第81章 THE SKETCH BOOK(1)

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM

A TRAVELLER'S TALE*

by Washington Irving

* The erudite reader, well versed in good-for-nothing lore, willperceive that the above Tale must have been suggested to the old Swissby a little French anecdote, a circumstance said to have taken placeat Paris.

He that supper for is dight,

He lyes full cold, I trow, this night!

Yestreen to chamber I him led,

This night Gray-Steel has made his bed.

SIR EGER, SIR GRAHAME, AND SIR GRAY-STEEL.

ON THE summit of one of the heights of the Odenwald, a wild andromantic tract of Upper Germany, that lies not far from the confluenceof the Main and the Rhine, there stood, many, many years since, theCastle of the Baron Von Landshort. It is now quite fallen to decay,and almost buried among beech trees and dark firs; about which,however, its old watch-tower may still be seen, struggling, like theformer possessor I have mentioned, to carry a high head, and look downupon the neighboring country.

The baron was a dry branch of the great family of Katzenellenbogen,*and inherited the relics of the property, and all the pride of hisancestors. Though the warlike disposition of his predecessors had muchimpaired the family possessions, yet the baron still endeavored tokeep up some show of former state. The times were peaceable, and theGerman nobles, in general, had abandoned their inconvenient oldcastles, perched like eagles' nests among the mountains, and had builtmore convenient residences in the valleys: still the baron remainedproudly drawn up in his little fortress, cherishing, with hereditaryinveteracy, all the old family feuds; so that he was on ill terms withsome of his nearest neighbors, on account of disputes that hadhappened between their great-great-grandfathers.

* i. e., CAT'S-ELBOW. The name of a family of those parts verypowerful in former times. The appellation, we are told, was given incompliment to a peerless dame of the family, celebrated for her finearm.

The baron had but one child, a daughter; but nature, when she grantsbut one child, always compensates by making it a prodigy; and so itwas with the daughter of the baron. All the nurses, gossips, andcountry cousins, assured her father that she had not her equal forbeauty in all Germany; and who should know better than they? Shehad, moreover, been brought up with great care under thesuperintendence of two maiden aunts, who had spent some years of theirearly life at one of the little German courts, and were skilled in allthe branches of knowledge necessary to the education of a fine lady.

Under their instructions she became a miracle of accomplishments. Bythe time she was eighteen, she could embroider to admiration, andhad worked whole histories of the saints in tapestry, with suchstrength of expression in their countenances, that they looked like somany souls in purgatory. She could read without great difficulty,and had spelled her way through several church legends, and almost allthe chivalric wonders of the Heldenbuch. She had even madeconsiderable proficiency in writing; could sign her own name withoutmissing a letter, and so legibly, that her aunts could read it withoutspectacles. She excelled in making little elegant good-for-nothinglady-like nicknacks of all kinds; was versed in the most abstrusedancing of the day; played a number of airs on the harp and guitar;and knew all the tender ballads of the Minne-lieder by heart.

Her aunts, too, having been great flirts and coquettes in theiryounger days, were admirably calculated to be vigilant guardians andstrict censors of the conduct of their niece; for there is no duennaso rigidly prudent, and inexorably decorous, as a superannuatedcoquette. She was rarely suffered out of their sight; never wentbeyond the domains of the castle, unless well attended, or rather wellwatched; had continual lectures read to her about strict decorum andimplicit obedience; and, as to the men- pah!- she was taught to holdthem at such a distance, and in such absolute distrust, that, unlessproperly authorized, she would not have cast a glance upon thehandsomest cavalier in the world- no, not if he were even dying at herfeet.

The good effects of this system were wonderfully apparent. The younglady was a pattern of docility and correctness. While others werewasting their sweetness in the glare of the world, and liable to beplucked and thrown aside by every hand, she was coyly blooming intofresh and lovely womanhood under the protection of those immaculatespinsters, like a rose-bud blushing forth among guardian thorns. Heraunts looked upon her with pride and exultation, and vaunted thatthough all the other young ladies in the world might go astray, yet,thank Heaven, nothing of the kind could happen to the heiress ofKatzenellenbogen.

But, however scantily the Baron Von Landshort might be provided withchildren, his household was by no means a small one; for Providencehad enriched him with abundance of poor relations. They, one andall, possessed the affectionate disposition common to humblerelatives; were wonderfully attached to the baron, and took everypossible occasion to come in swarms and enliven the castle. All familyfestivals were commemorated by these good people at the baron'sexpense; and when they were filled with good cheer, they would declarethat there was nothing on earth so delightful as these familymeetings, these jubilees of the heart.