'He opened like a bat!' said the stranger.
'His shadow was red!' said Farina.
'He was off like an arrow!' said the stranger.
'Oh! pledge of my young love, how could I lose thee!' exclaimed the
youth, and his eyes were misted with tears.
Guy the Goshawk shook his brown locks gravely.
'Bring me a man, and I 'll stand up against him, whoever he be, like a
man; but this fellow has an ill scent and foreign ways about him, that he
has! His eye boils all down my backbone and tingles at my finger-tips.
Jesu, save us!'
'Save us!' repeated Farina, with the echo of a deadened soul.
They made the sign of the Cross, and purified the place with holy
ejaculations.
'I 've seen him at last; grant it be for the last time! That's my
prayer, in the name of the Virgin and Trinity,' said Guy. 'And now let's
retrace our steps: perchance we shall hunt up that bauble of yours, but
I'm not fit for mortal work this night longer.'
Burdened by their black encounter, the two passed again behind the
Cathedral. Farina's hungry glances devoured each footmark of their
track. Where the moon held no lantern for him, he went on his knees, and
groped for his lost treasure with a miser's eager patience of agony,
drawing his hand slowly over the stony kerb and between the interstices
of the thick-sown flints, like an acute-feeling worm. Despair grew heavy
in his breast. At every turning he invoked some good new saint to aid
him, and ran over all the propitiations his fancy could suggest and his
religious lore inspire. By-and-by they reached the head of the street
where Margarita dwelt. The moon was dipping down, and paler, as if
touched with a warning of dawn. Chill sighs from the open land passed
through the spaces of the city. On certain coloured gables and wood-
crossed fronts, the white light lingered; but mostly the houses were
veiled in dusk, and Gottlieb's house was confused in the twilight with
those of his neighbours, notwithstanding its greater stateliness and the
old grandeur of its timbered bulk. They determined to take up their
position there again, and paced on, Farina with his head below his
shoulders, and Guy nostril in air, as if uneasy in his sense of smell.
On the window-ledge of a fair-fitted domicile stood a flower-pot, a rude
earthen construction in the form of a river-barge, wherein grew some
valley lilies that drooped their white bells over the sides.
The Goshawk eyed them wistfully.
'I must smell those blessed flowers if I wish to be saved!' and he
stamped resolve with his staff.
Moved by this exclamation, Farina gazed up at them.
'How like a company of maidens they look floating in the vessel of life!'
he said.
Guy curiously inspected Farina and the flower-pot, shrugged, and with his
comrade's aid, mounted to a level with it, seized the prize and
redescended.
'There,' he cried, between long luxurious sniffs, 'that chases him out of
the nostril sooner than aught else, the breath of a fresh lass-like
flower! I was tormented till now by the reek of the damned rising from
under me. This is heaven's own incense, I think !'
And Guy inhaled the flowers and spake prettily to them.
'They have a melancholy sweetness, friend,' said Farina. 'I think of
whispering Fays, and Elf, and Erl, when their odour steals through me.
Do not you?'
'Nay, nor hope to till my wits are clean gone,' was the Goshawk's reply.
'To my mind, 'tis an honest flower, and could I do good service by the
young maiden who there set it, I should be rendering back good service
done; for if that flower has not battled the devil in my nose this night,
and beaten him, my head's a medlar!'
'I scarce know whether as a devout Christian I should listen to that,
friend,' Farina mildly remonstrated. 'Lilies are indeed emblems of the
saints; but then they are not poor flowers of earth, being transfigured,
lustrous unfadingly. Oh, Cross and Passion! with what silver serenity
thy glory enwraps me, gazing on these fair bells! I look on the white
sea of the saints. I am enamoured of fleshly anguish and martyrdom. All
beauty is that worn by wan-smiling faces wherein Hope sits as a crown on
Sorrow, and the pale ebb of mortal life is the twilight of joy
everlasting. Colourless peace! Oh, my beloved! So walkest thou for my
soul on the white sea ever at night, clad in the straight fall of thy
spotless virgin linen; bearing in thy hand the lily, and leaning thy
cheek to it, where the human rose is softened to a milky bloom of red,
the espousals of heaven with earth; over thee, moving with thee, a wreath
of sapphire stars, and the solitude of purity around!'
'Ah!' sighed the Goshawk, dandling his flower-pot; 'the moon gives
strokes as well's the sun. I' faith, moon-struck and maid-struck in one!
He'll be asking for his head soon. This dash of the monk and the
minstrel is a sure sign. That 's their way of loving in this land: they
all go mad, straight off. I never heard such talk.'
Guy accompanied these remarks with a pitiful glance at his companion.
'Come, Sir Lover! lend me a help to give back what we've borrowed to its
rightful owner. 'S blood! but I feel an appetite. This night-air takes
me in the wind like a battering ram. I thought I had laid in a stout
four-and-twenty hours' stock of Westphalian Wurst at Master Groschen's
supper-table. Good stuff, washed down with superior Rhine wine; say your
Liebfrauenmilch for my taste; though, when I first tried it, I grimaced
like a Merry-Andrew, and remembered roast beef and Glo'ster ale in my
prayers.'
The Goshawk was in the act of replacing the pot of lilies, when a blow
from a short truncheon, skilfully flung, struck him on the neck and
brought him to the ground. With him fell the lilies. He glared to the
right and left, and grasped the broken flower-pot for a return missile;
but no enemy was in view to test his accuracy of aim.
The deep-arched doorways showed their empty recesses the windows slept.
'Has that youth played me false?' thought the discomfited squire, as he
leaned quietly on his arm. Farina was nowhere near.
Guy was quickly reassured.
'By my fay, now! that's a fine thing! and a fine fellow! and a fleet
foot! That lad 'll rise! He'll be a squire some day. Look at him.
Bowels of a'Becket! 'tis a sight! I'd rather see that, now, than old
Groschen 's supper-table groaning with Wurst again, and running a river
of Rudesheimer! Tussle on! I'll lend a hand if there's occasion; but
you shall have the honour, boy, an you can win it.'
This crying on of the hound was called forth by a chase up the street, in
which the Goshawk beheld Farina pursue and capture a stalwart runaway,
who refused with all his might to be brought back, striving every two and
three of his tiptoe steps to turn against the impulse Farina had got on
his neck and nether garments.
'Who 'd have thought the lad was so wiry and mettlesome, with his soft
face, blue eyes, and lank locks? but a green mead has more in it than
many a black mountain. Hail, and well done! if I could dub you knight,
I would: trust me!' and he shook Farina by the hand.
Farina modestly stood aside, and allowed the Goshawk to confront his
prisoner.
'So, Sir Shy-i'the-dark! gallant Stick-i'the-back! Squire Truncheon,
and Knight of the noble order of Quicksilver Legs! just take your stand
at the distance you were off me when you discharged this instrument at my
head. By 'r lady! I smart a scratch to pay you in coin, and it's lucky
for you the coin is small, or you might reckon on it the same, trust me.
Now, back!'
The Goshawk lunged out with the truncheon, but the prisoner displayed no
hesitation in complying, and fell back about a space of fifteen yards.
'I suppose he guesses I've never done the stupid trick before,' mused
Guy, 'or he would not be so sharp.' Observing that Farina had also
fallen back in a line as guard, Guy motioned him to edge off to the right
more, bawling, 'Never mind why!'
'Now,' thought Guy, 'if I were sure of notching him, I'd do the speech
part first; but as I'm not--throwing truncheons being no honourable
profession anywhere--I'll reserve that. The rascal don't quail. We'll
see how long he stands firm.'
The Goshawk cleared his wrist, fixed his eye, and swung the truncheon
meditatively to and fro by one end. He then launched off the shoulder a
mighty down-fling, calmly, watching it strike the prisoner to earth, like
an ox under the hammer.
'A hit!' said he, and smoothed his wrist.
Farina knelt by the body, and lifted the head on his breast. 'Berthold!
Berthold!' he cried; 'no further harm shall hap to you, man! Speak!'
'You ken the scapegrace?' said Guy, sauntering up.
''Tis Berthold Schmidt, son of old Schmidt, the great goldsmith of
Cologne.'
'St. Dunstan was not at his elbow this time!'
'A rival of mine,' whispered Farina.
'Oho!' and the Goshawk wound a low hiss at his tongue's tip. 'Well! as
I should have spoken if his ears had been open: Justice struck the blow;
and a gentle one. This comes of taking a flying shot, and not standing
up fair. And that seems all that can be said. Where lives he?'
Farina pointed to the house of the Lilies.
'Beshrew me! the dog has some right on his side. Whew! yonder he lives?
He took us for some night-prowlers. Why not come up fairly, and ask my
business?
Smelling a flower is not worth a broken neck, nor defending your premises
quite deserving a hole in the pate. Now, my lad, you see what comes of
dealing with cut and run blows; and let this be a warning to you.'
They took the body by head and feet, and laid him at the door of his
father's house. Here the colour came to his cheek, and they wiped off
the streaks of blood that stained him. Guy proved he could be tender
with a fallen foe, and Farina with an ill-fated rival. It was who could
suggest the soundest remedies, or easiest postures. One lent a kerchief
and nursed him; another ran to the city fountain and fetched him water.
Meantime the moon had dropped, and morning, grey and beamless, looked on
the house-peaks and along the streets with steadier eye. They now both
discerned a body of men, far down, fronting Gottlieb's house, and drawn
up in some degree of order. All their charity forsook them at once.
'Possess thyself of the truncheon,' said Guy: 'You see it can damage.
More work before breakfast, and a fine account I must give of myself to
my hostess of the Three Holy Kings!'
Farina recovered the destructive little instrument.
'I am ready,' said he. 'But hark! there's little work for us there, I
fancy. Those be lads of Cologne, no grunters of the wild. 'Tis the
White Rose Club. Always too late for service.'
Voices singing a hunting glee, popular in that age, swelled up the clear
morning air; and gradually the words became distinct.
The Kaiser went a-hunting,
A-hunting, tra-ra:
With his bugle-horn at springing morn,
The Kaiser trampled bud and thorn:
Tra-ra!
And the dew shakes green as the horsemen rear,
And a thousand feathers they flutter with fear;
And a pang drives quick to the heart of the deer;
For the Kaiser's out a-hunting,
Tra-ra!
Ta, ta, ta, ta,
Tra-ra, tra-ra,
Ta-ta, tra-ra, tra-ra!
the owner of the truncheon awoke to these reviving tones, and uttered a
faint responsive 'Tra-ra!'
'Hark again!' said Farina, in reply to the commendation of the Goshawk,
whose face was dimpled over with the harmony.
The wild boar lay a-grunting,
A-grunting, tra-ra!
And, boom! comes the Kaiser to hunt up me?
Or, queak! the small birdie that hops on the tree?
Tra-ra!
O birdie, and boar, and deer, lie tame!
For a maiden in bloom, or a full-blown dame,
Are the daintiest prey, and the windingest game,
When Kaisers go a-hunting,
Tra-ra!
Ha, ha, ha, ha,
Tra-ra, tra-ra,
Ha-ha, tra-ra, tra-ra!
The voices held long on the last note, and let it die in a forest
cadence.
''Fore Gad! well done. Hurrah! Tra-ra, ha-ha, tra-ra! That's a trick
we're not half alive to at home,' said Guy. 'I feel friendly with these
German lads.'
The Goshawk's disposition toward German lads was that moment harshly
tested by a smart rap on the shoulder from an end of German oak, and a
proclamation that he was prisoner of the hand that gave the greeting, in
the name of the White Rose Club. Following that, his staff was wrested
from him by a dozen stout young fellows, who gave him no time to get his
famous distance for defence against numbers; and he and Farina were
marched forthwith to the chorusing body in front of Gottlieb Groschen's
house.