CHAPTER XXXVII
CAPTAIN KARL MILLER'S SON
Black, blank, chill, confining night shut us in as Leopold Dessauer and Irode out of Plassenburg. Our horses had been made ready for us at thelittle water-gate in the lower garden. Fain would I have taken alsoJorian and Boris, but on this occasion the fewer the safer. For to enterThorn was to go with lighted matches into a powder-magazine.
The rushes in the river rustled dry and cold along the brink. The leavesof the linden-trees chuckled overhead, rubbing their palms togetherspitefully. There was mockery of our foolhardy enterprise in the softwhispering sough of the water, as I heard it lapper beneath theferry-boat that lay ready to cross to the other side. Old Hans, thePrince's ferryman, snored in his boat. Above in the women's chambers alight went to and fro. I judged that it was in the bower of the LadyYsolinde. But not a string of my heart moved. For pity is so weak andlove so strong that all my nature was now on the strain forward towardsHelene and the Wolfsberg, like an eager hound that pulls at theunslipped leash.
"My love! my love!" I cried in my heart, "I am coming to you, I am goingout to find you! Though I give my life for it, I shall at least see andtouch you ere I die."
For during these last days my love had grown greatly upon me, being ofthat kind which gathers within a man, banks up, fills out his crevices,and he know it not. In the Wolfmark there are oft, in the heart of thelimestone, caverns where the water sleeps deep and cool, while above, onthe thin, rocky crust, the sun beats and the very lizards die for lackof moisture. It was only now that I had broken up the crust of my natureand found the caverns under, where love was abiding all undreamed of,deep, and eternal as the sea. It is a great thing and a beautiful tomeet love for the first time face to face, not to nod to only as to anacquaintance, and to know how great and masterful he is; to say, "Love,I am yours. Do with me that which seemeth good to you. I was strong--nowin your hands am I become weak. I was proud--now am I glad to be humbleand kneel, waiting your word. You have made life and death the samething to me, for the sake of the Beloved. I am ready to take either fromyour hands!"
But enough! We were riding out of the dark pleasaunces of the palace, theleaves were rustling and the sedges blowing. That was what began it,carrying away my thoughts.
Dessauer rode behind me, letting his horse follow mine, nose to tail.For, being used to the visitation of the city outposts, I knew the groundthoroughly.
At every hundred yards we were halted, and I answered. For I had postedthe men myself, making sure that Plassenburg should not again be taken bysurprise. On the other hand, I had determined that the spoiler should nowbe made despoiled, and that the foul den of the Wolf should be cleansedas by fire.
Then, like the breaking up of the Baltic ice in spring, the thought ranthrough me--my father and the maid of the Red Tower, what of them?
Why, at the very first (so I told myself), I should set a guard of thebest troops in Plassenburg about the Red Tower, and carry themall--Helene, my father, and old Hanne--to a safe place till Prince Karland I had made an end. With our stark veterans swarming in Thorn, thatwould easily be done. And so the plan abode to be altered, broidered, andrecast in the imagination of my heart.
We were soon out on the darksome, unguarded road, and after that Isteered chiefly by the lights of the palace behind me, Dessauer saying noword, but riding like a man-at-arms close behind me.
We had reached the crown of the green hill over whose slopes the path tothe Wolf markwinds--the path by which, doubtless, Helene had travelledthe night of the duel.
As I came to the summit, mounting the steepest part slowly, I was awareof a figure dark against the sky, no more apparent than a blacker patchof night where all was dark. It was in shape as of a horseman sitting hissteed on the crest of the hill.
Instantly I drew my pistol, in which I had become expert.
"Your name and business?" cried I to the shape on the hill-side. For,indeed, none had any right to be abroad so near the city of Plassenburg,armed cap-a-pie, at that time of the night. And for a moment the thoughtflashed upon me that the tales we had heard might after all be true, andthe armies of the Wolfmark nearer than we dreamed of.
"Hugo--Von Dessauer!" quoth right jovially to my ear a voice well knownand ever dear to me, the voice of my master, the Prince Karl.
"The Prince!" cried I. "My lord, what do you here? This is starkmadness--you, who should be within the walls of the palace, with theguards watching three deep about you. What would come to the State ofPlassenburg if it wanted you?"
"Oh," said he, lightly, falling in beside us in the most naturalfashion, "you and Von Dessauer in dual control would be a singularimprovement on the present head of the State. You, Hugo, would keep thesoldiers to their work, and Von Dessauer could look nobly after thetreasury."
"But who would command us and be a gracious and beloved master to us?"said I. "My Prince, we must instantly return and put you in safety!"
"Indeed, that will you not. By God's truth, if I am not to come all theway to the city of Thorn with you, I will at least convoy you to theedges of the Mark. It is so dull, dragging out month by month at easewithin the castle, and not nearly so much fun as it used to be when I wasa poor captain of a free company under the old Prince. Young rattlingblades like Dessauer and yourself make no allowance for the distractionsof an aged and gouty Prince."
Within myself I felt some amusement stir. It was almost exactly what thePrincess, his wife, had alleged as a reason for her wanderings. I couldnot help marvelling why these two had not long ere this found out theirgreat affinity to each other. But now I see that this very likeness ofnature was the first cause of their lack of agreement. Like may, indeed,draw to like, as the saw hath it. But in the things of love like and likeagree not well together. Fair desires dark, stout and stark desireslender, slow desires quick, severe desires gay (though this oftensecretly). And so the world goes on, and in another generation, sprungfrom these desirings, once more dark desireth fair and fair dark.
There I am at it again. Oh, but I, Hugo Gottfried, am the wise man when Iset out on my disquisitions. I could new-make all the saws of the world,set instances to them, and never breathe myself.
"Nay," said the Prince, "all is safe set within and without, thanks to mybrave commander and wise Chancellor, and these other matters can e'enbide till I go back to them. Consider that I am but a captain of horsegoing a-wooing and needing to talk gayly for good comradeship by theroad. Call me honest Captain Miller's Son."
So Captain Miller's Son rode with Herr Doctor Schmidt and his servantJohann. And a merry time the three of us had till we arrived at theborders of the Mark.
Now I have not time nor yet space (though a great deal of inclination) totell of the wondrous pranks we played--of the broad-haunched countrywomenwe rallied (or rather whom Captain Miller's Son rallied, and who, truthto tell, mostly gave as good as they got, or better, to that soldier'shuge delight), the stout yeoman families into whose midst we went, andtheir opinion of the Prince. Of the last I have a good tale to tell. "Agood man and a kindly," so the man said; "he has given us safe horse, fatcow, and a quiet life. But yet the old was good too. The true race toreign is ever the anointed Prince."
"But then, did not Dietrich, the anointed Prince, harry you? And worse,let others plunder you? And that is not the fashion of Prince Karl,usurper though he be!" said the Prince.
"Nay," the honest man would reply, "usurper is he not--a God-sent boon toPlassenburg rather. We love him, would fight for him, all my six sons andI. Would we not, chickens?"
And the six sons rolled out a thunderous "Aye, fight--marry, thatwe would!" as they sat, plaiting willow-baskets and mending bowsabout the fire.
"But, alas! he is cursed with a mad wife, and, after all said and done,he is not of the ancient stock," said the ancient man, shaking his head.
And the Prince answered him as quickly, tapping his brow significantlywith his forefinger, "Are not all wives a little touched? Or are yonpassing fortunate in your part
of the country? Faith, we of the city willall come courting to the Tannenwald if you prove better off."
"We are even as our neighbors!" cried the yeoman, shrugging hisshoulders. "Maul, my troth, what sayest thou? Here is a brisk lad thatmiscalls thy clan."
The goodwife came forward, smiling, comely, and large ofwell-padded bone.
"Which?" said she, laconically.
The farmer pointed to the Prince. The matron took a good look at him.
"Well," she said, "he is the one that should know most about us. He hasbeen married once or twice, and hath gotten certain things burned intohim. As for this one," she went on, indicating Dessauer, "he may bedoctor of all the wisdoms, as ye say, but he has never compassed themystery of a woman. And this limber young spark with the quick eyes, heis a bachelor also, but ardently desires to be otherwise. I wot he has apretty lass waiting for him somewhere."
"How knew you that of me, goodwife ?" I cried, greatly astonished.
"Why, by the way you looked up when my daughter came dancing in. You werein your lost brown-study, and then, seeing a pretty lass that most areglad to rest their eyes upon, you looked away disappointed or careless."
"And how knew you that I was of the ancient guild of the bachelors?"asked Dessauer.
"Why, by the way that you looked at the pot on the fire, and sniffedup the stew, and asked how long the dinner would be! The bachelor ofyears is ever uneasy about his meals, having little else to be uneasyabout, and no wife, compact of all contrary whimsies, to teach him howto be patient."
"And how," cried the Prince, in his turn, "knew you that I had beenwedded once?"
"Or twice," said the woman, smiling. "Man, ye cackle it like a hen on therafters advertising her egg in the manger below. I knew it by the fashionye had of hanging up your hat and eke scraping your feet---not after yeentered, like these other good, careless gentlemen, but with your knife,outside the door. I see it by your air of one that has been at once underauthority and yet master of a house."
"Well done, good wife!" cried the Prince. "Were I indeed in authority Iwould make you either Prime-Minister or chief of my thief-catchers."
And so after that we went to bed.
The Red Axe Page 36