Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 1.djvu/162

154 Snug-in-the-rug, he is my bug. Now thou knowest me, with wife and child, and all my household.”

“Thou seemest to me to be a queer fellow.”

“I am no fellow at all, for I follow no handicraft.”

“Answer me one question.”

“Let us hear it.”

“Hast thou any news of Count Ernst of Gleichen, from the East?”

“Wherefore dost thou ask?”

“Therefore.”

“Twiddle, twaddle! Wherefore, therefore!”

“Because I am sent into all the world by the Countess Ottilia his wife, to get her word whether her husband is still living, and in what corner of the Earth he may be found.”

This answer put the mettled Kurt into some perplexity; and tuned him to another key. “Wait a little, neighbour,” said he; “perhaps my master knows about the thing.” Thereupon he ran to the Count, and whispered the tidings in his ear. The feeling they awoke was complex; made up in equal proportions of joy and consternation. Count Ernst perceived that his dream, or the interpretation of it, had misled him; and that the conceit of marrying his fair travelling companion might easily be baulked. On the spur of the moment he knew not how he should get out of this embroiled affair: meanwhile, the desire to learn how matters stood at home outweighed all scruples. He beckoned to the emissary, whom he soon recognised for his old valet; and who wetted with joyful tears the hand of his recovered master, and told in many words what jubilee the Countess would make, when she received the happy message of her husband’s return. The Count took him with the rest to the inn; and there engaged in earnest meditation on the singular state of his heart, and considered deeply what was to be done with his engagements to the fair Saracen. Without loss of time the watchful spy was dispatched to the Countess with a letter, containing a true statement of the Count’s fortunes in slavery at Cairo, and of his deliverance by means of the Sultan’s daughter; how she had abandoned throne and country for his sake, under the condition that he was to marry her, which he himself, deceived by a dream, had promised. By this narrative he meant not only to prepare his wife