She fancied she heard a noise of armed men at the chapel door, but
finding nothing there, believed--not in her own nervous agitation,
a thing not yet invented--that it was a spirit, and returning to her
prayers, vowed, poor lady, to make a pilgrimage to St. Maria Zell, in
Styria, if the Holy Virgin's intercessions obtained their success, and
till the pilgrimage could be made, 'to forego every Saturday night
my feather bed!' After another false alarm at a supposed noise at the
maiden's door, she ventured into the vault to see how her companions
were getting on, when she found they had filed away all the locks,
except that of the case containing the crown, and this they were obliged
to burn, in spite of their apprehension that the smell and smoke might
be observed. They then shut up the chest, replaced the padlocks and
chains with those they had brought for the purpose, and renewed the
seals with the Queen's signet, which bearing the royal arms, would
baffle detection that the seals had been tampered with. They then took
the crown into the chapel, where they found a red velvet cushion, so
large that by taking out some of the stuffing a hiding place was made in
which the crown was deposited, and the cushion sewn up over it.
By this time day was dawning, the maidens were dressing, and it was the
hour for setting off for Komorn. The old woman who had waited on them
came to the Lady of Kottenner to have her wages paid, and be dismissed
to Buda. While she was waiting, she began to remark on a strange
thing lying by the stove, which, to the Lady Helen's great dismay, she
perceived to be a bit of the case in which the crown was kept. She tried
to prevent the old woman from noticing it, pushed it into the hottest
part of the stove, and, by way of further precaution, took the old woman
away with her, on the plea of asking the Queen to make her a bedeswoman
at Vienna, and this was granted to her.
When all was ready, the gentleman desired his servant to take the
cushion and put it into the sledge designed for himself and the Lady of
Kottenner. The man took it on his shoulders, hiding it under an old
ox-hide, with the tail hanging down, to the laughter of all beholders.
Helen further records the trying to get some breakfast in the
marketplace and finding nothing but herrings, also the going to mass,
and the care she took not to sit upon the holy crown, though she had to
sit on its cushion in the sledge. They dined at an inn, but took care
to keep the cushion in sight, and then in the dusk crossed the Danube on
the ice, which was becoming very thin, and halfway across it broke under
the maidens' carriage, so that Helen expected to be lost in the Danube,
crown and all. However, though many packages were lost under the ice,
her sledge got safe over, as well as all the ladies, some of whom she
took into her conveyance, and all safely arrived at the castle of Komorn
late in the evening.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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