CHAPTER XXXVIII.
TIME’S CHANGES.
The old city rests after its day’s work in the soft late Spring gloaming. Tower and spire and gabled roof catch the last lingering reflections of the golden and crimson clouds where the sun went down. Already this long time the storks have been gravely reposing in their loftily pitched nests, but the swallows and martins are still discussing their respective claims to the most desirable sleeping accommodation afforded by the fretted eaves of the Cathedral. A few stars are beginning to glimmer in the deep blue sky, which, however, is only to be caught in glimpses from the footway of the narrow streets, between whose overhanging stories and great wooden galleries, and facades heavy with carving, even the moon’s glare is hardly able to penetrate. The gaudy brilliancy of the countless street signs has not yet been obscured by the gathering shadows, and here a snow-white swift-footed stag, there a grizzly bear, next door a wild man, appalling in his hirsute but insufficient covering, brandishes his terrible knotted club. Across the road, and far more frightful still, only yielding indeed in fearsomeness to the strong-minded of later days, is the “Strong Woman,” who appears to be literally striding from her cast-iron frame, with bristling hyæna-like locks. Scarcely a shop which has not its sign; hardly a burgher’s dwelling lacking its cognizance or coat of arms; while for the most part the spaces between the mullioned casements are gorgeous with fresco painting, picturing forth the labours of the mighty Hercules, the departure of the good ship Argonaut, the loves of Venus and Adonis, and many another mythic tale.
High up on their deep sloping roofs the grand old houses proclaim their ages in gigantic figures, some of which date two and three centuries back. Very silent and half deserted the streets are now, for it is close upon seven and supper-time; and through half-open doors and lattice panes, peal forth now and again shouts of merry laughter mingled with the hum of voices; while under the little footbridges, and the arching foundations of the old houses themselves, the river gurgles onward towards open country. Even the great fountain in the Dom-Platz is so utterly deserted that the big dolphins seem almost to be finding leisure to take holiday, and spout lazily; and their blunt jaws look agape with delight at the sweet organ sounds floating through the Cathedral doors, for Master Wolfgang Dachstein is just a second Orpheus, and has been known many a time to have charmed dead souls back to new life, and to have softened hearts stony as one infers these monsters have.
This morning early, early enough to celebrate the first mass, Bishop John returned. All day since, however, he has not stirred from the palace. Work has accumulated for him after his long absence; and he has been very busy looking through his correspondence, and attending to the most pressing claims upon him. A bishop’s life when he does his duty is no sinecure; and John of Manderscheid has always striven to be worthy of his calling. During these past two months, he has been making a progress throughout his diocese, righting, as far as he might be able, the wrongs he had found; and they were many. Three-fourths of them born of the neglect and carelessness of the under clergy; and wherever he came upon these sins which cried aloud to Heaven, there, as surely as corruption follows death, he found heresy rampant. Truly indeed there were priests sticking through evil report and good to their posts, but comparatively these were rare in that desert of polemics which the fair vineyard of the Church had become. And the saddest part of it all, at least to such minds as Bishop John’s, was the reflection that untrustworthiness had brought the Nemesis upon them. He could look through the years of his life, and for half a dozen generations earlier, and trace back the first faint risings of the storm now raging so fiercely on every side. When the people had asked bread of their priestly guides, how often had they been given stones—or worse still! Was it then such wonder that at last they had turned elsewhere in quest of spiritual food?
That they had found, it the bishop was too faithful a Catholic to concede; but some baneful, and generally attractive poison, they were certainly endeavouring to sustain their spiritual existence upon, though to him it appeared dry tasteless stuff enough, and his heart yearned tenderly towards those starved misguided sheep. Far and near, hydra-headed heresy was tainting every little town and hill hamlet of his diocese, and his bitter experiences had thinned the grey hairs about his temples, and hollowed his worn cheeks.
Only towards sunset, wearied out with his toil, he at last indulged himself in a question lying very near his heart. “And how goes on the Horologe, Master Gottlieb?”
“Fairly I hope, my lord,” replied the chaplain with some hesitation.
Now that was an answer just calculated to ruffle the gentle serenity of the Bishop’s temper. He was a tolerant patient man, but the one thing he could not endure was want of zeal in matters temporal or spiritual. “Whatsoever thou doest, do it with all thine heart,” was his motto. Still, reminding himself that fidelity and plodding industry were always stronger points with his secretary than enthusiasm, he only said a little testily: “One doesn’t talk of hope, friend; one says a thing is, or it isn’t, when one has to do with the Professor Dasipodius”.
“But then,” replied Gottlieb, staring in some perplexity at his superior, “then one has not—you are aware of course, my lord, that one has not to do with the Professor Dasipodius. He is——”
“Is what? Speak, man,” cried the startled Bishop.
“Away. Absent from Strassburg.”
“Oh,” said the Bishop with a relieved sigh, turning to his papers again. “Taking a little holiday, eh? Well, he needs it no doubt; and yet—how long has he been gone?”
“More than a month.”
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded the Bishop, letting his gathered up papers fall again in a disordered heap.
“I really can’t quite say, my lord, unless—some, so I am told, consider the Professor Dasipodius to be—ahem—pardon me, my lord—the devil; though some,” continued the chaplain, while the Bishop gazed at him in speechless amazement, “only go so far as to pronounce him blind.”
“Blind! What is this nonsense you are talking?”
“You knew about it, my lord?”
“I heard some ridiculous rumour as I was passing through Schlettstadt, but I paid it no more heed than I did the wind blowing in my face. Tell me——”
“I am doing so, my lord. Some, I was about to observe, among whom is Master Tobias Hackernagel, the Anabaptist——”
“Ay, ay. That apostate fellow; and what has he to do with it?” demanded the Bishop, an angry spot rising to his cheek.
“Ah. A wonderful deal, I assure you. I am told he has been the life and soul of the whole affair. But I do not concern myself in other people’s business, and I assure you, my lord, I know next to nothing beyond the fact that Otto von Steinbach——”
“Holy Mother of God! Go on. And what of Otto von Steinbach?” breathlessly challenged the Bishop.
“I was about to inform you, my lord. Otto von Steinbach is appointed in the Professor Dasipodius’ place; at least so I am given to understand, but——”
“Am I in my senses?”
“I am sure I hope——” began the chaplain, eyeing his chief in dubious apprehension.
“And Radegund—Radegund von Steinbach?”
“Is about, my lord, and busy as ever. And really the Horologe looks remarkably nice. Remarkably nice,” said Master Gottlieb, waxing enthusiastic, then he relapsed into his normal quiescence, and proceeded with his docketing.
“Send her here,” said the Bishop, after a silence of some minutes, during which he seemed lost in thought.
“Whom, my lord?” asked Gottlieb, jerking his head up with a little start.
“Mistress von Steinbach.”
The chaplain departed on his mission, and in half-an-hour Radegund stood in the Bishop’s presence.
With a gesture which would have passed as easily for a malediction as a blessing, he motioned her nearer to him.
“Tell me all about this?” he said.
She lifted her dark eyes questioningly to his face.
“I am not to be trifled with,” he returned, for it seemed that a conspiracy to torment him had been set on foot.
“Heaven forbid,” she said gravely.
“Do you dare to stand there,” he demanded, raising his voice, “and feign ignorance of what I mean? When it is your—your own brother who is appointed in Dasipodius’ place? If my hearing is to be believed, that is.”
“It is, my lord, precisely as you say,” calmly replied the artist.
“And you pretend——”
“I am not given to pretence. And whether the Horologe has come to be a marvel of finish,” and her lips curled mockingly, “or whether it may be chaos confounded, I know no more than you do, my Lord Bishop; for since the Professor Dasipodius was called upon to relinquish his appointment——”
“At your instigation, treacherous woman! To make way for your flesh and blood!”
Radegund’s eyes glittered. “Have a care, my lord,” she said through her set teeth.
“Oh! I know your power,” said the Bishop hoarsely; “and how it can almost make wrong itself seem right. I know it well, but I believed you to be true; and I thought that your admiration for Dasipodius—ah, you have need to blush; I thought, I say, your sense of appreciation of the Professor Dasipodius’ great gifts, would have shielded you from such base corruption as this. And yet, no sooner is my back turned, than I find you moving heaven and earth to set this fellow, this jack-a-dandy, in his place. And why, heaven save us all! because he is your brother! Oh shame! shame!”
“My lord, you do me foul injustice.”
“Oh! I cry your pardon, mistress. Yes, one needs to be nice with one’s words in these days. I should have said that you permitted this, stretched out no preventing hand.”
“I had no power.”
“When she is pleased to exercise it, Mistress von Steinbach’s power is boundless.”
“Conrad Dasipodius at least does not acknowledge it,” she said coldly, “and he spurned the poor offers of aid I made him.”
“How?” asked the Bishop in gentler accents.
And then Radegund related how, on Dasipodius’ blindness being discovered, the enquiry had been instituted at the Chancellery.
“But how—how did they discover it?” insisted the Bishop.
“Ah, by mere accident,” carelessly answered she.
“Yes, yes, but tell me all; for I will have this business sifted to the bottom. How did it begin?”
“Some love affair not worth repeating,” she said carelessly, a sudden flush dyeing her pale face.
“Love affair?—Professor Dasipodius?” said the Bishop, knitting his brows perplexedly. “Never, the ideas are not reconcileable.”
“I believe you are right, my lord,” said Radegund in ironical tones; “but my cousin Sabina is apt, poor child, to fancy things.”
“What! your little cousin! the Lily of Strassburg! Ah! well, that is a different matter. Yes, and these two then are lovers?”
“No, my lord, it is all at an end.”
“Nay, but that would be a pity. The marriage tie is a holy thing, not lightly to be thought of, and then cast aside. It was not Dasipodius who did this?”
“It was her doing, my lord.”
“And her reasons? On account of his blindness? No.”
“That,” said Radegund, slowly bending her head, “was what she intimated in her letter to him.”
“Oh woman! woman!” groaned the Bishop. “Well, but she could not have truly loved him then, this pretty child?”
“She is nineteen, my lord.”
“Tut! tut!” smiled the old man, waving his hand; “young enough to play a dozen Corydons false before she settles her fancy; eh, Mistress?”
“You may be right.”
“If Dasipodius must bend to such—such trifles, he is worthier of some loftier love than that. Eh? don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” murmured Radegund, and then she hurriedly went on to explain that it was this same letter of Sabina’s which had been read aloud at the Dial.
“It was a dunderheaded affair from beginning to end,” said the Bishop when she had done; “and upon my honour, it always has been my unalloyed conviction that this world would get on just as well again without women. It is they who are—heaven and darkness! is it any business of other people’s, if a man chooses to be blind? And Dasipodius? What did he say in—Holy Saints!—in his defence?”
“Barely a dozen words, my lord.”
“No; I would stake my revenue on it he didn’t,” smiled the Bishop. “He knows these town councilmen. Deaf adders are nothing to them—nothing.” Then he dismissed Radegund.