'Twixt Dog and Wolf (Valancourt Classics) Read online

  No doubt many of the neighbours suspected the cause of Carl’s and Willebald’s disappearance, and divined Elizabeth’s hopes and fears. When she and Walter met at the corner of the place, there came a pause in the talk round the fountain, and the water likewise paused in its splashing as if to listen. Even now she could not bring herself to begin the talk. But, when a greeting had passed, she stood before the ranger fingering her thread awkwardly, like a bashful girl. Her hand trembled, and the spindle struck her on the knees. The forester took pity on her.

  ‘Is it sooth[7] I hear that Carl of the Corner is gone away?’ he asked.

  ‘I cannot say,’ Elizabeth got out.

  ‘Nay; but a villager may not be away more than two days, you know that, without the Bailey’s[8] leave.’

  ‘It is not his fault, nor—nor—Willebald’s,’ Elizabeth cried suddenly. ‘If your Two Foresters had never come to our house it would all have been well. They it is who tempted them forth.’ Now that her tongue was loosed, she stood before him wild-looking, flushed, and panting.

  ‘How strangely she looks,’ said some of the gossips. ‘Send that she have not been bewitched!’

  But Walter did not seem afraid. ‘What foresters be they?’ he asked.

  ‘Gotschalk and Rudolf.’

  ‘I have no rangers with such names. Stay, there is old Rudolf, the same that was disabled long since by a boar. But he no longer walks the woods. He hath a cottage of my lord, and——’

  ‘Such they called themselves,’ put in the other. ‘And that they were foresters there was no mistaking—— Indeed,’ she went on excitedly, ‘I am sure they come for no good to my husband, but to tempt them away to hunt on the heath.’

  ‘On the heath?’ said Walter. ‘But none save the Devil’s rangers would hunt there.’ ‘I know not—— Perhaps they talked wildly—— I understood them to talk of the heath, and so did Carl—— He and Willebald would never go there.’ But as she spoke she grew pale, and trembled, knowing how Willebald’s rashness might tempt him to any enterprise.

  ‘What manner of men were they?’

  Elizabeth began in confused language to describe the two rangers, whom in truth she had never seen very distinctly by the firelight.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Walter, ‘to-morrow is the rangers’ day, when all meet in the morning at my house to take their commands for the week, and determine the ranges. It was in part for this matter that I came here to-day. For I could give commands that they would seek thy husband. But not unless you will. Come, then, to my house at sunrise, and you will see the twain you seek.’

  But among the Freyherr’s rangers were none like the two who had come to Carl’s cottage on the eve of St. Justin, two and more months ago. And the next day the villagers said among themselves at the fountain:—‘Elizabeth of the Corner is gone to seek her husband at the castle.’

  ‘But she will not find him there,’ said another. (Was it crazy Jutta who spoke?) ‘Yet there she will find him.’

  ‘What was it she spake of two foresters?’ said a third. ‘Two foresters that had long-bows at their backs, as they carried them in my grandsire’s day——’

  Of a sudden a thrill passed round the assembly. At last a woman gave voice to the thoughts of the rest.

  ‘What if they should be Hilda’s Foresters?’ she said.

  ‘Crazy Jutta knows,’ said a fifth, looking round to where the old crone sat. But crazy Jutta only nodded to herself, and laughed.

  VIII

  Elizabeth took the path that, almost from the cottage, began to clamber up alongside the wood; then left it again; and, descending a little, crossed a piece of common land. There at the moment Hansel and Bertha, the goose-boy and goose-girl, were tending their flocks hard by the edge of the forest. These were the last familiar faces that she saw. Even at the moment of her passing them, there came the first of three signs of ill-luck. A hare sprang almost from beneath her feet, and hopped away, as if it went on three legs only. She followed it, and plunged into the forest, which began with young trees of hazel and oak. And, ah! as she entered the shade, an owl flapped forth in broad daylight. This was the second sign; and anon, as she wandered farther, she found that the leaf trees were exchanged for a forest entirely of pines. And here all token of life seemed to have departed, until a raven, the bird of fearful knowledge, rose and circled thrice about her head, then, with a harsh cry, winged away. The three omens of mischance, the hare, the owl, and the raven! Her heart died within her.

  And now the wood suddenly ceased, and she was at the foot of the castle hill. Like some vast winding stair, battlement succeeded battlement up the hillside. There were three gateways to pass, which might be likened to the landings on that winding stairway. Elizabeth remembered, as from afar off, some story she had heard of a man walking up such flights of stairs as these. Stairs were no part of her ordinary experience.

  At the bottom of the first, it seemed to her she saw a huge Thing stretched out dragon-like and with mighty scales. In shape it was as a centipede. But it paid no heed to her, and she passed on.

  At the second flight, a Figure all in steel was pushing against another Figure all in brown. ‘The hunting-knife and the soup-ladle’:—it was as if a voice within her said this. What a dust they raised! In spite of herself Elizabeth laughed. They, too, took no heed of her, and she passed on, and began to mount another stair.

  At the third door was a Little Old Man. How long his nose! How keen his eyes! ‘I know who you are,’ thought Elizabeth. ‘You are Godfather Death.’ And, though she did not utter her thought, it seemed to her that the Old Man nodded, and smiled a lean smile, and let her pass on. She could have laughed again; for she knew now that she had strayed far away from the common earth.

  When she had climbed the last flight, and reached the very courtyard of the castle keep, behold! all was changed once more, though it was not a whit more human or of this terrene life. The great dome of the sky spread over her, and seemed quite close, nothing else so near. Straight from above the walls of the court, which was dominated on one side by the keep, on another by the chapel, rose this mighty temple, the sky. Was it possible for men to abide so near the habitation of God, and live? If so, such men could not be of common mould. Elizabeth was afeared to think that she had ventured up to such regions. The three omens of the forest might be encountered. The three unearthly sights of the flights of stairs might be passed. This solemn and unchanging dome of heaven was more terrible than all.

  As she stood, not so much thinking these things as by the sense of them bereft of thought, Freyherr Otto, of Rettenberg, came out of the castle. He was tall and not weakly built: rather, as it seemed, all strung of nerve and sinew, but with little flesh. His shoulders had a slight stoop, and his shaven face, save for the marks it bore of much exposure to the air, was almost the face of a priest. You would have said too that some flame of zeal had caught him: a dull fire burned in his eyes, his steel-shod feet grasped the stone of the steps as he descended. At the bottom it was as if of a sudden he grew conscious of the sky spread over him. He paused a moment with his eye raised as if in prayer. Two pages carried, one his helmet, the other his sword. A group of men-at-arms now showed in the doorway, and another figure, a veritable priest this time, appeared upon Elizabeth’s right hand. He was younger than the Lord of Rettenberg, not more than thirty years of age, but thin, and pale, and with a worn face. He first took note of the woman standing in the court.

  ‘What would you, my daughter?’ he said.

  Elizabeth could not find her voice. It was as if she had been translated from earth to heaven. ‘I have, I would, father,’ she was beginning; but now Lord Otto stepped forward to meet the chaplain. ‘It has come, the time has come,’ he cried, and the fire which had burned dull behind his eyes seemed to leap into sudden flame. ‘The Holy War is proclaimed. To-day comes a message from our Lord the E
mperor.’

  ‘God’s will be done,’ was all the chaplain said. But he spoke rather to himself than to the Lord of Rettenberg, who went on unheeding:—‘Come thou with me. To-night I depart with a hundred men to Treves. Arnulf, my ancient, comes after me with another hundred and provisions and arms——’

  ‘But who will remain?’

  ‘Rupert, the Seneschal, remains, and Walter, the Ranger. I have made him lieutenant in the castle.’

  ‘It is not enough, my lord; remember——’

  ‘None will attack us while the War of the Cross goes on.’

  ‘No Christian men, perhaps——’

  ‘You are thinking of the old wizard’s prophecy? You, sir priest! Now come in, and prepare to administer to us ere we depart.’

  The colloquy continued. But Elizabeth heard no more. The Freyherr and the chaplain both took their steps towards the chapel. Then the pages followed, and the men-at-arms, too, entered the building one by one. Presently she heard the voice of the priest intoning the service. She heard, too, a great braying of horns, a neighing of horses in the stable, shouts from lower down the hillside.

  The court was once more nearly clear. But one or two soldiers still hung at the chapel door. Presently one of these sighted Elizabeth. ‘But who is this woman?’ he said. ‘Ay, my faith, who is the woman?’ said another. And they came down the steps towards her. She shrank a few paces back, and found herself against the wall.

  ‘Whoever she is, she shall give a blessing to the crusade,’ and the man caught hold of Elizabeth, and kissed her roughly. Now, for the first time since she entered the court did she remember fully her own identity, and what she had come there for. The first soldier had handed her on to his comrade, who held her in a still tighter embrace. She struggled in terror. At that moment the old man whom she had seen at the gate below passed by, and again he nodded and smiled his sour smile. ‘Save me, save me, Godfather Death!’ Elizabeth cried beside herself. And the two men let go of her, and began to laugh so loud that some other men-at-arms, who had been just inside the chapel porch, came out to see what was going on.

  ‘Ha-ha-ha,’ rang in Elizabeth’s ears. It was the laughter of a demon. Her eyes could not move from a stone devil, who looked down at her from near the chapel roof. And then there was the great dome of the sky, lying close over all, weighing on all.

  ‘But say who you are.’ The man shook her roughly out of her half-trance.

  ‘I am the wife of Carl—Carl of the Corner,’ she answered panting, a sob at her throat.

  ‘Carl of the Corner? who is he?’

  ‘He is nothing,’ said Godfather Death, speaking for the first time, and he nodded and smiled.

  Elizabeth gave a scream. ‘Hist,[9] a plague on you,’ said one of the men who had just come from inside the chapel. ‘A plague on you,’ said one of the first pair, and he struck her on the mouth. The castle walls closed round her, and the blue heavens seemed to descend upon her. Then she recovered herself to see only the Old Man still smiling and nodding.

  ‘He is nothing here in this world,’ he said; and then he pointed. And Elizabeth looked in the direction his finger took. And, behold! she could see over the battlements, and quite plainly as far as the Heath of the Three Pines. Nay, on looking again she saw two men hanging upon the centre one of the Three Pines, and two men standing under the tree. Then she strained her eyes a third time, and lo! she could see the faces of the two men standing: they were Gotschalk and Rudolf, the unknown Foresters. But, besides that, she could see the faces of the two dead men hanged by the neck upon the Pine itself, and they were the faces of Carl and Willebald. And yet the castle ramparts had been high above her head where she stood, and the Heath of the Three Pines lay far outside the skirts of the great forest, which surrounded the castle for miles.

  IX

  It was autumn now. The men and women of Lehndorf were taking their way by twos and threes, or in little companies, down alongside the river towards Andersbach Minster, for it was the eve of All Saints, the vigil of All Souls. There was to be a great office for the dead at the minster church that day: with doles,[10] as by custom, to some of the poor and aged of Lehndorf village—the two Lehndorfs, Lehndorf of Rettenberg and Abbot’s Lehndorf—according to the bequest of Abbot John a century and a half ago. The Lord Archbishop of Treves, himself once Abbot of Andersbach, was to be at the office. He had just presented his old house with one of the new organs made by Master Cuno of Cologne, which spake, so men reported, now with the voice of all the angels, now with the roar of all the thunders of Sinai.

  The villagers took their way by twos and threes, or in little companies, all save Elizabeth, Carl’s widow, who went alone. For people were beginning to look at her a little askance. How had her husband died? None knew for certain; but there were many who could affirm. The story of the unknown foresters—Hilda’s Rangers they were now freely called—had got about. Some in the village besides Elizabeth had heard the sounds of the mysterious Hunt, the scream of the screech-owl, the baying of hounds from the wood. The story went out that every new moon this Hunt swept by Elizabeth’s door. Why, then, did she not come into the village? Was it indeed true that there was danger, was a sort of curse impending over that house of Carl’s called the Corner? Others thought that the curse lay rather on Elizabeth’s own blood. Was she not known to many as Elizabeth the Out-born? She did not get this name, certainly, because she herself had not been born in the village. But it was known, or said, by the older villagers that her father’s mother had likewise been so called, and that about her origin there hung a mystery. Moreover, as all men knew, on great festivals of the church the Devil likewise is especially active: redoubled caution is necessary not to give him the shadow of an advantage, or instead of a blessing one might receive a greater damnation. It was on account of all these thoughts and rumours that Elizabeth was left to walk alone.

  And she herself was tormented by thoughts which the villagers suspected not, or such suspicion would have increased their distrust. When she had almost persuaded herself that she was full of grief for the loss of her husband, Jutta’s words would intervene in her memory:—‘It is not Carl for whom you fear, but Willebald.’ If to-night in her prayers, if to-morrow in the mass for the dead, she could not keep out Willebald from her heart, if in reality for him those prayers were said, the mass attended—was not this indeed to prepare the way to eternal fires? But then in the midst of those fearful thoughts would come a strange unreasoning hope, an obstinate conviction, do what she would to repress it, that Willebald was not dead: that he would emerge some day from the wood—some day when she was sitting alone at her cottage door. It was not true—what the villagers whispered—that every New Moon the Strange Hunt came out of the forest, and swept by that door. She had never heard the screech-owl’s cry nor the hounds’ baying since that dreadful evening when Jutta had been there, and had uttered the words:—‘It is not Carl for whom you fear, but Willebald.’ Words which Elizabeth could not help often repeating to herself. Dreadful words, fascinating as dreadful. Did some of the fascination extend to that evening’s sounds? Did Elizabeth ever listen with a sort of hope mingled with her dread for the sound of the Strange Hunt coming from the wood, with a shadow of disappointment that it never came? Who shall say, when she herself could not have said?

  X

  Already the afternoon had turned to night. A lantern, whose flame was searched by the keen wind, hung by a rope before the minster’s face. Another smaller light, a wick floating in oil, flickered not less before the face of the Virgin over the door within the huge porch. The wind was blowing gustily, and storms of autumn leaves whirled about the peasants’ feet as they made their way into the minster. Once in, they stood huddled together at one end in almost complete darkness, waiting for the procession. At last the door to the abbey opened. Those who were nearest to the barrier on the north side could catch a glimpse of
torches in the dim cloister. Then the procession came. First the lay-brothers and certain monks bearing candles and torches, and at once the farther end of the minster leapt into light. The tapers passed across the church, and partly disappeared behind the arch which separated that from the chancel. After the candle-bearers marched the rest of the monks, chanting as they marched. And last of all the auguster personages: the Lord Archbishop, in purple cassock and lace surplice, over whom four priests bore a baldaquin; the venerable Abbot, whose robe was held by a monk; the Prior. These things Elizabeth beheld as in a dream. For a moment she was in fancy walking up the path by the side of the Lehen; and out of the wood at her right were sailing tiny candles, the tapers of the elves. That was at the beginning. The life that she had lived through since then—not yet six months ago—had held a world of fearful experiences, yet withal, withal. . . .

  The service had begun. Elizabeth’s eyes were fascinated by the painted roof of the choir, for there the flickering smoking candles brought out a vision of angels’ heads and wings which seemed to move, stars which seemed to shine and go out. Over her own head the roof had so far disappeared that she might have fancied herself in the open air. She was leaning against a heavy rounded pillar; and sometimes she forgot she was not leaning against some great oak of the forest. ‘Or,’ a voice seemed to say, ‘against one of the Three Pines.’ And at these words a mysterious wind blew through the wood in which she was: a wind that grew and grew into the sound of thunder, into a voice of doom. She shuddered, and shook herself awake.

  A tuneful wind, a melodious thunder. It was the voice of the great organ blowing through the church. It rose louder and louder, sweeter and sweeter: there were voices, young ones, mingling with the sound. And now the choir breathed forth in a plaint of passionate sadness, as an autumn wind among pines; and now it answered in the thunder of a midsummer storm. ‘Dare to disbelieve,’ said the threatening voice of the organ. ‘We do believe,’ said the passionate wailing sound: ‘Some sign, some sign!’ Higher and higher the music seemed to rise and swell. It broke over Elizabeth like a mighty wave, until all her senses were submerged. She forgot her very existence. As the drowning mariner, when all his struggles are over, feels, with terror and unspeakable wonder, the waves breaking over him, which reverberate for ever on his dying senses: so she sank exhausted beneath that flood of sound. Her mind, which had battled all day with her feelings, trying to understand them, trying to control them, ceased to fight. The harmonies whelmed her, and she dropped upon her knees.