Fair maids will have their hero in
history. Siegfried was Margarita’s chosen.
She sang of Siegfried all over the house. ’O
the old days of Germany, when such a hero walked!’
she sang.
‘And who wins Margarita,’
mused Farina, ’happier than Siegfried, has in
his arms Brunhild and Chrimhild together!’
Crowning the young girl’s breast
was a cameo, and the skill of some cunning artist
out of Welschland had wrought on it the story of the
Drachenfels. Her bosom heaved the battle up and
down.
This cameo was a north star to German
manhood, but caused many chaste expressions of abhorrence
from Aunt Lisbeth, Gottlieb’s unmarried sister,
who seemed instinctively to take part with the Dragon.
She was a frail-fashioned little lady, with a face
betokening the perpetual smack of lemon, and who reigned
in her brother’s household when the good wife
was gone. Margarita’s robustness was beginning
to alarm and shock Aunt Lisbeth’s sealed stock
of virtue.
‘She must be watched, such a
madl as that,’ said Aunt Lisbeth. ’Ursula!
what limbs she has!’
Margarita was watched; but the spy
being neither foe nor friend, nothing was discovered
against her. This did not satisfy Aunt Lisbeth,
whose own suspicion was her best witness. She
allowed that Margarita dissembled well.
‘But,’ said she to her
niece, ’though it is good in a girl not to flaunt
these naughtinesses in effrontery, I care for you too
much not to say Be what you seem, my little
one!’
‘And that am I!’ exclaimed
Margarita, starting up and towering.
‘Right good, my niece,’
Lisbeth squealed; ’but now Frau Groschen lies
in God’s acre, you owe your duty to me, mind!
Did you confess last week?’
‘From beginning to end,’ replied Margarita.
Aunt Lisbeth fixed pious reproach on Margarita’s
cameo.
‘And still you wear that thing?’
‘Why not?’ said Margarita.
’Girl! who would bid you set
it in such a place save Satan? Oh, thou poor
lost child! that the eyes of the idle youths may be
drawn there! and thou become his snare to others,
Margarita! What was that Welsh wandering juggler
but the foul fiend himself, mayhap, thou maiden of
sin! They say he has been seen in Cologne lately.
He was swarthy as Satan and limped of one leg.
Good Master in heaven, protect us! it was Satan himself
I could swear!’
Aunt Lisbeth crossed brow and breast.
Margarita had commenced fingering
the cameo, as if to tear it away; but Aunt Lisbeth’s
finish made her laugh outright.
‘Where I see no harm, aunty,
I shall think the good God is,’ she answered;
‘and where I see there’s harm, I shall
think Satan lurks.’
A simper of sour despair passed over
Aunt Lisbeth. She sighed, and was silent, being
one of those very weak reeds who are easily vanquished
and never overcome.
‘Let us go on with the Tapestry, child,’
said she.
Now, Margarita was ambitious of completing
a certain Tapestry for presentation to Kaiser Heinrich
on his entry into Cologne after his last campaign
on the turbaned Danube. The subject was again
her beloved Siegfried slaying the Dragon on Drachenfels.
Whenever Aunt Lisbeth indulged in any bitter virginity,
and was overmatched by Margarita’s frank maidenhood,
she hung out this tapestry as a flag of truce.
They were working it in bits, not having contrivances
to do it in a piece. Margarita took Siegfried
and Aunt Lisbeth the Dragon. They shared the
crag between them. A roguish gleam of the Rhine
toward Nonnenwerth could be already made out, Roland’s
Corner hanging like a sentinel across the chanting
island, as one top-heavy with long watch.
Aunt Lisbeth was a great proficient
in the art, and had taught Margarita. The little
lady learnt it, with many other gruesome matters,
in the Palatine of Bohemia’s family. She
usually talked of the spectres of Hollenbogenblitz
Castle in the passing of the threads. Those were
dismal spectres in Bohemia, smelling of murder and
the charnel-breath of midnight. They uttered
noises that wintered the blood, and revealed sights
that stiffened hair three feet long; ay, and kept it
stiff!
Margarita placed herself on a settle
by the low-arched window, and Aunt Lisbeth sat facing
her. An evening sun blazoned the buttresses of
the Cathedral, and shadowed the workframes of the
peaceful couple to a temperate light. Margarita
unrolled a sampler sheathed with twists of divers
coloured threads, and was soon busy silver-threading
Siegfried’s helm and horns.
‘I told you of the steward,
poor Kraut, did I not, child?’ inquired Aunt
Lisbeth, quietly clearing her throat.
‘Many times!’ said Margarita,
and went on humming over her knee
’Her love was a
Baron,
A Baron so bold;
She loved him for love,
He loved her for gold.’
‘He must see for himself, and
be satisfied,’ continued Aunt Lisbeth; ‘and
Holy Thomas to warn him for an example! Poor Kraut!’
‘Poor Kraut!’ echoed Margarita.
’The King loved wine,
and the Knight loved wine,
And they loved the summer weather:
They might have loved each other well,
But for one they loved together.’
‘You may say, poor Kraut, child!’
said Aunt Lisbeth. ’Well! his face was
before that as red as this dragon’s jaw, and
ever after he went about as white as a pullet’s
egg. That was something wonderful!’ ‘That
was it!’ chimed Margarita.
’O the King he loved
his lawful wife,
The Knight a lawless lady:
And ten on one-made ringing strife,
Beneath the forest shady.’
‘Fifty to one, child!’
said Aunt Lisbeth: ’You forget the story.
They made Kraut sit with them at the jabbering feast,
the only mortal there. The walls were full of
eye-sockets without eyes, but phosphorus instead,
burning blue and damp.’
‘Not to-night, aunty dear!
It frightens me so,’ pleaded Margarita, for
she saw the dolor coming.
’Night! when it’s broad
mid-day, thou timid one! Good heaven take pity
on such as thou! The dish was seven feet in length
by four broad. Kraut measured it with his eye,
and never forgot it. Not he! When the dish-cover
was lifted, there he saw himself lying, boiled!
“’I did not feel uncomfortable
then,” Kraut told us. “It seemed
natural.”
’His face, as it lay there,
he says, was quite calm, only a little wrinkled, and
piggish-looking-like. There was the mole on his
chin, and the pucker under his left eyelid. Well!
the Baron carved. All the guests were greedy
for a piece of him. Some cried out for breast;
some for toes. It was shuddering cold to sit
and hear that! The Baroness said, “Cheek!"’
‘Ah!’ shrieked Margarita,
’that can I not bear! I will not hear it,
aunt; I will not!’
‘Cheek!’ Aunt Lisbeth reiterated, nodding
to the floor.
Margarita put her fingers to her ears.
’Still, Kraut says, even then
he felt nothing odd. Of course he was horrified
to be sitting with spectres as you and I should be;
but the first tremble of it was over. He had
plunged into the bath of horrors, and there he was.
I ’ve heard that you must pronounce the
names of the Virgin and Trinity, sprinkling water
round you all the while for three minutes; and if
you do this without interruption, everything shall
disappear. So they say. “Oh! dear heaven
of mercy!” says Kraut, “what I felt when
the Baron laid his long hunting-knife across my left
cheek!"’
Here Aunt Lisbeth lifted her eyes
to dote upon Margarita’s fright. She was
very displeased to find her niece, with elbows on the
window-sill and hands round her head, quietly gazing
into the street.
She said severely, ’Where did
you learn that song you were last singing, Margarita?
Speak, thou girl!’
Margarita laughed.
’The thrush, and the lark,
and the blackbird,
They taught me how to sing:
And O that the hawk would lend his eye,
And the eagle lend his wing.’
‘I will not hear these shameless
songs,’ exclaimed Aunt Lisbeth.
’For I would view the
lands they view,
And be where they have been:
It is not enough to be singing
For ever in dells unseen!’
A voice was heard applauding her.
’Good! right good! Carol again, Gretelchen!
my birdie!’
Margarita turned, and beheld her father
in the doorway. She tripped toward him, and heartily
gave him their kiss of meeting. Gottlieb glanced
at the helm of Siegfried.
’Guessed the work was going
well; you sing so lightsomely to-day, Grete!
Very pretty! And that’s Drachenfels?
Bones of the Virgins! what a bold fellow was Siegfried,
and a lucky, to have the neatest lass in Deutschland
in love with him. Well, we must marry her to Siegfried
after all, I believe! Aha? or somebody as good
as Siegfried. So chirrup on, my darling!’
‘Aunt Lisbeth does not approve
of my songs,’ replied Margarita, untwisting
some silver threads.
‘Do thy father’s command, girl!’
said Aunt Lisbeth.
’And doing his command,
Should I do a thing of ill,
I’d rather die to his lovely face,
Than wanton at his will.’
‘There there,’
said Aunt Lisbeth, straining out her fingers; ’you
see, Gottlieb, what over-indulgence brings her to.
Not another girl in blessed Rhineland, and Bohemia
to boot, dared say such words! than I
can’t repeat them! don’t ask
me! She’s becoming a Frankish girl!’
‘What ballad’s that?’ said Gottlieb,
smiling.
’The Ballad of Holy Ottilia;
and her lover was sold to darkness. And she loved
him loved him ’
‘As you love Siegfried, you little one?’
’More, my father; for she saw
Winkried, and I never saw Siegfried. Ah! if I
had seen Siegfried! Never mind. She loved
him; but she loved Virtue more. And Virtue is
the child of God, and the good God forgave her for
loving Winkried, the Devil’s son, because she
loved Virtue more, and He rescued her as she was being
dragged down down down, and was
half fainting with the smell of brimstone rescued
her and had her carried into His Glory, head and feet,
on the wings of angels, before all men, as a hope
to little maidens.
’And when I thought
that I was lost
I found that I was saved,
And I was borne through blessed clouds,
Where the banners of bliss were waved.’
‘And so you think you, too,
may fall in, love with Devils’ sons, girl?’
was Aunt Lisbeth’s comment.
‘Do look at Lisbeth’s
Dragon, little Heart! it’s so like!’ said
Margarita to her father.
Old Gottlieb twitted his hose, and chuckled.
‘She’s my girl! that may
be seen,’ said he, patting her, and wheezed up
from his chair to waddle across to the Dragon.
But Aunt Lisbeth tartly turned the Dragon to the wall.
‘It is not yet finished, Gottlieb,
and must not be looked at,’ she interposed.
’I will call for wood, and see to a fire:
these evenings of Spring wax cold’: and
away whimpered Aunt Lisbeth.
Margarita sang:
’I with my playmates,
In riot and disorder,
Were gathering herb and blossom
Along the forest border.’
‘Thy mother’s song, child
of my heart!’ said Gottlieb; ’but vex not
good
Lisbeth: she loves thee!’
’And do you think she
loves me?
And will you say ’tis true?
O, and will she have me,
When I come up to woo?’
‘Thou leaping doe! thou chattering pie!’
said Gottlieb.
’She shall have ribbons
and trinkets,
And shine like a morn of May,
When we are off to the little hill-church,
Our flowery bridal way.’
‘That she shall; and something
more!’ cried Gottlieb. ’But, hark
thee, Gretelchen; the Kaiser will be here in three
days. Thou dear one! had I not stored and hoarded
all for thee, I should now have my feet on a hearthstone
where even he might warm his boot. So get thy
best dresses and jewels in order, and look thyself;
proud as any in the land. A simple burgher’s
daughter now, Grete; but so shalt thou not end,
my butterfly, or there’s neither worth nor wit
in Gottlieb Groschen!’
‘Three days!’ Margarita
exclaimed; ’and the helm not finished, and the
tapestry-pieces not sewed and joined, and the water
not shaded off. Oh! I must work night
and day.’
’Child! I’ll have
no working at night! Your rosy cheeks will soon
be sucked out by oil-light, and you look no better
than poor tallow Court beauties to say
nothing of the danger. This old house saw Charles
the Great embracing the chief magistrate of his liege
city yonder. Some swear he slept in it.
He did not sneeze at smaller chambers than our Kaisers
abide. No gold ceilings with cornice carvings,
but plain wooden beams.’
’Know that the men
of great renown,
Were men of simple needs:
Bare to the Lord they laid them down,
And slept on mighty deeds.’
’God wot, there’s no emptying
thy store of ballads, Grete: so much shall
be said of thee. Yes; times are changeing:
We’re growing degenerate. Look at the men
of Linz now to what they were! Would they have
let the lads of Andernach float down cabbage-stalks
to them without a shy back? And why? All
because they funk that brigand-beast Werner, who gets
redemption from Laach, hard by his hold, whenever he
commits a crime worth paying for. As for me,
my timber and stuffs must come down stream, and are
too good for the nixen under Rhine, or think you I
would acknowledge him with a toll, the hell-dog?
Thunder and lightning! if old scores could be rubbed
out on his hide!’
Gottlieb whirled a thong-lashing arm
in air, and groaned of law and justice. What
were they coming to!
Margarita softened the theme with a verse:
‘And tho’ to sting
his enemy,
Is sweetness to the angry bee,
The angry bee must busy be,
Ere sweet of sweetness hiveth he.
The arch thrill of his daughter’s
voice tickled Gottlieb. ’That’s it,
birdie! You and the proverb are right. I
don’t know which is best,
’Better hive
And keep alive
Than vengeance wake
With that you take.’
A clatter in the cathedral square
brought Gottlieb on his legs to the window. It
was a company of horsemen sparkling in harness.
One trumpeter rode at the side of the troop, and in
front a standard-bearer, matted down the chest with
ochre beard, displayed aloft to the good citizens
of Cologne, three brown hawks, with birds in their
beaks, on an azure stardotted field.
‘Holy Cross!’ exclaimed
Gottlieb, low in his throat; ’the arms of Werner!
Where got he money to mount his men? Why, this
is daring all Cologne in our very teeth! ’Fend
that he visit me now! Ruin smokes in that ruffian’s
track. I ‘ve felt hot and cold by turns
all day.’
The horsemen came jingling carelessly
along the street in scattered twos and threes, laughing
together, and singling out the maidens at the gable-shadowed
windows with hawking eyes. The good citizens of
Cologne did not look on them favourably. Some
showed their backs and gruffly banged their doors:
others scowled and pocketed their fists: not a
few slunk into the side alleys like well-licked curs,
and scurried off with forebent knees. They were
in truth ferocious-looking fellows these trusty servants
of the robber Baron Werner, of Werner’s Eck,
behind Andernach. Leather, steel, and dust, clad
them from head to foot; big and black as bears; wolf-eyed,
fox-nosed. They glistened bravely in the falling
beams of the sun, and Margarita thrust her fair braided
yellow head a little forward over her father’s
shoulder to catch the whole length of the grim cavalcade.
One of the troop was not long in discerning the young
beauty. He pointed her boldly out to a comrade,
who approved his appetite, and referred her to a third.
The rest followed lead, and Margarita was as one spell-struck
when she became aware that all those hungry eyes were
preying on hers. Old Gottlieb was too full of
his own fears to think for her, and when he drew in
his head rather suddenly, it was with a dismal foreboding
that Werner’s destination in Cologne was direct
to the house of Gottlieb Groschen, for purposes only
too well to be divined.
‘Devil’s breeches!’
muttered Gottlieb; ’look again, Grete, and
see if that hell-troop stop the way outside.’
Margarita’s cheeks were overflowing
with the offended rose.
‘I will not look at them again, father.’
Gottlieb stared, and then patted her.
‘I would I were a man, father!’
Gottlieb smiled, and stroked his beard.
‘Oh! how I burn!’
And the girl shivered visibly.
’Grete! mind to be as much
of a woman as you can, and soon such raff as this
you may sweep away, like cobwebs, and no harm done.’
He was startled by a violent thumping
at the streetdoor, and as brazen a blast as if the
dead were being summoned. Aunt Lisbeth entered,
and flitted duskily round the room, crying:
’We are lost: they are
upon us! better death with a bodkin! Never shall
it be said of me; never! the monsters!’
Then admonishing them to lock, bar,
bolt, and block up every room in the house, Aunt Lisbeth
perched herself on the edge of a chair, and reversed
the habits of the screech-owl, by being silent when
stationary.
‘There’s nothing to fear
for you, Lisbeth,’ said Gottlieb, with discourteous
emphasis.
’Gottlieb! do you remember what
happened at the siege of Mainz? and poor Marthe Herbstblum,
who had hoped to die as she was; and Dame Altknopfchen,
and Frau Kaltblut, and the old baker, Hans Topf’s
sister, all of them as holy as abbesses, and
that did not save them! and nothing will from such
godless devourers.’
Gottlieb was gone, having often before
heard mention of the calamity experienced by these
fated women.
‘Comfort thee, good heart, on
my breast,’ said Margarita, taking Lisbeth to
that sweet nest of peace and fortitude.
’Margarita! ’tis your
doing! have I not said lure them not, for
they swarm too early upon us! And here they are!
and, perhaps, in five minutes all will be over!
Herr Je! What,
you are laughing! Heavens of goodness, the girl
is delighted!’
Here a mocking ha-ha! accompanied
by a thundering snack at the door, shook the whole
house, and again the trumpet burst the ears with fury.
This summons, which seemed to Aunt
Lisbeth final, wrought a strange composure in her
countenance. She was very pale, but spread her
dress decently, as if fear had departed, and clasped
her hands on her knees.
‘The will of the Lord above
must be done,’ said she; ’it is impious
to complain when we are given into the hand of the
Philistines. Others have been martyred, and were
yet acceptable.’
To this heroic speech she added, with
cold energy: ‘Let them come!’
‘Aunt,’ cried Margarita,
’I hear my father’s voice with those men.
Aunty! I will not let him be alone. I must
go down to him. You will be safe here. I
shall come to you if there’s cause for alarm.’
And in spite of Aunt Lisbeth’s
astonished shriek of remonstrance, she hurried off
to rejoin Gottlieb.