Farina

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'For surely,' says the minstrel, 'Hope is not born of earth, or it were
perishable. Rather know her the offspring of that embrace strong love
straineth the heavens with. This owe we to thy music, bridal
nightingale! And the difference of this celestial spirit from the
smirking phantasy of whom all stand soon or late forsaken, is the
difference between painted day with its poor ambitious snares, and night
lifting its myriad tapers round the throne of the eternal, the prophet
stars of everlasting time! And the one dieth, and the other liveth; and
the one is unregretted, and the other walketh in thought-spun raiment of
divine melancholy; her ears crowded with the pale surges that wrap this
shifting shore; in her eyes a shape of beauty floating dimly, that she
will not attain this side the water, but broodeth on evermore.

'Therefore, hold on thy cherished four long notes, which are as the very
edge where exultation and anguish melt, meet, and are sharpened to one
ecstasy, death-dividing bird! Fill the woods with passionate chuckle and
sob, sweet chaplain of the marriage service of a soul with heaven! Pour
out thy holy wine of song upon the soft-footed darkness, till, like a
priest of the inmost temple, 'tis drunken with fair intelligences!'

Thus the old minstrels and minnesingers.

Strong and full sang the nightingales that night Farina held watch by the
guilty castle that entombed his living beloved. The castle looked itself
a denser shade among the moonthrown shadows of rock and tree. The meadow
spread like a green courtyard at the castle's foot. It was of lush deep
emerald grass, softly mixed with grey in the moon's light, and showing
like jasper. Where the shadows fell thickest, there was yet a mist
of colour. All about ran a brook, and babbled to itself. The spring
crocus lifted its head in moist midgrasses of the meadow, rejoiced with
freshness. The rugged heights seemed to clasp this one innocent spot as
their only garden-treasure; and a bank of hazels hid it from the castle
with a lover's arm.

'The moon will tell me,' mused Farina; 'the moon will signal me the hour!
When the moon hangs over the round tower, I shall know 'tis time to
strike.'

The song of the nightingales was a full unceasing throb.

It went like the outcry of one heart from branch to branch. The four
long notes, and the short fifth which leads off to that hurried gush of
music, gurgling rich with passion, came thick and constant from under the
tremulous leaves.

At first Farina had been deaf to them. His heart was in the dungeon with
Margarita, or with the Goshawk in his dangers, forming a thousand
desperate plans, among the red-hot ploughshares of desperate action.
Finally, without a sense of being wooed, it was won. The tenderness of
his love then mastered him.

'God will not suffer that fair head to come to harm!' he thought, and
with the thought a load fell off his breast.

He paced the meadows, and patted the three pasturing steeds.
Involuntarily his sight grew on the moon. She went so slowly. She
seemed not to move at all. A little wing of vapour flew toward her; it
whitened, passed, and the moon was slower than before. Oh! were the
heavens delaying their march to look on this iniquity? Again and again
he cried, 'Patience, it is not time!' He flung himself on the grass. The
next moment he climbed the heights, and was peering at the mass of gloom
that fronted the sky. It reared such a mailed head of menace, that his
heart was seized with a quivering, as though it had been struck. Behind
lay scattered some small faint-winkling stars on sapphire fields, and a
stain of yellow light was in a breach of one wall.

He descended. What was the Goshawk doing? Was he betrayed? It was
surely now time? No; the moon had not yet smitten the face of the
castle. He made his way through the hazel-bank among flitting
nightmoths, and glanced up to measure the moon's distance. As he did so,
a first touch of silver fell on the hoary flint.

'Oh, young bird of heaven in that Devil's clutch!'

Sounds like the baying of boar-hounds alarmed him. They whined into
silence.

He fell back. The meadow breathed peace, and more and more the
nightingales volumed their notes. As in a charmed circle of palpitating
song, he succumbed to languor. The brook rolled beside him fresh as an
infant, toying with the moonlight. He leaned over it, and thrice
waywardly dipped his hand in the clear translucence.

Was it his own face imaged there?

Farina bent close above an eddy of the water. It whirled with a strange
tumult, breaking into lines and lights a face not his own, nor the
moon's; nor was it a reflection. The agitation increased. Now a wreath
of bubbles crowned the pool, and a pure water-lily, but larger, ascended
wavering.

He started aside; and under him a bright head, garlanded with gemmed
roses, appeared. No fairer figure of woman had Farina seen. Her visage
had the lustrous white of moonlight, and all her shape undulated in a
dress of flashing silver-white, wonderful to see. The Lady of the Water
smiled on him, and ran over with ripples and dimples of limpid beauty.
Then, as he retreated on the meadow grass, she swam toward him, and
taking his hand, pressed it to her. After her touch the youth no longer
feared. She curved her finger, and beckoned him on. All that she did
was done flowingly. The youth was a shadow in her silver track as she
passed like a harmless wave over the closed crocuses; but the crocuses
shivered and swelled their throats of streaked purple and argent as at
delicious rare sips of a wine. Breath of violet, and ladysmock, and
valley-lily, mingled and fluttered about her. Farina was as a man
working the day's intent in a dream. He could see the heart in her
translucent, hanging like a cold dingy ruby. By the purity of his nature
he felt that such a presence must have come but to help. It might be
Margarita's guardian fairy!

They passed the hazel-bank, and rounded the castlecrag, washed by the
brook and, beneath the advancing moon, standing in a ring of brawling
silver. The youth with his fervid eyes marked the old weather-stains and
scars of long defiance coming into colour. That mystery of wickedness
which the towers had worn in the dusk, was dissolved, and he endured no
more the almost abashed sensation of competing littleness that made him
think there was nought to do, save die, combating single-handed such
massive power. The moon shone calmly superior, like the prowess of
maiden knights; and now the harsh frown of the walls struck resolution to
his spirit, and nerved him with hate and the contempt true courage feels
when matched against fraud and villany.

On a fallen block of slate, cushioned with rich brown moss and rusted
weather-stains, the Water-Lady sat, and pointed to Farina the path of the
moon toward the round tower. She did not speak, and if his lips parted,
put her cold finger across them. Then she began to hum a soft sweet
monotony of song, vague and careless, very witching to hear. Farina
caught no words, nor whether the song was of days in dust or in flower,
but his mind bloomed with legends and sad splendours of story, while she
sang on the slate-block under sprinkled shadows by the water.

He had listened long in trance, when the Water-Lady hushed, and stretched
forth a slender forefinger to the moon. It stood like a dot over the
round tower. Farina rose in haste. She did not leave him to ask her
aid, but took his hand and led him up the steep ascent. Halfway to the
castle, she rested. There, concealed by bramble-tufts, she disclosed the
low portal of a secret passage, and pushed it open without effort. She
paused at the entrance, and he could see her trembling, seeming to wax
taller, till she was like a fountain glittering in the cold light. Then
she dropped, as drops a dying bet, and cowered into the passage.

Darkness, thick with earth-dews, oppressed his senses. He felt the
clammy walls scraping close on him. Not the dimmest lamp, or guiding
sound, was near; but the lady went on as one who knew her way. Passing a
low-vaulted dungeon-room, they wound up stairs hewn in the rock, and came
to a door, obedient to her touch, which displayed a chamber faintly
misted by a solitary bar of moonlight. Farina perceived they were above
the foundation of the castle. The walls gleamed pale with knightly
harness, habergeons gaping for heads, breastplates of blue steel,
halbert, and hand-axe, greaves, glaives, boar-spears, and polished spur-
fixed heel-pieces. He seized a falchion hanging apart, but the lady
stayed his arm, and led to another flight of stone ending in a kind of
corridor. Noises of laughter and high feasting beset him at this point.
The Lady of the Water sidled her head, as to note a familiar voice; and
then drew him to a looped aperture.

Farina beheld a scene that first dazzled, but, as it grew into shape,
sank him with dismay. Below, and level with the chamber he had left, a
rude banqueting-hall glowed, under the light of a dozen flambeaux, with
smoking boar's flesh, deer's flesh, stone-flagons, and horn-beakers. At
the head of this board sat Werner, scarlet with furious feasting, and on
his right hand, Margarita, bloodless as a beautiful martyr bound to the
fire. Retainers of Werner occupied the length of the hall, chorusing the
Baron's speeches, and drinking their own healths when there was no call
for another. Farina saw his beloved alone. She was dressed as when he
parted with her last. The dear cameo lay on her bosom, but not heaving
proudly as of old. Her shoulders were drooped forward, and contracted
her bosom in its heaving. She would have had a humbled look, but for the
marble sternness of her eyes. They were fixed as eyes that see the way
of death through all earthly objects.

'Now, dogs!' cried the Baron, 'the health of the night! and swell your
lungs, for I'll have no cat's cry when Werner's bride is the toast. Monk
or no monk's leave, she's mine. Ay, my pretty one! it shall be made
right in the morning, if I lead all the Laach rats here by the nose.
Thunder! no disrespect to Werner's bride from Pope or abbot. Now, sing
out!--or wait! these fellows shall drink it first.'

He stretched and threw a beaker of wine right and left behind him, and
Farina's despair stiffened his limbs as he recognized the Goshawk and
Schwartz Thier strapped to the floor. Their beards were already moist
with previous libations similarly bestowed, and they received this in
sullen stillness; but Farina thought he observed a rapid glance of
encouragement dart from beneath the Goshawk's bent brows, as Margarita
momentarily turned her head half-way on him.

'Lick your chaps, ye beasts, and don't say Werner stints vermin good
cheer his nuptial-night. Now,' continued the Baron, growing huskier as
he talked louder: 'Short and ringing, my devil's pups:--Werner and his
Bride! and may she soon give you a young baron to keep you in better
order than I can, as, if she does her duty, she will.'

The Baron stood up, and lifted his huge arm to lead the toast.

'Werner and his Bride!'

Not a voice followed him. There was a sudden intimation of the call
being echoed; but it snapped, and ended in shuffling tones, as if the
hall-door had closed on the response.

'What 's this?' roared the Baron, in that caged wild beast voice
Margarita remembered she had heard in the Cathedral Square.

No one replied.

'Speak! or I'll rot you a fathom in the rock, curs!'

'Herr Baron!' said Henker Rothhals impressively; 'the matter is, that
there's something unholy among us.'

The Baron's goblet flew at his head before the words were uttered.

'I'll make an unholy thing of him that says it,' and Werner lowered at
them one by one.

'Then I say it, Herr Baron!' pursued Henker Rothhals, wiping his
frontispiece: 'The Devil has turned against you at last. Look up there--
Ah, it's gone now; but where's the man sitting this side saw it not?'

The Baron made one spring, and stood on the board.

'Now! will any rascal here please to say so?'

Something in the cruel hang of his threatening hatchet jaw silenced many
in the act of confirming the assertion.

'Stand out, Henker Rotthals !'

Rotthals slid a hunting-knife up his wrist, and stepped back from the
board.

'Beast!' roared the Baron, 'I said I wouldn't shed blood to-night. I
spared a traitor, and an enemy----'

'Look again!' said Rothhals; 'will any fellow say he saw nothing there.'

While all heads, including Werner's, were directed to the aperture which
surveyed them, Rothhals tossed his knife to the Goshawk unperceived.

This time answers came to his challenge, but not in confirmation. The
Baron spoke with a gasping gentleness.

'So you trifle with me? I'm dangerous for that game. Mind you of Blass-
Gesell? I made a better beast of him by sending him three-quarters of
the road to hell for trial.' Bellowing, 'Take that!' he discharged a
broad blade, hitherto concealed in his right hand, straight at Rothhals.
It fixed in his cheek and jaw, wringing an awful breath of pain from him
as he fell against the wall.

'There's a lesson for you not to cross me, children!' said Werner,
striding his stumpy legs up and down the crashing board, and puffing his
monstrous girth of chest and midriff. 'Let him stop there awhile, to
show what comes of thwarting Werner!--Fire-devils! before the baroness,
too!--Something unholy is there? Something unholy in his jaw, I think!
--Leave it sticking! He's against meat last, is he? I'll teach you who
he's for!--Who speaks?'

All hung silent. These men were animals dominated by a mightier brute.

He clasped his throat, and shook the board with a jump, as he squeaked,
rather than called, a second time 'Who spoke?'

He had not again to ask. In this pause, as the Baron glared for his
victim, a song, so softly sung that it sounded remote, but of which every
syllable was clearly rounded, swelled into his ears, and froze him in his
angry posture.

'The blood of the barons shall turn to ice,
And their castle fall to wreck,
When a true lover dips in the water thrice,
That runs round Werner's Eck.

'Round Werner's Eck the water runs;
The hazels shiver and shake:
The walls that have blotted such happy suns,
Are seized with the ruin-quake.

'And quake with the ruin, and quake with rue,
Thou last of Werner's race!
The hearts of the barons were cold that knew
The Water-Dame's embrace.

'For a sin was done, and a shame was wrought,
That water went to hide:
And those who thought to make it nought,
They did but spread it wide.

'Hold ready, hold ready to pay the price,
And keep thy bridal cheer:
A hand has dipped in the water thrice,
And the Water-Dame is here.'

THE RESCUE

The Goshawk was on his feet. 'Now, lass,' said he to Margarita, 'now is
the time!' He took her hand, and led her to the door. Schwartz Thier
closed up behind her. Not a man in the hall interposed. Werner's head
moved round after them, like a dog on the watch; but he was dumb. The
door opened, and Farina entered. He bore a sheaf of weapons under his
arm. The familiar sight relieved Werner's senses from the charm. He
shouted to bar the prisoners' passage. His men were ranged like statues
in the hall. There was a start among them, as if that terrible noise
communicated an instinct of obedience, but no more. They glanced at each
other, and remained quiet.

The Goshawk had his eye on Werner. 'Stand back, lass!' he said to
Margarita. She took a sword from Farina, and answered, with white lips
and flashing eyes, 'I can fight, Goshawk!'

'And shall, if need be; but leave it to me now, returned Guy.

His eye never left the Baron. Suddenly a shriek of steel rang. All fell
aside, and the combatants stood opposed on clear ground. Farina, took
Margarita's left hand, and placed her against the wall between the Thier
and himself. Werner's men were well content to let their master fight it
out. The words spoken by Henker Rothhals, that the Devil had forsaken
him, seemed in their minds confirmed by the weird song which every one
present could swear he heard with his ears. 'Let him take his chance,
and try his own luck,' they said, and shrugged. The battle was between
Guy, as Margarita's champion, and Werner.

In Schwartz Thier's judgement, the two were well matched, and he
estimated their diverse qualities from sharp experience. 'For short work
the Baron, and my new mate for tough standing to 't!' Farina's summary
in favour of the Goshawk was, 'A stouter heart, harder sinews, and a good
cause. The combat was generally regarded with a professional eye, and
few prayers. Margarita solely there asked aid from above, and knelt to
the Virgin; but her, too, the clash of arms and dire earnest of mortal
fight aroused to eager eyes. She had not dallied with heroes in her
dreams. She was as ready to second Siegfried on the crimson field as
tend him in the silken chamber.

It was well that a woman's heart was there to mark the grace and glory of
manhood in upright foot-to-foot encounter. For the others, it was a mere
calculation of lucky hits. Even Farina, in his anxiety for her, saw but
the brightening and darkening of the prospect of escape in every attitude
and hard-ringing blow. Margarita was possessed with a painful
exaltation. In her eyes the bestial Baron now took a nobler form and
countenance; but the Goshawk assumed the sovereign aspect of old heroes,
who, whether persecuted or favoured of heaven, still maintained their
stand, remembering of what stuff they were, and who made them.

'Never,' say the old writers, with a fervour honourable to their
knowledge of the elements that compose our being, 'never may this bright
privilege of fair fight depart from us, nor advantage of it fail to be
taken! Man against man, or beast, singly keeping his ground, is as fine
rapture to the breast as Beauty in her softest hour affordeth. For if
woman taketh loveliness to her when she languisheth, so surely doth man
in these fierce moods, when steel and iron sparkle opposed, and their
breath is fire, and their lips white with the lock of resolution; all
their faculties knotted to a point, and their energies alive as the
daylight to prove themselves superior, according to the laws and under
the blessing of chivalry.'

'For all,' they go on to improve the comparison, 'may admire and delight
in fair blossoming dales under the blue dome of peace; but 'tis the rare
lofty heart alone comprehendeth, and is heightened by, terrific
splendours of tempest, when cloud meets cloud in skies black as the
sepulchre, and Glory sits like a flame on the helm of Ruin'

For a while the combatants aired their dexterity, contenting themselves
with cunning cuts and flicks of the sword-edge, in which Werner first
drew blood by a keen sweep along the forehead of the Goshawk. Guy had
allowed him to keep his position on the board, and still fought at his
face and neck. He now jerked back his body from the hip, and swung a
round stroke at Werner's knee, sending him in retreat with a snort of
pain. Before the Baron could make good his ground, Guy was level with
him on the board.

Werner turned an upbraiding howl at his men. They were not disposed to
second him yet. They one and all approved his personal battle with Fate,
and never more admired him and felt his power; but the affair was
exciting, and they were not the pillars to prop a falling house.

Werner clenched his two hands to his ponderous glaive, and fell upon Guy
with heavier fury. He was becoming not unworth the little womanly
appreciation Margarita was brought to bestow on him. The voice of the
Water-Lady whispered at her heart that the Baron warred on his destiny,
and that ennobles all living souls.

Bare-headed the combatants engaged, and the headpiece was the chief point
of attack. No swerving from blows was possible for either: ward, or
take; a false step would have ensured defeat. This also induced caution.
Many a double stamp of the foot was heard, as each had to retire in turn.

'Not at his head so much, he'll bear battering there all night long,'
said Henker Rothhals in a breathing interval. Knocks had been pretty
equally exchanged, but the Baron's head certainly looked the least
vulnerable, whereas Guy exhibited several dints that streamed freely.
Yet he looked, eye and bearing, as fresh as when they began, and the
calm, regular heave of his chest contrasted with Werner's quick gasps.
His smile, too, renewed each time the Baron paused for breath, gave
Margarita heart. It was not a taunting smile, but one of entire
confidence, and told all the more on his adversary. As Werner led off
again, and the choice was always left him, every expression of the
Goshawk's face passed to full light in his broad eyes.

The Baron's play was a reckless fury. There was nothing to study in it.
Guy became the chief object of speculation. He was evidently trying to
wind his man.

He struck wildly, some thought. Others judged that he was a random
hitter, and had no mortal point in aim. Schwartz Thier's opinion was
frequently vented. 'Too round a stroke--down on him! Chop-not slice!'

Guy persevered in his own fashion. According to Schwartz Thier, he
brought down by his wilfulness the blow that took him on the left
shoulder, and nigh broke him. It was a weighty blow, followed by a thump
of sound. The sword-edge swerved on his shoulder-blade, or he must have
been disabled. But Werner's crow was short, and he had no time to push
success. One of the Goshawk's swooping under-hits half severed his right
wrist, and the blood spirted across the board. He gasped and seemed to
succumb, but held to it still, though with slackened force. Guy now
attacked. Holding to his round strokes, he accustomed Werner to guard
the body, and stood to it so briskly right and left, that Werner grew
bewildered, lost his caution, and gave ground. Suddenly the Goshawk's
glaive flashed in air, and chopped sheer down on Werner's head. So
shrewd a blow it was against a half-formed defence, that the Baron
dropped without a word right on the edge of the board, and there hung,
feebly grasping with his fingers.

'Who bars the way now?' sang out Guy.

No one accepted the challenge. Success clothed him with terrors, and
gave him giant size.

'Then fare you well, my merry men all,' said Guy. 'Bear me no ill-will
for this. A little doctoring will right the bold Baron.'

He strode jauntily to the verge of the board, and held his finger for
Margarita to follow. She stepped forward. The men put their beards
together, muttering. She could not advance. Farina doubled his elbow,
and presented sword-point. Three of the ruffians now disputed the way
with bare steel. Margarita looked at the Goshawk. He was smiling calmly
curious as he leaned over his sword, and gave her an encouraging nod.
She made another step in defiance. One fellow stretched his hand to
arrest her. All her maidenly pride stood up at once. 'What a glorious
girl!' murmured the Goshawk, as he saw her face suddenly flash, and she
retreated a pace and swung a sharp cut across the knuckles of her
assailant, daring him, or one of them, with hard, bright eyes,
beautifully vindictive, to lay hand on a pure maiden.

'You have it, Barenleib!' cried the others, and then to Margarita: 'Look,
young mistress! we are poor fellows, and ask a trifle of ransom, and then
part friends.'

'Not an ace!' the Goshawk pronounced from his post.

'Two to one, remember.'

'The odds are ours,' replied the Goshawk confidently.

They ranged themselves in front of the hall-door. Instead of accepting
this challenge, Guy stepped to Werner, and laid his moaning foe length-
wise in an easier posture. He then lifted Margarita on the board, and
summoned them with cry of 'Free passage!' They answered by a sullen
shrug and taunt.

'Schwartz Thier! Rothhals! Farina! buckle up, and make ready then,'
sang Guy.

He measured the length, of his sword, and raised it. The Goshawk had not
underrated his enemies. He was tempted to despise them when he marked
their gradually lengthening chaps and eyeballs.

Not one of them moved. All gazed at him as if their marrows were
freezing with horror.

'What's this?' cried Guy.

They knew as little as he, but a force was behind them irresistible
against their efforts. The groaning oak slipped open, pushing them
forward, and an apparition glided past, soft as the pallid silver of the
moon. She slid to the Baron, and put her arms about him, and sang to
him. Had the Water-Lady laid an iron hand on all those ruffians, she
could not have held them faster bound than did the fear of her presence.
The Goshawk drew his fair charge through them, followed by Farina, the
Thier, and Rothhals. A last glimpse of the hall showed them still as old
cathedral sculpture staring at white light on a fluted pillar of the
wall.

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