Red Axe - Samuel Rutherford Crockett (books to read fiction .TXT) 📗

Elsa was at her window with her music, looking across for me between each bar. I cannot describe the smile which hovered on the face of the Little Playmate. But perhaps all the male beings who read my book may have seen something like it. All that I can say is, that the smile conveyed an almost superhuman understanding of men and their little ways, and, curiously enough, something of contempt too.
But I was not going to be discouraged by any smile, acid or sweet. Besides, I had something still to pay back.
Michael Texel, indeed!--faith, by St. Blaise, I will Texel him tightly an he comes sneaking to our gate!
So again I drew yet nearer to his sister. Katrin dimpled and showed her teeth, with a smile like the sun going about the world, till I had almost put my hand behind her shoulders to catch the ends of it when it got round. This illumination almost finished me, for it was not the kind of smile I had been accustomed to from--well, that was not the business I was on at present.


CHAPTER XV
THE LITTLE PLAYMATE SETTLES ACCOUNTS
But I admit that the smile discouraged me. Nevertheless I proceeded gallantly.
"Ah, Jungfrau Texel," said I, "you cannot know how your presence brightens our lives here in the Red Tower. Wherefore will you not come oftener to our grim abode?"
I thought that, on the whole, pretty well; but, looking up at Helene, I saw that her smile (so different from that of the Io-Cow Katrin) had become a whole volume of scathing satire. God wot, it is not easy to make love to a lass when your "Little Sister" is listening--especially to a woman-mountain set on watch-springs like Katrin Texel.
But, after all, Katrin was no ways averse to love-making of any kind, which, after all, is the main thing. And as for the Little Playmate, I did not mind her a bonnet-tag. She had brought it upon herself.
Michael Texel indeed!
So I went on. It was excellent sport--such a jest as may not be played every day. I would show Mistress Helene (so I said to myself) whether she would like it any better if I made love to Katrin than if I went over on an occasional wet day to clean pistolets and oil French musketoons in Christian's guard-house.
So I began to tell Katrin how that woman was the sacredest influence on the life of men, with other things as I could recollect them out of a book of chivalry which I had been reading, the fine sentiments of which it was a pity to waste. For our Helene would have stamped her foot and boxed my ears for coming nigh her with such nonsense (that is, at this time she would, doubtless--not, however, always). And as for the lass over the way--Christian's Elsa--she knew no more of letters than her father knew of the mathematics. Plain kissing was more in her way--as I have been told.
So I aired my book of chivalry to Katrin Texel.
"Fair maid," said I, "have you heard the refrain of the song that I love so well? It is like sweet music to me to hear it. I love sweet music. This is the latest catch:
"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.'
"How goes it, Helene?" I asked, turning to her as she stood smiling bitterly by the window. For I knew that it would annoy her to be referred to. "Goes it not something like this?"
And I hummed fairly enough:
"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.'" *** "And if it goes like that," said she, quickly, "it goeth like a tomcat mollrowing on the tiles in the middle of the night."
Now this being manifestly only spiteful, I took no notice of her work. "Helene does not love good music," said I; "'tis her only fault. But I trust that you, dear Katrin, have a greater taste for angelic song?"
"And I trust you love to scratch upon the twangling zither as cats sharpen their claws upon the bark of trees? You love such music, _dear_ Katrin, do you not?" cried Helene over her shoulder from the window.
But Katrin, the divine cow, knew not what to make of us. I think she was of the opinion that Helene and I, with much study upon books, had suddenly gone mad.
"I do indeed love music," she said at last, uncertainly, "but, Master Hugo, not the kind of which my gossip, Helene, speaks. I love best of all a ballad of love, sung sweetly and with a melting expression, as from a lover by the wall to his mistress aloft in the balcony, like that of him of Italy, who sings:
"'O words that fall like summer dew on me.'
"How goes it?
"'O breath more sweet than is the growing--the growing--'"
She paused, and waved her hand as if to summon the words from the empty air.
"'_The growing garlic,'_ if it be a lover of Italy," cried Helene, still more spitefully. "This is enough and to spare of chivalry, besides which Hugo hath his lessons to learn for Friar Laurence, or else he will repent it on the morrow. Come, sweetheart, let us be going. I will e'en convoy thee home."
So she spoke, making great ostentation of her own superiority and emancipation from learning, treating me as a lad that must learn his horn-book at school.
But I was even with her for all that.
"And so farewell, then, dear Mistress Katrin," said I. "The delicate pleasure of your presence shall be followed by the still more tender remembrance which, when you are gone, my heart shall continue to cherish of you."
That was indeed well-minded. A whole sentence out of my romance-book without a single slip. Katrin bowed, with the airy grace of the Grand Duke's monument out in the square. But the little Helene swept majestically off, muttering to herself, but so that I could hear her: "'O wondrous, most wondrous,' quoth our cat Mall, when she saw her Tom betwixt her and the moon."
The application of which wise saw is indeed to seek.
So the two maids went away, and I betook me to the window to see if I could catch a glimpse of Christian's Elsa.
But I only saw Katrin and Helene going gossiping down the street with their heads very close together.
At first I smiled, well pleased to think how excellently I had played my cards and how daintily I had worked in those gallant speeches out of the book of chivalry. But by-and-by it struck me that the Little Playmate was absent a most unconscionable time. Could it be--Michael Texel? No, that at least was plainly impossible.
I got up and walked about. Then for a change I paused by the window.
I had stood a good while thus moodily looking out at the casement, when I became aware of two that walked slowly up the street and halted together before the great iron-studded door which led to the Red Tower.
By the thirty thousand virgins--Helene and Michael Texel!
And then, indeed, what a coil was I in; how blackly deceitful I called her! How keenly I watched for any token of understanding and kindness more than ordinary that might chance to pass between them. But I could see none, for though the great soft lout of a ruddy beer-vat tried often to look under the brim of her hat, yet she kept her eyes down--only once, that I could observe, raising them, and that was more towards the Red Tower than in the direction of Michael Texel.
I think she wished to see whether I was watching. And when she had noted me it I wot well that she became much more animated, and laughed and spoke quickly, with color in her cheeks and a flash of defiance on her countenance, which were manifestly wasted on such a boastful, callow blubber-tun as Michael Texel.
Then it was: "Adieu to you, Master Texel!" "Farewell to you, fair maid!"
And Helene dipped a courtesy to him, dainty and sweet enough to conquer an angel, while the great jelly-bag shook himself almost to pieces in his eagerness to achieve a masterly bow. All this made me angry, not that I cared though Helene had coquetted with a dozen lads, an it had liked her. It was only the poverty of taste shown in being seen in the open High Street of Thorn along with such an oaf as Michael Texel. He had first been my friend, it is true, but then at that time I had not found him out.
By-and-by Helene came up the stairs, tripping light as a feather that the wind blows. Perhaps, though, she had turned in the doorway, where I could not see her, to throw the lout a kiss--so I thought within me, jealously.
"You have convoyed your gossip Katrin home in safety, I trust," said I, sweetly, as she came in.
"Yes," said she; "but I fear she has left her heart behind her. So wondrously rapid a courtship never did I see!"
"Save on the street," answered I; "and with a pale, soft jack-pudding like Michael Texel! That was a sight, indeed."
At which Helene laughed a merry little laugh--well-pleased, too, the minx, as I could see.
"What are courtships on the street to you, Sir Hugo," she returned, "with your 'Twinkle-Twankle' singing-women over the way, and--Lord, how went it?
"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.'
"Ha! ha! Sir Gallant, what need you with more? Would you have as many loves as the Grand Turk, and invent new love-makings for each of them? Shall we maidens petition Duke Casimir to banish the other lads of the town and leave only Hugo Gottfried for all of us?"
And then she went on to other such silly talk that I think it not worth reporting.
Whereupon I was about to leave the room in a transport of just indignation, and that without speaking, when Helene called to me.
"Hugo!" she said, very softly, as she alone could speak, and that only when it liked her to make friends.
I turned me about with some dignity, but knowing in my heart that it was all over with me.
"Well, what may be your will, madam?" said I.
Helene came towards me with uplifted, petitionary eyes.
"You are not going to be angry with me, Hugo!" she said. And she lifted her eyes again upon me--irresistible, compelling, solvent of dignities, and able to break down all pride.
O all ye men who have never seen my Helene look up thus at you--but only common other eyes, go and hang yourselves on high trees for very envy. Well, as I say, Helene looked up at me. She kept on looking up at me.
And I--well, I hung a moment on my pride, and then--clasped her in my arms.
"Dear minx, thrice wicked one!" I exclaimed, "wherefore do you torment me--break my heart?"
"Because," said she, escaping as soon as she had gained her pretty, rascal way, "you think yourself so clever, Hugo, such an irresistible person, that you must be forever returning to this window and getting this book of chivalry by heart. Now you are going to be cross again. Oh, shame, and with your little sister--
"'That never did you any harm, But killed the mice in your father's barn.'"
With such babyish words she talked the frowns off my face, or, when they would not go fast enough, hastened them by reaching up and smoothing them away with her finger.
"Now," she said, setting her head to the side, "what a nice sweet Great Brother! Let him sit down here on the great chair."
So I sat down, well pleased enough, not