Albrecht. Bates Arlo
is too cruel!" she exclaimed.
Albrecht struck his hands together in glee.
"It is a brave bird!" he cried. "I would rather lose a gold mine than that falcon. He is as sure of his quarry as the rain is to fall to the ground."
Erna did not answer, but she regarded him with the look of one who strove to understand his pleasure, and to understand is almost to share. She said nothing while the squire rode off to bring in the game; and when the noble heron, its glistening throat stained with blood, was brought to them, she not only strove to restrain the involuntary shudder which seized her, but she did not remonstrate when her companion continued the praises of his bird.
"Did one ever see a more rich plumage?" Albrecht demanded. "It will set off thy cap bravely; and I have always been told that womenkind are fond of gay attire."
"It is indeed a beautiful bird," Erna responded; "but dost thou know that there is always something very amusing in the way thou speakest, as if thou hadst never seen human beings till now."
A faint flush crossed Albrecht's cheek. He looked at the dead heron.
"I never thought of it before," he said; "but it does seem hard that he should have to be killed just to please me."
Erna flushed in her turn. She thought she had offended him by her criticism of his manner of speech.
"I beg thy pardon," she began; but he interrupted her.
"Thou hast no need," he said. "Besides, thou art right. I know nothing of women. I do not even know, it seems, how they should be treated, or how to please them. Otherwise," he added with his warm smile, "I should not have offended thee this morning by kissing the damsel who sang so sweetly."
The countess smiled, and turned toward him with her face full of light. They had not dismounted, but had halted their horses near the margin of the brook on the banks of which the heron had been feeding lower down.
"That," she said, "is not a thing to be taught. It is learned from the air and from the birds."
"Then why has it not been revealed to me? I have been much in the forest."
"To kill the birds! In good sooth, I know not that one may learn of the air and the woods who goes as thou goest, with falcon and boar-spear. But at least," she added, regarding him with a smile, "thou must know that when one loves – "
She broke off suddenly, and turned away her face, with a flush creeping up into her cheek.
"Well," Albrecht demanded eagerly, "what then?"
"I was but thinking," she returned, in a voice lower than before, "that certainly every man knoweth that when one truly loveth another, he will care for the caress of none save only the loved one."
"I had never thought of that," the knight responded gravely.
"Then of a surety thou hast never known what it is to love."
"By that token, never," he answered, smiling; "albeit it were possible that the test would not hold; and in any case it were not difficult, perchance, for thee to teach me."
The Countess Erna looked into his face all flushed and radiant, and there was that in her eyes which no man could see and fail to understand; and although the squire waiting hard by might not note that aught had been said or done out of the ordinary course, none the less had their hearts spoken each to each from that moment. Erna wheeled her horse, and began to move toward the entrance of the valley; and as Albrecht rode beside her, he suddenly leaned forward and caught her palfrey's rein, so that the beast was almost thrown upon his haunches with the abruptness of his arrest.
"Do not ride toward the upper ford," he said; "the nix is in an evil mood to-day, and mayhap might do thee a mischief in her spitefulness."
Erna looked at him with astonishment and alarm.
"And how knowest thou of the moods of the nix?" she demanded.
His eyes fell, and a flush stained his swarthy cheek. Then he seemed to recover his self-possession.
"It is a knowledge," he replied, "that is learned from the air and from the birds, but only by those who are in sympathy with the woodland creatures so that they may comprehend it."
Erna laughed merrily, and turned her palfrey toward the lower ford.
"In sober sooth, thou knowest no more of the nix than do I," she told him; "but I mind not if I please thy fancy."
But when alone in her chamber she thought of this, she crossed herself and shivered a little with a not unpleasing awe.
VI
HOW THEY CAME TO KISSES THEMSELVES
From that day when they rode together to the slaying of the heron by the stream in the meadow, there was a new bond between the Countess Erna and the Baron Albrecht. There had been nothing further said between them of love, even in the impersonal way in which they had then begun to talk of it, but the revelation of the glance which had then passed from her eyes to his changed all the old relations. They knew that they loved each other, and although they were not yet come to the confession in word of their love, they understood well that they belonged each to the other.
One day the countess sat at her embroidery in the hall, with her guest near her, and Father Christopher not far away. Without, a wild tempest of wind and rain shook the castle towers, and swept over forest and hill. From the casements one looked out upon a sea of mist that rolled above the tree-tops, beaten and torn by the wind, and lashing the hills in angry, mimic waves. All the weird voices of the Schwarzwald, melancholy or fierce, raged and wailed in the troubled air. It was a day when the unholy powers of the forest held high festival, and it was with inward shudders that Erna heard afar their hoarse tones, calling and yelling to one another in the storm.
Sitting at her embroidery frame without her damsels, who were scattered about the castle upon one mission or another, Erna talked with the baron and the priest, now and then thinking with dread of the night which was not far away, and hearing in her fancy already the roaring of the blast about the towers, the shrill cry of the Wild Huntsman, and the shrieks of his elfin train. When she looked up at the splendid form of her guest, however, her fears vanished in a breath, and she smiled that she should have found it possible to fear while he was at her side. In the warmth of his glance the tempest and all the dread dwellers in the forest were forgotten, and she was conscious only of the joy of his presence.
The knight had been asking concerning the armor of Erna's father, which hung in the hall; and from this the talk easily drifted to the Great Emperor, his noble deeds, his splendid army, and the brilliant court which he had gathered about him.
"How much I should like to see it all," the maiden said dreamily, as she looked earnestly at Albrecht; "the tourneys, the feasts, the processions, and all the beautiful court life."
Father Christopher regarded her in some amazement.
"Is it thou," he asked, "who sayest this? Thou who hast always been so thankful that thou wert spared the temptations and the worldliness of the court? Didst thou not refuse to go to Mayence when Charlemagne was there with his train, because thou didst not wish to fill thy mind with frivolous images?"
"So I did, Father, but mayhap my aunt was not wholly in the wrong when she called me a fool for my refusal," Erna answered, smiling.
"The court would ill suit me," Albrecht remarked, while the good priest remained sunk in astonishment at the change which the words of Erna indicated. "My choice is for the forest, for the hunt and the chase. The only thing at court that would attract me would be the tourney."
"Would that I might see thee in the lists!" Erna half murmured, leaning a little toward him.
"Mayhap that thou shalt," he replied. "Stranger things than this have come to pass. If thou dost, thou wilt see me break a lance in thy behalf right gladly."
"And thou no longer thinkest," Father Christopher interposed gravely, "that it is wrong for knights to risk their lives in mere wanton pastime?"
"Oh, there may be some danger," she returned with a slight air of impatience, "but why must one be forever troubling to examine too closely?