"Right well," said the young Englishman, "I will not fail by a moment, though I see you doubt me. But where am I to find you, and who am I to ask for?"
"I have deceived myself, or you are cheating me," answered Herbert bluntly, and speaking in English; "but come at all events. You will find me at the castle--ask for Colonel Herbert, or the English Ritter. They will show you where I lodge."
"Be sure I will be there," rejoined Algernon; "I did not know you were a countryman; but that will make the evening pass only the more pleasantly, for we shall have thoughts in common, as well as a common language; and, to say sooth, though this German is a fine tongue, yet, while speaking it badly, as I do, I feel like one of the mountebanks we see in fairs dancing a saraband in fetters."
"You speak it well enough," answered his companion, "and it is a fine rich tongue; but at the court, with the usual levity of such light places, they do not value their own wholesome dialect. They must have a dish of French, forsooth; and use a language which they do not half know, and which, if they did, is not half as good a one as their own--a poor pitiful whistling tongue, like the wind blowing through a key hole without the melody of the Italian, the grandeur of the Spanish, the richness of the German, or the strength of the English."
"Yet it is a good language for conversation," replied Algernon Grey, willing to follow upon any track that led from the subject of his rencontre with Oberntraut.
"To say things in a double sense, to tickle the ears of light women, and make bad jests upon good subjects," rejoined Herbert, whose John Bull prejudices seemed somewhat strong; "that is all that it is good for.--Now look here," he continued, as they reached a commanding point of the hill, "did you ever see a place so badly fortified as this? There is not much to be done with it that is true; for it is commanded by so many accessible points, that it would cost the price of an empire to make it a fortress. Yet if the Elector would spend upon strengthening his residence against his enemies, one-half of what he is throwing away upon laying out that stupid garden, I would undertake to hold it out for a year and a day against any force that king or emperor could bring against it."
"Something might be done, it is true," answered the young Englishman; "but it could never be made a strong place, domineered as it is by all these mountains. If you fortified them up to the top, it would require an army to garrison them."
"Ay, that is the mistake that will be committed by engineers to the last day, I believe," answered Herbert, who had his peculiar notions on all subjects. "They think they must fortify every commanding point. But there is another and better method of guarding them. Render them inaccessible to artillery, that is all that requires to be done, and then they need no further defence. On the contrary, they become ramparts that will crumble to no balls. There is no escarpment like the face of a rock. Now this same mad gardener fellow, this Saloman de Caus, who is working away there: he has filled up half a valley, thrown down half a mountain, and the same labour and money, spent in another way, would have rendered every point inaccessible from which a fire could be opened on the castle.--But, look there! Horses are gathering at the gates, and men in gilded jackets. The prince and his fair dame, and all the wild boys and girls of the court are going out upon some progress or expedition--I must hasten down as fast as I can, for I want to speak with one of them before they go.--Remember the hour, and fail not. Can you find your way back?"
"Oh, yes! no fear," answered Algernon Grey, "I will be with you to-night;" and waving his hand, Herbert hurried down towards the castle.