"That is the main thing--tell me about that."
"Why, it was this way: I was sitting quietly at the tavern one night, when Herr von Wildenau's coachman came to me again and said that his master wanted to talk with me about our bay mare with the staggers which he would like to harness with his bay. I was glad that we could get the mare off on him."
"Fie, Martin!"
"Why--if nobody tried to cheat, there wouldn't be any more horse-trading! So I told him I thought the countess would sell the mare--we had no mate for her and I would inform Your Highness. No, the gentleman would write directly to Her Highness--only I must go to them, they wanted to talk with me. Well--I went, and they shut all the doors and pulled the curtains over them, just as your Highness did, and then they began on the bay and promised me a big fee, if I would get her cheap for them. Every coachman takes a fee," the old man added in an embarrassed tone, "it's the custom--you won't be vexed, Countess--so I made myself a bit important and pretended that it depended entirely on me, and I would make Her Highness so dissatisfied with the mare that she would be glad to get rid of her cheap, and--all the rest of the things we coachmen say! So the gentlemen thought because I bargained with them about one thing, I would about another. But that was quite different from a horse-trade, and my employers are no animals to be sold, so they found that they had come to the wrong person. If I would make a little extra money by getting rid of a poor animal, which we had long wanted to sell, I'm not the rascal to take thousands from anybody to deprive my employers of house and home. And the poor old Prince, who can no longer help himself, would perhaps be left to starve in his old age. No, the gentlemen were mistaken in old Martin, they don't know what it is"--tears were streaming down the old man's wrinkled cheeks--"to put such a little princess on a horse for the first time and place the reins in her tiny hands."
"Please go on Martin," said the countess gently, scarcely able to exert any better control over herself. "What did they offer you?"
"A great deal of money, if I would bear witness in court that you were married."
"Ah!"--the terrified woman covered her face with her hands.
"There--there, Countess," said Martin, soothingly. "I haven't finished! Hold your head up. Your Highness, I beg you, this is no time to be faint-hearted, we must be on the watch and keep the reins well in hand, that they may not get the start of us."
"Yes, yes! Go on!"
"Well, they tried to catch me napping. They knew everything, and I had been a witness of the wedding at Prankenberg!"