One summer evening, when shooting at a bird on a pole was in full exercise in the tilt-yard, the sports were interrupted by a message from the Provost that a harbinger had brought tidings that the Imperial court was within a day’s journey.

All was preparation. Fresh sand had to be strewn on the arena. New tapestry hangings were to deck the galleries, the houses and balconies to be brave with drapery, the fountain in the market-place was to play Rhine wine, all Ulm was astir to do honour to itself and to the Kaisar, and Ebbo stood amid all the bustle, drawing lines in the sand with the stock of his arblast, subject to all that oppressive self-magnification so frequent in early youth, and which made it seem to him as if the Kaisar and the King of the Romans were coming to Ulm with the mere purpose of destroying his independence, and as if the eyes of all Germany were watching for his humiliation.

“See! see!” suddenly exclaimed Friedel; “look! there is something among the tracery of the Dome Kirk Tower. Is it man or bird?”

“Bird, folly! Thou couldst see no bird less than an eagle from hence,” said Ebbo. “No doubt they are about to hoist a banner.”

“That is not their wont,” returned Sir Kasimir.

“I see him,” interrupted Ebbo. “Nay, but he is a bold climber! We went up to that stage, close to the balcony, but there’s no footing beyond but crockets and canopies.”

“And a bit of rotten scaffold,” added Friedel. “Perhaps he is a builder going to examine it! Up higher, higher!”

“A builder!” said Ebbo; “a man with a head and foot like that should be a chamois hunter! Shouldst thou deem it worse than the Red Eyrie, Friedel?”

“Yea, truly! The depth beneath is plainer! There would be no climbing there without—”

“Without what, cousin?” asked Wildschloss.

“Without great cause,” said Friedel. “It is fearful! He is like a fly against the sky.”

“Beaten again!” muttered Ebbo; “I did think that none of these town-bred fellows could surpass us when it came to a giddy height! Who can he be?”

“Look! look!” burst out Friedel. “The saints protect him! He is on that narrowest topmost ledge—measuring; his heel is over the parapet—half his foot!”

“Holding on by the rotten scaffold pole! St. Barbara be his speed; but he is a brave man!” shouted Ebbo. “Oh! the pole has broken.”

“Heaven forefend!” cried Wildschloss, with despair on his face unseen by the boys, for Friedel had hidden his eyes, and Ebbo was straining his with the intense gaze of horror. He had carried his glance downwards, following the 380 feet fall that must be the lot of the adventurer. Then looking up again he shouted, “I see him! I see him! Praise to St. Barbara! He is safe! He has caught by the upright stone work.”

“Where? where? Show me!” cried Wildschloss, grasping Ebbo’s arm.

“There! clinging to that upright bit of tracery, stretching his foot out to yonder crocket.”

“I cannot see. Mine eyes swim and dazzle,” said Wildschloss. “Merciful heavens! is this another tempting of Providence? How is it with him now, Ebbo?”

“Swarming down another slender bit of the stone network. It must be easy now to one who could keep head and hand steady in such a shock.”

“There!” added Friedel, after a breathless space, “he is on the lower parapet, whence begins the stair. Do you know him, sir? Who is he?”

“Either a Venetian mountebank,” said Wildschloss, “or else there is only one man I know of either so foolhardy or so steady of head.”

“Be he who he may,” said Ebbo, “he is the bravest man that ever I beheld. Who is he, Sir Kasimir?”

“An eagle of higher flight than ours, no doubt,” said Wildschloss. “But come; we shall reach the Dome Kirk by the time the climber has wound his way down the turret stairs, and we shall see what like he is.”

Their coming was well timed, for a small door at the foot of the tower was just opening to give exit to a very tall knight, in one of those short Spanish cloaks the collar of which could be raised so as to conceal the face. He looked to the right and left, and had one hand raised to put up the collar when he recognized Sir Kasimir, and, holding out both hands, exclaimed, “Ha, Adlerstein! well met! I looked to see thee here. No unbonneting; I am not come yet. I am at Strasburg, with the Kaisar and the Archduke, and am not here till we ride in, in purple and in pall by the time the good folk have hung out their arras, and donned their gold chains, and conned their speeches, and mounted their mules.”

“Well that their speeches are not over the lykewake of his kingly kaisarly highness,” gravely returned Sir Kasimir.

“Ha! Thou sawest? I came out here to avoid the gaping throng, who don’t know what a hunter can do. I have been in worse case in the Tyrol. Snowdrifts are worse footing than stone vine leaves.”

“Where abides your highness?” asked Wildschloss.

“I ride back again to the halting-place for the night, and meet my father in time to do my part in the pageant. I was sick of the addresses, and, moreover, the purse-proud Flemings have made such a stiff little fop of my poor boy that I am ashamed to look at him, or hear his French accent. So I rode off to get a view of this notable Dom in peace, ere it be bedizened in holiday garb; and one can’t stir without all the Chapter waddling after one.”

“Your highness has found means of distancing them.”

“Why, truly, the Prior would scarce delight in the view from yonder parapet,” laughed his highness. “Ha! Adlerstein, where didst get such a perfect pair of pages? I would I could match my hounds as well.”

“They are no pages of mine, so please you,” said the knight; “rather this is the head of my name. Let me present to your kingly highness the Freiherr von Adlerstein.”

“Thou dost not thyself distinguish between them!” said Maximilian, as Friedmund stepped back, putting forward Eberhard, whose bright, lively smile of interest and admiration had been the cause of his cousin’s mistake. They would have doffed their caps and bent the knee, but were hastily checked by Maximilian. “No, no, Junkern, I shall owe you no thanks for bringing all the street on me!—that’s enough. Reserve the rest for Kaisar Fritz.” Then, familiarly taking Sir Kasimir’s arm, he walked on, saying, “I remember now. Thou wentest after an inheritance from the old Mouser of the Debateable Ford, and wert ousted by a couple of lusty boys sprung of a peasant wedlock.”

“Nay, my lord, of a burgher lady, fair as she is wise and virtuous; who, spite of all hindrances, has bred up these youths in all good and noble nurture.”

“Is this so?” said the king, turning sharp round on the twins. “Are ye minded to quit freebooting, and come a crusading against the Turks with me?”

“Everywhere with such a leader!” enthusiastically exclaimed Ebbo.

“What? up there?” said Maximilian, smiling. “Thou hast the tread of a chamois-hunter.”

“Friedel has been on the Red Eyrie,” exclaimed Ebbo; then, thinking he had spoken foolishly, he coloured.

“Which is the Red Eyrie?” good-humouredly asked the king.

“It is the crag above our castle,” said Friedel, modestly.

“None other has been there,” added Ebbo, perceiving his auditor’s interest; “but he saw the eagle flying away with a poor widow’s kid, and the sight must have given him wings, for we never could find the same path; but here is one of the feathers he brought down”—taking off his cap so as to show a feather rather the worse for wear, and sheltered behind a fresher one.

“Nay,” said Friedel, “thou shouldst say that I came to a ledge where I had like to have stayed all night, but that ye all came out with men and ropes.”

“We know what such a case is!” said the king. “It has chanced to us to hang between heaven and earth; I’ve even had the Holy Sacrament held up for my last pious gaze by those who gave me up for lost on the mountain-side. Adlerstein? The peak above the Braunwasser? Some day shall ye show me this eyrie of yours, and we will see whether we can amaze our cousins the eagles. We see you at our father’s court to-morrow?” he graciously added, and Ebbo gave a ready bow of acquiescence.

“There,” said the king, as after their dismissal he walked on with Sir Kasimir, “never blame me for rashness and imprudence. Here has this height of the steeple proved the height of policy. It has made a loyal subject of a Mouser on the spot.”

“Pray Heaven it may have won a heart, true though proud!” said Wildschloss; “but mousing was cured before by the wise training of the mother. Your highness will have taken out the sting of submission, and you will scarce find more faithful subjects.”

“How old are the Junkern?”

“Some sixteen years, your highness.”

“That is what living among mountains does for a lad. Why could not those thrice-accursed Flemish towns let me breed up my boy to be good for something in the mountains, instead of getting duck-footed and muddy-witted in the fens?”

In the meantime Ebbo and Friedel were returning home in that sort of passion of enthusiasm that ingenuous boyhood feels when first brought into contact with greatness or brilliant qualities.

And brilliance was the striking point in Maximilian. The Last of the Knights, in spite of his many defects, was, by personal qualities, and the hereditary influence of long-descended rank, verily a king of men in aspect and demeanour, even when most careless and simple. He was at this time a year or two past thirty, unusually tall, and with a form at once majestic and full of vigour and activity; a noble, fair, though sunburnt countenance; eyes of dark gray, almost black; long fair hair, a keen aquiline nose, a lip only beginning to lengthen to the characteristic Austrian feature, an expression always lofty, sometimes dreamy, and yet at the same time full of acuteness and humour. His abilities were of the highest order, his purposes, especially at this period of his life, most noble and becoming in the first prince of Christendom; and, if his life were a failure, and his reputation unworthy of his endowments, the cause seems to have been in great measure the bewilderment and confusion that unusual gifts sometimes cause to their possessor, whose sight their conflicting illumination dazzles so as to impair his steadiness of aim, while their contending gleams light him into various directions, so that one object is deserted for another ere its completion. Thus Maximilian cuts a figure in history far inferior to that made by his grandson, Charles V., whom he nevertheless excelled in every personal quality, except the most needful of all, force of character; and, in like manner, his remote descendant, the narrow-minded Ferdinand of Styria, gained his ends, though the able and brilliant Joseph II. was to die broken-hearted, calling his reign a failure and mistake. However, such terms as these could not be applied to Maximilian with regard to home affairs. He has had hard measure from those who have only regarded his vacillating foreign policy, especially with respect to Italy—ever the temptation and the bane of Austria; but even here much of his uncertain conduct was owing to the unfulfilled promises of what he himself called his “realm of kings,” and a sovereign can only justly be estimated by his domestic policy. The contrast of the empire before his time with the subsequent Germany is that of chaos with order. Since the death of Friedrich II. the Imperial title had been a mockery, making the prince who chanced to bear it a mere mark for the spite of his rivals; there was no centre of justice, no appeal; everybody might make war on everybody, with the sole preliminary of exchanging a challenge; “fist-right” was the acknowledged law of the land; and, except in the free cities, and under such a happy accident as a right-minded prince here and there, the state of Germany seems to have been rather worse than that of Scotland from Bruce to the union of the Crowns. Under Maximilian, the Diet became an effective council, fist-right was abolished, independent robber-lords put down, civilization began to effect an entrance, the system of circles was arranged, and the empire again became a leading power in Europe, instead of a mere vortex of disorder and misrule. Never would Charles V. have held the position he occupied had he come after an ordinary man, instead of after an able and sagacious reformer like that Maximilian who is popularly regarded as a fantastic caricature of a knight-errant, marred by avarice and weakness of purpose.

At the juncture of which we are writing, none of Maximilian’s less worthy qualities had appeared; he had not been rendered shifty and unscrupulous by difficulties and disappointments in money matters, and had not found it impossible to keep many of the promises he had given in all good faith. He stood forth as the hope of Germany, in salient contrast to the feeble and avaricious father, who was felt to be the only obstacle in the way of his noble designs of establishing peace and good discipline in the empire, and conducting a general crusade against the Turks, whose progress was the most threatening peril of Christendom. His fame was, of course, frequently discussed among the citizens, with whom he was very popular, not only from his ease and freedom of manner, but because his graceful tastes, his love of painting, sculpture, architecture, and the mechanical turn which made him an improver of fire-arms and a patron of painting and engraving, rendered their society more agreeable to him than that of his dull, barbarous nobility. Ebbo had heard so much of the perfections of the King of the Romans as to be prepared to hate him; but the boy, as we have seen, was of a generous, sensitive nature, peculiarly prone to enthusiastic impressions of veneration; and Maximilian’s high-spirited manhood, personal fascination, and individual kindness had so entirely taken him by surprise, that he talked of him all the evening in a more fervid manner than did even Friedel, though both could scarcely rest for their anticipations of seeing him on the morrow in the full state of his entry.

Richly clad, and mounted on cream-coloured steeds, nearly as much alike as themselves, the twins were a pleasant sight for a proud mother’s eyes, as they rode out to take their place in the procession that was to welcome the royal guests. Master Sorel, in ample gown, richly furred, with medal and chain of office, likewise went forth as Guildmaster; and Christina, with smiling lips and liquid eyes, recollected the days when to see him in such array was her keenest pleasure, and the utmost splendour her fancy could depict.

Arrayed, as her sons loved to see her, in black velvet, and with pearl-bordered cap, Christina sat by her aunt in the tapestried balcony, and between them stood or sat little Thekla von Adlerstein Wildschloss, whose father had entrusted her to their care, to see the procession pass by. A rich Eastern carpet, of gorgeous colouring, covered the upper balustrade, over which they leant, in somewhat close quarters with the scarlet-bodiced dames of the opposite house, but with ample space for sight up and down the rows of smiling expectants at each balcony, or window, equally gay with hangings, while the bells of all the churches clashed forth their gayest chimes, and fitful bursts of music were borne upon the breeze. Little Thekla danced in the narrow space for very glee, and wondered why any one should live in a cloister when the world was so wide and so fair. And Dame Johanna tried to say something pious of worldly temptations, and the cloister shelter; but Thekla interrupted her, and, clinging to Christina, exclaimed, “Nay, but I am always naughty with Mother Ludmilla in the convent, and I know I should never be naughty out here with you and the barons; I should be so happy.”

“Hush! hush! little one; here they come!”

On they came—stout lanzknechts first, the city guard with steel helmets unadorned, buff suits, and bearing either harquebuses, halberts, or those handsome but terrible weapons, morning stars. Then followed guild after guild, each preceded by the banner bearing its homely emblem—the cauldron of the smiths, the hose of the clothiers, the helmet of the armourers, the bason of the barbers, the boot of the sutors; even the sausage of the cooks, and the shoe of the shoeblacks, were re-presented, as by men who gloried in the calling in which they did life’s duty and task.

First in each of these bands marched the prentices, stout, broad, flat-faced lads, from twenty to fourteen years of age, with hair like tow hanging from under their blue caps, staves in their hands, and knives at their girdles. Behind them came the journeymen, in leathern jerkins and steel caps, and armed with halberts or cross-bows; men of all ages, from sixty to one or two and twenty, and many of the younger ones with foreign countenances and garb betokening that they were strangers spending part of their wandering years in studying the Ulm fashions of their craft. Each trade showed a large array of these juniors; but the masters who came behind were comparatively few, mostly elderly, long-gowned, gold-chained personages, with a weight of solid dignity on their wise brows—men who respected themselves, made others respect them, and kept their city a peaceful, well-ordered haven, while storms raged in the realm beyond—men too who had raised to the glory of their God a temple, not indeed fulfilling the original design, but a noble effort, and grand monument of burgher devotion.

Then came the ragged regiment of scholars, wild lads from every part of Germany and Switzerland, some wan and pinched with hardship and privation, others sturdy, selfish rogues, evidently well able to take care of themselves. There were many rude, tyrannical-looking lads among the older lads; and, though here and there a studious, earnest face might be remarked, the prospect of Germany’s future priests and teachers was not encouraging. And what a searching ordeal was awaiting those careless lads when the voice of one, as yet still a student, should ring through Germany!

Contrasting with these ill-kempt pupils marched the grave professors and teachers, in square ecclesiastic caps and long gowns, whose colours marked their degrees and the Universities that had conferred them—some thin, some portly, some jocund, others dreamy; some observing all the humours around, others still intent on Aristotelian ethics; all men of high fame, with doctor at the beginning of their names, and “or” or “us” at the close of them. After them rode the magistracy, a burgomaster from each guild, and the Herr Provost himself—as great a potentate within his own walls as the Doge of Venice or of Genoa, or perhaps greater, because less jealously hampered. In this dignified group was Uncle Gottfried, by complacent nod and smile acknowledging his good wife and niece, who indeed had received many a previous glance and bow from friends passing beneath. But Master Sorel was no new spectacle in a civic procession, and the sight of him was only a pleasant fillip to the excitement of his ladies.

Here was jingling of spurs and trampling of horses; heraldic achievements showed upon the banners, round which rode the mail-clad retainers of country nobles who had mustered to meet their lords. Then, with still more of clank and tramp, rode a bright-faced troop of lads, with feathered caps and gay mantles. Young Count Rudiger looked up with courteous salutation; and just behind him, with smiling lips and upraised faces, were the pair whose dark eyes, dark hair, and slender forms rendered them conspicuous among the fair Teutonic youth. Each cap was taken off and waved, and each pair of lustrous eyes glanced up pleasure and exultation at the sight of the lovely “Mutterlein.” And she? The pageant was well-nigh over to her, save for heartily agreeing with Aunt Johanna that there was not a young noble of them all to compare with the twin Barons of Adlerstein! However, she knew she should be called to account if she did not look well at “the Romish King;” besides, Thekla was shrieking with delight at the sight of her father, tall and splendid on his mighty black charger, with a smile for his child, and for the lady a bow so low and deferential that it was evidently remarked by those at whose approach every lady in the balconies was rising, every head in the street was bared.

A tall, thin, shrivelled, but exceedingly stately old man on a gray horse was in the centre. Clad in a purple velvet mantle, and bowing as he went, he looked truly the Kaisar, to whom stately courtesy was second nature. On one side, in black and gold, with the jewel of the Golden Fleece on his breast, rode Maximilian, responding gracefully to the salutations of the people, but his keen gray eye roving in search of the object of Sir Kasimir’s salute, and lighting on Christina with such a rapid, amused glance of discovery that, in her confusion, she missed what excited Dame Johanna’s rapturous admiration—the handsome boy on the Emperor’s other side, a fair, plump lad, the young sovereign of the Low Countries, beautiful in feature and complexion, but lacking the fire and the loftiness that characterized his father’s countenance. The train was closed by the Reitern of the Emperor’s guard—steel-clad mercenaries who were looked on with no friendly eyes by the few gazers in the street who had been left behind in the general rush to keep up with the attractive part of the show.

Pageants of elaborate mythological character impeded the imperial progress at every stage, and it was full two hours ere the two youths returned, heartily weary of the lengthened ceremonial, and laughing at having actually seen the King of the Romans enduring to be conducted from shrine to shrine in the cathedral by a large proportion of its dignitaries. Ebbo was sure he had caught an archly disconsolate wink!

Ebbo had to dress for the banquet spread in the town-hall. Space was wanting for the concourse of guests, and Master Sorel had decided that the younger Baron should not be included in the invitation. Friedel pardoned him more easily than did Ebbo, who not only resented any slight to his double, but in his fits of shy pride needed the aid of his readier and brighter other self. But it might not be, and Sir Kasimir and Master Gottfried alone accompanied him, hoping that he would not look as wild as a hawk, and would do nothing to diminish the favourable impression he had made on the King of the Romans.

Late, according to mediÆval hours, was the return, and Ebbo spoke in a tone of elation. “The Kaisar was most gracious, and the king knew me,” he said, “and asked for thee, Friedel, saying one of us was nought without the other. But thou wilt go to-morrow, for we are to receive knighthood.”

“Already!” exclaimed Friedel, a bright glow rushing to his cheek.

“Yea,” said Ebbo. “The Romish king said somewhat about waiting to win our spurs; but the Kaisar said I was in a position to take rank as a knight, and I thanked him, so thou shouldst share the honour.”

“The Kaisar,” said Wildschloss, “is not the man to let a knight’s fee slip between his fingers. The king would have kept off their grip, and reserved you for knighthood from his own sword under the banner of the empire; but there is no help for it now, and you must make your vassals send in their dues.”

“My vassals?” said Ebbo; “what could they send?”

“The aid customary on the knighthood of the heir.”

“But there is—there is nothing!” said Friedel. “They can scarce pay meal and poultry enough for our daily fare; and if we were to flay them alive, we should not get sixty groschen from the whole.”

“True enough! Knighthood must wait till we win it,” said Ebbo, gloomily.

“Nay, it is accepted,” said Wildschloss. “The Kaisar loves his iron chest too well to let you go back. You must be ready with your round sum to the chancellor, and your spur-money and your fee to the heralds, and largess to the crowd.”

“Mother, the dowry,” said Ebbo.

“At your service, my son,” said Christina, anxious to chase the cloud from his brow.

But it was a deep haul, for the avaricious Friedrich IV. made exorbitant charges for the knighting his young nobles; and Ebbo soon saw that the improvements at home must suffer for the honours that would have been so much better won than bought.

“If your vassals cannot aid, yet may not your kinsman—?” began Wildschloss.

“No!” interrupted Ebbo, lashed up to hot indignation. “No, sir! Rather will my mother, brother, and I ride back this very night to unfettered liberty on our mountain, without obligation to any living man.”

“Less hotly, Sir Baron,” said Master Gottfried, gravely. “You broke in on your noble godfather, and you had not heard me speak. You and your brother are the old man’s only heirs, nor do ye incur any obligation that need fret you by forestalling what would be your just right. I will see my nephews as well equipped as any young baron of them.”

The mother looked anxiously at Ebbo. He bent his head with rising colour, and said, “Thanks, kind uncle. From you I have learnt to look on goodness as fatherly.”

“Only,” added Friedel, “if the Baron’s station renders knighthood fitting for him, surely I might remain his esquire.”

“Never, Friedel!” cried his brother. “Without thee, nothing.”

“Well said, Freiherr,” said Master Sorel; “what becomes the one becomes the other. I would not have thee left out, my Friedel, since I cannot leave thee the mysteries of my craft.”

“To-morrow!” said Friedel, gravely. “Then must the vigil be kept to-night.”

“The boy thinks these are the days of Roland and Karl the Great,” said Wildschloss. “He would fain watch his arms in the moonlight in the Dome Kirk! Alas! no, my Friedel! Knighthood in these days smacks more of bezants than of deeds of prowess.”

“Unbearable fellow!” cried Ebbo, when he had latched the door of the room he shared with his brother. “First, holding up my inexperience to scorn! As though the Kaisar knew not better than he what befits me! Then trying to buy my silence and my mother’s gratitude with his hateful advance of gold. As if I did not loathe him enough without! If I pay my homage, and sign the League to-morrow, it will be purely that he may not plume himself on our holding our own by sufferance, in deference to him.”

“You will sign it—you will do homage!” exclaimed Friedel. “How rejoiced the mother will be.”

“I had rather depend at once—if depend I must—on yonder dignified Kaisar and that noble king than on our meddling kinsman,” said Ebbo. “I shall be his equal now! Ay, and no more classed with the court Junkern I was with to-day. The dullards! No one reasonable thing know they but the chase. One had been at Florence; and when I asked him of the Baptistery and rare Giotto of whom my uncle told us, he asked if he were a knight of the Medici. All he knew was that there were ortolans at Ser Lorenzo’s table; and he and the rest of them talked over wines as many and as hard to call as the roll of Æneas’s comrades; and when each one must drink to her he loved best, and I said I loved none like my sweet mother, they gibed me for a simple dutiful mountaineer. Yea, and when the servants brought a bowl, I thought it was a wholesome draught of spring water after all their hot wines and fripperies. Pah!”

“The rose-water, Ebbo! No wonder they laughed! Why, the bowls for our fingers came round at the banquet here.”

“Ah! thou hast eyes for their finikin manners! Yet what know they of what we used to long for in polished life! Not one but vowed he abhorred books, and cursed Dr. Faustus for multiplying them. I may not know the taste of a stew, nor the fit of a glove, as they do, but I trust I bear a less empty brain. And the young Netherlanders that came with the Archduke were worst of all. They got together and gabbled French, and treated the German Junkern with the very same sauce with which they had served me. The Archduke laughed with them, and when the Provost addressed him, made as if he understood not, till his father heard, and thundered out, ‘How now, Philip! Deaf on thy German ear? I tell thee, Herr Probst, he knows his own tongue as well as thou or I, and thou shalt hear him speak as becomes the son of an Austrian hunter.’ That Romish king is a knight of knights, Friedel. I could follow him to the world’s end. I wonder whether he will ever come to climb the Red Eyrie.”

“It does not seem the world’s end when one is there,” said Friedel, with strange yearnings in his breast.

“Even the Dom steeple never rose to its full height,” he added, standing in the window, and gazing pensively into the summer sky. “Oh, Ebbo! this knighthood has come very suddenly after our many dreams; and, even though its outward tokens be lowered, it is still a holy, awful thing.”

Nurtured in mountain solitude, on romance transmitted through the pure medium of his mother’s mind, and his spirit untainted by contact with the world, Friedmund von Adlerstein looked on chivalry with the temper of a Percival or Galahad, and regarded it with a sacred awe. Eberhard, though treating it more as a matter of business, was like enough to his brother to enter into the force of the vows they were about to make; and if the young Barons of Adlerstein did not perform the night-watch over their armour, yet they kept a vigil that impressed their own minds as deeply, and in early morn they went to confession and mass ere the gay parts of the city were astir.

“Sweet niece,” said Master Sorel, as he saw the brothers’ grave, earnest looks, “thou hast done well by these youths; yet I doubt me at times whether they be not too much lifted out of this veritable world of ours.”

“Ah, fair uncle, were they not above it, how could they face its temptations?”

“True, my child; but how will it be when they find how lightly others treat what to them is so solemn?”

“There must be temptations for them, above all for Ebbo,” said Christina, “but still, when I remember how my heart sank when their grandmother tried to bring them up to love crime as sport and glory, I cannot but trust that the good work will be wrought out, and my dream fulfilled, that they may be lights on earth and stars in heaven. Even this matter of homage, that seemed so hard to my Ebbo, has now been made easy to him by his veneration for the Emperor.”

It was even so. If the sense that he was the last veritable free lord of Adlerstein rushed over Ebbo, he was, on the other hand, overmastered by the kingliness of Friedrich and Maximilian, and was aware that this submission, while depriving him of little or no actual power, brought him into relations with the civilized world, and opened to him paths of true honour. So the ceremonies were gone through, his oath of allegiance was made, investiture was granted to him by the delivery of a sword, and both he and Friedel were dubbed knights. Then they shared another banquet, where, as away from the Junkern and among elder men, Ebbo was happier than the day before. Some of the knights seemed to him as rude and ignorant as the Schneiderlein, but no one talked to him nor observed his manners, and he could listen to conversation on war and policy such as interested him far more than the subjects affected by youths a little older than himself. Their lonely life and training had rendered the minds of the brothers as much in advance of their fellows as they were behind them in knowledge of the world.

The crass obtuseness of most of the nobility made it a relief to return to the usual habits of the Sorel household when the court had left Ulm. Friedmund, anxious to prove that his new honours were not to alter his home demeanour, was drawing on a block of wood from a tinted pen-and-ink sketch; Ebbo was deeply engaged with a newly-acquired copy of Virgil; and their mother was embroidering some draperies for the long-neglected castle chapel,—all sitting, as Master Gottfried loved to have them, in his studio, whence he had a few moments before been called away, when, as the door slowly opened, a voice was heard that made both lads start and rise.

“Yea, truly, Herr Guildmaster, I would see these masterpieces. Ha! What have you here for masterpieces? Our two new double-ganger knights?” And Maximilian entered in a simple riding-dress, attended by Master Gottfried, and by Sir Kasimir of Adlerstein Wildschloss.

Christina would fain have slipped out unperceived, but the king was already removing his cap from his fair curling locks, and bending his head as he said, “The Frau Freiherrinn von Adlerstein? Fair lady, I greet you well, and thank you in the Kaisar’s name and mine for having bred up for us two true and loyal subjects.”

“May they so prove themselves, my liege!” said Christina, bending low.

“And not only loyal-hearted,” added Maximilian, smiling, “but ready-brained, which is less frequent among our youth. What is thy book, young knight? Virgilius Maro? Dost thou read the Latin?” he added, in that tongue.

“Not as well as we wish, your kingly highness,” readily answered Ebbo, in Latin, “having learnt solely of our mother till we came hither.”

“Never fear for that, my young blade,” laughed the king. “Knowst not that the wiseacres thought me too dull for teaching till I was past ten years? And what is thy double about? Drawing on wood? How now! An able draughtsman, my young knight?”

“My nephew Sir Friedmund is good to the old man,” said Gottfried, himself almost regretting the lad’s avocation. “My eyes are failing me, and he is aiding me with the graving of this border. He has the knack that no teaching will impart to any of my present journeymen.”

“Born, not made,” quoth Maximilian. “Nay,” as Friedel coloured deeper at the sense that Ebbo was ashamed of him, “no blushes, my boy; it is a rare gift. I can make a hundred knights any day, but the Almighty alone can make a genius. It was this very matter of graving that led me hither.”

For Maximilian had a passion for composition, and chiefly for autobiography, and his head was full of that curious performance, Der Weisse KÖnig, which occupied many of the leisure moments of his life, being dictated to his former writing-master, Marcus Sauerwein. He had already designed the portrayal of his father as the old white king, and himself as the young white king, in a series of woodcuts illustrating the narrative which culminated in the one romance of his life, his brief happy marriage with Mary of Burgundy; and he continued eagerly to talk to Master Gottfried about the mystery of graving, and the various scenes in which he wished to depict himself learning languages from native speakers—Czech from a peasant with a basket of eggs, English from the exiles at the Burgundian court, who had also taught him the use of the longbow, building from architects and masons, painting from artists, and, more imaginatively, astrology from a wonderful flaming sphere in the sky, and the black art from a witch inspired by a long-tailed demon perched on her shoulder. No doubt “the young white king” made an exceedingly prominent figure in the discourse, but it was so quaint and so brilliant that it did not need the charm of royal condescension to entrance the young knights, who stood silent auditors. Ebbo at least was convinced that no species of knowledge or skill was viewed by his kaisarly kingship as beneath his dignity; but still he feared Friedel’s being seized upon to be as prime illustrator to the royal autobiography—a lot to which, with all his devotion to Maximilian, he could hardly have consigned his brother, in the certainty that the jeers of the ruder nobles would pursue the craftsman baron.

However, for the present, Maximilian was keen enough to see that the boy’s mechanical skill was not as yet equal to his genius; so he only encouraged him to practise, adding that he heard there was a rare lad, one DÜrer, at Nuremburg, whose productions were already wonderful. “And what is this?” he asked; “what is the daintily-carved group I see yonder?”

“Your highness means, ‘The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest,’” said Kasimir. “It is the work of my young kinsmen, and their appropriate device.”

“As well chosen as carved,” said Maximilian, examining it. “Well is it that a city dove should now and then find her way to the eyrie. Some of my nobles would cut my throat for the heresy, but I am safe here, eh, Sir Kasimir? Fare ye well, ye dove-trained eaglets. We will know one another better when we bear the cross against the infidel.”

The brothers kissed his hand, and he descended the steps from the hall door. Ere he had gone far, he turned round upon Sir Kasimir with a merry smile: “A very white and tender dove indeed, and one who might easily nestle in another eyrie, methinks.”

“Deems your kingly highness that consent could be won?” asked Wildschloss

“From the Kaisar? Pfui, man, thou knowst as well as I do the golden key to his consent. So thou wouldst risk thy luck again! Thou hast no male heir.”

“And I would fain give my child a mother who would deal well with her. Nay, to say sooth, that gentle, innocent face has dwelt with me for many years. But for my pre-contract, I had striven long ago to win her, and had been a happier man, mayhap. And, now I have seen what she has made of her sons, I feel I could scarce find her match among our nobility.”

“Nor elsewhere,” said the king; “and I honour thee for not being so besotted in our German haughtiness as not to see that it is our free cities that make refined and discreet dames. I give you good speed, Adlerstein; but, if I read aright the brow of one at least of these young fellows, thou wilt scarce have a willing or obedient stepson.”