My Lady Rotha: A Romance. Weyman Stanley John

Minister bowed.

      'Then take this for answer,' she replied. 'All that you see is mine to rule. It came to me by inheritance, and I prize the possession of it, though I am a woman, more highly than my life; for it came to me from Heaven and my fathers. But were it a hundred times as large, Master Dietz-were there a house for every brick that now stands there, and an acre for every furrow, and sheep as many as birds in the air, even then I would risk all, and double and treble all, rather than desert those whom my law defends, be they three, or thirty, or three hundred! Let that be your answer! And for the peace you speak of,' she continued, turning on a sudden and confronting us, her face aglow with anger, 'the peace, I mean, which you have hitherto enjoyed, it should shame you to hear it mentioned! Have the Papists harried you? Have you suffered in life or limb, or property? No. And why? Because of my honoured uncle, a Papist! For shame! – for shame, I say! As it has been dealt out to you, go and do to others!'

      But for the respect which held me in her presence, I could have cried 'Huzza!' to her speech; and I can tell you, it made Master Minister look as small as a mouse. He stepped down from the daïs with his face dark and his head trembling; and after that I never doubted that he was at the bottom of the movement against the Worts, though the ruffianly deserters I have mentioned supplied him with the tools, wanting which he might not have taken up the work. He stood a moment on the floor looking very black and grim, and with not a word to say, but I doubted he was not beaten. What line he would have taken, however, I cannot tell, for he had scarcely descended-my lady had not resumed her seat-when there rose from the court below a sudden babel of noise, the trampling of hoofs and feet on the pavement, and a confused murmur of voices. For a moment I looked at my lady and she at me. It struck me that that at which the Burgomaster had hinted was come to pass: that some of the town ragamuffins had dared to invade the castle. The same idea doubtless occurred to her, for she stepped, though without any appearance of alarm, to the window, which commanded a side view of the terrace. She looked out.

      I, a little to her right, saw her smile: then in a moment she turned. 'This could not be better,' she said, resuming in an instant her ordinary manner. I think she was a little ashamed, as people of quality are wont to be, of the feeling she had betrayed. 'I see some one below who will advise me, and who, if I am doing wrong, as you seem to fear, Master Burgomaster, will tell me of it. My cousin, the Waldgrave Rupert, whom I expected to-morrow, has arrived to-day. Be good enough to wait while I receive him, and I will then return to you.'

      Bidding me have the two served with some refreshment, she stepped down from the daïs, and withdrew with Fraulein Max and her women, leaving the townsmen to discuss the new arrival with what appetite they might.

      They liked it little, I fancy. In a moment their importance was gone, their consequence at an end. The name of the Waldgrave Rupert made them feel how small they were, despite their boasting, beside the youngest member of the family. The very swish of my lady's robe as she swept through the doorway flouted them, her departure was an offence; and this, following on the scolding they had received, produced a soreness and irritation in their minds, which ill-prepared them, I think, for the sequel.

      I have sometimes thought that had I remained with them, and paid them some attentions, the end might have been different; but my duties called me elsewhere. The house was in a ferment; I was wanted here and there, both to give orders and to see them carried out. It was some time before I was at liberty even to go to the hall whither my lady had descended to receive her guest, and where I found the two standing together on the hearth, under the great Red Hart which is the cognizance of the family.

      I had not seen the Waldgrave Rupert-a cadet of the noble house of Weimar and my lady's cousin once removed-since his boyhood. I found him grown into a splendid man, as tall and almost as wide as myself; who used to be called in the old forest days before I entered my lady's service 'the strong man of Pippel.' As he stood on the hearth, fair-haired and ruddy-faced, with a noble carriage and a frank boyish smile, I had seldom looked on a handsomer youth. He fell short of my lady's age by two years; but as I looked from one to the other, they seemed so fitting a pair, the disparity went for nothing. He was young and strong, full of spirit and energy and fire. Surely, I thought, the right man has come at last!

      In this belief I was more than confirmed when he came forward and greeted me pleasantly, vowing that he remembered me well. His voice and laugh seemed to fill the room; the very ring of his spurs on the stones gave assurance of power. I saw my lady look at him with an air of affectionate pride-she had seen him more lately than I had-as if his youth, and strength, and beauty already belonged to her. As for his smile, it was infectious. We grew in a moment brighter, younger, and more cheerful. The house which yesterday had seemed quiet and lonesome-we were a small family for so great a dwelling-took on a new air. The servants went about their tasks more quickly, the maids laughed behind doors. The place seemed in an hour transformed, as I have seen a valley in the mountains changed on a sudden by the rising of the sun.

      As a fact, when I had been in his presence five minutes, the Burgomaster and the Minister upstairs seemed as common and mean and insignificant a pair of fellows as any in Germany. I wondered that I could ever have feared them. The Countess had told him the story, and he asked me one or two questions about them, his tone high, and his head in the air. I answered him, and was for accompanying him upstairs, when he went to see them, with my lady by his side, and his whip slapping his great thigh boots until the staircase rang again. But my lady had an errand and sent me on it, and so I was not present at the end of this interview which I had myself brought about.

      But I suppose that the scolding my lady had given them was no more than a flea-bite beside the rating the young Waldgrave inflicted! It was notorious for a score of leagues round, and he told them so in good round terms, that the Heritzburg land had been spared by friend and foe for Count Tilly's sake; for his sake and his alone-a Papist. How, then, he asked them, had they the face to do this dirty trick, and threaten my lady besides? With much more of the same kind, and hard words, not to say menaces; sparing neither Mayor nor Minister, so that they went off at last like whipped dogs or thieves that have seen the gallows.

      Afterwards something was said; but at the time no one missed them. Except by myself, scarce a thought was given to them after they went out of the door. The house was all agog about the new-comer; the still-room full of work and the chimneys smoking. The young lord was everywhere, and the maids were mad about him. I had my hands full, and every one in the house seemed to be in the same case. No one had time to look abroad.

      Except Fraulein Anna Max, my lady's companion. I found her about four o'clock in the afternoon sitting alone in the hall. She had a book before her as usual, but on my entrance she pushed it away from her, and looked up at me, screwing up her eyes in the odd way peculiar to her.

      'Well, Master Steward,' she said-and her voice sounded ill-natured, 'so the fire has been lit-but not by you.'

      'The fire?' I answered, utterly at a loss for the moment.

      'Ay,' she rejoined, with a bitter smile, 'the fire. Don't you hear it burning?'

      'I hear nothing,' I said coldly.

      'Go to the terrace, and perhaps you will!' she answered.

      Her words filled me with a vague uneasiness, but I was too proud to go then or seem to heed them. An hour or two later, however, when the sun was half down, and the shadows of the chimneys lay far over the roofs, and the eastern woods were aglow, I went to the wall which bounds the terrace and looked down. The hum of the town came up to my ears as it has come up to that wall any time these hundred years. But was I mistaken, or did there mingle with it this evening a harsher note than usual, a rancorous murmur, as of angry voices; and something sterner, lower, and more menacing, the clamour of a great crowd?

      CHAPTER IV.

      THE FIRE ALIGHT

      I laughed at my own fears when the morning came, and showed no change except that cheerful one, which our guest's presence had worked inside the castle. Below, today was as yesterday. The sun shone as brightly on the roofs, the smoke of the chimneys rose as peacefully in the air; the swallows circling round the eaves swung this way and that as swiftly and noiselessly as of old. The common sounds of everyday life, the clank of the pump in the market-place as the old crones drew water, and the cry of the wood-cutter