One Snowy Night Part 55

"Are you going to catechise me?" laughed Stephen. "No--you are right there. Fifteen years ago they called me 'Esueillechien.' Now, have you heard my name before?"

"I cannot say either 'yes' or 'no,' unless you choose to come home with me to see my mother. She may know you better than I can."

"I'll come home with you fast enough," Stephen was beginning, when the end of the sentence dashed his hopes down. "'To see your--mother!'

That won't do, young man. I have looked myself on her dead face--or else you are not the man for whom I took you."

"I can answer you no questions till you do so," replied Rudolph firmly.

"Come, then, have with you," returned Stephen, linking his arm in that of the younger man. "Best to make sure. I shall get to know something, if it be only that you are not the right fellow."

"Now?" asked Rudolph, rather disconcertedly. He was not in the habit of acting in this ready style about everything that happened, but required a little while to make up his mind to a fresh course.

"Have you not found out yet," said Stephen, marching him into Saint Paul's Churchyard, "that _now_ is the only time a man ever has for anything?"

"Well, you don't let the gra.s.s grow under your feet," observed Rudolph, laughing.

Being naturally of a rather dreamy and indolent temperament, he was not accustomed to getting over the ground with the rapidity at which Stephen led him.

"There's never time to waste time," was the sententious reply.

In a shorter period than Rudolph would have thought possible, they arrived at the corner of Mark Lane.

"You live somewhere about here," said Stephen coolly, "but I don't know where exactly. You'll have to show me your door."

"You seem to know a great deal about me," answered Rudolph in an amused tone. "This is my door. Come in."

Stephen followed him into the jeweller's shop, where Countess sat waiting for customers, with the big white dog lying at her feet.

"I'm thankful to see, young man, that your 'mother' is no mother of yours. Your flaxen locks were never cut from those jet tresses. But I don't know who you are--" he turned to her--"unless Ermine be right that Countess the Jewess took the boy. Is that it?"

"That is it," she replied, flus.h.i.+ng at the sound of her old name. "You are Stephen the Watchdog, if I mistake not? Yes, I am Countess--or rather, I was Countess, till I was baptised into the Christian faith.

So Ermine is yet alive? I should like to see her. I would fain have her to come forward as my witness, when I deliver the boy unhurt to his father at the last day."

"But how on earth did you do it?" broke out Stephen in amazement. "Why, you could scarcely have heard at Reading of what had happened,--I should have thought you could not possibly have heard, until long after all was over."

"I was not at Reading," she said in a constrained tone. "I was living in Dorchester. And I heard of the arrest from Regina."

"Do, for pity's sake, tell me all about it!"

"I will tell you every thing: but let me tell Ermine with you. And,-- Stephen--you will not try to take him from me? He is all I have."

"No, Countess," said Stephen gravely. "You have a right to the life that you have saved. Will you come with me now? But perhaps you cannot leave together? Will the house be rifled when you return?"

"Not at all," calmly replied Countess. "We will both go with you."

She rose, disappeared for a moment, and came back clad in a fur-lined cloak and hood. Turning the key in the press which held the stock, she stooped down and attached the key to the dog's collar.

"On guard, Olaf! Keep it!" was all she said to the dog. "Now, Stephen, we are ready to go with you."

Olaf got up somewhat sleepily, shook himself, and then lay down close to the screen, his head between his paws, so that he could command a view of both divisions of the chamber. He evidently realised his responsibility.

Stephen had no cause to complain that Countess wasted any time. She walked even faster than he had done, only pausing to let him take the lead at the street corner. But when he had once told her that his home was in Ivy Lane, she paused no more, but pressed on steadily and quickly until they reached the little street. Stephen opened his door, and she went straight in to where Ermine stood.

"Ermine!" she said, with a pleading cadence in her voice, "I have brought back the child unhurt."

"Countess!" was Ermine's cry.

She took Ermine's hands in hers.

"I may touch you now," she said. "You will not shrink from me, for I am a Christian. But I have kept my vow. I have never permitted the boy to wors.h.i.+p idols. I have kept him, so far as lay in my power, from all contact with those men and things which his father held evil. G.o.d bear me witness to you, and G.o.d and you to him, that the poor scorned Jewess has fulfilled her oath, and that the boy is unharmed in body and soul!-- Rudolph! this is thine Aunt Ermine. Come and show thyself to her."

"Did I ever shrink from you?" replied Ermine with a sob, as she clasped Countess to her heart. "My friend, my sister! As thou hast dealt with us outcasts, may G.o.d reward thee! and as thou has mothered our Rudolph, may He comfort thee!--O my darling, my Gerhardt's boy!--nay, I could think that Gerhardt himself stood before me. Wilt thou love me a little, my Rudolph?--for I have loved thee long, and have never failed, for one day, to pray G.o.d's blessing on thee if thou wert yet alive."

"I think I shall not find it hard, Aunt Ermine," said Rudolph, as he kissed without knowing it that spot on Ermine's brow where the terrible brand had once been. "I have often longed to find one of my own kindred, for I knew that Mother was not my real mother, good and true as she has been to me."

Countess brought out from under her cloak a large square parcel, wrapped in a silken kerchief.

"This is Rudolph's fortune," she said.

Stephen looked on with some curiosity, fully expecting to see a box of golden ornaments, or perhaps of uncut gems. But when the handkerchief was carefully unfolded, there lay before them an old, worn book, in a carved wooden case.

Stephen--who could not read--was a little disappointed, though the market value of any book was very high. But Ermine recognised the familiar volume with a cry of delight, and took it into her hands, reading half-sentences here and there as she turned over the leaves.

"Oh, how have I wished for this! How I have wondered what became of it!

Gerhardt's dear old Gospel-Book! Countess, how couldst thou get it?

It was taken from him when we were arrested."

"I know it," answered Countess with a low laugh.

"But you were at Reading!" exclaimed Ermine.

"I was at Oxford, though you knew it not. I had arrived on a visit to my father, the morning of that very day. I was in the crowd around when you went down to the prison, though I saw none of you save Gerhardt.

But I saw the sumner call his lad, and deliver the book to him, bidding him bear it to the Castle, there to be laid up for the examination of the Bishops. Finding that I could not get the child, I followed the book. Rubi was about, and I begged him to challenge the lad to a trial of strength, which he was ready enough to accept. He laid down the book on the window-ledge of a house, and--I do not think he picked it up again."

"You stole it, sinner!" laughed Stephen.

"Why not?" inquired Countess with a smile. "I took it for its lawful owner, from one that had no right to it. You do not call that theft?"

"Could you read it?"

"I could learn to do anything for Rudolph."

"But how did you ever find him?"

"We were living at Dorchester. Regina came to stay with me in the winter, and she told me that you were to be examined before the King and the bishops, and on what day. All that day I watched to see you pa.s.s through the town, and having prepared myself to save the child if I possibly could, when I caught a glimpse of Guelph, who was among the foremost, I followed in the rabble, with a bottle of broth, which I kept warm in my bosom, to revive such as I might be able to reach. Ermine, I looked in vain for you, for Gerhardt or Agnes. But I saw Rudolph, whom Adelheid was leading. The crowd kept pressing before me, and I could not keep him in sight; but as they went out of Dorchester, I ran forward, and came up with them again a little further, when I missed Rudolph. Then I turned back, searching all the way--until I found him."

"And your husband let you keep him?" asked Ermine in a slightly surprised tone.

"My oath let me keep him," said Countess in a peculiar voice.