Chapter I: A Wolf-Hunt

ON a certain bright October morning, in the year 1779, a gay train set out from the princely hunting-lodge of Nonnenwald. This lodge was built under the shadow of an outlying spire of the great Thuringerwald, a range of mountains to the south-east of the dominions of the prince to whom it belonged. It was, in fact, a small Schloss or castle, a part of which was quite ruinous and overgrown with ivy and brambles. This part of the building was made of dark stone taken from a quarry near at hand. A couple of its towers were in good preservation, and showed signs of being inhabited, while a two-story wing, evidently quite new and built of brick, looked awkward and uncomfortable beside its sombre old neighbour. Even with this addition, the lodge would accommodate very few people—a circumstance which made it something of a favourite with its owner. The lodge of Nonnenwald belonged to the hereditary prince or landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and he liked now and then to escape to it from the splendours of his magnificent court, to indulge in the pursuits of hunting and fishing in company with a few special friends.

The Thuringerwald swarmed with every species of game. Wild boars abounded, and there was a somewhat mythical story that the great wild bull of Europe—the urus—was still to be met in its deeper recesses. Wildcats, bears, and lynxes, made their homes on the rocky ledges, and the great gray wolves ran down the deer and boars, and now and then made an incursion into the cultivated country. Such an incursion had just taken place, early as it was in the year, and many cattle and sheep had been destroyed in the fields about Nonnenwald. Nay, the animals had entered the village itself, and had killed a calf belonging to Gertrude Reinhart, who lived in the little stone house near the churchyard where was the deserted blacksmith's forge. It was the report of this incursion which had brought down the prince and his train, and a fine week's sport was in anticipation.

As the gay train, with the prince in the midst, wound their way through the street of the little village, it was met by a train of a very different description arriving from the opposite direction. First came the Lutheran pastor of the little church in his gown, then time coffin—a child's coffin decked with a wreath of everlasting flowers and carried on a bier. Then came the mourning family, the mother leaning on the arm of a tall gray-haired man and leading a little boy by the hand. A boy of about fifteen, and a girl somewhat younger, followed hand in hand, and a few neighbours brought up the rear. They came slowly up the hill, giving the hunting-train plenty of time to halt and draw up to the side of the road near the church, which they did with some trouble, for the horses were very restive and unmanageable, and the great wolf-hounds bayed and howled and strained furiously at their slips, as if they already scented their savage game.

"A bad omen for our chase," said a young gentleman who rode near the prince.

The prince frowned. He had just been thinking the same thing, but it did not please him to have the thought put into words. He made the sign of the cross. It was a new accomplishment, and he was rather proud of it.

"Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis!" said he, piously. And then he frowned again, for he thought he saw a glance of derision pass between his two young cousins, Victor and Maurice of Nassau. "Whose is the funeral, Franz?"

"'Tis the youngest son of Gertrude Reinhart—the woman whose calf was killed the other night," answered Franz the huntsman, a man who had grown gray in the service of the landgrave and his father. "The lad was an innocent—a witless child," he added. "He crept out at evening to see the new calf, and the wolves fell upon the poor creature and killed it before his eyes. They would have done the same by him, but the poor innocent had sense enough to climb upon the roof of the forge, or else the angels set him there. Who knows?"

"Angels do not interfere for the salvation of heretics, my good Franz," said the prince, pompously.

"Humph!" answered Franz, with little respect, as it seemed, either for the speech or the speaker. "Anyhow, he was found on the roof."

"But the angels could not have put him there; do you think so, my father?" he asked, turning to a dark gentleman who rode at his left hand.

"I understand that the lad was an innocent, or witless child," answered the priest, gravely, though with a little twinkle in his eye; "in which case such an interference might have taken place."

"Go on, Franz," said the prince. "What was the end of the matter?"

"The end was that the villagers heard the noise and turned out with what arms they had, and Hans and myself came down with the dogs and drove the brutes away," answered Franz. "The poor lad was not hurt, but so frightened that he never held up his head again. It is a sore blow to poor Gertrude, who was bound up in him."

"Why, he could never be anything but an encumbrance to her; he would never have earned his own living," said the prince. "She ought to be thankful to be rid of such a trouble."

The prince did not mean to be hard-hearted, but he was rather stupid and ignorant even for a German prince of that time, and he really thought so.

"I fancy women are not often glad to part with their children," said the priest, gravely, "and I have observed that they cling most to those who most need their care."

"Here they come," said Count Maurice, and as the little funeral train reached the place where the riders had drawn up, he took off his hat.

The other gentlemen did the same, and even the prince raised his beaver, almost, as it seemed, against his will.

"Poor woman! What a tragedy is in her face!" observed Count Maurice, in an undertone, to his next neighbour. "Is she a widow, I wonder?"

"She might as well be," answered old Franz, on hearing the question. "Her husband is in America, and she has heard no word from him for three long years. Poor Gertrude was one of the fairest and sweetest matrons in all the Thuringerwald, but she is sadly changed, poor thing."

"I dare say. Do you know her, then?"

"She is my grand-niece."

"And did her husband go against her will?"

"I fancy nobody waited to find out what her will was, or his, either," answered the old man, dryly. "He had no time even to bid farewell to his family."

The prince moved uneasily on his horse as he overheard the words.

"Who is the man on whose arms the woman leans?" he asked. "I have never seen him before."

"He does not live about here, though he is a not unfrequent visitor," said Franz. "He is one of the Moravian ministers from Herrnhut, and goes about the country teaching and preaching where he pleases. The folks look on him as a prophet or saint. They call him the consoler, and say he is sure to turn up where there is any great grief or trouble."

"Well, gentlemen, we may as well ride on," said the prince.

He would have infinitely preferred to return home, only he was afraid of being laughed at for his superstition. Not that any one (unless it might be Count Maurice) would have ventured to do so to his face, but he knew very well they would not hesitate behind his back. He was especially jealous of his two young visitors, the counts Victor and Maurice of Nassau, who had been much at the court of Frederick the Great, and were believed to be infected by the new French philosophy. He made the sign of the cross again—rather awkwardly, for he never could remember where to begin—and the train moved on.

The funeral was over, and the neighbours who had lingered at the stone cottage ceased their well-meant attempts at consolation and went their way home. Gertrude Reinhart had gone through the funeral services with dry eyes and compressed lips. She had not shed a tear since her boy died. With the same outwardly composed face she was engaged in preparing supper for her children, when she was disturbed by a knock at the door. With a movement of impatience she opened it. There stood the priest whom we saw in the morning, and at some little distance behind him the young count Maurice.

"You are the widow Reinhart, whose son was buried this morning?" said the priest, kindly.

"I am Gertrude Reinhart, whose son was buried this morning," answered Gertrude, briefly, for she was in no mood for ceremony. "Whether I am a widow or not, Heaven only knows. What is your business with me? It must needs be pressing, since you disturb with it the house of mourning."

"I beg your pardon," answered the priest, gently. "I understood you were a widow. Forgive me if I have hurt you. My errand is to bring you this money from His Serene Highness, who was witness of your trouble this morning and desires to help you."

Gertrude's cheek flushed and her eyes blazed with sudden fire.

"Go back to him who sent you and tell him from me that his money may perish with him," she cried. "Shall I take the price of my husband's blood from my husband's murderer?" She seemed about to say more, but checked herself, and turning away busied herself once more in her household work.

The priest remained standing a moment, as if uncertain what to do, when Gertrude again turned toward him with a somewhat softened expression.

"I am wrong, reverend sir," said she. "Doubtless you mean kindly, and I thank you, but I can take no gold from the prince—not if I and mine were starving. I cannot take it from one who sent my husband and the father of my children to perish in the forests or murdered in cold blood by the cruel, bloodthirsty Americans."

"Nay, there you are wrong, my poor soul!" said Count Maurice, who had caught Gertrude's words. "Let me comfort you, then. The Americans are not cruel to their prisoners, but treat them with great kindness and humanity. I was myself in America for a year at the beginning of the war, and know what I say to be true."

"In America did you say, sir?" exclaimed the little seven-year-old Gustaf Reinhart, pulling away his hand from his sister's and springing forward. "Oh, did Your Highness know my father? He has gone to America, and we have never heard from him since. Did you know my dear father? Oh, say that he is alive, and I will show you where to find the prettiest crystals in all the Thuringerwald and will give you my tame sparrow-hawk."

The young soldier's proud moustache quivered a little, and he seemed to have some trouble in finding his voice to answer, as he stroked the little fair head of the child who was looking so anxiously up into his face.

"My dear little boy, I did not know your father from a thousand others," said he, kindly. "I was only a short time in the army before I was called home, but this much I can tell you: The Americans are white people and Christians like ourselves, and, as I said, treat their prisoners with kindness. The stories which were told of their putting all the Hessians to death were groundless fabrications."

"I thought they were all wild savages," said Gustaf.

"There are plenty of savages, and wild enough," answered Count Maurice. "They are, indeed, more cruel and bloodthirsty than so many wolves; but they are not fighting against the British, but for them, more is the shame for those who let them loose on the helpless women and children.—But I pray you take comfort, dame," he added, turning once more to Gertrude. "Your husband may be killed like another, but, again, he may escape as well as another; and as I said, if he falls into the hands of the Americans, he will be well treated. Nay, he may perhaps return before long, since I have heard that the war is likely soon to come to an end. There, now! I have made you cry, when I meant to comfort you," said the count, with a young man's natural dismay, as Gertrude burst into a passion of tears. "Oh how sorry I am!"

"You have done her all the good in the world," said the more experienced priest, drawing the young man away. "The people tell me that she has never shed one tear in all her troubles. She will weep the burden from her heart, and sleep to-night in peace. 'Tis a pity the poor soul is a heretic. She might else find comfort in the offices of the Church."

"Like our royal host," said Count Maurice, with a shrug of his shoulders and as much of a sneer as his amiable face was capable of. "It is to be hoped he will spend some of the money he got of the king of England for these same offices for the benefit of his soldiers killed in America."

"For heretics?" asked the priest, apparently more amused than shocked at his companion's remark.

"When people send heretics to war, it seems to me that they should pay the damage," answered Count Maurice, lightly; and then, in a graver tone, "Say what we may, this selling of one's own subjects to be butchered for money is a horrible business."

"I agree with you there."

"Then you won't report the poor woman's wild words to His Serene Highness?" said Count Maurice, rather anxiously.

"Not I," answered the priest, with some emphasis, "nor yours, either."

"Oh, as to that, my princely cousin knows my mind on the subject. We all but quarrelled on the point some years ago; and only to please my father, I should not be here now. But as the prince's confessor—"

"I am not his confessor," interrupted the priest; "and if I were, confessors are not all-powerful. I shall do nothing to injure yonder poor soul, you may be sure. But what to do with this money. I dare not return it lest he should ask questions. I believe the best way will be to give it to some religious house to pray for the soul of the poor innocent who was buried to-day."

"And much good that will do him!" thought Count Maurice. But he had too much real respect for his companion to treat his opinions with contempt, however far they might be from his own, and the two walked back to the lodge in silence.