“Do you ride towards Mittwalden?” asked the Prince.
“As far as the cross-road to Tannenbrunn,” the man replied. “Will you bear company?”
“With pleasure. I have even waited for you on the chance,” answered Otto.
By this time they were close alongside; and the man, with the country-folk instinct, turned his cloudy vision first of all on his companion’s mount. “The devil!” he cried. “You ride a bonny mare, friend!” And then his curiosity being satisfied about the essential, he turned his attention to that merely secondary matter, his companion’s face. He started. “The Prince!” he cried, saluting, with another yaw that came near dismounting him. “I beg your pardon, your Highness, not to have reco’nised you at once.”
The Prince was vexed out of his self-possession. “Since you know me,” he said, “it is unnecessary we should ride together. I will precede you, if you please.” And he was about to set spur to the grey mare, when the half-drunken fellow, reaching over, laid his hand upon the rein.
“Hark you,” he said, “prince or no prince, that is not how one man should conduct himself with another. What! You’ll ride with me incog. and set me talking! But if I know you, you’ll preshede me, if you please! Spy!” And the fellow, crimson with drink and injured vanity, almost spat the word into the Prince’s face.
A horrid confusion came over Otto. He perceived that he had acted rudely, grossly presuming on his station. And perhaps a little shiver of physical alarm mingled with his remorse, for the fellow was very powerful, and not more than half in the possession of his senses. “Take your hand from my rein,” he said, with a sufficient assumption of command; and when the man, rather to his wonder, had obeyed: “You should understand, sir,” he added, “that while I might be glad to ride with you as one person of sagacity with another, and so receive your true opinions, it would amuse me very little to hear the empty compliments you would address to me as Prince.”
“You think I would lie, do you?” cried the man with the bottle, purpling deeper.
“I know you would,” returned Otto, entering entirely into his self-possession. “You would not even show me the medal you wear about your neck.” For he had caught a glimpse of a green ribbon at the fellow’s throat.
The change was instantaneous: the red face became mottled with yellow; a thick-fingered, tottering hand made a clutch at the tell-tale ribbon. “Medal!” the man cried, wonderfully sobered. “I have no medal.”