The night wore on, and was far advanced; but Gilbert still kept piling thought upon thought, unable and even scarcely desiring to exchange them for the deep repose or more confused images of slumber.  It must have been after midnight when, as he lay awake, he could distinctly hear the sound of blows.  Gilbert was not a moment in conjecturing the cause; he knew at once that the venerable priest was subjecting himself to corporal chastisement.  He did not live in an age when voluntary mortification was ridiculed, when a sacred ambition to imitate a crucified God insured contempt from man.  Then, those self-denying religious were not taunted with “the hope of gaining heaven by making earth a hell.”  And perhaps Gilbert knew that the spiritual peace and delight derived from such chastisements, were infinitely sweeter, even here below, than the impure pleasures of worldlings.  Feeling thus, he could not but contrast the mortified life of that holy man with his own indulged and pampered existence.  He had never known the sting of adversity, and rarely been thwarted in a single desire; yet how much greater his sins than those of Father Omehr!  Amid such reflections he felt—­and it is a salutary feeling—­the truth of a hereafter.

But we will no longer pursue the reflections of the youth.  Some time after the sounds had ceased he fell asleep, and was only roused by the sun streaming into his apartment, and the solemn tones of the church bell.

The morning was beautiful.  The sun was everywhere; kindling the hoary tops of the Suabian Alps, sparkling on the broad Danube as it rolled majestically on from the southwest to the northeast, lighting up hamlet, hill, vale, rivulet, forest, and making the church glitter like a stupendous diamond.  But Gilbert was ill-prepared to enjoy this blaze of beauty.  In a melancholy mood he leaned against the window, watching the sturdy serf in the centre of his family, as he came to share the blessings of the Mass.  He was rather startled when the outer door opened and admitted the lady he had seen in the church the night before with Henry de Stramen.  She came unattended, save by an old female servant, who carried with some difficulty a basket filled with fruits, delicacies, and medicines of various kinds, designed for Father Omehr to apply to any purpose his piety might point out.

Though in the year 1076 chivalry was not the regular and well-defined institution it became during and after the Crusades, yet the same amount of valor and devotion to woman was expected from the knight.  The spirit of Christianity, operating upon Teutonic virtue, which has raised the woman from the drudge of man to be the ornament of society, created a chivalric courtesy long before the cry of “Deus vult!” rang from Italy to England.  Gilbert de Hers, born and bred in the courtly circle of Suabia, though his spurs were not yet won, was still familiar with the duties of knighthood.  As the lady paused, surprised at his presence, he made a profound and respectful reverence, and he would have done the same had she been less noble, or had he known, as he then surmised, that the fair visitor was the daughter of his father’s deadliest foe.