Prince Eugene and His Times

by L. Mühlbach

Plan after plan was made and rejected, and yet she must—she would escape.

In her parlor was one of those large chimneys found in old castles, chimneys that were intended to consume an entire load of wood at once. On one occasion, Strozzi being present at the time, a chimney- sweep went up its grimy walls, to cleanse them from the accumulated soot of the winter. Strozzi, forgetting that the sweep had to return, began to make declarations to Laura, and finally became so lovelorn as to throw himself at her feet. He was on his knees, whining for forgiveness, when the little sweep, like a deus ex machina, alighted suddenly in the middle of the hearth, and surprised him in his abject and ridiculous posture.

Laura laughed outright; but the marquis, of course, did not share her mirth. He turned furiously upon the sweep, threatening to take his life for his impertinent intrusion. The poor fellow pleaded the impossibility of getting out by any other means, when the marquis, stamping his foot with rage, bade him begone up the chimney, and ordered him to find his way over the castle-roof to another chimney at the farthest extremity of the building, which led into an ancient buttery, and thence to the park.

From that day, Laura had revolved in her mind the feasibility of escape through the chimney. If a boy like that had so often gone up and down in safety, why not she, when urged by the double incentive of liberating herself from Strozzi, and making her way to Eugene? The more she pondered the scheme, the easier it seemed of execution, and she began seriously to resolve means for carrying it out.

Accident soon befriended her. One day, in stepping back from a window, whence she had been watching the flight of a flock of birds, her foot became entangled in the carpet, and she fell. This carpet did not cover the entire room. Within a foot of the walls it was fastened by little brass rings, to nails of the same metal, which caught and confined it to the floor.

Laura naturally looked to see the cause of her fall, and, while examining the loosened nails, she perceived that the carpet—a magnificent product of the looms of Turkey—was lined underneath with a species of black cotton cloth, very similar to that of which the sweep's garments were made. When she saw this, her heart beat so wildly that she felt as if it were about to burst. Here was the material of which her dress should be made! Providence had sent it to her, and the enthusiastic girl knelt down and thanked God for His goodness.

She now began to loosen it, and night after night, when her door was locked inside, she worked as prisoners alone are gifted to work, until she had stripped off enough cloth for her purpose. She gave out that, to beguile her solitude, she was desirous of embroidering an altar-cloth of black velvet, and Carlotta was dispatched to the nearest town, to procure materials for the work.

Carlotta was absent three days, whence Laura concluded that the "nearest town" was at some considerable distance from the castle, of whose situation the marquis had taken good care that she should remain ignorant. But another accident revealed to her the name of the town. She found it in a small paper which enveloped some thread, and contained the name of the merchant from whom it had been purchased, with the place of his residence in a street which Laura knew to be the great thoroughfare of Turin. She was then not two days' journey from Turin, and no longer on Venetian soil.

Once in Turin, she was safe from pursuit, for her estates lay in Savoy, and the duke was obliged to give her protection. She was his subject, and he could not refuse it.

And now began that change of manner and of life which had awakened the suspicions of the two duennas. For several hours of the day she worked at her altar-cloth; but when night set in, and her doors were locked, the needles, thread, and scissors, disappeared from the frame in the parlor, and the black cloth was gradually converted into a jacket and pantaloons like that of the sweep. This accomplished, Laura set about devising a cord and weight, by which she might descend into the buttery. She had so closely observed the little lad she was resolved to emulate, that she had succeeded in fashioning out of the heavy bindings of some old hangings, that lay in a sort of rubbish closet, a stout rope, of strength sufficient to bear her weight.