He struck his breast in his excitement, and brandishing the parchment in the air, exclaimed aloud, in a deep, tremulous voice: "Well done, thou noble Pontiff! Now, my brother Henry, the time has come, and heaven be the judge between us!" With these meaning words Rodolph galloped on, unmindful of the soldier behind him.

Yet it would seem he had not entirely forgotten the messenger, for when alighting at the Castle of Hers, he threw the man a largess such as had never fallen to his lot before.
The duke could not but smile when he saw Gilbert, and taking him aside, he whispered in his ear: "You will soon have an opportunity to display upon the battle-field the gallantry of the Bohemian harp-bearer, and to couch a lance for Suabia and the Lady Margaret!" "But how can I thank you for--" "Thank that generous priest and that noble girl!" said Rodolph, interrupting the youth; "I ran no risk in interposing: the Baron of Stramen was but cancelling an old debt; I intercepted a battle-axe that was descending upon him at Hohenburg, and I asked mercy for you, in requital." After a long interview, the duke and Albert of Hers resolved to assemble the chiefs of the ducal party at Ulm, and to fix the fifteenth of October for a general meeting, at Tribur, of all who would take up arms against the king.
While the Lord of Hers was engaged in persuading the Duke of Bohemia and the bishops of Wuertzburg and Worms to repair to Ulm without delay, Gilbert was polishing his armor and exercising his barb.

The stirring spirit of the times, the approaching honors of knighthood, with a golden chance of winning his spurs, assisted in diverting his mind from a melancholy contemplation of the hopelessness of his love.

But even when brandishing his stout lance, or wheeling his good war-horse, he would hear those withering words: "_The grave will anticipate her choice!_" followed by the fatal echo which came from her own lips, in solemn confirmation of the prophecy: "_My days are numbered here!_" Nor could the dazzling dreams of young ambition shut out the still more delicious sight of the Lady Margaret, now kneeling before the _Mater Dolorosa_, now appealing to him with the pure emotion and wondrous beauty of an Angel, and now clinging to her father between him and the battle-axe.
While the stern Sandrit de Stramen was preparing his vassals for the impending strife, and literally converting the scythe into the sword--while he spared no expense or trouble in supplying his men with arms and horses, all gayly decorated to make a gallant show at Tribur--while the sturdy yeomen were leaving their ploughs in the field to pay their rent by the service of shield and sword--the Lady Margaret, uninfluenced by the war-like bustle, calmly pursued her meditations, her daily visits to the church, and her numberless acts of charity.

She had a delicate and difficult duty to perform in soothing the proud mind of her brother, stung to the quick by his unlucky encounter with Gilbert.
The young knight of Stramen was panting for an opportunity to retrieve his misfortune and wipe out his fancied disgrace.