MR. SCHNACKENBERGER'S ENGAGEMENT WITH AN OLD BUTTERWOMAN.
The student was a good way advanced on his road, when he descried the
princess, attended by another lady and a gentleman approaching in an open
carriage. As soon, however, as he was near enough to be recognised by the
party in the carriage, the princess turned away her head with manifest signs
of displeasure--purely, as it appeared, to avoid noticing Mr. Jeremiah.
Scarcely, however, was the carriage past him, together with Mr. Von Pilsen,
who galloped by him in a tumult of laughter, when the ill-fate of our hero
so ordered it, that all eyes which would not notice him for his honour
should be reverted upon his disgrace. The white turnpike gate so frightened
our rider's horse, that he positively refused to pass it: neither whip nor
spur would bring him to reason. Meantime, up comes an old butterwoman.[23]
At the very moment when she was passing, the horse in his panic steps back
and deposits one of his hind legs in the basket of the butterwoman: down
comes the basket with all its eggs, rotten and sound; and down comes the old
woman, squash, into the midst of them. "Murder! Murder!" shouted the
butterwoman; and forthwith every individual thing that could command a pair
or two pair of legs ran out of the turnpike-house; the carriage of the
princess drew up, to give the ladies a distant view of Mr. Schnackenberger
engaged with the butterwoman; and Mr. Von Pilsen wheeled his horse round
into a favourable station for seeing anything the ladies might overlook.
Rage gave the old butterwoman strength; she jumped up nimbly, and seized Mr.
Schnackenberger so stoutly by the laps of his coat, that he vainly
endeavoured to extricate himself from her grasp. At this crisis, up came
Juno, and took her usual side in such disputes. But to do this with effect,
Juno found it necessary first of all to tear off the coat lap; for, the old
woman keeping such firm hold of it, how else could Juno lay her down on her
back--set her paws upon her breast--and then look up to her master, as if
asking for a certificate of having acquitted herself to his satisfaction?
[23] In the original--'eine marketenderin,' a female sutler: but I have
altered it, to save an explanation of what the old sutler was after.
To rid himself of spectators, Mr. Jeremiah willingly paid the old woman the
full amount of her demand, and then returned to the city. It disturbed him
greatly, however, that the princess should thus again have seen him under
circumstances of disgrace. Anxious desire to lay open his heart before
her--and to place himself in a more advantageous light, if not as to his
body, yet at all events as to his intellect--determined him to use his
utmost interest with her to obtain a private audience; 'at which,' thought
he, 'I can easily beg her pardon for having overslept the appointed hour.'