" There was a faint gesture in the midst for Christina to lift
her in her arms--a sign to bend down and kiss her brow--but her last
look was for her brother, her last murmur, "Come after me; be the
Good Baron Ebbo."
CHAPTER V: THE YOUNG FREIHERR
Ermentrude von Adlerstein slept with her forefathers in the vaults of
the hermitage chapel, and Christina Sorel's work was done.
Surely it was time for her to return home, though she should be more
sorry to leave the mountain castle than she could ever have believed
possible. She entreated her father to take her home, but she
received a sharp answer that she did not know what she was talking
of: the Schlangenwald Reitern were besetting all the roads; and
moreover the Ulm burghers had taken the capture of the Constance wine
in such dudgeon that for a retainer of Adlerstein to show himself in
the streets would be an absolute asking for the wheel.
But was there any hope for her? Could he not take her to some
nunnery midway, and let her write to her uncle to fetch her from
thence?
He swore at woman's pertinacity, but allowed at last that if the
plan, talked of by the Barons, of going to make their submission to
the Emperor at Linz, with a view to which all violence at the ford
had ceased, should hold good, it might be possible thus to drop her
on their way.
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