Complete Short Works of George Meredith - George Meredith

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called in the landlady, clapped down the score, and abused the wine.

      ‘Sir,’ said the landlady, ‘ours is but a poor inn, and we do our best.’

      ‘So you do,’ replied the Goshawk, softened; ‘and I say that a civil tongue and rosy smiles sweeten even sour wine.’

      The landlady, a summer widow, blushed, and as he was stepping from the room, called him aside.

      ‘I thought you were one of that dreadful Werner’s band, and I hate him.’

      Guy undeceived her.

      ‘He took my sister,’ she went on, ‘and his cruelty killed her. He persecuted me even in the lifetime of my good man. Last night he came here in the middle of the storm with a young creature bright as an angel, and sorrowful—’

      ‘He’s gone, you’re sure?’ broke in Guy.

      ‘Gone! Oh, yes! Soon as the storm abated he dragged her on. Oh! the way that young thing looked at me, and I able to do nothing for her.’

      ‘Now, the Lord bless you for a rosy Christian!’ cried Guy, and, in his admiration, he flung his arm round her and sealed a ringing kiss on each cheek.

      ‘No good man defrauded by that! and let me see the fellow that thinks evil of it. If I ever told a woman a secret, I ‘d tell you one now, trust me. But I never do, so farewell! Not another?’

      Hasty times keep the feelings in a ferment, and the landlady was extremely angry with Guy and heartily forgave him, all within a minute.

      ‘No more,’ said she, laughing: ‘but wait; I have something for you.’

      The Goshawk lingered on a fretting heel. She was quickly under his elbow again with two flasks leaning from her bosom to her arms.

      ‘There! I seldom meet a man like you; and, when I do, I like to be remembered. This is a true good wine, real Liebfrauenmilch, which I only give to choice customers.’

      ‘Welcome it is!’ sang Guy to her arch looks; ‘but I must pay for it.’

      ‘Not a pfennig!’ said the landlady.

      ‘Not one?’

      ‘Not one!’ she repeated, with a stamp of the foot.

      ‘In other coin, then,’ quoth Guy; and folding her waist, which did not this time back away, the favoured Goshawk registered rosy payment on a very fresh red mouth, receiving in return such lively discount, that he felt himself bound in conscience to make up the full sum a second time.

      ‘What a man!’ sighed the landlady, as she watched the Goshawk lead off along the banks; ‘courtly as a knight, open as a squire, and gentle as a page!’

       Table of Contents

      A league behind Andernach, and more in the wintry circle of the sun than Laach, its convenient monastic neighbour, stood the castle of Werner, the Robber Baron. Far into the South, hazy with afternoon light, a yellow succession of sandhills stretched away, spouting fire against the blue sky of an elder world, but now dead and barren of herbage. Around is a dusty plain, where the green blades of spring no sooner peep than they become grimed with sand and take an aged look, in accordance with the ungenerous harvests they promise. The aridity of the prospect is relieved on one side by the lofty woods of Laach, through which the sun setting burns golden-red, and on the other by the silver sparkle of a narrow winding stream, bordered with poplars, and seen but a glistening mile of its length by all the thirsty hills. The Eck, or Corner, itself, is thick-set with wood, but of a stunted growth, and lying like a dark patch on the landscape. It served, however, entirely to conceal the castle, and mask every movement of the wary and terrible master. A trained eye advancing on the copse would hardly mark the glimmer of the turrets over the topmost leaves, but to every loophole of the walls lies bare the circuit of the land. Werner could rule with a glance the Rhine’s course down from the broad rock over Coblentz to the white tower of Andernach. He claimed that march as his right; but the Mosel was no hard ride’s distance, and he gratified his thirst for rapine chiefly on that river, delighting in it, consequently, as much as his robber nature boiled over the bound of his feudal privileges.

      Often had the Baron held his own against sieges and restrictions, bans and impositions of all kinds. He boasted that there was never a knight within twenty miles of him that he had not beaten, nor monk of the same limit not in his pay. This braggadocio received some warrant from his yearly increase of licence; and his craft and his castle combined, made him a notable pest of the region, a scandal to the abbey whose countenance he had, and a frightful infliction on the poorer farmers and peasantry.

      The sun was beginning to slope over Laach, and threw the shadows of the abbey towers half-way across the blue lake-waters, as two men in the garb of husbandmen emerged from the wood. Their feet plunged heavily and their heads hung down, as they strode beside a wain mounted with straw, whistling an air of stupid unconcern; but a close listener might have heard that the lumbering vehicle carried a human voice giving them directions as to the road they were to take, and what sort of behaviour to observe under certain events. The land was solitary. A boor passing asked whether toll or tribute they were conveying to Werner. Tribute, they were advised to reply, which caused him to shrug and curse as he jogged on. Hearing him, the voice in the wain chuckled grimly. Their next speech was with a trooper, who overtook them, and wanted to know what they had in the wain for Werner. Tribute, they replied, and won the title of ‘brave pigs’ for their trouble.

      ‘But what’s the dish made of?’ said the trooper, stirring the straw with his sword-point.

      ‘Tribute,’ came the answer.

      ‘Ha! You’ve not been to Werner’s school,’ and the trooper swung a sword-stroke at the taller of the two, sending a tremendous shudder throughout his frame; but he held his head to the ground, and only seemed to betray animal consciousness in leaning his ear closer to the wain.

      ‘Blood and storm! Will ye speak?’ cried the trooper.

      ‘Never talk much; but an ye say nothing to the Baron,’—thrusting his hand into the straw—‘here’s what’s better than speaking.’

      ‘Well said!—Eh? Liebfrauenmilch? Ho, ho! a rare bleed!’

      Striking the neck of the flask on a wheel, the trooper applied it to his mouth, and ceased not deeply ingurgitating till his face was broad to the sky and the bottle reversed. He then dashed it down, sighed, and shook himself.

      ‘Rare news! the Kaiser’s come: he’ll be in Cologne by night; but first he must see the Baron, and I’m post with the order. That’s to show you how high he stands in the Kaiser’s grace. Don’t be thinking of upsetting Werner yet, any of you; mind, now!’

      ‘That’s Blass-Gesell,’ said the voice in the wain, as the trooper trotted on: adding, ‘’gainst us.’

      ‘Makes six,’ responded the driver.

      Within sight of the Eck, they descried another trooper coming toward them. This time the driver was first to speak.

      ‘Tribute! Provender! Bread and wine for the high Baron Werner from his vassals over Tonnistein.’

      ‘And I’m out of it! fasting like a winter wolf,’ howled the fellow.

      He was in the act of addressing himself to an inspection of the wain’s contents, when a second flask lifted in air, gave a sop to his curiosity. This flask suffered the fate of the former.

      ‘A Swabian blockhead, aren’t you?’

      ‘Ay, that country,’ said the driver. ‘May be, Henker Rothhals happens to be with the Baron?’

      ‘To

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