The Dove in the Eagle's Nest by Charlotte M. Yonge (best book club books TXT) 📕

chain, not a brooch, not an approach to an ornament among the three, except the medal that had always distinguished Ebbo, and the coral rosary at Christina's girdle. Her own trinkets had gone in masses for the souls of her father and husband; and though a few costly jewels had been found in Frau Kunigunde's hoards, the mode of their acquisition was so doubtful, that it had seemed fittest to bestow them in alms and masses for the good of her soul.

"What ornament, what glory could any one desire better than two such sons?" thought Christina, as for the first time for eighteen years she crossed the wild ravine where her father had led her, a trembling little captive, longing for wings like a dove's to flutter home again. Who would then have predicted that she should descend after so long and weary a time, and with a gallant boy on either side of her, eager to aid her every step, and reassure her at each giddy pass, all joy and hope before her and them? Yet she was not without some dread and misgiving, as she watched her elder son, always attentive to her, but unwontedly silent, with a stern gravity on his young brow, a proud sadness on his lip. And when he had come to the Debateable Ford, and was about to pass the boundaries of his own lands, he turned and gazed back on the castle and mountain with a silent but passionate ardour, as though he felt himself doing them a wrong by perilling their independence.

The sun had lately set, and the moon was silvering the Danube, when the travellers came full in view of the imperial free city, girt in with mighty walls and towers--the vine-clad hill dominated by its crowning church; the irregular outlines of the unfinished spire of the cathedral traced in mysterious dark lacework against the pearly sky; the lofty steeple-like gate-tower majestically guarding the bridge. Christina clasped her hands in thankfulness, as at the familiar face of a friend; Friedel glowed like a minstrel introduced to his fair dame, long wooed at a distance; Ebbo could not but exclaim, "Yea, truly, a great city is a solemn and a glorious sight!"

The gates were closed, and the serving-men had to parley at the barbican ere the heavy door was opened to admit the party to the bridge, between deep battlemented stone walls, with here and there loopholes, showing the shimmering of the river beneath. The slow, tired tread of the old mare sounded hollow; the river rushed below with the full swell of evening loudness; a deep-toned convent-bell tolled gravely through the stillness, while, between its reverberations, clear, distinct notes of joyous music were borne on the summer wind, and a nightingale sung in one of the gardens that bordered the banks.

"Mother, it is all that I dreamt!" breathlessly murmured Friedel, as they halted under the dark arch of the great gateway tower.

Not however in Friedel's dreams had been the hearty voice that proceeded from the lighted guard-room in the thickness of the gateway. "Freiherrinn von Adlerstein! Is it she? Then must I greet my old playmate!" And the captain of the watch appeared among upraised lanterns and torches that showed a broad, smooth, plump face beneath a plain steel helmet.

"Welcome, gracious lady, welcome to your old city. What! do you not remember Lippus Grundt, your poor Valentine?"

"Master Philip Grundt!" exclaimed Christina, amazed at the breadth of visage and person; "and how fares it with my good Regina?"

"Excellent well, good lady. She manages her trade and house as well as the good man Bartolaus Fleischer himself. Blithe will she be to show you her goodly ten, as I shall my eight," he continued, walking by her side; "and Barbara--you remember Barbara Schmidt, lady--"

"My dear Barbara?--That do I indeed! Is she your wife?"

"Ay, truly, lady," he answered, in an odd sort of apologetic tone; "you see, you returned not, and the housefathers, they would have it so--and Barbara is a good housewife."

"Truly do I rejoice!" said Christina, wishing she could convey to him how welcome he had been to marry any one he liked, as far as she was concerned--he, in whom her fears of mincing goldsmiths had always taken form--then signing with her hand, "I have my sons likewise to show her."

"Ah, on foot!" muttered Grundt, as a not well-conceived apology for not having saluted the young gentlemen. "I greet you well, sirs," with a bow, most haughtily returned by Ebbo, who was heartily wishing himself on his mountain. "Two lusty, well-grown Junkern indeed, to whom my Martin will be proud to show the humours of Ulm. A fair good night, lady! You will find the old folks right cheery."

Well did Christina know the turn down the street, darkened by the overhanging brows of the tall houses, but each lower window laughing with the glow of light within that threw out the heavy mullions and the circles and diamonds of the latticework, and here and there the brilliant tints of stained glass sparkled like jewels in the upper panes, pictured with Scripture scene, patron saint, or trade emblem. The familiar porch was reached, the familiar knock resounded on the iron-studded door. Friedel lifted his mother from her horse, and felt that she was quivering from head to foot, and at the same moment the light streamed from the open door on the white horse, and the two young faces, one eager, the other with knit brows and uneasy eyes. A kind of echo pervaded the house, "She is come! she is come!" and as one in a dream Christina entered, crossed the well-known hall, looked up to her uncle and aunt on the stairs, perceived little change on their countenances, and sank upon her knees, with bowed head and clasped hands.

"My child! my dear child!" exclaimed her uncle, raising her with one hand, and crossing her brow in benediction with the other. "Art thou indeed returned?" and he embraced her tenderly.

"Welcome, fair niece!" said Hausfrau Johanna, more formally. "I am right glad to greet you here."

"Dear, dear mother!" cried Christina, courting her fond embrace by gestures of the most eager affection, "how have I longed for this moment! and, above all, to show you my boys! Herr Uncle, let me present my sons--my Eberhard, my Friedmund. O Housemother, are not my twins well-grown lads?" And she stood with a hand on each, proud that their heads were so far above her own, and looking still so slight and girlish in figure that she might better have been their sister than their mother. The cloud that the sudden light had revealed on Ebbo's brow had cleared away, and he made an inclination neither awkward nor ungracious in its free mountain dignity and grace, but not devoid of mountain rusticity and shy pride, and far less cordial than was Friedel's manner. Both were infinitely relieved to detect nothing of the greasy burgher, and were greatly struck with the fine venerable head before them; indeed, Friedel would, like his mother, have knelt to ask a blessing, had he not been under command not to outrun his brother's advances towards her kindred.

"Welcome, fair Junkern!" said Master Gottfried; "welcome both for your mother's sake and your own! These thy sons, my little one?" he added, smiling. "Art sure I neither dream nor see double! Come to the gallery, and let me see thee better."

And, ceremoniously giving his hand, he proceeded to lead his niece up the stairs, while Ebbo, labouring under ignorance of city forms and uncertainty of what befitted his dignity, presented his hand to his aunt with an air that half-amused, half-offended the shrewd dame.

"All is as if I had left you but yesterday!" exclaimed Christina. "Uncle, have you pardoned me? You bade me return when my work was done."

"I should have known better, child. Such return is not to be sought on this side the grave. Thy work has been more than I then thought of."

"Ah! and now will you deem it begun--not done!" softly said Christina, though with too much heartfelt exultation greatly to doubt that all the world must be satisfied with two such boys, if only Ebbo would be his true self.

The luxury of the house, the wainscoted and tapestried walls, the polished furniture, the lamps and candles, the damask linen, the rich array of silver, pewter, and brightly-coloured glass, were a great contrast to the bare walls and scant necessaries of Schloss Adlerstein; but Ebbo was resolved not to expose himself by admiration, and did his best to stifle Friedel's exclamations of surprise and delight. Were not these citizens to suppose that everything was tenfold more costly at the baronial castle? And truly the boy deserved credit for the consideration for his mother, which made him merely reserved, while he felt like a wild eagle in a poultry-yard. It was no small proof of his affection to forbear more interference with his mother's happiness than was the inevitable effect of that intuition which made her aware that he was chafing and ill at ease. For his sake, she allowed herself to be placed in the seat of honour, though she longed, as of old, to nestle at her uncle's feet, and be again his child; but, even while she felt each acceptance of a token of respect as almost an injury to them, every look and tone was showing how much the same Christina she had returned.

In truth, though her life had been mournful and oppressed, it had not been such as to age her early. It had been all submission, without wear and tear of mind, and too simple in its trials for care and moiling; so the fresh, lily-like sweetness of her maiden bloom was almost intact, and, much as she had undergone, her once frail health had been so braced by the mountain breezes, that, though delicacy remained, sickliness was gone from her appearance. There was still the exquisite purity and tender modesty of expression, but with greater sweetness in the pensive brown eyes.

"Ah, little one!" said her uncle, after duly contemplating her; "the change is all for the better! Thou art grown a wondrously fair dame. There will scarce be a lovelier in the Kaiserly train."

Ebbo almost pardoned his great-uncle for being his great-uncle.

"When she is arrayed as becomes the Frau Freiherrinn," said the housewife aunt, looking with concern at the coarse texture of her black sleeve. "I long to see our own lady ruffle it in her new gear. I am glad that the lofty pointed cap has passed out; the coif becomes my child far better, and I see our tastes still accord as to fashion."

"Fashion scarce came above the Debateable Ford," said Christina, smiling. "I fear my boys look as if they came out of the Weltgeschichte, for I could only shape their garments after my remembrance of the gallants of eighteen years ago."

"Their garments are your own shaping!" exclaimed the aunt, now in an accent of real, not conventional respect.

"Spinning and weaving, shaping and sewing," said Friedel, coming near to let the housewife examine the texture.

"Close woven, even threaded, smooth tinted! Ah, Stina, thou didst learn something! Thou wert not quite spoilt by the housefather's books and carvings."

"I cannot tell whose teachings have served me best, or been the most precious to me," said Christina,