Stooping down--and to what? Why, upon my word and honor, to a great brass plate on the floor, over which they were passing, and on which was engraven the figure of a bishop--and a very ugly bishop, too--with crosier and mitre, and lifted finger, on which sparkled the episcopal ring. "Do, my dear lord, come and marry us," said the lady, with a levity which shocked the feelings of her bridegroom.
The bishop got up; and directly he rose, a dean, who was sleeping under a large slate near him, came bowing and cringing up to him;while a canon of the cathedral (whose name was Schidnischmidt)began grinning and making fun at the pair. The ceremony was begun, and . . . .
As the clock struck twelve, young Otto bounded up, and remarked the absence of his companion Wolfgang. The idea he had had, that his friend disappeared in company with a white-robed female, struck him more and more. "I will follow them," said he; and, calling to the next on the watch (old Snozo, who was right unwilling to forego his sleep), he rushed away by the door through which he had seen Wolfgang and his temptress take their way.
That he did not find them was not his fault. The castle was vast, the chamber dark. There were a thousand doors, and what wonder that, after he had once lost sight of them, the intrepid Childe should not be able to follow in their steps? As might be expected, he took the wrong door, and wandered for at least three hours about the dark enormous solitary castle, calling out Wolfgang's name to the careless and indifferent echoes, knocking his young shins against the ruins scattered in the darkness, but still with a spirit entirely undaunted, and a firm resolution to aid his absent comrade. Brave Otto! thy exertions were rewarded at last!
For he lighted at length upon the very apartment where Wolfgang had partaken of supper, and where the old couple who had been in the picture-frames, and turned out to be the lady's father and mother, were now sitting at the table.
"Well, Bertha has got a husband at last," said the lady.
"After waiting four hundred and fifty-three years for one, it was quite time," said the gentleman. (He was dressed in powder and a pigtail, quite in the old fashion.)"The husband is no great things," continued the lady, taking snuff.
"A low fellow, my dear; a butcher's son, I believe. Did you see how the wretch ate at supper? To think my daughter should have to marry an archer!""There are archers and archers," said the old man. "Some archers are snobs, as your ladyship states; some, on the contrary, are gentlemen by birth, at least, though not by breeding. Witness young Otto, the Landgrave of Godesberg's son, who is listening at the door like a lackey, and whom I intend to run through the--""Law, Baron!" said the lady.
"I will, though," replied the Baron, drawing an immense sword, and glaring round at Otto: but though at the sight of that sword and that scowl a less valorous youth would have taken to his heels, the undaunted Childe advanced at once into the apartment. He wore round his neck a relic of St. Buffo (the tip of the saint's ear, which had been cut off at Constantinople). "Fiends! I command you to retreat!" said he, holding up this sacred charm, which his mamma had fastened on him; and at the sight of it, with an unearthly yell the ghosts of the Baron and the Baroness sprung back into their picture-frames, as clowns go through a clock in a pantomime.
He rushed through the open door by which the unlucky Wolfgang had passed with his demoniacal bride, and went on and on through the vast gloomy chambers lighted by the ghastly moonshine: the noise of the organ in the chapel, the lights in the kaleidoscopic windows, directed him towards that edifice. He rushed to the door: 'twas barred! He knocked: the beadles were deaf. He applied his inestimable relic to the lock, and--whiz! crash! clang! bang!
whang!--the gate flew open! the organ went off in a fugue--the lights quivered over the tapers, and then went off towards the ceiling--the ghosts assembled rushed away with a skurry and a scream--the bride howled, and vanished--the fat bishop waddled back under his brass plate--the dean flounced down into his family vault--and the canon Schidnischmidt, who was making a joke, as usual, on the bishop, was obliged to stop at the very point of his epigram, and to disappear into the void whence he came.
Otto fell fainting at the porch, while Wolfgang tumbled lifeless down at the altar-steps; and in this situation the archers, when they arrived, found the two youths. They were resuscitated, as we scarce need say; but when, in incoherent accents, they came to tell their wondrous tale, some sceptics among the archers said--"Pooh!
they were intoxicated!" while others, nodding their older heads, exclaimed--"THEY HAVE SEEN THE LADY OF WINDECK!" and recalled the stories of many other young men, who, inveigled by her devilish arts, had not been so lucky as Wolfgang, and had disappeared--for ever!
This adventure bound Wolfgang heart and soul to his gallant preserver; and the archers--it being now morning, and the cocks crowing lustily round about--pursued their way without further delay to the castle of the noble patron of toxophilites, the gallant Duke of Cleves.
CHAPTER X.
THE BATTLE OF THE BOWMEN.
Although there lay an immense number of castles and abbeys between Windeck and Cleves, for every one of which the guide-books have a legend and a ghost, who might, with the commonest stretch of ingenuity, be made to waylay our adventurers on the road; yet, as the journey would be thus almost interminable, let us cut it short by saying that the travellers reached Cleves without any further accident, and found the place thronged with visitors for the meeting next day.
