OF SOME FROWARD PASSAGES BEFORE THE DUKE
“DON LUIZ,” said our young mistress, speaking with a sternness that
was remarkably dignified, “you will do well to hold your peace. You
are now dismissed from that high position which you have occupied so
unworthily for I know not how many years. Your emoluments are reduced
by one half, and even then, Don Luiz, your fees will be above your
services. From this moment I myself, Don Luiz, am to occupy the room
of first councillor to his lordship’s grace; for I have to inform you
that matters of the greatest instancy are like to be toward, and it
will need a bold heart, a firm will, and a ripe judgment to direct his
affairs.”
If the duke had been taken aback by the entrance of his daughter, his
demeanour could not compare with that of his councillor when assailed
by these calm words that were uttered so impressively.
“Ods nig and nog!” cried the duke, “these are words, madam, these are
words. Am I lived to seventy years and three to be browbeat in mine own
presence by a rib out of mine own flesh! By my troth, I will have you
scourged, madam; I will have you scourged. Take her away, Luiz, or I
shall fall into such a passion that I shall say something grievous.”
“My lord,” said the Countess Sylvia, “am I a cook-maid that I should be
mentioned in this manner? Have I journeyed five days on an old horse,
under the heat of the sun, to serve the grace of your lordship that I
should be spoken to rudely by your lordship’s grace?”
“Bah and pooh!” said the duke. “Get you away, you wicked hulks. Go, do
you hear me, naughty one! Out of my sight, I say! As for these foul
villains by whom thou art accompanied, such a tight string shall be
drawn about their throats as shall cause them to fling up their heels
in the air.”
The Countess Sylvia, however, was undaunted by the choleric rage of his
lordship’s grace. For she had a goodly anger of her own to set before
him, which was accompanied by the stamping of her foot and exceeding
large turbulent tears.
“Out of my presence, spitfire!” said the duke.
“My lord,” said the little countess, “I leave the presence of your
lordship at no command save mine own.”
“Dost thou defy me, rude one?” said the duke. “Ods nick and nack! I
will go to a main extremity. Luiz, do you remove her; cast her out,
Luiz. Ods my good soul! must I be bearded in mine own presence by a rib
out of mine own flesh.”
This starched and dignified grandee had long thrown his ceremonious
mien to the wind. He walked up and down his apartment, pishing and
tushing, snapping his fingers and almost weeping with anger.
“Dost thou hear me, Luiz? Put her out, I say, put her out! Or
wouldst thou have me do it, Luiz, with the reverend hand of mine own
paternity?”
Don Luiz approached the little countess warily enough, as though he
were not so fond of his task. The proud madam drew herself up into an
aspect of the most splendid fierce grandeur.
“Do not touch me, fat man,” she said. “Do not lay so much as a
finger upon my gown, or, as I am a person, you shall swing, bulk and
everything, from the topmost turret of this castle. From this day I am
master here and mistress too.”
The abashed fat man stopped and hesitated and looked at the duke
despairingly.
“Luiz, Luiz,” said his master, “why do you not take her by the
shoulders and put her out of the room? Or would you have me do it,
Luiz, by the might of mine own paternity?”
It was clear, although Don Luiz made no such confession, that he would
have preferred that his august master should have put the countess out
of the room by the might of his own paternity. But the Lady Sylvia’s
baffled parent showed no disposition to come near her; and, fume as
he would, there appeared to be nothing in his nature to compel the
enforcement of his authority. Finding himself in the imminent danger
of defeat, for Don Luiz still remained tardy and unwilling, he had
recourse, as was only to be expected of a weak and inferior spirit, to
those offenders who were not so well placed to outface his wrath.
“Luiz,” he said, “I would have you summon the guard, and arrest these
two cut-throats that madam hath picked out of a hedge tavern; and do
you see to it that they hang in a quarter of an hour.”
The gentleman-usher being much better able to execute this order than
the former one, made haste to do so.
“My friends,” said our mistress, who in her anger, her defiance, and
her turbulence had never looked so adorable, “come to the high ground
behind the table near the window. Draw your swords and play them well
if you are pressed. But, as I am a person, they shall not dare to touch
you. For mark it, and, your lordship’s grace, do you mark it too, if
one of these knaves so much as lays a finger against the doublet of my
friends, I will slay him with mine own poniard.”
To make good her speech she turned to the dwarf and said in a voice of
the highest courage, “Give me your dagger, sirrah.”
Instead of obeying, the dwarf, with a vacuous grin, looked towards the
duke for a direction. Before he could withdraw his gaze the countess
had struck him on the cheek with the butt of the riding-whip she still
bore in her hand.
“Give me your dagger, sirrah,” she repeated in a voice that was full of
passion.
The dwarf, a wretched, misshapen hunchback, obeyed her with a scowl and
a whimper. At the same moment there arose the measured clank of arms.
The Count of Nullepart and myself, acting upon the natural instinct
that directed our minds rather than upon the wisdom of our mistress
which had yet bade us do so, drew our swords and climbed to the daïs.
Almost as we reached this eminence, Don Luiz came into the room with
some half a dozen soldiers, whose swords were also drawn and who wore
corslets of steel. At this sight a kind of haze fell across my eyes.
Yet such an exaltation came upon my blood as never before had quickened
it; and I gripped my weapon as though it had been the waist of a
mistress, and awaited the onfall with joy.
“Behind the table, close to the wall,” said the Count of Nullepart in
a soft whispering voice which yet was perfectly calm. “Farther by the
left a little, that we may play better. Straight at their faces. We
shall get nothing out of these plaguy breastplates.”
The Count of Nullepart also, if I am not mistaken, was fallen into my
condition. I could hear the ring of joy in his voice. It would seem
that here was his moment also. He too seemed to hold his blade like a
lover.
As a prologue to the fray, no sooner had the soldiers entered the room
and had fallen to attend the duke’s instructions than the Countess
Sylvia walked on to the daïs, and in the next moment had come to stand
on the table itself, with her whip in one hand, her dagger in the
other, and a good sword on either side of her.
From this singular eminence she gazed with an insolent contumely upon
the forces that were being marshalled against us.
“Soldiers of the guard,” she said, as though she were speaking to an
army, “your bare swords are your peril. His lordship’s grace is no
longer your commander. He is an old man and a querulous; a dotard so
shrunk in his wits that I hereby depose him. Myself as the mistress to
his dominion do appoint myself to the regency. From this moment do I
declare myself no less your master than your mistress. Here do I take
my stance; here do I enforce my authority; and these virtuous gentlemen
that keep at my side are your honourable captains. Sheathe your swords
therefore, doff your bonnets, and like honest men do homage to your
liege-lady.”
Now, I was never able to learn whether this wonderful speech was
given--and you must believe me, reader, when I assure you it was no
less wonderful in its mode than in its form--for the behoof of his
grace’s soldiers or for that of his grace himself. At least it was not
without an effect upon both. The guard looked at the duke in just such
a fashion as Don Luiz and the dwarf had done; and he, like the dotard
that at heart he was, began to whine and threaten and hurl abuse upon
this noble intrepidity, and yet himself to stand irresolute.
“Ods wounds! I do not want to slay the little tiger-cat,” he whined.
“Take the dagger from her. You, sirrah, take the dagger from her, but I
pray you do not hurt her.”
The bearded warrior upon whom the duke called to execute this command
seemed in nowise eager to enact a deed so delicate.
“Stand clear, you paltry ruffian!” said the little countess. “If you so
much as touch my sleeve I will stab you.”
In good sooth a proper discretion was necessary. The eminence upon
which her ladyship stood and her perfect valiancy rendered it work for
a bold man to come near her. Again, there was her dagger to consider,
also a keen pair of blades flanking her sacred person one on each side.
It is easy to believe that such a situation was not without its humour.
But for the three chief actors in this play, who stood shoulder to
shoulder upon the daïs, it was grave indeed.
“Sirrah, sirrah!” cried the duke. “You with your beard under your chin,
down with her, I say! Take away her dagger; or must I stand in the
presence of insubordination?”
The soldier approached warily under the goad of the duke’s wrath, and
came up to our platform, with his mouth open wide like a stuck bear.
“Is there none that will heed me, Luiz?” cried the duke. “Is it come
to this: must I conduct mine own business by mine own valiancy? Must
I, sore smitten with the infirmity of my seventy years and three, take
away this vixenish dagger with this ancient hand?”
“You are stricken in years, my lord,” said his daughter; “you are
speaking foolishly. Go you to bed, like a wise old man; the leech
shall bleed you; and that fat fellow who is swollen like a goose at
Michaelmas, shall read you a psalm.”
“Ods mud!” cried her parent, spluttering himself into a state of
incoherency, “will nobody pull her down? I ask you, will nobody pull
her down? Will none obey me? Must I do it personally? Ods unicorns!
must I correct her with mine own indignation?”
Instead of advancing, however, to do his own business, the duke was
content to whine and complain, like an old dog that is wishful to bite,
yet is unable. And it was most curious to watch this foiled grandee
look first at Don Luiz, his right hand, and then at the soldiers of his
guard. But these showed no disposition to help him in his pass. None
had the desire to offer violence to their youthful mistress, who had so
much more of valour than their aged master.
“Luiz,” cried the duke, “do you fetch that foreign man, that Sirrah
Richard Red Dragon. He is the man to serve us. Ods myself! he will have
no fear of three halfpence worth of bib and tucker, with a bit of steel
to give it effrontery. Ods my good heart! he will not fear a minx and a
wanton that is so rude as any jackanapes. Do you tell him to bring his
stick along with him, Luiz; I will have her flogged in public for this.
Ods my good soul! Luiz, I never was in such a passion before.”
Don Luiz went forth on his new errand with great alacrity.
“You are as weak as a chewed straw, my lord,” said little insolent
madam. “Get you to your bed, like a good old man, and I will send you a
priest with a fresh, young voice, and he shall sing you an anthem. You
have no more valiancy than an old milch cow, my lord. You are as feeble
as a gnat under a willow in a wet November. It is well I am come home.
I believe your lordship’s grace would deliver up this house to the
Castilian the first time he set his hand upon your lattice.”
It is hard to know what reply the duke would have offered to such an
onslaught upon his old age, made by one of his own kith. But before
he could frame it, in whatever it might consist, that huge man the
Englishman entered the room with his sword drawn and snuffing like a
tiger.
“If I am upon an errand of good steel,” he said, coming in with a
swagger that filled the whole apartment, “I hope there is a proper
valiance in mine adversaries, for I am in a humour to cut and thrust,
to hack and mutilate.”
“Sirrah Richard Red Dragon,” said the duke, with most perfect dignity,
“I would have you pull down that proud hulks off the table there, and
I would have you chastise her with severity; and further I would have
you seize those two malefactors by whom she is encompassed, and I would
have you hang them within a quarter of an hour.”
Sir Richard Pendragon made one or two ferocious passes with his sword
before laying this order into execution. He then cast his eyes, which
were rolling in a truly terrible manner, towards where we held our
ground. But instead of making the horrible onslaught we had been led
to expect, he opened his mouth in astonishment. He then turned to gaze
at the duke, who stood the picture of calm pride and dignity, and then
back again to the no less calm and prideful countess.
“Ods my life! Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the duke, “I am minded to be
severe; I will use severity. Pull her down; do not spare her. But I
would have thee see to it, good coz, that she do not stab thee.”
In the meantime the English giant was still looking from the old duke
to the youthful countess, from the youthful countess to the old duke.
At last he threw his sword on the ground, pressed his great hands to
his ribs, and broke into such a report of laughter that it rolled round
the tall ceiling like the voice of the giant Fierabras.
“God’s tomb!” he roared. “If I do not spit blood I shall never need
surgery! If a most desperate fluxion does not surmount my poor brains I
am no man. If I do not perish of an overwrought mind I am a dog! By the
holy ape of Barbary, I shall laugh till I shed large tears!”
“Ods nig and nog!” cried the duke, resuming his querulous manners.
“Sirrah Red Dragon, will you reject me! Will you not do my bidding?
Must I, who am old and a parent, pull down a she-wolf and correct her
with the hand of mine own indignation? Ods nig and nog! is there no
manhood in Spain?”
While the duke continued to fume and splutter in this unworthy fashion,
the great English giant, and you must believe me, reader, when I tell
you he appeared to be as enormous as the heroes and ogres in the old
romances, continued to press on his ribs, and, even as he had himself
predicted, to shed veritable tears of laughter. But presently the mien
of the Countess Sylvia seemed to pacify this great coarse fellow. For,
as she stood gazing from her eminence with majestic looks, small as
she was and fragile, she was indeed a figure to touch the heart of a
gallant warrior.
“By my hand,” said the Englishman, abating his mirth into a true
admiration. “If this is not a piece of true mettle I am a rogue. Why,
thou sweet thing, thou art as red in the cheek as a carnation.”
“Sirrah ruffian!” said the little Countess Sylvia, exposing her
stiletto; “I would have you ’ware me. I will kill you if you come near.”
“There, hearken to her, hearken to her!” cried the duke. “Did I not say
she was a spitfire? Did I not say she was a proud and wicked hulks?”
“Come near thee,” said the English barbarian, “why, thou beautiful
thing, thou art a rose, a flower! Thou hast a light in thy eye like a
bud in June. I’ve a mind to buss thee for thy prettiness.”
“Is there no manhood abroad in the world?” cried the duke; “will no man
pull her down?”
Instead of paying heed to the duke, Sir Richard Pendragon made the
little Countess Sylvia a deep obeisance.
“This is the fairest rose in bud I have seen this moon,” he said,
laying his hand across his doublet. “By this hand you have my love,
pretty titmouse, and your whip and your dagger, they have it too.”
Upon this address a stern and sudden joy flamed in the eyes of the
Countess Sylvia.
The English giant, who even from the low ground towered above her,
table and all, was now come to stand before her. Without heeding the
duke, the soldiers, or Don Luiz, he kept his eyes upon her face, as
if enchained by its beauty, while all seemed so much amazed by the
audacity of his behaviour in standing without arms within striking
distance of her poniard, and yet to address her in such terms, that
none moved a step nor dared to interrupt their intercourse.
“Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia, “I know not who you are,
or whence you come, or what is your virtue, or what is your detriment;
but by my two eyes I judge you to be a true man and a valiant warrior.
And here I stand the mistress of this castle and the whole of its
furniture; and I am prepared to enforce my resolve by power of the
sword if the need arise, for I grieve to inform you that my father, his
lordship’s grace, hath fallen suddenly so senile in his years, that I
am called to be his nurse as well as his daughter; therefore, Sirrah
Red Dragon, whoever you may be, I would have you obey my behests. And
they are these. Put out those spawn in their steel corslets, put them
out, I say, into the antechamber; and then do you take that fat man
there, who is so gross as a pig and so round as a barrel, and do you
lock him up in an iron cage, and feed him upon husks, until you receive
our further advice upon the subject.”
“By the Lord Harry!” cried Sir Richard Pendragon, beaming with joy,
“this is as fine loud speaking as ever I heard. By this hand! this is
Charlemagne in a kirtle and mutch!”
Indeed, scarcely had the Countess Sylvia spoken to this tenor than this
gigantical foreigner, who was as great in his valour as he was in his
girth, fell suddenly upon the fellow that was next to him, who, to be
sure, was a somewhat puny man-at-arms, picked him up by an ear and a
limb, as though he were a truss of fodder, and carried him out of the
room bodily. Whereupon, the other warriors, who, like men of the ranks,
must have a leader before they can act, now having none--for the duke
was impotent before this new affront to his authority, and Don Luiz was
too fat in the wits and swollen with base living to appear better than
a cypher--knew not whether to offer resistance or to submit. And as it
was ever the easier to adopt the latter than the former course, and as
their choice in the matter was but small, when Sir Richard Pendragon
returned and took up his sword, with the flat of it he drove them
before him out of the chamber, like so many hogs along a lane.