THE Lady of Savelburg accomplished her journey to Nuremberg in safety and in tolerable comfort. There was indeed, at that time, no serious peril in the undertaking, though there was adventure enough to make it interesting. The country through which she passed was in friendly hands, and the party of travelers which she had joined was sufficiently well guarded to be safe from the disbanded soldiers and other disorderly characters who were multiplied by the circumstances of the times.
No part of the journey left so deep an impression in after years on the mind of Giovana Graham as its concluding stage. Fraulein Gertrud being anxious to push on as quickly as possible, got a little in advance of the other travelers. One sunny May morning the two friends and their waiting-woman packed themselves into the lumbering coach, which was just then their mode of conveyance, with the hope that before nightfall they might see the gray walls of Nuremberg. Suddenly the spearmen who escorted them raised a cry that there were horsemen approaching, and, looking through the unglazed aperture that served as a window, they saw a cloud of dust on the long straight road before them. Soon a party of horsemen drew near, but evidently with no hostile intentions. After a parley with the escort, a young gentleman rode forward alone, and with a profound bow tendered his homage to the Lady of Savelburg. “My father, Baron von libeling, has sent me to meet the noble lady,” he said, “and to offer her such services as she may graciously allow me the privilege of rendering.” Then followed the dismissal of the pikemen with a sufficient gratuity, their places being taken by the soldiers young Labeling brought from Nuremberg, who were a part of his father's regiment―the baron, like other wealthy persons of that age, having raised and equipped a regiment at his own cost for the service of the Protestant Union.
While this change was being made, Jeanie thought with a little amusement of the Frankfurt gossip, which by this time had reached her ears through the waiting-woman of her friend. Young libeling—a fair, slender stripling, of certainly not more than eighteen summers—could scarcely, she thought, have been meant to wed the stately, dignified Lady of Savelburg, who, though really not ten years his senior, always seemed to Jeanie to have left her youth behind her in some far-off, dimly remembered past.
Very pleasant was the rest of the journey, through orchards rich with blossom and sunny meadows, between which the silvery Pegnitz wound its way, while the blue Franconian hills looked down on them from the distance. August von Lübeling rode beside the coach, and beguiled the hours with his frank, boyish talk. He looked a gay young cavalier in his buff doublet, over which he wore a blue scarf embroidered with gold, while a velvet cap of the same color shaded his chestnut hair. As she saw his bright face and marked his gallant bearing, Jeanie thought that just such a youth would she wish her brother to be, should God spare him a few years longer.
“My father would have waited on you in person, noble Lady,” August explained, “but his presence was required elsewhere. You know we are expecting great events, of which our good city is like to be the center. Indeed, if I may say so, all the world is standing at gaze just now. We look for a desperate conflict, now that the Duke of Friedland has once more assumed the command of the Imperial forces. It is said he has exacted of the emperor very hard conditions as the price of his help―I know not. Only this I know, there was not a man in Germany, save himself, able to oppose the conquering King of Sweden.”
“Can you tell me, Junker August, whether your father has had any tidings from Savelburg of late?” inquired Gertrud.
“None of late, gracious lady, since Bohemia has become again the theater of war. But you have doubtless heard already that your noble estate, having been purchased, with other confiscated lands, by the Duke of Friedland, has been made over by him, in the way of gift, to one of his creatures, a soldier of fortune, named Grimm, or Gramm, as variously reported.”
“No, I had not heard he had given it away. Not the whole estate surely? That were over-magnificent, even for him.”
“Only Savelburg and its dependencies. Happily for the poor landsmen, neither the duke himself nor this Grimm or Gramm (whichever it may be) would seem to be fanatical in their Papistry. Persecution is slack, and your people, within certain limits, seem to do very much as they please.”
“That is well, so far. Does this upstart friend of Wallenstein reside on the estate?”
“At present he has followed his patron to the war. Would it might be my fortune to meet him in battle!” said Labeling, with as fierce and martial an air as his fair young face could assume at a moment's notice.
Soon afterward he sprang from his horse to gather some blue field-flowers which caught his eye in a neighboring meadow. He made two little bouquets, and presented one to each of the ladies, saying to Jeanie, “Were you one of our German maidens, beautiful Fraulein, I would say, ‘Behold the color of your eyes’; but the dark glory of yours have we no flower in our fields to rival.”
“Ah, Junker August, this will never do!” said Gertrud reprovingly, though with one of her rare smiles. “Our grave little Scotch friend will not understand your high-flown courtesies, culled out of old romances. Tell us rather of the war. Is not the King of Sweden even now on his march for Nuremberg? So, at least, folk were telling us all along our route.”
“This very day he is at Augsburg, and my father has gone thither to meet him, and to concert measures for the protection of our city. That is why he had to forego the pleasure of waiting upon you.”
“And you might have accompanied him? You have forfeited, for our sakes, your opportunity of seeing the great champion of Protestantism. We are under much obligation to you, Junker August.”
“I am well repaid,” returned the lad, with a bow and a glance of admiration, in which both ladies were certainly included. “Yet I must own that I am longing to see the great king,” he added frankly. “But I shall see him one day―and serve him perhaps, if God will.”
The talk was interrupted by a halt for refreshment, during which their new squire waited on the ladies with a refined and chivalrous courtesy which to Jeanie at least was quite new, and it must be confessed very fascinating.
When they resumed their journey he rode for a while by her side of the coach.
“The gracious Fraulein has never seen our fair city, I believe?” he observed.
“No,” said Jeanie; “I am a stranger in your land.”
“Ah! then I shall have the pleasure of showing you all our treasures. You shall see the pictures of Albrecht Dürer, and the carved work of Adam Krafft. You shall admire the wonderful pix in the church of St. Lawrence, which I think the most beautiful thing even in our beautiful town. You shall stand beside the Tugend Brünnen and the Schein Brünnen; you shall visit the church and the tomb of St. Sebald. Which do you love best to see, beautiful things painted on canvas or carved in stone?”
Jeanie admitted that she had as yet seen but little of either.
“That I cannot profess to regret,” said her young cavalier, “since I promise myself the joy of being your guide. You must know, Fraulein, that for many ages we men of Nuremberg have toiled hard and well. Our merchants were amongst the honorable men of the earth. Long years ago they boasted, and the boast was a true one, that ‘Nuremberg's hand goes through every land.’ Meanwhile our craftsmen—less wealthy, but not less wise, thoughtful, and patient—wrought in gold and silver, in brass and iron, in wood and stone, their excellent work; upon which, most justly, they prided themselves, and which brought them praise throughout all the world. It was honest work, Fraulein, which was all that it professed to be. No craftsman of our town dared to make his ornaments of gold and silver hollow within and filled up with wax, as they do in other places; for our wise Masters decreed that all the work of Nuremberg should be without wax, sine cera (sincere), which hence hath passed into a proverb. Moreover, these men who worked so hard and well had their joy in life, and took their pleasure in their worthy, honorable fashion. They loved to look on and to rejoice in beautiful things, which fill our hearts with grand, noble thoughts, and raise them up to God.”
“And,” said Jeanie, turning gladly to ground she was sure of, “your fellow-citizens know and love the true gospel, which is best of all.”
“Surely! we are heart and soul for the Protestant faith. Nuremberg was the first free city that professed the principles of the glorious Reformation. Even before God raised up the great Doctor Martin Luther to teach us, the men of our city had revolted against the corruptions of Rome, and were ready to welcome a purer faith. Weselius preached against the crimes of the Papacy and the priesthood in our church of St. Lawrence; Hans Sachs, our shoemaker poet, satirized them in his songs; and everyone knows that the great Albrecht Dürer was in heart a Reformer. He was the friend of the good knight Seckingen, of whom you have heard so often.”
“I have never heard of him at all,” said Jeanie rather sadly. “I always thought I knew very little, but now I am learning daily what a multitude of things there are in the world of which I know nothing whatever.”
“It is beautiful to learn, and always to find before us more and more things worth learning,” August answered brightly. “I shall tell you all about Nuremberg, and you shall tell me all about your country, Fraulein, if you will; for as yet I know nothing of it, save that it is very cold in the winter, and that very brave men come from it—and also very lovely ladies.”
In converse of this kind, both gay and grave, the long day wore away, and evening found the travelers entering the narrow streets of the quaint old town.
“Your father promised to have a lodging prepared for us,” said the Lady of Savelburg, “so we must still put ourselves under your guidance, Junker August.”
“My guidance is needed no longer,” said the youth, as they paused before the door of a stately mansion, the ancestral home of one of the proud and wealthy patricians of Nuremberg. “Where, think you, should my father lodge his friends, if not beneath his own roof?”