Albrecht

Оглавление

Bates Arlo. Albrecht

I. HOW ONE WENT

II. HOW ONE CAME

III. HOW THE KNIGHT SANG

IV. HOW HE REMAINED TO WOO

V. HOW THEY DISCOURSED OF KISSES

VI. HOW THEY CAME TO KISSES THEMSELVES

VII. HOW THE TIME WORE TO THE WEDDING DAY

VIII. OF THE EVE BEFORE THE WEDDING

IX. OF THE WEDDING MORNING

X. HOW THEY WERE WED

XI. HOW ALBRECHT CONFESSED

XII. HOW THE MORGENGABE WAS BESTOWED

XIII. HOW THE DAYS SPED AT RITTENBERG

XIV. HOW THE PRIEST BECAME TROUBLED

XV. HOW COUNT STEPHEN RETURNED

XVI. HOW THE COUNT TALKED AND SANG

XVII. HOW THEY HUNTED THE STAG

XVIII. HOW HERR VON ZIMMERN CAME AGAIN

XIX. HOW ERNA AND ALBRECHT TALKED OF LIFE

XX. HOW THEY RODE TO FLY THE FALCON

XXI. HOW ALBRECHT AND HERR FREDERICH TALKED IN THE WOOD

XXII. HOW ALBRECHT RODE HOME

XXIII. HOW ERNA SUFFERED

XXIV. HOW COUNT STEPHEN MET HERR FREDERICH

XXV. HOW FATHER CHRISTOPHER SENT FOR ALBRECHT

XXVI. HOW ALBRECHT AND ERNA FORGAVE EACH OTHER

Отрывок из книги

Like a vast sea the mighty Schwarzwald stretched its forests of pine and its wide wastes of heather around Castle Rittenberg, its surface forever fretted into waves by the wind. Like the sea it seemed measureless, and the lands which lay beyond its borders appeared to the scattered dwellers in its valleys as remote as might appear the continents to the people of far islands.

Like the sea, moreover, the Schwarzwald was peopled by strange beings, of whom alike the peasant folk who dwelt upon its borders, the rude churls whose huts stood here and there in clusters in its less intractable nooks, and the nobles whose castles overtopped the wilderness of trees and bracken, went always in secret dread. In the north lurked the hordes of the Huns, the terrible barbarians who from time to time descended, hardly human, upon the fertile lands which lay beyond the borders of the forest, swarming as they went upon whatever luckless castle lay in their path. The boldest knight might well tremble at the name of the ferocious Huns, and even the army of Charlemagne himself had hardly been able to cope with this foe.

.....

Suddenly her reverie was broken by the shrill, clear blast of a horn, which arose from the pine wood below, and came soaring upward like the piercingly sweet song of a bird that pours its whole heart out singing and straining its flight toward the blue heaven.

The sound broke in upon her revery as if it were a summons from some of the mysterious powers whose home was in the forest. Often as she had heard a bugle hailing the warder of Rittenberg, it had never happened that there had come with the sound such a thrill as this call brought. Far stretched and weird the great Schwarzwald lay, the warm summer sun seeming to glance from its impenetrable surface, unable to pierce to the depths wherein lurked the wild woodland creatures as the nixies lurked in the lakes; and something that was half a shudder crossed her frame, as the note of that horn called up the thought of all the strange secrets which therein lay hidden. Then, with an effort, she shook off the momentary oppression, and threw her clear glance down into the valley to see whence came the call.

.....