Volume I Part 23 (2/2)

”Never mind what it was called by the Romans; isn't there a legend about this ancient castle? To be sure there is; pray find it.”

And I go on mumbling about Drusus, and Roman camps, and vaulted portals.

”Oh, it's not that,” cries she, laughing.

”There are two articles of traffic peculiar to this spot Millstones--”

She puts her hand on my lips here, and I am unable to continue my reading, while she goes on: ”I remember the legend now. It was a certain Siegfried, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, who, on his return from the Crusades, was persuaded by slanderous tongues to believe his wife had been faithless to him.”

”The wretch!--the Count, I mean.”

”So he was. He drove her out a wanderer upon the wide world, and she fled across the Rhine into that mountain country you see yonder, which then, as now, was all impenetrable forest There she pa.s.sed years and years of solitary existence, unknown and friendless. There were no Mr.

Dodds in those days, or, at least, she had not the good fortune to meet with them.”

I sigh deeply under the influence of such a glance, Tom, and she resumes,--

”At last, one day, when fatigued with the chase, and separated from his companions, the cruel Count throws himself down to rest beside a fountain; a lovely creature, attired gracefully but strangely in the skins of wild beasts--”

”She did n't kill them herself?” said I, interrupting.

”How absurd you are! Of course she did n't;” and she draws her own ermine mantle across her as she speaks, smoothing the soft fur with her softer hand. ”The Count starts to his feet, and recognizes her in a moment, and at the same instant, too, he is so struck by the manifest protection Providence has vouchsafed her, that he listens to her tale of justification, and conducts her in triumph home,--his injured but adored wife. I think, really, people were better formerly than they are now,--more forgiving, or rather, I mean, more open to truth and its generous impulses.”

”Faith, I can't say,” replied I, pondering; ”the skins may have had something to say to it.” Here she bursts into such a fit of laughter that I join from sheer sympathy with the sound, but not guessing in the least why or at what.

We soon left Andernach behind us, and rolled along beside the rapid Rhine, on a beautiful road almost level with the river, which now for some miles becomes less bold and picturesque.

At last we arrived at Coblentz to dinner, stopping at a capital inn called the ”Giant,” after which we strolled through the town to stare at the shops and the quaintly dressed peasant girls, whose embroidered head-gear, a kind of velvet cap worked in gold or silver, so pleased Mrs. G. that we bought three or four of them, as well as several of those curiously wrought silver daggers which they wear stuck through their black hair.

I soon discovered that my fair friend was a ”child” about other things besides ”money.” Jewelry was one of these, and for which she seemed to have the most insatiable desire, combined with a most juvenile indifference as to cost. The country girls wear ma.s.sive gold earrings of the strangest fas.h.i.+on, and nothing would content her but buying several sets of these. Then she took a fancy to their gold chains and rosaries, and, lastly, to their uncouth shoe-buckles, all of which she a.s.sured me would be priceless in a fancy dress.

In fact, my dear Tom, these minor preparations of hers, to resemble a Rhine-land peasant, came to a little over seventeen pounds sterling, and suggested to me, more than once, the secret wish that our excursion had been through Ireland, where the habits of the natives could have been counterfeited at considerably less cost.

As ”we were in for it,” however, I bore myself as gallantly as might be, and pressed several trifling articles on her acceptance, but she tossed them over contemptuously, and merely said, ”Oh, we shall find all these things so much better at Ems. They have such a bazaar there!” an announcement that gave me a cold shudder from head to foot. After taking our coffee, we resumed our journey, Ems being only distant some eleven or twelve miles, and, I must say, a drive of unequalled beauty.

Once more on the road, Mrs. G. became more charming and delightful than ever. The romantic glen, through which we journeyed, suggested much material for conversation, and she was legendary and lyrical, plaintive and merry by turns, now recounting some story of tragic history, now remembering some little incident of modern fas.h.i.+onable life, but all, no matter what the theme, touched with a grace and delicacy quite her own. In a little silence that followed one of these charming sallies, I noticed that she smiled as if at something pa.s.sing in her own thoughts.

”Shall I tell you what I was thinking of?” said she, smiling.

”By all means,” said I; ”it is a pleasant thought, so pray let me share in it.”

”I'm not quite so certain of that,” said she. ”It is rather puzzling than pleasant. It is simply this: 'Here we are now within a mile of Ems.

It is one of the most gossiping places in Europe. How shall we announce ourselves in the Strangers' List?”

The difficulty had never occurred to me before, Tom; nor indeed, did I very clearly appreciate it even now. I thought that the name of Kenny Dodd would have sufficed for me, and I saw no reason why Mrs. Gore Hampton should not have been satisfied with her own appellation.

”I knew,” said she, laughing, ”that you never gave this a thought. Isn't that so?” I had to confess that she was quite correct, and she went on: ”Adolphus ”--this was the familiar for Mr. Gore Hampton--”is so well known that you could n't possibly pa.s.s for him; besides, he is very tall, and wears large moustaches,--the largest, I think, in the Blues.”

”That's clean out of the question, then,” said I, stroking my smooth chin in utter despair.

”You 're very like Lord Harvey Bruce, could n't you be _him?_”

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