The bravo alighted from his saddle, and, fastening the bridles of both horses to the branch of a tree, threw open the cottage door, and led in Ernestine.
An oil lamp shed a faint light on the interior of this poor habitation, the furniture of which consisted of a table and couple of stools, of such rough construction that the bark yet adhered to the wood. Here and there a naked spar of the rough wooden roof came out of the obscurity in which dust, cobwebs, and darkness involved it; the floor was of hard-beaten clay. The cottage consisted of what we Scots call a but and a ben, or two apartments. One end of the outer was spanned by the rude lintel of a wide chimney, within which, and close to a few smouldering embers, an old hag, with hands like a kite's claws, sat on a block of wood, skinning squirrels and chattering over her work. She looked up, and Bandolo, as he expected, recognised Dame Krümpel, who, after her expulsion from Glückstadt by order of the puissant burgomaster, Herr Dubbelsteirn, had found her way to the eastern coast of the peninsula.
They greeted each other in a dialect of the German so guttural that Ernestine did not understand it. Then the old woman snatched up her lamp, and, holding it aloft, surveyed with her fierce eyes—which were keen and deep as two gimlet holes—the tall figure of Ernestine, who, on seeing this repulsive old woman approach with her shrivelled hands dyed in blood, shrunk back, and drew herself up to her full height, while a disdainful expression stole over her beautiful face, on which her broad Spanish hat and long black feather cast an impressive shadow.
Old Krümpel croaked and grinned as she set down her iron lamp, and quietly resumed her occupation.
Bandolo now brought in his heavy portmanteau, which he carefully deposited on the table; he then placed beside it two leathern bottles, which he took from his pockets, after securing the cottage-door.
"Be seated, madame—and here Krümpel, old hag! get us glasses, cups, or whatever you have; I long for a taste of schnaps, as doubtless the lady does for a drop of kirschwasser—for I have both."
"I beseech you, sir, to lose no time in procuring a guide," said Ernestine, whose heart was bursting with impatience, grief, and alarm.
"A guide—for where?"
"Fredricksort."
"Content yourself, my pretty one; what the devil would you do at Fredricksort?" he asked, abandoning all his assumed manner. "Surely one of you is quite enough among the rough Merodeurs."