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!'