The Princess Elopes | Page 5

a leg over a good mount was to me one of the greatest pleasures in the world. I delighted in stopping at the old feudal inns, of studying the stolid German peasant, of drinking from steins uncracked these hundred years, of inspecting ancient armor and gathering trifling romances attached thereto. And often I have had the courage to stop at some quaint, crumbling Schloss or castle and ask for a night's lodging for myself and horse. Seldom, if ever, did I meet with a refusal.
I possessed the whimsical habit of picking out strange roads and riding on till night swooped down from the snow-capped mountains. I had a bit of poetry in my system that had never been completely worked out, and I was always imagining that at the very next Schloss or inn I was to hit upon some delectable adventure. I was only twenty-eight, and inordinately fond of my Dumas.
I rode in grey whipcord breeches, tan boots, a blue serge coat, white stock, and never a hat or cap till the snow blew. I used to laugh when the peasants asked leave to lend me a cap or to run back and find the one I had presumably lost.
One night the delectable adventure for which I was always seeking came my way, and I was wholly unprepared for it.
I had taken the south highway: that which seeks the valley beyond the lake. The moon-film lay mistily upon everything: on the far-off lake, on the great upheavals of stone and glacier above me, on the long white road that stretched out before me, ribbon-wise. High up the snow on the mountains resembled huge opals set in amethyst. I was easily twenty-five miles from the city; that is to say, I had been in the saddle some six hours. Nobody but a king's messenger will ride a horse more than five miles an hour. I cast about for a place to spend the night. There was no tavern in sight, and the hovels I had passed during the last hour offered no shelter for my horse. Suddenly, around a bend in the road, I saw the haven I was seeking. It was a rambling, tottering old castle, standing in the center of a cluster of firs; and the tiles of the roofs and the ivy of the towers were shining silver with the heavy fall of dew.
Lady Chloe sniffed her kind, whinnied, and broke into a trot. She knew sooner than I that there was life beyond the turn. We rode up to the gate, and I dismounted and stretched myself. I tried the gate. The lock hung loose, like a paralytic hand. Evidently those inside had nothing to fear from those outside. I grasped an iron bar and pushed in the gate, Chloe following knowingly at my heels. I could feel the crumbling rust on my gloves. Chloe whinnied again, and there came an answering whinny from somewhere in the rear of the castle. Somebody must be inside, I reasoned.
There were lights in the left wing, but this part of the castle was surrounded by an empty moat, damp and weedy. This was not to be entered save by a ladder. There was a great central door, however, which had a modern appearance. The approach was a broad graveled walk. I tied Lady Chloe to a tree, knotted the bridle-reins above her neck to prevent her from putting her restless feet into them, and proceeded toward the door.
Of all the nights this was the one on which my usually lively imagination reposed. I was hungry and tired, and I dare say my little mare was. I wasn't looking for an adventure; I didn't want any adventure; I wanted nothing in the world but a meal and a bed. But for the chill of the night air--the breath of the mountain is cold at night--I should have been perfectly willing to sleep in the open. Down drawbridge, up portcullis!
I boldly climbed the steps and groped around for the knocker. It was broken and useless, like the lock on the gate. And never a bell could I find. I swore softly and became impatient. People in Barscheit did not usually live in this slovenly fashion. What sort of place was this?
Suddenly I grew erect, every fiber in my body tense and expectant.
A voice, lifted in song! A great penetrating yet silkily mellow voice; a soprano; heavenly, not to say ghostly, coming as it did from the heart of this gloomy ruin of stone and iron. The jewel song from Faust, too! How the voice rose, fell, soared again with intoxicating waves of sound! What permeating sweetness! I stood there, a solitary listener, as far as I knew, bewildered, my heart beating hard and fast. I forgot my hunger.
Had I stumbled upon