Rollo on the Rhine Part 16

He laid him down and closed his eyes; But soon a scream made him arise.

He started, and saw two eyes of flame On his pillow, from whence the screaming came.

He listened and looked: it was only the cat: But the bishop he grew more fearful for that; For she sat screaming, mad with fear At the army of rats that were drawing near.

For they have swum over the river so deep, And they have climbed the sh.o.r.es so steep, And now by thousands up they crawl To the holes and windows in the wall.

Down on his knees the bishop fell, And faster and faster his beads did he tell, As louder and louder, drawing near, The saw of their teeth without he could hear.

And in at the windows, and in at the door, And through the walls by thousands they pour, And down through the ceiling and up through the floor, From the right and the left, from behind and before, From within and without, from above and below; And all at once at the bishop they go.

They have whetted their teeth against the stones, And now they pick the bishop's bones; They gnawed the flesh from every limb, For they were sent to do judgment on him.

"I'm glad they ate him up," said Minnie, as soon as Mr. George had finished reading the poetry. "I am very glad indeed."

"Yes," said Rollo, "so am I."

"What a pleasant ride this is!" said Rollo, after a little pause. It was, indeed, a delightful ride. The road was carried along the bank of the river a short distance above the level of the water. It was very hard, and smooth, and level; and on the side of it opposite to the water, the land rose abruptly in a steep ascent, which was covered with forest trees. At the distance of about a mile before them, down the river, they could see the towers and battlements of the castle which they were going to visit, rising among the tops of the trees, on a projecting promontory.

"I like the ride very much," said Rollo; "but I don't care much about the castle. I'm tired of castles."

"So am I," said Mr. George; "but this is different from the rest. This is a castle restored."

"What do you mean by that?" said Rollo.

"Why, nearly all the old castles on the Rhine," replied Mr. George, "have been abandoned, and have gone to decay; or else, if they have been repaired or rebuilt, they have been finished and furnished in the fashion of modern times. But this castle of Rheinstein, which we are now going to see, has been restored, as nearly as possible, to its ancient condition. The rooms, and the courts, and the towers, and battlements are all arranged as they used to be in former ages; and the furniture contained within is of the ancient fashion. The chairs, and tables, and cabinets, and all the other articles, are such as the barons used when the castles on the Rhine were inhabited."

"Where do they get such things nowadays?" asked Rollo.

"Some of the furniture which they have in this castle," said Mr. George, "originally belonged there, and has been kept there all the time, for hundreds of years. When they repaired and rebuilt the castle, they repaired this furniture too, and put it in perfect order. Some other furniture they bought from other old castles which the owners did not intend to repair, and some they had made new, after the ancient patterns. But here we are, close under the castle."

A few minutes after this, the carriage stopped in the road at the entrance to a broad, gravelled pathway, which diverged from the road directly under the castle walls, and began to ascend at once through the woods in zigzags. Mr. George and his party got out, and began to go up.

The carriage, in the mean time, went on a few steps farther, to a smooth and level place by the roadside, under the shade of some trees, there to await the return of the party from their visit to the castle above.

"Now, children," said Mr. George, "we will see how you can stand hard climbing."

Rollo and Minnie looked up, and they could see the walls and battlements of the castle, resting upon and crowning the crags and precipices of the rock, far above their heads.

The road, or rather the pathway,--for it was not wide enough for a carriage, and was besides too steep, and turned too many sharp corners for wheels,--was very smooth and hard, and the children ascended it without any difficulty. They stopped frequently to look up, for at every turn there was some new view of the walls or battlements, or towers above, or of the crags and precipices of the rock on which the various constructions of masonry rested. The cliffs and precipices in many places overhung the path, and seemed ready to fall. In fact, in one place, an immense ma.s.s had cracked off, and was all ready to come down, but was retained in its place by a heavy iron chain, which pa.s.sed around it, and was secured by clamps and staples to the more solid portion of the rock behind it. Rollo and Minnie looked up to this cliff, as they pa.s.sed beneath it, with something like a feeling of terror.

"I should not like to have that rock come down upon our heads," said Minnie.

"No," said Rollo, "nor I; but I should like to see it come down if we were out of the way."

At length the road, after many winding zigzags and convolutions, came out upon a gravelled area in front of a great iron gate at an angle between two towers.

A man came from a courtyard within, and opened a small gate, which formed a part of the great one. He seemed to be a servant. Mr. George asked him in French if they could come in and see the castle. The man smiled and shook his head, but at the same time opened the door wide, and stood on one side, as if to make way for them to come in.

"He says no," whispered Rollo.

"No," replied Mr. George, "his _no_ means that he does not understand us; but he wishes us to come in."

As Mr. George said these words, he pa.s.sed through the gate, leading Minnie by the hand, and followed by Rollo.

The man shut the gate after them, and then began to say something to them, very fluently and earnestly, pointing at the same time to a door which opened upon a gallery that extended along the wall of a tower near by. As soon as he had finished what seemed to be some sort of explanation, he left the party standing in the court, and returned to his work.

"He says," remarked Mr. George, "that there is a man coming to show us the castle."

"How do you know?" asked Rollo.

"I know by the signs that he made," replied Mr. George. "Besides, I heard him say _schloss-vogt_."

"What is _schloss-vogt_?" asked Rollo.

"That was the ancient name for the officer who kept the keys of a castle," replied Mr. George, "and in restoring this castle they thought they would reestablish the old office. So they call the man who keeps the keys the _schloss-vogt_."

In a few minutes the _schloss-vogt_ came. He was dressed in the ancient costume. He wore a black velvet frock coat, and green velvet cap, both made in a very antique and curious fashion, after the pattern of those worn, in ancient days, by the officers who had the custody of the keys in the baronial castles.

The _schloss-vogt_ conducted his visitors all over the edifice that was under his charge. It would be impossible to describe the variety of halls, corridors, courts, towers, ramparts, and battlements which Rollo and Minnie were led to see. They went from one to another, until they were at length completely bewildered with the intricacy, as well as dazzled by the magnificence, of the place. There were suites of most beautiful apartments, with polished floors, and painted walls, and furniture of the most curious and antique description. The chairs, the tables, the cabinets, and the beds of these rooms were all of the strangest forms; and though they were of very elaborate and splendid workmanship, being richly carved and inlaid with mosaic work, and often ornamented with mountings of silver, they all wore a very antique and venerable air, which was extremely imposing. The rooms were of all shapes and sizes, and were arranged and connected with each other in the most odd and singular fashion, as the external walls which enclosed them were extremely irregular in plan, being conformed in a great measure to the shape of the rocks on which the castle was founded. The _schloss-vogt_ was continually leading his party, as he guided them through the rooms, into some unexpected and curious place--a little cabinet, built on an angle of the wall; a winding staircase, opening suddenly in a corner, and leading up to a watchtower, or down to a court; a balcony overhanging a precipice, and commanding a most magnificent view up and down the river; or some other curious nook or corner, which in the snugness and coziness of its seclusion, and the beauty of its adornments, filled the hearts of Rollo and Minnie with delight.

There were a great many specimens of ancient arms and armor, hung up in various halls in the castle, all of the most quaint and curious forms, but yet of the most elaborate and beautiful workmanship. There were swords, and daggers, and bows and arrows, and spurs, and shields, and coats of mail, and every other species of weapons, offensive and defensive, that the warriors of the middle ages were accustomed to use.

Rollo was most interested in the bows and arrows. They were of great size, and were made in a style of workmanship, and ornamented with mountings and decorations, which Rollo had never dreamed of seeing in bows and arrows. Among the other articles of armor, the _schloss-vogt_ showed the party a _gauntlet_, as it is called; that is, an iron glove, which was worn in ancient times to defend the hand from the cuts of swords and sabres. The inside of the glove--I mean the part which covered the inside of the hand--was of leather; but the back was formed of iron scales made to slide over each other, so as to allow the hand to open and shut freely, without making any opening in the iron. Mr. George tried this glove on, and so, in fact, did Rollo and Minnie. They were all surprised to find how well it fitted to the hand, and how freely the fingers could be moved while it was on. The _schloss-vogt_ said that a man could write with it; and Mr. George placed his hand, with the glove upon it, in the proper position for writing, and then moved his fingers to and fro, as if there had been a pen between them.

"Yes," said he, "I think I could write with it very well."

All the furniture of the rooms was of a very quaint and curious description, while yet it was very rich and magnificent. There were elegant bedsteads of carved ebony surmounted with silken curtains and canopies of the most gorgeous description. There were cabinets inlaid with silver and pearl, and elegant cameos and mosaics, and a profusion of other such articles, all of which Rollo had very little time to examine, as the _schloss-vogt_ led the party forward from one room to another without much delay.

The rooms themselves, in respect to form and arrangement, were almost as curious as the articles which they contained. Every one seemed different from the rest. You were constantly coming into the strangest and most unexpected places. There were cabinets, and wide halls, and intricate winding corridors, and open courts, and vaulted pa.s.sages, and balconies, paved below and arched over above. At one place there was a light iron staircase built on the outside of a round tower, and as the tower itself was built on the pinnacle of an overhanging rock, you seemed, in ascending the staircase, to be poised in the air, with the rocks that lined the sh.o.r.e of the river beneath your feet, hundreds of feet below.

After rambling about the castle for half an hour, the party returned to the gate where they had come in, and the _schloss-vogt_ bade them good by. He gave Minnie a little bouquet of flowers as she came away. They were flowers which he had gathered for her, one by one, from the plants growing in the various balconies, and in little parterres in the courtyards, which they pa.s.sed in going about the castle. Minnie was very much pleased with this bouquet.

"I mean to press some of the flowers," said she, "and keep them for a souvenir."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I'll help you press them. I've got a pressing apparatus at home."

"Well," said Minnie, in a tone of great satisfaction. "And then, when they are pressed, I'll give you one of them."

So the party went down the zigzag path till they came to the main road at the bank of the river, and there getting into their carriage again, they rode home to the hotel.

CONCLUSION.

Our travellers had now pa.s.sed through all that portion of the Rhine which contains the castles and the romantic scenery. Above Bingen the valley of the Rhine widens; that is, the mountains, instead of crowding in close to the river, recede from it many miles, enclosing a broad and level, but very fertile plain, through the midst of which the river flows between low banks, and with endless meanderings. The level country through which the river thus flows is inexpressibly beautiful, being divided into magnificent fields, and cultivated every where like a garden. It presents to the view a broad expanse of the richest verdure and beauty, but it cannot be seen from the steamboats on the river.

Travellers are, accordingly, accustomed to leave the river at Mayence, a short distance above Bingen, and to go on up to Strasbourg by the railway. This was the plan which Mr. George and Rollo pursued.

From Strasbourg, Mr. George took pa.s.sage for Paris by a railway train which left Strasbourg in the afternoon, so that they travelled all night. This was Rollo's plan. He wished to see how "it would seem," he said, to be travelling in the cars at midnight.