Burlesques Part 37

"We must have those ringlets of thine cut, good fellow," said the Duke of Cleves good-naturedly, but wis.h.i.+ng to spare the feelings of his gallant recruit. "'Tis against the regulation cut of my archer guard."

"Cut off my hair!" cried Otto, agonized.

"Ay, and thine ears with it, yokel," roared Donnerblitz.

"Peace, n.o.ble Eulenschreckenstein," said the Duke with dignity: "let the Duke of Cleves deal as he will with his own men-at-arms. And you, young sir, unloose the grip of thy dagger."

Otto, indeed, had convulsively grasped his snickersnee, with intent to plunge it into the heart of the Rowski; but his politer feelings overcame him. "The count need not fear, my lord," said he: "a lady is present." And he took off his orange-tawny cap and bowed low. Ah! what a pang shot through the heart of Helen, as she thought that those lovely ringlets must be shorn from that beautiful head!

Otto's mind was, too, in commotion. His feelings as a gentleman--let us add, his pride as a man--for who is not, let us ask, proud of a good head of hair?--waged war within his soul. He expostulated with the Prince. "It was never in my contemplation," he said, "on taking service, to undergo the operation of hair-cutting."

"Thou art free to go or stay, Sir Archer," said the Prince pettishly.

"I will have no churls imitating n.o.blemen in my service: I will bandy no conditions with archers of my guard."

"My resolve is taken," said Otto, irritated too in his turn.

"I will . . . . "

"What?" cried Helen, breathless with intense agitation.

"I will STAY," answered Otto. The poor girl almost fainted with joy. The Rowski frowned with demoniac fury, and grinding his teeth and cursing in the horrible German jargon, stalked away. "So be it," said the Prince of Cleves, taking his daughter's arm--"and here comes Snipwitz, my barber, who shall do the business for you." With this the Prince too moved on, feeling in his heart not a little compa.s.sion for the lad; for Adolf of Cleves had been handsome in his youth, and distinguished for the ornament of which he was now depriving his archer.

Snipwitz led the poor lad into a side-room, and there--in a word--operated upon him. The golden curls--fair curls that his mother had so often played with!--fell under the shears and round the lad's knees, until he looked as if he was sitting in a bath of sunbeams.

When the frightful act had been performed, Otto, who entered the little chamber in the tower ringleted like Apollo, issued from it as cropped as a charity-boy.

See how melancholy he looks, now that the operation is over!--And no wonder. He was thinking what would be Helen's opinion of him, now that one of his chief personal ornaments was gone. "Will she know me?"

thought he; "will she love me after this hideous mutilation?"

Yielding to these gloomy thoughts, and, indeed, rather unwilling to be seen by his comrades, now that he was so disfigured, the young gentleman had hidden himself behind one of the b.u.t.tresses of the wall, a prey to natural despondency; when he saw something which instantly restored him to good spirits. He saw the lovely Helen coming towards the chamber where the odious barber had performed upon him,--coming forward timidly, looking round her anxiously, blus.h.i.+ng with delightful agitation,--and presently seeing, as she thought, the coast clear, she entered the apartment. She stooped down, and ah! what was Otto's joy when he saw her pick up a beautiful golden lock of his hair, press it to her lips, and then hide it in her bosom! No carnation ever blushed so redly as Helen did when she came out after performing this feat. Then she hurried straightway to her own apartments in the castle, and Otto, whose first impulse was to come out from his hiding-place, and, falling at her feet, call heaven and earth to witness to his pa.s.sion, with difficulty restrained his feelings and let her pa.s.s: but the love-stricken young hero was so delighted with this evident proof of reciprocated attachment, that all regret at losing his ringlets at once left him, and he vowed he would sacrifice not only his hair, but his head, if need were, to do her service.

That very afternoon, no small bustle and conversation took place in the castle, on account of the sudden departure of the Rowski of Eulenschreckenstein, with all his train and equipage. He went away in the greatest wrath, it was said, after a long and loud conversation with the Prince. As that potentate conducted his guest to the gate, walking rather demurely and shamefacedly by his side, as he gathered his attendants in the court, and there mounted his charger, the Rowski ordered his trumpets to sound, and scornfully flung a largesse of gold among the servitors and men-at-arms of the House of Cleves, who were marshalled in the court. "Farewell, Sir Prince," said he to his host: "I quit you now suddenly; but remember, it is not my last visit to the Castle of Cleves." And ordering his band to play "See the Conquering Hero comes," he clattered away through the drawbridge. The Princess Helen was not present at his departure; and the venerable Prince of Cleves looked rather moody and chap-fallen when his guest left him.

He visited all the castle defences pretty accurately that night, and inquired of his officers the state of the ammunition, provisions, &c. He said nothing; but the Princess Helen's maid did: and everybody knew that the Rowski had made his proposals, had been rejected, and, getting up in a violent fury, had called for his people, and sworn by his great G.o.ds that he would not enter the castle again until he rode over the breach, lance in hand, the conqueror of Cleves and all belonging to it.

No little consternation was spread through the garrison at the news: for everybody knew the Rowski to be one of the most intrepid and powerful soldiers in all Germany,--one of the most skilful generals. Generous to extravagance to his own followers, he was ruthless to the enemy: a hundred stories were told of the dreadful barbarities exercised by him in several towns and castles which he had captured and sacked. And poor Helen had the pain of thinking, that in consequence of her refusal she was dooming all the men, women, and children of the princ.i.p.ality to indiscriminate and horrible slaughter.

The dreadful surmises regarding a war received in a few days dreadful confirmation. It was noon, and the worthy Prince of Cleves was taking his dinner (though the honest warrior had had little appet.i.te for that meal for some time past), when trumpets were heard at the gate; and presently the herald of the Rowski of Donnerblitz, clad in a tabard on which the arms of the Count were blazoned, entered the dining-hall. A page bore a steel gauntlet on a cus.h.i.+on; Bleu Sanglier had his hat on his head. The Prince of Cleves put on his own, as the herald came up to the chair of state where the sovereign sat.

"Silence for Bleu Sanglier," cried the Prince, gravely. "Say your say, Sir Herald."

"In the name of the high and mighty Rowski, Prince of Donnerblitz, Margrave of Eulenschreckenstein, Count of Krotenwald, Schnauzestadt, and Galgenhugel, Hereditary Grand Corkscrew of the Holy Roman Empire--to you, Adolf the Twenty-third, Prince of Cleves, I, Bleu Sanglier, bring war and defiance. Alone, and lance to lance, or twenty to twenty in field or in fort, on plain or on mountain, the n.o.ble Rowski defies you. Here, or wherever he shall meet you, he proclaims war to the death between you and him. In token whereof, here is his glove." And taking the steel glove from the page, Bleu Boar flung it clanging on the marble floor.

The Princess Helen turned deadly pale: but the Prince, with a good a.s.surance, flung down his own glove, calling upon some one to raise the Rowski's; which Otto accordingly took up and presented to him, on his knee.

"Boteler, fill my goblet," said the Prince to that functionary, who, clothed in tight black hose, with a white kerchief, and a napkin on his dexter arm, stood obsequiously by his master's chair. The goblet was filled with Malvoisie: it held about three quarts; a precious golden hanap carved by the cunning artificer, Benvenuto the Florentine.

"Drink, Bleu Sanglier," said the Prince, "and put the goblet in thy bosom. Wear this chain, furthermore, for my sake." And so saying, Prince Adolf flung a precious chain of emeralds round the herald's neck. "An invitation to battle was ever a welcome call to Adolf of Cleves."

So saying, and bidding his people take good care of Bleu Sanglier's retinue, the Prince left the hall with his daughter. All were marvelling at his dignity, courage, and generosity.

But, though affecting unconcern, the mind of Prince Adolf was far from tranquil. He was no longer the stalwart knight who, in the reign of Stanislaus Augustus, had, with his naked fist, beaten a lion to death in three minutes; and alone had kept the postern of Peterwaradin for two hours against seven hundred Turkish janissaries, who were a.s.sailing it.

Those deeds which had made the heir of Cleves famous were done thirty years syne. A free liver since he had come into his princ.i.p.ality, and of a lazy turn, he had neglected the athletic exercises which had made him in youth so famous a champion, and indolence had borne its usual fruits. He tried his old battle-sword--that famous blade with which, in Palestine, he had cut an elephant-driver in two pieces, and split asunder the skull of the elephant which he rode. Adolf of Cleves could scarcely now lift the weapon over his head. He tried his armor. It was too tight for him. And the old soldier burst into tears, when he found he could not buckle it. Such a man was not fit to encounter the terrible Rowski in single combat.

Nor could he hope to make head against him for any time in the field.

The Prince's territories were small; his va.s.sals proverbially lazy and peaceable; his treasury empty. The dismallest prospects were before him: and he pa.s.sed a sleepless night writing to his friends for succor, and calculating with his secretary the small amount of the resources which he could bring to aid him against his advancing and powerful enemy.

Helen's pillow that evening was also unvisited by slumber. She lay awake thinking of Otto,--thinking of the danger and the ruin her refusal to marry had brought upon her dear papa. Otto, too, slept not: but HIS waking thoughts were brilliant and heroic: the n.o.ble Childe thought how he should defend the Princess, and win LOS and honor in the ensuing combat.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CHAMPION.

And now the n.o.ble Cleves began in good earnest to prepare his castle for the threatened siege. He gathered in all the available cattle round the property, and the pigs round many miles; and a dreadful slaughter of horned and snouted animals took place,--the whole castle resounding with the lowing of the oxen and the squeaks of the gruntlings, destined to provide food for the garrison. These, when slain, (her gentle spirit, of course, would not allow of her witnessing that disagreeable operation,) the lovely Helen, with the a.s.sistance of her maidens, carefully salted and pickled. Corn was brought in in great quant.i.ties, the Prince paying for the same when he had money, giving bills when he could get credit, or occasionally, marry, sending out a few stout men-at-arms to forage, who brought in wheat without money or credit either. The charming Princess, amidst the intervals of her labors, went about encouraging the garrison, who vowed to a man they would die for a single sweet smile of hers; and in order to make their inevitable sufferings as easy as possible to the gallant fellows, she and the apothecaries got ready a plenty of efficacious simples, and sc.r.a.ped a vast quant.i.ty of lint to bind their warriors' wounds withal. All the fortifications were strengthened; the fosses carefully filled with spikes and water; large stones placed over the gates, convenient to tumble on the heads of the a.s.saulting parties; and caldrons prepared, with furnaces to melt up pitch, brimstone, boiling oil, &c., wherewith hospitably to receive them. Having the keenest eye in the whole garrison, young Otto was placed on the topmost tower, to watch for the expected coming of the beleaguering host.

They were seen only too soon. Long ranks of s.h.i.+ning spears were seen glittering in the distance, and the army of the Rowski soon made its appearance in battle's magnificently stern array. The tents of the renowned chief and his numerous warriors were pitched out of arrow-shot of the castle, but in fearful proximity; and when his army had taken up its position, an officer with a flag of truce and a trumpet was seen advancing to the castle gate. It was the same herald who had previously borne his master's defiance to the Prince of Cleves. He came once more to the castle gate, and there proclaimed that the n.o.ble Count of Eulenschreckenstein was in arms without, ready to do battle with the Prince of Cleves, or his champion; that he would remain in arms for three days, ready for combat. If no man met him at the end of that period, he would deliver an a.s.sault, and would give quarter to no single soul in the garrison. So saying, the herald nailed his lord's gauntlet on the castle gate. As before, the Prince flung him over another glove from the wall; though how he was to defend himself from such a warrior, or get a champion, or resist the pitiless a.s.sault that must follow, the troubled old n.o.bleman knew not in the least.

The Princess Helen pa.s.sed the night in the chapel, vowing tons of wax-candles to all the patron saints of the House of Cleves, if they would raise her up a defender.

But how did the n.o.ble girl's heart sink--how were her notions of the purity of man shaken within her gentle bosom, by the dread intelligence which reached her the next morning, after the defiance of the Rowski! At roll-call it was discovered that he on whom she princ.i.p.ally relied--he whom her fond heart had singled out as her champion, had proved faithless! Otto, the degenerate Otto, had fled! His comrade, Wolfgang, had gone with him. A rope was found dangling from the cas.e.m.e.nt of their chamber, and they must have swum the moat and pa.s.sed over to the enemy in the darkness of the previous night. "A pretty lad was this fair-spoken archer of thine!" said the Prince her father to her; "and a pretty kettle of fish hast thou cooked for the fondest of fathers." She retired weeping to her apartment. Never before had that young heart felt so wretched.

That morning, at nine o'clock, as they were going to breakfast, the Rowski's trumpets sounded. Clad in complete armor, and mounted on his enormous piebald charger, he came out of his pavilion, and rode slowly up and down in front of the castle. He was ready there to meet a champion.

Three times each day did the odious trumpet sound the same notes of defiance. Thrice daily did the steel-clad Rowski come forth challenging the combat. The first day pa.s.sed, and there was no answer to his summons. The second day came and went, but no champion had risen to defend. The taunt of his shrill clarion remained without answer; and the sun went down upon the wretchedest father and daughter in all the land of Christendom.

The trumpets sounded an hour after sunrise, an hour after noon, and an hour before sunset. The third day came, but with it brought no hope. The first and second summons met no response. At five o'clock the old Prince called his daughter and blessed her. "I go to meet this Rowski," said he. "It may be we shall meet no more, my Helen--my child--the innocent cause of all this grief. If I shall fall to-night the Rowski's victim, 'twill be that life is nothing without honor." And so saying, he put into her hands a dagger, and bade her sheathe it in her own breast so soon as the terrible champion had carried the castle by storm.

This Helen most faithfully promised to do; and her aged father retired to his armory, and donned his ancient war-worn corselet. It had borne the shock of a thousand lances ere this, but it was now so tight as almost to choke the knightly wearer.

The last trumpet sounded--tantara! tantara!--its shrill call rang over the wide plains, and the wide plains gave back no answer. Again!--but when its notes died away, there was only a mournful, an awful silence.

"Farewell, my child," said the Prince, bulkily lifting himself into his battle-saddle. "Remember the dagger. Hark! the trumpet sounds for the third time. Open, warders! Sound, trumpeters! and good St. Bendigo guard the right."

But Puffendorff, the trumpeter, had not leisure to lift the trumpet to his lips: when, hark! from without there came another note of another clarion!--a distant note at first, then swelling fuller. Presently, in brilliant variations, the full rich notes of the "Huntsman's Chorus"

came clearly over the breeze; and a thousand voices of the crowd gazing over the gate exclaimed, "A champion! a champion!"

And, indeed, a champion HAD come. Issuing from the forest came a knight and squire: the knight gracefully cantering an elegant cream-colored Arabian of prodigious power--the squire mounted on an unpretending gray cob; which, nevertheless, was an animal of considerable strength and sinew. It was the squire who blew the trumpet, through the bars of his helmet; the knight's visor was completely down. A small prince's coronet of gold, from which rose three pink ostrich-feathers, marked the warrior's rank: his blank s.h.i.+eld bore no cognizance. As gracefully poising his lance he rode into the green s.p.a.ce where the Rowski's tents were pitched, the hearts of all present beat with anxiety, and the poor Prince of Cleves, especially, had considerable doubts about his new champion. "So slim a figure as that can never compete with Donnerblitz,"

said he, moodily, to his daughter; "but whoever he be, the fellow puts a good face on it, and rides like a man. See, he has touched the Rowski's s.h.i.+eld with the point of his lance! By St. Bendigo, a perilous venture!"

The unknown knight had indeed defied the Rowski to the death, as the Prince of Cleves remarked from the battlement where he and his daughter stood to witness the combat; and so, having defied his enemy, the Incognito galloped round under the castle wall, bowing elegantly to the lovely Princess there, and then took his ground and waited for the foe.

His armor blazed in the suns.h.i.+ne as he sat there, motionless, on his cream-colored steed. He looked like one of those fairy knights one has read of--one of those celestial champions who decided so many victories before the invention of gun powder.

The Rowski's horse was speedily brought to the door of his pavilion; and that redoubted warrior, blazing in a suit of magnificent bra.s.s armor, clattered into his saddle. Long waves of blood-red feathers bristled over his helmet, which was farther ornamented by two huge horns of the aurochs. His lance was painted white and red, and he whirled the prodigious beam in the air and caught it with savage glee. He laughed when he saw the slim form of his antagonist; and his soul rejoiced to meet the coming battle. He dug his spurs into the enormous horse he rode: the enormous horse snorted, and squealed, too, with fierce pleasure. He jerked and curveted him with a brutal playfulness, and after a few minutes' turning and wheeling, during which everybody had leisure to admire the perfection of his equitation, he cantered round to a point exactly opposite his enemy, and pulled up his impatient charger.

The old Prince on the battlement was so eager for the combat, that he seemed quite to forget the danger which menaced himself, should his slim champion be discomfited by the tremendous Knight of Donnerblitz. "Go it!" said he, flinging his truncheon into the ditch; and at the word, the two warriors rushed with whirling rapidity at each other.

And now ensued a combat so terrible, that a weak female hand, like that of her who pens this tale of chivalry, can never hope to do justice to the terrific theme. You have seen two engines on the Great Western line rush past each other with a pealing scream? So rapidly did the two warriors gallop towards one another; the feathers of either streamed yards behind their backs as they converged. Their shock as they met was as that of two cannon-b.a.l.l.s; the mighty horses trembled and reeled with the concussion; the lance aimed at the Rowski's helmet bore off the coronet, the horns, the helmet itself, and hurled them to an incredible distance: a piece of the Rowski's left ear was carried off on the point of the nameless warrior's weapon. How had he fared? His adversary's weapon had glanced harmless along the blank surface of his polished buckler; and the victory so far was with him.

The expression of the Rowski's face, as, bareheaded, he glared on his enemy with fierce bloodshot eyeb.a.l.l.s, was one worthy of a demon. The imprecatory expressions which he made use of can never be copied by a feminine pen.