University of Virginia Library

3. CHAP. III.

The fate and history of Yvain, the outlaw, became,
on the following day, the talk of Vienna.
He had been long known as the daring horse-stealer
of Hungary; and, though it was not doubted that
his sway was exercised over plunderers of every
description, even pirates upon the high seas, his own
courage and address were principally applied to robbery
of the well-guarded steeds of the emperor and
his nobles. It was said that there was not a horse
in the dominions of Austria whose qualities and
breeding were not known to him, nor one he cared
to have which was not in his concealed stables in
the forest. The most incredible stories were told
of his horsemanship. He would so disguise the
animal on which he rode, either by forcing him into
new paces or by other arts only known to himself,
that he would make the tour of the Glacis on the
emperor's best horse, newly stolen, unsuspected
even by the royal grooms. The roadsters of his
own troop were the best steeds bred on the banks
of the Danube; but, though always in the highest
condition, they would never have been suspected to
be worth a florin till put upon their mettle. The

extraordinary escapes of his band from the vigilant
and well-mounted gens-d'armes were thus accounted
for; and, in most of the villages in Austria, the people,
on some market-day or other, had seen a body
of apparently ill-mounted peasants suddenly start
off with the speed of lightning at the appearance of
gens-d'armes, and, flying over fence and wall, draw
a straight course for the mountains, distancing their
pursuers with the ease of swallows on the wing.

After the death of Yvain in the garden, I had
been forced with Percie into a carriage, standing in
the court, and accompanied by a guard, driven to
my hotel, where I was given to understand that I was
to remain under arrest till further orders. A sentinel
at the door forbade all ingress or egress except
to the people of the house: a circumstance which
was only distressing to me, as it precluded my inquiries
after the Countess Iminild, of whom common
rumour, the servants informed me, made not the
slightest mention.

Four days after this, on the relief of the guard at
noon, a subaltern entered my room and informed
me that I was at liberty. I instantly made preparations
to go out, and was drawing on my boots when
Percie, who had not yet recovered from the shock
of his arrest, entered in some alarm, and informed
me that one of the royal grooms was in the court
with a letter, which he would deliver only into my

own hands. He had orders beside, he said, not to
leave his saddle. Wondering what new leaf of my
destiny was to turn over, I went below and received
a letter, with apparently the imperial seal, from a
well-dressed groom in the livery of the emperor's
brother, the king of Hungary. He was mounted on
a compact, yet fine-limbed horse, and both horse
and rider were as still as if cut in marble.

I returned to my room and broke the seal. It
was a letter from Iminild, and the bold bearer was
an outlaw disguised! She had heard that I was to
be released that morning, and desired me to ride out
on the road to Gratz. In a postscript she begged I
would request Monsieur Percie to accompany me.

I sent for horses, and, wishing to be left to my
own thoughts, ordered Percie to fall behind, and
rode slowly out of the southern gate. If the Countess
Iminild were safe, I had enough of the adventure
for my taste. My oath bound me to protect
this wild an unsexed woman, but farther intercourse
with a band of outlaws, or farther peril of my head
for no reason that either a court of gallantry or of justice
would recognize, was beyond my usual programme
of pleasant events. The road was a gentle
ascent, and with the bridle on the neck of my
hack I paced thoughfully on, till, at a slight turn, we
stood at a fair height above Vienna.

“It is a beautiful city, sir,” said Percie, riding up.

“How the deuce could she have escaped?” said
I, thinking aloud.

“Has she escaped, sir? Ah, thank heaven!” exclaimed
the passionate boy, the tears rushing to his
eyes.

“Why, Percie!” I said with a tone of surprise
which called a blush into face, “have you really
found leisure to fall in love amid all this imbroglio?”

“I beg pardon, my dear master!” he replied in a
confused voice, “I scarce know what it is to fall in
love; but I would die for Miladi Iminild.”

“Not at all an impossible sequel, my poor boy!
But wheel about and touch your hat, for here comes
some one of the royal family!”

A horseman was approaching at an easy canter,
over the broad and unfenced plain of table-land
which overlooks Vienna on the south, attended by
six mounted servants in the white kerseymere frocks,
braided with the two-headed black eagle, which
distinguish the members of the imperial household.

The carriages on the road stopped while he passed,
the foot-passengers touched their caps, and, as he
came near, I perceived that he was slight and young,
but rode with a confidence and a grace not often
attained. His horse had the subdued, half-fiery
action of an Arab, and Percie nearly dropped from
his saddle when the young horseman suddenly
drove in his spurs, and with almost a single vault
stood motionless before us.

“Monsieur!”

“Madame la Contesse!”

I was uncertain how to receive her, and took refuge
in civility. Whether she would be overwhelmed
with the recollection of Yvain's death, or had
put away the thought altogether with her masculine
firmness, was a dilemma for which the eccentric contradictions
of her character left me no probable solution.
Motioning with her hand after saluting me,
two of the party rode back and forward in different
directions, as if patrolling; and giving a look
between a tear and a smile at Percie, she placed
her hand in mine, and shook off her sadness with a
strong effort.

“You did not expect so large a suite with your
protegée,” she said, rather gaily, after a moment.

“Do I understand that you come now to put
yourself under my protection!” I asked in reply.

“Soon, but not now, nor here. I have a hundred
men at the foot of Mount Semering, whose future
fate, in some important respects, none can decide
but myself. Yvain was always prepared for this,
and everything is en train. I come now but to appoint
a place of meeting. Quick! my patrole
comes in, and some one approaches whom we must
fly. Can you await me at Gratz?”

“I can and will!”

She put her slight hand to my lips, waved a kiss

at Percie, and away with the speed of wind, flew her
swift Arab over the plain, followed by the six horsemen,
every one of whom seemed part of the animal
that carried him—he rode so admirably.

The slight figure of Iminild in the close fitting
dress of a Hungarian page, her jacket open and her
beautiful limbs perfectly defined, silver fringes at
her ankles and waist, and a row of silver buttons
gallonné down to the instep, her bright, flashing eyes,
her short curls escaping from her cap and tangled
over her left temple, with the gold tassel, dirk and
pistol at her belt and spurs upon her heels—it was
an apparition I had scarce time to realize, but it seemed
painted on my eyes. The cloud of dust which
followed their rapid flight faded away as I watched
it, but I saw her still.

“Shall I ride back and order post-horses, sir!”
asked Percie standing up in his stirrups.

“No; but you may order dinner at six. And
Percie,!” he was riding away with a gloomy air;
“you may go to the police and get our passports
for Venice.”

“By the way of Gratz, sir!”

“Yes, simpleton!”

There is a difference between sixteen and twenty-six,
I thought to myself, as the handsome boy
flogged his horse into a gallop. The time is
gone when I could love without reason. Yet I

remember when a feather, stuck jauntily into a bonnet,
would have made any woman a princess; and
in those days heaven help us! I should have loved
this woman more for her galliardize than ten times
a prettier one with all the virtues of Dorcas. For
which of my sins am I made guardian to a robber's
wife, I wonder!

The heavy German postillions, with their cocked
hats and yellow coats, got us over the ground after
a manner, and toward the sunset of a summer's
evening the tall castle of Gratz, perched on a
pinnacle of rock in the centre of a vast plain, stood
up boldly against the reddening sky. The rich
fields of Styria were ripening to an early harvest,
the people sat at their doors with the look of household
happiness for which the inhabitants of these
“despotic countries” are so remarkable; and now
and then on the road the rattling of steel scabbards
drew my attention from a book or a reverie, and the
mounted troops, so perpetually seen on the broad
roads of Austria, lingered slowly past with their
dust and baggage-trains.

It had been a long summer's day, and, contrary to
my usual practice, I had not mounted, even for half a
post, to Percie's side in the rumble. Out of humour

with fate for having drawn me into very embarassing
circumstances—out of humour with myself for
the quixotic step which had first brought it on me—
and a little out of humour with Percie, (perhaps from
an unacknowledged jealously of Iminild's marked
preference for the varlet,) I left him to toast alone
in the sun, while I tried to forget him and myself in
“Le Marquis de Pontanges.” What a very clever
book it is, by the way!

The pompous sergeant of the guard performed
his office upon my passport at the gate—giving me
at least a kreutzer worth of his majesty's black sand
in exchange for my florin and my English curse;
(I said before I was out of temper, and he was half
an hour writing his abominable name,) and leaving
my carriage and Percie to find their way together
to the hotel, I dismounted at the foot of a steep street
and made my way to the battlements of the castle,
in search of scenery and equanimity.

Ah! what a glorious landscape! The precipitous
rock on which the old fortress is built seems dropped
by the Titans in the midst of a plain, extending
miles in every direction, with scarce another pebble.
Close at its base run the populous streets,
coiling about it like serpents around a pyramid, and
away from the walls of the city spread the broad
fields, laden, as far as the eye can see, with tribute
for the emperor! The tall castle, with its armed
crest, looks down among the reapers.

“You have not lost your friend and lover, yet you
are melancholy!” said a voice behind me, that I
was scarce startled to hear.

“Is it you, Iminild?”

“Scarce the same—for Iminild was never before
so sad. It is something in the sunset. Come away
while the woman keeps down in me, and let us
stroll through the Plaza, where the band is playing.
Do you love military music?”

I looked at the costume and figure of the extraordinary
creature before I ventured with her on a
public promenade. She was dressed like one of
the travelling apprentices of Germany, with cap
and bleuzer, and had assumed the air of the craft
with a success absolutely beyond detection. I gave
her my arm and we sauntered through the crowd,
listening to the thrilling music of one of the finest
bands in Germany. The priviliged character and
free manners of the wandering craftsmen whose
dress she had adopted, I was well aware, reconciled,
in the eyes of the inhabitants, the marked
contrast between our conditions in life. They would
simply have said, if they had made a remark at all,
that the Englishman was bon enfant and the craftsman
bon camarade.

“You had better look at me, messieurs!” said the
dusty apprentice, as two officers of the regiment
passed and gave me the usual strangers' stare; “I

am better worth your while by exactly five thousand
florins.”

“And pray how?” I asked.

“That price is set on my head!”

“Heavens! and you walk here!”

“They kept you longer than usual with your passport,
I presume?”

“At the gate? yes.”

“I came in with my pack at the time. They have
orders to examine all travellers and passports with
unusual care, these sharp officials! But I shall get
out as easily as I got in!”

“My dear countess!” I said, in a tone of serious
remonstrance, “do not trifle with the vigilance of
the best police in Europe! I am your guardian, and
you owe my advice some respect. Come away
from the square and let us talk of it in earnest.”

“Wise seignior! suffer me to remind you how
deftly I slipped through the fingers of these gentry
after our tragedy in Vienna, and pay my opinion some
respect! It was my vanity that brought me, with
my lackeys, to meet you à la prince royale so near
Vienna; and hence this alarm in the police, for I was
seen and suspected. I have shown myself to you
in my favourite character, however, and have done
with rash measures. You shall see me on the road
to-morrow, safe as the heart in your bosom.
Where is Monsieur Percie!”

“At the hotel. But stay! can I trust you with
yourself?”

“Yes, and dull company, too! A revoir!”

And whistling the popular air of the craft she had
assumed, the Countess Iminild struck her long staff
on the pavement, and with the gait of a tired and
habitual pedestrian, disappeared by a narrow street
leading under the precipitory battlements of the castle.

Percie made his appearance with a cup of coffee
the following morning, and, with the intention of posting
a couple of leagues to breakfast, I hurried through
my toilet and was in my carriage an hour after sunrise.
The postillion was in his saddle and only waited
for Percie, who, upon enquiry, was nowhere to
be found. I sat fifteen minutes, and just as I was
beginning to be alarmed he ran into the large court of
the hotel, and, crying out to the postillions that all
was right, jumped into his place with an agility,
it struck me, very unlike his usual gentlemanlike
deliberation. Determining to take advantage of the
first up-hill to catechize him upon his matutinal
rambles, I read the signs along the street till we
pulled up at the gate.

Iminild's communication had prepared me for
unusual delay with my passport, and I was not
surprised when the officer, in returning it to me,

requested me as a matter of form, to declare, upon
my honour, that the servant behind my carriage was
an Englishman, and the person mentioned in my
passport.

“Foi d'honneur, monsieur,” I said, placing my
hand politely on my heart, and off trotted the postillion,
while the captain of the guard, flattered with
my civility, touched his foraging-cap, and sent me
a German blessing through his mustache.

It was a divine morning, and the fresh and dewy
air took me back many a year, to the days when I
was more familiar with the hour. We had a long
trajet across the plain, and unlooping an antivibration
tablet, for the invention of which my ingenuity took
great credit to itself, (suspended on caoutchouc cords
from the roof of the carriage—and deserving of a
patent I trust you will allow!) I let off my poetical
vein in the following beginning to what might have
turned out, but for the interruption, a very edifying
copy of verses:

A foot thrust into my carriage-window rudely
broke the thread of these delicate musings. The
postillion was on a walk, and before I could get my
wits back from their wool-gathering, the Countess
Iminild, in Percie's clothes, sat laughing on the
cushion beside me.

“On what bird's back has your ladyship descended
from the clouds?” I asked with unfeigned astonishment.

“The same bird has brought us both down—c'est
à dire, if you are not still en l' air,” she added, looking
from my scrawled tablets to my perplexed face.

“Are you really and really the Countess Iminild?”
I asked with a smile, looking down at the trowsered
feet and loose-fitting boots of the pseudo-valet.

“Yes, indeed! but I leave it to you to swear,
`foi d' honneur,' that a born countess is an English
valet!” And she laughed so long and merrily that
the postillion looked over his yellow epaulettes in
astonishment.

“Kind, generous Percie!” she said, changing her
tone presently to one of great feeling, I would scarce
believe him last night when he informed me, as as inducement
to leave him behind, that he was only a servant!
You never told me this. But he is a gentleman,
in every feeling as well as in every feature,
and, by heavens! he shall be a menial no longer!”

This speech, begun with much tenderness, rose,
toward the close, to the violence of passion; and
folding her arms with an air of defiance, the lady-outlaw
threw herself back in the carriage.

“I have no objection,” I said, after a short silence,
“that Percie should set up for a gentleman. Nature
has certainly done her part to make him one; but
till you can give him means and education, the coat
which you wear, with such a grace, is his safest shell.
`Ants live safely till they have gotten wings,' says
the old proverb.”

The blowing of the postillion's horn interrupted
the argument, and, a moment after, we were rolled
up, with German leisure, to the door of the small inn
where I had designed to breakfast. Thinking it
probable that the people of the house, in so small a

village, would be too simple to make any dangerous
comments upon our appearance, I politely handed the
countess out of the carriage, and ordered plates for
two.

“It is scarce worth while,” she said, as she heard
the order, “for I shall remain at the door on the
look out. The eil-waggen, for Trieste, which
was to leave Gratz an hour after us, will be soon
here, and, (if my friends have served me well,) Percie
in it. St. Mary speed him safely!”

She stode away to a small hillock to look out for
the lumbering diligence, with a gait that was no
stranger to, “doublet and hose.” It soon came on
with its usual tempest of whip-cracking and bugle-blasts,
and nearly overturning a fat burgher, who
would have profferred the assistance of his hand,
out jumped a petticoat, which, I saw, at a glance,
gave a very embarrassed motion to gentleman
Percie.

“This young lady,” said the countess, dragging
the striding and unwilling damsel into the little parlour
where I was breakfasting “travels under the
charge of a deaf old brazier, who has been requested
to protect her modesty as far as Laybach. Make
a curtsy, child!”

“I beg pardon, sir!” began Percie.

“Hush, hush! no English! Walls have ears, and
your voice is rather gruffish, mademoiselle. Show

me your passport? Cunegunda Von Krakenpate,
eighteen years of age, blue eyes, nose and chin middling,etc!
There is the conductor's horn! Allez vite!” We meet a Laybach. Adieu, charmante femme! Adieu!

And with the sort of caricatured elegance which
women always assume in their imitations of our sex,
Countess Iminild, in frock-coat and trowsers, helped
into the diligence, in hood and petticoat, my “tiger”
from Cranbourne-alley!