At first the young bride wept, but when her lover comforted her with words of endearment, and her father praised the soldierly resolution of the young man, the maiden calmly submitted to the will of God. Before the young knight rode off he took a young linden-tree which he had pulled up in a grove, and having removed the soil with his sword, he planted the sapling in front of the castle. Then he spoke as follows to his bride. "Tend this budding linden which I have planted here to the honour of my patron saint. You shall keep troth with me so long as it flourishes, but if it fade (and may St. George in his grace prevent it) then you may forget me, for I shall be dead." The weeping bride threw herself in her lover's arms, and while he enfolded her gently with his right, with his left he raised his sword, and showed her engraved upon it in ancient letters, for daily repetition, the words: "Preserve O everlasting God, the body here, the soul hereafter. Help, knight St. George." Then, after receiving many kind wishes from his sorrowing friends, the young soldier rode in the morning mist down through the woods to join the imperial forces. Several months passed. Then the melancholy news got abroad in the German land that something disastrous had happened in the campaign against the Swiss peasants. At last came a trustworthy report to the effect that a bloody defeat had overtaken the proud army of Albrecht. It was at Morgarten, where the noble hero called Arnold of Winkelried had opened up to his countrymen a pathway to freedom over his spearpierced body. Many counts and barons found on that day a grave in the land of the Swiss, and sounds of mourning were to be heard in many a German castle. But to Castle Rheinfels no traveller brought any tidings either of weal or woe, and we can imagine with what sickness of heart the maiden waited, and how her hope faded as the days and weeks slipped past. It was so long since the ill-fated army had set out against the Forest Cantons, and now the thoughts of men were turned in other directions, while the Swiss peasants were quietly allowed to reap the fruits of their bravery. The most sanguine found it difficult to cheer the drooping maiden of Castle Rheinfels.