Complete Short Works of George Meredith Part 16

Thunder! no disrespect to Werner's bride from Pope or abbot. Now, sing out!--or wait! these fellows shall drink it first.'

He stretched and threw a beaker of wine right and left behind him, and Farina's despair stiffened his limbs as he recognized the Goshawk and Schwartz Thier strapped to the floor. Their beards were already moist with previous libations similarly bestowed, and they received this in sullen stillness; but Farina thought he observed a rapid glance of encouragement dart from beneath the Goshawk's bent brows, as Margarita momentarily turned her head half-way on him.

'Lick your chaps, ye beasts, and don't say Werner stints vermin good cheer his nuptial-night. Now,' continued the Baron, growing huskier as he talked louder: 'Short and ringing, my devil's pups:--Werner and his Bride! and may she soon give you a young baron to keep you in better order than I can, as, if she does her duty, she will.'

The Baron stood up, and lifted his huge arm to lead the toast.

'Werner and his Bride!'

Not a voice followed him. There was a sudden intimation of the call being echoed; but it snapped, and ended in shuffling tones, as if the hall-door had closed on the response.

'What 's this?' roared the Baron, in that caged wild beast voice Margarita remembered she had heard in the Cathedral Square.

No one replied.

'Speak! or I'll rot you a fathom in the rock, curs!'

'Herr Baron!' said Henker Rothhals impressively; 'the matter is, that there's something unholy among us.'

The Baron's goblet flew at his head before the words were uttered.

'I'll make an unholy thing of him that says it,' and Werner lowered at them one by one.

'Then I say it, Herr Baron!' pursued Henker Rothhals, wiping his frontispiece: 'The Devil has turned against you at last. Look up there--Ah, it's gone now; but where's the man sitting this side saw it not?'

The Baron made one spring, and stood on the board.

'Now! will any rascal here please to say so?'

Something in the cruel hang of his threatening hatchet jaw silenced many in the act of confirming the a.s.sertion.

'Stand out, Henker Rotthals!'

Rotthals slid a hunting-knife up his wrist, and stepped back from the board.

'Beast!' roared the Baron, 'I said I wouldn't shed blood to-night. I spared a traitor, and an enemy----'

'Look again!' said Rothhals; 'will any fellow say he saw nothing there.'

While all heads, including Werner's, were directed to the aperture which surveyed them, Rothhals tossed his knife to the Goshawk unperceived.

This time answers came to his challenge, but not in confirmation. The Baron spoke with a gasping gentleness.

'So you trifle with me? I'm dangerous for that game. Mind you of Bla.s.s-Gesell? I made a better beast of him by sending him three-quarters of the road to h.e.l.l for trial.' Bellowing, 'Take that!' he discharged a broad blade, hitherto concealed in his right hand, straight at Rothhals.

It fixed in his cheek and jaw, wringing an awful breath of pain from him as he fell against the wall.

'There's a lesson for you not to cross me, children!' said Werner, striding his stumpy legs up and down the crashing board, and puffing his monstrous girth of chest and midriff. 'Let him stop there awhile, to show what comes of thwarting Werner!--Fire-devils! before the baroness, too!--Something unholy is there? Something unholy in his jaw, I think!--Leave it sticking! He's against meat last, is he? I'll teach you who he's for!--Who speaks?'

All hung silent. These men were animals dominated by a mightier brute.

He clasped his throat, and shook the board with a jump, as he squeaked, rather than called, a second time 'Who spoke?'

He had not again to ask. In this pause, as the Baron glared for his victim, a song, so softly sung that it sounded remote, but of which every syllable was clearly rounded, swelled into his ears, and froze him in his angry posture.

'The blood of the barons shall turn to ice, And their castle fall to wreck, When a true lover dips in the water thrice, That runs round Werner's Eck.

'Round Werner's Eck the water runs; The hazels shiver and shake: The walls that have blotted such happy suns, Are seized with the ruin-quake.

'And quake with the ruin, and quake with rue, Thou last of Werner's race!

The hearts of the barons were cold that knew The Water-Dame's embrace.

'For a sin was done, and a shame was wrought, That water went to hide: And those who thought to make it nought, They did but spread it wide.

'Hold ready, hold ready to pay the price, And keep thy bridal cheer: A hand has dipped in the water thrice, And the Water-Dame is here.'

THE RESCUE

The Goshawk was on his feet. 'Now, la.s.s,' said he to Margarita, 'now is the time!' He took her hand, and led her to the door. Schwartz Thier closed up behind her. Not a man in the hall interposed. Werner's head moved round after them, like a dog on the watch; but he was dumb. The door opened, and Farina entered. He bore a sheaf of weapons under his arm. The familiar sight relieved Werner's senses from the charm. He shouted to bar the prisoners' pa.s.sage. His men were ranged like statues in the hall. There was a start among them, as if that terrible noise communicated an instinct of obedience, but no more. They glanced at each other, and remained quiet.

The Goshawk had his eye on Werner. 'Stand back, la.s.s!' he said to Margarita. She took a sword from Farina, and answered, with white lips and flashing eyes, 'I can fight, Goshawk!'

'And shall, if need be; but leave it to me now, returned Guy.

His eye never left the Baron. Suddenly a shriek of steel rang. All fell aside, and the combatants stood opposed on clear ground. Farina, took Margarita's left hand, and placed her against the wall between the Thier and himself. Werner's men were well content to let their master fight it out. The words spoken by Henker Rothhals, that the Devil had forsaken him, seemed in their minds confirmed by the weird song which every one present could swear he heard with his ears. 'Let him take his chance, and try his own luck,' they said, and shrugged. The battle was between Guy, as Margarita's champion, and Werner.

In Schwartz Thier's judgement, the two were well matched, and he estimated their diverse qualities from sharp experience. 'For short work the Baron, and my new mate for tough standing to 't!' Farina's summary in favour of the Goshawk was, 'A stouter heart, harder sinews, and a good cause. The combat was generally regarded with a professional eye, and few prayers. Margarita solely there asked aid from above, and knelt to the Virgin; but her, too, the clash of arms and dire earnest of mortal fight aroused to eager eyes. She had not dallied with heroes in her dreams. She was as ready to second Siegfried on the crimson field as tend him in the silken chamber.

It was well that a woman's heart was there to mark the grace and glory of manhood in upright foot-to-foot encounter. For the others, it was a mere calculation of lucky hits. Even Farina, in his anxiety for her, saw but the brightening and darkening of the prospect of escape in every att.i.tude and hard-ringing blow. Margarita was possessed with a painful exaltation. In her eyes the b.e.s.t.i.a.l Baron now took a n.o.bler form and countenance; but the Goshawk a.s.sumed the sovereign aspect of old heroes, who, whether persecuted or favoured of heaven, still maintained their stand, remembering of what stuff they were, and who made them.

'Never,' say the old writers, with a fervour honourable to their knowledge of the elements that compose our being, 'never may this bright privilege of fair fight depart from us, nor advantage of it fail to be taken! Man against man, or beast, singly keeping his ground, is as fine rapture to the breast as Beauty in her softest hour affordeth. For if woman taketh loveliness to her when she languisheth, so surely doth man in these fierce moods, when steel and iron sparkle opposed, and their breath is fire, and their lips white with the lock of resolution; all their faculties knotted to a point, and their energies alive as the daylight to prove themselves superior, according to the laws and under the blessing of chivalry.'

'For all,' they go on to improve the comparison, 'may admire and delight in fair blossoming dales under the blue dome of peace; but 'tis the rare lofty heart alone comprehendeth, and is heightened by, terrific splendours of tempest, when cloud meets cloud in skies black as the sepulchre, and Glory sits like a flame on the helm of Ruin'

For a while the combatants aired their dexterity, contenting themselves with cunning cuts and flicks of the sword-edge, in which Werner first drew blood by a keen sweep along the forehead of the Goshawk. Guy had allowed him to keep his position on the board, and still fought at his face and neck. He now jerked back his body from the hip, and swung a round stroke at Werner's knee, sending him in retreat with a snort of pain. Before the Baron could make good his ground, Guy was level with him on the board.

Werner turned an upbraiding howl at his men. They were not disposed to second him yet. They one and all approved his personal battle with Fate, and never more admired him and felt his power; but the affair was exciting, and they were not the pillars to prop a falling house.

Werner clenched his two hands to his ponderous glaive, and fell upon Guy with heavier fury. He was becoming not unworth the little womanly appreciation Margarita was brought to bestow on him. The voice of the Water-Lady whispered at her heart that the Baron warred on his destiny, and that enn.o.bles all living souls.

Bare-headed the combatants engaged, and the headpiece was the chief point of attack. No swerving from blows was possible for either: ward, or take; a false step would have ensured defeat. This also induced caution. Many a double stamp of the foot was heard, as each had to retire in turn.

'Not at his head so much, he'll bear battering there all night long,'

said Henker Rothhals in a breathing interval. Knocks had been pretty equally exchanged, but the Baron's head certainly looked the least vulnerable, whereas Guy exhibited several dints that streamed freely.

Yet he looked, eye and bearing, as fresh as when they began, and the calm, regular heave of his chest contrasted with Werner's quick gasps.

His smile, too, renewed each time the Baron paused for breath, gave Margarita heart. It was not a taunting smile, but one of entire confidence, and told all the more on his adversary. As Werner led off again, and the choice was always left him, every expression of the Goshawk's face pa.s.sed to full light in his broad eyes.