CHAPTER II - IN WHICH THE PRINCE PLAYS HAROUN-AL-RASCHID
THE night fell upon the Prince while he was threading green tracks
in the lower valleys of the wood; and though the stars came out
overhead and displayed the interminable order of the pine-tree
pyramids, regular and dark like cypresses, their light was of small
service to a traveller in such lonely paths, and from thenceforth he
rode at random. The austere face of nature, the uncertain issue of
his course, the open sky and the free air, delighted him like wine;
and the hoarse chafing of a river on his left sounded in his ears
agreeably.
It was past eight at night before his toil was rewarded and he
issued at last out of the forest on the firm white high-road. It
lay downhill before him, with a sweeping eastward trend, faintly
bright between the thickets; and Otto paused and gazed upon it. So
it ran, league after league, still joining others, to the farthest
ends of Europe, there skirting the sea-surge, here gleaming in the
lights of cities; and the innumerable army of tramps and travellers
moved upon it in all lands as by a common impulse, and were now in
all places drawing near to the inn door and the night's rest. The
pictures swarmed and vanished in his brain; a surge of temptation, a
beat of all his blood, went over him, to set spur to the mare and to
go on into the unknown for ever. And then it passed away; hunger
and fatigue, and that habit of middling actions which we call common
sense, resumed their empire; and in that changed mood his eye
lighted upon two bright windows on his left hand, between the road
and river.
He turned off by a by-road, and in a few minutes he was knocking
with his whip on the door of a large farmhouse, and a chorus of dogs
from the farmyard were making angry answer. A very tall, old,
white-headed man came, shading a candle, at the summons. He had
been of great strength in his time, and of a handsome countenance;
but now he was fallen away, his teeth were quite gone, and his voice
when he spoke was broken and falsetto.
'You will pardon me,' said Otto. 'I am a traveller and have
entirely lost my way.'
'Sir,' said the old man, in a very stately, shaky manner, 'you are
at the River Farm, and I am Killian Gottesheim, at your disposal.
We are here, sir, at about an equal distance from Mittwalden in
Grunewald and Brandenau in Gerolstein: six leagues to either, and
the road excellent; but there is not a wine bush, not a carter's
alehouse, anywhere between. You will have to accept my hospitality
for the night; rough hospitality, to which I make you freely
welcome; for, sir,' he added with a bow, 'it is God who sends the
guest.'
'Amen. And I most heartily thank you,' replied Otto, bowing in his
turn.
'Fritz,' said the old man, turning towards the interior, 'lead round
this gentleman's horse; and you, sir, condescend to enter.'
Otto entered a chamber occupying the greater part of the ground-
floor of the building. It had probably once been divided; for the
farther end was raised by a long step above the nearer, and the
blazing fire and the white supper-table seemed to stand upon a dais.
All around were dark, brass-mounted cabinets and cupboards; dark
shelves carrying ancient country crockery; guns and antlers and
broadside ballads on the wall; a tall old clock with roses on the
dial; and down in one corner the comfortable promise of a wine
barrel. It was homely, elegant, and quaint.
A powerful youth hurried out to attend on the grey mare; and when
Mr. Killian Gottesheim had presented him to his daughter Ottilia,
Otto followed to the stable as became, not perhaps the Prince, but
the good horseman. When he returned, a smoking omelette and some
slices of home-cured ham were waiting him; these were followed by a
ragout and a cheese; and it was not until his guest had entirely
satisfied his hunger, and the whole party drew about the fire over
the wine jug, that Killian Gottesheim's elaborate courtesy permitted
him to address a question to the Prince.
'You have perhaps ridden far, sir?' he inquired.
'I have, as you say, ridden far,' replied Otto; 'and, as you have
seen, I was prepared to do justice to your daughters cookery.'
'Possibly, sir, from the direction of Brandenau?' continued Killian.
'Precisely: and I should have slept to-night, had I not wandered, in
Mittwalden,' answered the Prince, weaving in a patch of truth,
according to the habit of all liars.
'Business leads you to Mittwalden?' was the next question.
'Mere curiosity,' said Otto. 'I have never yet visited the
principality of Grunewald.'
'A pleasant state, sir,' piped the old man, nodding, 'a very
pleasant state, and a fine race, both pines and people. We reckon
ourselves part Grunewalders here, lying so near the borders; and the
river there is all good Grunewald water, every drop of it. Yes,
sir, a fine state. A man of Grunewald now will swing me an axe over
his head that many a man of Gerolstein could hardly lift; and the
pines, why, deary me, there must be more pines in that little state,
sir, than people in this whole big world. 'Tis twenty years now
since I crossed the marshes, for we grow home-keepers in old age;
but I mind it as if it was yesterday. Up and down, the road keeps
right on from here to Mittwalden; and nothing all the way but the
good green pine-trees, big and little, and water-power! water-power
at every step, sir. We once sold a bit of forest, up there beside
the high-road; and the sight of minted money that we got for it has
set me ciphering ever since what all the pines in Grunewald would
amount to.'
'I suppose you see nothing of the Prince?' inquired Otto.
'No,' said the young man, speaking for the first time, 'nor want
to.'
'Why so? is he so much disliked?' asked Otto.
'Not what you might call disliked,' replied the old gentleman, 'but
despised, sir.'
'Indeed,' said the Prince, somewhat faintly.
'Yes, sir, despised,' nodded Killian, filling a long pipe, 'and, to
my way of thinking, justly despised. Here is a man with great
opportunities, and what does he do with them? He hunts, and he
dresses very prettily - which is a thing to be ashamed of in a man -
and he acts plays; and if he does aught else, the news of it has not
come here.'
'Yet these are all innocent,' said Otto. 'What would you have him
do - make war?'
'No, sir,' replied the old man. 'But here it is; I have been fifty
years upon this River Farm, and wrought in it, day in, day out; I
have ploughed and sowed and reaped, and risen early, and waked late;
and this is the upshot: that all these years it has supported me and
my family; and been the best friend that ever I had, set aside my
wife; and now, when my time comes, I leave it a better farm than
when I found it. So it is, if a man works hearty in the order of
nature, he gets bread and he receives comfort, and whatever he
touches breeds. And it humbly appears to me, if that Prince was to
labour on his throne, as I have laboured and wrought in my farm, he
would find both an increase and a blessing.'
'I believe with you, sir,' Otto said; 'and yet the parallel is
inexact. For the farmer's life is natural and simple; but the
prince's is both artificial and complicated. It is easy to do right
in the one, and exceedingly difficult not to do wrong in the other.
If your crop is blighted, you can take off your bonnet and say,
"God's will be done"; but if the prince meets with a reverse, he may
have to blame himself for the attempt. And perhaps, if all the
kings in Europe were to confine themselves to innocent amusement,
the subjects would be the better off.'
'Ay,' said the young man Fritz, 'you are in the right of it there.
That was a true word spoken. And I see you are like me, a good
patriot and an enemy to princes.'
Otto was somewhat abashed at this deduction, and he made haste to
change his ground. 'But,' said he, 'you surprise me by what you say
of this Prince Otto. I have heard him, I must own, more favourably
painted. I was told he was, in his heart, a good fellow, and the
enemy of no one but himself.'
'And so he is, sir,' said the girl, 'a very handsome, pleasant
prince; and we know some who would shed their blood for him.'
'O! Kuno!' said Fritz. 'An ignoramus!'
'Ay, Kuno, to be sure,' quavered the old farmer. 'Well, since this
gentleman is a stranger to these parts, and curious about the
Prince, I do believe that story might divert him. This Kuno, you
must know, sir, is one of the hunt servants, and a most ignorant,
intemperate man: a right Grunewalder, as we say in Gerolstein. We
know him well, in this house; for he has come as far as here after
his stray dogs; and I make all welcome, sir, without account of
state or nation. And, indeed, between Gerolstein and Grunewald the
peace has held so long that the roads stand open like my door; and a
man will make no more of the frontier than the very birds
themselves.'
'Ay,' said Otto, 'it has been a long peace - a peace of centuries.'
'Centuries, as you say,' returned Killian; 'the more the pity that
it should not be for ever. Well, sir, this Kuno was one day in
fault, and Otto, who has a quick temper, up with his whip and
thrashed him, they do say, soundly. Kuno took it as best he could,
but at last he broke out, and dared the Prince to throw his whip
away and wrestle like a man; for we are all great at wrestling in
these parts, and it's so that we generally settle our disputes.
Well, sir, the Prince did so; and, being a weakly creature, found
the tables turned; for the man whom he had just been thrashing like
a negro slave, lifted him with a back grip and threw him heels
overhead.'
'He broke his bridle-arm,' cried Fritz - 'and some say his nose.
Serve him right, say I! Man to man, which is the better at that?'
'And then?' asked Otto.
'O, then Kuno carried him home; and they were the best of friends
from that day forth. I don't say it's a discreditable story, you
observe,' continued Mr. Gottesheim; 'but it's droll, and that's the
fact. A man should think before he strikes; for, as my nephew says,
man to man was the old valuation.'
'Now, if you were to ask me,' said Otto, 'I should perhaps surprise
you. I think it was the Prince that conquered.'
'And, sir, you would be right,' replied Killian seriously. 'In the
eyes of God, I do not question but you would be right; but men, sir,
look at these things differently, and they laugh.'
'They made a song of it,' observed Fritz. 'How does it go? Ta-tum-
ta-ra . . .'
'Well,' interrupted Otto, who had no great anxiety to hear the song,
'the Prince is young; he may yet mend.'
'Not so young, by your leave,' cried Fritz. 'A man of forty.'
'Thirty-six,' corrected Mr. Gottesheim.
'O,' cried Ottilia, in obvious disillusion, 'a man of middle age!
And they said he was so handsome when he was young!'
'And bald, too,' added Fritz.
Otto passed his hand among his locks. At that moment he was far
from happy, and even the tedious evenings at Mittwalden Palace began
to smile upon him by comparison.
'O, six-and-thirty!' he protested. 'A man is not yet old at six-
and-thirty. I am that age myself.'
'I should have taken you for more, sir,' piped the old farmer. 'But
if that be so, you are of an age with Master Ottekin, as people call
him; and, I would wager a crown, have done more service in your
time. Though it seems young by comparison with men of a great age
like me, yet it's some way through life for all that; and the mere
fools and fiddlers are beginning to grow weary and to look old.
Yes, sir, by six-and-thirty, if a man be a follower of God's laws,
he should have made himself a home and a good name to live by; he
should have got a wife and a blessing on his marriage; and his
works, as the Word says, should begin to follow him.'
'Ah, well, the Prince is married,' cried Fritz, with a coarse burst
of laughter.
'That seems to entertain you, sir,' said Otto.
'Ay,' said the young boor. 'Did you not know that? I thought all
Europe knew it!' And he added a pantomime of a nature to explain
his accusation to the dullest.
'Ah, sir,' said Mr. Gottesheim, 'it is very plain that you are not
from hereabouts! But the truth is, that the whole princely family
and Court are rips and rascals, not one to mend another. They live,
sir, in idleness and - what most commonly follows it - corruption.
The Princess has a lover - a Baron, as he calls himself, from East
Prussia; and the Prince is so little of a man, sir, that he holds
the candle. Nor is that the worst of it, for this foreigner and his
paramour are suffered to transact the State affairs, while the
Prince takes the salary and leaves all things to go to wrack. There
will follow upon this some manifest judgment which, though I am old,
I may survive to see.'
'Good man, you are in the wrong about Gondremark,' said Fritz,
showing a greatly increased animation; 'but for all the rest, you
speak the God's truth like a good patriot. As for the Prince, if he
would take and strangle his wife, I would forgive him yet.'
'Nay, Fritz,' said the old man, 'that would be to add iniquity to
evil. For you perceive, sir,' he continued, once more addressing
himself to the unfortunate Prince, 'this Otto has himself to thank
for these disorders. He has his young wife and his principality,
and he has sworn to cherish both.'
'Sworn at the altar!' echoed Fritz. 'But put your faith in
princes!'
'Well, sir, he leaves them both to an adventurer from East Prussia,'
pursued the farmer: 'leaves the girl to be seduced and to go on from
bad to worse, till her name's become a tap-room by-word, and she not
yet twenty; leaves the country to be overtaxed, and bullied with
armaments, and jockied into war - '
'War!' cried Otto.
'So they say, sir; those that watch their ongoings, say to war,'
asseverated Killian. 'Well, sir, that is very sad; it is a sad
thing for this poor, wicked girl to go down to hell with people's
curses; it's a sad thing for a tight little happy country to be
misconducted; but whoever may complain, I humbly conceive, sir, that
this Otto cannot. What he has worked for, that he has got; and may
God have pity on his soul, for a great and a silly sinner's!'
'He has broke his oath; then he is a perjurer. He takes the money
and leaves the work; why, then plainly he's a thief. A cuckold he
was before, and a fool by birth. Better me that!' cried Fritz, and
snapped his fingers.
'And now, sir, you will see a little,' continued the farmer, 'why we
think so poorly of this Prince Otto. There's such a thing as a man
being pious and honest in the private way; and there is such a
thing, sir, as a public virtue; but when a man has neither, the Lord
lighten him! Even this Gondremark, that Fritz here thinks so much
of - '
'Ay,' interrupted Fritz, 'Gondremark's the man for me. I would we
had his like in Gerolstein.'
'He is a bad man,' said the old farmer, shaking his head; 'and there
was never good begun by the breach of God's commandments. But so
far I will go with you; he is a man that works for what he has.'
'I tell you he's the hope of Grunewald,' cried Fritz. 'He doesn't
suit some of your high-and-dry, old, ancient ideas; but he's a
downright modern man - a man of the new lights and the progress of
the age. He does some things wrong; so they all do; but he has the
people's interests next his heart; and you mark me - you, sir, who
are a Liberal, and the enemy of all their governments, you please to
mark my words - the day will come in Grunewald, when they take out
that yellow-headed skulk of a Prince and that dough-faced Messalina
of a Princess, march 'em back foremost over the borders, and
proclaim the Baron Gondremark first President. I've heard them say
it in a speech. I was at a meeting once at Brandenau, and the
Mittwalden delegates spoke up for fifteen thousand. Fifteen
thousand, all brigaded, and each man with a medal round his neck to
rally by. That's all Gondremark.'
'Ay, sir, you see what it leads to; wild talk to-day, and wilder
doings to-morrow,' said the old man. 'For there is one thing
certain: that this Gondremark has one foot in the Court backstairs,
and the other in the Masons' lodges. He gives himself out, sir, for
what nowadays they call a patriot: a man from East Prussia!'
'Give himself out!' cried Fritz. 'He is! He is to lay by his title
as soon as the Republic is declared; I heard it in a speech.'
'Lay by Baron to take up President?' returned Killian. 'King Log,
King Stork. But you'll live longer than I, and you will see the
fruits of it.'
'Father,' whispered Ottilia, pulling at the speaker's coat, 'surely
the gentleman is ill.'
'I beg your pardon,' cried the farmer, rewaking to hospitable
thoughts; 'can I offer you anything?'
'I thank you. I am very weary,' answered Otto. 'I have presumed
upon my strength. If you would show me to a bed, I should be
grateful.'
'Ottilia, a candle!' said the old man. 'Indeed, sir, you look
paley. A little cordial water? No? Then follow me, I beseech you,
and I will bring you to the stranger's bed. You are not the first
by many who has slept well below my roof,' continued the old
gentleman, mounting the stairs before his guest; 'for good food,
honest wine, a grateful conscience, and a little pleasant chat
before a man retires, are worth all the possets and apothecary's
drugs. See, sir,' and here he opened a door and ushered Otto into a
little white-washed sleeping-room, 'here you are in port. It is
small, but it is airy, and the sheets are clean and kept in
lavender. The window, too, looks out above the river, and there's
no music like a little river's. It plays the same tune (and that's
the favourite) over and over again, and yet does not weary of it
like men fiddlers. It takes the mind out of doors: and though we
should be grateful for good houses, there is, after all, no house
like God's out-of-doors. And lastly, sir, it quiets a man down like
saying his prayers. So here, sir, I take my kind leave of you until
to-morrow; and it is my prayerful wish that you may slumber like a
prince.'
And the old man, with the twentieth courteous inclination, left his
guest alone.
