Complete Short Works of George MeredithMeredith, George
General
Complete Short Works of George Meredith
Meredith, George
English fiction -- 19th century
The Goshawk quickly made peace with his lord, and enjoyed the
commendation of the Kaiser. Dietrich Schill thought of challenging
him; but the Club had graver business: and this was to pass sentence
on Berthold Schmidt for the crime of betraying the White Rose into the
hands of Werner. They had found Berthold at the Eck, and there consented
to let him remain until ransom was paid for his traitorous body.
Berthold in his mad passion was tricked by Werner, and on his release,
by payment of the ransom, submitted to the judgement of the Club, which
condemned him to fight them all in turn, and then endure banishment
from Rhineland; the Goshawk, for his sister’s sake, interceding before a
harsher tribunal.
THE ENTRY INTO COLOGNE
Seven days Kaiser Heinrich remained camped outside Cologne. Six times
in six successive days the Kaiser attempted to enter the city, and was
foiled.
‘Beard of Barbarossa!’ said the Kaiser, ‘this is the first stronghold
that ever resisted me.’
The warrior bishops, electors, pfalzgrafs, and knights of the Empire,
all swore it was no shame not to be a match for the Demon.
‘If,’ said the reflective Kaiser, ‘we are to suffer below what poor
Cologne is doomed to undergo now, let us, by all that is savoury, reform
and do penance.’
The wind just then setting on them dead from Cologne made the courtiers
serious. Many thought of their souls for the first time.
This is recorded to the honour of Monk Gregory.
On the seventh morning, the Kaiser announced his determination to make a
last trial.
It was dawn, and a youth stood before the Kaiser’s tent, praying an
audience.
Conducted into the presence of the Kaiser, the youth, they say,
succeeded in arousing him from his depression, for, brave as he was,
Kaiser Heinrich dreaded the issue. Forthwith order was given for
the cavalcade to set out according to the rescript, Kaiser Heinrich
retaining the youth at his right hand. But the youth had found occasion
to visit Gottlieb and Margarita, each of whom he furnished with a flash,
[flask?] curiously shaped, and charged with a distillation.
As the head of the procession reached the gates of Cologne, symptoms of
wavering were manifest.
Kaiser Heinrich commanded an advance, at all cost.
Pfalzgraf Nase, as the old chronicles call him in their humour, but
assuredly a great noble, led the van, and pushed across the draw-bridge.
Hesitation and signs of horror were manifest in the assemblage round the
Kaiser’s person. The Kaiser and the youth at his right hand were cheery.
Not a whit drooped they! Several of the heroic knights begged the
Kaiser’s permission to fall back.
‘Follow Pfalzgraf Nase!’ the Kaiser is reported to have said.
Great was the wonderment of the people of Cologne to behold Kaiser
Heinrich riding in perfect stateliness up the main street toward
the Cathedral, while right and left of him bishops and electors were
dropping incapable.
The Kaiser advanced till by his side the youth rode sole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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