Part 18 (1/2)
”What tottering walls do you talk of?” cried the fat man; ”whoever has seen the castle of Tubingen, must not talk of tottering walls. Are there not two deep ditches on the side towards the mountains, which no ladder of the League can scale, and walls twelve feet thick, with high towers, whence the falconets keep up no insignificant fire, I can tell you?”
”Battered down, battered down!” cried the thin man, with such a fearful hollow voice, as made the astonished burghers think they heard the falling of the towers of Tubingen about their ears: ”the new tower, which Ulerich lately built, was battered down by Fronsberg, as if it had never stood there.”
”But everything is not lost with that,” answered the pedlar; ”the knights make sallies from the castle, and many a one has found his bed in the Neckar. Old Fronsberg had his hat shot from his head, which makes his ears tingle to this day, I'll be bound.”
”There you are wrong again,” said the thin man, carelessly; ”sallies, indeed! the besiegers have light cavalry enough, who fight like devils; they are Greeks; but whether they come from the Ganges or Epirus, I know not, and are called Stratiots, commanded by George Samares, who does not allow a dog of them to sally out of their holes.”[1]
”He also has been made to bite the gra.s.s,” replied the pedlar, with a scornful side glance: ”the dogs, as you call them, did make a sally, in spite of the Greeks, and made their leader prisoner, and----”
”Samares prisoner?” cried the rawbone man, startled out of his tranquillity; ”you are not right again, friend!”
”No?” answered the other, quietly; ”I heard the bells toll, as he was buried in the church of Saint George.”
The burghers looked attentively at the thin stranger, to notice the impression this news would make on him. His thick eyebrows fell so low that his eyes were scarcely visible; he twisted his long thin mustachios, and striking the table with his bony hand, said: ”And if they have cut him and his Greeks into a hundred pieces, the besieged can't help themselves! the castle must fall; and when Tubingen is ours, good night to Wurtemburg! Ulerich is out of the country, and my n.o.ble friends and benefactors will be the masters.”
”How do you know that he will not come back again? and then----” said the cautious fat man, and clapped on the cover of his goblet.
”What! come back again?” cried the other: ”the beggar! who says he will come back again? Who dares say it?”
”What does it signify to us?” murmured the guests; ”we are peaceable citizens; and it is all the same to us who is lord of the land, provided the taxes are lowered. In a public house a man has a right to say what he pleases.”
The thin man appeared satisfied that none of the company dared return an angry answer. He eyed each of them with a searching look, when, a.s.suming a kinder manner, he said, ”It was only to put you in mind, that we do not want the Duke any longer as our master that I speak as I do; upon my soul, he is rank poison to me; so I'll sing you a _paternoster_, which a friend wrote upon him, and which pleases me much.” The honest burghers, by their looks, did not appear very curious to hear a burlesque song upon their unfortunate Duke. The other, however, having cleared his throat with a good draught, began a few words of a burlesque parody on the Lord's Prayer, in a disagreeable hoa.r.s.e tone of voice--a vulgar song, apparently familiar to the ears of his audience--for no sooner had he commenced, than the good taste of the burghers manifested itself by a whisper of disapprobation; some shrugging their shoulders, others winking at each other; symptoms sufficiently evident to the thin man, that the burden of his song was not welcome to their ears. He therefore stopt short, looking around for encouragement; but, finding none, he threw himself back in his chair, with a scowl of contempt on his features.
”I know that song well,” said the pedlar; ”and shame be to him who would offend the ears of honest men with it. With your permission,” he added, addressing the company, ”I'll give you one I think more to your taste.” Encouraged by the rest of the burghers, excepting the thin man, who squinted at him with scorn, he began:
Mourn, Wurtemberg! thy fallen state, Thy drooping pride, thy luckless fate!
A Quack, whom even dogs despise, Presumes to make thy fortunes rise.
Noisy applause and laughter, mingled with the hisses of the thin man, interrupted the singer. The burghers reached across the table, shook the pedlar by the hand, praised his song, and begged him to proceed.
The raw bone man said not a word, but looked furiously at the company.
He knew not whether to envy the applause which the songster received, or to feel offended at the subject of his song. The fat man put on an air of greater wisdom than usual, and joined in approbation with the rest. The leather-backed pedlar was going on, encouraged by his audience:
Of Nurenberg he, a knife-grinder by trade; His friend was a weaver, a man of low grade--
when the thin man, upon hearing these words, and not able to contain his indignation, flew into a violent rage, and vociferated: ”May the cuckoo stick in your throat, you ragged dog! I know very well who you mean by the weaver,--my best friend, Herr von Fugger. That such a vagabond as you should calumniate him!” expressing his anger by a frightful distortion of his countenance.
But his opponent was in no wise to be daunted, and held his muscular fist before him, saying, ”Vagabond yourself, Mr. Calmus, I know who you are; and if you don't keep silence, I'll twist those pot-ladle arms of yours off your half-starved body.”
The crest-fallen guest rose immediately, and p.r.o.nounced his regret to have fallen into such low company; he paid for his wine, and walked out of the room with the strut of a man of quality.
FOOTNOTE TO CHAPTER XVI.:
[Footnote 1: The appearance of these Greeks at the siege of Tubingen was an extraordinary event; they were called Stratiots, and were commanded by George Samares, from Corona, in Albania. He was buried in the collegiate church of Tubingen. Crusius says, he was famous for wielding the lance.]
CHAPTER XVII.
Hope, faith, and confidence are there, For all that I esteem are near; And yet suspicion finds its way, And makes my hopeless mind its prey.
SCHILLER.