Weyman Stanley John
My Lady Rotha: A Romance

CHAPTER III.
THE BURGOMASTER'S DEMAND

As it turned out, the other party took the burden of decision from my shoulders. When I came out of chapel next morning, I found Hofman on the terrace waiting for me, and with him Master Dietz wearing his Geneva gown and a sour face. They wished to see my lady. I said it was early yet, and tried to hold them in talk if only that I might learn what they would be at. But they repulsed my advances, said that they knew her excellency always transacted her business at this hour-which was perfectly true-and at last sent me to the parlour whether I would or no.

Under such circumstances I did not linger behind the screen, but advanced at once, and interrupting Fraulein Max, who had just begun to read aloud, while my lady worked, said that the Burgomaster desired the honour of an interview with the Countess.

The latter passed her needle once through the stuff, and then looked up. 'Do you know what he wants, Martin?' she said in a quiet tone.

I said I did not.

She bent her head and worked for a moment in silence. Then she sighed gently, and without looking up, nodded to me. 'Very well, I will see him here,' she said. 'But first send Grissel and Gretchen to wait on me. Let Franz bring two stools and place them, and bid him and Ernst keep the door. My footstool also. And let the two Jacobs wait in the hall.'

I gave the orders and took on myself to place two extra lackeys in the hall that we might not seem to be short of men. Then I went to the Burgomaster, and attended him and Master Dietz to the parlour.

They bowed three times according to custom as they advanced, and my lady, taking one step forward, gave her hand to the Burgomaster to kiss. Then she stepped back and sat down, looking with a pleasant face at the Minister. 'I would fain apologise for troubling your excellency,' the Mayor began slowly and heavily. 'But the times are trying.'

'Your presence needs no apology, Master Hofman,' my lady answered, smiling frankly. 'It is your right to see me on behalf of the town at all times. It would grieve me much, if you did not sometimes exercise the privilege. And for Master Dietz, who may be able to assist us, I am glad to see him also.'

The Minister bowed low. The Burgomaster only puffed out his cheeks. Doubtless he felt that courage at the Red Hart and courage in my lady's parlour were two different things. But it was too late to retreat, for the Minister was there to report what passed; and after a glance at Dietz's face he proceeded. 'I am not here in a private capacity, if it please your excellency,' he said. 'And I beg your excellency to bear this in mind. I am here as Burgomaster, having on my mind the peace of the town; which at present is endangered-very greatly, endangered,' he repeated pompously.

'I am sorry to hear that,' my lady answered.

'Nevertheless it is so,' he replied with a kind of obstinacy. 'Endangered by the presence of certain persons in the town, whose manners are not conformable. These persons are Papists, and the town, your excellency remembers, is a Protestant town.'

'Certainly I remember that,' my lady said gravely.

'Hence of this combination, your excellency will understand, comes a likelihood of evil,' he continued. 'On which, hearing you took an interest in these persons, however little deserved, it seemed to be my duty to lay the matter before you.'

'You have done very rightly,' the Countess answered quietly. 'Do I understand then, Master Hofman, that the Papists you complain of are conspiring to break the peace of the town?'

The Burgomaster gasped. He was too obtuse to see at once that my lady was playing with him. He only wondered how he had managed to convey so strange a notion to her mind. He hastened to set her right. 'No-oh, no,' he said. 'There is no fear of that. There are but three of them.'

'Are they presuming to perform their rites in public then?' my lady rejoined. 'If so, of course it cannot be permitted. It is against the law of the town.'

'No,' he answered, more slowly and more reluctantly as the drift of her questions began to dawn upon him. 'I do not know that that is so. I have not heard that it is so. But they are Papists.'

'Well, but with their consciences we have nothing to do!' she said more sharply. 'I confess, I fail as yet to see, Master Hofman, how they threaten the peace of the town.'

The Burgomaster stared. 'I do not know that they threaten it themselves,' he said slowly. 'But their presence stirs up the people, if your excellency understands; and may lead, if the matter goes on, to a riot or worse.'

'Ha! Now I comprehend!' my lady cried in a hearty tone. 'You fear your constables may fail to cope with the rabble?'

He admitted that that was so.

'And you desire such assistance as I can offer towards maintaining the law and protecting these persons; who have of course a right to protection?'

Master Hofman began to see whither he had been led, and glared at the Countess with his mouth wide open. But for the moment he could not find a word to say. Never did I see a man look more at a loss.

'Well, I must consider,' my lady resumed, her finger to her cheek. 'Rest assured, you shall be supported. Martin,' she continued, turning to me, 'let word be sent to the four foresters at Gatz to come down to the castle this evening. And send also to the charcoal-burners' camp. How many men should there be in it?'

'Some half-score, my lady,' I answered, adding two-thirds to the truth.

'Ah? And let the huntsman come down and bring a couple of feeders. Doubtless with our own men, we shall be able to place a score or thirty at your disposal, Master Hofman, and stout fellows. These, with your constables and such of the peaceful burghers as you see fit to call to your assistance, should be sufficient to quell the disorderly.'

I could have laughed aloud, Master Hofman looked so confounded. Never man had an air of being more completely taken aback. By offering her help to put down any mob, the Countess had deprived him of the plea he had come to prefer; that he was afraid he could not answer for the safety of the Papists, and that therefore they must withdraw or be expelled. This he could no longer put forward, and consequently he was driven either to adopt my lady's line, or side openly with the party of disorder. I saw his heavy face turn a deep red, and his jaw fall, as he grasped the situation. His wits worked slowly; and had he been left to himself, I do not doubt that he would have allowed things to remain as they were, and taken the part assigned to him.

But Master Dietz, who had listened with a lengthening face, at this moment interposed. 'Will your excellency permit me to say a few words?' he said.

'I think the Burgomaster has made the matter clear,' my lady answered.

'Not in one respect,' the Minister rejoined. 'He has not informed your excellency that in the opinion of the majority of the burghers and inhabitants of this town the presence of these people is an offence and an eyesore.'

'It is legal,' my lady answered icily. 'I do not know what opinion has to do with it.'

'The opinion of the majority.'

'Sir!' my lady said, speaking abruptly and with heightened colour, 'in Heritzburg I am the majority, by your leave.'

He frowned and set his face hard, but his eyes sank before hers. 'Nevertheless your excellency will allow,' he said in a lower tone, 'that the opinion of grave and orderly men deserves consideration?'

'When it is on the side of law, every consideration,' the Countess answered, her eyes sparkling. 'But when it is ranged against three defenceless people in violation of the law, none. And more, Master Dietz,' she continued, her voice ringing with indignation, 'it is to check such opinion, and defend against it those who otherwise would have no defence, that I conceive I sit here. And by my faith I will do it!'

She uttered the last words with so much fire and with her beautiful face so full of feeling, that I started forward where I stood; and for a farthing would have flung Dietz through the window. The little Minister was of a stern and hard nature, however. The nobility of my lady's position was lost upon him. He feared her less than he would have feared a man under the same circumstances; and though he stood cowed, and silenced for the moment, he presently returned to the attack.

'Your excellency perhaps forgets,' he said with a dry cough, 'that the times are full of bloodshed and strife, though we at Heritzburg have hitherto enjoyed peace. I suggest with respect therefore, is it prudent to run the risk of bringing these evils into the town for the sake of one or two Papists, whom it is only proposed to send elsewhere?'

My lady rose suddenly from her chair, and pointed with a finger, which trembled slightly, to the great window beside her. 'Step up here!' she said curtly.

Master Dietz, wondering greatly, stepped on to the daïs. Thence the red roofs of the town, some new and smart, and some stained and grey with lichens, and all the green valley stretching away to the dark line of wood, were visible, bathed in sunshine. The day was fine, the air clear, the smoke from the chimneys rose straight upward.

'Do you see?' she said.

The Minister bowed.

'Then take this for answer,' she replied. 'All that you see is mine to rule. It came to me by inheritance, and I prize the possession of it, though I am a woman, more highly than my life; for it came to me from Heaven and my fathers. But were it a hundred times as large, Master Dietz-were there a house for every brick that now stands there, and an acre for every furrow, and sheep as many as birds in the air, even then I would risk all, and double and treble all, rather than desert those whom my law defends, be they three, or thirty, or three hundred! Let that be your answer! And for the peace you speak of,' she continued, turning on a sudden and confronting us, her face aglow with anger, 'the peace, I mean, which you have hitherto enjoyed, it should shame you to hear it mentioned! Have the Papists harried you? Have you suffered in life or limb, or property? No. And why? Because of my honoured uncle, a Papist! For shame! – for shame, I say! As it has been dealt out to you, go and do to others!'

But for the respect which held me in her presence, I could have cried 'Huzza!' to her speech; and I can tell you, it made Master Minister look as small as a mouse. He stepped down from the daïs with his face dark and his head trembling; and after that I never doubted that he was at the bottom of the movement against the Worts, though the ruffianly deserters I have mentioned supplied him with the tools, wanting which he might not have taken up the work. He stood a moment on the floor looking very black and grim, and with not a word to say, but I doubted he was not beaten. What line he would have taken, however, I cannot tell, for he had scarcely descended-my lady had not resumed her seat-when there rose from the court below a sudden babel of noise, the trampling of hoofs and feet on the pavement, and a confused murmur of voices. For a moment I looked at my lady and she at me. It struck me that that at which the Burgomaster had hinted was come to pass: that some of the town ragamuffins had dared to invade the castle. The same idea doubtless occurred to her, for she stepped, though without any appearance of alarm, to the window, which commanded a side view of the terrace. She looked out.

I, a little to her right, saw her smile: then in a moment she turned. 'This could not be better,' she said, resuming in an instant her ordinary manner. I think she was a little ashamed, as people of quality are wont to be, of the feeling she had betrayed. 'I see some one below who will advise me, and who, if I am doing wrong, as you seem to fear, Master Burgomaster, will tell me of it. My cousin, the Waldgrave Rupert, whom I expected to-morrow, has arrived to-day. Be good enough to wait while I receive him, and I will then return to you.'

Bidding me have the two served with some refreshment, she stepped down from the daïs, and withdrew with Fraulein Max and her women, leaving the townsmen to discuss the new arrival with what appetite they might.

They liked it little, I fancy. In a moment their importance was gone, their consequence at an end. The name of the Waldgrave Rupert made them feel how small they were, despite their boasting, beside the youngest member of the family. The very swish of my lady's robe as she swept through the doorway flouted them, her departure was an offence; and this, following on the scolding they had received, produced a soreness and irritation in their minds, which ill-prepared them, I think, for the sequel.

I have sometimes thought that had I remained with them, and paid them some attentions, the end might have been different; but my duties called me elsewhere. The house was in a ferment; I was wanted here and there, both to give orders and to see them carried out. It was some time before I was at liberty even to go to the hall whither my lady had descended to receive her guest, and where I found the two standing together on the hearth, under the great Red Hart which is the cognizance of the family.

I had not seen the Waldgrave Rupert-a cadet of the noble house of Weimar and my lady's cousin once removed-since his boyhood. I found him grown into a splendid man, as tall and almost as wide as myself; who used to be called in the old forest days before I entered my lady's service 'the strong man of Pippel.' As he stood on the hearth, fair-haired and ruddy-faced, with a noble carriage and a frank boyish smile, I had seldom looked on a handsomer youth. He fell short of my lady's age by two years; but as I looked from one to the other, they seemed so fitting a pair, the disparity went for nothing. He was young and strong, full of spirit and energy and fire. Surely, I thought, the right man has come at last!

In this belief I was more than confirmed when he came forward and greeted me pleasantly, vowing that he remembered me well. His voice and laugh seemed to fill the room; the very ring of his spurs on the stones gave assurance of power. I saw my lady look at him with an air of affectionate pride-she had seen him more lately than I had-as if his youth, and strength, and beauty already belonged to her. As for his smile, it was infectious. We grew in a moment brighter, younger, and more cheerful. The house which yesterday had seemed quiet and lonesome-we were a small family for so great a dwelling-took on a new air. The servants went about their tasks more quickly, the maids laughed behind doors. The place seemed in an hour transformed, as I have seen a valley in the mountains changed on a sudden by the rising of the sun.

As a fact, when I had been in his presence five minutes, the Burgomaster and the Minister upstairs seemed as common and mean and insignificant a pair of fellows as any in Germany. I wondered that I could ever have feared them. The Countess had told him the story, and he asked me one or two questions about them, his tone high, and his head in the air. I answered him, and was for accompanying him upstairs, when he went to see them, with my lady by his side, and his whip slapping his great thigh boots until the staircase rang again. But my lady had an errand and sent me on it, and so I was not present at the end of this interview which I had myself brought about.

But I suppose that the scolding my lady had given them was no more than a flea-bite beside the rating the young Waldgrave inflicted! It was notorious for a score of leagues round, and he told them so in good round terms, that the Heritzburg land had been spared by friend and foe for Count Tilly's sake; for his sake and his alone-a Papist. How, then, he asked them, had they the face to do this dirty trick, and threaten my lady besides? With much more of the same kind, and hard words, not to say menaces; sparing neither Mayor nor Minister, so that they went off at last like whipped dogs or thieves that have seen the gallows.

Afterwards something was said; but at the time no one missed them. Except by myself, scarce a thought was given to them after they went out of the door. The house was all agog about the new-comer; the still-room full of work and the chimneys smoking. The young lord was everywhere, and the maids were mad about him. I had my hands full, and every one in the house seemed to be in the same case. No one had time to look abroad.

Except Fraulein Anna Max, my lady's companion. I found her about four o'clock in the afternoon sitting alone in the hall. She had a book before her as usual, but on my entrance she pushed it away from her, and looked up at me, screwing up her eyes in the odd way peculiar to her.

'Well, Master Steward,' she said-and her voice sounded ill-natured, 'so the fire has been lit-but not by you.'

'The fire?' I answered, utterly at a loss for the moment.

'Ay,' she rejoined, with a bitter smile, 'the fire. Don't you hear it burning?'

'I hear nothing,' I said coldly.

'Go to the terrace, and perhaps you will!' she answered.

Her words filled me with a vague uneasiness, but I was too proud to go then or seem to heed them. An hour or two later, however, when the sun was half down, and the shadows of the chimneys lay far over the roofs, and the eastern woods were aglow, I went to the wall which bounds the terrace and looked down. The hum of the town came up to my ears as it has come up to that wall any time these hundred years. But was I mistaken, or did there mingle with it this evening a harsher note than usual, a rancorous murmur, as of angry voices; and something sterner, lower, and more menacing, the clamour of a great crowd?

CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRE ALIGHT

I laughed at my own fears when the morning came, and showed no change except that cheerful one, which our guest's presence had worked inside the castle. Below, today was as yesterday. The sun shone as brightly on the roofs, the smoke of the chimneys rose as peacefully in the air; the swallows circling round the eaves swung this way and that as swiftly and noiselessly as of old. The common sounds of everyday life, the clank of the pump in the market-place as the old crones drew water, and the cry of the wood-cutter hawking his stuff, alone broke the stillness. I sniffed the air, and smiling at Fraulein Anna's warning, went back into the house, where any fears which yet lingered in my mind took instant flight at sound of the Waldgrave's voice, so cheerful was it, so full of life and strength and confidence.

I do not know what it was in him, but something there was which carried us all the way he wished us to go. Did he laugh at the thought of danger; straightway we laughed too, and this though I knew Heritzburg and he did not. Did he speak scornfully of the burghers; forthwith they seemed to us a petty lot. When he strode up and down the terrace, showing us how a single gun placed here or there, or in the corner, would in an hour reduce the town; on the instant we deemed him a Tilly. When he dubbed Hofman and Dietz, 'Old Fat and Lean,' the groom-boys, who could not be kept from his heels, sniggered, and had to be whipped back to the stables. In a word, he won us all. His youth, his gaiety, his confidence, were irresistible.

He dared even to scold my lady, saying that she had cosseted the townsfolk and brought this trouble on herself by pleasuring them; and she, who seemed to us the proudest of the proud, took it meekly, laughing in his face. It required no conjuror to perceive that he admired her, and would fain shine in her presence. That was to be expected. But about my mistress I was less certain, until after breakfast nothing would suit her but an immediate excursion to the White Maiden-the great grey spire which stands on the summit of the Oberwald. Then I knew that she had it in her mind to make the best figure she could; for though she talked of showing him game in that direction, and there was a grand parade of taking dogs, all the world knows that the other side of the valley is the better hunting-ground. I was left to guess that the White Maiden was chosen because all the wide Heritzburg land can be seen from its foot, and not corn and woodland, pasture and meadow only, but the gem of all-the town nestling babelike in the lap of the valley, with the grey towers rising like the face of some harsh nurse above it.

My lord jumped at the plan. Doubtless he liked the prospect of a ride through the forest by her side. When she raised some little demur, stepping in the way of her own proposal, as I have noticed women will, and said something about the safety of the castle, if so many left it, he cried out eagerly that she need not fear.

'I will leave my people,' he said. 'Then you will feel quite sure that the place is safe. I will answer for them that they will hold your castle against Wallenstein himself.'

'But how many are with you?' my lady asked curiously; a little in mischief too, perhaps, for I think she knew.

His handsome face reddened and he looked rather foolish for a moment. 'Well, only four, as a fact,' he said. 'But they are perfect paladins, and as good as forty. In your defence, cousin, I would pit them against a score of the hardiest Swedes that ever followed the King.'

My lady laughed gaily.

'Well, for this day, I will trust them,' she said. 'Martin, order the grooms to saddle Pushka for me. And you, cousin, shall have the honour of mounting me. It is an age since I have had a frolic.'

Sometimes I doubt if my lady ever had such a frolic again. Happier days she saw, I think, and many and many of them, I hope; but such a day of careless sunny gaiety, spent in the May greenwood, with joy and youth riding by her, with old servants at her heels, and all the beauties of her inheritance spread before her in light and shadow, she never again enjoyed. We went by forest paths, which winding round the valley, passed through woodlands, where the horses sank fetlock-deep in moss, and the laughing voices of the riders died away among the distant trunks. Here were fairy rings deep-plunged in bracken, and chalky bottoms whence springs rose bright as crystal, and dim aisles of beeches narrowing into darkness, where last year's leaves rustled ghostlike under foot, and the shadow of a squirrel startled the boldest. Once, emerging on the open down where the sun lay hot and bright, my lady gave her horse the rein, and for a mile or more we sped across the turf, with hoofs thundering on either hand, and bits jingling, and horses pulling, only to fall into a walk again with flushed cheeks and brighter eyes, on the edge of the farther wood. Thence another mile, athwart the steep hillside through dwarf oaks and huge blackthorn trees, brought us to the foot of the Maiden, and we drew rein and dismounted, and stood looking down on the vale of Heritzburg, while the grooms unpacked the dinner.

There is a niche in the great pillar, a man's height from the ground, in which one person may conveniently sit. The young Waldgrave spied it.

'Up to the throne, cousin!' he cried, and he helped her to it, sitting himself on the ledge at her feet, with his legs dangling. 'Why, there is the Werra!' he continued.

A large quantity of rain had fallen that spring, and the river which commonly runs low between its banks, was plainly visible, a silver streak crossing the distant mouth of the valley.

'Yes,' my lady answered. 'That is the Werra, and beyond it is, I suppose, the world.'

'Whither I must go back this day week,' he said, between sighing and smiling. 'Then, hey for the south and Nuremberg, the good cause and the great King.'

'You have seen him?'

'Once only.'

'And is he so great a fighter?' my lady asked curiously.

'How can he fail to be when he and his men fight and pray alternately,' the Waldgrave answered; 'when there is no license in the camp, and a Swede thinks death the same as victory?'

'Where is he now?'

'At Munich, in Bavaria.'

'How it would have grieved my uncle,' my lady said, with a sigh.

'He died as he would have wished to die,' the Waldgrave answered gently. 'He believed in his cause, as the King of Sweden believes in his; and he died for it. What more can a man ask? But here is Franz with all sorts of good things. And I am afraid a feast of beauty, however perfect, does not prevent a man getting hungry.'

'That is a very pretty compliment to Heritzburg,' my lady said, laughing.

'Or its chatelaine!' I heard him murmur, with a tender look. But my lady only laughed again and called to me to come and name the hills, and tell my lord what land went with each of the three hamlets between which the lower valley is divided.

Doubtless that was but one of a hundred gallant things he said to her, and whereat she laughed, during the pleasant hour they whiled away at the foot of the pillar, basking in the warm sunshine, and telling the valley farm by farm. For the day was perfect, the season spring. I lay on my side and dreamed my own dream under the trees, with the hum of insects in my ears. No one was in a hurry to rise, or set a term to such a time.

Still we had plenty of daylight before us when my lady mounted and turned her face homewards, thinking to reach the castle a little after five. But a hare got up as we crossed the open down, and showing good sport, as these long-legged mountain hares will, led us far out of our way, and caused us to spend nearly an hour in the chase. Then my lady spied a rare flower on the cliffside; and the young Waldgrave must needs get it for her. And so it wanted little of sunset when we came at last in sight of the bridge which spans the ravine at the back of the castle. I saw in the distance a lad seated on the parapet, apparently looking out for us, but I thought nothing of it. The descent was steep and we rode down slowly, my lady and the Waldgrave laughing and talking, and the rest of us sitting at our ease. Nor did the least thought of ill occur to my mind until I saw that the lad had jumped down from the wall and was running towards us waving his cap.

My lady, too, saw him.

'What is it, Martin?' she said, turning her head to speak to me.

I told her I would see, and trotted forward along the side of the path until I came within call. Then I cried sharply to the lad to know what it was. I saw something in his face which frightened me; and being frightened and blaming myself, I was ready to fall on the first I met.

'The town!' he answered, panting up to my stirrup. 'There is fighting going on, Master Martin. They are pulling down Klink's house.'

'So, so,' I answered, for at the first sight of his face I had feared worse. 'Have you closed the gate at the head of the steps?'

'Yes,' he said, 'and my lord's men are guarding it.'

'Right!' I answered. And then my lady came up, and I had to break the news to her. Of course the young Waldgrave heard also, and I saw his eyes sparkle with pleasure.

'Ha! the rascals!' he cried. 'Now we will trounce them! Trust me, cousin, we will teach these boors such a lesson as they shall long remember. But what is it?' he continued, turning to my lady who had not spoken. 'The Queen of Heritzburg is not afraid of her rebellious subjects?'

My lady's eyes flashed. 'No, I am not afraid,' she said, with contempt. 'But Klink's house? Do you mean the Red Hart, Martin?'

I said I did.

She plucked her horse by the head, and stopped short under the arch of the gateway. I think I see her now bending from her saddle with the light on the woods behind her, and her face in shadow. 'Then those people are in danger!' she said, her voice quivering with excitement. 'Martin, take what men you have and go down into the town. Bring them off at all risks! See to it yourself. If harm come to them, I shall not forgive you easily.'

The Waldgrave sprang from his horse, and cried out that he would go. But my lady called to him to stay with her.

'Martin knows the streets, and you do not,' she said, sliding unassisted to the ground. 'But he shall take your men, if you do not object.'

We dismounted, in a confused medley of men and horses, in the stable court, which is small, and being surrounded by high buildings, was almost dark. The grooms left at home had gone to the front of the house to see the sight, and there was no one to receive us. I bade the five men who had ridden with us get their arms, and leaving the horses loose to be caught and cared for by the lad who had met us, I hastened after my lady and the Waldgrave, who had already disappeared under the arch which leads to the Terrace Court.

To pass through this was to pass from night to day, so startling was the change. From one end to the other the terrace was aglow with red light. The last level beams of the sun shone straight in our eyes as we emerged, and so blinded us, that I advanced, seeing nothing before me but a row of dark figures leaning over the parapet. If we could not see, however, we could hear. A hoarse murmur, unlike anything I had heard before, came up from the town, and rising and falling in waves of sound, now a mere whisper, and now a dull savage roar, caused the boldest to tremble. I heard my lady cry, 'Those poor people! Those poor people!' and saw her clench her hands in impotent anger; and that sight, or the sound-which seemed the more weirdly menacing as the town lay in twilight below us, and we could make out no more than a few knots of women standing in the market-place-or it may be some memory of the helpless girl I had seen at Klink's, so worked upon me that I had got the gate unbarred and was standing at the head of the steps outside before I knew that I had stirred or given an order.

Some one thrust a half pike into my hand, and mechanically I counted out the men-four of the Waldgrave's and five, six, seven of our own. A strange voice-but it may have been my own-cried, 'Not by the High Street. Through the lane by the wall!' and the next moment we were down out of the sunlight and taking the rough steps three at a time. The High Street reached, we swung round in a body to the right, and plunging into Shoe Wynd, came to the locksmith's, and thence went on by the way I had gone that other evening.