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

or bird?"

"Bird, folly! Thou couldst see no bird less than an eagle from hence," said Ebbo. "No doubt they are about to hoist a banner."

"That is not their wont," returned Sir Kasimir.

"I see him," interrupted Ebbo. "Nay, but he is a bold climber! We went up to that stage, close to the balcony, but there's no footing beyond but crockets and canopies."

"And a bit of rotten scaffold," added Friedel. "Perhaps he is a builder going to examine it! Up higher, higher!"

"A builder!" said Ebbo; "a man with a head and foot like that should be a chamois hunter! Shouldst thou deem it worse than the Red Eyrie, Friedel?"

"Yea, truly! The depth beneath is plainer! There would be no climbing there without--"

"Without what, cousin?" asked Wildschloss.

"Without great cause," said Friedel. "It is fearful! He is like a fly against the sky."

"Beaten again!" muttered Ebbo; "I did think that none of these town- bred fellows could surpass us when it came to a giddy height! Who can he be?"

"Look! look!" burst out Friedel. "The saints protect him! He is on that narrowest topmost ledge--measuring; his heel is over the parapet--half his foot!"

"Holding on by the rotten scaffold pole! St. Barbara be his speed; but he is a brave man!" shouted Ebbo. "Oh! the pole has broken."

"Heaven forefend!" cried Wildschloss, with despair on his face unseen by the boys, for Friedel had hidden his eyes, and Ebbo was straining his with the intense gaze of horror. He had carried his glance downwards, following the 380 feet fall that must be the lot of the adventurer. Then looking up again he shouted, "I see him! I see him! Praise to St. Barbara! He is safe! He has caught by the upright stone work."

"Where? where? Show me!" cried Wildschloss, grasping Ebbo's arm.

"There! clinging to that upright bit of tracery, stretching his foot out to yonder crocket."

"I cannot see. Mine eyes swim and dazzle," said Wildschloss. "Merciful heavens! is this another tempting of Providence? How is it with him now, Ebbo?"

"Swarming down another slender bit of the stone network. It must be easy now to one who could keep head and hand steady in such a shock."

"There!" added Friedel, after a breathless space, "he is on the lower parapet, whence begins the stair. Do you know him, sir? Who is he?"

"Either a Venetian mountebank," said Wildschloss, "or else there is only one man I know of either so foolhardy or so steady of head."

"Be he who he may," said Ebbo, "he is the bravest man that ever I beheld. Who is he, Sir Kasimir?"

"An eagle of higher flight than ours, no doubt," said Wildschloss. "But come; we shall reach the Dome Kirk by the time the climber has wound his way down the turret stairs, and we shall see what like he is."

Their coming was well timed, for a small door at the foot of the tower was just opening to give exit to a very tall knight, in one of those short Spanish cloaks the collar of which could be raised so as to conceal the face. He looked to the right and left, and had one hand raised to put up the collar when he recognized Sir Kasimir, and, holding out both hands, exclaimed, "Ha, Adlerstein! well met! I looked to see thee here. No unbonneting; I am not come yet. I am at Strasburg, with the Kaisar and the Archduke, and am not here till we ride in, in purple and in pall by the time the good folk have hung out their arras, and donned their gold chains, and conned their speeches, and mounted their mules."

"Well that their speeches are not over the lykewake of his kingly kaisarly highness," gravely returned Sir Kasimir.

"Ha! Thou sawest? I came out here to avoid the gaping throng, who don't know what a hunter can do. I have been in worse case in the Tyrol. Snowdrifts are worse footing than stone vine leaves."

"Where abides your highness?" asked Wildschloss.

"I ride back again to the halting-place for the night, and meet my father in time to do my part in the pageant. I was sick of the addresses, and, moreover, the purse-proud Flemings have made such a stiff little fop of my poor boy that I am ashamed to look at him, or hear his French accent. So I rode off to get a view of this notable Dom in peace, ere it be bedizened in holiday garb; and one can't stir without all the Chapter waddling after one."

"Your highness has found means of distancing them."

"Why, truly, the Prior would scarce delight in the view from yonder parapet," laughed his highness. "Ha! Adlerstein, where didst get such a perfect pair of pages? I would I could match my hounds as well."

"They are no pages of mine, so please you," said the knight; "rather this is the head of my name. Let me present to your kingly highness the Freiherr von Adlerstein."

"Thou dost not thyself distinguish between them!" said Maximilian, as Friedmund stepped back, putting forward Eberhard, whose bright, lively smile of interest and admiration had been the cause of his cousin's mistake. They would have doffed their caps and bent the knee, but were hastily checked by Maximilian. "No, no, Junkern, I shall owe you no thanks for bringing all the street on me!--that's enough. Reserve the rest for Kaisar Fritz." Then, familiarly taking Sir Kasimir's arm, he walked on, saying, "I remember now. Thou wentest after an inheritance from the old Mouser of the Debateable Ford, and wert ousted by a couple of lusty boys sprung of a peasant wedlock."

"Nay, my lord, of a burgher lady, fair as she is wise and virtuous; who, spite of all hindrances, has bred up these youths in all good and noble nurture."

"Is this so?" said the king, turning sharp round on the twins. "Are ye minded to quit freebooting, and come a crusading against the Turks with me?"

"Everywhere with such a leader!" enthusiastically exclaimed Ebbo.

"'What? up there?" said Maximilian, smiling. "Thou hast the tread of a chamois-hunter."

"Friedel has been on the Red Eyrie," exclaimed Ebbo; then, thinking he had spoken foolishly, he coloured.

"Which is the Red Eyrie?" good-humouredly asked the king.

"It is the crag above our castle," said Friedel, modestly.

"None other has been there," added Ebbo, perceiving his auditor's interest; "but he saw the eagle flying away with a poor widow's kid, and the sight must have given him wings, for we never could find the same path; but here is one of the feathers he brought down"--taking off his cap so as to show a feather rather the worse for wear, and sheltered behind a fresher one.

"Nay," said Friedel, "thou shouldst say that I came to a ledge where I had like to have stayed all night, but that ye all came out with men and ropes."

"We know what such a case is!" said the king. "It has chanced to us to hang between heaven and earth; I've even had the Holy Sacrament held up for my last pious gaze by those who gave me up for lost on the mountain-side. Adlerstein? The peak above the Braunwasser? Some day shall ye show me this eyrie of yours, and we will see whether we can amaze our cousins the eagles. We see you at our father's court to-morrow?" he graciously added, and Ebbo gave a ready bow of acquiescence.

"There," said the king, as after their dismissal he walked on with Sir Kasimir, "never blame me for rashness and imprudence. Here has this height of the steeple proved the height of policy. It has made a loyal subject of a Mouser on the spot."

"Pray Heaven it may have won a heart, true though proud!" said Wildschloss; "but mousing was cured before by the wise training of the mother. Your highness will have taken out the sting of submission, and you will scarce find more faithful subjects."

"How old are the Junkern?"

"Some sixteen years, your highness."

"That is what living among mountains does for a lad. Why could not those thrice-accursed Flemish towns let me breed up my boy to be good for something in the mountains, instead of getting duck-footed and muddy-witted in the fens?"

In the meantime Ebbo and Friedel were returning home in that sort of passion of enthusiasm that ingenuous boyhood feels when first brought into contact with greatness or brilliant qualities.

And brilliance was the striking point in Maximilian. The Last of the Knights, in spite of his many defects, was, by personal qualities, and the hereditary influence of long-descended rank, verily a king of men in aspect and demeanour, even when most careless and simple. He was at this time a year or two past thirty, unusually tall, and with a form at once majestic and full of vigour and activity; a noble, fair, though sunburnt countenance; eyes of dark gray, almost black; long fair hair, a keen aquiline nose, a lip only beginning to lengthen to the characteristic Austrian feature, an expression always lofty, sometimes dreamy, and yet at the same time full of acuteness and humour. His abilities were of the highest order, his purposes, especially at this period of his life, most noble and becoming in the first prince of Christendom; and, if his life were a failure, and his reputation unworthy of his endowments, the cause seems to have been in great measure the bewilderment and confusion that unusual gifts sometimes cause to their possessor, whose sight their conflicting illumination dazzles so as to impair his steadiness of aim, while their contending gleams light him into various directions, so that one object is deserted for another ere its completion. Thus Maximilian cuts a figure in history far inferior to that made by his grandson, Charles V., whom he nevertheless excelled in every personal quality, except the most needful of all, force of character; and, in like manner, his remote descendant, the narrow-minded Ferdinand of Styria, gained his ends, though the able and brilliant Joseph II. was to die broken-hearted, calling his reign a failure and mistake. However, such terms as these could not be applied to Maximilian with regard to home affairs. He has had hard measure from those who have only regarded his vacillating foreign policy, especially with respect to Italy--ever the temptation and the bane of Austria; but even here much of his uncertain conduct was owing to the unfulfilled promises of what he himself called his "realm of kings," and a sovereign can only justly be estimated by his domestic policy. The contrast of the empire before his time with the subsequent Germany is that of chaos with order. Since the death of Friedrich II. the Imperial title had been a mockery, making the prince who chanced to bear it a mere mark for the spite of his rivals; there was no centre of justice, no appeal; everybody might make war on everybody, with the sole preliminary of exchanging a challenge; "fist-right" was the acknowledged law of the land; and, except in the free cities, and under such a happy accident as a right-minded prince here