“Who is there left to molest me?” asked the Archbishop; and the general was forced to admit that there was none.
An army builds a road along the line of the least resistance; and often, when a promontory thrust its rocky nose into the river, the way led up the hill through the forest, getting back into the valley again as best it could. During these inland excursions, the monk, evidently unused to equestrianism, fell behind, and sometimes the whole troop was halted by command of its chief, until Gottlieb, clinging to his horse’s mane, emerged from the thicket, the Archbishop curbing the impatience of his charger and watching, with a cynical smile curling his stern lips, the reappearance of the good father.
After one of the most laborious ascents and descents they had encountered that day, the Archbishop waited for the monk; and when he came up with his leader, panting and somewhat dishevelled, the latter said, “There appears to be a lesson in your tribulations which hereafter you may retail with profit to your flock, relating how a good man leaving the right and beaten path and following his own devices in the wilderness may bring discomfiture upon himself.”
“The lesson it conveys to me, my Lord,” said the monk, drily, “is that a man is but a fool to leave the stability of good stout sandals with which he is accustomed, to venture his body on a horse that pays little heed to his wishes.”
“This is our last detour,” replied the Elector; “there are now many miles of winding but level road before us, and you have thus a chance to retrieve your reputation as a horseman in the eyes of our troop.”
“In truth, my Lord, I never boasted of it,” returned the monk, “but I am right glad to learn that the way will be less mountainous. To what district have we penetrated?”
“Above us, but unseen from this bank of the river, is the castle of the Widow Starkenburg. Her days of widowhood, however, are nearly passed, for I intend to marry her to one of my victorious knights, who will hold the castle for me.”
“The Countess of Starkenburg,” said the monk, “must surely now be at an age when the thoughts turn toward Heaven rather than toward matrimony.”
“I have yet to meet the woman,” replied the Archbishop, gazing upward, “who pleads old age as an excuse for turning away from a suitable lover. It is thy misfortune, Gottlieb, that in choosing a woollen cowl rather than an iron head-piece, thou should’st thus have lost a chance of advancement. The castle, I am told, has well-filled wine vaults, and old age in wine is doubtless more to thy taste than the same quality in woman. ‘Tis a pity thou art not a knight, Gottlieb.”
“The fault is not beyond the power of our Holy Father to remedy by special dispensation,” replied the monk, with a chuckle.