第26章

"I was once a happy man myself; I could smile, as you do, and I could rejoice in the morning as you do; that was before the hypocritical chaplain had so bewildered the wise mind of my lovely wife with his canting talk, that she went into a cloister, and left me alone with our wild boy.That was not fair usage from the fair Verena.Well, so it was, that in the first days of her dawning beauty, before Iknew her, many knights sought her hand, amongst whom was Sir Weigand the Slender; and towards him the gentle maiden showed herself the most favourably inclined.Her parents were well aware that Weigand's rank and station were little below their own, and that his early fame as a warrior without reproach stood high; so that before long Verena and he were accounted as affianced.It happened one day that they were walking together in the orchard, when a shepherd was driving his flock up the mountain beyond.The maiden saw a little snow-white lamb frolicking gaily, and longed for it.Weigand vaults over the railings, overtakes the shepherd, and offers him two gold bracelets for the lamb.But the shepherd will not part with it, and scarcely listens to the knight, going quietly the while up the mountain-side, with Weigand close upon him.At last Weigand loses patience.He threatens; and the shepherd, sturdy and proud like all of his race in our northern land, threatens in return.Suddenly Weigand's sword resounds upon his head,--the stroke should have fallen flat, but who can control a fiery horse or a drawn sword? The bleeding shepherd, with a cloven skull, falls down the precipice; his frightened flock bleats on the mountain.Only the little lamb runs in its terror to the orchard, pushes itself through the garden-rails, and lies at Verena's feet, as if asking for help, all red with its master's blood.She took it up in her arms, and from that moment never suffered Weigand the Slender to appear again before her face.She continued to cherish the little lamb, and seemed to take pleasure in nothing else in the world, and became pale and turned towards heaven, as the lilies are.She would soon have taken the veil, but just then I came to aid her father in a bloody war, and rescued him from his enemies.The old man represented this to her, and, softly smiling, she gave me her lovely hand.His grief would not suffer the unhappy Weigand to remain in his own country.It drove him forth as a pilgrim to Asia, whence our forefathers came, and there he did wonderful deeds, both of valour and self-abasement.Truly, my heart was strangely weak when I heard him spoken of at that time.After some years he returned, and wished to build a church or monastery on that mountain towards the west, whence the walls of my castle are distinctly seen.It was said that he wished to become a priest there, but it fell out otherwise.For some pirates had sailed from the southern seas, and, hearing of the building of this monastery, their chief thought to find much gold belonging to the lord of the castle and to the master builders, or else, if he surprised and carried them off, to extort from them a mighty ransom.He did not yet know northern courage and northern weapons; but he soon gained that knowledge.Having landed in the creek under the black rocks, he made his way through a by-path up to the building, surrounded it, and thought in himself that the affair was now ended.Ha! then out rushed Weigand and his builders, and fell upon them with swords and hatchets and hammers.The heathens fled away to their ships, with Weigand behind to take vengeance on them.In passing by our castle he caught a sight of Verena on the terrace, and, for the first time during so many years, she bestowed a courteous and kind salutation on the glowing victor.At that moment a dagger, hurled by one of the pirates in the midst of his hasty flight, struck Weigand's uncovered head, and he fell to the ground bleeding and insensible.We completed the rout of the heathens: then I had the wounded knight brought into the castle; and my pale Verena glowed as lilies in the light of the morning sun, and Weigand opened his eyes with a smile when he was brought near her.He refused to be taken into any room but the small one close to this where the armour is now placed; for he said that he felt as if it were a cell like that which he hoped soon to inhabit in his quiet cloister.All was done after his wish:

my sweet Verena nursed him, and he appeared at first to be on the straightest road to recovery; but his head continued weak and liable to be confused by the slightest emotion, his walk was rather a falling than a walking, and his cheeks were colourless.We could not let him go.When we were sitting here together in the evening, he used always to come tottering into the hall through the low doorway;and my heart was sad and wrathful too, when the soft eyes of Verena beamed so sweetly on him, and a glow like that of the evening sky hovered over her lily cheeks.But I bore it, and I could have borne it to the end of our lives,--when, alas! Verena went into a cloister!"His head fell so heavily on his folded hands, that the stone table seemed to groan beneath it, and he remained a long while motionless as a corpse.When he again raised himself up, his eyes glared fearfully as he looked round the hall, and he said to Folko: "Your beloved Hamburghers, Gotthard Lenz, and Rudlieb his son, they have much to answer for! Who bid them come and be shipwrecked so close to my castle?"Folko cast a piercing look on him, and a fearful inquiry was on the point of escaping his lips, but another look at the trembling Gabrielle made him silent, at least for the present moment, and the knight Biorn continued his narrative.

"Verena was with her nuns, I was left alone, and my despair had driven me throughout the day through forest and brook and mountain.

In the twilight I returned to my deserted castle, and scarcely was Iin the hall, when the little door creaked, and Weigand, who had slept through all, crept towards me and asked: 'Where can Verena be?' Then I became as mad, and howled to him, 'She is gone mad, and so am I, and you also, and now we are all mad!' Merciful Heaven, the wound on his head burst open, and a dark stream flowed over his face--ah! how different from the redness when Verena met him at the castle-gate;and he rushed forth, raving mad, into the wilderness without, and ever since has wandered all around as a crazy pilgrim."He was silent, and so were Folko and Gabrielle, all three pale and cold like images of the dead.At length the fearful narrator added in a low voice, and as if he were quite exhausted: "He has visited me since that time, but he will never again come through the little door.Have I not established peace and order in my castle?"