Arthur O'Leary Part 52

"Eat it!--no--how the devil should I?"

"I thought not," responded the other, submissively, "I thought not, even a shark will get gorged at last!"

"Eh, what's that you say?" replied the Quarter-master, roughly, "you don't expect a man to dine on figs and walnuts, or dried prunes and olives, do you?"

"Dine!" shouted the host, "and have you not dined?"

"No, mille bombes, that I haven't--as you shall soon see!"

"Aile Gute Geisten loben den Hernn!" said the host, blessing himself, "An thou be'st the Sata.n.u.s, I charge thee keep away!"

A shout of laughter from without, prevented the Quartermaster's reply to this exorcism being heard; while the trumpet sounded suddenly for "boot and saddle."

With a bottle of wine stuffed in each pocket, the Quartermaster rose from table, and hurried away to join his companions, who had received sudden orders to push forward towards Ca.s.sel, and as the bewildered host stood at his window, while the regiment filed past, each officer saluted him politely, as they cried out in turn, "Adieu, Monsieur!

my compliments to the braten"--"the turkey was delicious"--"the salmi perfect"--"the capon glorious"--"the venison a chef-d'ouvre!" down to the fat Quarter-master, who, as he raised a flask to his lips, and shook his head reproachfully, said, "Ah! you old screw, nothing better than nuts and raisins to give a hungry man for his dinner!" And so they disappeared from the Platz, leaving mine host in a maze of doubt and bewilderment, which it took many a day and night's meditation to solve to his own conviction.

Though I cannot promise myself that my reader will enjoy this story as much as I did, I could almost vouch for his doing so, if he heard it from the host of the "Reuten Krantz" himself, told with the staid gravity of German manner, and all the impressive seriousness of one who saw in the whole adventure, nothing ludicrous whatever, but only a most unfair trick, that deserved the stocks, or the pillory.

He was indeed a character in his way, his whole life had only room for three or four incidents, about, and around which, his thoughts revolved, as on an axis, and whose impression was too vivid to admit of any occurrence usurping their place. When a boy, he had been in the habit of acting as guide to the "Wartburg" to his father's guests--for they were a generation of innkeepers, time out of mind, and even yet, he spoke of those days with transport.

It was amusing, too, to hear him talk of Luther, as familiarly as though he had known him personally, mentioning little anecdotes of his career, and repeating his opinions as if they were things of yesterday; but indeed his mind had little more perspective than a Chinese tea-tray--everything stood beside its neighbour, without shadow, or relief of any kind, and to hear him talk, you would say that Melancthon and Marshal Macdonald might have been personal friends, and Martin Luther and Ney pa.s.sed an evening in the blue salon of the Reuten Krantz.

As for Eisenach and all about it, he knew as little as though it were a city of Egypt. He _hoped_ there was a public library now--he _knew_ there was in his father's time, but the French used to make cartridges with the books in many towns they pa.s.sed through--perhaps they had done the same here. These confounded French--they seemed some way to fill every avenue of his brain--there was no inlet of his senses, without a French sentinel on guard over it.

Now,--for my sins, I suppose,--it so chanced that I was laid up here for several weeks, with a return of an old rheumatism I had contracted in one of my wanderings. Books, they brought me, but alas! the only volumes a German circulating library ever contains are translations of the very worst French and English works. The weather was, for the most part, rainy and broken, and even when my strength permitted me to venture into the garden, I generally got soundly drenched before I reached the house again. What insupportable ennui is that which inhabits the inn of a little remote town, where come few travellers, and no news! What a fearful blank in existence is such a place. Just think of sitting in the little silent and sanded parlour, with its six hard chairs, and one straight old sofa, upholstered with flock and fleas; counting over the four prints in black wood frames, upon the walls. Scripture subjects, where Judith, with a quilted petticoat and sabots, cuts the head off a Holofernes in buckskins and top boots, and catches the blood in a soup tureen; an Abraham with a horse pistol, is threatening a little Isaac in jacket and trowsers, with a most villanous expression about the corners of his eyes; and the old looking-gla.s.s, cracked in the middle, and representing your face, in two hemispheres, with a nose and one eye to each--the whole tinged with a verd antique colouring that makes you look like a man in bronze.

Outside the door, but near enough for every purpose of annoyance, stands a great hulking old clock, that ticks away incessantly--true type of time that pa.s.ses on its road whether you be sick or sorry, merry or mournful. With what a burr the old fellow announces that he is going to strike--it is like the asthmatic wheezing of some invalid, making an exertion beyond his strength, and then, the heavy plod of sabots, back and forward through the little hall, into the Kitchen, and out again to the stable yard; with the shrill yell of some drabbled wench, screaming for "Johann" or "Iacob;" and all the little plat.i.tudes of the "menage"

that reach you, seasoned from time to time by the coa.r.s.e laughter of the boors, or the squabbling sounds that issue streetwards, where some vender of "schnaps" or "kirch-wa.s.ser" holds his tap.

What a dreary sensation comes over one, to think of the people who pa.s.s their lives in such a place, with its poor, little, miserable, interests and occupations, and how one shudders at the bare idea of sinking down to the level of such a stagnant pool--knowing the small notorieties, and talking like them; and yet, with all this holy horror, how rapidly, and insensibly, is such a change induced. Every day rubs off some former prejudice, and induces some new habit, and, as the eye of the prisoner, in his darksome dungeon, learns to distinguish each object clear, as if in noon-day; so will the mind accommodate itself to the moral gloom of such a cell as this, ay, and take a vivid interest in each slight event that goes on there, as though he were to the "manner born."

In a fortnight, or even less, I lay awake, conjecturing why the urchin who brought the mail from Gotha, had not arrived;--before three weeks I partic.i.p.ated in the shock of the town, at the conduct of the Frow von b.u.t.terwick, who raised the price of Schenkin or Schweinfleisch, I forget which--by some decimal of a farthing; and fully entered into the distressed feelings of the inhabitants, who foretold a European war, from the fact that a Prussian corporal with a pack on his shoulders, was seen pa.s.sing through the town, that morning, before day-break.

When I came to think over these things, I got into a grievous state of alarm. "Another week, Arthur," said I, "and thou art done for: Eisenach may claim thee as its own; and the Grand Duke of------, Heaven forgive me! but I forget the Potentate of the realm,--he may summon thee to his counsels, as the Hoch Wohlgeborner und Gelehrter, Herr von O'Leary; and thou may'st be found here some half century hence, with a pipe in thy mouth, and thy hands in thy side pockets, discoursing fat consonants, like any Saxon of them all. Run for it, man, run for it; away, with half a leg, if need be; out of the kingdom with all haste; and if it be not larger than its neighbours, a hop, step, and jump, ought to suffice for it."

Will any one tell me--I'll wager they cannot--why it is, that if you pa.s.s a week or a month, in any out-of-the-way place, and either from sulk or sickness, lead a solitary kind of humdrum life; that when you are about to take your leave, you find half the family in tears. Every man, woman, and child, thinks it inc.u.mbent on them to sport a mourning face. The host wipes his eye with the corner of the bill; the waiter blows his nose in the napkin; the chambermaid holds up her ap.r.o.n; and boots, with a side wipe of his blacking hand, leaves his countenance in a very fit state for the application of the polis.h.i.+ng brush. As for yourself, the position is awkward beyond endurance.

That instant you felt sick of the whole household, from the cellar to the garret. You had perilled your soul in d.a.m.ning them all in turn; and now it comes out, that you are the "enfant cheri" of the establishment.

What a base, blackhearted fellow you must be all the time; in short, you feel it; otherwise, why is your finger exploring so low in the recesses of your purse. Confound it, you have been very harsh and hasty with the good people, and they did their best after all.

Take up your abode at Mivart's or the Clarendon; occupy for the six months of winter, the suite of apartments at Crillons or Meurice; engage the whole of the "Schwann" at Vienna; aye, or even the Grand Monarque, at Aix; and I'll wager my head, you go forth at the end of it, without causing a sigh in the whole household. Don't flatter yourself that Mivart will stand blubbering over the bill, or Meurice be half choked with his sobs. The Schwann doesn't care a feather of his wing, and as for the Grand Monarque, you might as well expect his prototype would rise from the grave to embrace you, A civil grin, that half implies, "You've been well plucked here," is the extent of parting emotion, and a tear couldn't be had for the price of Tokay.

Well, I bid adieu to the Reuten Krantz, in a different sort of mood from what I expected. I shook the old "Rue Branch" himself heartily by the hand, and having distributed a circle of gratuities--for the sum total of which I should have probably been maltreated by a London waiter--I took my staff, and sallied forth towards Weimar, accompanied by a shower of prayers and kind wishes, that, whether sincere or not, made me feel happier the whole day after.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII. "ERFURT"

I narrowly escaped being sent to the guardhouse for the night, as I approached Erfurt--for seeing that it was near nine o'clock when the gates of the fortress are closed, I quickened my pace to a trot, not aware of the "reglement" which forbids any one to pa.s.s rapidly over the drawbridges of a fortification. Now, though the rule be an admirable one when applied to those heavy diligences which, with three tons of pa.s.sengers, and six of luggage, come lumbering along the road, and might well be supposed to shake the foundations of any breast-work or barbican; yet, that any man of mortal mould, any mere creature of the biped cla.s.s--even with two s.h.i.+rts and a night-cap in his pack--could do this, is more than I can conceive; and so it was, I ran, and if I did, a soldier ran after me, three more followed him, and a corporal brought up the rear, and in fact, so imposing was the whole scene, that any unprejudiced spectator, not overversed in military tactics, might have imagined that I was about to storm Erfurt, and had stolen a march upon the garrison. After all, the whole thing was pretty much like what Murat did at Vienna, and perhaps it was that which alarmed them.

I saw I had committed a fault, but what it was I couldn't even guess, and as they all spoke together, and such precious bad German, too, (did you ever know a foreigner not complain of the abominable faults people commit in speaking their own language?) that though I cried "peccavi,"

I remembered myself, and did not volunteer any confessions of iniquity, before I heard the special indictment, and it seemed I had very little chance of doing that, such was the confusion and uproar.

Now, there are two benevolent inst.i.tutions in all law, and according to these, a man may plead, either "in forma pauperis," or "in forma stultus." I took the latter plea, and came off triumphant--my sentence was recorded as a "Dummer Englander," and I went my way, rejoicing.

Well, "I wish them luck of it!" as we say in Ireland, who have a fancy for taking fortified towns. Here was I, inside of one, the gates closed, locked, and barred behind me, a wall of thirty feet high, and a ditch of fifty feet deep, to keep me in, and hang me if I could penetrate into the interior. I suppose I was in what is called a parallel, and I walked along, turning into a hundred little, crooked corners, and zig-zag contrivances, where an embrasure, and a cannon in it, were sure to be found. But as nothing are so like each other as stone walls, and as I never, for the life of me, could know one seventy-four pounder from another, I wandered about, very sadly puzzled to ascertain if I had not been perambulating the same little s.p.a.ce of ground for an hour and a half. Egad! thought I, if there were no better engineers in the world than me, they might leave the gates wide open, and let the guard go to bed. Hollo, here's some one coming along, that's fortunate, at last--and just then, a man wrapped in a loose cloak, German fas.h.i.+on, pa.s.sed close beside me.

"May I ask, mein Herr, which is the direction of the town, and where I can find an inn?" said I, taking off my hat, most punctiliously, for although it was almost pitch-dark, that courtesy cannot ever be omitted, and I have heard of a German, who never talked to himself, without uncovering.

"Straight forward, and then to your left, by the angle of the citadel--you can take a short cut through the covered way----"

"Heaven forbid!" interrupted I; "where all is fair and open, my chance is bad enough--there is no need of a concealed pa.s.sage, to confuse me."

"Come with me, then," said he, laughing, "I perceive you are a foreigner--this is somewhat longer, but I'll see you safe to the 'Kaiser,' where you'll find yourself very comfortable."

My guide was an officer of the garrison, and seemed considerably flattered by the testimony I bore to the impregnability of the fortress; describing as we went along, for my better instruction, the various remarkable features of the place. Lord, how weary I was of casemates and embrasures, of bomb-proofs and culverins, half-moons and platforms; and as I continued, from politeness to express my surprise and wonderment, he took the more pains to expound those hidden treasures; and I verily believe he took me a mile out of my way, to point out the place, in the dark, where a large gun lay, that took a charge of one hundred and seventy livres weight. I was now fairly done up; and having sworn solemnly that the French army dare not show their noses this side of the Rhine, so long as a Corporal's guard remained at Erfurt, I begged hard to have a peep at the "Kaiser."

"Won't you see the Rothen Stein?" said he.

"To-morrow,--if I survive," said I, dropping my voice for the last words.

"Nor the Wunder Brucke?----"

"With G.o.d's blessing, to-morrow, I'll visit them all; I came for the purpose." Heaven pardon the lie, I was almost fainting.

"Be it so, then," said he, "We must go back again now. We have come a good distance out of our road."

With a heavy groan, I turned back; and if I did not curse Vauban and Carnot, it was because I am a good Christian, and of a most forgiving temper.

"Here we are now, this is the Kaiser," said he, as after half an hour's sharp walking, we stood within a huge archway, dimly lighted by a great old-fas.h.i.+oned lantern.

"You stop here some days, I think you said?"

"Yes, for a fortnight; or a week, at least."

"Well, if you'll permit me, I'll have great pleasure in conducting you through the fortress, to-morrow and next day. You can't see it all under two days, and even with that, you'll have to omit the a.r.s.enals and the shot batteries."

I expressed my most grateful acknowledgments, with an inward vow, that if I took refuge in the big mortar, I'd not be caught by my friend the next morning.

"Good night, then," said he, with a polite bow. "Bis Morgen."--

"Bis Morgen," repeated I, and entered the Kaiser.

The "Romischer Kaiser" was a great place once; but now, alas! its "Diana is fallen!" Time was, when two Emperors slept beneath its roof, and the Amba.s.sadors of Kings a.s.sembled within its walls. It was here Napoleon exercised that wonderful spell of enchantment he possessed above all other men, and so captivated the mind of the Emperor Alexander, that not even all the subsequent invasion of his empire, nor the disasters of Moscow, could eradicate the impression. The Czar alone, of his enemies, would have made terms with him in 1814; and when no other voice was raised in his favour, Alexander's was heard, commemorating their ancient friends.h.i.+p, and recalling the time when they had been like brothers.

Erfurt was the scene of their first friends.h.i.+p. Many now living, have seen Napoleon, with his arm linked within Alexander's, as they walked along; and marked the spell-bound attention of the Czar, as he listened to the burning words, and rapid eloquence of Buonaparte, who, with a policy all his own, devoted himself completely to the young Emperor, and resolved on winning him over. They were never separate on horseback or on foot. They dined, and went to the theatre together each evening; and the flattery of this preference, so ostentatiously paraded by Napoleon, had its full effect on the ardent imagination, and chivalrous heart of the youthful Czar.

Fetes, reviews, gala parties, and concerts, followed each other in quick succession. The corps of the "Francais" was brought expressly from Paris; the ballet of the Opera also came, and nothing was omitted which could amuse the hours of Alexander, and testify the desire of his host--for such Napoleon was--to entertain him with honour. Little, then, did Napoleon dream, that the frank-hearted youth, who hung on every word he spoke, would one day prove the most obstinate of all his enemies; nor was it for many a day after, that he uttered, in the bitter venom of disappointment, when the rugged energy of the Muscovite showed an indomitable front to the strength of his armies, and was deaf to his attempted negociations, "Sc.r.a.pe the Russian, and you'll come down on the Tartar."