“The impertinent fellow is right,” said the lieutenant, biting his lips. “Hullo, there, officer, officer of the tower! Escort this stranger to Schumacker, and do not scold if I have taken down your lamp with three beaks and but one wick. I was curious to examine an article which is doubtless the work of Sciold the Pagan or Havar the giant-killer; and besides it is no longer the fashion to hang anything but crystal chandeliers from the ceiling.”
With these words, as the young man and his escort crossed the deserted donjon garden, the martyr to fashion resumed the thread of the love adventures of the Amazonian Clelia and Horatius the One-eyed.
IV.
Benvolio. Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home
to-night?
Mercutio. Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man.
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet.
A MAN and two horses entered the courtyard of the palace of the governor of Throndhjem. The horseman dismounted, shaking his head with a discontented air. He was about to lead the two animals to the stable, when his arm was seized, and a voice cried: “How! You here alone, Poël! And your master,—where is your master?”
It was old General Levin de Knud, who, seeing from his window the young man’s servant and the empty saddle, descended quickly, and fastened upon the groom a gaze which betrayed even more alarm than his question.
“Your Excellency,” said Poël, with a low bow, “my master has left Throndhjem.”
“What! has he been here, and gone again without seeing his general, without greeting his old friend! And how long since?”
“He arrived this evening and left this evening.”
“This evening,—this very evening! But where did he stay? Where has he gone?”