"Stay, stay, Bertha," cried the young gentleman. "If we are to seem lovers, you know, it is as well that the old man should see us; and if he catches sight of you walking here with me, without perceiving who it is distinctly, he may fancy it is Adelaide, and make mischief there."
"Ah, you treacherous boy!" cried the gay girl, "that is a true specimen of all men. To shield yourself and your love of the hour you would have all the risk and the blame fall upon me, though Heaven knows I am hazarding enough to serve you. The more faith and truth we poor things have, the more ready are you to sacrifice us. It seems quite natural and right, does it not, that I should, just as an honour and a pleasure, fall into blame with my lord, and seem your light of love to blind him to your mad passion for his daughter."
"But you yourself proposed, I should make the people think that you, Bertha, are the object I am seeking," replied Ferdinand; "and now when I propose to follow that very plan you accuse me of ingratitude, wavering to and fro like an aspen leaf."
"Am I not a woman?" cried Bertha, laughing; "have I not a right to waver? If you are to make love to me, I tell you, I will change fifty times a day; when I pout, you shall call my lips budding roses; when I smile, you shall call my brow, heaven; when I cry, you shall say my eyes are like the April sky. Now, I am not in the humour for being made love to, so I have more than a mind to run away and leave you as a morsel for old Seckendorf's grinders--at least, those he has left."
"Nay, nay, dear Bertha," cried Ferdinand, pressing to her side as he saw the horsemen coming near; "if not for mine, for your sweet mistress's sake, play out the part you have undertaken."
"The mystery must not be a long one, then, Master Ferdinand," answered Bertha; "and, for modesty, keep a little farther off, for although I do not very much mind that people should say I listened to a love story--there being no great harm in that--I would rather they did not think it too warm a one, for women have a character to lose, though men have none worth keeping."
"But then, dear Bertha, it is understood that you will befriend us," said her companion, "and will keep our secret, and give us all sorts of information and advice."
"Aye, aye," answered Bertha, "I must risk putting my hand into the bee-hive and being stung to death, to get you to the honey. I am older than either of you, and ought to know better, but you are two such poor imprudent things, that if I did not help you, one would die of a broken heart, and the other of a broken neck, very soon, so I must even run the risk. But I will have some talk with Father George, very soon, for if he does not give me some assurance and comfort, I shall dream of nothing but being strangled every night. Here they come, here they come; Seckendorf and his gang. Heaven and earth! what have they got all those horses loaded with? they must have been plundering Neustadt. Now, cannot you make me a fine speech, Master Ferdinand, swearing love and eternal constancy, such as you men tickle poor girls' ears with, just to let old Seckendorf see you in the act of protestation?"
"I would give you a kiss, pretty Bertha," replied Ferdinand, gaily, "and that would do better, only you told me not to come near."
"Oh, that would be too close, a great deal," answered Bertha, laughing. "There, he sees us--hark! he is calling out to us I will run away as if in a fright, and let him see my face as I go."
She did as she proposed, and in a moment after the old knight came riding along under the battlements calling up to Ferdinand with a loud laugh, "Ha, ha, you young dog, that's what you staid at home for, to chat with pretty Bertha on the walls!"
"No great harm in that, Seckendorf," replied Ferdinand, leaning over to speak to him. "I dare say you have done such a thing before now, yourself; and will do it again many a time. Both she and I like a walk in the free air, better than being stifled in the castle all day long. And why shouldn't we take it together?"
"If that were all, why didn't you go on the side, where folks could see you?" replied the old man, still merry. "No, no, youngster, I am too old a campaigner for that. However, it's no business of mine. We've made a glorious forage. The rogues did not expect to be called upon in such a hurry, so that all the capons were strutting before the door; aye, and geese too. How many geese have we got, Martin?"
"Nineteen, Sir," answered the man; and the old knight was riding on, when Ferdinand called after him, laughing, "Why, that's the number of your troop, Seckendorf!"
The other shook his fist at him good-humouredly enough; for his heart was expanded by the success of his expedition, and to say the truth, Bertha had done him but scanty justice. He was a thorough old German knight of the times--a character which had generally more or less of the reiter in it--as ignorant as a boor of everything but war, brave as a lion, superstitious in a high degree, bloody when enraged or opposed, rapacious as any beast of prey, and holding fast by the old maxim, that anything is justifiable in love or war. Far from thinking the worse, therefore, of Ferdinand, if he had made love to all Adelaide's maids together, he would only have considered it a very laudable method of employing his idle hours, and would never have thought of reporting it to the Count as a matter of blame. He looked upon deceiving a poor girl with tales of love, or beating a boor nearly to death who resisted any unjust demand, as one of the privileges of a soldier and a gentleman, which it was not only just but expedient to exercise from time to time, to keep such rights from falling into desuetude; and after he entered the castle, turning his thoughts to other affairs, he gave no more attention to the proceedings of Bertha and Ferdinand, only jesting the young man for a moment upon his love-making; and declaring that he had shown bad taste, for that Theresa was by far the prettier girl of the two.
"That's because you are as black yourself as one of the andirons," answered Ferdinand, "and therefore you think every fair-faced girl with flaxen hair a perfect beauty. I dare say you've said sweet things enough to Theresa, and, therefore, I wouldn't for the world try to spoil your game, if you won't spoil mine."
"Pooh, nonsense; I've given up love these twenty years," said Seckendorf, "but I won't meddle with your affairs. I wouldn't mar a nice little plot of love for half the lands of Ehrenstein--so go on your own way, I'll not interfere."
"Upon your honour?" asked Ferdinand.
"Upon my knighthood," replied the old man. "So long as you do your duty as a soldier, I not meddle with your love affairs. But on my life, I'm mighty hungry, for I've had nothing but a flagon of wine since I went, and I can never wait till supper-time."
"Do not be afraid," answered Ferdinand, "I made the cook put by for you at dinner, the whole of a roast chine of roebuck, though Metzler and Herman looked at it as if their very eyes would have eaten it. I knew you would come home like a wolf."
"That's a good boy, that's a good boy," answered the old knight, "I won't forget you for that. You shall have the skinning of a fat village some day all to yourself; but I'll go and get the Reh-braten, for I could eat my fingers." And away he went, to satisfy his appetite, which was at all times one of the best.
CHAPTER VI.
An hour or two went by, and it was drawing towards night, when Seckendorf, after having appeased the cravings of hunger, was walking up and down the ordinary hall, for want of anything else to do. Indeed, the piping time of peace to a soldier of his stamp was a very dull period, especially at that season of the year, when many of the sports of the field are forbidden; and any little incident that broke the monotony of the castle life was a great relief. There was nobody in the hall but himself; and he was cursing the slow flight of time, and thinking the Count very long upon the road home, when the lifting of the door latch made him turn his head, and he instantly exclaimed, with a hoarse laugh, "Ha! who are you looking for, Mrs. Bertha? Ferdinand is not here."
"I was looking for you, Sir," answered Bertha, with perfect composure, at the