Prince Otto | Page 9

all Gondremark.'
'Ay, sir, you see what it leads to; wild talk to-day, and wilder doings
to-morrow,' said the old man. 'For there is one thing certain: that this
Gondremark has one foot in the Court backstairs, and the other in the
Masons' lodges. He gives himself out, sir, for what nowadays they call
a patriot: a man from East Prussia!'
'Give himself out!' cried Fritz. 'He is! He is to lay by his title as soon as
the Republic is declared; I heard it in a speech.'
'Lay by Baron to take up President?' returned Killian. 'King Log, King
Stork. But you'll live longer than I, and you will see the fruits of it.'
'Father,' whispered Ottilia, pulling at the speaker's coat, 'surely the
gentleman is ill.'
'I beg your pardon,' cried the farmer, rewaking to hospitable thoughts;
'can I offer you anything?'

'I thank you. I am very weary,' answered Otto. 'I have presumed upon
my strength. If you would show me to a bed, I should be grateful.'
'Ottilia, a candle!' said the old man. 'Indeed, sir, you look paley. A little
cordial water? No? Then follow me, I beseech you, and I will bring you
to the stranger's bed. You are not the first by many who has slept well
below my roof,' continued the old gentleman, mounting the stairs
before his guest; 'for good food, honest wine, a grateful conscience, and
a little pleasant chat before a man retires, are worth all the possets and
apothecary's drugs. See, sir,' and here he opened a door and ushered
Otto into a little white-washed sleeping-room, 'here you are in port. It is
small, but it is airy, and the sheets are clean and kept in lavender. The
window, too, looks out above the river, and there's no music like a little
river's. It plays the same tune (and that's the favourite) over and over
again, and yet does not weary of it like men fiddlers. It takes the mind
out of doors: and though we should be grateful for good houses, there is,
after all, no house like God's out-of-doors. And lastly, sir, it quiets a
man down like saying his prayers. So here, sir, I take my kind leave of
you until to-morrow; and it is my prayerful wish that you may slumber
like a prince.'
And the old man, with the twentieth courteous inclination, left his guest
alone.

CHAPTER III
- IN WHICH THE PRINCE COMFORTS AGE AND BEAUTY AND
DELIVERS A LECTURE ON DISCRETION IN LOVE
THE Prince was early abroad: in the time of the first chorus of birds, of
the pure and quiet air, of the slanting sunlight and the mile-long
shadows. To one who had passed a miserable night, the freshness of
that hour was tonic and reviving; to steal a march upon his slumbering
fellows, to be the Adam of the coming day, composed and fortified his
spirits; and the Prince, breathing deep and pausing as he went, walked
in the wet fields beside his shadow, and was glad.
A trellised path led down into the valley of the brook, and he turned to
follow it. The stream was a break-neck, boiling Highland river. Hard by
the farm, it leaped a little precipice in a thick grey-mare's tail of twisted
filaments, and then lay and worked and bubbled in a lynn. Into the

middle of this quaking pool a rock protruded, shelving to a cape; and
thither Otto scrambled and sat down to ponder.
Soon the sun struck through the screen of branches and thin early
leaves that made a hanging bower above the fall; and the golden lights
and flitting shadows fell upon and marbled the surface of that so
seething pot; and rays plunged deep among the turning waters; and a
spark, as bright as a diamond, lit upon the swaying eddy. It began to
grow warm where Otto lingered, warm and heady; the lights swam,
weaving their maze across the shaken pool; on the impending rock,
reflections danced like butterflies; and the air was fanned by the
waterfall as by a swinging curtain.
Otto, who was weary with tossing and beset with horrid phantoms of
remorse and jealousy, instantly fell dead in love with that sun-
chequered, echoing corner. Holding his feet, he stared out of a drowsy
trance, wondering, admiring, musing, losing his way among uncertain
thoughts. There is nothing that so apes the external bearing of free will
as that unconscious bustle, obscurely following liquid laws, with which
a river contends among obstructions. It seems the very play of man and
destiny, and as Otto pored on these recurrent changes, he grew, by
equal steps, the sleepier and the more profound. Eddy and Prince were
alike jostled in their purpose, alike anchored by intangible influences in