Albrecht. Bates Arlo
Erna was even more marked, perhaps because it showed itself in outward acts rather than by the signs of inward changes. She took up various habits and sports which were calculated directly to please Von Waldstein; riding with him through the forest, and even standing to watch him setting out for the hunt, a pastime which she had hitherto held as cruel, although from old the Von Rittenbergs had been famous hunters. The alteration in her was subtle, but it was real. Father Christopher viewed it with mingled surprise and doubt. Lady Adelaide, on the other hand, was naturally delighted with a change which brought her niece more near to her own worldly views; and while she was too clever to praise openly the course of Erna, she found ways of lending her aid to the helping forward of the work which the mere presence of Baron Albrecht seemed to be effecting.
One lovely summer day, when all the forest was filled with sweet breath of balsamic odors, the perfume of flowers, and the gentle coolness of the breeze which brought both to the riders as they passed along the paths of the wood, Countess Erna and Baron Albrecht rode through its ways, now full of golden sunshine and now dim with delicious shadow, to a mountain tarn, set in the wooded hills like a gleaming gem. Blue as a sapphire under the clear sky stretched the lake, all the surrounding hills reflected in its surface, while along its shores the wild flowers bloomed in rich profusion; the clustering primrose, the dazzling white thistle, now fading beneath the fervid suns of summer, and the blue forget-me-nots, dear to lovers.
The ride had been a long one; and when the lake was reached the countess dismounted from her palfrey to rest. She seated herself upon a bank of greensward where she could overlook the smooth blue lake, and Baron Albrecht threw himself upon the ground at her feet, looking rather at her than at the water. Behind them the wind murmured in the pine-tops, chanting the song which is never done, but which rises ever from the heart of the Schwarzwald as the wail of the ocean rises continually from its beating waves: the yearning of the wild races of beings who live and die in its mysterious recesses; the cries of the beasts who perish without understanding the strange secrets hidden in the shadows of the wood, secrets which men feel with awe, but which even they cannot fathom.
Erna was conscious of the spell of the forest, and the tones of the song in the pine-tops rang in her ears with powerful appealing; but she was secure in the protecting presence of her companion, and she was more deeply still conscious of the earnestness of his gaze. So closely did Albrecht regard her that without comprehending her own feelings, she began to be embarrassed; and at last to cover her confusion she said:
"Didst thou know that where we see a lake there was once a noble convent, surrounded by beautiful gardens and even with fair pleasure-grounds?"
The knight looked from his companion to the blue tarn below them.
"But where?" he asked.
"Where the lake is. It was the richest and the most influential convent in all the Ober-Schwarzwald. All the nuns were of noble birth, and all had brought with them rich dowries to the convent. But they were wicked nuns; for Father Christopher says that even nuns and monks may be wicked. They feasted and sported and flew falcons, and there was only one in all the convent, a poor little novice whose betrothed had been killed, and whose heart was broken, that was not given over to sin."
"Is it a sin, then, to be happy?" asked Albrecht, smiling up at her from his station at her feet.
"Oh, no; not for us. But they were nuns, vowed to Heaven."
"I never could understand," he began with a puzzled face; then he broke off suddenly. "No matter!" he said. "Go on with thy story. What became of the convent?"
"The Lady Abbess," Erna continued, "was worst of all there; and on her birth-night she made a great feast for all the nuns. They sat and drank wine, and out of doors there was a bitter, bitter storm. And just at midnight there came a knocking at the gate. The Lady Abbess, flushed with wine, told the little novice, who would neither eat nor drink herself, to go and see who was there. So the little novice went, and found an old, old man, all drenched with the rain, and weak with hunger and cold. So she went to the Lady Abbess, and begged that she might be allowed to let the old man in, lest he perish with cold and hunger before morning."
"Why should she care?" the knight asked, as Erna paused and looked over the dark-blue lake as if she could see the scene she described.
"Oh, I told thee that she was not wicked like the rest."
"But would it be wicked not to care for a worthless, broken-down old man that one never saw before?"
The countess smiled upon him.
"When thou askest me questions like that," she responded, "I know that thou art laughing at me or trying to tease me."
A strange look flitted across the face of the baron, but he only replied by a smile.
"But the Lady Abbess," went on Erna, determined to finish the tale she had begun, "would not allow the gates to be opened. 'Thou mayest throw him down thy bread, if thou choosest,' she told the little novice; 'but thou wilt get no more in its place.' So the little novice wrapped the bread up in the only blanket she had for her bed, and threw it down to the old pilgrim, and then she had to shut the window and leave him there in the cold. That very hour the water began to roll into the valley, though where it came from no one could tell; and it rose, and rose, and rose. And the wicked nuns ran to the top of their towers, but it was of no use, for the water rose over those until they were all drowned, and there was this lake."
"And didn't even the little novice escape?"
"Oh, yes; there came a boat, shining all like gold, and took the little novice off of the top of the tower; but when the others tried to get into it, it glided away and left them."
She crossed herself as she finished. Albrecht raised his eyes from the blue lake to the blue sky above them, and sighed, a sign of sadness Erna had never seen in him before.
"Why dost thou sigh?" she asked him.
"Because thou hast taught me to," he answered, with the wistful look of a loving animal in his eyes.
Then he laughed gleefully.
"Should not one sigh for the poor drowned nuns?" he asked.
"Yes," Erna said gravely; "they lost their souls."
"Always their souls," her companion responded impulsively. "Why is it that it is always the soul of which one speaks?"
"Because," she answered, with the same air she would have worn had his question been a reasonable one, "the soul is all; it is this which makes us different from the animals."
"And the nixies," he added; "and the undines, and the kobolds."
"Yes," she said gravely. She was silent a moment, and then added: "I do not know if it is right, but Father Christopher thinks it is no harm; I have always pitied the nixies and the kobolds. They are not so bad; and it is not their fault that they have no souls, and that they cannot be saved."
"No," he assented soberly, "it is certainly not their fault. Hast thou never heard it said," he went on, "that if one of them marries a mortal, he would win a soul?"
"Yes," she replied; "but Father Christopher does not believe that that is true."
"But if it were," he began, "wouldst thou—"
He broke off suddenly, and sprang up.
"Come," he cried, with his infectious laugh, "thou art making me as solemn as an owl. Did I talk in this sombre fashion when I came to Rittenberg?"
She did not answer save by a smile. She was aware that the knight had changed since he had been at the castle, although she did not realize what the alteration might mean. She had herself changed too much in the same time to be able to appreciate the subtile difference between what he now was and what he had been on his arrival; and she was too well content with whatever he was to study deeply over the question of the effect of her influence upon him. She rose from the grassy mound on which she had been sitting, and soon they were on their homeward way through the forest.
The day was wasting as they neared the castle, and