Page:Select Popular Tales from the German of Musaeus.djvu/57

Rh ”Child,” said she, with a mournful voice, “thou weepest and knowest not why, but thy tears are a presentiment of thy fate. A great change menaces thy house on the mountain; before the reaper handles the scythe, and the wind blows over the stubble of the wheat-fields, it will be deserted and waste. When the servants of the castle go out in the evening twilight to draw water from my spring, and return with empty pails, then know that misfortune is at hand. Take care of thy musk-apple, which will grant thee three wishes, and be not prodigal of them. Farewell, in this place we meet not again.” She then taught the maiden the mysterious properties of the apple, that she might make use of it in case of necessity, wept and sobbed at parting, and as soon as the maiden was fully instructed in the mystic words, she finally disappeared.

At the time of the wheat harvest, the drawers of water returned one evening with empty pitchers, pale and terrified, trembling in all their limbs, as if shaking with the cold of an intermittent fever; and they related that the White Lady had been seen sitting by the spring, with mournful gestures, wringing her hands and loudly wailing, a sign which foreboded no good. This the warriors and armour-bearers mocked at; they thought it delusion, and mere woman’s prattle. Curiosity impelled some to investigate the affair; they saw the apparition, but recovering their presence of mind, went forward to the spring. When they came there, the White Lady had disappeared, and many were the comments and discussions on the matter; nobody could understand the omen, Matilda alone knew, but she would not divulge it, because the Nymph had enjoined silence. She sat alone and sad in her chamber, in fear and expectation of the things that should happen.

Wackerman could not satisfy his extravagant wife by robbery and plunder, and when he did not go out on these predatory expeditions, she prepared for him daily a life of pleasure, called his topers together, encouraged his love of wine, and never allowed him to wake from his sleep of intoxication, and to perceive the decay of his house. When money or food were wanting, fresh supplies were always procured by the robbery of Jacob Fugger’s heavy wagon, or by the seizure of rich parcels from Venice. Tired of these extortions, the general congress of the Suabian alliance at last resolved on Uhlfinger’s destruction, since dissuasions and warnings had been tried in vain. Before he even thought it was seriously intended, the soldiers of the allied cities stood before the gate of his mountain fortress, and hemmed him in; and there remained nothing for him now but to sell his life as dearly as possible. The bombs and pieces of artillery shook the bastions, and the cross-bow men, on both sides, did their best; bolts and arrows showered thick, and one of them, in an unlucky hour, pierced the visor of Wackerman’s helmet, sunk deep into