Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the shady sycamore, or the hermet crow looked out grave and solemn from the recess of his piny cell: at other times in the light skiff, coasting the beautiful shore of the lake, and exploring each shady nook for new wonders, and scaring the falcon of the rock from his perch, and the silver inhabitant of the water from his cool and transparent retreat.

One mild and tranquil evening, Eyloff and his Bertha were straying on the quiet shore. He had declared his love: her eyes, that had been downcast at the avowal, were now turned up to his with ineffable affection, as, pressed to his bosom, she listened to his eloquent strain of tenderness. At this moment a boat shot rapidly across from Gerisau, and a messenger in the Austrian costume, leaping on the strand, approached respectfully, and handed a letter to the knight. Eyloff grew pale as he scanned its superscription, for he knew it to be Leopold's. It was, indeed, a missive from his sovereign, rebuking him for his protracted absence, and commanding his instant return to court. Old John of Hasenberg, who had so long yielded to his young friend's wish to remain, had received a like command: he was already prepared to set out, and Eyloff was even then expected. The resolution of the lover was taken ere he had finished the letter. Instructing the messenger to await his return, he led the trembling, almost fainting Bertha toward her father's house. Arnold had just then returned with his son from attending the celebration of the anniversary of Morgarten.

"Arnold of Winkelried," said Eyloff, "I depart from Switzerland this moment. I know not why my sovereign is thus imperative, but as a loyal subject, I have but to obey. It is now no time for slow and solemn ceremony. Behold this maiden. I love her, I am beloved; will you that I take her as my bride to Austria ?" The sinking girl clung for support to her lover, like the graceful ivy round the stately oak. Arnold for an instant hesitated, but it was only for an instant. "Young knight," he replied, "you have gained the love of this maiden, and the esteem of her parents, yet cannot she now be your wife. Austria is about to be the enemy of Switzerland. Would you that she should abjure her country and her father, or could you be content to share her divided heart? Let Leopold of Austria be just let the storm that hangs over this land be dispelled by him who raised it, or be broken and dispersed on the peaks of yonder Alps, before an Austrian claims as his bride a daughter of Helvetia." The decisions of Arnold of Winkelried were known to be irrevocable; yet love emboldened Eyloff. "Leopold is my friend," he said; "let me present Bertha before him as my wife, in the power of her beauty and her innocence: let the virtues of your daughter plead for her country." "The daughter

:

of Arnold must not be a suppliant at a tyrant's feet, repned the Swiss. "Give me your promise, then," resumed the youth, “it my plea prevail with Leopold, and war is averted from your happy vales, that Bertha shall be my reward: and let her be betrothed to me here, in the sight of yonder glorious Heaven." " Return the friend of free Helvetia, and she is yours," replied Arnold; and, kneeling on the verdant carpet, as the sun poured his last beams over the magnificent temple of nature, the lovers were affianced and blessed beneath the blue and smiling sky. "If not before the snow fills your valleys," said Eyloff to Bertha, as they stood on the margin of the lake, "when the first flower of spring appears, expect me." "Our roses bloom in March, sometimes," whispered Bertha with a faint smile, as they separated.

The winter came on, and the snow lay on the hills and filled the valleys. Nature reposed in her icy fastness, and even the rumours of war were no longer heard.

But at length the snows melted from the sloping hills. The higher mountains, bellowing in their inmost cells, began to be rocked by loud and tremendous shocks, as the glaciers opened their clefts, fearful, yet beautiful, in purple and emerald hues; while, forced by the pent-up winds, showers of ice were hurled far through the air. The freed mountain torrents rushed into the vales, and the dreaded lavange came thundering down. Every thing in nature told that the genial season had arrived, and was fast passing onward; yet Eyloff came not: the perils of travelling were over, for the pines had shaken from their branches the last dust of snow; yet still he came not the first flower of spring, how anxiously expected-how fondly welcomed-how dearly cherished, had budded and bloomed, and withered on its stem; and yet the maiden pined in her loneliness.

Many a time, as the shades of the evening were stealing over the lovely landscape, might Bertha be seen straying through the groves, on which the leaves had shot forth, with a rapidity peculiar to the springs of Alpine countries: now seeking the shelving margin of the lake at the spot where her lover had rescued her from the fury of the storm, now stopping unconsciously in the secluded thicket, where they had first breathed to each other the vows of pure affection. Many a time, when the air was more than usually mild, might she be seen pensively seated at the open lattice, as the moon with lovely and majestic step, stole along the heavens, and tipped with ethereal silver the summits of the groves, and poured her soft flood of light on hill and dale around. Then would she recall the happy moments she had passed with Eyloff'; and as a thousand little proofs of his deoted love rose to her recollection, all her doubts seemed to fade

away, and she could not but believe, in spite of every circumstance, in the faith of her lover.

In the meantime, the political agitations of the Waldstetten were revived, and every thing seemed tending to a sanguinary crisis. The people of the district of Ethlibuch, oppressed past sufferance by the tyrant Thornberg, the vassal of Austria, had, in the month of March, thrown themselves on the protection of Lucerne; and the haughty baron had dared to seize and inflict an ignominious death upon the negotiators of the treaty on the part of Ethlibuch. Leopold was already stationed at Kybourg, in the canton of Zurich, ready to support with his troops the tyranny of his bailiffs and his vassals; and it was at length made evident, that the hereditary patron and protector of the Waldstetten, contemplated no less than its entire subjugation. Undismayed, the stern republicans prepared for the conflict. In the several cantons of the confederation, the general assembly, or landsgemeind, was summoned, where, in the April following, the knights and burghers appeared in their arms, and declared open war against Thornberg and his adherents. It was but a short time before this period that more than fifty imperial towns in Swabia and Franconia had solicitated admission into the Helvetic League; yet now, so terrible was held the enmity of Leopold and his ferocious followers, that the petty towns and states around became eager to be the foremost in manifesting their hostility to devoted Switzerland. The roads from Wirtemberg and Schaffhausen were crowded with their messengers; declarations and defiances poured in upon the landsgemeind faster than they could be read; and within a few days the Eight Cantons numbered among the auxiliaries of their foe more than two hundred states, princes, and bishops. The four ancient cantons of the lake took the field without delay, under the avoyer, or mayor of Lucerne, the supreme military authority in Switzerland being always exercised by the chief officer of the state; and while the inferior nobles of the lion league kept in check the powerful barons along the course of the Rhine, assailed, and carried, and destroyed the feudal strongholds of their most immediate and dangerous enemies.

It was at this eventful point of time, when Leopold might hourly be expected on his march from Kybourg, and the matrons and maidens of the land sat solitary in their deserted dwellings. The night was far spent, yet Bertha and her mother still remained gazing anxiously out upon the darkness, when suddenly a small dark object moved swiftly towards them, across the silent lake. It was a boat! Can it be Arnold returned from Zurich? That is impossible; for the army is there; and there also must be Arnold. The bosom of Bertha swelled almost to bursting: she spoke not;

she scarcely breathed. This was the anniversary of her first meet◄ ing with Eyloff, and a thousand undefined hopes and wishes rushed to her heart. And now the figure of a man throws itself from the boat, almost before it touches the shore-he flies up the pathway, and, in an instant, Eyloff is at the feet of Bertha. For a time they were mute and motionless: at length Bertha spoke as she disengaged herself from his arms, and sank pale and exhausted into her chair. "Eyloff," she said, "come you not till you bring war and desolation with you? Alas! Eyloff, the flowers of spring are all withered, even like the hopes of our love." "Beloved Bertha," Eyloff answered, "it is true my efforts to avert the calamity have had no other effect than to draw upon myself my sovereign's displeasure. But even his commands alone could not have kept me from you; and until he summoned his knights to the field, I was deprived of my personal liberty: he is now in march through Zurich; and, behold, I am here." "O, Eyloff!" exclaimed Bertha, at once awakening to the perils that evironed both the person of her lover, and his reputation as a knight, "why, why are you here? Know you not the dangers that encompass you ?" "I know them, Bertha; but to be restored to the confidence of my affianced bride, what would I not encounter. "Alas!" said the maiden, "call me not by that title, Eyloff, since the condition of our union can never be fulfilled." "Never shall woman, but you, Bertha, hear that title from the lips of Eyloff: and may we not yet cherish hope, dear Bertha? Should your worst fears be confirmed, and Leopold's arms prove successful, may not your Eyloff still have the glory of shielding the house of Winkelried?" "And think you that Arnold of Winkelried will survive his country's death? And think you that his daughterthe daughter of a martyred patriot-could ever-O God, O God!" she cried, and paused in convulsive agony at the picture her imagination drew. "My wife, my beloved Bertha," cried the youth, on his knees before her, clasping her cold hands in his, "hear me, and believe me: on the honour of a knight I swear, that if Eyloff goes into the fight, it shall be but to protect, to save your father." "I have a son, too, in arms," observed the matron, who had not before spoken, as her fixed and noble countenance became slightly convulsed. "Is the brave boy, too, there?" asked Eyloff. 66 Madam," he added, ardently seizing her hand, "mother of my Bertha, thy son shall be my brother."

[ocr errors]

At this moment, a light appeared upon the most distant mountain towards the north; rapidly it increased in size, and soon blazed a bright and portentous beacon. "They have fired the beacon at the hohe wacht," said the wife of Arnold; "the foe approaches," she added, with the firmness of a Roman matron

In a few moments, in whatever direction the eye was turned, the signal fires were seen to blaze from the summits of the mountains that inclosed the lakes; the horn sounded loud and shrill from every hill and valley, and the quick beat of the alarm bell, from town and village, came fearfully on the gale.

"The Landsthurm is summoned; the country will be up in mass,' said the matron ; "each pass and defile will be guarded; and you! return will become impossible."

The terrified Bertha joined her mother in urging the knight's departure; but it was in vain, until, interrupting him in his torrent of prayers and protestations, the tender maiden blessed him with a full assurance of her unbroken love and confidence: it was then Eyloff wrapped his Swiss disguise more closely around his body, and disappeared.

The morning dawned on the most eventful day that Switzerland had known for nearly a century. Leopold had passed the walls of Zurich, where the confederates had hastened to meet him; and, directing his march on Lucerne, halted before the town of Sempach, which lay in his route, intending first to chastise the rebels of that place. The young knights, among whom a descendant of the tyrant Gesler was conspicuous, as they pranced gaily around the walls, taunted the honest burghers in the levity of their hearts, exhibiting, with bitter jests, the fetters meant for their magistrates. And, as the serfs and followers of the army were laying waste the fields of grain about the town, the youthful De Reinach called to the avoyer to send the reapers their breakfast.

"The confederates are preparing it," replied the calm avoyer.

It was in effect as the avoyer said. The Swiss force, penetrating the Austrian's design, and leaving Zurich to be defended by its own citizens against the troops detached by Leopold, had by a different route, and a rapid march, and joined by additional numbers, already gained the spot, and now occupied a station in a forest near the lake of Sempach.

Leopold, in the pride of power and youth, appeared at the head of a gendarmerie of full four thousand knights of approved valour, each attended by his esquire, and clad in complete steel, gorgeous and glittering in the panoply of war, and mounted on chargers of blood and fire; the host of burghers, of vassals, and of mercenaries, followed on foot their respective avoyers, or barons, or chieftains, to the field.

Opposed to this formidable array were but little more than a thousand Helvetians, from Uri and Underwalden, Schwytz and Lucerne, with trifling contingents from Glarus and Zug. Their weapons were chiefly the short sword, and halbert, and massy club,

« AnteriorContinuar »