CHAPTER XXIV.

How Theobaldo came with the Magic Ring, and of his fearful incantations.

In the solemn ancestral hall, the venerable Sir Hugh was once more seated all alone, with the great silver wine-cup before him on the round table. He looked anxiously for the arrival of his honoured friend Walter the minstrel; and thought to himself,--“Truly, I can scarcely dwell here without that old man and his wonderful songs; for my own life, that has formerly been divided between Norway, France, Italy, and Greece,--moreover, that wont to be so varied by warlike adventures and achievements,--has now declined into melancholy old age. I have withered, lonely and neglected, like the fallen leaves in autumn. No grand adventures are now in store for me; no change either of joy or sorrow. It were indeed better, then, if the heroic deeds of our ancestors were evermore sounded in mine ears, that I might dream of them still as the last sleep slowly steals upon me. Walter, Walter! where tarriest thou so long!”

With a pale agitated visage, a squire now stept into the hall, and said,--“Sir knight, your honoured son, Otto von Trautwangen, is even now arrived at the castle.”

“And should’st thou then wear the hues of death on thine aspect,” said the knight, “when thou pronouncest these words, that are to me like renewed life? Bring hither to my presence that noble youth, that I may welcome him as a new-risen star, shedding once more light and happiness on mine old age.”--Hereupon the squire muttered some inarticulate words, and opened the great folding doors; while Sir Hugh, in order to meet his coming guest, had, with joy gleaming in his eyes, raised himself up from his old armchair.

Then, hark! there was a rustling, as of long garments, on the staircase. The doors were thrown open, and a man, wrapt in hideous black robes, came with sounding steps across the threshold, holding up his right arm as if threatening all who came in his way. The folding doors again closed, and one could hear how the terrified squire ran headlong, as if demons pursued him, down stairs.--“Where is my son?” cried the old man, turning pale, and falling back into his chair.--“Thy son now stands before thee,” said the spectral stranger; and, alas! Sir Hugh saw but too well that it was Otto’s features that now glared upon him.--“Hast thou become a monk?” said the old warrior,--“a black-robed Benedictine monk?”--After these words it seemed as if his youthful vigour had revived, and he added, in a deep and thundering voice,--“Who then has given thee permission for what thou hast done? Right sternly shall I yet call that convent to account, whose prior has dared to transform the young Knight of Trautwangen into a cowled priest.”--“I am not the young Knight of Trautwangen,” said the Benedictine in a sharp tone; “in the world I was named Ottur. I am the son of the beautiful Astrid and the brave Hugur; but now I am named brother Zelotes.”

The old man sat motionless in his chair. That energy to which he had been roused was indeed not lost; but, as if petrified by his surprise, he gazed fixedly on the son who had so unexpectedly started up before him.

“Thou art a dear and highly-honoured branch of a noble tree,” continued the monk, “and if time is yet allowed us, thou shalt be saved from the consuming fires of hell; and therefore our abbot has given me permission to come hither for thy conversion, ere the last shadows of old age and death have settled around thee!”

Thereafter he took his place right opposite to the knight, and began a discourse on the mysteries of our holy faith, and on penitence, whereat the listener shuddered, and the blood ran cold in every vein; while, as the preacher’s zeal increased, and his voice thundered through the vaulted hall, it seemed as if flames of consuming fire flashed around him.

The monk continued his discourse, and his deep tones overpowered the sounds of mirth and gladness which had now begun in the castle-court and outer-halls. Sir Otto, who had already been informed of the old Sir Hugh’s revival from his supposed death, having rode on before his party, had now arrived at the castle, and ere the squires had time to tell him of the ghastly apparition of the monkish double-goer, he rushed up the staircase and entered the hall.

“Ottur, Ottur! what would’st thou here?” cried he. “Thou art indeed my half-brother, and this brave old hero should be equally dear to us both.”--Then he threw his arms round his father’s neck, in whose heart new life and courage seemed revived, when he heard the clang of Sir Otto’s armour, and felt the weight of his iron armlets; while, as he caressed his beloved son, he cast a stern resentful look on the monk.--“I have long since known what thou hast now told me,” said the Benedictine, answering his brother; “I learned it in the convent, and on the road hither, where also we met together. In dreams, too, I have had warnings of the truth; but now I am no longer named Ottur. He is as if dead and buried, and the mortal who stands here is known only as the monk Zelotes.” Again he would have renewed, in the same thundering voice, his penitential exhortations; but Sir Otto stretched out his arm, and cried aloud,--“How darest thou, reckless man, address such words of reproach to that noble and far-famed hero, now when thou knowest that he is thy father?”--“Even for that very reason have I thus spoken,” answered Zelotes. “So long as I have breath to speak, he shall not become a prey to the demons, who are ever on the watch, and would gladly drag him down to the regions of eternal torment.”--“Nay, mark you,” said Sir Otto, “he will be enabled to protect himself from these frightful foes even without thy violent admonitions. Be silent, then, and disturb him not in the sanctity of his old age, nor break the peace of this happy meeting. Moreover, I can this day bring him such joyful news, as will doubtless lead him with more certainty to heaven, than the threatening of all the monks that could be found in the world.”--“Thou hast the right doubtless of judging according to thine own conscience,” said Zelotes, still persisting in his discourse; while Sir Otto, not heeding him any more, announced, in a loud voice to the old man, the happy tidings, that his mother was yet alive, and that, in the spirit of love and peace, she was now drawing near to the castle of Trautwangen, which she had long desired to visit. So the old man sat there like a grey ruin between two roaring streams, while the young men, one on each side, both vehemently addressed him.

But, hark! a noise suddenly arose from the castle-court, which drowned their contention. A voice called out aloud,--“Uguccione! Uguccione! thou murderer! come down from thy fortress, for Lisberta’s champion is come to inflict just vengeance on thy head!” Sir Hugh looked round him with astonishment, and the two young men were silent. At length he said, as if awakening from a dream,--“The world yet stands firm and steadfast,--the day of judgment is not come for all,--but _mine_ is doubtless arrived. Follow me, children, and aid me by your prayers!” With these words he rose up slowly, and, resting on Otto’s shoulder, moved towards the door. The youths did not venture to ask the venerable old man what had now caused his disquietude; but he remarked their inquiring looks, and said,--“I know not indeed by what frightful power I am now called into the castle-court; but I am forced thither by irresistible attraction. I hear names, at whose very sound alone I feel that I am bound to shed my heart’s blood as an atonement for my past crimes; yet, long as Sir Hugh von Trautwangen lives, it shall never be said that he was deemed a coward. Forward then, children, that I may encounter boldly the doom that now awaits me!” So, leaning still on Sir Otto, he stepped down stairs, the monk following, and singing to himself, all the way, a melancholy hymn, that sounded like a dirge. While listening to his murmurs, one might have thought that the old champion was now dead, and that the young men went to attend his obsequies.

In the court below, they found assembled a multitude of people. Not only all the squires and other retainers of the castle, but many countrymen from the neighbouring villages, were here collected, gazing at a man in the eastern dress, who had stationed himself in the middle of the square, and continued unceasingly to call aloud in the same frightful tones which had been heard so plainly in the hall above. At the same time he constantly twisted round and round on a finger of his right hand a glittering ring; and Sir Hugh, recognising the gem, seated himself quietly on a stone, beneath a tall lime-tree that grew in the court, and said, “The strange man, who stands yonder, hath on his finger the powerful Magic Ring of the beautiful Astrid, and therewith Heaven hath also bestowed on him the power to dispose of my life. Moreover, he hath doubtless come hither in order to doom me to death.” “Thine own conscience then condemns thee, hoary-headed sinner,” cried the stranger; and at the same moment Otto recognised in him his old squire and friend Theobaldo. “Diephold!” cried he, for by this German name, instead of Theobaldo, he had been wont in former days to address him; “Diephold, it is my father to whom thou now speakest.” “Indeed?” said Theobaldo, turning pale and confused; “then we are brothers, for I am the son of Uguccione and the unfortunate Lisberta. Moreover, Uguccione and this grey-headed warrior are one and the same, and, therefore, my father must fall by my hand; for I have sworn on my mother’s grave, that I would avenge her wrongs by the death of her seducer!” “Never, never!” cried Sir Otto, drawing his sword, and taking his station before the old hero. “Here I shall maintain the combat to the last, for victory or death.” His words were echoed in the next moment by Zelotes, who embraced his father with his wide black robes, and cried aloud, “Never shall he be injured, unless by one who shall first cut through these consecrated garments. Sir Hugur shall yet live to do penance for his crimes.” “Truly thou can’st wrap him in a monk’s cowl if thou wilt,” said Theobaldo, with a scornful smile; “but there is no veil so dense that my invisible agents may not find their way, and force him to bitter repentance.” With these words he seated himself on the ground, and with the ring began to describe strange figures on the grass.

There were deep vaults beneath the castle-court; and, not long after Theobaldo had begun his enchantments, hark! there was a strange rustling under ground. A cold shuddering crept over the bystanders, as if they had been seized and shaken by supernatural arms; nay, it seemed to many a one, as if the spectral forms of those who had long lain mouldering in the grave came forth and grinned ghastlily upon them. Then the same rustling sound rose upwards, and spread through the branches of the venerable elm and lime-trees. There was a sound too of many voices, though no one knew what they uttered, and a beating of invisible wings. All were terrified and silent; only the old Sir Hugh von Trautwangen lifted up his voice, that sounded more fearfully, shrouded as he still was by the black garments of the monk. He cried aloud, that the beautiful Astrid stood before him with her deadly wound, from which the last life-blood now ebbed away; that the poor forsaken Lisberta came, and had with one look made his heart cold as the grave wherein she was now laid. He spoke too of many other damsels and ladies to whom he had plighted faith and troth, but whom he had thereafter neglected:--all came around him now, as if to inflict fearful judgment on their betrayer. Yet Sir Hugh von Trautwangen addressed them in a deep heroic tone, like one who indeed suffers more than words could pourtray, and is conscious of his own guilt, yet whose courage nevertheless is unchanged and unconquerable.

At length Theobaldo sprang up from the ground, and cried to the spectators, “Be it your duty then to inflict just punishment on the guilty! You hear how, by the invincible pride of his tones, that he is indeed calling down the vengeance of Heaven on his own head. I would not willingly become a parricide, though his conduct towards Lisberta and me has been so horrible; but if you value the safety of your towns and villages, if you wish even that the very ground on which you stand should be saved from destruction, then make an end of him at once, for he is not fit to live in this world. Neither the skies nor the earth can longer endure to look upon him. Listen then, and behold!” With these last words, he threw the Magic Ring high in the air, and though the skies were before clear, yet immediately a dark sulphureous cloud appeared, and a sudden clap of thunder broke over their heads. At the same moment the ground shook beneath them; blue flames arose, as if demons and fiery serpents were stretching out their tongues from the earth; and, in the delirium of terror, all the peasants and people who were there present ran to inflict vengeance on the devoted victim. Meanwhile, Sir Otto courageously kept his station to protect his father; and Zelotes, as if once more changed into a bold warrior of the north, called unceasingly, “Strike then well, brother, spare them not, the pitiful cowards! If I had but my sword here, that bears thy name, I would not fail to assist thee. But thy sword is named Ottur, and must bear my part,--strike them well, and spare not!”