CHAPTER XVOF SOME FROWARD PASSAGES BEFORE THE DUKE
“Don Luiz,” said our young mistress, speaking with a sternness that was remarkably dignified, “you will do well to hold your peace. You are now dismissed from that high position which you have occupied so unworthily for I know not how many years. Your emoluments are reduced by one half, and even then, Don Luiz, your fees will be above your services. From this moment I myself, Don Luiz, am to occupy the room of first councillor to his lordship’s grace; for I have to inform you that matters of the greatest instancy are like to be toward, and it will need a bold heart, a firm will, and a ripe judgment to direct his affairs.”
If the duke had been taken aback by the entrance of his daughter, his demeanour could not compare with that of his councillor when assailed by these calm words that were uttered so impressively.
“Ods nig and nog!” cried the duke, “these are words, madam, these are words. Am I lived to seventy years and three to be browbeat in mine own presence by a rib out of mine own flesh! By my troth, I will have you scourged, madam; I will have you scourged. Take her away, Luiz, or I shall fall into such a passion that I shall say something grievous.”
“My lord,” said the Countess Sylvia, “am I a cook-maid that I should be mentioned in this manner? Have I journeyed five days on an old horse, under the heat of the sun, to serve the grace of your lordship that I should be spoken to rudely by your lordship’s grace?”
“Bah and pooh!” said the duke. “Get you away, you wicked hulks. Go, do you hear me, naughty one! Out of my sight, I say! As for these foul villains by whom thou art accompanied, such a tight string shall be drawn about their throats as shall cause them to fling up their heels in the air.”
The Countess Sylvia, however, was undaunted by the choleric rage of his lordship’s grace. For she had a goodly anger of her own to set before him, which was accompanied by the stamping of her foot and exceeding large turbulent tears.
“Out of my presence, spitfire!” said the duke.
“My lord,” said the little countess, “I leave the presence of your lordship at no command save mine own.”
“Dost thou defy me, rude one?” said the duke. “Ods nick and nack! I will go to a main extremity. Luiz, do you remove her; cast her out, Luiz. Ods my good soul! must I be bearded in mine own presence by a rib out of mine own flesh.”
This starched and dignified grandee had long thrown his ceremonious mien to the wind. He walked up and down his apartment, pishing and tushing, snapping his fingers and almost weeping with anger.
“Dost thou hear me, Luiz? Put her out, I say, put her out! Or wouldst thou have me do it, Luiz, with the reverend hand of mine own paternity?”
Don Luiz approached the little countess warily enough, as though he were not so fond of his task. The proud madam drew herself up into an aspect of the most splendid fierce grandeur.
“Do not touch me, fat man,” she said. “Do not lay so much as a finger upon my gown, or, as I am a person, you shall swing, bulk and everything, from the topmost turret of this castle. From this day I am master here and mistress too.”
The abashed fat man stopped and hesitated and looked at the duke despairingly.
“Luiz, Luiz,” said his master, “why do you not take her by the shoulders and put her out of the room? Or would you have me do it, Luiz, by the might of mine own paternity?”
It was clear, although Don Luiz made no such confession, that he would have preferred that his august master should have put the countess out of the room by the might of his own paternity. But the Lady Sylvia’s baffled parent showed no disposition to come near her; and, fume as he would, there appeared to be nothing in his nature to compel the enforcement of his authority. Finding himself in the imminent danger of defeat, for Don Luiz still remained tardy and unwilling, he had recourse, as was only to be expected of a weak and inferior spirit, to those offenders who were not so well placed to outface his wrath.
“Luiz,” he said, “I would have you summon the guard, and arrest these two cut-throats that madam hath picked out of a hedge tavern; and do you see to it that they hang in a quarter of an hour.”
The gentleman-usher being much better able to execute this order than the former one, made haste to do so.
“My friends,” said our mistress, who in her anger, her defiance, and her turbulence had never looked so adorable, “come to the high ground behind the table near the window. Draw your swords and play them well if you are pressed. But, as I am a person, they shall not dare to touch you. For mark it, and, your lordship’s grace, do you mark it too, if one of these knaves so much as lays a finger against the doublet of my friends, I will slay him with mine own poniard.”
To make good her speech she turned to the dwarf and said in a voice of the highest courage, “Give me your dagger, sirrah.”
Instead of obeying, the dwarf, with a vacuous grin, looked towards the duke for a direction. Before he could withdraw his gaze the countess had struck him on the cheek with the butt of the riding-whip she still bore in her hand.
“Give me your dagger, sirrah,” she repeated in a voice that was full of passion.
The dwarf, a wretched, misshapen hunchback, obeyed her with a scowl and a whimper. At the same moment there arose the measured clank of arms. The Count of Nullepart and myself, acting upon the natural instinct that directed our minds rather than upon the wisdom of our mistress which had yet bade us do so, drew our swords and climbed to the daïs.
Almost as we reached this eminence, Don Luiz came into the room with some half a dozen soldiers, whose swords were also drawn and who wore corslets of steel.At this sight a kind of haze fell across my eyes. Yet such an exaltation came upon my blood as never before had quickened it; and I gripped my weapon as though it had been the waist of a mistress, and awaited the onfall with joy.
“Behind the table, close to the wall,” said the Count of Nullepart in a soft whispering voice which yet was perfectly calm. “Farther by the left a little, that we may play better. Straight at their faces. We shall get nothing out of these plaguy breastplates.”
The Count of Nullepart also, if I am not mistaken, was fallen into my condition. I could hear the ring of joy in his voice. It would seem that here was his moment also. He too seemed to hold his blade like a lover.
As a prologue to the fray, no sooner had the soldiers entered the room and had fallen to attend the duke’s instructions than the Countess Sylvia walked on to the daïs, and in the next moment had come to stand on the table itself, with her whip in one hand, her dagger in the other, and a good sword on either side of her.
From this singular eminence she gazed with an insolent contumely upon the forces that were being marshalled against us.
“Soldiers of the guard,” she said, as though she were speaking to an army, “your bare swords are your peril. His lordship’s grace is no longer your commander. He is an old man and a querulous; a dotard so shrunk in his wits that I hereby depose him. Myself as the mistress to his dominion do appoint myself to the regency. From this moment do I declare myself no less your master than your mistress.Here do I take my stance; here do I enforce my authority; and these virtuous gentlemen that keep at my side are your honourable captains. Sheathe your swords therefore, doff your bonnets, and like honest men do homage to your liege-lady.”
Now, I was never able to learn whether this wonderful speech was given—and you must believe me, reader, when I assure you it was no less wonderful in its mode than in its form—for the behoof of his grace’s soldiers or for that of his grace himself. At least it was not without an effect upon both. The guard looked at the duke in just such a fashion as Don Luiz and the dwarf had done; and he, like the dotard that at heart he was, began to whine and threaten and hurl abuse upon this noble intrepidity, and yet himself to stand irresolute.
“Ods wounds! I do not want to slay the little tiger-cat,” he whined. “Take the dagger from her. You, sirrah, take the dagger from her, but I pray you do not hurt her.”
The bearded warrior upon whom the duke called to execute this command seemed in nowise eager to enact a deed so delicate.
“Stand clear, you paltry ruffian!” said the little countess. “If you so much as touch my sleeve I will stab you.”
In good sooth a proper discretion was necessary. The eminence upon which her ladyship stood and her perfect valiancy rendered it work for a bold man to come near her. Again, there was her dagger to consider, also a keen pair of blades flanking her sacred person one on each side.
It is easy to believe that such a situation was not without its humour. But for the three chief actors in this play, who stood shoulder to shoulder upon the daïs, it was grave indeed.
“Sirrah, sirrah!” cried the duke. “You with your beard under your chin, down with her, I say! Take away her dagger; or must I stand in the presence of insubordination?”
The soldier approached warily under the goad of the duke’s wrath, and came up to our platform, with his mouth open wide like a stuck bear.
“Is there none that will heed me, Luiz?” cried the duke. “Is it come to this: must I conduct mine own business by mine own valiancy? Must I, sore smitten with the infirmity of my seventy years and three, take away this vixenish dagger with this ancient hand?”
“You are stricken in years, my lord,” said his daughter; “you are speaking foolishly. Go you to bed, like a wise old man; the leech shall bleed you; and that fat fellow who is swollen like a goose at Michaelmas, shall read you a psalm.”
“Ods mud!” cried her parent, spluttering himself into a state of incoherency, “will nobody pull her down? I ask you, will nobody pull her down? Will none obey me? Must I do it personally? Ods unicorns! must I correct her with mine own indignation?”
Instead of advancing, however, to do his own business, the duke was content to whine and complain, like an old dog that is wishful to bite, yet is unable. And it was most curious to watch this foiled grandee look first at Don Luiz, his right hand, and then at the soldiers of his guard. But these showed no disposition tohelp him in his pass. None had the desire to offer violence to their youthful mistress, who had so much more of valour than their aged master.
“Luiz,” cried the duke, “do you fetch that foreign man, that Sirrah Richard Red Dragon. He is the man to serve us. Ods myself! he will have no fear of three halfpence worth of bib and tucker, with a bit of steel to give it effrontery. Ods my good heart! he will not fear a minx and a wanton that is so rude as any jackanapes. Do you tell him to bring his stick along with him, Luiz; I will have her flogged in public for this. Ods my good soul! Luiz, I never was in such a passion before.”
Don Luiz went forth on his new errand with great alacrity.
“You are as weak as a chewed straw, my lord,” said little insolent madam. “Get you to your bed, like a good old man, and I will send you a priest with a fresh, young voice, and he shall sing you an anthem. You have no more valiancy than an old milch cow, my lord. You are as feeble as a gnat under a willow in a wet November. It is well I am come home. I believe your lordship’s grace would deliver up this house to the Castilian the first time he set his hand upon your lattice.”
It is hard to know what reply the duke would have offered to such an onslaught upon his old age, made by one of his own kith. But before he could frame it, in whatever it might consist, that huge man the Englishman entered the room with his sword drawn and snuffing like a tiger.
“If I am upon an errand of good steel,” he said,coming in with a swagger that filled the whole apartment, “I hope there is a proper valiance in mine adversaries, for I am in a humour to cut and thrust, to hack and mutilate.”
“Sirrah Richard Red Dragon,” said the duke, with most perfect dignity, “I would have you pull down that proud hulks off the table there, and I would have you chastise her with severity; and further I would have you seize those two malefactors by whom she is encompassed, and I would have you hang them within a quarter of an hour.”
Sir Richard Pendragon made one or two ferocious passes with his sword before laying this order into execution. He then cast his eyes, which were rolling in a truly terrible manner, towards where we held our ground. But instead of making the horrible onslaught we had been led to expect, he opened his mouth in astonishment. He then turned to gaze at the duke, who stood the picture of calm pride and dignity, and then back again to the no less calm and prideful countess.
“Ods my life! Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the duke, “I am minded to be severe; I will use severity. Pull her down; do not spare her. But I would have thee see to it, good coz, that she do not stab thee.”
In the meantime the English giant was still looking from the old duke to the youthful countess, from the youthful countess to the old duke. At last he threw his sword on the ground, pressed his great hands to his ribs, and broke into such a report of laughter that it rolled round the tall ceiling like the voice of the giant Fierabras.
“God’s tomb!” he roared. “If I do not spit bloodI shall never need surgery! If a most desperate fluxion does not surmount my poor brains I am no man. If I do not perish of an overwrought mind I am a dog! By the holy ape of Barbary, I shall laugh till I shed large tears!”
“Ods nig and nog!” cried the duke, resuming his querulous manners. “Sirrah Red Dragon, will you reject me! Will you not do my bidding? Must I, who am old and a parent, pull down a she-wolf and correct her with the hand of mine own indignation? Ods nig and nog! is there no manhood in Spain?”
While the duke continued to fume and splutter in this unworthy fashion, the great English giant, and you must believe me, reader, when I tell you he appeared to be as enormous as the heroes and ogres in the old romances, continued to press on his ribs, and, even as he had himself predicted, to shed veritable tears of laughter. But presently the mien of the Countess Sylvia seemed to pacify this great coarse fellow. For, as she stood gazing from her eminence with majestic looks, small as she was and fragile, she was indeed a figure to touch the heart of a gallant warrior.
“By my hand,” said the Englishman, abating his mirth into a true admiration. “If this is not a piece of true mettle I am a rogue. Why, thou sweet thing, thou art as red in the cheek as a carnation.”
“Sirrah ruffian!” said the little Countess Sylvia, exposing her stiletto; “I would have you ’ware me. I will kill you if you come near.”
“There, hearken to her, hearken to her!” cried the duke. “Did I not say she was a spitfire? Did I not say she was a proud and wicked hulks?”
“Come near thee,” said the English barbarian, “why, thou beautiful thing, thou art a rose, a flower! Thou hast a light in thy eye like a bud in June. I’ve a mind to buss thee for thy prettiness.”
“Is there no manhood abroad in the world?” cried the duke; “will no man pull her down?”
Instead of paying heed to the duke, Sir Richard Pendragon made the little Countess Sylvia a deep obeisance.
“This is the fairest rose in bud I have seen this moon,” he said, laying his hand across his doublet. “By this hand you have my love, pretty titmouse, and your whip and your dagger, they have it too.”
Upon this address a stern and sudden joy flamed in the eyes of the Countess Sylvia.
The English giant, who even from the low ground towered above her, table and all, was now come to stand before her. Without heeding the duke, the soldiers, or Don Luiz, he kept his eyes upon her face, as if enchained by its beauty, while all seemed so much amazed by the audacity of his behaviour in standing without arms within striking distance of her poniard, and yet to address her in such terms, that none moved a step nor dared to interrupt their intercourse.
“Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia, “I know not who you are, or whence you come, or what is your virtue, or what is your detriment; but by my two eyes I judge you to be a true man and a valiant warrior. And here I stand the mistress of this castle and the whole of its furniture; and I am prepared to enforce my resolve by power of the sword if the need arise, for I grieve to inform you that my father, his lordship’s grace, hath fallen suddenly so senile in hisyears, that I am called to be his nurse as well as his daughter; therefore, Sirrah Red Dragon, whoever you may be, I would have you obey my behests. And they are these. Put out those spawn in their steel corslets, put them out, I say, into the antechamber; and then do you take that fat man there, who is so gross as a pig and so round as a barrel, and do you lock him up in an iron cage, and feed him upon husks, until you receive our further advice upon the subject.”
“By the Lord Harry!” cried Sir Richard Pendragon, beaming with joy, “this is as fine loud speaking as ever I heard. By this hand! this is Charlemagne in a kirtle and mutch!”
Indeed, scarcely had the Countess Sylvia spoken to this tenor than this gigantical foreigner, who was as great in his valour as he was in his girth, fell suddenly upon the fellow that was next to him, who, to be sure, was a somewhat puny man-at-arms, picked him up by an ear and a limb, as though he were a truss of fodder, and carried him out of the room bodily. Whereupon, the other warriors, who, like men of the ranks, must have a leader before they can act, now having none—for the duke was impotent before this new affront to his authority, and Don Luiz was too fat in the wits and swollen with base living to appear better than a cypher—knew not whether to offer resistance or to submit. And as it was ever the easier to adopt the latter than the former course, and as their choice in the matter was but small, when Sir Richard Pendragon returned and took up his sword, with the flat of it he drove them before him out of the chamber, like so many hogs along a lane.