The Dove in the Eagle's Nest

by Charlotte M. Yonge

  CHAPTER VITHE BLESSED FRIEDMUND’S WAKE

  MIDSUMMER-DAY arrived, and the village of Adlerstein presented a mostunusual spectacle. The wake was the occasion of a grand fair for all themountain-side, and it was an understood thing that the Barons, instead ofmolesting the pedlars, merchants, and others who attended it, contentedthemselves with demanding a toll from every one who passed the Kohler’shut on the one side, or the Gemsbock’s Pass on the other; and this toll,being the only coin by which they came honestly in the course of theyear, was regarded as a certainty and highly valued. Moreover, it wasthe only time that any purchases could be made, and the flotsam of theford did not always include all even of the few requirements of theinmates of the castle; it was the only holiday, sacred or secular, thatever gladdened the Eagle’s Rock.

  So all the inmates of the castle prepared to enjoy themselves, except theheads of the house. The Freiherr had never been at one of these wakessince the first after he was excommunicated, when he had stalked round toshow his indifference to the sentence; and the Freiherrinn snarled outsuch sentences of disdain towards the concourse, that it might besupposed that she hated the sight of her kind; but Ursel had all thehousehold purchases to make, and the kitchen underlings were to taketurns to go and come, as indeed were the men-at-arms, who were set towatch the toll-bars.

  Christina had packed up a small bundle, for the chance of being unable toreturn to the castle without missing her escort, though she hoped thatthe fair might last two days, and that she should thus be enabled toreturn and bring away the rest of her property. She was more and moreresolved on going, but her heart was less and less inclined to departure.And bitter had been her weeping through all the early light hours of thelong morning—weeping that she tried to think was all for Ermentrude; andall, amid prayers she could scarce trust herself to offer, that thegenerous, kindly nature might yet work free of these evil surroundings,and fulfil the sister’s dying wish, she should never see it; but, whenshe should hear that the Debateable Ford was the Friendly Ford, thenwould she know that it was the doing of the Good Baron Ebbo. Could sheventure on telling him so? Or were it not better that there were nofarewell? And she wept again that he should think her ungrateful. Shecould not persuade herself to release the doves, but committed the chargeto Ursel to let them go in case she should not return.

  So tear-stained was her face, that, ashamed that it should be seen, shewrapped it closely in her hood and veil when she came down and joined herfather. The whole scene swam in tears before her eyes when she saw thewhole green slope from the chapel covered with tents and booths, andswarming with pedlars and mountaineers in their picturesque dresses.Women and girls were exchanging the yarn of their winter’s spinning forbright handkerchiefs; men drove sheep, goats, or pigs to barter forknives, spades, or weapons; others were gazing at simple shows—a dancingbear or ape—or clustering round a Minnesinger; many even thencongregating in booths for the sale of beer. Further up, on the flatspace of sward above the chapel, were some lay brothers, arranging forthe representation of a mystery—a kind of entertainment which Germanyowed to the English who came to the Council of Constance, and which themonks of St. Ruprecht’s hoped might infuse some religious notions intothe wild, ignorant mountaineers.

  First however Christina gladly entered the church. Crowded though itwere, it was calmer than the busy scene without. Faded old tapestry wasdecking its walls, representing apparently some subject entirely alien toSt. John or the blessed hermit; Christina rather thought it was Mars andVenus, but that was all the same to every one else. And there was aterrible figure of St. John, painted life-like, with a real hair-clothround his loins, just opposite to her, on the step of the Altar; alsopoor Friedmund’s bones, dressed up in a new serge amice and hood; thestone from Nicæa was in a gilded box, ready in due time to be kissed; anda preaching friar (not one of the monks of St. Ruprecht’s) was in themidst of a sermon, telling how St. John presided at the Council of Nicæatill the Emperor Maximius cut off his head at the instance ofHerodius—full justice being done to the dancing—and that the blood wassprinkled on this very stone, whereupon our Holy Father the Pope decreedthat whoever would kiss the said stone, and repeat the Credo five timesafterwards, should be capable of receiving an indulgence for 500 years:which indulgence must however be purchased at the rate of six groschen,to be bestowed in alms at Rome. And this inestimable benefit he, poorFriar Peter, had come from his brotherhood of St. Francis at Offingensolely to dispense to the poor mountaineers.

  It was disappointing to find this profane mummery going on instead of theholy services to which Christina had looked forward for strength andcomfort; she was far too well instructed not to be scandalized at theprofane deception which was ripening fast for Luther, only thirty yearslater; and, when the stone was held up by the friar in one hand, theprinted briefs of indulgence in the other, she shrunk back. Her fatherhowever said, “Wilt have one, child? Five hundred years is no badbargain.”

  “My uncle has small trust in indulgences,” she whispered.

  “All lies, of course,” quoth Hugh; “yet they’ve the Pope’s seal, and Ihave more than half a mind to get one. Five hundred years is no joke,and I am sure of purgatory, since I bought this medal at the Holy Houseof Loretto.”

  And he went forward, and invested six groschen in one of the papers, themost religious action poor Christina had ever seen him perform. Otherpurchasers came forward—several, of the castle _knappen_, and a fewpeasant women who offered yarn or cheeses as equivalents for money, butwere told with some insolence to go and sell their goods, and bring thecoin.

  After a time, the friar, finding his traffic slack, thought fit toremove, with his two lay assistants, outside the chapel, and try theeffects of an out-of-door sermon. Hugh Sorel, who had been hithertorather diverted by the man’s gestures and persuasions, now decided ongoing out into the fair in quest of an escort for his daughter, but asshe saw Father Norbert and another monk ascending from the stairs leadingto the hermit’s cell, she begged to be allowed to remain in the church,where she was sure to be safe, instead of wandering about with him in thefair.

  He was glad to be unencumbered, though he thought her taste unnatural;and, promising to return for her when he had found an escort, he lefther.

  Father Norbert had come for the very purpose of hearing confessions, andChristina’s next hour was the most comfortable she had spent sinceErmentrude’s death.

  After this however the priests were called away, and long, long didChristina first kneel and then sit in the little lonely church, hearingthe various sounds without, and imagining that her father had forgottenher, and that he and all the rest were drinking, and then what wouldbecome of her? Why had she quitted old Ursel’s protection?

  Hours of waiting and nameless alarm must have passed, for the sun waswaxing low, when at length she heard steps coming up the hermit’s cell,and a head rose above the pavement which she recognized with a wild throbof joy, but, repressing her sense of gladness, she only exclaimed, “Oh,where is my father!”

  “I have sent him to the toll at the Gemsbock’s Pass,” replied SirEberhard, who had by this time come up the stairs, followed by BrotherPeter and the two lay assistants. Then, as Christina turned on him herstartled, terrified eyes in dismay and reproach for such thoughtlessness,he came towards her, and, bending his head and opening his hand, heshowed on his palm two gold rings. “There, little one,” he said; “nowshalt thou never again shut me out.”

  Her senses grew dizzy. “Sir,” she faintly said, “this is no place todelude a poor maiden.”

  “I delude thee not. The brother here waits to wed us.”

  “Impossible! A burgher maid is not for such as you.”

  “None but a burgher maid will I wed,” returned Sir Eberhard, with all thesettled resolution of habits of command. “See, Christina, thou artsweeter and better than any lady in the land; thou canst make me whatshe—the blessed one who lies there—would have me. I love thee as neverknight loved la
dy. I love thee so that I have not spoken a word tooffend thee when my heart was bursting; and”—as he saw her irrepressibletears—“I think thou lovest me a little.”

  “Ah!” she gasped with a sob, “let me go.”

  “Thou canst not go home; there is none here fit to take charge of thee.Or if there were, I would slay him rather than let thee go. No, not so,”he said, as he saw how little those words served his cause; “but withoutthee I were a mad and desperate man. Christina, I will not answer formyself if thou dost not leave this place my wedded wife.”

  “Oh!” implored Christina, “if you would only betroth me, and woo me likean honourable maiden from my home at Ulm!”

  “Betroth thee, ay, and wed thee at once,” replied Eberhard, who, allalong, even while his words were most pleading, had worn a look andmanner of determined authority and strength, good-natured indeed, butresolved. “I am not going to miss my opportunity, or baulk the friar.”

  The friar, who had meantime been making a few needful arrangements forthe ceremony, advanced towards them. He was a good-humoured, easy-goingman, who came prepared to do any office that came in his way on suchfestival days at the villages round; and peasant marriages at such timeswere not uncommon. But something now staggered him, and he saidanxiously—

  “This maiden looks convent-bred! Herr Reiter, pardon me; but if this bethe breaking of a cloister, I can have none of it.”

  “No such thing,” said Eberhard; “she is town-bred, that is all.”

  “You would swear to it, on the holy mass yonder, both of you?” said thefriar, still suspiciously.

  “Yea,” replied Eberhard, “and so dost thou, Christina.”

  This was the time if ever to struggle against her destiny. The friarwould probably have listened to her if she had made any vehementopposition to a forced marriage, and if not, a few shrieks would havebrought perhaps Father Norbert, and certainly the whole population; butthe horror and shame of being found in such a situation, even more thanthe probability that she might meet with vengeance rather thanprotection, withheld her. Even the friar could hardly have removed her,and this was her only chance of safety from the Baroness’s fury. Had shehated and loathed Sir Eberhard, perhaps she had striven harder, but hiswhole demeanour constrained and quelled her, and the chief effort shemade against yielding was the reply, “I am no cloister maid, holy father,but—”

  The “but” was lost in the friar’s jovial speech. “Oh, then, all is well!Take thy place, pretty one, there, by the door, thou know’st it should bein the porch, but—ach, I understand!” as Eberhard quietly drew the boltwithin. “No, no, little one, I have no time for bride scruples andcoyness; I have to train three dull-headed louts to be Shem, Ham, andJaphet before dark. Hast confessed of late?”

  “This morning, but—” said Christina, and “This morning,” to her greatjoy, said Eberhard, and, in her satisfaction thereat, her second “but”was not followed up.

  The friar asked their names, and both gave the Christian name alone; thenthe brief and simple rite was solemnized in its shortest form. Christinahad, by very force of surprise and dismay, gone through all without signsof agitation, except the quivering of her whole frame, and the icycoldness of the hand, where Eberhard had to place the ring on each fingerin turn.

  But each mutual vow was a strange relief to her long-tossed and dividedmind, and it was rest indeed to let her affection have its will, and ownhim indeed as a protector to be loved instead of shunned. When all wasover, and he gathered the two little cold hands into his large one, hisarm supporting her trembling form, she felt for the moment, poor littlething, as if she could never be frightened again.

  Parish registers were not, even had this been a parish church, butBrother Peter asked, when he had concluded, “Well, my son, which of hisflock am I to report to your Pfarrer as linked together?”

  “The less your tongue wags on that matter till I call on you, thebetter,” was the stern reply. “Look you, no ill shall befall you if youare wise, but remember, against the day I call you to bear witness, thatyou have this day wedded Baron Eberhard von Adlerstein the younger, toChristina, the daughter of Hugh Sorel, the Esquire of Ulm.”

  “Thou hast played me a trick, Sir Baron!” said the friar, somewhatdismayed, but more amused, looking up at Eberhard, who, as Christina nowsaw, had divested himself of his gilt spurs, gold chain, silvered beltand horn, and eagle’s plume, so as to have passed for a simplelanzknecht. “I would have had no such gear as this!”

  “So I supposed,” said Eberhard coolly.

  “Young folks! young folks!” laughed the friar, changing his tone, andholding up his finger slyly; “the little bird so cunningly nestled in thechurch to fly out my Lady Baroness! Well, so thou hast a pretty, timidlambkin there, Sir Baron. Take care you use her mildly.”

  Eberhard looked into Christina’s face with a smile, that to her, atleast, was answer enough; and he held out half a dozen links of his goldchain to the friar, and tossed a coin to each of the lay brethren.

  “Not for the poor friar himself,” explained Brother Peter, on receivingthis marriage fee; “it all goes to the weal of the brotherhood.”

  “As you please,” said Eberhard. “Silence, that is all! And thyfriary—?”

  “The poor house of St. Francis at Offingen for the present, noble sir,”said the priest. “There will you hear of me, if you find me not. Andnow, fare thee well, my gracious lady. I hope one day thou wilt havemore words to thank the poor brother who has made thee a noble Baroness.”

  “Ah, good father, pardon my fright and confusion,” Christina tried tomurmur, but at that moment a sudden glow and glare of light broke out onthe eastern rock, illuminating the fast darkening little church with aflickering glare, that made her start in terror as if the fires of heavenwere threatening this stolen marriage; but the friar and Eberhard bothexclaimed, “The Needfire alight already!” And she recollected how oftenshe had seen these bonfires on Midsummer night shining red on every hillaround Ulm. Loud shouts were greeting the uprising flame, and the peoplegathering thicker and thicker on the slope. The friar undid the door tohasten out into the throng, and Eberhard said he had left his spurs andbelt in the hermit’s cell, and must return thither, after which he wouldwalk home with his bride, moving at the same time towards the stair, andthereby causing a sudden scuffle and fall. “So, master hermit,” quothEberhard, as the old man picked himself up, looking horribly frightened;“that’s your hermit’s abstraction, is it? No whining, old man, I am notgoing to hurt thee, so thou canst hold thy tongue. Otherwise I willsmoke thee out of thy hole like a wild cat! What, thou aiding me with mybelt, my lovely one? Thanks; the snap goes too hard for thy littlehands. Now, then, the fire will light us gaily down the mountain side.”

  But it soon appeared that to depart was impossible, unless by forcing away through the busy throng in the full red glare of the firelight, andthey were forced to pause at the opening of the hermit’s cave, Christinaleaning on her husband’s arm, and a fold of his mantle drawn round her toguard her from the night-breeze of the mountain, as they waited for aquiet space in which to depart unnoticed. It was a strange, wild scene!The fire was on a bare, flat rock, which probably had been yearly soemployed ever since the Kelts had brought from the East the rite thatthey had handed on to the Swabians—the Beltane fire, whose like wasblazing everywhere in the Alps, in the Hartz, nay, even in England,Scotland, and on the granite points of Ireland. Heaped up for manyprevious days with faggots from the forest, then apparentlyinexhaustible, the fire roared and crackled, and rose high, red andsmoky, into the air, paling the moon, and obscuring the stars. Round it,completely hiding the bonfire itself, were hosts of dark figures swarmingto approach it—all with a purpose. All held old shoes or superannuatedgarments in their hands to feed the flame; for it was esteemed needfulthat every villager should contribute something from his house—once, nodoubt, as an offering to Bel, but now as a mere unmeaning observance.And shrieks of merriment followed the c
ontribution of each too well-knownarticle of rubbish that had been in reserve for the Needfire! Girls andboys had nuts to throw in, in pairs, to judge by their bounces of futurechances of matrimony. Then came a shouting, tittering, and falling back,as an old boor came forward like a priest with something heavy andghastly in his arms, which was thrown on with a tremendous shout,darkened the glow for a moment, then hissed, cracked, and emitted ahorrible odour.

  It was a horse’s head, the right owner of which had been carefully keptfor the occasion, though long past work. Christina shuddered, and feltas if she had fallen upon a Pagan ceremony; as indeed was true enough,only that the Adlersteiners attached no meaning to the performance,except a vague notion of securing good luck.

  With the same idea the faggots were pulled down, and arranged so as toform a sort of lane of fire. Young men rushed along it, and then boundedover the diminished pile, amid loud shouts of laughter and eitheradmiration or derision; and, in the meantime, a variety of odd, recusantnoises, grunts, squeaks, and lowings proceeding from the darkness wereexplained to the startled little bride by her husband to come from allthe cattle of the mountain farms around, who were to have their wealsecured by being driven through the Needfire.

  It may well be imagined that the animals were less convinced of thenecessity of this performance than their masters. Wonderful was theclatter and confusion, horrible the uproar raised behind to make the poorthings proceed at all, desperate the shout when some half-franticcreature kicked or attempted a charge wild the glee when a persecutedgoat or sheep took heart of grace, and flashed for one moment between thecrackling, flaring, smoking walls. When one cow or sheep off a farmwent, all the others were pretty sure to follow it, and the owner hadthen only to be on the watch at the other end to turn them back, withtheir flame-dazzled eyes, from going unawares down the precipice, a fatefrom which the passing through the fire was evidently not supposed toensure them. The swine, those special German delights, were of coursethe most refractory of all. Some, by dint of being pulled away from thelane of fire, were induced to rush through it; but about half-way theygenerally made a bolt, either sidelong through the flaming fence orbackwards among the legs of their persecutors, who were upset amid loudimprecations. One huge, old, lean, high-backed sow, with a large family,truly feminine in her want of presence of mind, actually charged into themidst of the bonfire itself, scattering it to the right and left with hersnout, and emitting so horrible a smell of singed bacon, that it mightalmost be feared that some of her progeny were anticipating the inventionof Chinese roasting-pigs. However, their proprietor, Jobst, counted themout all safe on the other side, and there only resulted some sighs andlamentations among the seniors, such as Hatto and Ursel, that it bodedill to have the Needfire trodden out by an old sow.

  All the castle live-stock were undergoing the same ceremony. Eberhardconcerned himself little about the vagaries of the sheep and pigs, andonly laughed a little as the great black goat, who had seen severalMidsummer nights, and stood on his guard, made a sudden short run andbutted down old Hatto, then skipped off like a chamois into the darkness,unheeding, the old rogue, the whispers that connected his unlucky huewith the doings of the Walpurgisnacht. But when it came to the horses,Eberhard could not well endure the sight of the endeavours to force them,snorting, rearing, and struggling, through anything so abhorrent to themas the hedge of fire.

  The Schneiderlein, with all the force of his powerful arm, had hold ofEberhard’s own young white mare, who, with ears turned back, nostrilsdilated, and wild eyes, her fore-feet firmly planted wide apart, wasusing her whole strength for resistance; and, when a heavy blow fell onher, only plunged backwards, and kicked without advancing. It was morethan Eberhard could endure, and Christina’s impulse was to murmur, “O donot let him do it;” but this he scarcely heard, as he exclaimed, “Waitfor me here!” and, as he stepped forward, sent his voice before him,forbidding all blows to the mare.

  The creature’s extreme terror ceased at once upon hearing his voice, andthere was an instant relaxation of all violence of resistance as he cameup to her, took her halter from the Schneiderlein, patted her glossyneck, and spoke to her. But the tumult of warning voices around himassured him that it would be a fatal thing to spare the steed the passagethrough the fire, and he strove by encouragements and caresses with voiceand hand to get her forward, leading her himself; but the poor beasttrembled so violently, and, though making a few steps forward, stoppedagain in such exceeding horror of the flame, that Eberhard had not theheart to compel her, turned her head away, and assured her that sheshould not be further tormented.

  “The gracious lordship is wrong,” said public opinion, by the voice ofold Bauer Ulrich, the sacrificer of the horse’s head. “Heaven forfendthat evil befall him and that mare in the course of the year.”

  And the buzz of voices concurred in telling of the recusant pigs who hadnever developed into sausages, the sheep who had only escaped to be eatenby wolves, the mule whose bones had been found at the bottom of an abyss.

  Old Ursel was seriously concerned, and would have laid hold on her youngmaster to remonstrate, but a fresh notion had arisen—Would the graciousFreiherr set a-rolling the wheel, which was already being lighted in thefire, and was to conclude the festivities by being propelled down thehill—figuring, only that no one present knew it, the sun’s declensionfrom his solstitial height? Eberhard made no objection; and Christina,in her shelter by the cave, felt no little dismay at being left alonethere, and moreover had a strange, weird feeling at the wild, uncannyceremony he was engaged in, not knowing indeed that it was sun-worship,but afraid that it could be no other than unholy sorcery.

  The wheel, flaring or reddening in all its spokes, was raised from thebonfire, and was driven down the smoothest piece of green sward, whichformed an inclined plane towards the stream. If its course was smooth,and it only became extinguished by leaping into the water, the villagewould flourish; and prosperity above all was expected if it should springover the narrow channel, and attempt to run up the other side. Suchthings had happened in the days of the good Freiherren Ebbo and Friedel,though the wheel had never gone right since the present baron had beenexcommunicated; but his heir having been twice seen at mass in this lastmonth great hopes were founded upon him.

  There was a shout to clear the slope. Eberhard, in great earnest andsome anxiety, accepted the gauntlet that he was offered to protect hishand, steadied the wheel therewith, and, with a vigorous impulse fromhand and foot, sent it bounding down the slope, among loud cries and ageneral scattering of the idlers who had crowded full into the very pathof the fiery circle, which flamed up brilliantly for the moment as it metthe current of air. But either there was an obstacle in the way, or theyoung Baron’s push had not been quite straight: the wheel suddenlyswerved aside, its course swerved to the right, maugre all theobjurgations addressed to it as if it had been a living thing, and thenext moment it had disappeared, all but a smoky, smouldering spot of red,that told where it lay, charring and smoking on its side, without havingfulfilled a quarter of its course.

  People drew off gravely and silently, and Eberhard himself was strangelydiscomfited when he came back to the hermitage, and, wrapping Christinain his cloak, prepared to return, so soon as the glare of the fire shouldhave faded from his eyesight enough to make it safe to tread soprecipitous a path. He had indeed this day made a dangerous venture, andboth he and Christina could not but feel disheartened by the issue of allthe omens of the year, the more because she had a vague sense of wrong inconsulting or trusting them. It seemed to her all one frightened,uncomprehended dream ever since her father had left her in the chapel;and, though conscious of her inability to have prevented her marriage,yet she blamed herself, felt despairing as she thought of the future,and, above all, dreaded the Baron and the Baroness and their anger.Eberhard, after his first few words, was silent, and seemed solelyabsorbed in leading her safely along the rocky path, sometimes liftingher when he thought her in danger of stumbling. It wa
s one of thelightest, shortest nights of the year, and a young moon added to thebrightness in open places, while in others it made the rocks and stonescast strange elvish shadows. The distance was not entirely lost; otherBeltane fires could be seen, like beacons, on every hill, and the fewlights in the castle shone out like red fiery eyes in its heavy dark pileof building.

  Before entering, Eberhard paused, pulled off his own wedding-ring, andput it into his bosom, and taking his bride’s hand in his, did the samefor her, and bade her keep the ring till they could wear them openly.

  “Alas! then,” said Christina, “you would have this secret?”

  “Unless I would have to seek thee down the oubliette, my little one,”said Eberhard “or, what might even be worse, see thee burnt on thehillside for bewitching me with thine arts! No, indeed, my darling.Were it only my father, I could make him love thee; but my mother—I couldnot trust her where she thought the honour of our house concerned. Itshall not be for long. Thou know’st we are to make peace with theKaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kürfurst Albrecht’scompanies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn,and teach me the ways of cities.”

  “Alas! I fear me it has been a great sin!” sighed the poor little wife.

  “For thee—thou couldst not help it,” said Eberhard; “for me—who knows howmany deadly ones it may hinder? Cheer up, little one; no one can harmthee while the secret is kept.”

  Poor Christina had no choice but submission; but it was a sorry bridalevening, to enter her husband’s home in shrinking terror; with the threatof the oubliette before her, and with a sense of shame and deceptionhanging upon her, making the wonted scowl of the old baroness cut herboth with remorse and dread.

  She did indeed sit beside her bridegroom at the supper, but how littlelike a bride! even though he pushed the salt-cellar, as if by accident,below her place. She thought of her myrtle, tended in vain at home byBarbara Schmidt; she thought of Ulm courtships, and how all ought to havebeen; the solemn embassage to her uncle, the stately negotiations; thetroth plight before the circle of ceremonious kindred and merry maidens,of whom she had often been one—the subsequent attentions of the betrothedon all festival days, the piles of linen and all plenishings accumulatedsince babyhood, and all reviewed and laid out for general admiration (Ah!poor Aunt Johanna still spinning away to add to the many webs in herwalnut presses!)—then the grand procession to fetch home the bride, thesplendid festival with the musicians, dishes, and guest-tables to theutmost limit that was allowed by the city laws, and the bride’s hair sojoyously covered by her matron’s curch amid the merriment of hercompanion maidens.

  Poor child! After she had crept away to her own room, glad that herfather was not yet returned, she wept bitterly over the wrong that shefelt she had done to the kind uncle and aunt, who must now look in vainfor their little Christina, and would think her lost to them, and to allelse that was good. At least she had had the Church’s blessing—but that,strange to say, was regarded, in burgher life before the Reformation, asrather the ornament of a noble marriage than as essential to the civilcontract; and a marriage by a priest was regarded by the citizens ratheras a means of eluding the need of obtaining the parent’s consent, than asa more regular and devout manner of wedding. However, Christina feltthis the one drop of peace. The blessings and prayers were warm at herheart, and gave her hope. And as to drops of joy, of them there was nolack, for had not she now a right to love Eberhard with all her heart andconscience, and was not it a wonderful love on his part that had made himstoop to the little white-faced burgher maid, despised even by her ownfather? O better far to wear the maiden’s uncovered head for him thanthe myrtle wreath for any one else!