GOOD cheer at the gate, more cheer in the bailey, in the great hall of the Wartburg the blithest cheer of all. On the brass fire-dogs in the cavernous chimney tall flames leaped from the snapping logs; in their wall-sockets the red torches shook at every gust from the open loopholes. The polished oak of the ceiling, the green and crimson scrolls of the frescos, the sheen of the long black benches, the glister of the gold and silver drinking-horns, the brightness of the pictured tapestries,—all these joined in a scene of barbaric splendour. Upon the dais, under the arched recess, Ulrich, “Free-baron by the Grace of God,” and master of an hundred men, sprawled half his length in his arm-chair, banged his great scabbard on the floor, and swore that he was in just the mood to fight My Lord the Emperor.
Michael the Breaker, the black-haired giant who sat on the lower stool at his suzerain’s side, capped the oath by wishing the King of France and the Holy Father at Rome were foes too, just for furnishing merry sword-play. While amongst the men-at-arms and brutish women who were fast getting wilder over mead and beer, Priest Clement—the jolliest sinner who ever pattered a mass—lolled on his bench, called for another pot of the smacking Erfurt beer, and dared man or demon to deny that his was the happiest life in all the world.
“Veritas! veritas! true was the saying my wise mother taught me!”
“And that wisdom, Father?” snickered Ruprecht, who was then tying a new knot in his dagger-strap to keep reckoning of the man he had killed that day.
“For a happy time once, then a fowl you must slay!
For a merry long year, don’t your wedding delay!
For a lifelong carouse, then a priest you must stay!”
So Clement; but Ruprecht growled sullenly,—
“We are less fortunate than your reverence; it is Friday, but can we have no dispensation for a side of ham?”