Albrecht. Bates Arlo
bathed in the golden light of the dying sun, lay the peaks of the Alps. White and pure as crystal the snowy summits rose toward the sky, while lower the slopes were flushed to rosy pink, or dyed to strange and lovely hues of gold and crimson and purple. From a cloud of rainbow colors soared the rosy peaks, fairer than dreams.
Erna checked her horse, and her companion did the same, although he seemed not fully to comprehend her enthusiasm.
"It is like heaven," she sighed. "Only once before in my whole life have I seen the Alps like that; they are not often to be seen from here."
Albrecht did not answer, but gazed upon the distant mountains, as if he were trying to understand why their appearance should affect his companion so strongly. As they gazed, the hues on the sides of the hills deepened; the rose and gold of the peaks faded; the white of the summits seemed to become transparent, as if one could see through them into the sky beyond; and little by little the sharp outline blended with the quickly dimming heaven against which they had stood out in relief. The shadow of the lower world crept upward; and as they stood there the glorious vision vanished. Only an empty sky where the dimness of night was growing lay in the distance before them in place of the beauty they had seen.
"It was like heaven," Erna said again, as she started her palfrey.
"Then," responded her companion, in a tone of deep gravity, "one must have a soul to appreciate it."
She turned and looked at him questioningly; but with one of those quick changes of mood which always seemed to her so surprising in so manly a knight, he burst into a merry laugh, and began in his rich voice to sing a gay hunting-song.
V
HOW THEY DISCOURSED OF KISSES
The damsel Elsa was a trim and comely maid, with a bright eye and a ready tongue, of which the men and youths of the castle had learned to have a wholesome fear. She went about her affairs singing pleasant ditties, and one morning she crossed the great hall where Baron Albrecht was waiting for the countess, with whom he was to ride out, as had become much their fashion now; and as she went, she sang in her sweet, clear voice a little love-song that ran in this wise:
"When winter howls across the wold,
And all the gates are fast,
Then is thine heart, shut from the cold,
Safe from the blast,
And safe from whomsoe'er goes past.
"When Spring makes lovely all the land,
And casements open wide,
Beware lest some gay wandering band
Should slip inside,
And steal thine heart, and thee deride!
"When once 'tis gone, to win it back
Full vainly mayst thou try;
Nor golden bribes nor tears, alack!
Lost hearts can buy,
Since who loves once, loves till he die."
Baron Albrecht listened to her singing with a smile on his face.
"Now, by my beard," he said, "a song like that is worth a reward."
And he put his great shapely hand beneath her white chin, and kissed her full upon her red lips. At that very moment the Countess Erna came into the hall. Her cheek flushed as the damsel uttered an exclamation and fled hastily, and she looked at the baron in the evident expectation of seeing him also covered with confusion. But Albrecht merely smiled, and smoothed his chestnut beard.
"The damsel sings passing sweetly," he said, unmoved by her glance.
"Is it for that that thou hast kissed her?" demanded Erna, scornfully.
"Truly," replied he.
Erna regarded him with a look in which amazement struggled with disapprobation. She could not comprehend his strange indifference at being discovered.
"And hast thou no shame," she demanded, "to be seen trifling with the girl?"
"Shame?" he echoed. "Why should I have?"
"Nor any fear of my displeasure?"
"Thy displeasure?" he repeated. "Why shouldst thou be displeased?"
She regarded him in silence a moment; and as she did not speak, he continued:
"Surely thou canst not be jealous of a serving-wench?"
She drew herself up proudly, all the blood of her ancestors aflame in her clear pale cheek.
"The Von Rittenbergs are jealous neither of serving-wenches nor on account of strangers," she returned haughtily.
Albrecht looked at her in a perplexity that it was impossible not to believe genuine.
"Then what is my offence?" he asked. "I did but kiss the maid. I meant her no harm. Why should not one kiss a smooth cheek if it likes him?"
He spoke humbly, yet with no air either of bravado or of conscious guilt. She felt that his ignorance was not feigned, yet could hardly bring herself to believe that he did not understand what her feeling must be at discovering him in the act she had seen. Moreover, she found herself strangely at a loss how to reply to his question, if it were in reality serious. If he did not perceive the impropriety of his conduct, it was not easy for her to explain it to him. She stood a moment in silence, regarding him with a penetrating glance under which he showed no sign of wavering, and then instead of turning away to leave him as had at first been her intention, she smiled faintly, and with an expression of doubt still in her eyes.
"One would think, Sir Knight," she said, "that thy father's house must needs be a rude place if it is there held proper to kiss the damsels that please one, without hindrance."
"In thy father's castle," he answered slowly, "we have perhaps lived in a fashion that would seem to thee rude, for that my mother died at my birth, and there has been no one but men to make the rules of the house; but why it is wrong to kiss a comely woman if she please thee, is one of the things that I have never been told there or here."
Erna's tender heart was at once touched by the thought of her companion's orphanage, her own motherless childhood being still too fresh in her mind not to render her susceptible to this plea. She took up her whip from the bench, and turned quickly, that he might not see the tears that sprang to her eyes whenever one mentioned the loss of a mother.
"Well," she said, "I will leave it to Father Christopher to deal with thy transgression."
The change in her tone did not escape his quick ears, and he hastened to follow her to the courtyard, where the horses were waiting.
Their way that morning led them over hill and dale, until they came at length to a wide meadow, where the knight was minded to fly his falcon. A stream ran through the midst of the valley, and along its banks the grass was as vividly green as the emeralds which sparkled in the hilt of Albrecht's dagger; while all through it the golden buttercups were set as thickly as the stars in the sky of a summer's night. Here and there grew clusters of tall reeds and water grasses gently swaying in the soft breeze; and as Albrecht took his falcon from the wrist of his squire, who carried the bird, a splendid white heron rose with smooth, steady flight from amid the rushes, and went soaring upward. The baron quickly and deftly pulled the hood from the falcon's head; but just as he was loosening the jess Erna leaned forward and laid her hand on his arm.
"Let the heron go unharmed," she said. "Why shouldst thou strike him down?"
"Because," he responded, "thou art to wear his plumes in thy cap after I am gone, in memory of me."
"After thou art gone?" she repeated softly, drawing back.
He smiled and shook off the hawk, which rose in graceful circles until it was far overhead, and hung dizzily above the meadow. It sailed to and fro a moment until its prey, which had discovered it and in dismay was straining every nerve to quicken its flight, was just beneath it; then suddenly, with the rapidity of a thunderbolt, it fell straight upon the beautiful heron. Erna uttered a cry of dismay, and covered her eyes with her hand.
"It