CHAPTER III.

Ha!—sure a pair!

_S. Dro_. I, Sir, am Dromio! command him away.

_E. Dro_. I, Sir, am Dromio; pray let me stay.

IN the meantime Brunilda was jogging on at no easy rate behind the Yellow Dwarf, who, when arrived at the Orange Tree, opened the trunk by a sign, and, dismounting, bore his lovely burthen into it. She felt herself, immediately after, descending a flight of steps, which, from the duration of time, appeared to be endless. They did terminate, however, at last, and the Dwarf, placing her roughly upon her feet, retired swiftly from the place, closing the entrance at the bottom of the stairs carefully after him. It was some time after his departure ere Brunilda took courage to open her eyes and look around her; when she did, she found herself in a subterraneous apartment as large as the bed-chamber of the empress Constance. {77} Every article about it was of silver, and there was a magnificence about this underground palace, which made her conclude it to be the castle and principal residence of her intended husband, the Yellow Dwarf, whose company she did not covet, and who, to do him justice, did not appear to torment her. Food was supplied, and every attention paid to her wishes by many attendants of both sexes, who, however, never exchanged one single word in her hearing. Wearied out by this continual taciturnity, she began to wish for the sound of a human voice, and, thinking she might probably learn something of the Dwarf’s intentions from himself, she one day, instead of questioning her dumb attendants as usual about her lover, demanded some tidings of their master. “He cannot approach your presence, madam,” replied one of the mutes, breaking his hateful silence, “unless you request his appearance. A mighty spirit, one of the enemies of my master’s and your felicity, has contrived this misfortune by his spells, but, if you command it, he is permitted to attend you.” Brunilda, who, in giving this required permission, never dreamed of any thing more than making inquiries after her family and lover, was confounded to hear the Dwarf, with the most rapturous impertinence, volubly thank her for this approval of his, and generous acknowledgment of her passion. Putting aside his long beard lest it should throw him down, he knelt fantastically at her feet, seized her white hand, and declared himself the happiest of all demon-born beings. It was in vain that Brunilda reasoned, entreated, and scolded: he protested he was satisfied with the proofs she had given of her love, and, in order to spare her modesty the pain of appearing to yield too soon, he should put a gentle restraint upon her liberty, and not suffer her to quit his palace till she became his wife. At this avowal the poor princess grew outrageous; she asked the little monster how he had dared to select a princess of her exalted rank to share his hole under ground, and burrow like rats in the earth? why he had not rather chosen some humble cast-away maiden, who, having nothing in the world to lose, might be contented out of it? “Rank!” replied the irritated little demon, “and what is this rank of which you are so vain? An imaginary splendour bestowed upon some men by the cringing servility of others,—the weak fancy that decks one with this supremacy, gives birth to the slavish fear that ensures to him its possession. Rank!” continued the atrabilious little viper, swelling into a respectable width by the overflowing of his angry venom, “rank! it is power gained by force, won by the sword, by fraud, by oppression! The strongest is the noblest; and if so, I am more than your equal, beautiful Brunilda, for, princess as you are, you are my captive, and I am your master.” Brunilda wept at this insolence, and, like all who know not how to controvert what they yet cannot bear to acknowledge, hated the Dwarf more than ever, and resolved to prove it to him by seizing every opportunity of annoying him. With this laudable intention, she renewed the attack by commenting with great severity upon his frightful little person: she sneered at his long beard, short legs, and large head. She demanded if he had ever looked in a mirror, and, if he had, how he could presume to imagine he could captivate any woman under such a detestable form? In no age have ugly people borne to be laughed at, for, however hideous they may happen to be, they seldom find it out themselves, and are, in consequence, very much surprised and offended when informed of it by others; and, as vanity is usually the reigning passion of the most disfigured, they seldom pardon an offence which is mortal. The Dwarf, the ugliest animal the eyes of Brunilda had ever encountered, could hardly believe this possible, and saw no joke in her mirth at his expense, and, as he had his full share of that precious commodity, vanity, he raved, stormed, and became so insolent, that Brunilda was compelled to order him out of her presence. This command, which he was obliged to obey, irritated the little creature to madness, and he swore, that, since he could not enter her presence without her permission, he would find a mode of making her give it whenever he should condescend to require it. This threat had more of truth in it than Brunilda imagined. A few days after this animated conversation, the Dwarf sent to ask leave to be allowed to pay his visit to the princess, which was immediately refused. This threw him into a rage, and he informed the princess, by one of his mutes, “that her lover Ludolph of Tecklenburgh was in his power, and that his head should pay for the scorn with which she thought proper to treat her lord and husband.” Poor Brunilda hastily gave the required permission, upon condition that Ludolph should accompany him; and her “lord and husband,” as he styled himself, entered a few moments after, followed by the knight, whom his demons had seized in the forest. “There, madam,” said he, grinning like Grimaldi, but not so merrily, “I found this stranger in the neighbourhood of my Orange Tree, and I have brought him hither to secure a welcome for myself. Did I not tell you I would make you glad to receive me? Here shall this valorous knight remain, a hostage for your good behaviour; and never shall you receive him without admitting me at the same moment.” Brunilda, who would have been delighted, in her present condition, to have seen any human being whatever, was in raptures at the sight of Ludolph, who, on his part, was content with his captivity, since he shared it with her; and, unrestrained by the presence of the Dwarf, they so often and so tenderly repeated their mutual delight to each other, that their grim jailer could not endure the sight of their happiness, and, rather than witness it, withdrew himself and Ludolph from the company of Brunilda, which he did not again seek for some time. When, attended by Ludolph, he next entered her apartment, his jealous tortures were increased by the renewed endearments of the lovers, and, resolving in his own mind not to endure what he flattered himself he could easily remedy, he threw a spell over the unlucky Brunilda, which he generously hoped would destroy all the little tranquillity she enjoyed. The charm operated upon the sight of the princess, who no longer beheld her lover, but a hideous negro advancing towards her. Brunilda was terrified, but, reassured by the explanation of the Dwarf, who felicitated himself on her mortification, she resolved to punish him in kind; so collecting all the woman in her soul, and conquering her dislike of the ugly shape he presented to her, she gave it a most affectionate welcome, and caressed it as her dear Ludolph. The Dwarf would willingly have annihilated him; but, obliged to keep him in existence to ensure himself admittance to Brunilda, he resolved to embitter that existence as much as lay in his power, and, having once more recourse to his spells, the handsome Ludolph, unchanged to himself, appeared to the eyes of the fascinated princess a furious and monstrous tiger, armed with tremendous fangs and claws. But love penetrates all disguises, and the princess was now a match for the sorcerer. She knew that the fangs and claws, however terrible to others, had no danger for her, and she suffered him to lie at her feet, kiss her snowy hand, and put his shaggy head upon her lap, without manifesting the slightest apprehension, to the great annoyance of the Dwarf, whose dull wit was sharpened by his jealousy, and he now contrived the master-piece of spells, to the increased misery of poor Brunilda, over whose clouded senses the charm once more operating, presented her beloved Ludolph only under the form of the Yellow Dwarf himself. This transformation was horrible to both the sufferers, for each of the figures maintained that he was the knight, and persisted in execrating the other as the impostor, while Brunilda, wearied with gazing on their hateful countenances, dared not afford the slightest notice to either, lest she should bestow the tenderness designed for Ludolph upon his detestable rival. In vain did she weep, threaten, and supplicate the Dwarf to give her lover “any shape but that.” She knew not even to which of the pair she ought to address her petition. But the demon was inexorable, listened unmoved to her sorrows, for his heart was as hard as Pharaoh’s, and even inwardly laughed at her agonies. In vain did she examine their features in the hope of discovering some slight difference that might point out her lover: both grinned the same ghastly smile,—both exhibited the same unvarying ugliness of feature. Alas, poor Brunilda! Lavater himself could not have assisted thee, though, hadst thou lived in our days, or Dr. Spurzheim in thine, some professional examination of the cerebral organisation of the two dwarfs might have set the question at rest. Doubtless, some bump extraordinary, some wonderful dilation of the organ of self-esteem in the skull of the true dwarf, or amativeness or combativeness in that of the false one, might have aided thee to discover the unbrutified soul confined in the brutified body. But, as it was, they were both brutes to Brunilda, and, as she had no wish to charm the Yellow Dwarf, she wept her disappointment incessantly. Nor was Ludolph less busy than the princess in employing threats and prayers by turns to mollify the Dwarf, though one was to as little purpose as the other, in the presence of the princess. The cunning demon reiterated the same whining petition, used the same arguments, and denounced the same vengeance as the unhappy Ludolph; and when retired from her apartment, laughed at his success, and replied to every threat with mingled hate and defiance. It was in vain that Ludolph accused him of having broken all the laws of chivalry, held even by demons so sacred. He told him he regarded no laws, except those which he had made himself. It was to no purpose he argued his right to be set at liberty at least. The Dwarf, who was a philosopher in his way, replied that men had no rights, and that “_might_,” which he possessed, was a much better argument, and a more effective weapon. All this was unluckily true, but it did not convince the Westphalian. Zeno, the stoic, said, “that we had two ears, and but one tongue, that we might hear much and say little.” It was a wise observation, and happy are those who profit thereby: our two captives might, if they had had the good luck ever to have heard it; but as they had not, they acted directly counter, for they so heartily used their two tongues, and so entirely spared their four ears, that their jailer grew outrageous, and therefore, except when he went to torment Brunilda, he resolved to free himself from the society of the count of Tecklenburgh, who paid for his garrulity by being condemned to talk to himself in one of the most dreary dungeons of the cavern. Here he had full leisure to think of his misfortunes, and execrate the contriver of them. He prayed night and morning with all the strength of lungs he could command, to all the saints in the calendar, to give him a lift out of this purgatory. He was too good a Christian not to abhor all thought of magic; but, finding how little notice was taken of his petition by the higher powers, he could not help thinking of the lower, and wishing and vowing, that if some sorcerer, witch, or even devil, would but come to his assistance now, he would find time enough for repentance hereafter, and heal his conscience, and propitiate Heaven by many good deeds to be done in perspective. “I would walk to Jerusalem, for a penance,” said he, “or give the spoils I shall take in my next battle to the church, or I would, when I shall be able, endow an abbey. Either of these designs would be satisfactory,” continued he, “and oh that I had the good luck to be able to put them into execution! Oh that some friendly spirit, some gnome of these caverns, or demon of this forest, would but come to my assistance!” No sooner said than done: the sinner trembled at the instant fulfilment of his wicked wish, and began with real alarm to suspect that he was a bit of a conjurer himself; for there arose in a moment, from the bosom of the earth, a gigantic dusky-looking figure in the human shape, inquiring his commands. “I could not come to your assistance,” said the object, “till you summoned me, or you should not have suffered so long. I am the mortal foe of the Yellow Dwarf, and the legitimate prince of these mines, into which he has intruded himself, during my absence on a short journey I made to the centre. He has fixed himself pretty firmly in my palace by his spells, but I shall contrive to dispossess him. I will begin by assisting you: speak, knight of Tecklenburgh, how can I serve you?” Ludolph, who, recovered from his first fright, desired nothing better, immediately struck a bargain with the friendly gnome; the first article of which was, that he should liberate himself and the princess. “I can free you instantly,” replied the gnome, “but the spells around the princess are too powerful to be suddenly broken; nevertheless, with your help it may finally be done. We must possess ourselves of the charm in which lies the power of the Dwarf, this, unfortunately, is his beard; for it will be a work of difficulty to master it. Could you, in your combat, have cut off that, instead of his head, all would have been well: but, as long as that beard hangs to his chin, his body is invulnerable, for, cut him into fifty pieces, and he will unite together again. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, observe faithfully all my directions, and, ultimately, we may accomplish our wishes. Beneath those mountains of Bohemia which bound the marquisate of Misnia, there is a diamond mine, as yet unknown to the human race, whose sacrilegious hands have not there torn open the heart of their mother earth and disturbed the spirits who sleep in her bosom. There, concealed many fathoms beneath the mountain, has been hidden for centuries the magic weapon which alone can conquer the Yellow Dwarf. It is that identical pair of scissors with which the demon Fate cuts asunder your mortal destinies; these, and these only, can secure our enemy. It will be in vain to cut off his head so long as he retains his beard, and that beard is unapproachable, except to the magic scissors of fate: the chief difficulty will be in obtaining possession of this wonderful instrument, since only a knight of unstained loyalty, pure, spotless, free from all taint of libertinism, drunkenness, and bloodshed, can take them from the hands of the statue which holds them, without incurring the severe penalty of instant death. When such a knight shall be found, the scissors must be put into the hands of a spotless virgin, for only such can use them in cutting off the formidable beard; should any other woman attempt it, the inevitable consequences would be also death from the scissors themselves.” Poor Ludolph was as much depressed by the end of this discourse as he had been elevated by the beginning. Such a knight it was indeed next to impossible to find. He himself was as good and true as most; his loyalty was indeed unstained, he had not shed blood in a murderous or treacherous manner; but he had been too frequently engaged in his father’s petty, and often unjustifiable wars, to undertake an enterprise that demanded hands free from stain. Then, as for drunkenness, alas! for poor Ludolph, though naturally a very sober man, he knew he had too often shared many a “t’other flask,” and too frequently drowned his fears of the abbot of Fulda in the big bowl of Tecklenburgh, to permit him any chance of success in the achievement. In his own person, therefore, he gave it directly up, satisfied of his incapacity from the fore-mentioned weaknesses, without carrying his self-examination any further, but at the same time almost despairing of finding a substitute. “For the spotless virgin, friendly gnome,” said the honest Westphalian, “there I have better hopes, since there are enough at court, and I shall find this part of my task easy enough.” “Not quite so easy as you imagine, knight,” replied the gnome, “since there is not an unmarried lady in all Thuringia who will not lay claim to that honour, and you may thus be the innocent cause of the death of many; but I can assist you here, and make this part of the undertaking much less difficult. Here is a magic girdle; obtain permission to try it, without speaking of its virtues, upon the ladies of the margrave’s court. Should the dame who shall buckle it on be a deceiver, the girdle, though now appearing of a large size, will shrink into the smallest compass, and will not even encircle her slender waist: should the lady be the object of your search, it will set closely and gracefully to her form.” “A thousand thanks,” replied the honest knight; “I have no fears for my success in this point, and perhaps I may be more fortunate than I expect in the other. Now then, generous friend, accomplish your kind intention, release me from this dungeon, and I will immediately hasten to Eisenac and seek a maiden who may assist to break these abominable enchantments.” “I will,” replied the spirit, “but do not forget that to other eyes as well as Brunilda’s, you still wear the form of the Yellow Dwarf; this is occasioned by three orange-coloured hairs, from his formidable beard, tied round your right arm; unloose them, and you will appear to others as you do to yourself and me. Be under no alarm for the safety of the princess, since I have already prevented your enemy’s entering her presence without her permission, and will still continue to watch over her.” The knight again thanked the gnome for his friendly care, and shutting his eyes, by command of his companion, and opening them again the next instant, found himself, to his infinite joy, standing near the Orange Tree, round which his horse was quietly grazing. He soon sprang lightly into his saddle, and turned his head from the wood, determined to reach Eisenac ere daybreak. With this resolution he spurred on gaily, thinking of the joy he should feel upon liberating his beloved Brunilda, when, in a turn of the wood, he suddenly encountered a troop of knights in the livery of the Yellow Dwarf. A cold shivering seized him, for he expected to be dragged back again neck and heels to the Orange Tree, when, to his utter astonishment, they all lowly saluted and respectfully made way for him to pass. He now remembered that he had not yet removed the orange-coloured hairs from his arm, and, feeling himself indebted to this circumstance for his safety, resolved to let them remain till he should be quite out of the infernal forest. Dwelling fondly upon his hopes and brightening prospects, the young morning sun found him entering Eisenac, where he was greeted with a loud shout by a troop of boys, who seemed to recognise an old acquaintance. Soon the boy crowd was augmented by a multitude of citizens, who surrounded Ludolph, yelling like fiends, seized his bridle, pinioned his arms, and saluted him with a volley of dreadful curses. “Sorcerer, robber, demon!” rung in his ears in all directions, and, while the uproar raged in its greatest violence, he was dragged from his horse, and thrown on the ground. At this extraordinary treatment, the count demanded to be conducted to the margrave, to the princess Margaret. He was told that the court had quitted Eisenac, but they were resolved to burn him alive in revenge for his treatment of their beloved princess, and the noble count Ludolph, her destined husband. Solomon said, that “fear is nothing else than a betraying the succours which reason offereth;” and, in this case, it was most truly so, for the knight’s agitation, in the first part of the attack, had made him forget in time to remove the orange-coloured hairs from his arm. Their last exclamation had shewn him their mistake, and his own fatal imprudence. Now he found that he was in danger of being burnt alive for the sins of the execrable Dwarf, unless he could immediately free himself from the charm. “Hear me, dear friends,” he cried, “I am truly the unhappy Ludolph, but your eyes are bewitched by the sorceries of that abominable demon, and you see me only under his resemblance; release my arms for one moment, and I will convince you.” At this insult to their understandings, the wise men of Eisenac set up a most tremendous howl, and were still more anxious to collect faggots for his service. They kicked, buffeted, and reviled his person till he was almost delirious with rage, and the foamings of his indignation confirmed them in their belief that he really was, what he appeared, the demon of the Orange Tree. During one of the pauses made by his guards to listen to his earnest entreaties for a moment’s liberty, he found means to disengage his hands from their grasp, tore open his sleeve, and furiously rending away the slight bandage of hair, stood before them in his own proper person. Astonishment for a moment tied up the tongues of the assembly, but quickly recovering themselves before Ludolph could gain time to explain, they declared it a new piece of sorcery, and swore that the form of their gallant favourite should not shield the wizard who they firmly believed was his murderer. The magistrates and officers of Eisenac, aroused by the news of the seizure of the demon Dwarf, had assembled upon the spot, and startled by the wonders they now heard, trembled to think of the consequences of the unbridled fury of the mob, should the story told by the equivocal knight be really true. Anxious to avoid the spilling of innocent blood, they proposed conveying him to prison, and awaiting the decision of the margrave; but the people anticipated a sight, and rather than lose so excellent a joke as that of roasting a sorcerer, they would willingly have run the hazard of sacrificing even Ludolph himself. But the magistrates, much to their honour, continued firm, and, through their interference, poor Ludolph, who already felt the flames crackling under him, with much difficulty obtained permission to say a few words to them in his defence. “Noble magistrates and discerning judges,” said the mob-hunted count of Tecklenburgh, “I trust that you will believe that I am really myself, as I declare to you by my knighthood I am. As for the Yellow Dwarf, a curse on him, I am his victim, not his ally; since it is from his infernal enchantments, and still more infernal malice, all my misfortunes have arisen. How you can for a moment imagine that I could be his friend because I have been unlucky enough to appear under his odious form, I am at a loss to imagine, since nobody surely can possibly believe such a transformation to be a matter of choice.” The female part of the audience perfectly agreed with this last observation of Ludolph, and the magistrates, puzzled by the sincerity with which he had delivered his remonstrance, determined to save him, at least from the fire and the faggots. But, as the people had expected a show, thought the wise men of Eisenac, “a show they must have,” or the consequences, they knew, of their disappointment in an affair so essential to their well-being, might not be entirely insignificant to their betters. So, while acquitting him, in their consciences, of being the Yellow Dwarf, and forbidding the animating use of fire and faggots, they condemned him to be put to the ban, as a nobleman, for dabbling in a little private sorcery in conjunction with the demon, in whose villainous shape he had just appeared. No sooner was this righteous sentence pronounced against the unlucky Ludolph, than he was seized by the soldiers and followed by all the crowd, who, anxious to join in the fun, exhibited many a practical witticism at his expense, and cracked all their superfluous jokes upon his unfortunate person: then stripping him of his armour and knightly accoutrements, and clothing him in raw and filthy goatskins, they set him upon a sorry mule with his face towards the tail, and led him through the town, the herald proclaiming before him, “We declare thy wife, if thou hast one, a widow, thy children, if thou hast any, orphans, and we send thee, in the name of the devil, to the four corners of the earth.” Thus sent upon a long voyage, with such a friendly benediction, it would not have been wonderful if the heart of the knight had sunk with his circumstances, which any heart would have done except a Westphalian one, but that was employed in swelling with indignation, and meditating the best mode of returning the compliments of the Eisenac nobility. While thus occupied, he heard a voice close to his ear, which whispered, “Attend to my orders, and you are safe.” He looked earnestly in the direction of the sound, and saw, to his infinite satisfaction, the dusky face of his friend the gnome beneath the helmet of a soldier. “Let these people continue to believe you the Yellow Dwarf,” continued the spirit; “it is the only way to preserve you from suspicion in your real character; here are the hairs which, in your haste, you threw away. Resist not while I tie them round your arm, and leave the rest to me.” Ludolph sat silent while, under the appearance of a new insult, his instructor twisted the light band round his arm, and the shrieks of the people a moment after announced that the charm had taken effect upon their senses. “It is the sorcerer,” they cried, “the horrible Dwarf—seize him, tear him, burn him!” But, for this time, their kind intentions were completely frustrated, for the gnome, entering into the sorry mule which carried the prisoner, communicated to his worn-out frame such inconceivable vigour and rapidity, that a few minutes were sufficient to bear his rider far beyond the pursuit of his enemies, who remained in the market-place, staring after the beast and cursing the Yellow Dwarf. The representative of that malignant little demon was meanwhile receiving a few drops of a powerful cordial from the hands of his friend the gnome of the mine, who politely apologised for not knowing earlier the mischiefs into which his dear crony had fallen,—owing, however, entirely to his own excessive carelessness, which he should never have suspected. “And, in truth,” continued the friendly spirit, “I concluded you were safe at the margrave’s court which is at Weimar, and whither I had intended to follow you. Passing over Eisenac, I rested to know the meaning of the tumult I witnessed, and was just in time to rescue you from the rage of the mob, who would not have quitted their prey, even after the soldiers should have set you at liberty. Here,” continued the gnome, giving him a heavy bag of coin, a most welcome present to a half-naked knight errant, “hasten to equip yourself according to your rank, and lose no time in joining the court at Weimar, where you must select a damsel to conclude the adventure ere Brunilda can recover her liberty, or you be freed from the malice of the Yellow Dwarf.” Ludolph heartily thanked his good friend, though he could not help thinking it would have been as well if his assistance had been tendered some few hours earlier. But still, better late than never, thought the knight; and, though he had received a few cuffs and many bitter curses, yet hard words break no bones, and the cuffs he hoped one day to repay with interest. In the interim his honour was preserved by the contrivance of the gnome, as no man in Eisenac, no, not even the sapient magistrates themselves, would ever believe the creature they had pounded and worried so unmercifully, was any other than the Yellow Dwarf himself. Receiving from his hands once more the magic girdle which he had lost in the confusion, he bade farewell to the gnome, who promised to meet him in the forest, when he should have obtained the magic scissors, upon which their success depended; and, after accoutring himself as became his condition, not this time forgetting the three red hairs, he set forward once more for the court of the margrave; and, as he was by no means of a melancholy complexion, his past misfortunes had no other effect upon his spirits than elevating them to a joyous pitch for glee, that he had so well escaped the dangers which he believed would have ended more tragically. And thus gay, and hoping much from the future, he arrived, without any further adventure, at the palace of Weimar.