CHAPTER VII.

THE REPAST.

"Welcome, Philip, as we are here before you," said Ian; "in the name of mischief's mother, where have you been wandering to?"

"Over all this empty house, which I vow is like a great castle, and is almost without furniture."

"Almost!" replied Ian; "why, my cousin, except this room, and that one occupied by the Hausmeister, it seems quite deserted. Its inhabitants have all died of the plague----"

"The plague!--pleasant that, for their successors."

"This was four years ago; or else they have fled to Copenhagen, to escape the chances and mischances of war--the troubles (as the Hausmeister calls them) which always attend the march of foreign troops."

"Troubles?" said I.

"Ay," replied our lieutenant, Angus Roy M'Alpine, who had been in the Low Countries and Germany before; "troubles--for so the Hausmeister was pleased to name free inquartering, and the occasional abduction of a pretty maid or a wine-cask, things that will now and then happen, where soldiers shake their feathers."

"He is an ill-looking dog, that Hausmeister," I observed, "and wears a devilish odd hat and pair of breeches--I hate the aspect of the varlet!"

"Hate no one, Philip," said M'Alpine, quietly; "for hatred and anger are sure to go together--and sorrow perchance may follow; but I instinctively dislike this person, too."

M'Alpine, a fine-looking soldier, and brave fellow, was somewhat of a gloomy and thoughtful cast. Having once slain a friend in a single combat (as we were informed)--the result of a sudden quarrel--he made a vow to wear crape on his left arm till the end of his days, and never to give another challenge, though he had often received them, and been compelled to fight more than once in defence of his honour and reputation.

"I am sorry you are averse to the Holsteiner," said Ian; "for I have invited him to dine with us."

"Dine!" we exclaimed together; "surely it was more his part to have invited us."

"Four hungry Highlandmen to dine with one German or Dane," replied Ian; "oich! gentlemen, the thing was not to be thought of."

"I hope I shall not quarrel with him," I continued, remembering how he had received me; "in those green eyes of his are the very smile of a Campbell."

"And you know the adage?" added Tan, as he flung aside his sword, plaid, and pistols.

"While there are leaves on the trees, there will be guile----"

"Do not say in a Campbell," said the sergeant, Mhor, pausing in his culinary occupation, and bluntly interrupting M'Alpine; "do not say so, lieutenant, for my great-grandmother was a daughter of Barcaldine."

"I crave your pardon, sergeant," replied M'Alpine; "but my father, Torquil Dhu, was slain at Glenlivat by the men of Loch Awe, and I have a score to settle with that tribe."

"Hush!" said I, "here comes our Dane."

"Dane--dost thou call him?" said Angus; "nay, being a Holsteiner, he is pure German."

"What a clatter he makes!"

"'Tis his espadone on the stair."

"Dioul!" said my cousin; "and now let us to dinner."

We all rose to receive this personage, whom our Highland education made us disposed to treat with the utmost respect as the master of the house, or _husbonde_, as the Danes would call him (though only his deputy); Ian bade him welcome in Gaëlic, and Phadrig Mhor, whose vast stature made the Northman open wide his eyes, placed a chair for him, and we proceeded to dine.

I have said each of the five or six stories of the mansion had two dwellings, consisting of several apartments. Phadrig Mhor had ransacked the whole place, and collected within our chamber such furniture and utensils as he could procure among the vacated and desolate rooms. From one he brought a table; from another a high-backed antique chair; from a third a stool; from a fourth a tabourette; from another a pot, a kettle, and so on, until he had almost furnished our damp chamber, which overlooked the row of poplars, beyond which, in the Platz, we saw a regiment of Scottish pikemen being drilled to the use of the pike, according to the new fashion, as laid down in the _Pallas Armata_ of that eminent tactician, Captain Sir Thomas Kellie of Edinburgh and that Ilk.

Our dinner dishes had been borrowed from the old housekeeper of Otto Roskilde; for knives each of us had his skene-dhu, and for cups each had his hunting-quaigh or shell, hooped with silver; but Otto Roskilde brought his own pewter pot which reminded me of a Low lander's beechwood bicker. A saddle of mutton, which Phadrig had procured (Heaven alone knows how), with boiled Russian tongues, bread and cheese, composed a repast on which Fingal himself might have fared with satisfaction; and we brewed a brave tappit hen in a gigantic Flemish jug, with Dutch skeidam and hot water in equal proportions, sweetened with sugar from the Indian isles. Beside this, we had four bulbous-looking flasks of French brandy, which Phadrig had found when foraging about the rooms, and to the evident chagrin of our host, whose grey eyes glistened with surprise at the discovery, and anger at our henchman.

As neither M'Farquhar nor Phadrig Mhor (whom as his fosterer we always treated as an equal) could speak one word of any language but their native Gaëlic, nearly the whole conversation fell to the share of the lieutenant, M'Alpine, and myself. He spoke a little German, having served in the Low Countries under Sir James Ramsay, and I knew a little Spanish, having acquired it at King's College.

Now it chanced that both these languages were spoken by the Hausmeister, who, though at first somewhat reserved even to sullenness and silence, when his heart warmed by the contents of our gallant tankard, became loquacious in the extreme.

Though his name was Scandinavian enough in its sound, having imbibed certain undefinable suspicions about this man--awakened doubtless by the deep and secret smiles which I detected stealing over his sallow and swarthy face, like the quiet ripples on the surface of a Dutch canal--I found myself baffled in deciding to what country he belonged; for one moment there was something of the Danish softness in his voice, the next it had the deep twang of the Swedish, or the harsh growl of the German; and all these various tones were least discernible in his Spanish, which he spoke with the greatest fluency.

Filling up his quaigh to the brim, my cousin Ian, believing that we were in presence of a Holsteiner, stood up and drank courteously--

"To the honour of the brave and faithful Holsteiners."

I translated this to Otto Roskilde, who thereupon stood up in his great calf-skin boots, and returned thanks with tolerable politeness; then we all drank to each other's healths again, clinking our cups together, above, below, and side by side, in the old German fashion. The peg-tankard was refilled, and, as the afternoon subsided into evening, the evening into night, and the shadows of the Platz were thrown upon the stagnant canals, our good-fellowship increased; and we spoke openly of the chances of the war, and our hopes of beating the Imperialists back to the gates of Vienna. At this our Hausmeister shook his great curly head of black hair, assuring us that all the power of the North could never withstand the torrent which the Emperor Ferdinand was rolling against it.

"And which way do you march, sirs, on leaving Glückstadt?" he asked.

"We know not," replied M'Alpine.

"Towards the Weser, probably?" he continued, with a casual but inquisitive tone.

"That is as King Christian shall direct," said I.

"Your route must be towards the Weser; for all the Danes, Holsteiners, and Germans who follow Christian IV., have been marching in that direction since the battle of Lütter was won."

"I thought a Holsteiner would have said lost," observed M'Alpine.

"True!" replied Otto, with some confusion of manner, "for it was indeed lost to the princes of the Protestant confederation; but how many more of your brave countrymen are coming to join king Christian?"

"We know not," said I; "but if they come here as they are flocking to the standard of Gustavus Adolphus, like his, the army of Christian will be all Scots, I think, and nothing bub Scots."

"And you know not how many more are expected?"

"You are very inquisitive," said I, laughing; "about nine thousand."

"All Scots?"

"All--Murkle's, Spynie's, and Nithsdale's regiments--each being a brigade."

"And of the English, how many?"

"We know nothing about the English," replied M'Alpine, imbibing somewhat of my distrust at these categorical queries; "nothing save that, when we sailed, Scotland expected a war with them about this new court called the Commission for Grievances, which King Charles is about to thrust upon us, and we consider to be only that devilish Star-chamber under another name."

"Then, are there no English coming?"

"One regiment of pikes," I replied briefly, "for they generally prefer the service of the Prince of Orange; but why are you so anxious for all this information, Herr Otto?"

The blood rushed into his sallow face, and he stammered--

"Is it strange that I, a Holsteiner, should be anxious to learn the number of our friends?"

"Oh! 'tis quite natural," said I, feeling the justice of his reply; "but now, Herr, since I have answered all your questions, will you please to answer a few of mine?"

"It will afford me the utmost gratification if I can do so," he rejoined, filling up his cup, and letting out another button of his doublet to make room for its contents. "On what matter can I give you information?"

"Who is that very attractive damoiselle that occupies one of the apartments below?"

"Damoiselle!" he reiterated, while the paleness of anger overspread his face in the twilight; "you are mistaken, young gentleman; there is--assuredly there is no young lady there."

"Come, Herr, rally your thoughts," I continued, with a loud laugh, as the liquor mounted to my brain; "you will be sure to remember her--fair and handsome, with the most beautiful dark hair, and the longest eyelashes in the world. I warrant me, there is not a prettier _jung-fer_ in all Holstein!"

"You mean _Jung-fraü_," replied Otto, with another of his quiet but obnoxious smiles, and this time the fellow was laughing in earnest, for I had made--what I afterwards learned to be--a mistake; "but I beg to assure you, that no young damoiselle could be hereabout without my knowledge."

"I am aware of that," I continued in my tone of banter; "but, pray, make no more assertions; I have no wish to pry into your little secrets, Herr--not I, though doubtless this damoiselle is the prettiest little woman in Glückstadt."

"Were this St. John's night, when our fairies and white women are all abroad, I would swear thou hadst seen a Trold; for there is no woman here but the old crone my housekeeper, to whose smiles thou art welcome. There is none, I vow to you, by the soul of Holger Danske!"

Confounded by the earnestness of the man, struck by a sudden and ferocious gleam that passed over his glassy eyes, and supposing there was in the affair some strange mystery with which I had no right to meddle, I dropped the subject, and assisted to fill and refill the tankard; nor did we separate until the midnight moon was shining on the broad waters of the Elbe, and the strong round tower of Glückstadt.

Then Otto Koskilde retired, and the moment he was gone we rolled our tartan plaids around us, and lay down on the hard boarded floor, with our targets and claymores for pillows.