Joseph II. and His Court Part 62

"No, no, your majesty, not a morsel of any thing--none but peasants live in the village."

"Well, my friend, do the peasants live without eating?"

"Oh, your majesty, they eat anything! They live on bread, bacon, eggs, and milk, with sometimes a mess of cabbage or beans."

"And you call that having nothing to eat?" exclaimed Joseph, hastening joyfully back to his friends. "Come, come; we shall find dinner at Wichern, and if n.o.body will cook for us, we will cook for ourselves."

Coronini opened his eyes like full moons.

"Why do you stare so, Coronini? Are not all soldiers cooks? I, at least, am resolved to learn, and I feel beforehand that I shall do honor to myself. Cook and butler, I shall fill both offices. Come, we are going to enjoy ourselves. Thomas, tell the postilion to drive as far as the entrance of the village. We will forage on foot."

The emperor bounded into the carriage, the two n.o.blemen followed, the postilion cracked his whip, and they were soon at Wichern.

CHAPTER LIII.

WHAT THEY FOUND AT WICHERN.

The carriage stopped, and before the valet had had time to open the door, the emperor leaped to the ground.

"Come," said he, merrily, "come and seek your fortunes. Thomas, you remain with the carriage. Drive under the shade of that tree and wait for our return. Before all things, I forbid you to tell anybody who we are. From this day forward, my name is Count Falkenstein. Mark me! I expect you to preserve my incognito."

"I will obey you, my lord count," said the valet, with a bow.

The emperor with his two companions walked toward the village. Nothing very hopeful was to be seen as they looked up the dirty little streets.

The wretched mud cottages stood each one apart, their yards separated by scraggy willow-hedges, upon which ragged old garments were hanging in the sun to dry. Between the hedges were muddy pools, over which the ducks were wrangling for the bits of weed that floated on the surface of the foul waters. On their borders, in the very midst of the rubbish and kitchen offal that lay about in heaps, dirty, half-naked children, with straw-colored hair, tumbled over one another, or paddled in the water.

In the farm-yards around the dung-heaps, the youngest children of the cottagers kept company with the sow and her grunting pigs. Before the slovenly entrances of the huts here and there sat dirty, unseemly old men and women, who stared at the three strangers as they surveyed the uninviting picture before them.

"I congratulate the emperor that he is not obliged to look upon this shocking scene," said Joseph. "I am glad that his people cannot cry out to him for help, since help for such squalor as this there is none on earth."

"They are not as wretched as you suppose," said Rosenberg. "These people are scarcely above the brute creation; and they know of nothing better than the existence which is so shocking to you. They were born and bred in squalor, and provided their pastures yield forage, their hens lay eggs and their cows give milk, they live and die contented."

"If so, they are an enviable set of mortals," replied Joseph, laughing, "and we, who require so much for our comfort, are poorer than they. But as there is no help for our poverty, let us think of dinner. Here are three streets; the village seems to have been divided for our especial accommodation. Each one shall take a street, and in one hour from now we meet at the carriage, each man with a dish of contribution. En avant! I take the street before me; you do the same. Look at your watches, and be punctual."

So saying, he waved his hand and hastened forward. The same solitude and misery met his view as he walked on; the same ducks, hens, sows, and tumbling children; with now and then the shrill treble of a scolding woman, or the melancholy lowing of a sick cow.

"I am curious now," thought the emperor, "to know how and where I am to find my dinner. But stay--here is a cottage less slovenly than its neighbors; I shall tempt my fortunes there."

He opened the wicker gate and entered the yard. The lazy sow that lay on the dunghill grunted, but took no further notice of the imperial intruder. He stopped before the low cottage door and knocked, but no one came. The place seemed silent and deserted; not the faintest hum of life was to be heard from within.

"I shall take the liberty of going in without awaiting an invitation,"

said the emperor, pushing open the door and entering the cottage. But he started at the unexpected sight that met his view as he looked around the room. It was a miserable place, cold and bare; not a chair or any other article of household furniture was to be seen; but in the centre of the room stood a small deal coffin, and in the coffin was the corpse of a child. Stiff and cold, beautiful and tranquil, lay the babe, a smile still lingering around its mouth, while its half-open eyes seemed fixed upon the white roses that were clasped in its little dimpled hands. The coffin lay in the midst of flowers, and within slept the dead child, transfigured and glorified.

The emperor advanced softly and bent over it. He looked with tender sympathy at the little marble image which yesterday was a poor, ragged peasant, to-day was a bright and winged angel. His thoughts flew back to the imperial palace, where his little motherless daughter was fading away from earth, and the father prayed for his only child. He took from the pa.s.sive hands a rose, and softly as he came, he left the solitary cottage, wherein an angel was keeping watch.

He pa.s.sed over to the neighboring yard. Here too, everything seemed to be at rest: but a savory odor saluted the nostrils of the n.o.ble adventurer which at least betokened the presence of beings who hungered and thirsted, and had some regard for the creature comforts of life.

"Ah!" said the emperor, drawing in the fragrant smell, "that savors of meat and greens," and he hurried through the house to the kitchen. Sure enough, there blazed a roaring fire, and from the chimney-crane hung the steaming pot whence issued the delightful aroma of budding dinner. On the hearth stood a young woman of cleanly appearance, who was stirring the contents of the pot with a great wooden spoon.

"Good-morning, madame," said the emperor, in a loud, cheerful voice. The woman started, gave a scream, and turned her glowing face to the door.

"What do you mean by coming into strange people's houses and frightening them so?" cried she, angrily. "n.o.body asked you in, I am sure."

"Pardon me, madame," said the emperor. "I was urgently invited."

"I should like to know who invited you, for n.o.body is here but myself, and I don't want you."

"Yes, madame; but your steaming kettle, I do a.s.sure you, has given me a pressing invitation to dine here."

"Oh! you are witty, are you? Well, carry your wits elsewhere; they won't serve you here. My kettle calls n.o.body but those who are to eat of my dinner."

"That is the very thing I want, madame. I want to eat of your dinner."

As he spoke, the emperor kept advancing until he came close upon the kettle and its tempting contents; but the peasant-woman pushed him rudely back, and thrusting her broad person between himself and the coveted pot, she looked defiance at him, and broke out into a torrent of abuse.

The emperor laughed aloud. "I don't wish to rob you," said he. "I will pay you handsomely if you will only let me have your dinner. What have you in that pot?"

"That is none of your business. With my bacon and beans you have no concern."

"Bacon and beans! Oh, my craving stomach! Here, take this piece of gold and give the some directly."

"Do you take me for a fool, to sell my dinner just as the men will be coming from the field!"

"By no means for a fool," said the emperor, soothingly; "but if you show the men that golden ducat they will wait patiently until you cook them another dinner. Your husband can buy himself a fine holiday suit with this."

"He has one, and don't want two. Go your way; you shall not have a morsel of my dinner."

"Not if I give you two gold pieces? Come, do be accommodating, and give me the bacon and beans."

"I tell you yon shall not have them," screamed the termagant. "I have no use for your gold, but I want my dinner. So be off with you. You will get nothing from me if you beg all day long."

"Very well, madame; I bid you good-morning," said Joseph, laughing, but inwardly chagrined at his fiasco. "I must go on, however," thought he; and he entered the yard of the next house. Before the door sat a pale young woman, with a new-born infant in her arms. She looked up with a languid smile.

"I am hungry," said Joseph, after greeting her with uncovered head.

"Have you any thing good in your kitchen?"

She shook her head sadly. "I am a poor, weak creature, sir, and cannot get a meal for my husband," replied she; "he will have to cook his own dinner when he comes home."

"And what will he cook to-day, for instance?"

"I suppose he will make an omelet; for the hens have been cackling a great deal this morning, and an omelet is made in a few minutes."

"Is it? So much the better, then; you can show me how to make one, and I will pay you well."

"Go in the hen-coop, sir, and see if you find any eggs. My husband will want three of them; the rest are at your service."

"Where is the hen-coop?" asked Joseph, much pleased.