Page:Select Popular Tales from the German of Musaeus.djvu/54

42 the wet veil?” He thought, however, to gain the secret from her in time, and reckoned on the qualities of woman’s heart, which possesses in as small a degree the gift of secrecy, as a sieve the property of retaining fluid. But this time he was out in his reckoning; the Lady Matilda knew how to keep silence, and preserve the mysterious riddle as carefully in her heart, as she did the musk-apple in her jewel-box.

Before the little girl had escaped from leading-strings, the prophecy of the nymph was fulfilled on her good mother; she fell suddenly ill, and died, without having time to think of the musk-apple, or with it, according to the arrangement of Nixa, to commend the little Matilda to her care. Her husband was then present at a tournament at Augsburg, and, honoured with the approbation of the Emperor Frederic, returned home. When the dwarf, from the tower, saw his lord riding in the distance, he blew his horn, according to custom; but he did not produce from it a cheerful note, but, on the contrary, blew a mournful strain. This went through the knight’s heart, and pierced his very soul. “What sound,” said he, “strikes on my ear? Do you hear, squires, is it not a dissonant croak, a death-song? Kleinhansel announces nothing good to us.” The squires, too, were confounded; they saw their lord mournful, and said to one another, “That is the note of the bird ‘kreideweiss.’ May God avert misfortune—there is a corpse in the castle!” Wackerman spurred on his steed, and rode over the plain so swiftly, that the sparks flew from his horse’s heels. The drawbridge fell, he looked into the courtyard, and, alas! the sign of death was placed before the castle-gate—a lantern, without a light, adorned with waving crape, while all the window-shutters were closed. Then he perceived, by the sobs and lamentations of the servants, that the Lady Matilda was no more! At the head of the coffin he saw the two eldest daughters, clothed in black, who wept over their deceased mother with many tears. At the foot of the coffin sat the youngest daughter; as yet unable to comprehend her loss, pulling to pieces, with childish glee, and playing with, the flowers with which the bier was adorned. This melancholy sight overpowered Wackerman’s manly firmness; he wept and wailed aloud, threw himself on the cold body, bedewed the pale cheeks with his tears, pressed with trembling mouth the white lips, and gave way, without restraint, to all the bitter feelings of his heart. Then he hung up his weapons in the armory, sat by the coffin in a flapped hat and black mourning cloak, bewailed his departed wife, and bestowed upon her the last honours, in a magnificent funeral.

According to the observation of a great man, the most violent grief is always the shortest; and so this distressed widower soon forgot his sorrow, and thought seriously of repairing his loss by taking a second wife. His choice fell on an impetuous active woman, quite the reverse of the gentle Matilda. The government