Page:Select Popular Tales from the German of Musaeus.djvu/31

Rh conceive why his host should have spared him, contrary to his general custom, and was now first grateful for the hospitable knight’s kindness; he felt a great curiosity to know whether there was any foundation in the report he had heard, and, therefore, turned his horse’s head and rode back. The knight was still standing at the gate, making observations on the shape and breed of Franz’s horse, breeding horses being his own favourite pursuit. He thought his guest had missed some part of his baggage, and looked with displeasure on his servants. “What do you want, young man?” he called out to Franz, as he approached, “why do you return when you intended to pursue your journey?”

“To have one word with you, sir knight,” said the rider. “A malicious report has, to the discredit of your name and reputation, gone abroad, that you receive all strangers well, but that you beat them soundly before you allow them to depart. Relying on this report, I have done all I could to deserve the parting salutation, and you have allowed me to depart in peace, without making me pay the customary reckoning. This astonishes me. Tell me, therefore, is there any foundation for this report, or shall I give the foul defamers the lie?”

To this the knight replied, “Report has, in this instance, told the truth; and there is no popular saying indeed quite destitute of foundation. I shall explain to you, however, the real circumstances. I receive every stranger who comes to my gates, and share my food and my goblet with him. But I am a simple German of the old school, who speaks as he thinks, and I expect that my guests should be also cheerful and confiding, and enjoy with me what I have, and freely ask for what they want. But there are some people who tease me with all sorts of follies, and make a fool of me, with their bowing and scraping—who never speak openly, and use many words without sense or meaning; they want to flatter me with their smooth tongues, and behave at meals like foolish women. If I say “Eat,” they take with great apparent reluctance a miserable bone, which I should not offer to my dog: if I say “Drink,” they scarcely wet their lips with the good wine, as if they despised the bounties of God. They carry their follies to so great a length, that I scarcely know what to do in my own house. They put me at last into a passion, I seize them by the collar, cudgel them soundly, and turn them out of my doors. This is my plan, and I treat every guest thus, whom I find troublesome. But a man like you is always welcome to my house. You spoke your mind openly and freely, as the good people of Bremen always do. Let me see you again, therefore, on your return,—and now farewell.”

After these words Franz departed, and continued his journey towards Antwerp with renewed strength and courage, sincerely wishing he might everywhere meet with as kind a reception as at the castle of Sir Eberhard of Bronkhorst. At his first entrance