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Updated: May 9, 2025
"O God, strengthen me to reveal all!" continued the now agitated woman. "I began to walk down the ravine, when I met Albert of the Thorn. I showed him my presents, and we sat down at the foot of a pile of steep rocks, beside a little spring. Albert was arranging the scarf about my neck, when Sir Robert of Stramen suddenly stood before us. His face was pale with rage, and his lips were all foaming.
"Let him fret awhile; it is better he should lament you alive, than dead by the serfs of Stramen." "They dare not attack me!" exclaimed the youth; "they fear the Church and my own arm too much for that!" "Nay, peace!" rejoined the priest; "it is better not to expose them to the temptation, or you to the danger."
Brighter and brighter grew the flame higher and higher rose the lurid column. Still the Lady Margaret continued to gaze on the fiery pillar. At last the light suddenly expanded and burned awhile with intense brilliancy. It was but for a moment. Dimmer and dimmer grew the flame, and darkness soon settled over the ashes of Stramen Castle.
As the lady of Stramen, eagerly watching the experiment, stood bending over the water with her back to the door, she was not aware of her father's presence. He had entered unperceived, and was contemplating in some surprise the mysterious operation going on before him.
Still, nothing daunted, Rodolph displayed his impetuous valor, the lords of Hers and Stramen rushed on the destroyers of their castles, and Gilbert and Henry fought side by side, each trying to outstrip the other. At this moment, as Rodolph was tugging at his lance to draw it from a body of a knight he had pierced, it was seized by Vratislaus, Duke of Bohemia.
To gain time, the Lord of Hers had been despatched to the provinces bordering upon the Rhine with letters from Rodolph to the principal barons there, while the duke himself, with Henry of Stramen, followed the Danube. For many months there had been no active warfare between the hostile houses, though the feud had lost none of its venom.
At the time of the return of the soldiers of Stramen, she was much thinner and walked with difficulty, rarely issuing from her retreat in the ravine, to which she had again retired. On the morning of Margaret's funeral she could be seen, pale and haggard, tottering toward the grave-yard.
On the twenty-fifth of May, 1085, were uttered those memorable words that smote the forehead of guilty Europe as if with a burning hand: "I have loved justice and hated iniquity therefore I die in exile." Years passed by. Peace smiled once more in the lordships of Hers and Stramen. A new dwelling had risen from the ashes of Stramen Castle.
The generous countess received the daughter of Stramen with open arms, and the count swore first to protect and then to avenge her. Nor was the palmer forgotten. Despite his ridiculous costume, now soiled and torn and stained with blood, he exhibited no embarrassment when ushered into the presence of the noble group. "The Lady Margaret would know her deliverer," said the countess.
Tears were falling fast around the bed; yet only the body wept the soul was exulting. On the morning of the third day after the Lady Margaret's death, a funeral procession could be seen slowly approaching, within sight of the ruins of Stramen Castle and the blackened Church of the Nativity.
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