In those foolish bygone days I had loved her, the sweet soul, with the unworthy, mad passion of a lover for his mistress. When she left me I had mourned her as a man mourns for his wife, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. Now, however, we seemed to be lad and maid together; our love, after all the sorrow and the agony we had passed through, seemed to wear the unspeakable freshness of a first courtship. It was written that good measure was to be paid me to compensate for past anguish—good measure, heaped up, flowing over! I took it with a thankful heart.
The cart swayed and creaked as János and Anna mounted and settled themselves at our feet, drawing the hay high over themselves. Then came another creaking and swaying in the forward end, we heard a jingle of bells, a crack of the whip and a hoarse shout: the cart groaned and strained to the effort of the horses, then yielded. And at a grave pace we rumbled over the cobble-stones, turning hither and thither through street after street which we could not see. And in the midst of our hay we felt a sense of comfortable irresponsibility and delicious mystery. All in the inner darkness we were dimly conscious of the snowy pageant outside: the ghost-like houses and the twinkling lights. Ottilie lay against my shoulder, and I felt her light breath upon my cheek.
After a while—it would be hard to say how long—there was a halt; there came a shout from our driver, and an answering shout beyond. I knew we had come to the Town Gates. That was a palpitating moment of anxiety as the two voices exchanged parley, which the heavy beating of the pulses in my ears would not allow me to follow. Next the rough cadence of a jovial laugh fell loud upon the air, and then—sweeter music I have seldom heard!—the clank of the gate’s bar. Once more we felt ourselves rumbling on slowly till we had passed the bridge and exchanged the cobbles of the town for the surface of the great Imperial road, more lenient for all its ruts. The cousin cracked his whip again and bellowed to his cattle; after infinite persuasion they broke into a heavy jog-trot.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said Anna suddenly from her dark corner, in a loud vibrating voice, “give thanks to God, you children!” She leant forward as she spoke, and pulled aside the leathern curtains that hung across the back of the cart.
With the rush of snowy air came to us framed by the aperture a retreating vision of Budissin, studded here and there with rare gleams of light.
Thus did my wife, the young Princess of Lusatia, leave her father’s dominions, her prospects of a throne, for the love of a simple English gentleman!
CHAPTER VI
I shall carry to the grave, as one of the sweetest of my life, the memory of that night journey. Coming as it did between the fierce emotions and dangers of our meeting and flight, and the perilous and furious episode that yet awaited us, it seems doubly impregnated with an exquisite serenity of happiness. Full of brief moments, that brought me then a poignant joy, it brings to my heart as I look back on it now a tenderness as of smiles and tears together.