Now this exhortation to compassion Freiherr Gustav loved little; but who could say “no” to a living saint? So he ordered Jerome to be escorted down the slope to Ludwig, at whose mercy any captives lay; while the Freiherr’s men soon haled out Ulrich and Michael, Franz and Clement, and the four were speedily roped, and shiveringly awaiting the result of the holy man’s embassy.
Jerome found the Graf before a splendid tent, with pages and squires about him, himself, in his silvered hauberk, the tallest and proudest of them all; but nestled against his side, tattered, mud-stained, dishevelled, happy, stood Agnes the maid. When she saw Jerome she forgot that he had prayed to be delivered from her tempting. She gave the coo of a dove beholding its long-sundered mate, and ran to him, and he, never asking whether he staked his soul or not, reached down to her, closed his arms on her, and kissed her red mouth seven times. Some smiled, a few nigh laughed, a few nigh wept, but no man thought Jerome the less a saint. Then when Agnes saw so many eyes upon her she grew scared, and fled into the tent; but the great Graf himself had bended the knee before Jerome.
“Holy Father,” spoke Ludwig; and he lifted his plumed casque, so that the hermit could look fairly upon his proud, strong, bearded face. “Holy Father, you have saved from death or worse my only child. Florins or fief-lands you do account as vanities, or I would proffer them. Yet what shall be your reward? Shall I give doles to two thousand poor at Goslar? Shall I set crucifixes at three hundred cross-roads? Shall I give Saint Michaelis of Hildesheim pyx, chalice, and candlestick of pure red gold?”
“None of these things, though all such works are holy,” answered Jerome; yet as he spoke, and gazed upon the Graf, in some strange manner he seemed all unstrung, so that some whispered darkly, “Ulrich has tortured him.” But still he looked on Ludwig with wide, heart-searching eyes; and as he looked the chief was marvellously troubled also.
“None of these things,” spoke Jerome, as if compelling speech by force of will; “if gratitude is mine, let my reward be this,--the lives of Ulrich and his crew, that they may be yet changed from Children of Wrath to Children of Obedience.”