The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
History
The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
Children's literature
She fancied she heard a noise of armed men at the chapel door, but
finding nothing there, believed 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 maidens' 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 market-place 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 half-way 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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