Vivian Grey Part 47

The smoke did issue from a chimney, but the door of the cottage was shut.

"Hilloa, within!" shouted Essper; "who shuts the sun out on a September morning?"

The door was at length slowly opened, and a most ill-favoured and inhospitable-looking dame demanded, in a sullen voice, "What's your will?"

"You pretty creature!" said Essper, who was still a little tipsy.

The door would have been shut in his face had not he darted into the house before the woman was aware.

"Truly, a neat and pleasant dwelling! and you would have no objection, I guess, to give a handsome young gentleman some little sop of something just to remind him, you know, that it isn't dinner-time."

"We give no sops here: what do you take us for? and so, my handsome young gentleman, be off, or I shall call the good man."

"Why, I am not the handsome young gentleman; that is my master! who, if he were not half-starved to death, would fall in love with you at first sight."

"Your master; is he in the carriage?"

"Carriage! no; on horseback."

"Travellers?"

"To be sure, dear dame; travellers true."

"Travellers true, without luggage, and at this time of morn! Methinks, by your looks, queer fellows, that you are travellers whom it may be wise for an honest woman not to meet."

"What! some people have an objection, then, to a forty kreuzer piece on a sunny morning?"

So saying, Essper, in a careless manner, tossed a broad piece in the air, and made it ring on a fellow coin, as he caught it in the palm of his hand when it descended.

"Is that your master?" asked the woman.

"Ay, is it! and the prettiest piece of flesh I have seen this month, except yourself."

"Well! if the gentleman likes bread he can sit down here," said the woman, pointing to a bench, and throwing a sour black loaf upon the table.

"Now, sir!" said Essper, wiping the bench with great care, "lie you here and rest yourself. I have known a marshal sleep upon a harder sofa.

Breakfast will be ready immediately."

"If you cannot eat what you have, you may ride where you can find better cheer."

"What is bread for a traveller's breakfast? But I daresay my lord will be contented; young men are so easily pleased when there is a pretty girl in the case; you know that, you wench I you do, you little hussy; you are taking advantage of it."

Something like a smile lit up the face of the sullen woman when she said. "There may be an egg in the house, but I don't know."

"But you will soon, you dear creature! What a pretty foot!" bawled Essper after her, as she left the room. "Now confound this hag; if there be not meat about this house may I keep my mouth shut at our next dinner. What's that in the corner? a boar's tusk! Ay, ay! a huntsman's cottage; and when lived a huntsman on black bread before! Oh! bless your bright eyes for these eggs, and this basin of new milk."

So saying, Essper took them out of her hand and placed them before Vivian.

"I was saying to myself, my pretty girl, when you were out of the room, 'Essper George, good cheer, say thy prayers, and never despair; come what may, you will fall among friends at last, and how do you know that your dream mayn't come true after all? Didn't you dream that you breakfasted in the month of September with a genteel young woman with gold ear-rings? and is not she standing before you now? and did not she do everything in the world to make you comfortable? Did not she give you milk and eggs, and when you complained that you and meat had been but slack friends of late, did not she open her own closet, and give you as fine a piece of hunting beef as was ever set before a Jagd Junker?'"

"I think you will turn me into an innkeeper's wife at last," said the dame, her stern features relaxing into a smile; and while she spoke she advanced to the great closet, Essper George following her, walking on his toes, lolling out his enormous tongue, and stroking his mock paunch.

As she opened it he jumped upon a chair and had examined every shelf in less time than a pistol could flush. "White bread! fit for a countess; salt! worthy of Poland; boar's head!! no better at Troyes; and hunting beef!!! my dream is true!" and he bore in triumph to Vivian, who was nearly asleep, the ample round of salt and pickled beef well stuffed with all kinds of savoury herbs.

It was nearly an hour before noon ere the travellers had remounted.

Their road again entered the forest which they had been skirting for the last two days. The huntsmen were abroad; and the fine weather, his good meal and seasonable rest, and the inspiriting sounds of the bugle made Vivian feel recovered from his late fatigues.

"That must be a true-hearted huntsman, Essper, by the sound of his bugle. I never heard one played with more spirit. Hark! how fine it dies away hi the wood; fainter and fainter, yet how clear! It must be now half a mile distant."

"I hear nothing so wonderful," said Essper, putting the two middle fingers of his right hand before his mouth and sounding a note so clear and beautiful, so exactly imitative of the fall which Vivian had noticed and admired, that for a moment he imagined that the huntsman was at his elbow.

"Thou art a cunning knave! do it again." This time Essper made the very wood echo. In a few minutes a horseman galloped up; he was as spruce a cavalier as ever p.r.i.c.ked gay steed on the pliant gra.s.s. He was dressed in a green military uniform, and a gilt bugle hung by his side; his spear told them that he was hunting the wild boar. When he saw Vivian and Essper he suddenly pulled up his horse and seemed astonished.

"I thought that his Highness had been here," said the huntsman.

"No one has pa.s.sed us, sir," said Vivian.

"I could have sworn that his bugle sounded from this very spot," said the huntsman. "My ear seldom deceives me."

"We heard a bugle to the right, sir," said Essper.

"Thanks, my friend," and the huntsman was about to gallop off.

"May I ask the name of his Highness?" said Vivian. "We are strangers in this country."

"That may certainly account for your ignorance," said the huntsman; "but no one who lives in this land can be unacquainted with his Serene Highness the Prince of Little Lilliput, my ill.u.s.trious master. I have the honour," continued the huntsman, "of being Jagd Junker, or Gentilhomme de la Cha.s.se to his Serene Highness."

"'Tis an office of great dignity," said Vivian, "and one that I have no doubt you admirably perform; I will not stop you, sir, to admire your horse."

The huntsman bowed courteously and galloped off.

"You see, sir," said Essper George, "that my bugle has deceived even the Jagd Junker, or Gentilhomme de la Cha.s.se of his Serene Highness the Prince of Little Lilliput himself;" so saying, Essper again sounded his instrument.

"A joke may be carried too far, my good fellow," said Vivian. "A true huntsman like myself must not spoil a brother's sport, so silence your bugle."

Now again galloped up the Jagd Junker, or Gentilhomme de la Cha.s.se of his Serene Highness the Prince of Little Lilliput. He pulled up his horse again apparently as much astounded as ever.

"I thought that his Highness had been here." said the huntsman.

"No one has pa.s.sed us," said Vivian.

"We heard a bugle to the right," said Essper George.

"I am afraid his Serene Highness must be in distress. The whole suite are off the scent. It must have been his bugle, for the regulations of this forest are so strict that no one dare sound a blast but his Serene Highness." Away galloped the huntsman.

"Next time I must give you up, Essper," said Vivian.

"One more blast, good master!" begged Essper, in a supplicating voice.

"This time to the left; the confusion will be then complete."