Margery, Volume 1.
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Georg Ebers >> Margery, Volume 1.
After the Ave Maria, the old organist, Adam Heyden, Ann's grand uncle,
would come to seek her, and many sweet memories dwell in my mind of that
worthy and gifted man, which I might set down were it not that I am Ann's
debtor for so many things that made my childhood happy. It was she, for
a certainty, who first taught me truly to play; for whereas my dolls, and
men-at-arms and shop games, albeit they were small, were in all points
like the true great ones, she had but a staff of wood wrapped round with
a kerchief which she rocked in her arms for a babe; and when she played a
shop game with the little ones, she marked stones and leaves to be their
wares and their money, and so found far greater pastime than we when we
played with figs and almonds and cloves out of little wooden chests and
linen-cloth sacks, and weighed them with brass weights on little scales
with a tongue and string. It was she who brought imagination to bear on
my pastimes, and many a time has she borne my fancy far enough from the
Pegnitz, over seas and rivers to groves of palm and golden fairy lands.
Our fellowship with my brethren was grateful to her as it was to me; but
meseems it was a different thing in those early years from what it was in
later days. While I write a certain summer day from that long past time
comes back to my mind strangely clear. We had played long enough in our
chamber, and we found it too hot in the loft under the roof, where we had
climbed on to the beams, which were great, so we went down into the
garden. Herdegen had quitted us in haste after noon, and we found none
but Kunz, who was shaping arrows for his cross-bow. But he ere long
threw away his knife and came to be with us, and as he was well-disposed
to Ann as being my friend, he did his best to make himself pleasing, or
at least noteworthy in her sight. He stood on his head and then climbed
to the top of the tallest fruit-tree and flung down pears, but they smote
her head so that she cried out; then he turned a wheel on his hands and
feet, and a little more and his shoe would hit her in the face; and when
he marked that he was but troubling us, he went away sorrowful, but only
to hide behind a bush, and as we went past, to rush out on a sudden and
put us in fear by wild shouting.
My eldest brother well-nigh affrighted us more when he presently joined
us, for his hair was all unkempt and his looks wild. He was now of an
age when men-children deem maids to be weak and unfit for true sport, but
nevertheless strive their utmost to be marked and chosen by them. Hence
Ursula's good graces, which she had shown right openly, had for a long
while greatly pleased him, but by this time he was weary of her and began
to conceive that good little Ann, with her nightingale's voice, was more
to his liking.
After hastily greeting us, he forthwith made us privy to an evil matter.
One of his fellowship, Laurence Abenberger, the son of an apothecary, who
was diligent in school, and of a wondrous pious spirit, gave up all his
spare time to all manner of magic arts, and albeit he was but seventeen
years of age, he had already cast nativities for many folks and for us
maids, and had told us of divers ill-omens for the future. This
Abenberger, a little fellow of no note, had found in some ancient papers
a recipe for discovering treasure, and had told the secret to Herdegen
and some other few. To begin, they went at his bidding to the graveyard
with him, and there, at the full moon, they poured hot lead into the left
eye-hole of a skull and made it into arrow-heads. Yesternight they had
journeyed forth as far as Sinterspuhel, and there, at midnight, had stood
at the cross-roads and shot with these same arrow-heads to the four
quarters, to the end that they might dig for treasure wheresoever the
shafts might fall. But they found no treasure, but a newly-buried body,
and on this had taken to their heels in all haste. Herdegen only had
tarried behind with Abenberger, and when he saw that there were deep
wounds on the head of the dead man his intent was to carry the tidings to
the justices in council; nevertheless he would delay a while, because
Abenberger had besought him to keep silence and not to bring him to an
evil end. But as he had gone past the school of arms he had learnt that
an apprentice was missing, and that it was feared lest he had been
waylaid by pillagers, or had fallen into evil hands; so he now deemed it
his plain duty to keep no longer silence concerning the finding of the
body, and desired to be advised by me and Ann. While I, for my part,
shortly and clearly declared that information must at once be laid
before his worship the Mayor, a strange trembling fell on Ann, and
notwithstanding she could not say me nay, she was in such fear that grave
mischief might overtake Herdegen by reason of his thoughtless deed, that
tears ran in streams down her cheeks, and it cost me great pains or ever
I could comfort her, so brave and reasonable as she commonly was. But
Herdegen was greatly pleased by her too great terrors; and albeit he
laughed at her, he called her his faithful, fearful little hare, and
stuck the pink he wore in his jerkin into her hair. At this she was soon
herself again; she counselled him forthwith to do that it was his duty to
do; and when thereafter the authorities had made inquisition, it came to
light that our lads had in truth come upon the body of the slain
apprentice. And though Herdegen did his best to keep silence as touching
Abenberger's evildoings, they nevertheless came out through other ways,
and the poor wight was dismissed from the school.
By the end of two years after this, matters had changed in our household.
The twelve 'pueri' had been our guests at dinner, and were in the garden
singing merry rounds well known to us, and I joined in, with Ann and
Ursula Tetzel. Now, while Herdegen beat the time, his ear was intent on
Ann's singing, as though there were revelation on her lips; and his well-
beloved companion, Heinrich Trardorf, who erewhile had, with due modesty,
preferred me, Margery, seemed likewise well affected to her singing; and
when we ceased he fell into eager talk with her, for he had bewailed to
her that, albeit he loved me well, as being the son of simple folk he
might never lift up his eyes so high.
Herdegen's eyes rested on the twain with some little wrath; then he
hastily got up! He snatched the last of Cousin Maud's precious roses
from her favorite bush and gave them to Ursula, and then waited on her as
though she were the only maid there present. But ere long her father
came to fetch her, and so soon as she had departed, beaming, with her
roses, Herdegen hastily came to me and, without deeming Ann worthy to be
looked at even, bid me good even. I held his hand and called to her to
come to me, to help me hinder him from departing, inasmuch as one of the
pueri was about to play the lute for the rest to dance. She came forward
as an honest maid should, looked up at him with her great eyes, and
besought him full sweetly to tarry with us.
He pointed with his hand to Trardorf and answered roughly: "I care not to
go halves!" And he turned to go to the gate.
Ann took him by the hand, and without a word of his ways with Ursula,
not in chiding but as in deep grief, she said: "If you depart, you do me
a hurt. I have no pleasure but when you are by, and what do I care for
Heinrich?"
This was all he needed; his eye again met hers with bright looks, and
from that hour of our childhood she knew no will but his.
From that hour likewise Ann held off from all other lads, and when he was
by it seemed as though she had no eyes nor ears save for him and me
alone. To Kunz she paid little heed; yet he never failed to wait on her
and watch to do her service, as though she were the daughter of some
great lord, and he no more than her page.
Ann freely owned to me that she held Herdegen to be the noblest youth
on earth, nor could I marvel, when I was myself of the same mind. What
should I know, when I was still but fourteen and fifteen years old, of
love and its dangers? I had felt such love for Gotz as Ann for my elder
brother, and as I had then been glad that my dear Cousin had won the love
of so fair a maid as Gertrude, I likewise believed that Ann would some
day be glad if Herdegen should plight his troth to a fair damsel of high
degree. Hence I did all that in me lay to bring them together whenever
it might be, and in truth this befell often enough without my aid; for
not music alone was a bond between them, nor yet that Herdegen and I
taught her to ride on a horse, on the sandy way behind our horse-stalls
--the Greek lessons for which Magister Peter had come into the household
were a plea on which they passed many an hour together.
I was slow to learn that tongue; but Ann's head was not less apt than my
brother's, and he was eager and diligent to keep her good speed at the
like mark with his own, as she was so quick to apprehend. Thus both were
at last forward enough to put Greek into German, and then Magister Peter
was bidden to lend them his aid. Now, the change in the worthy man,
after eating for four years at our table, was such that many an one would
have said it was a miracle. At his first coming to us he himself said he
weened he was a doomed son of ill-luck, and he scarce dared look man or
woman in the face; and what a good figure he made now, notwithstanding
the divers pranks played on his simplicity by my brothers and their
fellows, nay, and some whiles by me.
Many an one before this has marked that the god Amor is the best
schoolmaster; and when our Magister had learnt to stoop less, nay almost
to hold himself straight, when as now, he wore his good new coat with
wide hanging sleeves, tight-fitting hose, a well-stiffened, snow-white
collar, and even a smart black feather in his beretta, when he not alone
smoothed his hair but anointed it, all this, in its beginnings, was by
reason of his great and true love for my Ann, while she was yet but a
child.
My cautious Cousin Maud had, it is true, done the blind god of Love good
service; for many a time she would, with her own hand, set some matter
straight which the Magister had put on all askew, and on divers occasions
would give him a piece of fine cloth, and with it the cost of the
tailor's work, in bright new coin wrapped in colored paper. She brought
him to order and to keep his hours, and when grave speech availed not she
could laugh at him with friendly mockery, such as hurts no man, inasmuch
as it is the outcome of a good heart. Thus it was, that, by the time
when Herdegen was to go to the high school at Erfurt, Magister Peter was
not strangely unlike other learned men of his standing; and when it fell
that he had to discourse of the great masters of learning in Italy, or of
the glorious Greek writers, I have seen his eye light up like that of a
youth.
Our guardian kept watch over my brothers' speed in learning. The old
knight Im Hoff was a somewhat stern man and shy of his kind, but scarce
another had such great wealth, or was so highly respected in our town.
He was our grand-uncle, as old Adam Heyden was Ann's, and two men less
alike it would be hard to find.
When we were bid to pay our devoir to my guardian it was seldom done but
with much complaining and churlishness; whereas it was ever a festival to
be suffered to go with Ann to the organist's house. He dwelt in a fine
lodging high up in the tower above the city, and he could look down from
his windows, as God Almighty looks down on the earth from the bright
heavens, over Nuremberg, and the fortress on the hill, the wide ring of
forest which guards it on the north and east and south, the meadows and
villages stretching between the woods, and the walls and turrets of our
good city, and the windings of the river Pegnitz. He loved to boast that
he was the first to bid the sun welcome and the last to bid it good-
night; and perchance it was to the light, of which he had so goodly a
share, that his spirit owed its ever gay good-cheer. He was ever ready
with a jest and some little gift for us children; and, albeit these were
of little money's worth, they brought us much joy. And indeed there was
never another man in Nuremberg who had given away so many tokens and made
so many glad hearts and faces thereby as Adam Heyden. True, indeed,
after a short but blessed wedded life he had been left a widower and
childless, and had no care to save for his heirs; and yet Gottfried
Spiesz, Ann's grandfather, was in the right when he said that he had more
children than ever another in Nuremberg, inasmuch as that he was like a
father to every lad and maid in the town.
When he walked down the street all the little ones were as glad though
they had met Christ the Lord or Saint Nicholas; and as they hung on to
his long gown with the left hand, with the right they crammed their
mouths with the apples or cakes whereof his pockets seemed never to be
empty.
But Master Adam had his weak side, and there were many to blame him for
that he was over fond of good liquor. Albeit he did his drinking after a
manner of his own, in no unseemly wise. To wit, on certain year-days he
would tarry alone in his tower, and his lamp might be seen gleaming till
midnight. There he would sit alone, with his wine jar and cup, and he
would drink the first and second and third in silence, to the good speed
of Elsa, his late departed wife. After that he began to sing in a low
voice, and before each fresh cup as he raised it he cried aloud "Prosit,
Adam!" and when it was empty: "I Heartily thank you, Heyden!"
Thus would he go on till he had drunk out divers jugs, and the tower
seemed to be spinning round him. Then to his bed, where he would dream
of his Elsa and the good old days, the folks he had loved, his youthful
courtships, and all the fine and wondrous things which his lonely
drinking bout had brought to his inward eye. Next morning he was
faithfully at his duty. Common evenings, which were of no mark to him,
he spent with the Spiesz folks in the little house by the river, or else
in the Gentlemen's tavern in the Frohnwage; for albeit none met there but
such as belonged to the noble families of the town, and learned men, and
artists of mark, Adam Heyden the organist was held as their equal and a
right welcome guest.
And now as touching our grand-uncle and guardian the Knight Sir Sebald
Im Hoff.
Many an one will understand how that my fear of him grew greater after
that I one evening by mishap chanced to go into his bed chamber, and
there saw a black coffin wherein he was wont to sleep each night, as it
were in a bed. It was easy to see in the man himself that some deep
sorrow or heavy sin gnawed at his heart, and nevertheless he was one of
the stateliest old gentlemen I have met in a long life. His face seemed
as though cast in metal, and was of wondrous fine mould, but deadly and
unchangefully pale. His snowy hair fell in long locks over his collar of
sable fur, and his short beard, cut in a point, was likewise of a silver
whiteness. When he stood up he was much taller than common, and he
walked with princelike dignity. For many years he had ceased to go to
other folks' houses, nevertheless many others sought him out. In every
family of rank, excepting in his own, the Im Hoff family, wherever there
was a manchild or a maid growing up they were brought to him; but of them
all there were but two who dare come nigh him without fear. These were
my brother Herdegen and Ursula Tetzel; and throughout my young days she
was the one soul whom mine altogether shut out.
Notwithstanding I must for justice sake confess that she grew up to be a
well-favored damsel. Besides this, she was the only offspring of a rich
and noble house. She went from school a year before Ann and I did, and
after that her father, a haughty and eke a surly man, who had long since
lost his wife, her mother, prided himself on giving her such attires as
might have beseemed the daughter of a Count or a Prince-Elector. And the
brocades and fine furs and costly chains and clasps she wore graced her
lofty, round shape exceeding well, and she lorded it so haughtily in them
that the worshipful town-council were moved to put forth an order against
over much splendor in women's weed.
She was, verily and indeed, the last damsel I could have wished to see
brought home as mistress of the "Schopperhof," and nevertheless I knew
full well, before my brother went away to the high school, that our grand
uncle was counting on giving her and him to each other in marriage.
Master Tetzel likewise would point to them when they stood side by side,
so high and goodly, as though they were a pair; and this old man, whose
face was as grey and cold and hueless as all about his daughter was
bright and gay, would demean himself with utter humbleness and homage to
the lad who scarce showed the first down on his lip and chin, by reason
that he looked upon him, who was his granduncle's heir, as his own son-
in-law.
It was, to be sure, known to many that rich old Im Hoff was minded to
leave great endowments to the Holy Church, and meseemed that it was
praiseworthy and wise that he should do all that in him lay to gain the
prayers of the Blessed Virgin and the dear Saints; for the evil deed
which had turned him from a dashing knight into a lonely penitent might
well weigh in torment on his poor soul. I will here shortly rehearse all
I myself knew of that matter.
In his young days my grand uncle had carried his head high indeed, and
deemed so greatly of his scutcheon and his knightly forbears that be
scorned all civic dignities as but a small matter. Then, whereas in the
middle of the past century all towns were forbid by imperial law to hold
tournaments, he went to Court, and had been dubbed knight by the Emperor
Charles, and won fame and honor by many a shrewd lance-thrust. His more
than common manly beauty gained him favor with the ladies, and since he
preferred what was noble and knightly to all other graces he would wed no
daughter of Nuremberg but the penniless child of Baron von Frauentrift.
But my grand-uncle had made an evil choice; his wife was high-tempered
and filled full of conceits. When princes and great lords came into our
city, they were ever ready to find lodging in the great and wealthy house
of the Im Hoffs; but then she would suffer them to pay court to her, and
grant them greater freedom than becomes the decent honor of a Nuremberg
citizen's hearth. Once, then, when my lord the duke of Bavaria lay at
their house with a numerous fellowship, a fine young count, who had
courted my grand uncle's wife while she was yet a maid, fanned his
jealousy to a flame; and, one evening, at a late hour, while his wife was
yet not come home from seeing some friends, as it fell he heard a noise
and whispering of voices, beneath their lodging, in the courtyard wherein
all these folks' chests and bales were bestowed. He rushed forth, beside
himself; and whereas he shouted out to the courtyard and got no reply, he
thrust right and left at haphazard with his naked sword among the chests
whence he had heard the voices, and a pitiful cry warned him that he had
struck home. Then there came the wailing of a woman; and when the
squires and yeomen came forth with torches and lanterns, he could see
that he had slain Ludwig Tetzel, Ursula's uncle, a young unwedded man.
He had stolen into the courtyard to hold a tryst with the fair daughter
of the master-weigher in the Im Hoffs' house of trade, and the loving
pair, in their fear of the master, had not answered his call, but had
crept behind the baggage. Thus, by ill guidance, had my grand-uncle
become a murderer, and the judges broke their staff over him; albeit,
since he freely confessed the deed of death, and had done it with no evil
intent, they were content to make him pay a fine in money. But some said
that they likewise commanded the hangman to nail up a gallows-cord behind
his house door; others, rather, that he had taken upon himself the
penance of ever wearing such a cord about his neck day and night.
As touching the Tetzels themselves, they made no claim for blood; and for
this he was so thankful to them, all his life through, that he gave them
his word that he would name Ursula in his testament; whereas he ever
hated the Im Hoffs to the end, after that they, on whom he had brought so
much vexation by his wilful and haughty temper, took counsel after the
judgment as to whether it behooved them not to strip him of their good
old name and thrust him forth from their kinship. Four only, as against
three, spoke in his favor, and this his haughty spirit could so ill
endure that never an Im Hoff dared cross his threshold, though one and
another often strove to win back his favor.
He had little comfort from his wife in his grief, for when he was found
guilty of manslaughter she quitted him to return to the Emperor's court
at Prague, and there she died after a wild hunt which she had followed in
King Wenzel's train, while she was not yet past her youth.
CHAPTER V.
Three years were past since Herdegen had first gone to the High School,
and we had never seen him but for a few weeks at the end of the first
year, when he was on his way from Erfurt to Padua. In the letters he
wrote from thence there was ever a greeting for Mistress Anna, and often
there would be a few words in Greek for her and me; yet, as he knew full
well that she alone could crack such nuts, he bid me to the feast only as
the fox bid the stork. While he was with us he ever demeaned himself
both to me and to her as a true and loving brother, when he was not at
the school of arms proving to the amazement of the knights and nobles his
wondrous skill in the handling of the sword, which he had got in the High
School. And during this same brief while be at divers times had speech
of Ursula, but he showed plainly enough that he had lost all delight in
her.
He had found but half of what he sought at Erfurt, but deemed that he was
ripe to go to Padua; for there, alone, he thought--and Magister Peter
said likewise--could he find the true grist for his mill. And when he
told us of what he hoped to gain at that place we could but account his
judgment good, and wish him good speed and that he might come home from
that famous Italian school a luminary of learning. When, at his
departing, I saw that Ann was in no better heart than I was, but looked
right doleful, I thought it was by reason of the sickness which for some
while past had now and again fallen on her good father. Kunz likewise
had quitted school, and be could not complain that learning weighed too
heavily on his light heart and merry spirit. He was now serving his
apprenticeship in our grand uncle's business, and whereas the traffic was
mainly with Venice he was to learn the Italian tongue with all diligence.
Our Magister, who was well-skilled in it, taught him therein, and was, as
heretofore, well content to be with us. Cousin Maud would never suffer
him to depart, for it had grown to be a habit with her to care for him;
albeit many an one can less easily suffer the presence of a man who needs
help, than of one who is himself of use and service.
Master Peter himself, under pretence of exercising himself in the Italian
tongue, would often wait upon Dame Giovanna. We on our part would
remember the fable of the Sack and the Ass and laugh; while Ann slipped
off to her garret chamber when the Magister was coming; and she could
never fail to know of it, for no son of man ever smote so feebly as he
with the knocker on the door plate.
Thus the years in which we grew from children into maidens ran past in
sheer peace and gladness. Cousin Maud allowed us to have every pastime
and delight; and if at times her face was less content, it was only by
reason that I craved to wear a longer kirtle than she deemed fitting for
my tender years, or that I proved myself over-rash in riding in the
riding school or the open country.
My close friendship with Ann brought me to mark and enjoy many other and
better things; and in this I differed from the maidens of some noble
families, who, to this day, sit in stalls of their own in church, apart
from such as have no scutcheon of arms. But indeed Ann was an honored
guest in many a lordly house wherein our school and playmates dwelt.
In summer days we would sometimes go forth to the farm belonging to us
Schoppers outside the town, or else to Jorg Stromer our worthy cousin at
the mill where paper is made; and at holy Whitsuntide we would ride forth
to the farm at Laub, which his sister Dame Anna Borchtlin had by
inheritance of her father. Nevertheless, and for all that there was to
see and learn at the paper-mill, and much as I relished the good fresh
butter and the black home-bread and the lard cakes with which Dame
Borchtlin made cheer for us, my heart best loved the green forest where
dwelt our uncle Conrad Waldstromer, father to my cousin Gotz, who still
was far abroad.