Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 1.djvu/161

Rh ture. All the four winds of Heaven seem to have combined to make the voyage prosperous; the adverse held their breath; and the favourable blew so gaily in the sails, that the vessel ploughed the soft-playing billows with the speed of an arrow. The friendly moon was stretching her horns from the clouds for the second time, when the Venetian, glad in heart, ran into moorings in the harbour of his native town.

Countess Ottilia’s watchful spy was still at Venice; undismayed by the fruitless toil of vain inquiries, from continuing his diets of examination, and diligently questioning all passengers from the Levant. He was at his post when the Count, with the fair Melechsala, came on land. His master’s physiognomy was so stamped upon his memory, that he would have undertaken to discover it among a thousand unknown faces. Nevertheless the foreign garb, and the finger of Time, which in seven years produces many changes, made him for some moments doubtful. To be certain of his object, he approached the stranger’s suite, made up to the trusty Squire, and asked him: “Comrade, whence come you?”

The mettled Kurt rejoiced to meet a countryman, and hear the sound of his mother-tongue; but saw no profit in submitting his concerns to the questioning of a stranger, and answered briefly: “From sea.”

“Who is the gentleman thou followest?”

“My master.”

“From what country come you?”

“From the East.”

“Whither are you going?”

“To the West.”

“To what province?”

“To our home.”

“Where is it?”

“Miles of road from this.”

“What is thy name?”

“Start-the-game, that is my name. Strike-for-a-word, people call my sword. Sorrow-of-life, so hight my wife. Rise, Lig-a-bed, she cries to her maid. Still-at-a-stand, that is my man. Hobbletehoy, I christened my boy. Lank-i’-the-bag, I scold my nag. Shamble-and-stalk, we call his walk. Trot-i’-the-bog, I whistle my dog. Saw-ye-that, so jumps my cat.