CHAPTER IV.
TRAVELLERS SEEING THE “LIONS.”
THE best of plots may come to the worst of ends. It was no fault, however, of Gretchen’s; for being in a hurry of her own to meet Ludwig Liedeback, she clapped the supper upon the table in no time at all. The transcendental pipe, with the head of Kant upon it, instantly found itself deposited in a by corner; for Mr. Doppeldick, like his better half, was a person of substance, keeping a good running account with Messer and Gabel. Besides, amongst other delicacies, the board actually displayed those rarest of all inland rarities, oysters,—a bag of which the warm-hearted Adam Kloot had sent, by way of a token of remembrance, to his old friend Dietrich; forgetting utterly that it was full a hundred leagues from the nearest high water-mark of the sea to the village of Kleinewinkel. Of course they came like other travellers, with their mouths wide agape, to see the wonders of the place,—but, then, so much the easier they were to open; and as the worthy couple did not contemplate any such superfluous nicety as shaving them before they swallowed them, there was a fair chance that the delicious morsels would all be devoured before the inauspicious arrival of Captain Schenk. Some such speculation seemed to glimmer in the eyes of both Mr. and Mrs. Doppeldick—when, lo! just as the sixth dead oyster had been body-snatched out of its shell, and was being flavoured up with lemon and vinegar, the door opened, and in walked a blue cap with a red band, a pair of mustachios, and a grey cloak without any arms in its sleeves. Had Madame Doppeldick held any thing but an oyster in her mouth at that moment it would infallibly have choked her, the flutter of her heart in her throat was so violent.
“Holy Virgin!—Captain Schenk!”
“At your service, Madame,” answered a voice through the mustachios.
“You are welcome, Captain!” said the worthy master of the house, at the same time rising, and placing a chair for his guest at that side of the table which was farthest from the oysters. The officer, without any ceremony, threw himself into the seat, and then, resting his elbows upon the table, and his cheeks between his palms, he fixed his dark eyes on the blushing face of Madame Doppeldick in a long and steady stare. It is true that he was only mentally reviewing the review; or, possibly, calculating the chances he had made in favour of an application he had lately forwarded to Berlin, to be exchanged into the Royal Guards; but the circumstance sufficed to set every nerve of Madame Doppeldick a-vibrating, and in two minutes from his arrival, she had made up her mind that he was a very bold, forward, and presuming young man.
“O HAM—WHAT A FALLING OFF WAS THERE.”
It is astonishing, when we have once conceived a prejudice, how rapidly it grows, and how plentifully it finds nutriment! Like the sea polypus, it extends its thousand feelers on every side, for anything they can lay hold of, and the smallest particle afloat in the ocean of conjecture cannot escape from the tenacity of their grasp. So it was with Madame Doppeldick. From mistrusting the captain’s eyes, she came to suspect his nose, his mustachios, his mouth, his chin, and even the slight furrow of a sabre cut that scarred his forehead just over the left eyebrow. She felt morally sure that he had received it in no battle-field, but in some scandalous duel. Luckily she had never seen Mozart’s celebrated opera, or she would inevitably have set down Captain Schenk as its libertine masquerading hero, Don Giovanni himself!
“A PIPING BULLFINCH.”
“You will be sharp-set for supper, Captain,” said the hospitable host, pushing towards his guest a dish of lean home-made bacon; but the Captain took no more notice of the invitation than if he had been stunned stone-deaf by the artillery at the sham-fight in the morning. Possibly he did not like bacon, or, at any rate, such bacon as was set before him; for to put the naked Truth on her bare oath, the Kleinewinkel pigs always looked as if they got their living, like cockroaches, by creeping through cracks. However, he never changed his posture, but kept his dark intolerable eyes still fixed on his hostess’s full and flushed face. He might just as well have stared,—if he must stare—at the shelves-full of old family china (some of it elaborately mended and riveted) in the corner cupboard, the door of which she had left open on purpose; but he had, apparently, no such considerate respect for female modesty.
“Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand be near us!” said the disquieted Madame Doppeldick to herself. “It is hard enough for people of our years and bulk to be obliged to lie double;—but to have a strange, wild, rakish, staring young fellow in the same chamber—I do wish that Dietrich would make more haste with his supper, that we may get into bed first!”