth with so much care, and have so
often trembled for their noon-time, must, sooner or
later, consent to loosen the sweet ties that bind us
to our second selves, in order that the great ends of
the creation shall be accomplished.”

“Umph!” ejaculated Heinrich.

“Nay, gentle Ulrike,” said the Count, “maternal
love hath drawn this picture in stronger colors than
may be necessary. When the time for matrimony
comes, God's my life! daughter of thine and honest
Heinrich Frey, need not wear maiden's coif a day
longer than is necessary to do suitable reverence to
the church. Here have I youths, out of number,
that look to the house of Leiningen for grace, any
one of whom would be glad to wive with the damsel
I should name. There is young Friedrich Zantzinger,
the orphan of my last deputy in the villages
of the plain; he is a lad that would gladly do harder
service to gain my love.”

“When old Friedrich left the boy fatherless, he
left him without a penny,” drily rejoined the Burgomaster.

“That is a fault which might be mended; but I
have others that can be named. What thinkest thou
of the eldest son of my Heidelburg attorney, worthy
Conrad Walther?”

“Curse the knave! I hate him from my heart.”

“Thou art warm, Master Heinrich, against one
that I both trust and favor.”

“I cry your mercy, Herr Graf; but a sudden
rising of the bile, at the mention of the fellow's name,
got the better of respect,” answered the Burgomaster,
with more moderation, who, as he saw by the

lowering look of Emich's brow, the necessity of
explanation, continued, with rather more openness
than he might have thought necessary under circumstances
of less urgency: “Perhaps the high-bron
Count was never possessed of the matter of our late
controversy?”

“Nay, I pretend not to judge my friends,—”

“Let but my lord condescend to hear me, and I
leave him arbiter between us. It is well known to
you, Herr Emich, that collections were made, and
charity asked, in behalf of the peasants who suffered,
the past year, from the sudden rising of the Rhine.
Among others, the good Christians of our town were
importuned for succor; and, for none will deny
that it was a sad visitation of Providence, we gave
freely as became our several means. To prevent
improper uses of money, in all cases of liberal
donations, the sealed bond of the donor, at a near
day, was asked in preference to the silver; and mine
was granted for the fair sum of twelve crowns, as
a poor donation suited to my hopes and station. It
so fell out, Herr Graf, that those charged with the
distribution had occasion for their money before the
instruments were up; and they sent agents among
us, in order to enter into such negotiations as the
cases might need. Gold was scarce at the moment;
and because, in regaining my bond, I had a heedful
regard to mine own interests, the misdealing Conrad
would fain transport me, like a thief, before the authorities
of Heidelburg, to undergo the penalties of
a usurer. Son of his shall never call me father,
with your gracious leave, nobly-born Count of Leiningen!”

“This truly offereth some impediment to the
affair; but, failing of young Conrad, I have others
that may be accounted worthy of this advantage.
So put thy maternal heart at ease, good Ulrike, and
trust to my active friendship to dispose of the girl.”

“The Burgomaster's consort had been a patient
listener during the short but characteristic digression
of her husband. Trained in the opinions of the
times, she did not possibly endure all that a mother
and a wife, of equal native sensibility, might now
suffer at so evident a debasement of her sex; but as
the laws of nature are permanent, neither did she
escape a pang of wounded feeling as she heard the
different expedients that were so hastily devised for
the future disposal of one who formed her chief happiness
in life. There was less of that hectic color,
which commonly gave a lustre to eyes that were
by nature rather melancholy than bright, and her
voice was fuller of emotion than before, as she continued.

“For all this heed of me and mine, I again thank
the Herr Count; but there is a power that is stronger
with the young than the counsel of the experienced,
or even than the wishes of their friends,” she said.
“My intent, in intruding myself unbidden into this
secret conference, was to say that Meta had listened
to the voice of her sympathies more than to the
usages of her class, and chosen for herself.”

The Count and Heinrich Frey stared at the speaker
in mute surprise, for neither fully comprehended her
meaning; while Ulrike herself, one of her objects being
accomplished, in having made this long-dreaded
declaration in the presence of a person able to repress
the anger of her husband, sate silent, inwardly
trembling for the consequences.

“Wilt thou explain the meaning of thy worthy
consort, Herr Heinrich?” abruptly asked the Count.

“Zum Henker! you ask me to perform an office,
Lord Count, that might better fit a Benedictine, or
a clerk. When Ulrike, who is an excellent and
obedient companion in the main, once gets upon the
stilts of fancy, I never pretend to be able to raise
an idea to the level of her shoe-buckle. Go to! thou

hast well spoken, wife of mine; and it will now be
better to seek our child, lest yonder cavalier of
Rhodes be oiling her ears with the unction of flattery.”

“Nay, by my house's honors! but I will know
more of this matter, thy fair and virtuous consort
consenting, Master Heinrich. Wilt explain thyself
freely, dame?”

Whether it be from the instinct of weakness and
delicacy, or only the fruit of precepts constantly
inculcated, a virtuous woman rarely admits the existence
of the sentiment of love, either in herself or
in any that is dear to her, without a feeling of shame,
and possibly not without an intuitive knowledge
that she is conceding some of the vantage-ground
of her sex's privileges.

This feeling was apparent in Ulrike, by the slow
but complete suffusion of her cheek, and by the manner
in which her looks avoided those of Emich, spite
of the self-possession and calm of her years.

“I would merely say, Herr Emich,” she replied,
“that Meta, like all who are young and innocent,
hath fancied an image of perfection, and that she
hath found an original for her picture in a youth of
the Jaegerthal. While of this mind, she cannot, in
honesty or in maidenly respect, become the bride
of any other than him she loves.”

“The affair grows clearer,” returned the Count,
smiling like one who took no very deep interest in
the matter; “and it is as well explained as heart
could wish—at least, heart of the youth in question.
What thinkest thou of this, Herr Burgomaster?”

The comprehension of Heinrich Frey could not
altogether misconceive so plain an explanation, and,
since the moment when his wife had ceased speaking,
he sat regarding her mild but troubled countenance,
with parted lips and open eyes, like a man that first

learns some unlooked-for intelligence of great moment.

“Herr Teufel!” exclaimed Heinrich, taking up
the last words of the Baron, unconscious of the
disrespect of what he did—“Art talking of our own
natural-born child?”

“Of none other. In whom else have I this motherly
affection?—or for what other can I feel this deep
concern?”

“Dost mean that Meta—my daughter, Meta
Frey—hath inclination for son of woman, except it
may be the natural love and reverence she beareth
her own father?—that the girl hath truant and free
fancies?”

“I say nothing to give this opinion of Meta—my
daughter, Meta,” returned Ulrike, with womanly
dignity. “Our child has done no more than listened
to the secret whisperings of nature; and, in yielding
her affections to a youth whom she hath often seen,
and long known, she hath merely paid an homage
to merit, that the most virtuous are the most apt to
yield.”

“Go to, Ulrike! Thou art well enough among
thy household, and a woman for whom I have esteem;
but these visions with which thou art so often
troubled, give thee an air, at times, of being of less
discernment than thou mayest fairly claim to be.
Excuse the dame, Herr Count; for, though her own
husband, and a little weak on the subject of her infirmities
perhaps, there is not a more thrifty manager,
a more faithful spouse, or a kinder mother in the
Palatinate.”

“Nay, thou little need say this to me! None
know the worth of Ulrike better; and, I may add,
few respect her so much. It were well to hear
further of this matter, Heinrich; for, to treat thee in
candor, there may lay more beneath this opening
of the excellent wife, than is at first apparent.

Our Meta hath seen the qualities of some worthy
youth sooner than they have struck the eye of her
quick-sighted father, thou wouldst say. Is it not so,
dame?”

“I would say that the heart of my child is so
closely bound in that of another, as to leave little
hope of happiness, should her matrimonial duties
teach her to forget him.”

“Thou thinkest then, good dame, that the young
fancies of a female, when once indulged, are not to
be removed by the offices of wife and mother?—
that a caprice of the imagination is stronger than a
vow made at the altar?”

Though the eyes of both the Count and the Burgomaster
were riveted on the fine and speaking countenance
of Ulrike, the volume of eloquent nature,
that was thus opened to their observation, proved
little better than a blank. Strong and dramatic exhibitions
of feeling require but little interpretation for
the dullest faculties; but few indeed are they who
are capable of comprehending the secret workings
of a spirit chastened and restrained as that of a
virtuous, but unhappily paired woman. There is,
perhaps, no one aspect of human nature more common-place,
or more easily understood, than that
which is hourly offered by a worldly-minded and
capricious fair. She runs her little career, seemingly
as erratic as a comet, though, in truth, her course
is always to be calculated on the infallible principles
of vanity and selfishness; but no secret is more hermetically
sealed against impertinent and vulgar
curiosity, than the elevated sentiments which sustain
the suffering and silent female who is truly instinct
with the high qualities of her sex.

We are no railer at the domination of man; for
we are persuaded that he who would wish to transform
the being that was created to be his solacer
and companion—his guide in moral darkness, and

his sharer in sorrow as in joy—into a worldly competitor,
changing love and confidence to rivalry
and contention, is but miserably instructed in that
sublime ordinance of nature, which has thus separated
the highest order of its creation into two great
classes, so replete with mutual consolation and happiness.

Had the wife of the Burgomaster arisen, and, in
chosen terms, made an appeal to the sympathies of
her companions, in which language should unite
with manner to produce an effect, she might have
been understood, as the every-day reader understands
all such pictures of female character; but
where she sat, silent, suffering, and meek, she was
completely concealed from any means of comprehension
possessed by either. Her eye did not
kindly, for long and patient subordination had taught
her to submit to the misconstructions of her husband;
nor scarcely did the faint color of her cheek
deepen, since the load at her heart counteracted
the natural impulses of pride and resentment.

“I think, Lord Count, that when an innocent and
youthful female heart yields to a power that nature
perhaps has made irresistible,” she said, “it, at
least, merits to be treated tenderly. Meta hath
few fancies of the kind you mention; and the attachment
she feels, though doubtless deepened by those
colors which the least experienced in the truths
of life are the most apt to paint, is but the natural
consequence of much association, and of great deserving
on the part of the young man.”

“This is getting to be plain, Herr Emich,” said
Heinrich Frey, pithily, “and must needs be looked
to. Wilt condescend to name the youth thou meanest,
Ulrike?”

“Berchthold Hintermayer.”

“Berchthold Teufelstein!” exclaimed the Burgomaster,
laughing, though there was something like

a secret consciousness of danger in the very manner
in which he gave loose to his merriment. “A penniless
boy is truly a fit husband for child of mine!”

The quiet, blue eye of Ulrike was fastened on her
husband; but she averted it with sensitive haste,
lest it might betray that she was thinking of the time
when her own father had consented to her marriage
with one nearly as poor, merely because the penetration
of the parent had discovered those qualities
of prudence and gainful industry in his townsman,
which after-experience so fully developed.

“He is not rich, Heinrich,” was her answer; “but
he is worthy: and why need a chill be thrown on
the heart of Meta, for the desire of that which she
already hath in sufficient plenty?”

“Hear you this, Herr Emich? My wife is lifting
the curtain of privacy before your respected eyes,
with a freedom for which I could fain cry mercy.”

“Berchthold is a youth I love,” gravely observed
the Count.

“In that case, I shall say nothing disrespectful of
the lad, who is a worthy forester, and in all things
suited to his service in the family of Hartenburg;
still, he is but a forester, and a very penniless one.
I had not thought to dispose of the girl so soon, for
a little maidenly leisure does none of the sex injury,
Lord Count; but as she hath her head set upon this
Berchthold, it may be well to wrap it in a matron's
coif, by way of filling it with ideas more suited to
her hopes.”

“The remedy may prove fatal, Heinrich!” mildly
observed Ulrike, raising her tearful eye to the obstinate
features of the Burgomaster.

“Nay, I ought to know the constitution of the
family; what has so well succeeded with the mother,
cannot harm the child.”

The wife did not reply. But Emich of Hartenburg
had been deeply interested by her gentle and

winning manner, for he had watched her countenance
closely, and understood the womanly effort
by which the appearance of calm was preserved.
Turning to the Burgomaster, he laid a hand on his
shoulder, with a friendly smile, and said—

“Herr Heinrich, thou hast a fair and gentle consort;
but, I think, too, thou hast scarce less faith in
me than in thy wife. Give us leave; I would fain
reason this matter with Ulrike, without the aid of
thy influence.”

“A thousand thanks for the honor to me and mine,
high-born Count! As to faith, I would leave the
dame a year on Limburg-hill, without other thought
than for her convenience; for none know the worth
of Ulrike better, though she is so difficult to comprehend
when her fancy is moulting. Now kiss me,
dame, and prithee do no dishonor to the Count's
counsel.”

Thus saying, Heinrich Frey placed a hearty kiss
on the soft cheek that the obedient Ulrike freely
offered, and left his wife alone with the noble, without
other thought than of the high distinction that was
conferred on his name. The manner in which he
prized the notice of the Baron was sufficiently manifested
by the readiness with which he communicated
the circumstance that Emich and his consort were
closeted, on an affair touching the interests of the
family of Frey, to all who would listen to his tale.