"Your word of honour, brave Drost Hessel, is ample surety to me for the truth of what you state," said the queen, mildly; "but it is my express wish that not a word more be said about this matter, and that you carefully avoid every dispute with which my name may, in the slightest degree, be associated. From henceforth, neither you nor any other knight shall wear my colours with my consent. I shall see you only when it is highly needful, and when I call you. This conduct, I know, you will not misunderstand. Go, now, to your sick guest, noble knight, and be assured of my unchanged goodwill."
With bitter feelings, Drost Peter unfastened a rose-coloured silken rosette, which he wore upon his doublet, and, handing it to the queen with a suppressed sigh, he bowed silently and respectfully, and withdrew.
It was almost midnight. Count Gerhard lay impatiently in bed, unable to sleep. He seemed to hear, from the palace, the flutes and violins, and had conceived such a desire for dancing, since his first essay in the art on the preceding evening, that his legs were in constant motion, though the surgeon had enjoined him to be still, and to allow himself to be bound, if he could not restrain this singular fancy, which he thought must be a result of the fever produced by his wound. His adventure with Sir John, in the early part of the evening, occurred to him almost like a dream, and he would not ask any one how it had happened. All society and amusement were strictly forbidden him, and he saw no one but the surgeon and old Dorothy, who watched quietly by his couch. Still, when he could not sleep, she told him a variety of ghost-stories, and tales of trolds and nixes, the truth of which she piously believed and affirmed. The count would only answer with a growl, and a brief exclamation of "Nonsense! confounded nonsense, carlin!" but in the best-tempered tone in the world.
Dorothy was not at all disconcerted by such objections. She saw plainly that her stories amused the sick man, and therefore regarded his discontented expressions merely as a peculiar mode of speaking, and a well-meant sign that he was listening. She sat quietly by his pillow, with her lean, wrinkled visage opposite to the lamp, and had almost finished a long story about a nix who had his quarters in Our Lady's steeple, and played people all sorts of pranks--sometimes in the form of a horse, at a ford, where he took travellers upon his back, and, laughing, threw them off in the middle of a bog--sometimes as a beautiful princess, or fairy queen, who would dance with vain gallants in her palace of mist, and become changed into a wisp of straw when they attempted to embrace her.
"Nonsense! cursed nonsense!" again growled the count. "But you are right, carlin. The fools were properly served, if there are such nixes. Are not you, yourself, a confounded witch, who will plague and play cantrips with me?"
The old woman crossed herself. The door was gently opened, and Drost Peter put in his head to inquire after the sick man. The simple gray dress of a burgher was the attire in which he had disguised himself for his secret journey, and, in place of his feathered hat, he wore a red cloth travelling-cap over his fair locks. When Dorothy saw him in this dress, she started up, terrified.
"St. Gertrude and all saints save us!" she cried, "here he comes!"
"Who?" growled the count: "has Satan got you, carlin? Who is it?"
"If you are not asleep, noble count," said Drost Peter, entering, "I shall merely wish you a speedy recovery, and bid you farewell. I must travel tonight, and have fortified myself against the night air."
"Ah, my gracious young master, it is you!" cried Dorothy. "I thought, by the Lord's truth, it was the gray nix with the red cap, who had changed himself into a handsome young gentleman to make a fool of me."