THE REPAST.
"Welcome, Philip, as we are here before you," said Ian; "in the name
of mischief's mother, where have you been wandering to?"
"Over all this empty house, which I vow is like a great castle, and
is almost without furniture."
"Almost!" replied Ian; "why, my cousin, except this room, and that
one occupied by the Hausmeister, it seems quite deserted. Its
inhabitants have all died of the plague----"
"The plague!--pleasant that, for their successors."
"This was four years ago; or else they have fled to Copenhagen, to
escape the chances and mischances of war--the troubles (as the
Hausmeister calls them) which always attend the march of foreign
troops."
"Troubles?" said I.
"Ay," replied our lieutenant, Angus Roy M'Alpine, who had been in the
Low Countries and Germany before; "troubles--for so the Hausmeister
was pleased to name free inquartering, and the occasional abduction
of a pretty maid or a wine-cask, things that will now and then
happen, where soldiers shake their feathers."
"He is an ill-looking dog, that Hausmeister," I observed, "and wears
a devilish odd hat and pair of breeches--I hate the aspect of the
varlet!"
"Hate no one, Philip," said M'Alpine, quietly; "for hatred and anger
are sure to go together--and sorrow perchance may follow; but I
instinctively dislike this person, too."
M'Alpine, a fine-looking soldier, and brave fellow, was somewhat of a
gloomy and thoughtful cast. Having once slain a friend in a single
combat (as we were informed)--the result of a sudden quarrel--he made
a vow to wear crape on his left arm till the end of his days, and
never to give another challenge, though he had often received them,
and been compelled to fight more than once in defence of his honour
and reputation.
"I am sorry you are averse to the Holsteiner," said Ian; "for I have
invited him to dine with us."
"Dine!" we exclaimed together; "surely it was more his part to have
invited us."
"Four hungry Highlandmen to dine with one German or Dane," replied
Ian; "oich! gentlemen, the thing was not to be thought of."
"I hope I shall not quarrel with him," I continued, remembering how
he had received me; "in those green eyes of his are the very smile of
a Campbell."
"And you know the adage?" added Tan, as he flung aside his sword,
plaid, and pistols.
"While there are leaves on the trees, there will be guile----"
"Do not say in a Campbell," said the sergeant, Mhor, pausing in his
culinary occupation, and bluntly interrupting M'Alpine; "do not say
so, lieutenant, for my great-grandmother was a daughter of
Barcaldine."
"I crave your pardon, sergeant," replied M'Alpine; "but my father,
Torquil Dhu, was slain at Glenlivat by the men of Loch Awe, and I
have a score to settle with that tribe."
"Hush!" said I, "here comes our Dane."
"Dane--dost thou call him?" said Angus; "nay, being a Holsteiner, he
is pure German."
"What a clatter he makes!"
"'Tis his espadone on the stair."
"Dioul!" said my cousin; "and now let us to dinner."
We all rose to receive this personage, whom our Highland education
made us disposed to treat with the utmost respect as the master of
the house, or _husbonde_, as the Danes would call him (though only
his deputy); Ian bade him welcome in Gaëlic, and Phadrig Mhor, whose
vast stature made the Northman open wide his eyes, placed a chair for
him, and we proceeded to dine.
I have said each of the five or six stories of the mansion had two
dwellings, consisting of several apartments. Phadrig Mhor had
ransacked the whole place, and collected within our chamber such
furniture and utensils as he could procure among the vacated and
desolate rooms. From one he brought a table; from another a
high-backed antique chair; from a third a stool; from a fourth a
tabourette; from another a pot, a kettle, and so on, until he had
almost furnished our damp chamber, which overlooked the row of
poplars, beyond which, in the Platz, we saw a regiment of Scottish
pikemen being drilled to the use of the pike, according to the new
fashion, as laid down in the _Pallas Armata_ of that eminent
tactician, Captain Sir Thomas Kellie of Edinburgh and that Ilk.
Our dinner dishes had been borrowed from the old housekeeper of Otto
Roskilde; for knives each of us had his skene-dhu, and for cups each
had his hunting-quaigh or shell, hooped with silver; but Otto
Roskilde brought his own pewter pot which reminded me of a Low
lander's beechwood bicker. A saddle of mutton, which Phadrig had
procured (Heaven alone knows how), with boiled Russian tongues, bread
and cheese, composed a repast on which Fingal himself might have
fared with satisfaction; and we brewed a brave tappit hen in a
gigantic Flemish jug, with Dutch skeidam and hot water in equal
proportions, sweetened with sugar from the Indian isles. Beside
this, we had four bulbous-looking flasks of French brandy, which
Phadrig had found when foraging about the rooms, and to the evident
chagrin of our host, whose grey eyes glistened with surprise at the
discovery, and anger at our henchman.
As neither M'Farquhar nor Phadrig Mhor (whom as his fosterer we
always treated as an equal) could speak one word of any language but
their native Gaëlic, nearly the whole conversation fell to the share
of the lieutenant, M'Alpine, and myself. He spoke a little German,
having served in the Low Countries under Sir James Ramsay, and I knew
a little Spanish, having acquired it at King's College.
Now it chanced that both these languages were spoken by the
Hausmeister, who, though at first somewhat reserved even to
sullenness and silence, when his heart warmed by the contents of our
gallant tankard, became loquacious in the extreme.
Though his name was Scandinavian enough in its sound, having imbibed
certain undefinable suspicions about this man--awakened doubtless by
the deep and secret smiles which I detected stealing over his sallow
and swarthy face, like the quiet ripples on the surface of a Dutch
canal--I found myself baffled in deciding to what country he
belonged; for one moment there was something of the Danish softness
in his voice, the next it had the deep twang of the Swedish, or the
harsh growl of the German; and all these various tones were least
discernible in his Spanish, which he spoke with the greatest fluency.
Filling up his quaigh to the brim, my cousin Ian, believing that we
were in presence of a Holsteiner, stood up and drank courteously--
"To the honour of the brave and faithful Holsteiners."
I translated this to Otto Roskilde, who thereupon stood up in his
great calf-skin boots, and returned thanks with tolerable politeness;
then we all drank to each other's healths again, clinking our cups
together, above, below, and side by side, in the old German fashion.
The peg-tankard was refilled, and, as the afternoon subsided into
evening, the evening into night, and the shadows of the Platz were
thrown upon the stagnant canals, our good-fellowship increased; and
we spoke openly of the chances of the war, and our hopes of beating
the Imperialists back to the gates of Vienna. At this our
Hausmeister shook his great curly head of black hair, assuring us
that all the power of the North could never withstand the torrent
which the Emperor Ferdinand was rolling against it.
"And which way do you march, sirs, on leaving Glückstadt?" he asked.
"We know not," replied M'Alpine.
"Towards the Weser, probably?" he continued, with a casual but
inquisitive tone.
"That is as King Christian shall direct," said I.
"Your route must be towards the Weser; for all the Danes,
Holsteiners, and Germans who follow Christian IV., have been marching
in that direction since the battle of Lütter was won."
"I thought a Holsteiner would have said lost," observed M'Alpine.
"True!" replied Otto, with some confusion of manner, "for it was
indeed lost to the princes of the Protestant confederation; but how
many more of your brave countrymen are coming to join king Christian?"
"We know not," said I; "but if they come here as they are flocking to
the standard of Gustavus Adolphus, like his, the army of Christian
will be all Scots, I think, and nothing bub Scots."
"And you know not how many more are expected?"
"You are very inquisitive," said I, laughing; "about nine thousand."
"All Scots?"
"All--Murkle's, Spynie's, and Nithsdale's regiments--each being a
brigade."
"And of the English, how many?"
"We know nothing about the English," replied M'Alpine, imbibing
somewhat of my distrust at these categorical queries; "nothing save
that, when we sailed, Scotland expected a war with them about this
new court called the Commission for Grievances, which King Charles is
about to thrust upon us, and we consider to be only that devilish
Star-chamber under another name."
"Then, are there no English coming?"
"One regiment of pikes," I replied briefly, "for they generally
prefer the service of the Prince of Orange; but why are you so
anxious for all this information, Herr Otto?"
The blood rushed into his sallow face, and he stammered--
"Is it strange that I, a Holsteiner, should be anxious to learn the
number of our friends?"
"Oh! 'tis quite natural," said I, feeling the justice of his reply;
"but now, Herr, since I have answered all your questions, will you
please to answer a few of mine?"
"It will afford me the utmost gratification if I can do so," he
rejoined, filling up his cup, and letting out another button of his
doublet to make room for its contents. "On what matter can I give
you information?"
"Who is that very attractive damoiselle that occupies one of the
apartments below?"
"Damoiselle!" he reiterated, while the paleness of anger overspread
his face in the twilight; "you are mistaken, young gentleman; there
is--assuredly there is no young lady there."
"Come, Herr, rally your thoughts," I continued, with a loud laugh, as
the liquor mounted to my brain; "you will be sure to remember
her--fair and handsome, with the most beautiful dark hair, and the
longest eyelashes in the world. I warrant me, there is not a
prettier _jung-fer_ in all Holstein!"
"You mean _Jung-fraü_," replied Otto, with another of his quiet but
obnoxious smiles, and this time the fellow was laughing in earnest,
for I had made--what I afterwards learned to be--a mistake; "but I
beg to assure you, that no young damoiselle could be hereabout
without my knowledge."
"I am aware of that," I continued in my tone of banter; "but, pray,
make no more assertions; I have no wish to pry into your little
secrets, Herr--not I, though doubtless this damoiselle is the
prettiest little woman in Glückstadt."
"Were this St. John's night, when our fairies and white women are all
abroad, I would swear thou hadst seen a Trold; for there is no woman
here but the old crone my housekeeper, to whose smiles thou art
welcome. There is none, I vow to you, by the soul of Holger Danske!"
Confounded by the earnestness of the man, struck by a sudden and
ferocious gleam that passed over his glassy eyes, and supposing there
was in the affair some strange mystery with which I had no right to
meddle, I dropped the subject, and assisted to fill and refill the
tankard; nor did we separate until the midnight moon was shining on
the broad waters of the Elbe, and the strong round tower of
Glückstadt.
Then Otto Koskilde retired, and the moment he was gone we rolled our
tartan plaids around us, and lay down on the hard boarded floor, with
our targets and claymores for pillows.