Morning was among the grey eastern
clouds as they rode upon the camp hastily formed to
meet the Kaiser. All there was in a wallow of
confusion. Fierce struggles for precedence still
went on in the neighbourhood of the imperial tent
ground, where, under the standard of Germany, lounged
some veterans of the Kaiser’s guard, calmly watching
the scramble. Up to the edge of the cultivated
land nothing was to be seen but brawling clumps of
warriors asserting the superior claims of their respective
lords. Variously and hotly disputed were these
claims, as many red coxcombs testified. Across
that point where the green field flourished, not a
foot was set, for the Kaiser’s care of the farmer,
and affection for good harvests, made itself respected
even in the heat of those jealous rivalries.
It was said of him, that he would have camped in a
bog, or taken quarters in a cathedral, rather than
trample down a green blade of wheat, or turn over
one vine-pole in the empire. Hence the presence
of Kaiser Heinrich was never hailed as Egypt’s
plague by the peasantry, but welcome as the May month
wherever he went.
Father Gregory and Farina found themselves
in the centre of a group ere they drew rein, and a
cry rose, ’The good father shall decide, and
all’s fair,’ followed by, ‘Agreed!
Hail and tempest! he’s dropped down o’
purpose.’
‘Father,’ said one, ’here
it is! I say I saw the Devil himself fly off
Drachenfels, and flop into Cologne. Fritz here,
and Frankenbauch, saw him too. They’ll
swear to him: so ’ll I. Hell’s thunder!
will we. Yonder fellows will have it ‘twas
a flash o’ lightning, as if I didn’t see
him, horns, tail, and claws, and a mighty sight ‘twas,
as I’m a sinner.’
A clash of voices, for the Devil and
against him, burst on this accurate description of
the Evil spirit. The Monk sank his neck into his
chest.
‘Gladly would I hold silence
on this, my sons,’ said he, in a supplicating
voice.
‘Speak, Father,’ cried
the first spokesman, gathering courage from the looks
of the Monk.
Father Gregory appeared to commune
with himself deeply. At last, lifting his head,
and murmuring, ‘It must be,’ he said aloud:
’’Twas verily Satan, O
my sons! Him this night in mortal combat I encountered
and overcame on the summit of Drachenfels, before the
eyes of this youth; and from Satan I this night deliver
ye! an instrument herein as in all other.’
Shouts, and a far-spreading buzz resounded
in the camp. Hundreds had now seen Satan flying
off the Drachenstein. Father Gregory could no
longer hope to escape from the importunate crowds that
beset him for particulars. The much-contested
point now was, as to the exact position of Satan’s
tail during his airy circuit, before descending into
Cologne. It lashed like a lion’s.
’Twas cocked, for certain! He sneaked it
between his legs like a lurcher! He made it stumpy
as a brown bear’s! He carried it upright
as a pike!
‘O my sons! have I sown dissension?
Have I not given ye peace?’ exclaimed the Monk.
But they continued to discuss it with increasing frenzy.
Farina cast a glance over the tumult,
and beheld his friend Guy beckoning earnestly.
He had no difficulty in getting away to him, as the
fetters of all eyes were on the Monk alone.
The Goshawk was stamping with excitement.
‘Not a moment to be lost, my
lad,’ said Guy, catching his arm. ’Here,
I’ve had half-a-dozen fights already for this
bit of ground. Do you know that fellow squatting
there?’
Farina beheld the Thier at the entrance
of a tumbledown tent. He was ruefully rubbing
a broken head.
‘Now,’ continued Guy,
’to mount him is the thing; and then after the
wolves of Werner as fast as horse-flesh can carry us.
No questions! Bound, are you? And what am
I? But this is life and death, lad! Hark!’
The Goshawk whispered something that
sucked the blood out of Farina’s cheek.
’Look you what’s
your lockjaw name? Keep good faith with me, and
you shall have your revenge, and the shiners I promise,
besides my lord’s interest for a better master:
but, sharp! we won’t mount till we’re out
of sight o’ the hell-scum you horde with.’
The Thier stood up and staggered after
them through the camp. There was no difficulty
in mounting him horses were loose, and scampering about
the country, not yet delivered from their terrors of
the last night’s tempest.
‘Here be we, three good men!’
exclaimed Guy, when they were started, and Farina
had hurriedly given him the heads of his adventure
with the Monk. ’Three good men! One
has helped to kick the devil: one has served an
apprenticeship to his limb: and one is ready to
meet him foot to foot any day, which last should be
myself. Not a man more do we want, though it
were to fish up that treasure you talk of being under
the Rhine there, and guarded by I don’t know
how many tricksy little villains. Horses can
be ferried across at Linz, you say?’
‘Ay, thereabout,’ grunted the Thier.
’We ‘re on the right road,
then!’ said Guy. ’Thanks to you both,
I’ve had no sleep for two nights not
a wink, and must snatch it going not the
first time.’
The Goshawk bent his body, and spoke
no more. Farina could not get a word further
from him. By the mastery he still had over his
rein, the Goshawk alone proved that he was of the
world of the living. Schwartz Thier, rendered
either sullen or stunned by the latest cracked crown
he had received, held his jaws close as if they had
been nailed.
At Linz the horses were well breathed.
The Goshawk, who had been snoring an instant before,
examined them keenly, and shook his calculating head.
‘Punch that beast of yours in
the ribs,’ said he to Farina. ’Ah!
not a yard of wind in him. And there’s
the coming back, when we shall have more to carry.
Well: this is my lord’s money; but i’
faith, it’s going in a good cause, and Master
Groschen will make it all right, no doubt; not a doubt
of it.’
The Goshawk had seen some excellent
beasts in the stables of the Kaiser’s Krone;
but the landlord would make no exchange without an
advance of silver. This done, the arrangement
was prompt.
‘Schwartz Thier! I’ve
got your name now,’ said Guy, as they were ferrying
across, ’you’re stiff certain they left
Cologne with the maiden yesternoon, now?’
‘Ah, did they! and she’s
at the Eck safe enow by this time.’
‘And away from the Eck this
night she shall come, trust me!’
‘Or there will I die with her!’ cried
Farina.
‘Fifteen men at most, he has, you said,’
continued Guy.
’Two not sound, five true as
steel, and the rest shillyshally. ’Slife,
one lock loose serves us; but two saves us: five
we’re a match for, throwing in bluff Baron;
the remainder go with victory.’
‘Can we trust this fellow?’ whispered
Farina.
‘Trust him!’ roared Guy.
’Why, I’ve thumped him, lad; pegged and
pardoned him. Trust him? trust me! If Werner
catches a sight of that snout of his within half-a-mile
of his hold, he’ll roast him alive.’
He lowered his voice: ’Trust
him? We can do nothing without him. I knocked
the devil out of him early this morning. No chance
for his Highness anywhere now. This Eck of Werner’s
would stand a siege from the Kaiser in person, I hear.
We must into it like weasels; and out as we can.’
Dismissing the ferry-barge with stern
injunctions to be in waiting from noon to noon, the
three leapt on their fresh nags.
‘Stop at the first village,’
said Guy; ’we must lay in provision. As
Master Groschen says, “Nothing’s to be
done, Turpin, without provender."’
‘Goshawk!’ cried Farina;
’you have time; tell me how this business was
done.’
The only reply was a soft but decided
snore, that spoke, like a voluptuous trumpet, of dreamland
and its visions.
At Sinzig, the Thier laid his hand
on Guy’s bridle, with the words, ‘Feed
here,’ a brief, but effective, form of signal,
which aroused the Goshawk completely. The sign
of the Trauben received them. Here, wurst reeking
with garlic, eggs, black bread, and sour wine, was
all they could procure. Farina refused to eat,
and maintained his resolution, in spite of Guy’s
sarcastic chiding.
‘Rub down the beasts, then,
and water them,’ said the latter. ’Made
a vow, I suppose,’ muttered Guy.
’That’s the way of those
fellows. No upright manly take-the-thing-as-it-comes;
but fly-sky-high whenever there’s a dash on
their heaven. What has his belly done to offend
him? It will be crying out just when we want
all quiet. I wouldn’t pay Werner such a
compliment as go without a breakfast for him.
Not I! Would you, Schwartz Thier?’
‘Henker! not I!’ growled
the Thier. ‘He’ll lose one sooner.’
’First snatch his prey, or he’ll
be making, God save us! a meal for a Kaiser, the brute.’
Guy called in the landlady, clapped
down the score, and abused the wine.
‘Sir,’ said the landlady,
‘ours is but a poor inn, and we do our best.’
‘So you do,’ replied the
Goshawk, softened; ’and I say that a civil tongue
and rosy smiles sweeten even sour wine.’
The landlady, a summer widow, blushed,
and as he was stepping from the room, called him aside.
‘I thought you were one of that
dreadful Werner’s band, and I hate him.’
Guy undeceived her.
‘He took my sister,’ she
went on, ’and his cruelty killed her. He
persecuted me even in the lifetime of my good man.
Last night he came here in the middle of the storm
with a young creature bright as an angel, and sorrowful ’
‘He’s gone, you’re sure?’
broke in Guy.
’Gone! Oh, yes! Soon
as the storm abated he dragged her on. Oh! the
way that young thing looked at me, and I able to do
nothing for her.’
‘Now, the Lord bless you for
a rosy Christian!’ cried Guy, and, in his admiration,
he flung his arm round her and sealed a ringing kiss
on each cheek.
’No good man defrauded by that!
and let me see the fellow that thinks evil of it.
If I ever told a woman a secret, I ’d tell you
one now, trust me. But I never do, so farewell!
Not another?’
Hasty times keep the feelings in a
ferment, and the landlady was extremely angry with
Guy and heartily forgave him, all within a minute.
‘No more,’ said she, laughing:
‘but wait; I have something for you.’
The Goshawk lingered on a fretting
heel. She was quickly under his elbow again with
two flasks leaning from her bosom to her arms.
’There! I seldom meet a
man like you; and, when I do, I like to be remembered.
This is a true good wine, real Liebfrauenmilch, which
I only give to choice customers.’
‘Welcome it is!’ sang
Guy to her arch looks; ‘but I must pay for it.’
‘Not a pfennig!’ said the landlady.
‘Not one?’
‘Not one!’ she repeated, with a stamp
of the foot.
‘In other coin, then,’
quoth Guy; and folding her waist, which did not this
time back away, the favoured Goshawk registered rosy
payment on a very fresh red mouth, receiving in return
such lively discount, that he felt himself bound in
conscience to make up the full sum a second time.
‘What a man!’ sighed the
landlady, as she watched the Goshawk lead off along
the banks; ’courtly as a knight, open as a squire,
and gentle as a page!’