"Why, 'tis Geiger-Hans!" exclaimed the lady's niece, in amazement. But it was not, surely, the sight of Geiger-Hans which brought such crimson to her cheek.
"And who may Geiger-Hans be?" cried the Burgravine.
"My dear friend, everybody's friend, Geiger-Hans the roadside player," said the girl. "Why, you have heard me speak of him many a time. If he were young and wore a plume and a dagger, people would call him a minnesinger. And his music—ah! it moves the heart like——"
"Why, the creature's a beggar, child!" interrupted the lady, peering down. "But the other——"
She drew back from the window in great fluster. "It's quite clear that you and I have company at last. Oh, for once I will be mistress here! They shall be admitted, maugré my ogre! Call Eliza! Get you into a decent gown, for Heaven's sake! My rose taffeta—it shall be my rose taffeta. And you?—Wear anything but white at your peril!"
CHAPTER VII
GUESTS OF CHANCE
"'Twould be a wildish destiny
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange land and far from home,
Were in this place the Guests of Chance!
Yet who would stop or fear to advance...?"
WORDSWORTH.
"The Lord Burgrave is not at the castle. The gracious Lady Burgravine never receives visitors."—Thus Martin the gatekeeper, thrusting his ugly head out of the vasistas of the great nail-studded door.
The last of the sunlight had faded. Grey and sheer rose the Burg walls and turrets above the visitors' heads; sheer and grey fell the mountainside away at their feet.