Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/314

306 of his enormous nose. But it was all in vain. His embarrassment seemed to increase. At last his glance rested upon Hugo, who was endeavouring to screen himself behind another servant. As he looked, his perplexity vanished, and a cheerful smile spread over his features.

“Put Hugo in the stocks,” he said.

“But,” the steward ventured to say, “how can Hugo be wrong?”

“Right or wrong, put Hugo in the stocks.”

This happy thought satisfied the Baron’s craving for punishment, and permitted the cold water of prudence to extinguish his desire of inflicting punishment on the real culprit. The steward would have still interceded for Hugo, but observing that his master’s head was buried in the tankard, he desisted, knowing that the Baron always sealed his acts as irreversible by a draught of ale.

Hugo was therefore conducted to the stocks, and Albert de Chose was allowed to depart unmolested.

Long did the Baron cogitate as to what was the cause of Albert’s intrusion into his castle, but hour after hour elapsed without his having gained an idea on the subject. There was one person who could have given him information, but of her he did not think. The Lady Isolda had been caused some trepidation by the tidings of the capture of Albert. When, however, she heard that he had been allowed to leave the castle, she gave a sigh of relief, and proceeded to dress for dinner.

On that day the Baron and his daughter dined together. During the first part of the meal they were silent. At length the Lady Isolda gently exclaimed:

“My father!”

“My daughter!” replied the Baron in a voice hollow—not with emotion, but from his mouth being then enveloped in the tankard he had just emptied.

“I am sorry you let that insolent Albert de Chose go this morning. Do you know that he is one of my lovers?”

“Isolda!” said the Baron, pianissimo, in a tone of gentle reproach.

“I daresay you are at a loss to discover why he came here last night. He came in order to serenade me.”

“Isolda!!” exclaimed the Baron, crescendo.

“I have told him to meet me at the chapel near the castle this evening at dusk.”

“Isolda!!!” roared the Baron, furioso.

“I need not tell you that I do not intend to keep the appointment.”

“But why did you not inform me of all this before?”

“Maidenly reserve prevented me.”

“Maidenly fiddlestick!” exclaimed the Baron, bouncing up and kicking a servant who happened to be in the room out of it.

“Now, papa,” said Isolda, quietly, “if you won’t be so extremely violent I will inform you of a plan of mine which, I think, is a good one. I should like this Albert de Chose to be punished for his presumption. You shall go to this place of meeting instead of me. You shall recapture Albert, and put him in your stocks, or your dungeon, or do anything else you like with him.”

“The idea is not a bad one,” said the Baron, much mollified: “I will do as you propose.”

As soon, therefore, as he had finished his after-dinner nap, he put on his armour, summoned his retainers, amongst whom was the unfortunate Hugo, released for the occasion from the stocks, and set out, chuckling at the idea of the unpleasant surprise which he was about to give the amorous Albert. At the chapel waited Yeux-de-Groseilles, leaning against the wall, with his eyes shut and his arms folded. Had the Baron put on his spectacles as well as his armour, he would have seen that he had made a mistake in his man. As it was, he concluded that it was Albert that he saw, and proceeded to recapture him. Ordering his retainers to disperse and gradually surround and approach the unconscious man, he himself, accompanied only by Hugo, walked stealthily up to him. As soon as he reached him he uttered two exclamations expressive of surprise. The first was:

“Why, he is asleep!”

The second was:

“Why, it is Yeux-de-Groseilles!”

The second exclamation roused Yeux-de Groseilles from his slumbers. Not recognising the Baron, he made a hostile rush at him. The Baron prudently retreated, but in avoiding Charybdis he fell into Scylla.

Hugo, who was in the rear, burning with resentment at the treatment which he had received that morning, was inflicting imaginary castigation on his master by flourishing his foot within an inch of the most prominent part exposed to him. The retreat of the Baron, to his discomposure, and the horror of Hugo, made the castigation real. The Baron assailed thus strenuously in the rear, jumped forward, and Yeux-de-Groseilles seized him by the nose.

“Why, this nose,” ejaculated Yeux-de-Groseilles, giving it a tweak in order to satisfy himself of its identity, “must belong to the Baron de Grandmarais.”

“Let it go!” roared the Baron.

Yeux-de-Groseilles accordingly released it.

“What brings you here?” inquired the Baron.

“Well, to tell you the truth,” answered Yeux-de-Groseilles, with a confidential nod, “I came to meet your daughter.”

“And Albert de Chose is not here—ha! an idea—let me think.”

The Baron cogitated profoundly for some time. At last he said:

“My daughter has misled me. Yeux-de-Groseilles, will you come back with me?”

Yeux-de-Groseilles agreed to do so, and they proceeded to the castle together.

It is needless for us to acquaint our intelligent readers with the fact that Isolda took advantage of the opportunity afforded by her father’s absence, and went off with Albert de Chose.

At the castle gate the Baron met his steward, who was pale and trembling.

“Your daughter, the Lady Isolda, has gone off with some one,” stuttered the steward.