By this time the sun stood high over Cologne. The market-places were
crowded with buyers and sellers, mixed with a loitering swarm of
soldiery, for whose thirsty natures winestalls had been tumbled up.
Barons and knights of the empire, bravely mounted and thickly followed,
poured hourly into Cologne from South Germany and North. Here, staring
Suabians, and round-featured warriors of the East Kingdom, swaggered up
and down, patting what horses came across them, for lack of occupation
for their hands. Yonder, huge Pomeranians, with bosks of beard stiffened
out square from the chin, hurtled mountainous among the peaceable
inhabitants. Troopers dismounted went straddling, in tight hose and
loose, prepared to drink good-will to whomsoever would furnish the best
quality liquor for that solemn pledge, and equally ready to pick a
quarrel with them that would not. It was a scene of flaring feathers,
wide-flapped bonnets, flaunting hose, blue and battered steel plates,
slashed woollen haunch-bags, leather-leggings, ensigns, and imperious
boots and shoulders. Margarita was too hurried in her mind to be
conscious of an imprudence; but her limbs trembled, and she instinctively
quickened her steps. When she stood under the sign of the Three Holy
Kings, where dwelt Farina's mother, she put up a fervent prayer of
thanks, and breathed freely.
'I had expected a message from Lisbeth,' said Frau Farina; 'but thou,
good heart! thou wilt help us?'
'All that may be done by me I will do,' replied Margarita; 'but his
mother yearns to see him, and I have come to bear her company.'
The old lady clasped her hands and wept.
'Has he found so good a friend, my poor boy! And trust me, dear maiden,
he is not unworthy, for better son never lived, and good son, good all!
Surely we will go to him, but not as thou art. I will dress thee. Such
throngs are in the streets: I heard them clattering in early this
morning. Rest, dear heart, till I return.'
Margarita had time to inspect the single sitting-room in which her lover
lived. It was planted with bottles, and vases, and pipes, and cylinders,
piling on floor, chair, and table. She could not suppress a slight
surprise of fear, for this display showed a dealing with hidden things,
and a summoning of scattered spirits. It was this that made his brow so
pale, and the round of his eye darker than youth should let it be! She
dismissed the feeling, and assumed her own bright face as Dame Farina
reappeared, bearing on her arm a convent garb, and other apparel.
Margarita suffered herself to be invested in the white and black robes of
the denial of life.
'There!' said the Frau Farina, 'and to seal assurance, I have engaged a
guard to accompany us. He was sorely bruised in a street combat
yesterday, and was billeted below, where I nursed and tended him, and he
is grateful, as man should be-though I did little, doing my utmost--and
with him near us we have nought to fear.'
'Good,' said Margarita, and they kissed and departed. The guard was
awaiting them outside.
'Come, my little lady, and with thee the holy sister! 'Tis no step from
here, and I gage to bring ye safe, as sure as my name's Schwartz Thier!--
Hey? The good sister's dropping. Look, now! I'll carry her.'
Margarita recovered her self-command before he could make good this
offer.
'Only let us hasten there,' she gasped.
The Thier strode on, and gave them safe-conduct to the prison where
Farina was confined, being near one of the outer forts of the city.
'Thank and dismiss him,' whispered Margarita.
'Nay! he will wait-wilt thou not, friend! We shall not be long, though
it is my son I visit here,' said Frau Farina.
'Till to-morrow morning, my little lady! The lion thanked him that
plucked the thorn from his foot, and the Thier may be black, but he's not
ungrateful, nor a worse beast than the lion.'
They entered the walls and left him.
For the first five minutes Schwartz Thier found employment for his
faculties by staring at the shaky, small-paned windows of the
neighbourhood. He persevered in this, after all novelty had been
exhausted, from an intuitive dread of weariness. There was nothing to
see. An old woman once bobbed out of an attic, and doused the flints
with water. Harassed by increasing dread of the foul nightmare of
nothing-to-do, the Thier endeavoured to establish amorous intelligence
with her. She responded with an indignant projection of the underjaw,
evanishing rapidly. There was no resource left him but to curse her with
extreme heartiness. The Thier stamped his right leg, and then his left,
and remembered the old woman as a grievance five minutes longer. When
she was clean forgotten, he yawned. Another spouse of the moment was
wanted, to be wooed, objurgated, and regretted. The prison-gate was in a
secluded street. Few passengers went by, and those who did edged away
from the ponderous, wanton-eyed figure of lazy mischief lounging there,
as neatly as they well could. The Thier hailed two or three. One took
to his legs, another bowed, smirked, gave him a kindly good-day, and
affected to hear no more, having urgent business in prospect. The Thier
was a faithful dog, but the temptation to betray his trust and pursue
them was mighty. He began to experience an equal disposition to cry and
roar. He hummed a ballad
'I swore of her I'd have my will,
And with him I'd have my way:
I learn'd my cross-bow over the hill:
Now what does my lady say?
Give me the good old cross-bow, after all, and none of these lumbering
puff-and-bangs that knock you down oftener than your man!
'A cross stands in the forest still,
And a cross in the churchyard grey:
My curse on him who had his will,
And on him who had his way!
Good beginning, bad ending! 'Tisn't so always. "Many a cross has the
cross-bow built," they say. I wish I had mine, now, to peg off that.
old woman, or somebody. I'd swear she's peeping at me over the gable,
or behind some cranny. They're curious, the old women, curse 'em! And
the young, for that matter. Devil a young one here.
'When I'm in for the sack of a town,
What, think ye, I poke after, up and down?
Silver and gold I pocket in plenty,
But the sweet tit-bit is my lass under twenty.
I should like to be in for the sack of this Cologne. I'd nose out that
pretty girl I was cheated of yesterday. Take the gold and silver, and
give me the maiden! Her neck's silver, and her hair gold. Ah! and her
cheeks roses, and her mouth-say no more! I'm half thinking Werner, the
hungry animal, has cast wolf's eyes on her. They say he spoke of her
last night. Don't let him thwart me. Thunderblast him! I owe him a
grudge. He's beginning to forget my plan o' life.'
A flight of pigeons across the blue top of the street abstracted the
Thier from these reflections. He gaped after them in despair, and fell
to stretching and shaking himself, rattling his lungs with loud reports.
As he threw his eyes round again, they encountered those of a monk
opposite fastened on him in penetrating silence. The Thier hated monks
as a wild beast shuns fire; but now even a monk was welcome.
'Halloo!' he sung out.
The monk crossed over to him.
'Friend!' said he, 'weariness is teaching thee wantonness. Wilt thou
take service for a night's work, where the danger is little, the reward
lasting?'
'As for that,' replied the Thier, 'danger comes to me like greenwood to
the deer, and good pay never yet was given in promises. But I'm bound
for the next hour to womankind within there. They're my masters; as
they've been of tough fellows before me.'
'I will seek them, and win their consent,' said the monk, and so left
him.
'Quick dealing!' thought the Thier, and grew brisker. 'The Baron won't
want me to-night: and what if he does? Let him hang himself--though,
if he should, 'twill be a pity I'm not by to help him.'
He paced under the wall to its farthest course. Turning back, he
perceived the monk at the gateway.
'A sharp hand!' thought the Thier.
'Intrude no question on me,' the monk began; 'but hold thy peace and
follow: the women release thee, and gladly.'
'That's not my plan o' life, now! Money down, and then command me': and
Schwartz Thier stood with one foot forward, and hand stretched out.
A curl of scorn darkened the cold features of the monk.
He slid one hand into a side of his frock above the girdle, and tossed a
bag of coin.
'Take it, if 'tis in thee to forfeit the greater blessing,' he cried
contemptuously.
The Thier peeped into the bag, and appeared satisfied.
'I follow,' said he; 'lead on, good father, and I'll be in the track of
holiness for the first time since my mother was quit of me.'
The monk hurried up the street and into the marketplace, oblivious of the
postures and reverences of the people, who stopped to stare at him and
his gaunt attendant. As they crossed the square, Schwartz Thier spied
Henker Rothhals starting from a wine-stall on horseback, and could not
forbear hailing him. Before the monk had time to utter a reproach, they
were deep together in a double-shot of query and reply.
'Whirr!' cried the Thier, breaking on some communication. 'Got her, have
they? and swung her across stream? I'm one with ye for my share, or call
me sheep!'
He waved his hand to the monk, and taking hold of the horse's rein, ran
off beside his mounted confederate, heavily shod as he was.
The monk frowned after him, and swelled with a hard sigh.
'Gone!' he exclaimed, 'and the accursed gold with him! Well did a voice
warn me that such service was never to be bought!'
He did not pause to bewail or repent, but returned toward the prison with
rapid footsteps, muttering: 'I with the prison-pass for two; why was I
beguiled by that bandit? Saw I not the very youth given into my hands
there, he that was with the damsel and the aged woman?'