Chapter XVIII

DICK GIVES A SPECIMEN OF AMERICAN SHOOTING.

But Dick's appearance was soon so changed as to remove fear of recognition, thanks to the equipment with which Lord George provided him, as advanced payment, out of his lordship's own wardrobe,--an equipment for a fine gentleman rather than for a secretary. The transformation was begun at Melun, whence the travellers went speedily to Fontainebleau, where a barber and hair-dresser completed it. Dick was then told that his duties would consist in writing letters of travel that his lordship had promised to send to England. His lordship gave the name to which these epistles were to be directed. Dick echoed back the name, in astonishment:

"Miss Celestine Thorpe! Why, it seems to me I've heard--"

"Yes," admitted Lord George, with a sigh, "I went to Oxfordshire and renewed the attack, and the lady capitulated,--that is to say, conditionally on my behavior during absence. These letters are to show how I spend my time. I undertook to write them myself, but at this place I found I hadn't the literary gift. So I started for Paris in search of a secretary. By the way, you may be glad to hear that the lovely Amabel is soon to be Sir William Fountain's lady. He is the exact opposite of the lamented Bullcott. Alderby has married Miss Mallby, and revenges himself for her treatment of him before marriage, by keeping her green with jealousy."

Dick sighed to think how long ago seemed his contact with the lives of the people thus recalled to his mind, and how completely he must have been by them forgotten. Such is the world!

The next few weeks, passed in leisurely travel from one old town of France to another, were among the most uneventful and serenely pleasurable in Dick's life. From the noble forest, great rocks, and historic chateau of Fontainebleau, they went to Sens, with its winding streets and pleasant rivulets. There they took the water-coach, and were towed, by horses on the bank, up the Yonne to Joigny, which looks down on fertile meadows watered by the two rivers that join at the foot of its hillside. Continuing on the water-coach, with a cheerful company of merchants, lawyers, abbes, milliners, soldiers, fiddlers, women of different ages and degrees of virtue, and other people, they joined in the quadrilles in the cabin and on deck with a gaiety that effectually disguised Lord George's rank and nationality.

At Auxerre they left the water-coach, and proceeded by a hired conveyance to Dijon, where they met several English, Irish, and Scotch gentry at the coffee-house, and were reminded of London by the garden called Vauxhall, hard by the ramparts. So they went through Burgundy, drinking the wine, exchanging civilities with the well-fed monks, and partaking everywhere of the fat of the land. By way of Auxonne, a town small but fortified, and Dole, with its Roman vestiges, they neared the Swiss frontier at Besancon, then noted for its university, its hospital, its large garrison containing among others the regiment of the King, its perpetual religious processions, its frequent suicides of lovers in the river Doube, and its soldiers' duels.

Thence they went to Basle, lodging at the inn of the Three Kings, and dining by a window that looked across the Rhine to smiling plains; thence past miles of tobacco fields to Strasbourg; thence across the Rhine and to Rastadt; thence by way of Carlsruhe and Speyer to Mannheim, whose straight streets, crossing at right angles, reminded Dick of Philadelphia. Over a flat country where there were few houses but palaces and peasants' cottages,--for in most small German states the gentry lived in the capitals and the merchant class in towns,--they went by carriage to the ecclesiastical capital, Mayence, which swarmed with priests, many of them rich and gay-looking, and not a few openly tipsy with Rhenish wine. From there Lord George and his secretary proceeded to Frankfort, notable for its stately houses covered with red stucco, its spacious streets, its well-dressed and well-mannered people, its multitude of Jews.

From the free imperial city they drove to Marburg, in the landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel, a hilly, well-wooded country, with many fertile valleys and fields. Its landgrave, Frederick II., was one of the richest and most powerful of all the German princes, and was then in close relations with England, which fact gave him a mild interest in Lord George's eyes; but there was to that fact a circumstance with a different interest for Dick Wetheral,--it was this Landgrave that sold his troops to England, and thousands of them were even now in America fighting against Dick's countrymen.

Pushing on from Marburg as rapidly as the bad roads and the stolid, smoking German postilion would let them go, the young gentlemen entered Cassel, then no longer a walled city, on a pleasant autumn evening, little foreseeing, as they drove in from the southwest and set foot before the hotel in the round platz near the Landgrave's palace, that in this capital a very remarkable drama was about to open in the life of Dick Wetheral.

The next morning Dick stayed in the hotel to write Lord George's journal up to date, while his lordship went out to visit the English resident. Before noon Lord George returned.

"Lay aside your pen, my dear fellow," he said to Dick. "We are to dine at the palace with their highnesses, the Landgrave and Landgravine. Make haste, you've barely time to change your clothes."

"But I am merely a secretary," objected Dick, who had no desire to enjoy the hospitality of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.

"So much the more reason why you should see the Landgrave's court, to write my description of it. Besides, no one will know you are my secretary as well as my friend."

"But no one is permitted to appear at German courts who isn't noble."

"That rule of etiquette is observed only towards the natives, not towards strangers, and particularly not towards Englishmen. Come, this is a gala-day, and we shall go to the masquerade to-night as well. I must have at least one court dinner and court ball in my journal of travels, to be in the fashion. To-morrow we shall leave Cassel, which doesn't interest me, and go by way of Magdeburg to Berlin."

Dick was glad to hear this last intention, for, unlike the Landgrave Frederick II. of Hesse-Cassel, King Frederick I. of Prussia (who was also Duke of Magdeburg) had shown some favor to the American cause, having some months ago forbidden the passage of Hessian soldiers through his dominions to embark for America. So Dick complied the more cheerfully with Lord George's wish.

Cassel then, as now, was mainly on the west bank of the river Fulda, and consisted of the "old town," large and irregular, and the "new town," where the nobility and the court officers had fine houses. The circular platz in which the travellers lodged was at the southwestern extremity of the old town, and by proceeding a short way southwest from the platz, one reached the winter palace and the new town. A few steps of their carriage horses brought Lord George and Dick to the palace, then a large Gothic castle, west of which was the great rectangular open space now known as the Friedrichsplatz. South of this space, and between the new town and the Fulda, was a flat-roofed villa, used by the Landgrave as a summer residence, and surrounded by parks, gardens, an orangery, and a menagerie. But though September was not yet past, the Landgrave was now occupying the winter palace.

The guard officer at the palace, to whom Lord George showed his order for entrance, caused a footman to conduct the visitors into a large decorated room, where a number of officers stood about in groups, talking in low tones. One of these, whom Lord George had met in the forenoon, greeted the two with the utmost courtesy, which seemed like a compound of French politeness and English gravity. Dick observed that this officer spoke in French, which indeed was so much the court language in Germany while Frederick of Prussia set the fashion, that the use of German was deemed a mark of vulgarity. In France the craze was for everything English; in Germany for everything French.

From the number of military officers present, it was evident that the Landgrave had not sent all of his army to serve England in America. Dick made several acquaintances in a very few minutes. He who had first approached was Count von Romberg, a captain in the foot-guards. Another was the Baron von Sungen, lieutenant-colonel of the horse-guards, a witty, spirited, impulsive, chivalrous man, with a French manner acquired in Paris. A third--slim, talkative, vain, meddlesome, with brazen gray eyes and reddish eye-lashes--was Count Mesmer, one of his highness's chamberlains. These three were young men. Of the older ones in the assemblage, Dick noticed particularly a bent, wrinkled, crafty-looking sexagenarian, who, he learned, was Von Rothenstein, minister of police.

Presently doors were thrown open, and there appeared a robust gentleman of medium height, looking fewer years than his fifty-eight, and wearing the Order of the Garter. He came with a firm tread, noticing in a brief but gracious way the officers, who bowed low to him as he approached. He had a moment and a word for this one and for that; for General Scliven, his chief reliance in military affairs; for old Zastrow, who had commanded at Schweidnitz; for the Prince of Saxe-Gotha, who had a regiment in Hesse-Cassel's service; and, in due time, for the officious Count Mesmer, by whom Lord George and Dick had the honor of being made known to the Landgrave.

His highness expressed, in the French language and in a guttural voice still full of virility, the pleasure he took in meeting Englishmen. While Lord George was bowing indifferently, and Dick hypocritically, other doors opened, and a lady entered, very beautiful and dignified, large, and somewhat over-plump. Dick knew from the great respect with which she was received, and from the number of ladies that followed her, that she must be the Landgravine. A very cold greeting passed between her and the Landgrave,--for, though it was but five years since Frederick II. had married, for love, the Princess of Brandenburg-Schwedt, he already lived estranged from her, as he had lived from his first wife, a daughter of England's George II.; and as he now lived also from his son George William, the hereditary prince, who was also Count of Hanau, and maintained there a little court.

Dick glanced from the Landgravine to her ladies, who looked neither as piquant as French women, nor as reserved as English women. If what an ungallant American traveller wrote at that time--that at the German courts beauty and butter alike were measured by the pound--were true, it was to be granted that the German ladies had fair skin, radiant complexion, and something of a classic cast of countenance. But Dick's gaze fastened upon one face, which had beauty without heaviness; a face that stood out from the others,--making them and all the world besides fade into nothingness, while Dick, in doubt whether he was not dreaming, forgot that any other woman had ever lived. It was the face of Catherine de St. Valier!

She saw him, looked slightly startled, then took on the faintest flush, which passed immediately but left him with the happy assurance that he was recognized. Half-way across the room as he was, he bowed low. She slightly inclined her head, and hastened to the Landgravine, for whom she had brought a forgotten handkerchief. She then went swiftly out by the door at which all the ladies had entered.

The company was already on the way to the dining-parlor, and Dick had to follow. It was the privilege of Lord George and his friends to dine at their highnesses' table, where only strangers and such officers as were not under the rank of colonel were allowed to sit, the lesser guests eating in an adjoining room, to which the doors were left open. But Dick took no thought of the honor done him, or of the table-talk, which was constrained and low-spoken, no voice being raised save when one of their highnesses addressed some person at a distance. Catherine was not present. Dick continued to wonder how in the world she had come to be an inmate of the palace of Cassel. As the dinner lasted two hours, he had time in which to repeat this question to himself many times. After dinner he absent-mindedly followed the company back to the room where it had first assembled. Here he stood in a trance for a quarter of an hour, and then, the Landgrave having left the apartment, the company broke up.

"Let us hope we sha'n't be so bored at the masquerade to-night," said Lord George, on the way back to the hotel. "I shall thank God when I have put this stupid place far behind me."

"Stupid!" echoed Dick. "I find it very interesting. I sha'n't think of leaving for some time."

"Why, this morning you were glad we were going at once to Berlin!"

"My dear Lord George, if you are determined to go at once to Berlin, I beg to resign my place as your secretary. I will do my best to find you another secretary here at Cassel."

"Why, I suppose I can easily find one. But are you serious? One would suppose you had got some fat appointment in the court or the army, since this morning."

"I wish I had, God knows,--or even a lean one,--but not in the army. I would not go to fight against my--against the Americans."

"Oh, you wouldn't be sent to America. We should have to get you into one of the household battalions,--not as an officer, of course; you know the officers must be of the nobility, but there are gentlemen in the ranks of every military body that is attached to a sovereign's person. There are the body-guards, the foot-guards, the horse-guards, and other such troops. Doubtless volunteers are very welcome. These German princes have crimps all over Europe kidnapping men for their armies. Let us speak to one of the various counts or barons we shall meet to-night."

"No, my lord, I would never serve this Landgrave as a soldier,--nor in any other post, but for one reason."

His lordship, though puzzled, was too polite to ask what the reason was. "Very well," said he, after a moment's silence, "we shall see to-morrow. I shall try to lure away some under-clerk from a brilliant official career, as my secretary, and to get you in his place,--if you continue of the same mind."

"My lord, you are destined to be always my Good Samaritan," cried Dick, his eyes suddenly moist with gratitude. He considered that, in occupying a civil sinecure under the Landgrave, he would not in reality be serving that virtual enemy to his country, but would be merely supporting himself by means of that enemy; that is to say, he would be, in time of necessity, existing at the expense of the foe, according to the custom of war. Moreover, his position might enable him to serve his country directly, by giving him early intelligence of future movements by Hessian troops, and, perhaps, of future intentions of England.

They drove to a costumer's, obtained dominoes, and, at six o'clock, returned to the palace, where they found the gentlemen of the court all in dominoes, the ladies in ordinary ball dress. Card tables had been set, and the Landgrave played at cavaniolle with a rather talkative party of about a dozen members, while the Landgravine took a hand at quadrille with a trio of her own choosing. A number of players occupied tables in adjoining rooms. Dick helped make up a game at which Captain von Romberg and two placid, apple-cheeked baronesses were the other participants, but his eyes roved from his cards, in vain search of Catherine.

While the games were going on, a gentleman passed around with a hat containing small tickets. Each lady took one of these, when the hat was offered her, and then similar tickets were drawn by the gentlemen. Dick saw that his ticket bore the number twenty-three, and he learned from the talk of his fellow players that the lady who had drawn the same number would be his partner at supper and at the dance. Presently an officer began calling out the numbers, a lady declaring herself at each number, and a gentleman offering his arm to lead her out to supper.

"I wonder who has twenty-three," said Dick, indifferently, to Lord George, who had meanwhile rejoined him.

"I can't tell you that," replied his lordship, "but I know who has my number, seventeen. I happened to see her ticket, when she held it up to the light. She is that splendid, dark-eyed creature, standing yonder under the candles."

Dick's glance turned idly towards the indicated place. Suddenly he became afire.

"My lord," he almost gasped, "be my Good Samaritan once again. Exchange tickets with me, for heaven's sake!"

"Why, certainly. That gives me back the uncertainty to which this game entitles me." And the exchange was quickly made.

"Seventeen," was called out, and Dick advanced, with beating heart, to meet Catherine. She colored again--was it with pleasure?--as she took his proffered arm. They walked in silence to the supper-room.

At supper there was more ease and animation than there had been at dinner. This circumstance favored conversation between Dick and his partner.

"I should not have expected to meet you so far from where I saw you last," he began, in a low voice.

"Nor I to meet you," she replied, speaking without haste, and with the gravity that characterized her.

"Oh, my coming here was a very simple matter. Sent to England as a prisoner, I escaped to France, and there fell in with an English nobleman, whose travels brought him this way. I am his secretary. It is not known I am an American."

"My coming here was quite as simple," said she, with a slight smile. "My brother and I came to France to receive a small bequest left by a cousin of my mother's. In Paris we met a distant relation,--one of the ladies of her highness the Landgravine. When she returned to Cassel, she obtained for me a post as lady-in-waiting. French people are in request at the German courts."

"And Monsieur Gerard?"

"My brother is in the foot-guards."

"I should like to see him," said Dick, and added, with special intention, "I suppose he has forgotten me."

"Oh, no, monsieur," she replied, quite artlessly; "we have often talked of you. Our gratitude for recovering the portrait, and risking your life to bring it to us--"

"'Twas the opportunity of risking it to serve you, that made my life worth having," he said, in a tone little above a whisper.

"My brother will be glad to learn that your life was surely saved," she replied, avoiding Dick's glance.

"And you, who saved it?"

"I, too, of course."

The words were nothing, but the slight blush with which she uttered them was eloquent.

After supper, all the company put on masks with which they had provided themselves. The Landgravine was led to the ballroom by her partner, an owlish colonel, and the other couples followed. Her highness stopped at the upper end of the room, the second couple stopped immediately below this, and at last there was a double file extending the length of the hall. This arrangement seemed to promise a country-dance, but when the music began, Dick found that a form of minuet was intended. When this had been walked through, everybody sat down, except the Landgravine, who then danced with several different gentlemen in succession.

After this there were minuets and country-dances. The company was augmented by maskers from the town, some in fancy dresses; while several who belonged to the court, having meanwhile slipped out, returned in different costume, so as to be really disguised,--for on first entering the masquerade-room, all were known, notwithstanding their masks. Everybody was now on a footing, and the maskers mingled promiscuously. But Dick remained with Catherine, who showed no desire for other company. He thought himself in the midst of paradise, until suddenly she said:

"Her highness is retiring. I must go."

"But, mademoiselle, the others are not going!"

"The others are not keepers of her highness's robes," said Catherine.

"But one moment! When may I see you again?"

"How can I say? My hours of duty are long. I am usually free in the afternoon, from three to five o'clock. On occasions like this, sometimes I attend her highness, sometimes I may do as I please."

"From three to five, you say. I suppose you remain in the palace then?"

"Except when I visit my brother. I must go now, monsieur. _Au revoir!_"

In a moment she was lost in the crowd. You may be sure much had been said, between their opening colloquy at supper and their brief dialogue at parting, to bring about the tacit understanding of a future meeting.

So she was in the habit of going to see her brother! Dick had learned that the Prussian system was followed in Cassel,--that the troops, instead of being lodged in barracks, were quartered with citizens. He walked the next morning to the drill-ground and armory of the foot-guards, and, happily meeting Captain von Romberg, learned where Gerard had lodgings. He went immediately to the house, which was in a street running east from the platz and through the southern extremity of the old town. It was the house of a glover, whose shop was on the ground floor. Gerard was out on duty.

Dick, finding that the guardsman occupied the first-floor room towards the street, immediately hired a corresponding room in an obscure inn across the way. He waited at the inn door till he saw Gerard, in military coat and buff cross belt, coming down the street; he then crossed over, with a preoccupied air, as if going about his business. Looking up suddenly, as he came face to face with the soldier, Dick pretended the greatest surprise at recognizing Monsieur de St. Valier.

The recognition was not mutual at first, but, as soon as Dick had recalled himself to the other, the young Frenchman became instantly cordial. A minute later the two were sitting in Gerard's room, expressing wonder at the strange chance that had made Dick a lodger across the street from Gerard.

They dined together at the table d'hote of Dick's inn, and then returned to Gerard's house, where the marvellous coincidence had to be discussed over again when Gerard's sister called in the afternoon. It was his custom to receive her in the glover's back parlor, and on this occasion Dick was of course invited to be present. Not until she had gone back to the palace, did Dick return to Lord George, who had been mystified at his absence.

"I have found a secretary," said his lordship, who also had passed a great part of the day out of the hotel, "in the shape of a clerk at the French resident's office, who has got into trouble over cards and a woman and has to seek other pastures. But the vacancy he will leave is already provided for. I don't know what can be done for you if you are determined to remain here."

"I shall find something," said Dick; "and, meanwhile, I've taken a room at a cheaper hotel, where I can live for some time on the money I have. But I am as grateful to you--"

"As if I had ever really done anything for you," broke in Lord George, who liked expressions of gratitude to be cut short. He supposed that Dick's "some time" meant several weeks, whereas it really meant three days.

The next afternoon there was a review of the first battalion of guards, in that part of the park which lay between the summer palace and the menagerie. Lord George remained at Cassel on the pretext of a desire to see an exhibition of target-shooting that was to be given in connection with the review, by certain of the guardsmen. Dick guessed that his lordship's real purpose in tarrying was to make further effort towards obtaining employment for him.

The two met at Lord George's hotel (Dick having already moved to the inn opposite the glover's), and rode on hired horses to the reviewing-ground. It was a fine day, warm and sunny. The Landgrave and his chief officers were present on horseback. The Landgravine and several ladies were in carriages, at that side of the park which bordered on the Fulda and at which was the menagerie. Dick and Lord George took station, with several other horsemen, near the Landgrave's party. When the shooting at mark began, Dick found himself near the place where the men stood while firing. The competitors were drawn up in line, at right angles with the line formed by the rest of the battalion. This latter line formed the western side of an imaginary square, the targets were midway in the south side of the same square, the east side was formed by the menagerie and the carriages, while the north side began with the line of marksmen, and was continued eastward by the groups of horsemen. After a few shots had been fired, Dick observed that the Landgravine and other ladies had got out of their carriages and were standing at some distance from them, so as to see better the effect of each shot.

Some one had just called Dick's attention to the fact that Mlle. F----, the Landgrave's Parisian mistress, was standing within a few feet of the Landgrave's wife, when suddenly a terrible roar came from the menagerie, followed a moment later by a great four-footed, striped figure, which bounded into sight, then crouched and looked around with ferocious curiosity.

"The tiger has broken out!" an officer exclaimed, while everybody gazed at the animal as if struck dumb with sudden amazement and alarm.

A man rushed wildly out from the menagerie after the tiger,--he was the keeper, through whose carelessness the beast had escaped. At this sight the women began to scream and to run back to the carriages. In a moment or two, the Landgravine was left alone. She stood looking at the animal as if fascinated, or as if paralyzed with terror.

The keeper threw himself before the tiger. It felled him with a blow, drew the blood from his face with its claws, and began to tear his flesh with its teeth. The women shrieked with horror. The animal looked up, glided across the body of the man, and made swiftly towards the Landgravine.

A kind of shuddering moan went up from the whole field. Some officers dashed forward on their horses, as if to intervene between the Landgravine and the beast, though the great distance made the attempt a hopeless one.

As the tiger made its spring, a shot rang out. The beast gave a howl of pain, dropped sidewise, and lay still, at the Landgravine's feet, pierced through the brain.

The officers looked around amazed, and saw Dick Wetheral, afoot, lowering a smoking gun. He had slid from his horse at the tiger's first appearance, run to the nearest marksman, seized the loaded weapon, and fired as he had fired at many a running bear in Pennsylvania.

"Who fired?" cried the Landgrave, too deeply moved to say more,--for a prince does not wish his wife to die a violent death in his presence and the court's, however estranged he may be from her.

"I took the liberty, your highness," said Dick, handing back the gun to the guardsman, and approaching the Landgrave.

"You have saved the Landgravine's life," said his highness. "I lack words in which to express my gratitude. You shall hear from me."

And the Landgrave rode quickly over to the Landgravine, who was being supported to her carriage.

"You don't need a Good Samaritan any longer. Your fortune is made!" said Lord George, as Dick remounted.