Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844

"Would I could say as much!"—exclaimed Nignio, with a groan. "But such a cow-hunt as mine of this morning, might convince the scepticism of St Thomas!"

"What, in the name of the whole calendar, have the affections of the prince in common with your exploit?" said Gonzaga. "Would you have me infer that the son of Charles V. is enamoured of a dairy wench?"—

"Of worse! of a daughter of the Amalekites!"—cried Nignio—stretching out his widely booted legs, as though it were a relief to him to have disburthened himself of his mystery.

"I have not the honour of understanding you," replied the Italian,—no further versed in Scripture history than was the pleasure of his almoner.

"You are his highness's friend, Gonzaga!" resumed the Spanish captain. "Even among his countrymen, none so near his heart! I have therefore no scruple in acquainting you with a matter, wherein, from the first, I determined to seek your counteraction. Though seemingly but a straw thrown up into the air, I infer from it a most evil predilection on the part of Don John;—fatal to himself, to us, his friends, and to the country he represents in Belgium."

"Nay, now you are serious indeed!" cried his companion, delighted to come to the point. "I was in hopes it was some mere matter of a pair of rosy lips and a flaunting top-knot!"

"At the time Queen Margaret visited Namur," began the aide-de-camp—

"I knew it!" interrupted Gonzaga, "I was as prepared for it as for the opening of a fairy legend—'On a time their lived a king and queen'—"

"Will you tell the story, then, or shall I?"—cried Nignio, impatient of his interruption.

"Yourself, my pearl of squires! granting me in the first place your pardon for my ill manners."—

"When Margaret de Valois visited Namur," resumed Nignio, "the best diversions we had to offer to so fair and pious a princess were, first a Te Deum in the cathedral for her safe journey; next, an entertainment of dancing and music at the town hall—and a gallant affair it was, as far as silver draperies, and garlands of roses, and a blaze of light that seemed to threaten the conflagration of the city, may be taken in praise. The queen had brought with her, as with malice prepense, six of the loveliest ladies of honour gracing the court of the Louvre"—

"I knew it!"—again interrupted Gonzaga;—and again did Nignio gravely enquire of him whether (since so well informed) he would be pleased to finish the history in his own way?

"Your pardon! your pardon!" cried the Italian, laying his finger on his lips. "Henceforward I am mute as a carp of the Meuse."

"It afforded, therefore, some mortification to this astutious princess,—this daughter of Herodias, with more than all her mother's cunning and cruelty in her soul,—to perceive that the Spanish warriors, who on that occasion beheld for the first time the assembled nobility of Brabant and Namur, were more struck by the Teutonic charms of these fair-haired daughters of the north, (so antipodal to all we are accustomed to see in our sunburned provinces,) than by the mannered graces of her pleasure-worn Parisian belles."—

"Certain it is," observed Gonzaga, (despite his recent pledge,) "that there is no greater contrast than between our wild-eyed, glowing Andalusians, and the slow-footed, blue-eyed daughters of these northern mists, whose smiles are as moonshine to sunshine!"

"After excess of sunshine, people sometimes prefer the calmer and milder radiance of the lesser light. And I promise you that, at this moment, if there be pillows sleepless yonder in the camp for the sake of the costly fragile toys called womankind, those jackasses of lovelorn lads have cause to regret the sojourn of Queen Margaret in Belgium, only as having brought forth from their castles in the Ardennes or the froggeries of the Low Country, the indigenous divinities that I would were at this moment at the bottom of their muddy moats, or of the Sambre flowing under yonder window!"—

"It is one of these Brabançon belles, then, who"—

Gabriel Nignio de Zuniga half rose from his chair, as a signal for breaking off the communication he was not allowed to pursue in his own way.—Taking counsel of himself, however, he judged that the shorter way was to tell his tale in a shorter manner, so as to set further molestation at defiance.

"In one word," resumed he, with a vivacity of utterance foreign to his Spanish habits of grandiloquence, "at that ball, there appeared among the dancers of the Coranto, exhibited before the tent of state of Queen Margaret, a young girl whose tender years seemed to render the exhibition almost an indiscretion; and whose aerial figure appeared to make her sojourn there, or any other spot on earth a matter of wonder. Her dress was simple, her fair hair streamed on her shoulders. It was one of the angels of your immortal Titian, minus the wings! Such was, at least, the description given me by Don John, to enable me to ascertain among the Namurrois her name and lineage, for the satisfaction (he said) of the queen, whose attention had been fascinated by her beauty."

"And you proceeded, I doubt not, on your errand with all the grace and good-will I saw you put into your commission of this morning?"—cried Gonzaga, laughing.

"And nearly the same result!—My answer to the enquiry of his highness was verbatim the same; that the matter was not worth asking after. This white rose of the Meuse was not so much as of a chapteral-house. Some piece of provincial obscurity that had issued from the shade, to fill a place in the royal Coranto, in consequence of the indisposition of one of the noble daughters of the house of Croy. Still, as in the matter of the cow-hunt, his highness had the malice to persist! And next day, instead of allowing me to attend him in his barging with the royal Cleopatra of this confounded Cydnus of Brabant, I was dispatched into all quarters of Namur to seek out a pretty child with silken hair and laughing eyes, whom some silly grandam had snatched out of its nursery to parade at a royal fête.—Holy St Laurence! how my soul grilled within my skin!—I did, as you may suppose, as much of his highness's pleasure as squared with my own; and had the satisfaction of informing him, on his return, that the bird had fled."—

"And there was an end of the matter?"—

"I hoped so! But I am not precisely the confessor his highness is likely to select when love constitutes the sin. At all events, the bustle of Margaret's departure for Spa, the care of the royal escort, and the payment of all that decency required us to take upon ourselves of the cost of our hospitality, engrossed my time and thoughts. But the first time the Infant beset me, (as he has doubtless done yourself,) with his chapter of lamentations over the sufferings of Belgium,—the lawlessness of the camp—the former loyalty of the provinces—the tenderness of conscience of the heretics,—and the eligibility of forbearance and peace,—I saw as plain as though the word were inscribed by the burning finger of Satan, that the turkois eyes and flaxen ringlets were the text of all this snivelling humanity!'

"Blessings on the tender consciences of the heretics, who were burning Antwerp and Ghent, and plundering the religious houses and putting their priests to the sword!" ejaculated Gonzaga.

"The exigencies of the hour, however, left little leisure to Don John for the nursing of his infant passion; and a few weeks past, I entertained hopes that, Queen Margaret being safe back at her Louvre, the heart of the Prince was safe back in its place; more especially when he one day proposed to me an exploit savouring more of his days of Lepanto than I had expected at his hands again. Distracted by the false intelligence wherewith we were perpetually misled by the Brabançon scouts, Don John determined on a sortie in disguise, towards the intrenchments of the enemy, betwixt the Sambre and Dyle. Rumour of the reinforcements of English troops dispatched to the heretics by Queen Elizabeth at the instance of the diet of Worms, rendered him anxious; and bent upon ascertaining the exact cantonments of Colonel Norris and his Scottish companies, we set forward before daybreak towards the forest of Marlagne, as for a hunting expedition; then exchanging our dresses for the simple suits of civilians at the house of the verderer, made our way across the Sambre towards Gembloux."

"A mad project!—But such were ever the delight of our Quixote!"—cried Gonzaga.

"In this instance, all prospered. We crossed the country without obstacle, mounted on two powerful Mecklenburgers; and before noon, were deep in Brabant. The very rashness of the undertaking seemed to restore to Don John his forgotten hilarity of old! He was like a truant schoolboy, that has cheated his pedagogue of a day's bird-nesting; and eyes more discerning than those of the stultified natives of these sluggish provinces, had been puzzled to detect under the huge patch that blinded him of an eye, and the slashed sleeve of his sad-coloured suit that showed him wounded of an arm, the gallant host of Queen Margaret! 'My soul comes back into me with this gallop across the breezy plain, unencumbered by the trampling of a guard!' cried the Prince. 'There is the making in me yet of another Lepanto! But two provinces remain faithful to our standard: his highness of Orange and the Archduke having filched, one by one, from their allegiance the hearts of these pious Netherlanders; who can no better prove their fear of God than by ceasing to honour the king he hath been pleased to set over them. Nevertheless, with Luxembourg and Namur for our vantage-ground, and under the blessing of his holiness, the banner under which I conquered the infidel, shall, sooner or later, float victorious under this northern sky!'

"Such was the tenour of his discourse as we entered a wood, halfway through which, the itinerary I had consulted informed me we had to cross a branch of the Dyle. But on reaching the ferry-house of this unfrequented track, we found only two sumpter-mules tied to a tree near the hovel, and a boat chained to its stump beside the stream. In answer to our shouts, no vestige of a ferryman appeared; and behold the boat-chain was locked, and the current too deep and strong for fording.

"Where there is smoke there is fire! No boat without a boatman!" cried the Prince; and leaping from his horse, which he gave me to hold, and renewing his vociferations, he was about to enter the ferry-house, when, just as he reached the wooden porch, a young girl, holding her finger to her lips in token of silence, appeared on the threshold!"

"She of the turkois eyes and flaxen ringlets, for a hundred pistoles!"—cried Gonzaga. "Such then was the bird's nest that made him so mad a truant!"

"As she retreated into the house," resumed Nignio, without noticing the interruption, "his highness followed, hat in hand, with the deference due to a gouvernante of Flanders. But as the house was little better than a shed of boards, by drawing a trifle nearer the porch, not a syllable of their mutual explanation escaped me.

"'Are you a follower of Don John?'—was the first demand of the damsel. 'Do you belong to the party of the States?'—the next; to both which questions, a negative was easily returned. After listening to the plea, fluently set forth by the prince, that he was simply a Zealand burgess, travelling on his own errand, and sorely in fear of falling in (God wot) with either Protestants or Papists, the damsel appeared to hail the arrival of so congenial an ally as a blessing; acquainted him with a rash frankness of speech worthy of his own, that she was journeying from the Ardennes towards the frontier of Brabant, where her father was in high command; that the duenna her companion, outwearied by the exercise, was taking her siesta within; for that her pacing nag, having cast a shoe on reaching the wood, the ferryman had undertaken to conduct to the nearest smithy the venerable chaplain and serving-man constituting her escort.

"'Half a league from hence,' said she, 'my father's people are in waiting to escort me during the rest of my journey.'

"' Yet surely, gentle lady,' observed the prince, 'considering the military occupation of the province, your present protection is somewhat of the weakest?'—

"'It was expressly so devised by my father,' replied the open-hearted girl. 'The Spanish cavaliers are men of honour, who war not against women and almoners. A more powerful attendance were more likely to provoke animosity. Feebleness is sometimes the best security.'

"'Home is a woman's only security in times like these!'—cried the prince with animation.

"'And therefore to my home am I recalled,' rejoined the young girl, with a heavy sigh. 'Since my mother's death, I have been residing with her sister in the Ardennes. But my good aunt having had the weakness to give way to my instances, and carry me to Namur last summer, to take part in the entertainments offered to the Queen of Navarre, my father has taken offence at both of us; and I am sent for home to be submitted to sterner keeping.'

"You will believe that, ere all this was mutually explained, more time had elapsed than I take in the telling it; and I could perceive by the voices of the speakers that they had taken seats, and were awaiting, without much impatience, the return of the ferryman. The compassion of the silly child was excited by the severe accident which the stranger described as the origin of his fractures and contusions; nor need I tell you that the persuasive voice and deportment of Don John are calculated to make even a more experienced one than this pretty Ulrica forget his unseemly aspect and indigent apparel."

"And all this time the careful gouvernante snored within, and the obsequious aide-de-camp held at the door the bridles of the Mecklenburgers"—

"Precisely. Nor found I the time hang much heavier than the prince; for at first mistrustful, like yourself, that the reconnaissance into which he had beguiled me was a mere pretext, I was not sorry to ascertain, sigh by sigh, and word by word, the grounds on which he stood with the enemy. And you should have heard how artfully he contrived to lead her back to the fêtes of Namur; asking, as with the curiosity of a bumpkin, the whole details of the royal entertainments! No small mind had I to rush in and chuck the hussy into the torrent before me, when I heard the little fiend burst forth into the most genuine and enthusiastic praises of the royal giver of the feast,—'So young, so handsome, so affable, so courteous, so passing the kingliness of kings.' She admitted, moreover, that it was her frantic desire of beholding face to face the hero of Lepanto, which had produced the concession on the part of her kinswoman so severely visited by her father.

"'But surely,' pleaded this thoughtless prattler, 'one may admire the noble deportment of a Papist, and perceive the native goodness beaming in his eyes, without peril of salvation? This whole morning hath my father's chaplain (who will be here anon) been giving scripture warrant that I have no right to importune heaven with my prayers for the conversion of Don John:—Yet, as my good aunt justly observes, the great grandson of Mary of Burgundy has his pedestal firm in our hearts, beyond reach of overthrow from all the preachments of the Reformers'"—

"And you did not fling the bridles to the devil, and rush in to the rescue of the unguarded soldier thus mischievously assailed?"—cried Gonzaga.

"It needed not! The old lady could not sleep for ever; and I had the comfort to hear her rouse herself, and suitably reprehend the want of dignity of her charge in such strange familiarity with strangers. To which the pretty Ulrica replied, 'That it was no fault of hers if people wanted to convert a child into a woman!' A moment afterwards and the ferryman and cortège arrived together; and a more glorious figure of fun than the chaplain of the heretic general hath seldom bestridden a pacing nag! However, I was too glad of his arrival to be exceptious; and the whole party were speedily embarked in the ferry, taking their turn as the first arrived at the spot, which we twain abided, watching the punt across the stream, which, in consequence of the strength of the current, it was indispensable to float down some hundred yards, in order to reach the opposite shore.

"Hat in hand stood the prince, his eyes fixed upon the precious freight, and those of Ulrica fixed in return upon her new and pleasant acquaintance; when, Jesu Maria!—as every thing that is evil ordained it,—behold, the newly-shod palfrey of the pretty Brabançonne, irritated, perhaps, by the clumsy veterinaryship of a village smithy, began suddenly to rear and plunge, and set at defiance the old dunderhead by whom it was held!—The ass of a ferryman, in his eagerness to lend his aid, let go his oar into the stream; and between the awkwardness of some and the rashness of others, in a moment the whole party were carried round by the eddy of the Dyle!—The next, and Ulrica was struggling in the waters"—

"And the next, in the arms of the prince, who had plunged in to her rescue!"—

"You know him too well not to foresee all that follows. Take for granted, therefore, the tedious hours spent at the ferry-house, in restoring to consciousness the exhausted women, half-dead with cold and fright. Under the unguarded excitement of mind produced by such an incident, I expected indeed every moment the self-betrayal of my companion; but that evil we escaped. And when, late in the evening, the party was sufficiently recovered to proceed, I was agreeably surprised to find that Don John was alive to the danger of escorting the fair Ulrica even so far as the hamlet, where her father's people were in waiting."

"And where he had been inevitably recognized!"—

"The certainty of falling in with the troopers of Horn, rendered it expedient for us to return to Namur with only half the object of his highness accomplished. But the babble of the old chaplain had acquainted us with nearly all we wanted to know,— namely, the number and disposal of the Statists, and the position taken up by the English auxiliaries."

"And this second parting from Ulrica?"—

"Was a parting as between friends for life! The first had been the laughing farewell of pleasant acquaintance. But now, ere she bade adieu to the gallant preserver of her life, she shred a tress of her silken hair, still wet with the waters of the Dyle, which she entreated him to keep for her sake. In return, he placed upon her finger the ruby presented to him by the Doge of Venice, bearing the arms of the republic engraved on the setting; telling her that chance had enabled him to confer an obligation on the governor of the Netherlands; and that, in any strait or peril, that signet, dispatched in his name to Don John of Austria, would command his protection."