University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER 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 gensd'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 countress Iminild, of whom common rumor, 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 and
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 recognise,
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 thoughtfully 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 his 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
protégée,” she said, rather gayly, 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
revery, 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 humor
with fate for having drawn me into very embarrassing
circumstances — out of humor with myself for the
quixotic step which had first brought it on me — and a
little of out humor with Percie (perhaps from an unacknowledged
jealousy 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 Pontangos.” 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 privileged 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 pass
port, 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 favorite character, however, and have done
with such 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 inquiry, 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 honor, 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 epaulets 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 strode 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
proffered 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 parlor
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 courtesy, 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 at 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!