The Saint of the Dragon’s Dale

A Fantastic Tale

BY WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS AUTHOR OF “A FRIEND OF CÆSAR,” “GOD WILLS IT,” ETC.

“And he wist not that his face shone.” Exodus xxxiv. 29.

New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1903

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1903, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up, electrotyped, and published July, 1903. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

TO LE BARON RUSSELL BRIGGS AN EVER KINDLY FRIEND AND COUNSELLOR TO ME AS TO SO MANY OTHER SONS OF HARVARD

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE SAINT OF THE DRAGON’S DALE

CHAPTER I JEROME OF THE DRAGON’S DALE

PATTER, patter,—the rain had beaten all day on the brown roofs of Eisenach. The wind swept in raw gusts across the rippling ocean of pines and beeches which crowded upon the little town from many a swelling hill. Under the grey battlements the Hörsel brawled angrily. At the Marien Gate, Andreas the warder dozed in his box, wrapping his great cloak tighter. He had searched few incoming wagons for toll that day. It was very cold, as often chances even in summer in tree-carpeted Thuringia. Andreas was sinking into another day-dream,[2] when Joram, his shaggy dog, having opened one eye, opened the other, then started his master with a bark.

“Hoch! hold!” cried Andreas, rubbing his eyes. “Who passes?”

“Johann of the ‘Crown and Bells.’” And the warder saw the tow-thatched stripling of the innkeeper tugging a great basket, whilst his buff coat dripped with rain.

“And whither away?” quoth Andreas, settling back, as Joram ceased growling.

“The ‘Saint’ in the Dragon’s Dale needs his basket, rain or no rain—curse him!” And Johann’s broad mouth drew into no merry smile.

Andreas crossed himself as became a pious Christian. “Do not blaspheme the Saint. Ask his prayers rather. This is a noble time for the gnomes and pixies to go hunting in the Marienthal for just such blithe rascals as you. So pray hard and run harder.”

Small need of this. Gnomes and pixies had been much in Johann’s mind since goodwife Kathe, his mother, had thrust the basket on his reluctant arm, and haled him[3] by an ear to the inn door. It was nigh as bad as wandering by night, to thread the forest on a day like this. As he quitted the gate, from east, west, south, was pressing the green Thuringerwald,—avenue on avenue of stately beeches, lofty as church spires, graceful as the piers of some tall cathedral. He could see their serried, black trunks running away into distance, till his eye wearied of wandering amid their mazes. A clearing next, fresh chips, young weeds, a carpet of dank leaves—but the wood-cutters were gone. Then the path opened enough to give one glimpse to the westward and southward, toward the leafy peak of the Hainstein; and beyond and higher, to a proudly built castle,—with a scarlet banner trailing through the rain,—the Wartburg, one-time fortress of the Landgraf of Thuringia, now the hold of Baron Ulrich, boldest and wickedest of all the “ritters” who watched the roads in

these evil days which had fallen upon Germany.

The glimpse of the Wartburg cheered Johann. Man was there—and what was[4] a “robber-knight” beside a redoubtable pixie? Likewise, what likelier place for pixies than those glades just before? Johann had not forgotten the wise tales of old grandame Elsa; and there it was,—the stone cross, where forty years ago the griping burgomaster Gottfried had been found lying stiff and cold, with purse untouched, and never a scar, save a little one behind his ear. “He had gone to meet the Devil, and the Devil had stolen his soul;” so said Father Georg in church. It was heresy to doubt it.

Johann was sure it was best to pray at the cross. He plumped on the wet grass, said two Aves and a Paternoster. At the last “Amen,” whir!—went something off behind. A gnome? No; only a partridge. He trudged on happier. Now the glade was narrowing; the trees thickened, the brook sang over rocks and sands. One could see the slim trout shooting in the pools. Johann’s stride lengthened. The forest closed all view. He crossed the stream on stepping-stones, and drew a long breath. “Only two hundred paces more!” It had ceased raining,[5] but all the trees were hung with pearls, and shook down showers at every sweeping breeze. The air was suddenly grown warm. The last hundred paces, Johann seemed walking into a sheer wall of rock, whence the stream crawled from under a tiny fissure. What dwelt beyond—dog-men who fed on babes, or only ordinary and commonplace devils, Johann did not care to guess. Ten paces from the precipice he halted, crossed himself as a precaution, laid down the basket, and turned to a sapling whence dangled a rusty helmet by a leathern thong.

Thrice he beat with a stick, and the metallic booms sent new quakings, not appeased by a voice which proceeded from the centre of the beetling rock.

“Who is this that comes to the Dragon’s Dale?”

“I, Johann of the ‘Crown and Bells’;” and Johann’s teeth rattled.

“Have you brought the basket?”

“Surely, holy father; bread and cheese as always on the first of the month.”

“Christ then abide with you and your good parents. In the helmet you will find the[6] accustomed payment. Now leave the basket and depart.”

From the helmet Johann took a silver piece,—a strange coin current amongst the Orient infidels. However, silver was silver; it came from a holy hermit, and Johann’s chief need was a swift gait home; so home he flew, his teeth a-chattering.

For long after his going, absolute silence held the glade; then seemingly out from the precipice emerged a man who walked straight to the basket and lifted it so easily as to convince a grave crow—the sole onlooker—that here was a mortal of wondrous strength. The new-comer moved in long strides which did not belie the mighty proportions of thigh and limb. Over his broad shoulders, scarcely bowed with fast and age, hung a brown sheepskin jerkin, sewed with thongs, descending below the knees and bound with a bit of rope. Feet, neck, arms, were absolutely bare, hairy, and sinewy. How the face looked one might not tell, all hidden as the features were behind the unshorn snow-white hair and beard which veiled almost everything save two marvellously lustrous blue eyes.

[7]Without a word or look to right or left, he lifted the basket, and strode directly toward the rock. Not till the wall was arm’s length away could a stranger have discovered how one boulder thrusting before another opened a passage, narrow, tortuous, dark, betwixt the masses of sandstone. The defile was scarce wide enough for two to pass. Under-foot trickled a shallow stream. The stone walls were mantled with green moss and myriad ferns and harebells. Often the rocks locked closer, throwing the gorge into twilight, or opening, disclosed the grassy hill-slopes fifty feet on high. The solitary went onward, heedless of gloom, until, after following this uncanny path for nigh two hundred yards, the rocks sprang apart, and as by art-magic the long-prisoned sun burst forth, and shot his glory over the greenwood. Instantly all the beeches’ leafy clusters were glistering with diamonds, the sheen of the grassy slopes grew dazzling, the brook flashed on its way, with a rainbow in every ripple, whilst right over the massy Wartburg hung a true “Bow of the Promise” in full splendour.

The stranger mounted the slope, till castle[8] and hills were clear in view; then spoke his first word.

“O dear Lord Jesus Christ, if this Thy present world is fair, how fair must be Thy heavenly world, before which all this shall flee unclean away!”

The speech was not German, but some strange tongue of the East, alien indeed to this northern forest; but the hermit only scanned the sky and valley once, then pressed up the hillside until in a hollow shaded by immemorial pines, and carpeted by their brown needles, there was a hut of wicker and of boughs, and from the damp wood before the entrance a stream of thin smoke crawled upward, whilst at the crunching tread of the hermit a beast started from the dying fire, growled softly, and wagged a bushy tail,—a yellow, white-toothed wolf, who raised his black muzzle to the basket, and mildly sniffed for bread, beseeching with low whines. But the strange man only spoke two sharp words, in the same Eastern tongue.

“Down, Harun!” And the wolf slunk back to the fireside to switch his tail and eye the basket timidly.

[9]The hermit deliberately entered the hut, soon to return with a cake of coarse black bread. Again the wolf started, but the man rebuked him.

“First, we must thank God.”

The man knelt by the fire, and the beast regarded in silence.

“We thank thee, O Father of all mercies, for food and for another day of life in which we may prove ourselves repentant of our sins, and more obedient to Thy will, sic oramus in nomine nostri delecti Domini, Jesu Christi: Amen.”

The “Amen” was answered by a yelp; the wolf rose on his hinder legs. The man broke the cake into halves scrupulously equal, and cast one to the beast who caught it with his teeth, growled gently, and began to devour. His master seemed in no haste to eat. It lacked an hour of evening. The slant sunshine through the trees streamed in a witching brightness. The air grew warm. From the pines bird answered to bird. The man went across the narrow clearing, drew from his girdle a keen knife, and cut a notch upon a sturdy fir. Many notches were there already,[10] some long, some short, forming a kind of reckoning. He scanned them carefully, clearing the moss from some with his fingers.

“Eight years ago, eight years lacking one month,”—he was speaking in the same uncouth tongue—“this same day I had to quit Fulda for this place. The Abbot wished to make me esteemed a saint, and so draw pilgrims to the abbey. About this time I was assailed by the Demon of Spiritual Pride, and thought myself somewhat righteous. Then might I have fallen into his clutches and been burned forever, I and the soul of my Sigismund, but I escaped him, gloria Tibi, Domine!”

The wolf had finished the cake, and gave a low whine to attract attention.

“You may go,” spoke the man, upraising his head, whereat the beast shambled away into the forest, and his master returned by slow steps to the fire.

“Eight and thirty years ago to-day? ah! what was it then? Mother of Christ, I can remember,”—there shot a gleam out of those wild eyes which made them like bright sparks,—“it was the fête at Naples. Frederick[11] the Great, the ‘Wonder of the World,’ was there. With the French Count of Autun, and the Flemish Seigneur of Charleroi, I held the lists against the best lances of Sicily, of Italy, of Spain. None unhorsed us, but I did best. They led me to the Emperor; Mathilde crowned me. That night she and I walked together in the gardens, and saw the moon upon the shimmering sea. It was that night she said,—”

A convulsive tremor shook his frame. He dashed his hands against his breast as if to tear his heart forth from its covert. The words were nigh a cry.

“Oh! all will come back. I cannot banish it. The fiends are strong, strong! That day I slew the Aragonese, Don Filipo, in his sins. He forgot to confess ere he rode to the tourney. At the Judgment bar I must answer for his soul, for twenty more. O dear Lord Christ, I am too weak! I cannot endure it! I am lost forever!” He passed his hand across his forehead as if to brush a mist from his eyes. “My head reels. Yes, I kept from sleep. I ate nothing yesterday. But prayer and fast will not beat the demons[12] away. I have been to Rome and to Jerusalem. Cui bono? Would God I dared lie down and die. But die I dare not, for I must redeem your soul, my Sigismund, my son.”

He looked longingly upon the bit of bread. The fast had been long, even for that man of iron. Nevertheless, he shook his head.

“Man may not live by bread alone. Let me first reward my evil memories with the lash that they may fear to return to torture me.”

He hastened inside the hut. A bed of pine boughs and of furze, a coarse blanket, a water-pot, and above the bed a great silver crucifix and a brazen plate, whereon some Byzantine had graved a stiff Madonna and the Blessed Child—this seemed all the furnishing. But from beneath the bed, he took a short leathern scourge, its three lashes plaited with round balls of lead,—no toy, though swung by a girl. Slipping aside the sheepskin, he laid the lash with steady hand upon the naked shoulders. At the first whistle the red welts leaped out, at the second the blood, but under his great beard the strange man only smiled grimly. “It shall[13] be forty stripes save one,” had been his vow, and the lash whistled on, whilst he uttered two names at every blow, “Jesu! Sigismund! Sigismund! Jesu!”

Then suddenly the scourge sank. Human feet were sounding on the piney carpet. Then a voice, not his own, was calling him by name.

“Jerome! Jerome of the Dragon’s Dale! As you love our Lord,—out!”

And to discover this unwonted intruder, Jerome donned his sheepskin, and issued forth in haste.

CHAPTER II WITCH MARTHA

NOW as Jerome quitted the hut, he saw neither man nor maid, but only two huge, black ravens, which flew to his shoulders, as to a familiar perch; whereat the one on the right, cocking his glossy wicked head, croaked out a doggerel couplet:—

To which his mate made instant answer with still saucier quirk of head and bill:—

Jerome crossed his breast, but he did not thrust these blasphemers off. Nevertheless a shrill voice from behind a great black fir commanded sharply:—

[15]“Zodok, Zebek,—sons of Beherit and grandsons of Lucifer,—back, both of you, and fear the sign of the cross.”

Whereupon with a whir, sudden as that which had brought them, the inky pair were gone toward the summons. Jerome had fixed his beetling eyebrows upon the black fir tree.

“Martha, you child of Perdition.”

“Here, and very much at your service, Sanctissime,” came back the feminine voice, half mocking, half respectful.

“Saint me no saints, or if my curse avails with God or angel, you receive it. What brings you again, witch and necromancer, abhorred by all save the Father Devil?”

“Benedicte, thanks to you for such sweetness. Well, I have a work for you more pleasing to God than scourges and fasting.”

“Work from you? Can any good thing come out of you, O spawn of Beelzebub?”

“‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ ay, so the Jews said, and mayhap quite rightly.” Here all the glade reëchoed with a long shrieking laugh, whilst Zodok and Zebek croaked gleefully.

[16]But Jerome’s great head had sunk upon his breast.

“Mea culpa, mea culpa; who am I to cast the first stone against this woman?”

“Well,” demanded the shrill voice, “may I come forth?”

“Come forth.”

And with a rustle there came from her shelter a woman—but what a woman! For her head would have risen only to Jerome’s breast, but her girth nigh equalled her height, or surpassed it. She had a weazened pock-marked little face, a very small mouth, still smaller black eyes, an exceedingly shrewd, upturned nose, and when she spoke her teeth shone white and sharp as Harun’s. Black was her kirtle, black the kerchief which trailed over grey locks and over shoulders, black her shoes when they peeped from under her dress, but Jerome (had the hermit an eye for such vanities) would have said that those feet were very small, and the hands small, too, and white,—hands which many a princely dame in Goslar or Hildesheim would have done well to envy. The ravens sat on either shoulder, winking their[17] sinful eyes and waiting new chance for croaking.

Jerome’s attitude was sufficiently unconciliatory. He made not the least sign of greeting her.

“Have I not bidden you to come no more?” was all that he demanded.

The small nose turned itself up in derision.

“You have.”

“And have I not eschewed all the world, abandoned myself these many years to solitude and austerities, such as my weak flesh can bear,” and the hermit sighed modestly, “and yet you approach to tempt me? A man would be sufficient emissary from Satan, and you—a woman—”

Again the greenwood rang with laughter.

“O Lord Jesus Christ! run, tell Thy Father He made a sad mistake, when He made us womankind. Jerome of the Dragon’s Dale is wiser! He knows we are only fiends let loose from hell.”

“Silence, sorceress! declare your errand, and briefly.”

The witch looked at him out of her little eyes with a sly quirk, very like that of Zebek.

[18]“Ulrich of the Wartburg—” began she.

“A sinful man even amongst sinners,” assented the hermit.

“Has been on a raid.”

“He has done the like before; God assoil him—which I very much doubt.”

“And he has taken a prisoner.”

“Our Lady soften those beasts’ hearts that they demand a reasonable ransom. Ulrich commonly slaughters.”

Martha looked on the hermit more keenly than ever. “Hark you, Jerome of the Dragon’s Dale; the prisoner is no man to put to ransom, or to meet his doom with brave brow. Ulrich has taken a little maid.”

“Jesu!”—Jerome crossed himself.

“And she is nobly born,—a wisp of a girl, a lamb amongst worse than wolves.”

The hermit stared hard.

“How know you this? Ulrich has been a king of fiends, and all his men apt vassals for their master, yet he has always stopped short of whithering off women. He has sought purses, not prisoners of that kind.”

Witch Martha took a step nearer. “How do I know it? Well—to a sheep-eyed Eisenach[19] lad I might say I bestrode my crook, and Zodok and Zebek grew forty fold larger, and flapped me up to the Wartburg on their backs. But since I speak to a saint, a man who has never known blood, nor sin, nor passion,”—Jerome winced at the irony but did not rebuke her,—“I will say this. First, I was in the thicket by the road below the Madelstein, and saw our noble baron riding home with his prey; second, because Anna a poor wench at the castle has just come to me for a philter to charm back a laggard lover. And so I got the whole story.”

“But the maid?”

“Is noble, I tell you, yet scarce a child of twelve. They slew all her company. For after Ulrich had bidden to ‘stand and unsack,’ he grew frightened, for he found he had stopped too great folk to let them go their ways, too great to put to ransom. So it was out swords, and trust that graves in the forest will tell no tales. Only the maid he spared.”

“For what end?” demanded the hermit.

“For what use are women put in such dens as the Wartburg? Perhaps Priest Clement[20] cried out for her. But praised be St. Nicholas,—she is over young for him!”

“I must pray,” quoth Jerome very deliberately.

“While the angels weep, and God our Father wonders why he has spared you so long from burning.”

“Why that reproach from you, woman?”

“He! ho! Our Saint has still his pride, because if you were a ritter with twelve-score lanzknechts it would be a crying sin to be so nigh the Wartburg, and never wing a shaft for rescue; while you, the Saint of the Dragon’s Dale, who have the power of seven ritters, mock God by saying, ‘I must pray,’ and leave Ulrich to work out his evil will.”

Jerome stared still harder.

“I am a man of peace and vowed to the works thereof.”

“And to Ulrich of the Wartburg is not the little finger of a saint thicker than the loins of a markgraf?”

“Saint? Have I not commanded—?”

Witch Martha threw up her little hands, while her fat body swayed with laughter.