Томас Де Квинси - Memorials and Other Papers — Volume 2

The stranger, who wore in part the antique costume of the university of Klosterheim, except where he still retained underneath a travelling dress, stained with recent marks of the roads and the weather, advanced amongst his friends with an air at once frank, kind, and dignified. He replied to their greetings in the language of cheerfulness; but his features expressed anxiety, and his manner was hurried. Whether he had not observed the officer overlooking them, or thought that the importance of the communications which he had to make transcended all common restraints of caution, there was little time to judge; so it was, at any rate, that, without lowering his voice, he entered abruptly upon his business.

"Friends! I have seen the accursed Holkerstein; I have penetrated within his fortress. With my own eyes I have viewed and numbered his vile assassins. They are in strength triple the utmost amount of our friends. Without help from us, our kinsmen are lost. Scarce one of us but will lose a dear friend before three nights are over, should Klosterheim not resolutely do her duty."

"She shall, she shall!" exclaimed a multitude of voices.

"Then, friends, it must be speedily; never was there more call for sudden resolution. Perhaps, before to-morrow's sun shall set, the sword of this detested robber will be at their throats. For he has some intelligence (whence I know not, nor how much) of their approach. Neither think that Holkerstein is a man acquainted with any touch of mercy or relenting. Where no ransom is to be had, he is in those circumstances that he will and must deliver himself from the burden of prisoners by a general massacre. Infants even will not be spared."

Many women had by this time flocked to the outer ring of the listening audience. And, perhaps, for their ears in particular it was that the young stranger urged these last circumstances; adding,

"Will you look down tamely from your city walls upon such another massacre of the innocents as we have once before witnessed?"

"Cursed be Holkerstein!" said a multitude of voices.

"And cursed be those that openly or secretly support him!" added one of the students, looking earnestly at the officer.

"Amen!" said the officer, in a solemn tone, and looking round him with the aspect of one who will not suppose himself to have been included in the suspicion.

"And, friends, remember this," pursued the popular favorite; "whilst you are discharging the first duties of Christians and brave men to those who are now throwing themselves upon the hospitality of your city, you will also be acquitting yourselves of a great debt to the emperor."

"Softly, young gentleman, softly," interrupted the officer; "his serene highness, my liege lord and yours, governs here, and the emperor has no part in our allegiance. For debts, what the city owes to the emperor she will pay. But men and horses, I take it—"

"Are precisely the coin which the time demands; these will best please the emperor, and, perhaps, will suit the circumstances of the city. But, leaving the emperor's rights as a question for lawyers, you, sir, are a soldier,—I question not, a brave one,—will you advise his highness the Landgrave to look down from the castle windows upon a vile marauder, stripping or murdering the innocent people who are throwing themselves upon the hospitality of this ancient city?"

"Ay, sir, that will I, be you well assured—the Landgrave is my sovereign—"

"Since when? Since Thursday week, I think; for so long it is since your tertia [Footnote: An old Walloon designation for a battalion.] first entered Klosterheim. But in that as you will, and if it be a point of honor with you gentlemen Walloons to look on whilst women and children are butchered. For such a purpose no man is my sovereign; and as to the Landgrave in particular—"

"Nor ours, nor ours!" shouted a tumult of voices, which drowned the young student's words about the Landgrave, though apparently part of them reached the officer. He looked round in quest of some military comrades who might support him in the voye du fait , to which, at this point, his passion prompted him. But, seeing none, he exclaimed, "Citizens, press not this matter too far—and you, young man, especially, forbear,—you tread upon the brink of treason!"

A shout of derision threw back his words.

"Of treason, I say," he repeated, furiously; "and such wild behavior it is (and I say it with pain) that perhaps even now is driving his highness to place your city under martial law."

"Martial law! did you hear that?" ran along from mouth to mouth.

"Martial law, gentlemen, I say; how will you relish the little articles of that code? The provost marshal makes short leave-takings. Two fathom of rope, and any of these pleasant old balconies which I see around me (pointing, as he spoke, to the antique galleries of wood which ran round the middle stories in the Convent of St. Peter), with a confessor, or none, as the provost's breakfast may chance to allow, have cut short, to my knowledge, the freaks of many a better fellow than any I now see before me."

Saying this, he bowed with a mock solemnity all round to the crowd, which, by this time, had increased in number and violence. Those who were in the outermost circles, and beyond the distinct hearing of what he said, had been discussing with heat the alarming confirmation of their fears in respect to Holkerstein, or listening to the impassioned narrative of a woman, who had already seen one of her sons butchered by this ruffian's people under the walls of the city, and was now anticipating the same fate for her last surviving son and daughter, in case they should happen to be amongst the party now expected from Vienna. She had just recited the tragical circumstances of her son's death, and had worked powerfully upon the sympathizing passions of the crowd, when, suddenly, at a moment so unseasonable for the officer, some imperfect repetition of his words about the provost martial and the rope passed rapidly from mouth to mouth. It was said that he had threatened every man with instant death at the drum-head, who should but speculate on assisting his friends outside, under the heaviest extremities of danger or of outrage. The sarcastic bow and the inflamed countenance of the officer were seen by glimpses further than his words extended. Kindling eyes and lifted arms of many amongst the mob, and chiefly of those on the outside, who had heard his words the most imperfectly, proclaimed to such as knew Klosterheim and its temper at this moment the danger in which he stood. Maximilian, the young student, generously forgot his indignation in concern for his immediate safety. Seizing him by the hand, he exclaimed,

"Sir, but a moment ago you warned me that I stood on the brink of treason: look to your own safety at present; for the eyes of some whom I see yonder are dangerous."

"Young gentleman," the other replied, contemptuously, "I presume that you are a student; let me counsel you to go back to your books. There you will be in your element. For myself, I am familiar with faces as angry as these—and hands something more formidable. Believe me, I see nobody here," and he affected to speak with imperturbable coolness, but his voice became tremulous with passion, "whom I can even esteem worthy of a soldier's consideration."

"And yet, Colonel von Aremberg, there is at least one man here who has had the honor of commanding men as elevated as yourself." Saying which, he hastily drew from his bosom, where it hung suspended from his neck, a large flat tablet of remarkably beautiful onyx, on one side of which was sculptured a very striking face; but on the other, which he presented to the gaze of the colonel, was a fine representation of an eagle grovelling on the dust, and beginning to expand its wings—with the single word Resurgam by way of motto.