It is just possible it was the medicaments that confused my brain—though I am convinced they were perfectly innocent of any intoxicants. Rupert became so helpless, he lay like a log on the tap-room floor; the innkeeper ordered the rest of us out of the house.
As it was too early to go home, the Scotchman suggested that, as Rupert was not with us, we should go around to Master Meyer's, where he and the rest would keep watch in the street, while I made a "window-call" on my betrothed.
"That's a bright idea of yours!" I exclaimed. "How am I to get up to my pretty Agnes' window? Her room is in the top story, in the gable. I am not a moo-calf that can stretch its neck to the luthern."
"Why are we your friends?" chivalrously demanded the Spanish hidalgo. "Are not we here to help you? We will form a pyramid: three of us will support two others on their shoulders, and you will form the apex. You can then rap at your lady-love's window, and we will remain immovable, while you exchange kisses with her."
The quack's medicaments had, as I said before, confused my brain; I agreed to the silly plan suggested by the hidalgo, and we turned our unsteady steps toward the Meyer residence.
When we arrived in front of the house, the first thing we did was break the lantern which swung from a rope stretched across the street, in order that the darkness might screen us from the sight of passers-by.
The acrobatic feat of building a human pyramid was easily accomplished; and I was very soon standing on the shoulders of two comrades whose feet in turn rested on the shoulders of the three forming the base.
I had no difficulty in reaching to the sill of the bow-window; that room, I knew, opened into Agnes' sleeping-chamber. I had rapped once on the glass—cautiously, for I did not want to rouse any one in the lower rooms; and was about to repeat the knock, when the fiendish bellowing I had heard once before made the blood run cold in my veins.
My comrades under me cried out in terror:
"The moo-calf is coming!"—and the next instant I was hanging by my fingers to the sill of the bow-window, with my legs wriggling like those of a frog caught on a hook. I could hear my valiant comrades scampering for their lives down the street. I did not want to call for help; for, if old Meyer saw me dangling in front of his window, he would believe me to be a burglar, and shoot me without ceremony. I could not swing myself up to the window-sill, for the sash was closed; so, I hung there, and tried in vain to find a projection below me, on which to rest my toes.