THE JESTER'S ADVICE TO LADIES.
"Flaunt not your beauty in the common eye,
Lest, like hedge flowers, it be not thought worth plucking,
Trust to no young man's tender word or sigh;
For even pigs are gentle when they're sucking.
"Judge of your lover by his deeds to others,
For to yourself he's ever a deceiver.
Mark, girls, your fathers' conduct to your mothers,
And each be, if she can be, a believer."
"Good counsel, cousin! good counsel!" cried Count Frederick, "but now for another. What say you to the young men?"
"Good faith! uncle, I know not that I have anything to say," answered the jester; "for whatever age says, youth will not believe, and whatever wisdom advises, folly will not follow; grace has gone out of season with garden rue; and wit, as well as wisdom, has become the property of fools. Argue me now wisely, with a sleek young crimson-spotted trout, upon the eminent perdition which befalls him if he snaps at a gay-looking fly with a hook in its belly; yet will your trout leap at the bait, and soon be flapping his broad tail on the bank. If the hook break in his jaws, indeed, he will gain wit from his wound, and look before he leaps another time--experience is the scourge that drives us all, admonition but a fool's blown bladder, that makes a sound where it strikes, but no impression. Boys will after their own game, as a goshawk after a partridge--and a pretty pair of heels, or a small delicate hand, most kissable and sugary, rosy lips set in a white skin, like strawberries in cream, and eyes that say 'Come, love me,' will any day, about feeding time, make a lad like that jump at a hook that will draw him into the frying-pan. Heaven help and mend us all!
"Beauty's a butterfly, and youth's a boy,
Let him catch it if he can.
When he casts away his toy,
He may learn to be a man."
"Pretty Mistress Bertha wouldn't thank him if she could hear that," said Seckendorf, apart to his fellow-knight.
"Mistress Bertha!" answered old Mosbach. "I've a notion the young cockerel carries his eyes higher than that, and all this notice of him will spoil him. The other day I saw him looking into the Lady Adelaide's eyes, and she into his, as if they were drinking love pledges to one another."
"Pooh! nonsense," answered Seckendorf. "You are always finding out a nest of cock's eggs, Karl. Have you nothing to say to us, Sir Jester?" he continued aloud, speaking across the table.
"Good faith! but little," answered the other; "your old man is worse to deal with than your young one, for he is as weak in the wit as in the hams, and his brain, like a worn horse-trough, is ever leaking with watery talk.
"Graybeards and wisdom were married one day;--
'Tis a very long time since then--
But they parted by chance upon the highway
And ne'er came together again.
"Leave wine, and leave women, graybeard, and leave oaths,
Leave dicing, and jesting, and scoffing;
And thou'lt find thine old wife, dressed in her best clothes,
At thy long journey's end--in the coffin."
"There Seckendorf," cried the Count of Ehrenstein, "you have enough, methinks. For my part; I will not tempt our friend."
"Then you shall have counsel without asking," answered the jester, and he went on in his usual rude verse as follows:--
"The noble lord, the just, the true--
Methinks I see him now--
Claims from no vassal more than due--
But gives him more, I trow.
"No stolen swine grunts in his sty,
No plundered goose complains,
No cackling hens against him cry,
His barn no spoil contains.
"Quick he restores what's wrongly got,
Without a suit at law,
His sword has never cut a knot,
His fingers could not draw.
"If such thou art, no danger dread,
In camp, in court, in town,
But if thou'rt not, beware thy head,
For sure thou'lt tumble down."
At the first stanza the Lord of Ehrenstein smiled pleasantly, but as the jester went on to paint a character, which by no stretch of human vanity he could attribute to himself, his laugh grew somewhat grim, and although all the customs of the day required that he should seem amused with the jester's observations, even when they hit him the hardest, yet he might have made a somewhat tart reply in the shape of a joke, which he was very well qualified to do, if he had not been interrupted before he could speak. Just as the jester concluded, however, a loud, wild, extraordinary burst of martial music drowned every other sound at the table: clarions and trumpets, drums and atabals, sounded all round the hall, in a strain so peculiar, that ears which had once heard it, could never forget it again. Count Frederick started, and turned towards the Count, exclaiming, "Odds life! we are in Africa again. Whence got you this Moorish music, my lord? I have not heard the like since I was at Damietta. You must have a whole troop of Moslema."
The Count's cheek had turned very pale, and Ferdinand's eye was seen wandering round the hall, as if expecting some strange sight suddenly to present itself.
"In truth, I know not whence these sounds come," answered the Count, after a moment's pause for consideration; and he then added, seeing that any further attempt at concealment would be vain, "It is no ordinary place, this castle of Ehrenstein, my noble friend. We have strange sights, and strange sounds here. But what matters it? We are not men to be frightened by unsubstantial sounds or appearances either. I drink to your health," and filling his cup high with wine, he said aloud--the music having by this time ceased, "To Count Frederick of Leiningen!"
His guest immediately answered the pledge, saying, "Health to the Count of Ehrenstein!" but instantly a loud voice echoed through the hall, pronouncing in a solemn tone, "Health to the Dead!"
"This is mighty strange!" exclaimed Count Frederick, setting down his cup scarcely tasted. "Methought I had seen or heard all of wonderful that this earth can produce, but now I come back to my own land to witness things stranger still.--This must be Satan's work. We must get you, good father, to lay this devil."
"Please you, my noble lord," replied the priest, whose face had turned as white as paper, "I would rather have nothing to do with him. There is the Abbey hard by, surely the good fathers there could keep the place free from spirits if they liked it.--It is their business, not mine, and as I see the lady is rising, by my troth, I will go to bed too, for I am somewhat weary with our long marches."
"It may be better for us all to do so, too," said Count Frederick; but his host pressed him to stay longer so earnestly, that he sat down for a few minutes, while Adelaide and the priest retired from the hall. The retainers of the two noblemen did not venture to follow their own inclinations and the priest's example, but, though the Lord of Ehrenstein pressed the wine hard upon them, all mirth was at an end, and whispered conversations alone went on, except between the two counts, who spoke a few words from time to time, in a louder tone, but evidently with a great effort, and at the end of about a quarter of an hour, during which there was no further interruption, Count Frederick rose,--begging his entertainer to excuse him, for retiring to rest.
All were eager to rise, and to get out of a place where none of them felt themselves in security; but Ferdinand touched his lord's arm, as, with a gloomy brow, he was following his guest from the hall, saying, in a low voice, "What is to be done with all this gold and silver, my lord? we shall never persuade the sewers to clear it away to-night."
"I know not," answered the Count, moodily, but aloud. "You must lock the door, or stay and watch."
Ferdinand fell back, and suffered the stream to pass by him, meditating thoughtfully upon how he should act. As was not uncommon in those days, there was a good deal of confusion in his mind in regard to matters of superstitious belief. Persons of strong intellect, however rude the education which they had received, were not easily induced to suppose that beings merely spiritual could have the powers and faculties of corporeal creatures, and although few doubted the fact of apparitions, being frequently seen, and even heard to speak, yet they did not believe in general that they had any power of dealing with substantial bodies. Thus, when Ferdinand thought of the events of the preceding night, although he could not doubt the evidence of his own senses, yet the fact of the banner having been changed puzzled him a good deal, and in his straightforward simplicity he asked himself, "If ghosts can carry away so heavy a thing as a banner and a banner pole, why should they not take silver tankards and golden cups?" He looked at the different articles that strewed the tables with a doubtful eye, at first proposing to move them to a safer place himself, but upon the cross table were many large silver plates and dishes loaded with fragments of the meal, and he felt a repugnance to undertake for any one an office unsuited to his birth. To lock the door and leave the things to their fate, he could not help thinking might be merely consigning the valuable stores that were there displayed to a place from which they were never likely to return--whether above the earth or under the earth, he did not stop to inquire--and at length, after a little hesitation, he said, "I will stay and watch. They did me no harm last night, why should they harm me to-night? I can rest here as well as in my bed, and I should like to see more of these strange things.--They are awful, it is true; but yet, what has one to fear with God and a good conscience,--I will stay."
Just as he came to this resolution, he heard a returning step in the vestibule, the door leading, to which had been left open behind the retreating crowd, and the next minute the face of the jester appeared looking in. "Ha, ha! good youth," he said; "are you going to stay here, like a bait in a rat-trap, till our friends the ghosts come and nibble you? I heard what your excellent, good lord said,--a wise man! an admirably wise man! who understands the craft of princes, and leaves his followers a pleasant choice, in which they are sure to get blame or danger, in whatever way they act. What do you intend to do? lock up the door and leave the cups and tankards for devils to drink withal? or to wait and bear them company, if they choose to come and have a merry bout with you?"
"I shall stay and watch," answered Ferdinand; "I am not a steward or a scullion, to move plates and dishes, and if I leave them here Heaven only knows where they will be to-morrow!"
"Then, good faith! I'll stay and watch with you, Sir Ferdinand," answered the jester; "two fools are better than one, at any time, and one by profession and one by taste ought to be a match for a score or two of spirits, whether they be black, white, or grey."
"I've a notion, Herr von Narren," answered Ferdinand; "that you have less of a fool in you than many who would be more ashamed of the name."
"Good lack!" answered the jester, "you do my wit but little justice, youth. Who would not be a fool, when wise men do such things every day. Better to profess folly at once, of your own good will, than to have other men put the cap upon your head. A fool has one great advantage over a wise man which no one will deny him--a fool can be wise when he pleases, a wise man cannot be foolish when he likes. Oh! the bauble for ever; I would not change my motley just yet for a robe of miniver. But we'll watch, we'll watch, and we'll make ourselves comfortable too. By my faith! it gets cold of nights, or else the chilly wing of another world is flapping through this old hall. Go, get some logs, good youth, and we'll have a fire then; with our toes upon the andirons, and our chins in our palms. By the beard of St. Barnabas, we'll tell old stories of strange things gone by, till the cock shall crow before we know it. You are not afraid to leave me with the tankards, I suppose, for, on my life, I drink fair with every man, and have no itch for silver."
"Oh no, I do not fear," answered Ferdinand, "and I'll soon bring logs enough for the night. A cheerful blaze will do us no harm, and I shall be glad of your company."
Thus saying, he left the place, and from the great coffer at the entrance of the lesser hall, he soon loaded himself with sufficient wood, as he thought, to last the night. When he re-entered the great hall, he found the jester walking back from the other end towards the centre, where the fireplace stood; and as he came near, the young man inquired, "Were you talking to yourself just now, Herr von Narren?"
"Nay, good sooth, that were waste of words," answered the jester. "I was peeping through yonder keyhole, and as it is a mighty ghostly looking door, I thought I might as well tell the spirits not to disturb us, as we had much to talk about. They took it all in good part, poor things, and said nothing; though after all it would be but charity to let them come and have a warm at our good fire, for it must be cold down stairs, I fancy, and your ghost is thinly clad. Where does yon door lead to, good youth?"
"To the serfs burying vault," answered Ferdinand, "and then to the old chapel under the new one."
"Ha, ha! all convenient for the ghosts," said the jester, "but there must be a number of sad Turks amongst them to make such a noise with their atabals as they did to-night. There, you reach me down a lamp, while I lay the sticks. Trust a fool for making a fire, if he do not make it too large: then he may burn his own fingers, and the house too. We will put out half the sconces, and so, we shall have candle-light till the morning, when the sun and the tapers may wink at each other, like merry maids upon a May-day."
The fire was soon lighted, and the suggestion regarding the sconces carried into execution; after which, Ferdinand and the jester drew two stools into the wide chimney, and the latter bringing the large flagon of wine and two cups from the cross table, set the beaker down upon the hearth, saying, "We will drink and keep our spirits up."
"Nay," answered Ferdinand, "I want no wine for that purpose. I will take one cup, for I have had none to-night, and I have worked hard during the day, but if I took more, I should sleep and not watch."
"Ay, young brains are soon addled, like a pigeon's egg," answered the jester. "And so you are Ferdinand of Altenburg?"
Ferdinand nodded his head, answering, with a smile, "No other."
"You are a bold man," said his companion, "to give me such an answer."
"How so?" demanded Ferdinand, "I must surely know who I am myself."
"If you know yourself, you are the first man that ever did," replied the jester. "Your father was a proper man."
"Indeed! did you know him?" exclaimed Ferdinand.
"Oh, dear no, not at all," said the Herr von Narren, "but my uncle Frederick told us so at supper. I knew your grand-father and your great-grandfather, and I was distantly related to his great-grandfather; for as Adam was the first of my ancestors, and all his race sprang from Eve, there was some connection between us, either by blood or matrimony--Do you remember your father?"
"No," answered Ferdinand, "I was but a mere boy when he died."
"Ay, then you were not long acquainted," said the jester. "I remember mine quite well, and how he used to tickle me with his beard--that's longer ago than you recollect, or than you could if you would, for to ask you for a long memory in your short life, would be like putting a gallon of wine into a pint stoup--But I'll tell you a story, cousin."
"What is it about?" asked Ferdinand, drinking some of the wine out of the cup he held in his hand. "Is it a story of fate, or about the Saracens, or of knightly deeds here in our own land?"
"A little of all, a little of all, cousin," answered the jester. "It's a Saturday's stew, containing fragments of all things rich and rare, with a sauce of mine own composing. Now listen and you shall hear. Once upon a time there was a prince--we'll call him prince for want of a better name; without offence too, for a prince may be a gentleman sometimes--well, this prince lived at ease in his own land--for you see he had neither wife nor child to vex him--and a very merry prince he was. Well might he be so, too, for everybody did just what he liked, and he drank the best wine and ate the best meat, and slept upon good goose-feathers which he had not the trouble of plucking; and then, moreover, he had a jester who was fit to make any heart gay. Besides this jester, he had a brother, a wise man and a thoughtful, full of all sorts of learning; for they wished to make a bishop of him, but he loved the sword better than the coif, and all he learned in the convent was Latin and Greek, and reading and writing, and Aristotle, and Duns Scotus, and to love nobody better than himself."
"Ha!" exclaimed Ferdinand, beginning to think that he perceived some drift in the man's tale, but he made no observation, and the jester continued.
"Well, the prince loved his brother very much, and they lived together in the same castle, and passed their time pleasantly; they hunted together, and they made a little war, and then they made a little peace; and while the men at arms played at mutton-bones in the court-yard, the two lords played at chess in the hall--and I can tell you, that though the brother, won the first game, the prince won the second, and the jester stood by and laughed. Merrily passed, the time, and if men would but be contented in this world, life would be like a summer day, but the brother was always urging the prince to this war or that, for the glory of their house, as he called it; and sometimes he went himself, and sometimes he stayed at home to take care of the castle, while the prince followed his advice; and then the brother one day thought it would be a good thing for the prince to go and visit Jerusalem, and that it would be honourable, as he knew something of hard blows and of leading armies, to help the knights hospitallers and other sagacious men who were fighting for the pure pleasure of the thing, to get lands which they could not keep when they had got them. And the prince thought it a very good plan; and as he had got a great number of chests full of money, he went away to sow it in the fields of Syria, and to see if it would grow there. As he had a multitude of stout young men, too, who always required bleeding in the summer time, he took them with him, but as his brother was of a cold constitution, he left him at home to keep house. Now the prince having neither wife nor child, his dear brother was his heir."
"I see," said Ferdinand. "Go on, Herr!"
"Before they went," continued the jester, "the brother had a good deal of talk with some of the prince's followers, and told them how much he loved their dear lord. He did not say that he wished him dead; oh dear, no, that was not the way at all; but he told them all that he would do if he were prince, and how he would promote them, and left Sir Satan, the king of all evil imaginations, to deal with their consciences as he might find expedient. Well, the prince went away, and took with him his jester as his chief counsellor, though he never took his counsel either, for if he had he would have staid at home. But so they went on up by the Boden Sea, and then by the Vorarlberg and through the Tyrol, kissing the Emperor's hand at Inspruck, and then came to Venice, and there they had an audience of the Duke; and at Venice they staid a long time, for there was a fair Venetian lady that the prince loved passing well--" and the jester paused, and gazed thoughtfully into the fire for several moments.
"That has nothing to do with my tale, however," he continued, at length. "The prince went on, and after long journeying, he came to the place whither he was going; and though it was once a land flowing with milk and honey, very little honey and no milk was to be found there then. So, to keep down their appetites, he and his followers took to fighting in real earnest; one day, however, a certain officer of the prince, and a great friend of his brother's, brought him word that there were a number of Moslem in a valley not far from the castle where they were, and that if he would go out with his men, while the knights of the hospital guarded the castle, he might have them all as cheap as gudgeons. The prince had some doubts of his friend, and sent out for better intelligence, but finding that all that he said seemed very true, he got upon horseback, and sallied forth with his people. About three or four miles from the castle, however, he was suddenly surrounded and attacked on all sides by a number of the Moslem, of whom his officer had quite forgotten to tell him, though they had been watching there since daybreak. Nevertheless he fought tolerably well, considering he was a prince, and he and his men might perhaps have got out of the trap, by the force of impudence and a strong arm, if his friend the officer had not come behind him just then and struck him a gentle stroke, with something sharp, in the neck, about the place where the gorget joins the cuirass. Upon that the prince incontinent tumbled headlong off his horse; the Moslem closed in on all sides, and with their sharp scimeters sent the heads flying about like pippins shaken off a tree. All were killed or taken except one, who got through and galloped away, first carrying the news of the defeat to the knights of St. John in the castle, and then to the prince's brother at home."
"This was of course the traitor who murdered his lord," exclaimed Ferdinand, who had listened with ever-growing interest.
"Oh dear, no," replied the jester; "his friends the Moslem kept him, but thought he would be safer in two pieces, and so they separated his head from his shoulders."
"A very wise precaution," answered Ferdinand, "the true way of recompensing traitors. And what became of the jester? He was taken prisoner, I suppose?"
"Yes, he was," answered his companion. "But now listen; I am coming to the most curious part of my story, and that is the history of the prince's followers after they were dead. One clear, moonlight night, I have heard say, just as they were all lying in the rocky valley, where they had fallen, and their bones, well picked by the wild beasts of that country, were shining white amongst the bushes and large stones, there came suddenly amongst them a tall thin figure, like a shadow on the wall, through which you could see the rocks, and the branches, and the round-faced moon, just as if it had been the horn-plate of a lantern; and it stooped over the bones, and looked at them, and counted them one by one, and then it said to each fleshless head, separately,--'The man whose insinuations brought about your death, has strangled me in the vaults of his castle, though he knew that I was innocent. Rise up, then, all that were true to their prince, and come, let us to his brother's house, and plague him night and day,--at his board, and in his bed. Let us give him no rest so long as he remains upon the earth!'
"The moment he had spoken, slowly rising out of the ground, came a number of thin, shadowy figures, like himself, and they mounted calmly into the air, and floated away towards this land, just as you see a cloud rise out of the west, and soar slowly along, casting a shadow as it flies. Where they went to, and what they did, let the wise say; I know not. Only this I know, and that I heard from one who saw it, that the prince's followers, a great many years after they were killed and lying on the dry Syrian ground, rose up, man by man, each just like his own living self, and came away to their own land to torment their good lord's bad brother. One, indeed, remained behind, but he was the man who smote his prince in the neck when he was contending with the infidels; but doubtless the Moslem pickled him, for he was worth preserving, and salt meat keeps better than fresh, you know, Sir Ferdinand."