The Mercenary Part 20

He also remembered a dozen instances of good sergeantry which Blick had displayed. It dawned upon his mind that, as it takes years to make a good ploughman, so it takes years to produce the good sergeant; and that without good sergeants it is impossible to make good regiments.

Sergeant Blick, despite his words, stood stiffly at attention, awaiting the settlement of his destiny. There were at least two scars on his face, which were an abiding proof that he had faced both pike and sword, and his complexion, originally fair (he was a North German from Munster), had been tanned and weather-beaten. The light-blue eyes, somewhat hard in the glint, were full of resolution and vigour, if the cheeks and the mouth did smack somewhat of the beer-can, as did the great girth of his waist, hardly counterbalanced by the greater girth of his shoulders.

"Sergeant is it? You can have it! You begin to-morrow; and keep all the corporals sober till we are ready to start, four days from now."

"Four days! The devil himself couldn't bring that mob of wild Zigeuners and half-cooked hinds into the likeness of a regiment in four days."

"Nevertheless it must be done!" said Nigel.

The new sergeant grunted some guttural remarks, which Nigel took in good part, as they were hurled less at himself than at things in general, which, as every one knows, are always deserving of the extreme of objurgation. Then the sergeant paused.

"Well? You want something else?"

"Yes, colonel! This little bodkin that the lady at Magdeburg tried to push through your steel cap! I tried to bargain with a dirty Jew for a crown or so. He said it was good silver, but he asked how I came by it.

I hit him a buffet, but he only snarled that neither he nor any other dealer in Vienna would buy it because of something or other, arms or what not, on the hilt."

"Oh! Let me look at it! So! It is a curious device. Well, I'll give you a crown for it. At all events I have a good right to it if any one has.

The point was meant for my head."

Sergeant Blick took his crown with thanks, saluted, and went out. To realise one's ambition and a crown, albeit a silver one, in the same half-hour, is always worth while.

It was true that to Nigel the weapon, which, had it been used otherwise, might have slain him, was a possession of interest. But a further look at it, or rather at the ornamentation of the haft, which was good silversmith's work, revealed to him what it had revealed to the Jew, who was too careful to buy that which might put a rope round his neck, something, in his opinion, stolen from some dangerously high place.

Again he asked himself, "Who is Ottilie von Thuringen?"

"By Saint Andrew!" he exclaimed as some one entered.

"Heilige Frau!" the other cried in equal astonishment. "So you are my new colonel, Charteris?"

"And you, Hildebrand?"

"I am to be your major, it seems, by the grace of General von Falck with one eye, Camp-Master von Pratz with one arm, and his Highness the Grand Duke Lothar, to whom regiments are sheets of paper and the officers numbers."

Major Hildebrand von Hohendorf did not seem altogether gratified.

"Dear old comrade!" said Nigel warmly, shaking him by the hand, "it would have given me greater pleasure to have been your major than it does to be your colonel. You were buried in Hradschin. Now you may conclude by becoming Field-Marshal."

Nigel knew that Hildebrand was not one to nurse small jealousy, and was amenable to the gentle influence of a bottle and an honest friend taken together. The bottle was soon forthcoming, and so was Hildebrand's pipe.

"Comes of helping to sack Magdeburg and carrying despatches, I suppose,"

said Hildebrand, a twinkle becoming apparent in his eyes. "Or have you been making love to Lothar's wife. They say she names most of the colonels! Ha! What's this pretty thing?"

He picked up the tiny dagger, which for the moment Nigel had forgotten.

"That's a little trifle a n.o.ble lady in Magdeburg tried to stick into my neck!" said Nigel. "My sergeant picked it up."

"Pretty thing!" said Hildebrand, examining it. "Bears the arms of the Habsburgs, too!" The peculiarity did not seem to strike very deep, for he went off to another topic--

"Now, what have we got to do? It seems to me we've got to make a regiment and then const.i.tute ourselves free companions for a few weeks, maybe months, and then join Tilly!"

"Listen!" said Nigel. "We have to cross Southern Bohemia, the Upper Palatinate, enter Wurzburg, then Hesse Ca.s.sel, to frighten the Landgrave, ride eastward to the Elbe, and find Gustavus. Having satisfied ourselves of the direction of his march, we are to hang on to the advance-guard, and give early and constant information to Count Tilly and Pappenheim. When the two armies come into touch we are to place our regiment under Tilly's orders."

"Lord, what a riding and camping and sleeping under the trees," said Hildebrand.

"Make us the most serviceable regiment of cavalry in the whole army,"

Nigel consoled. "You'll be as thin as a pikestaff and as hard! No Tokay in the Thuringerwald!"

"The beer might be worse!" rejoined Hildebrand. "I've tasted it."

CHAPTER XVII.

FAREWELL TO THE ARCHd.u.c.h.eSS.

As Nigel thought he owed that great windfall of fortune, the restoration of his cherished wallet of despatches, to the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie, insomuch as it was a direct outcome of her mysterious a.s.sociation with Wallenstein, so he was inclined, without evidence, to attribute to her this second shaking of the tree, which had brought to his feet the still riper fruit of the command of the regiment of horse. Perhaps the joking of Hildebrand had left behind in his mind some traces of its pa.s.sing. It certainly was not due to any conceit that he had made any impression on the heart of the Archd.u.c.h.ess. But it was just possible that her sympathy with the mind and destiny of Wallenstein might have displayed itself in an endeavour to promote the fortunes of one who had been, and might some day be again, with Wallenstein.

An unquenchable desire pursued him. It had no effect upon his military duties, for at those he worked as one possessed. The horses, a motley but on the whole a useful collection, were allotted to their riders, the riders distributed into troops and half troops, the old soldiers converted into troop sergeants and corporals, and all kept busy at their exercising. Hildebrand and all the other officers grumbled at this intolerable, but undoubtedly affable, Scot, who let no man rest nor rested himself. But as daylight fell, and with it the last bulwarks of human patience, and the quarters and the taverns once more welcomed the "Rough Riders," as some wit of the canteens christened them, Nigel was fain to seek rest and refresh himself. It was then, in the moments of relaxation, that the desire came upon him to seek out the Archd.u.c.h.ess.

The strange likeness that she bore to the fugitive Ottilie intrigued him. Ottilie in the cathedral of Erfurt had seemed, if his ears had not belied him, to pray for Wallenstein. Half an hour afterwards she had breathed scorn of Wallenstein. The Archd.u.c.h.ess had named him in a way that gave a hint of an amiable alliance between them. Had she any influence with Lothar, or General von Falck, or the redoubtable Camp-Master, and exercised it to gain him this commission? If not, to what circ.u.mstances did he owe it? Could the Emperor be so lacking in tried cavalry officers that he, who was not a cavalryman, should be selected? Self-pride urged that his experience in the wars was his real recommendation for what must prove a perilous and delicate work. The Scots have always been said to have a "gude conceit" of themselves; and Nigel was not without it. But his Scots caution tempered it. He gave self-pride its due weight and no more, and looked outside for the real reasons.

But to approach the Archd.u.c.h.ess was not easy. He had been allotted other quarters in the part of the palace devoted to the officers of the guard.

He could not without remark place himself in her way in the gallery of portraits. Nor could he make an a.s.signation to meet her, as the officers of the guard did, with the ladies-in-waiting, whom among themselves they called in their familiar German fashion Gretchen, Bette, or Lotta. They might boast contemptuously of favours behind their charmers' backs, while professing a most poetical admiration to their faces. He could do neither. There was a gulf not easy to bridge between a lady-in-waiting and an Archd.u.c.h.ess.

Nigel had acquired a certain distrust of messages verbal or written, for his short intercourse with courtiers had engendered the belief that one half of the denizens of the palace, high and low, were spies upon the other half, and that Father Lamormain heard everything. But as write he must, he bethought him of certain poetical exercises of his which he had practised lamely enough while at the University of St Andrews, in fond imitation of the poets of the court of Queen Elizabeth, where every one rhymed that could hold a quill. He drew with great pains the circle, the oval, and the curve of Pietro Bramante at the head, and, after many attempts in the long unaccustomed art, involving one hundred and four elisions and at least four separate drafts, he wrote beneath the figure the following lines, hoping that the whole might excite her curiosity if not her admiration, and lead to the audience so much desired:--

By Eastern mage this secret figure limned Is symbol that my barque of Life, outbound From ports forgot for sh.o.r.es by mist bedimmed, Should fetch the centre of this perfect round; Nor should one miss to see the focus 'tis Of a consummate oval: beacon light That points a haven to all argosies.

Imperial Eyes, that do illume my night, My barque sets sail. Suffer that she clear Her harbour dues, and from her cargazon Proffer these petalled blushes of the year, Which, tho' they fade, as must my Argus soon Into the dim horizon, still implore But access, and a smile; they dare no more!

--N. C.

"Now," said Nigel to himself, "if I do but send Sergeant Blick to her waiting-maid with this sonnet ensconced in a basket of roses it is odds but her Highness gets it, and if any one intercept it beshrew me if he make anything of it, for I can make little of it myself."

The plan, clumsy or not, was successful. Sergeant Blick could be very stupid on occasions, till he knew he had what he wanted, and it cost him some pains before he could arrive at the personal attendant of the Archd.u.c.h.ess. Then a handsome bribe for herself and the direct and not super-refined flatteries of the sergeant procured the faithful delivery of the gift.

Nigel had sent the drawing of the figure to meet either fortune. If she had not seen it before, it at all events a.s.sisted to explain the allusions of the sonnet; and if she had, by the hand of Wallenstein, it would justify his request as showing that he himself understood the linking of the three destinies.

As he sat with Hildebrand at his evening meal the day following, he was summoned and bidden to attend in the garden of the palace at the hour of nine, when he would be met at the nearest gate.

This involved some explanation to Hildebrand, who, receiving the other's a.s.sent to his own hint of an a.s.signation, merely laughed and asked no more.

Nigel was punctual, and the same page who had introduced him to the Archd.u.c.h.ess in the gallery met him, and bowing, led the way by a path little difficult to remember through the garden, where he had met Father Lamormain, to a little orchard close, which was separated from the garden by a thick hedge, within which was a wall. The page unlocked the gate of this with a key, which he then handed to Nigel, bowed again, and turned as if to go. Nigel entered the orchard close, and following a little path between two rows of trees came to an open bower, which had a carpet of thick sward, an old stone seat, a screen of yews and laurels all about save for the entrance and the exit opposite.

The night was matchless with moonlight. The trees shone whitely. Deep shadows fell from trees and bushes which were full of foliage. Out of a shadow stepped the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie, a dark-hued velvet cloak dependent from her shoulders and open, displaying her milk-white neck and bosom, and a robe of some sheeny tissue of gold thread and silk that glittered here and there as she moved, whose texture caught the moonbeams. Upon her head she wore a little golden fillet of antique work, which seemed to confine her profusion of black curls that for the rest framed in her glorious face and danced in the night breeze upon her shoulders. The dark eyebrows and the long lashes, like thickets half concealing twin lakes, made her complexion look paler than usual. But her red full lips parted in a smile.

Her beauty, intensified by the moonlight, and suffused with something more of air and sky, her ever astonishing resemblance to the strange Ottilie von Thuringen, together took Nigel by storm. The shock of it thrilled him. No Wallenstein of forty-eight, wrapped securely in the husk of his own fortunes, but a living man with all the ripe vintage of twenty-five surging in his veins, was Nigel. What would the world of men of forty-eight not give to have the glorious energy, the unconquerable vigour, the joyous ardour for love of twenty-five, of twenty-five that can quaff and quaff again and still hold out the bowl for more? Give?

Another world!