Agnes Castle and Egerton Castle

“ He waved his bow, then drove it across the strings to a new song, shrill and mocking, a song of scorn for the fugitive:
"His big-boned, iron-grey horse, splashed through the mud at reckless speed." "Spread your dark wings and fly, obscene birds! Yet exult as you go: the scent of Death is in the air. In a little while you may gorge—but to-day the stricken Eagle can still beat back the carrion crows. Fly, flap your wings—caw—caw!"
Steven stared amazed at his companion and listened spell-bound. The musician was like a man possessed. ”

“ The blood of that wretched son of the steppes blackening yonder on the road, the bloodshed in yonder bullet-riddled village by that very volley that shakes us as we sit, is all offered to the honour of that same trinity of our invention: Freedom, Humanity, and Reason! O, glorious was the path we opened! Had we not just cause for pride?"
He fell silent a second; and Steven dared not speak, so corrosive was the bitterness of his every word, so poignant the emotion written on every furrow of his countenance. ”

“ The fiddler turned and spoke. It was with composure.
"Well," said he, "which way shall it he, back or forward?"
"I do not know," said Steven in a low voice, and dropped his eyelids as if ashamed.
The fiddler stretched out his hand and helped the other to rise, with a vigorous grasp. As they stood side by side, he suddenly cast his arm round the young man's shoulders.
"The child," said he, "Sidonia ...! I would like her to be happy. When her soul looks out of her clear eyes, when she moves her head with its golden burden ... she has a trick of speech, a laugh ... ”

“ You do not know a woman's heart. Forget that your pride is hurt. Remember that you are young. O, if you but knew! Life has one unsurpassable flower for youth—take it now, lest a breath from Heaven scatter its bloom. Its scent is for you! The love of your youth; go, gather it"
"I will go back," said Steven, and his lips trembled.
Silently Fiddle-Hans loosened the grey horse, helped the wounded man to mount and led the way down the hill. ”

“ A man may wrench himself free of love's snare as the wild thing of the woods from the teeth of the springe; but at what vital hurt, how maimed, how bruised, how deeply marked! What was it to Steven Lee, Count Waldorf-Kilmansegg, that the west wind, dashing against his face, was balmy with the breath of the black pine woods on the rising slopes to his right; that the rank meadows that fell away to the left were colour alive, gold-green in the sunlight ”

“ The musician subdued a sigh.
"What a noble thing is true pride!" quoth he, picked up his fiddle and began to examine it carefully. "Heavens!" he cried, "if you had broken it! Does a man fling himself upon another in such inconsiderate fashion when there's a Stradivarius between them?"
"Had it not been for my want of consideration," said Steven, with some pique. "I think the precious instrument would hardly have known the touch of your fingers again."
"My friend," said the fiddler gravely, "the steel has not been tempered, the lead has not been cast, that will reach this heart. Ah, Lord!" ”

“ The whole forest hummed in delicate rumour with the secret joys of Nature's fecundity. ... In the plain, openly and with tumult the masters of earth were strewing its fair face with Death.
"If Madame Sidonia were here," had said the fiddler, and cast a sly look at the young man's face over the last knot of his bandage.
Steven frowned and was silent.
"They will go on tearing each other to pieces down there till night. What say you? Shall not grey steed retrace his steps and carry Master Bridegroom back where he should be?" ”

“ And yet it was the greatest heiress of the country that was to be married this day; and the man she was to wed, a young Austrian, Graf von Waldorf-Kilmansegg—kinsman of the Burgravine—was no whit her inferior in blood, looks, or purse. For so hasty a union, it was a marvellously fitting one: and the ceremony in the little stone chapel nestling under the frowning walls of the Burg was, if ungraced by guests, charming in its simplicity and earnestness. The bridegroom looked manly and enamoured ”

“ Steven's grey shivered under him. It had, no doubt in its youth been a charger; certainly it was now seized with martial ardour. Flinging up its head fiercely to shake off the fiddler's grip, it displayed such a strong intention to join in the race—which no doubt it conceived to be a glorious charge—that a less practised rider would have found it hard to keep the saddle. ”

“ He picked up a violet from the heap on his knees, and passed his fingers over it caressingly; his whole countenance softened. When he began again, it was in gentler accents than Steven had ever heard him use:
"When two people love each other, young man, and one believes the other to be mistaken in some cardinal point of judgment, the dearest thought each cherishes is to bring the Beloved to the truth. ”

“ And being an apostle of Liberty, the idea that a woman should resist her husband, that the weaker vessel should not give way to the stronger, never dawned on my emancipated mind! If we had loved each other less; if we had not cared so intensely that the one should be worthy of the other's ideal! ... Well, well—we quarrelled! The fault was mine; could I not have been content to worship her in her sweet faith? She had a high spirit. I wounded her in a thousand ways. Women have susceptibilities that we, thick-hided, thick-witted, dream not of. Even when we touch them to caress, we bruise them. ”

“ The rousing spring wind brought indeed a strange distant rumour on its wings, and the fiddler imposed silence on his restless fingers and stood still himself, leaning his ear.
Once more Steven arrested the grey's climb. There is nothing so infectious as the curiosity of the ear. ”

“ Comrade," went on the musician, and his brilliant eye dilated, his countenance assumed a lofty, dignified mien, "I would not shame myself and you by such a word as 'Thanks'! The creature that would not give himself to save his fellow-creature when he can is not worth the name of man."
Steven, abashed that he had indeed thought himself heroic, blushed again and, looking down, began idly plucking with his unhurt right hand the wood-violets that grew in patches on the bank. The fiddler followed his movements, then his eye suddenly grew fixed, his jaw dropped. ”

“ While Steven had listened to the story of one man's defeat in life, a combat, where the fate of hundreds had been decided, had been fought and won. And now they were picking up the dead yonder, in the evening calm of the plain. ”

“ Fiddle-Hans gave a loud laugh.
"The most gallant the Hussars of the Guard of His Majesty Jerome the First, and last—in full rout! And, O shadows of Moscow! here come the pursuers!"
The forest was now alive with hoarse, guttural cries, as if the wooded depths had suddenly released some giant brood of ravens. And then, helter-skelter, even as the last belated hussar, blood streaming from a black gash in his forehead, clattered heavily rearmost of his comrades, reins loose, clinging to the saddle—they came! Huns! ”

“ Red-coated hussars with flying blue dolmans—bareheaded most, but some with huge shako and plume at a dishevelled angle—broke covert along the whole line, crashing through the underwood, leaping, it seemed, one upon the other, each man inclining in his saddle and wildly spurring towards the downward slope at a tearing gallop. ”

“ But what if you were to tie your grey behind some forest trees? There is no need of offering him up also to our altar of despair—and he might be of use when the day is over."
Steven admitted the suggestion without a word; and presently both men sat upon a high bank, their legs dangling into space.
"This is inspiring," said the fiddler. He unslung his instrument. "Did you hear that volley? Those are troops trained under Bonaparte, I'll wager my fiddle-bow. Hear how the Prussian insurgents respond. (Peasants, students; deserters from Jerome—the Patriots, in short!) ”

“ One whom life was treating as evilly as himself could not be expected to bestow even the alms of pitying thought to the peasant soldiers, stiff in the snows of Russia, or plodding vanquished in Spanish rocky deserts, nor to the starving families to whom the breadwinner would never return. ”

“ After a while he laid his hand upon the dappled neck and looked up at the rider.
"These women," he said, "these children—they insult a man because they do not understand. Mischief has been made here—mischief is always alert when marriage-bells are ringing. Go back to her!"
"I?" cried Steven Lee.
"Go back to her!" said the tramping fiddler again, as he trudged the stony way beside the young lord riding. "Be generous——"
Steven laughed out loud; and the fiddler knew that the wound had gone deeper even than he suspected.
"I am for Vienna," said the bridegroom briefly ”

“ To be thoroughly successful in revenge is always slightly alarming. So thought the Burgravine Betty, as she closed the door upon this unknown, this strange Sidonia. But, having gone too far to retreat, spite resolved to reap the final gratification. ”

“ A stranger to the land—English by education, by inheritance head of a great Austrian house—he had gone on his travels to train his youthful mind in the study of the tangled politics of nations, as became one entitled by birth to take place some day among the legislators of his country. ”