Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine — Part 115

“Sir Philip,” he said at length, “I have come hither to beg the hand of thy fair sister; why is she not with us?” Falkenstein was filled with amazement.

“Sire,” he stammered, “I fear me thou wilt find my sister an unwilling bride. She has refused many nobles of high estate, and I doubt whether even a crown will tempt her. However, I will plead with her for thy sake.”

He left the room to seek Guta’s bower, but soon returned with dejected mien. “It is as I thought, sire,” he said. “She will not be moved. Methinks some heedless knight hath stolen her heart, for she hath grown pale and drooping as a gathered blossom.”

“Thou art—the knight of the tourney,” cried Philip in amaze.

“The same,” answered Richard, smiling. “And I am the knight who has won thy fair sister’s heart. We plighted our troth after the tourney of Cologne. State affairs of the gravest import have kept me from her side, where I would fain have been these six months past. Take this token”—drawing from his breast the glove Guta had given him—“and tell her that a poor knight in Richard’s train sends her this.”

In a little while Philip returned with his sister. The maiden looked pale and agitated, but when she beheld Richard she rushed to him and was clasped in his arms.

“My own Guta,” he whispered fondly. “And wouldst thou refuse an emperor to marry me?”

“Yea, truly,” answered the maid, “a hundred emperors. I feared thou hadst forsaken me altogether,” she added naively.

“Would I be a worthy Emperor an I did not keep my troth with such as thou?” he asked.

“The Emperor—thou?” cried Guta, starting back.

“Yea, the Emperor, and none other,” said her brother reverently. And once more Guta hid her face on Richard’s breast.

Within a week they were married, and Guta accompanied her husband to the court as Empress of Germany.

To the castle where his bride had passed her maidenhood Richard gave the name of Gutenfels—’Rock of Guta’—which name it has retained to this day.

The castle of Schönburg, not far from the town of Bacharach, is now in ruins, but was once a place of extraordinary fame, for here dwelt at one time seven sisters of transcendent beauty, who were courted the more assiduously because their father, the Graf von Schönburg, was reputed a man of great wealth. This wealth was no myth, but an actuality, and in truth it had been mainly acquired in predatory forays; but the nobles of Rhineland recked little of this, and scores of them flitted around and pressed their suit on the young ladies. None of these, however, felt inclined toward marriage just yet, each vowing its yoke too galling; and so the gallants came in vain to the castle, their respective addresses being invariably dallied with and then dismissed. Suitor after suitor retired in despair, pondering on the strange ways of womankind; but one evening a large party of noblemen chanced to be assembled at the schloss, and putting their heads together, they decided to press matters to a conclusion. They agreed that all of them, in gorgeous raiment, should gather in the banqueting-hall of the castle; the seven sisters should be summoned and called upon in peremptory fashion to have done with silken dalliance and to end matters by selecting seven husbands from among them. The young ladies received the summons with some amusement, all of them being blessed with the saving grace of humour, and they bade the knight who had brought the message return to his fellows and tell them that the suggested interview would be held. “Only give us time,” said the sisters, “for the donning of our most becoming dresses.”