CHAPTER XXXIII. “ERFURT”
I narrowly escaped being sent to the guardhouse for the night, as I approached Erfurt—for seeing that it was near nine o’clock when the gates of the fortress are closed, I quickened my pace to a trot, not aware of the “règlement” which forbids any one to pass rapidly over the drawbridges of a fortification. Now, though the rule be an admirable one when applied to those heavy diligences which, with three tons of passengers, and six of luggage, come lumbering along the road, and might well be supposed to shake the foundations of any breast-work or barbican; yet, that any man of mortal mould, any mere creature of the biped class—even with two shirts and a night-cap in his pack—could do this, is more than I can conceive; and so it was, I ran, and if I did, a soldier ran after me, three more followed him, and a corporal brought up the rear, and in fact, so imposing was the whole scene, that any unprejudiced spectator, not overversed in military tactics, might have imagined that I was about to storm Erfurt, and had stolen a march upon the garrison. After all, the whole thing was pretty much like what Murat did at Vienna, and perhaps it was that which alarmed them.
I saw I had committed a fault, but what it was I couldn’t even guess, and as they all spoke together, and such precious bad German, too, (did you ever know a foreigner not complain of the abominable faults people commit in speaking their own language?) that though I cried “peccavi,” I remembered myself, and did not volunteer any confessions of iniquity, before I heard the special indictment, and it seemed I had very little chance of doing that, such was the confusion and uproar.
Now, there are two benevolent institutions in all law, and according to these, a man may plead, either “in forma pauperis,” or “in forma stultus.” I took the latter plea, and came off triumphant—my sentence was recorded as a “Dummer Englander,” and I went my way, rejoicing.
Well, “I wish them luck of it!” as we say in Ireland, who have a fancy for taking fortified towns. Here was I, inside of one, the gates closed, locked, and barred behind me, a wall of thirty feet high, and a ditch of fifty feet deep, to keep me in, and hang me if I could penetrate into the interior. I suppose I was in what is called a parallel, and I walked along, turning into a hundred little, crooked corners, and zig-zag contrivances, where an embrasure, and a cannon in it, were sure to be found. But as nothing are so like each other as stone walls, and as I never, for the life of me, could know one seventy-four pounder from another, I wandered about, very sadly puzzled to ascertain if I had not been perambulating the same little space of ground for an hour and a half. Egad! thought I, if there were no better engineers in the world than me, they might leave the gates wide open, and let the guard go to bed. Hollo, here’s some one coming along, that’s fortunate, at last—and just then, a man wrapped in a loose cloak, German fashion, passed close beside me.
“May I ask, mein Herr, which is the direction of the town, and where I can find an inn?” said I, taking off my hat, most punctiliously, for although it was almost pitch-dark, that courtesy cannot ever be omitted, and I have heard of a German, who never talked to himself, without uncovering.
“Straight forward, and then to your left, by the angle of the citadel—you can take a short cut through the covered way——”
“Heaven forbid!” interrupted I; “where all is fair and open, my chance is bad enough—there is no need of a concealed passage, to confuse me.”
“Come with me, then,” said he, laughing, “I perceive you are a foreigner—this is somewhat longer, but I’ll see you safe to the ‘Kaiser,’ where you’ll find yourself very comfortable.”