Read Ebook: The Saint of the Dragon's Dale: A Fantastical Tale by Davis William Stearns Kinney Margaret West Illustrator Kinney Troy Illustrator

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Ebook has 532 lines and 26385 words, and 11 pages

FACING PAGE

"'Give him the maid, Franz, and all the fiends go with her'" 33

"'Back to Witch Martha; back! Fly fast, as you love me'" 84

THE SAINT OF THE DRAGON'S DALE

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 H?rsel 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, 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 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 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, 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 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.

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 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.

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.

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, some long, some short, forming a kind of reckoning. He scanned them carefully, clearing the moss from some with his fingers.

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 f?te at Naples. Frederick 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.

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 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.

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:--

"Good Christian, look out! The Devil's about!"

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

"Ho, he! Never fear! I'm Satan! I'm here!"

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

"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."

"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?"

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