And thus was the feud between Gudenfels and Schonburg happily ended,
and Count Herbert came from the Crusades to find two castles waiting
for him instead of one as he had expected, with what he had reason to
prize above everything else, a wife as well.




CHAPTER II

THE REVENGE OF THE OUTLAW


The position of Count Herbert when, at the age of thirty-one he took up his
residence in the ancient castle of his line, was a most enviable one. His
marriage with Beatrix, Countess von Falkenstein, had added the lustre of a
ruling family to the prestige of his own, and the renown of his valour in
the East had lost nothing in transit from the shores of the Mediterranean
to the banks of the Rhine. The Counts of Schonburg had ever been the most
conservative in counsel and the most radical in the fray, and thus Herbert
on returning, found himself, without seeking the honor, regarded by common
consent as leader of the nobility whose castles bordered the renowned
river. The Emperor, as was usually the case when these imperial figure-
heads were elected by the three archbishops and their four colleagues, was
a nonentity, who made no attempt to govern a turbulent land that so many
were willing to govern for him. His majesty left sword and sceptre to those
who cared for such baubles, and employed himself in banding together the
most notable company of meistersingers that Germany had ever listened to.
But although harmony reigned in Frankfort, the capital, there was much lack
of it along the Rhine, and the man with the swiftest and heaviest sword,