CHAPTER XXV.

A SERIOUS MISTAKE, AND A LEARNED DISCUSSION ON WOMEN.

The hours stole slowly on, and as they wore away, and the hour of escape drew nigh, my anxiety increased, more perhaps than the whole occasion merited; but the wound on my head rendered me feverish and fretful, as poor Dandy Dreghorn soon found; for, growing weary of his incessant chatter, I abruptly told him to hold his tongue, and we sat moping like two owls in the dark, listening to the hours and half-hours, as they were struck slowly and sonorously by the clock over the ancient gateway of the house. The voices in distant apartments died away; the oak chamber became so black that we could not see each other's faces.

Midnight was at hand.

"Ernestine will now be in bed," thought I: "but will she be asleep, or watching for my escape?" Imagination conjured up a picture of this girl, with all her dark hair gathered in a silken caul, lying sleepless on her laced pillows, with the pretty Gabrielle nestling beside her, listening for every sound, and watching for the time which would assure them that we were free of the mansion, and safe from the dangerous vicinity of the terrible John of Tserclä.

"See, sir," said Dandy, "a licht begins to glint at the end o' yon ambulatory!"

"'Tis the corporal--and there is the first stroke of twelve! The old trooper is punctual."

From the window seat, where for hours I had been ruminating and gazing on the darkened landscape, I arose with a beating heart; loosened my claymore in its sheath, to be prepared for any emergency, and saying to Dreghorn--

"Follow, but follow me softly, and for Heaven's sake _silently_!" approached the light which glimmered at the end of the long corridor, and seemed to be flashing upward from the bottom of a staircase. On gaining the landing which overlooked it, we saw--not the old corporal whom we expected--but an older and decrepit cavalier, who leant with his right hand on a gold-headed cane, and with his left on the arm of a tall officer, who was brilliantly attired in a doublet of cloth of gold with hanging sleeves, with a mantle of scarlet velvet, a long rapier and plume. They were preceded by two servants bearing candles, but slowly, as the old man paused frequently to draw breath or make an observation.

Dubious whether to advance or retreat, I stood for a moment irresolute; but fearing that to be seen by any one save the family of the count might betray him and them, and compromise our own safety, I resolved on immediate concealment; but Dreghorn, in his eagerness and confusion, mistook the way back to our former lurking-place, and by advancing too far along the passage, led me into a larger and more magnificent room. This I could perceive by the moonlight, which fell in large broad flakes through the mullioned windows.

"Harkee, Dreghorn," said I, "this way--not that. Dost hear?--devil take thee, fellow, and send thee back to thy plough-stilts!"

My loud whispers were unheeded or unheard; thus I was obliged to follow, lest by some clownish blunder he might compromise us all.

"Quick--conceal yourself!" said I; "for, whoever these are, they come this way; and, if they discover us, we are both as dead men."

Perceiving that the room was hung with arras, I raised it at the foot and let it drop over my person, while standing flat against the wall, in a position which, to say the least of it, was very constrained, unpleasant, and dusty.

"Lord preserve us, and keep us! I'll be catched noo, like a rat in a girnel!" cried Dandy in great tribulation, as he ran three or four times round the room in search of a similar nook, overturning a chair or two in the dark; and, becoming more bewildered as he heard the approaching footsteps, he made a sudden dive below a large and stately bed which stood close to the wall, on one side of the chamber; and there he was barely ensconced, when all the gildings of its canopy, and of the corniced ceiling and furniture, glittered, as the two servants entered with their lights, and, placing them on the table, withdrew, retiring backwards before the little old man with a reverence which, together with his whole peculiar bearing (for I could overlook and overhear all through a hole in the decayed hangings), told me he was Tilly--the great, the ferocious, the terrible Tilly--the soldier-Jesuit--the demon-general of the Emperor Ferdinand!

"You may go," said he, to the servants, and they retired.

Leaning on the arm of the tall cavalier, and on his gold-headed cane, he crossed the waxed floor with a step rendered somewhat unsteady by age, and reached a large stuffed chair, then, seating himself, he drew several long breaths, during which the officer remained respectfully silent, with his plumed beaver in his right hand, and his left resting in the polished bowl-hilt of his long toledo.

Figure to yourself a little, lean old man, past his seventieth year, and made more aged in aspect by the asceticism of a youth passed in a Jesuit college, and by the wounds and toils of war; a thin face and high narrow forehead, alternately clouded by thought, and knit by irritability; fierce, deep eyes, like those of a rattlesnake, the hooked nose of his Spanish mother, the tiger-like mouth of his Walloon father, with a lanky cat-like mustache to show that he was a soldier, and the small remains of a tonsure to declare that he was yet a priest. A lean, bent body, encased in a leather doublet rusted over by the constant use of ill-conditioned armour; meagre thighs and crooked knees, cased in wide calfskin boots, having enormous jinglespurs; a long sword, a little mantle, a high ruff, a broad-brimmed hat of brown felt with a steeple crown, garnished by a red feather stuck into the gold image of Madonna, which, with his magnificent diamond ring, he afterwards bequeathed to our Lady of Oetingen. Such was John de Tserclä, the Count de Tilly, generalissimo of Ferdinand II. and of the troops of the Catholic League, so celebrated for his valour and cunning, his generosity to Catholics, his ferocity to Protestants--his aversion to women, to wine, and to all human weaknesses--save the fear of ghosts!

Early in life he became a follower of St. Ignatius Loyola. In the seclusion of his cloister this fierce enthusiast had a vision. The mother of God appeared before him, surrounded by the rays of glory; thirteen stars sparkled about her brow, and the lilies of purity sprang from under her feet; clouds rolled around her, and little angels bore up her long flowing garments. She urged him to take arms for the Church of Rome--for the extermination of Protestantism, and the total subjugation of Northern Europe. He became a soldier, and fought bravely; and in an incredibly short space of time attained, solely by incontestable merit, a marshal's baton and the sole command of the Imperial troops; but the camp fed rather than cured his wild and visionary schemes of a universal faith, and the conquest of the Protestant nations. Hence that mad ferocity, of which we had so many terrible examples, during the long struggle for the freedom of religion and the liberty of Germany. He was a believer in dreams, and was supposed by the Danes and Swedes to possess a charmed life, which our musketeers often put sorely to the test; hence Tilly's abhorrence of the Scottish brigades in Germany. An astrologer, he was intensely superstitious, and relied devoutly on omens; hence we find them preceding all his greatest undertakings. When he held the famous council of war at Hamelin, a hurricane blew up the powder-magazine, and, reaching devoted Madgeburg, extinguished the lamps of the wise virgins in the great cathedral. The night before the great battle of Leipzig, he quartered himself in a house which proved to be an undertakers; hence, though brave as a lion, he fought the action next day with a wavering heart, and with the certainty of meeting disaster and death.

"Count Kœningheim," said he, drawing a long breath, and pausing. I applied my eye to a hole in the tapestry, and surveyed with curiosity the personage addressed. This was his aide-de-camp, the intended husband of Ernestine, and in all things the reverse of his leader. Tall, handsome, and sun-burned, with a bushy mustache and devil-may-care eye, which announced him a jovial Reitre--a stanch comrade, a thorough bon-vivant--one of those merry fellows who wink at landladies, kiss pretty waitresses, and make themselves at home every where. I saw at a glance that he would never suit Ernestine.

"Count Albert, is Carlstein fairly away to join his column?"

"Yes, generalissimo. I heard him ride out of the quadrangle, with his aides and two Reitres, about ten minutes ago."

"Good!" muttered Tilly, laying his broad beaver on the table; "he is a tiresome fellow--too proper a man for me, and would make war after a gentle fashion of his own. He is your countryman--but you must excuse me. His column marches on the Lauenburg road--and the horse regiments of Goëtz, Wallace the Scot, and Wingarti, are moving on the same point. Ah! our pontoons will soon make us a passage across the Elbe!"

"Wingarti's dragoons are all puppies, and think more of their mustaches than their muskets."

"And this Count of Carlstein has two women in his train--ha! ha!" said Tilly, with a sardonic laugh, as he unbuckled his waist-belt and laid his long rapier on the table; "two women, Kœningheim--the man is mad!"

"He introduced them as his daughters," replied the other, colouring a little with vexation.

"A mere trick--daughters, cousins, and sisters have been introduced to me thus before! You cunning fellows begin to think me stupid."

"On my honour, Count Tilly, I swear to you they are his daughters."

"What faith you have in their mother! Daughters! well, well, so much the worse--a wise man truly to lead a column of infantry--one who has daughters! I do not love to have women following our army, Kœningheim. I have known many a brave fellow lost to Austria and God's service by the fascinations of that subtle sex, whose sole object is to create passions and rivalry among gallant men, without feeling in their own hearts one spark of this so-called love, of which idlers rave and poets sing."

"Your excellency is speaking like the Jesuit you were, and not like the brave soldier you are," replied Count Albert, with a cold smile.

"I am speaking like a man of common sense, Kœningheim," retorted Tilly, grasping the knobs of his arm-chair, and turning his snakelike eyes upon the broad honest face of the colonel of Reitres. "Beware you of their snares, count; and recollect that the first object of an Imperialist cavalier is the cause of God and of the Emperor--the Cross and the Eagle; that all private sympathies must yield to the public good. By the wiles of a woman, Adam lost his innocence, Samson his strength, and Mark Antony the fruit of all his victories. Ah! beware of them, Kœningheim, beware of them!" added Tilly, drawing his lean legs out of his enormous boots. "No man," saith Saint Jerome, "can serve God with a whole heart, if he hath any transactions with a woman."

"Corpo di Baccho! but one may very well lead a regiment of horse, serve the emperor, and love a pretty woman occasionally," said the aide-de-camp, twirling his mustaches; "the fact is, count, that what suited Saint Jerome well enough, will not suit me, or Merodé, or Wingarti, or any of us but yourself, who are quite a model of a man! Women are called the pious sex, and I have no doubt Saint Jerome had a high opinion of them in his time."

"So had Cornelius Agrippa," sneered Tilly; "he wrote a notable treatise on female excellence, and yet withal divorced his third wife. Ha! ha! What make up the sum of this love thou pratest about! Rich gauds, billets-doux, sighs, and treachery! I have seen many a gallant man, who had hewn a passage through a forest of pikes, become a woman's plaything--then flung aside and forgotten, as a toy is forgotten by a child."

"By my soul, Count Tilly, you are a million times too severe," laughed Kœningheim; "I know of no satisfaction equalling that with which a stout fellow, who had done his service in battle duly, basks in the smiles of some kind beauty."

"Tis the mere fanfaronade of Don Quixote, this--but, hark! do you not hear something?"

"I do; what the devil can it be?" said Count Kœningheim, as a very palpable sound of mastication came from below the vast tester-bed where Dandy Dreghorn had ensconced himself, and where, I had no doubt, he was satisfying his never-ending appetite with some of the provision saved over our dinner.

"Devil take thee after, glutton!" thought I; "for if taken now, the cord will be thy doom."

"This old house must be full of rats," said Tilly. "Count, I will thank you to turn that portrait to the wall. I hate to sleep among portraits of the dead, they have such a ghostly look in their staring eyes, and that old dame in her coif is like a corpse in a winding-sheet--ah, thank you!"

So this old Tartar, who fought afterwards at Leipzig, who stormed Feldberg, exterminated the Scottish garrison at Brandenburg, ravaged the margraviate of Anspach and the banks of the Danube--trembled at the sight of an old picture!

"Ay, ay!" he resumed with a yawn, as the portrait was turned; "women are strange and capricious animals. I have known one love to death a man, whom every other woman--yea, and every other man, too--detested. Now, how do you account for that, Count Albert? Obstinacy--I tell you, rank obstinacy!"

"Nay, general," yawned the aide, behind his hat, with the air of a man who was excessively tired; "there is always a cause for love."

"A cause, but not a reason. Women and wine make fools of our finest men."

"Surely it is better to be fooled by a pretty woman than a paltry wine-pot."

"But I will have my soldiers fooled by neither," said Tilly, striking his withered hand upon the table. "I am a priest, and, though a soldier, know of such matters only by name. But hence with this rubbish. What is the strength of your regiment, count?"

"Eight hundred under baton, your excellency."

"Any married men?"

"Not one."

"Good! when Reitres marry they should be struck off the muster roll. Yet I could have sworn I saw some of your fellows on the march yesterday, with women _en croupe_ behind them."

"Only ammunition-wives, your excellency."

"Ah! I have heard that there are some thorough-bred rascals in the regiment."

"The fact is, general, that Stalhofen's troop is composed, like the honourable regiment of Merodé, entirely of thieves from Vienna."

"Diavolo! dost thou say so! Then the sacking of the Danish towns will suit their humour to a hair, without fear of the gallows. Ah! wait till we reach Kiobenhafen!"

The count uttered a shout of laughter; Tilly added one of his frightful grins, and rubbing his lean brown hands, said--

"I blush that such rascals as the regiment of Merodé march beneath our consecrated colours; yet the end will sanctify the means. If there was one rogue among the twelve apostles, there may easily be one regiment of rogues among the thousands of the Imperial host. War is the pastime of kings, but it manufactures many a thief and beggar."

"Hah!" said Kœningheim, as a horseman rode into the court; "that will be our scout returned from Saxe-Lauenburg."

"Send him up then, Kœningheim, and thereafter you may retire to bed, for we must all be in our saddles at cock-crow; but I have two hours' work before me yet, having all my office to say over, for I have never forgotten in the camp the duties I took upon me in the cloister."

The handsome aide-de-camp gladly hurried away. Tilly drew from his breast a small and well-used volume, containing probably the "office," or prayers he referred to--placed a mark between the leaves, and devoutly crossed himself. Then he paused; a heavy step approached, the door was opened, and a personage wearing a broad felt hat and large Spanish cloak towered between me and the light, as he advanced towards Tilly, who, shading his sharp eyes, gazed with a keen rat-like expression at this stranger, who, immediately upon entering, had carefully closed the door, as if he had that to communicate, which none must overhear.