Chapter XI: I Come to Mainz

On our travel we had abundant chances to measure popular opinion touching Dr. Luther. Whether on the road, or halting for dinner at the inns, or lodging for the night with some hospitable nobleman, the remark “we are from Wittenberg,” was the signal for numerous questions, followed by comments almost invariably friendly to the hardy Augustinian, whilst the views expressed about his monkish maligners were frequently violent.

“No, by my father’s bones!” swore an impetuous ritter as we left his schloss one morning; “we have had enough of priest-made bonfires with honest men, who have told the black crows their sins, thrust into them; and ere they light one for Martin Luther, there’ll be a mighty clattering of swords from every ‘circle’ of Germany.”

The good nobleman was by no means alone in his vehemence. In the tap-room of the inn at Dessau, where we broke the journey, I was silent witness to a colloquy betwixt a stout, shrewd Leipzig merchant coming from Lubeck with salt-cod and soap, and a strong-lunged, red-nosed creature who wished to be taken for a friar. The latter had liquor in his crown, and had been delivering himself against Wittenberg as “tainted with heresy,” and its professor as “a mad man, a seducer, and a wizard possessed by the devil.” As he paused for breath the merchant charged in on him heartily.

“Crack-brain and wizard, is he? Well, who, Master Friar, is responsible for his folly?”

“Why, the devil, of course.”

“Say, rather, those long-frocked devils, you ‘cheese hunters,’[6] whereof your Tetzel is the master fiend.”

“_Malefice!_” howled the friar, “what have we here,--a Bohemian infidel?”

“A poor honest Christian, and much at your worshipful service,” the merchant was just drunk enough to bow ironically, “and of a mind to tell you that your merry dance is nearly over, and that the musicians will be asking their penny. Rome is your city; go there then, and ask alms of your ‘Apostolic Father.’ We Germans grow weary.”

“Don’t blaspheme the holy Pope,” stormed the other.

“I can’t blaspheme what isn’t holy. You’ve heard the saying, ‘If hell there be, Rome is built over it.’ Just as the wolf preached and sung masses to gather the geese around him, and then ate them all, so priest and prelate promise all things, and pretend to love our souls till they get their benefices, and then--prutt!” his diatribe ended with a contemptuous gesture.

“Is there no man here,” cried the friar at the top of his voice, “to hale this fellow to the inquisitor?”

“Is there no man here to hale this fellow to the horse pond,” retorted the merchant, and a dozen hands were ready to obey the suggestion, when the host enforced a kind of truce.

The friar slunk away, not one in the tap-room failing to fling ribaldry after him. When I went out, a tapster was telling amid roars how Tetzel had sold an indulgence for _premeditated_ assault and robbery to a Saxon nobleman and had been _himself_ a few days later soundly thrashed, then pillaged by his pious customer; while another traveller had already recited how the Wittenberg students had burned a copy of Tetzel’s counter theses, as being in turn heretical, “giving them the fate, God knows, which they deserve.”

Thus it was on all the journey back to the Harzland. Our travel was clouded by the manifest anxiety of Ilsa lest she arrive too late to find her father alive. I pitied her drawn lips and anxious eyes; her respite at Wittenberg had been such a joyous one, and all too short. In my sympathy for her, and in her willingness to turn to any one who might afford hope and comfort, we were drawn more together than ever. If we were not yet lovers, my relations to her were already exceedingly brotherly. I could see that Moritz was remarking as much with sly and friendly eyes.

“You forget that I also have ears, Ilsa,” he remarked once meaningly; “you keep all your fine talk for Walter.”

The little Gräfin colored and let me alone for the next hour’s ride, but the next day we were more friendly than ever.

Near Blankenburg we met news, welcome indeed to Ilsa; not so welcome for me (who heartily wished the venerable wretch dead, and his daughter through mourning him). Graf Eckbert was still alive, and despite his evil courses his tough old frame seemed like to keep his soul from his last deserts for some months longer. He was utterly helpless, however, and the ribald clowns around him were wholly unfit nurses.

Ilsa’s mouth grew firm when she comprehended the situation.

“He is my father,” she said gravely. “So long as he lives my place is at his side.”

* * * * *

Her decision, of course, destroyed my pleasure for the rest of the winter. It was impossible for me to see her; save at very rare intervals. She would not join Moritz and myself in a gallop over the frozen crust, for might not the end come at any instant? Moritz himself felt bound not to quit Schloss Blankenburg too frequently. Despite, therefore, the glory of ice and snow upon the hills and gorges I could hardly bring myself to await the end of the winter in the barren halls of the Regenstein, with only Adolf and Andrea for company. I could hardly return at once to Wittenberg, and, therefore, I resolved to go to the Rhine lands, and present letters which I had to the Archbishop of Mainz’s elegant court. I went the more willingly because I believed I might be able to win the favor of that mighty prelate, and influence him in behalf of Dr. Luther.

The day before I set forth, I rode across to Blankenburg, and took leave of Ilsa. Her brother was present and we made no attempt at many words or sentiment. Her face showed her to be weary with watching, but she seemed to be striving hard to seem gay when I talked of returning “with the first buds of the spring” to join her in the chase of a red deer over the Brocken.

“By that time,” I said, “I trust your father will be--better.”

“Yes, better--surely better,” answered she, with a tremor in her voice, as I bowed and kissed her hand.

She let it linger under my lips perhaps a little longer than mere courtesy demanded. Perhaps I, in turn, made no haste with the little ceremony.

“The dear God and all His saints bless you, Walter, and bring you safely back to me--to us,” she altered, with no lack of color in her cheeks at this last.

I muttered some smooth civilities to her, took leave of Moritz, and rode away.

* * * * *

All the time Adolf, Andrea, and I plodded wearily over the snow-drifted roads of Hesse I meditated upon my own attitude toward Ilsa. Clearly, I told myself, the young lady, once freed from the savage gloom of Blankenburg would develop into a gracious and seemly dame, well able to play the noble consort even to such an ambitious personage as the Graf von Regenstein. On the other hand, I reflected, in the cold calm manner which was my pride, that to marry such a portionless little creature would be sheer worldly folly. Her father’s broken condition was notorious, and could I not hope for almost any heiress in Saxony? If, however, I _did_ desire to win Ilsa, I made not the least doubt that the glory of an alliance in my quarter would end any idea of a ‘vocation’ for the convent.

“Is not the little witch half in love with me already?” I deliberated, “and am I not half in love with her myself? Fie, Graf von Regenstein! Do not be so hasty. I am not yet resolved to spend all my days in this cold Germany. I may not succumb to the first flaxen-haired northern Gräfin! and whither are vanished my thoughts of Italy--and of you, O glorious Marianna?”

Then I repeated to myself that I had a great career to carve for myself in the world, and must not let the naïve attractiveness of the daughter of a depraved mountain Graf (my admiration being mingled perchance with a little pity for her condition) interfere with my better judgment. “In two months I will see myself more clearly; it will be time then to make up my mind as to Ilsa.”

So I completed my journey to Mainz, glad enough to see the spires of the old Cathedral city at last and to escape from the bad roads, and the worse hostelries. I halted at a very comfortable inn, on an afternoon, and was sitting down to a well-cooked meal in a pleasant room, intending to present my credentials at the Archbishop’s schloss the next day, when I heard shouting under the windows, and the rumbling as of a great coach passing.

“Way! way for his sacred Eminence!” outriders were bawling.

“Is it the Archbishop’s carriage?” I demanded of the serving boy.

“Oh, no, gracious Herr; it is the great Italian Cardinal of Forli; he has come on the Pope’s business, people say.”

Forli in Mainz? And if he, then assuredly Marianna. I fear I thought very little on Ilsa the rest of that day.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The Friars were charged with being arrant beggars of dainties.