A king should be a king of drink.
But sing:
Ruli, King Ruli! this night shall be our king!
The minstrel doubtless had in mind the ten companions of the king, who, being no longer able to keep up with the stalwart Ruli in the vigor of his potations, had cried out as with one voice against their sovereign, declaring that his beer was bitter beyond endurance, and his pleasures a gilded despotism. For this offence the king, swearing roundly that they were traitor knights, who knew not how to be moderate drinkers or loyal feasters, consigned them to his darkest wine caverns, where they were doomed to dwell in empty hogsheads for many a year.
Now, after a life of good living, the rare old king sat in his great velvet-cushioned chair, warming his legs, which were rather swollen, and his feet, which were encased in large slippers, before a fire sufficient to cook an ox. Glided to his side his eldest child, the queenly Hermengilde, and said softly: “Alas! sire, and hast thou not heard that my first-born has killed young Siegbert of Bierhalle, in a drunken brawl, and wilt thou persist in these foolish feasts?”
“Tut, tut, silly girl! This feasting hurts not thy fasting. 'Twere better to kill his man in drink than sober; and, tut, tut! we must not grieve for ever, child. Wine is for the drinking, and life for the living. Heaven send thee luck!” With this the jovial king took a draught from his flagon.
Ere he had smoked his pipe, the fair Joanna, second princess of the blood, whose wont it was to fill the king's pipe with affectionate care, said to him musingly: “Methinks it is the night when our brother Max fell over into the chasm and was killed. Ill befits that its peace be marred by roysterers whom, say they, he had most to blame for his death.”
“What! and have ye turned dames [pg 139] of the cloister, that ye seek to make crows' nests of my beard and gray hairs? Umph! my lady counsellors; and ye would have no more wine drank because rocks are steep! Did not sober Hans fall into the well, and ere thou wast born? Ay, but a brave lad was Max, and a merry one. A glass to his memory!”
The king was unaware, as he thus spoke, of the near presence of a reverend and noble matron, whose face bore marks of care and grief. It was the queen Roxalana. A child of tender years ran from her side to climb her grandsire's knee, but, seeing that the royal flagon stood in the way, exclaimed: “O grandfather! that horrid drink!” The king, with a majestic motion, waved the child away, and she returned in tears to the side of the mute queen.
“So, my lady, queen of woebegones and nurse of whimperings, thou art here to tease thy lord and trouble his gout. 'Tis well. Train the brats of the land to do imps' work to their fathers, and make your daughters have long faces; but have a care, goodwife, lest an old man's patience be too weak for this old maid's gossip. Pray, what new worm is in thy brain, that thou tellest we must not drink the cup of our fathers?”