But

I quitted Hamburgh, Giulio, his late steward,
Inform'd me, that he had obtain'd an order
From Brandenburg's elector, for the arrest
Of Kruitzner (such the name I then bore), when
I came upon the frontier; the free city
Alone preserved my freedom- till I left
Its walls-fool that I was to quit them!
I deem'd this humble garb, and route obscure,
Had baffled the slow hounds in their pursuit.
What's to be done? He knows me not by person;
Nor could aught, save the eye of apprehension,
Have recognised him, after twenty years,
We met so rarely and so coldly in

Our youth.
Divine the frankness of the Hungarian, who
No doubt is a mere tool and spy of Stralenheim's,
To sound and to secure me. Without means!
Sick, poor-begirt too with the flooding rivers,
Impassable even to the wealthy, with
All the appliances which purchase modes
Of overpowering peril with men's lives,—
How can I hope! An hour ago methought
My state beyond despair; and now, 't is such,
The past seems paradise. Another day,
And I'm detected, -on the very eve
Of honours, rights, and my inheritance,
When a few drops of gold might save me still
In favouring an escape.

But those about him! Now I can

Enter IDENSTEIN and FRITZ in conversation. Fritz. Immediately.

Iden. I tell you 't is impossible.
Fritz.

It must

[WERNER looks around, and snatches up a knife lying on a table in a recess.

Now I am master of myself at least.
Hark,-footsteps! How do I know that Stralenheim
Will wait for even the show of that authority
Which is to overshadow usurpation?

That he suspects me 's certain. I'm alone;
He with a numerous train. I weak; he strong
In gold, in numbers, rank, authority.

I nameless, or involving in my name
Destruction, till I reach my own domain;
He full-blown with his titles, which impose
Still further on these obscure petty burghers
Than they could do elsewhere. Hark! nearer still!
I'll to the secret passage, which communicates
With the - No! all is silent-'t was my fancy!-
Still as the breathless interval between

The flash and thunder: -I must hush my soul
Amidst its perils. Yet I will retire,

To see if still be unexplored the passage

I wot of it will serve me as a den

Of secrecy for some hours, at the worst. [WERNER draws a panel, and exit, closing it after him.

Alas!

Put many questions to the intendant on
The subject of your lord, and, to be plain,
I have my doubts if he means well.
Jos.
What can there be in common with the proud
And wealthy baron, and the unknown Werner?
Gab. That you know best.
Jos.
Or, if it were so, how
Come you to stir yourself in his behalf,
Rather than that of him whose life you saved?
Gab. I help'd to save him, as in peril; but
I did not pledge myself to serve him in

Gab.

I'm sorry for it. Suspicion is a heavy armour, and With its own weight impedes more than protects. Good night! I trust to meet with him at daybreak. [Exit GABOR.

Re-enter IDENSTEIN and some Peasants. JOSEPHINE retires up the Hall.

First Peasant. But if I'm drown'd? Iden. Why, you will be well paid for 't, And have risk'd more than drowning for as much, I doubt not.

Second Peasant. But our wives and families ? Iden. Cannot be worse off than they are, and may Be better.

Third Peasant. I have neither, and will venture. Iden. That's right. A gallant carle, and fit to be A soldier. I'll promote you to the ranks In the prince's body-guard—if you succeed; And you shall have besides, in sparkling coin, Two thalers.

Third Peasant. No more! Iden. Out upon your avarice! Can that low vice alloy so much ambition! I tell thee, fellow, that two thalers in Small change will subdivide into a treasure. Do not five hundred thousand heroes daily Risk lives and souls for the tithe of one thaler? When had you half the sum ?

Third Peasant.

The less I must have three.

In servitude, o'er something still more servile;
And vice in misery affecting still

A tatter'd splendour. What a state of being!
In Tuscany, my own dear sunny land,
Our nobles were but citizens and merchants,
Like Cosmo. We had evils, but not such
As these; and our all-ripe and gushing valleys
Made poverty more cheerful, where each herb
Was in itself a meal, and every vine

Rain'd, as it were, the beverage which makes glad
The heart of man; and the ne'er unfelt sun
(But rarely clouded, and when clouded, leaving
His warmth behind in memory of his beams)
Makes the worn mantle, and the thin robe, less
Oppressive than an emperor's jewell'd purple.
But, here! the despots of the north appear
To imitate the ice-wind of their clime,
Searching the shivering vassal through his rags,
To wring his soul-as the bleak elements
His form. And 'tis to be amongst these sovereigns
My husband pants! and such his pride of birth—
That twenty years of usage, such as no
Father born in a humble state could nerve
His soul to persecute a son withal,
Hath changed no atom of his early nature;
But I, born nobly also, from my father's
Kindness was taught a different lesson.
May thy long-tried and now rewarded spirit
Look down on us and our so long desired
Ulric! I love my son, as thou didst me!
What's that? Thou, Werner! can it be? and thus?

Father!

Sirrah in the prince's

Third Peasant.

And not the stranger's.

Iden.

Absence, I'm sovereign; and the baron is
My intimate connection;-"Cousin Idenstein !
(Quoth he) you'll order out a dozen villains."
And so, you villains! troop -march
say;

And if a single dog's-ear of this packet
Be sprinkled by the Oder-look to it!
For every page of paper, shall a hide

But whence comest thou? Wer. Ask not! but let us think where we shall

go

Of yours be stretch'd as parchment on a drum,
Like Ziska's skin, to beat alarm to all
Refractory vassals, who can not effect
Impossibilities - Away, ye earth-worms!

[Exit, driving them out.

Jos. (coming forward). I fain would shun these scenes, too oft repeated,

Of feudal tyranny o'er petty victims ;

I cannot aid, and will not witness such.

Even here, in this remote, unnamed, dull spot,
The dimmest in the district's map, exist
The insolence of wealth in poverty

O'er something poorer still-the pride of rank

I'll fit them now.

Where all men take their prey; as also in
Postage of letters, gathering of rents,
Purveying feasts, and understanding with
The honest trades who furnish noble masters:
But for your petty, picking, downright thievery,
We scorn it as we do board-wages. Then
Had one of our folks done it, he would not
Have been so poor a spirit as to hazard

His neck for one rouleau, but have swoop'd all;
Also the cabinet, if portable.

Iden. There is some sense in that-
Fritz.

No, sir, be sure

Iden. Nothing- but there's a good deal to be said.
We'll offer a reward; move heaven and earth,
And the police (though there's none nearer than
Frankfort); post notices in manuscript

(For we 've no printer); and set by my clerk
To read them (for few can, save he and I).
We'll send out villains to strip beggars, and
Search empty pockets; also, to arrest
All gipsies, and ill-clothed and sallow people.
Prisoners we'll have at least, if not the culprit ;
And for the baron's gold if 't is not found,
At least he shall have the full satisfaction
Of melting twice its substance in the raising
The ghost of this rouleau. Here's alchemy
For your lord's losses!
Fritz.

Iden. Where? Fritz.

He hath found a better.

In a most immense inheritance. The late Count Siegendorf, his distant kinsman, Is dead near Prague, in his castle, and my lord Is on his way to take possession. Iden.

There's another,

The Hungarian ?

Was there

Why, yes:

Of the old man's death, whose heart was broken by it.
Iden. Was there no cause assign'd?
Fritz.
Plenty, no doubt,
And none perhaps the true one. Some averr'd
It was to seek his parents; some because
The old man held his spirit in so strictly
(But that could scarce be, for he doted on him);
A third believed he wish'd to serve in war,
But peace being made soon after his departure,
He might have since return'd, were that the motive;
A fourth set charitably have surmised,

As there was something strange and mystic in him,
That in the wild exuberance of his nature

He had join'd the black bands, who lay waste Lusatia,
The mountains of Bohemia and Silesia,
Since the last years of war had dwindled into
A kind of general condottiero system

Of bandit warfare; each troop with its chief,
And all against mankind.

That they will seek for peril as a pleasure.
I've heard that nothing can reclaim your Indian,
Or tame the tiger, though their infancy
Were fed on milk and honey. After all,
Your Wallenstein, your Tilly and Gustavus.
Your Bannier, and your Torstenson and Weimar,
Were but the same thing upon a grand scale;
And now that they are gone, and peace proclaim'd,
They who would follow the same pastime must
Pursue it on their own account. Here comes
The baron, and the Saxon stranger, who
Was his chief aid in yesterday's escape,
But did not leave the cottage by the Oder
Until this morning.

Enter STRALENHEIM and ULRIC. 1
Stral.
Since you have refused
All compensation, gentle stranger, save
Inadequate thanks, you almost check even them,
Making me feel the worthlessness of words,

[The characters are any thing but original.... Ulric is only the Giaour, Conrad, Lara, Alp, &c. &c. rehashed and served up as a Bohemian. "Calum, non animum mutant." It is the old mess with a new sauce. Compare him particularly with Lara, and you must be struck with the resemblance. Both high-born-both leaving home mysteriously—both suspected of being linked with desperate characters - both

Can I not serve you? You are young, and of
That mould which throws out heroes; fair in favour;
Brave, I know, by my living now to say so;
And doubtlessly, with such a form and heart,
Would look into the fiery eyes of war,

As ardently for glory as you dared

An obscure death to save an unknown stranger
In an as perilous, but opposite, element.
You are made for the service: I have served;
Have rank by birth and soldiership, and friends,
Who shall be yours. 'Tis true this pause of peace
Favours such views at present scantily;

But 't will not last, men's spirits are too stirring;
And, after thirty years of conflict, peace
Is but a petty war, as the times show us
In every forest, or a mere arm'd truce.
War will reclaim his own; and, in the meantime,
You might obtain a post, which would ensure
A higher soon, and, by my influence, fail not
To rise. I speak of Brandenburg, wherein
I stand well with the Elector; in Bohemia,
Like you, I am a stranger, and we are now
Upon its frontier.

Ulr.

You perceive my garb

Is Saxon, and of course my service due
To my own sovereign. If I must decline
Your offer, 't is with the same feeling which
Induced it.

Stral.

Why, this is mere usury!

I owe my life to you, and you refuse
The acquittance of the interest of the debt,
To heap more obligations on me, till

In short, I was asleep upon a chair,
My cabinet before me, with some gold
Upon it (more than I much like to lose,
Though in part only): some ingenious person
Contrived to glide through all my own attendants,
Besides those of the place, and bore away

A hundred golden ducats, which to find

I would be fain, and there's an end. Perhaps
You (as I still am rather faint) would add
To yesterday's great obligation, this,

Though slighter, yet not slight, to aid these men (Who seem but lukewarm) in recovering it?

Ulr. Most willingly, and without loss of time (TO IDENSTEIN). Come hither, mynheer! Iden.

Right little speed, and

Ulr.

But so much haste bodes

Standing motionless

None; so let's march; we'll talk as we go on.

Iden. But
Ulr.
Show the spot, and then I'll answer you.
Fritz. I will, sir, with his excellency's leave.
Stral. Do so, and take yon old ass with you.

Handsome as Hercules ere his first labour,
And with a brow of thought beyond his years
When in repose, till his eye kindles up

In answering yours. I wish I could engage him :
I have need of some such spirits near me now,
For this inheritance is worth a struggle.

And though I am not the man to yield without one,
Neither are they who now rise up between me
And my desire. The boy, they say, 's a bold one;
But he hath play'd the truant in some hour
Of freakish folly, leaving fortune to
Champion his claims. That's well. The father, whom
For years I've track'd, as does the blood-hound, never
In sight, but constantly in scent, had put me
To fault; but here I have him, and that's better.

It must be he! All circumstance proclaims it;
And careless voices, knowing not the cause
Of my inquiries, still confirm it. —Yes!
The man, his bearing, and the mystery
Of his arrival, and the time; the account, too,
The intendant gave (for I have not beheld her)
Of his wife's dignified but foreign aspect;
Besides the antipathy with which we met,
As snakes and lions shrink back from each other
By secret instinct that both must be foes
Deadly, without being natural prey to either;
All — all — confirm it to my mind. However,
We'll grapple, ne'ertheless. In a few hours
The order comes from Frankfort, if these waters
Rise not the higher (and the weather favours
Their quick abatement), and I'll have him safe
Within a dungeon, where he may avouch

His real estate and name; and there's no harm done,
Should he prove other than I deem. This robbery
(Save for the actual loss) is lucky also:
He's poor, and that's suspicious he's unknown,
And that's defenceless. True, we have no proofs
Of guilt, but what hath he of innocence ?
Were he a man indifferent to my prospects,
In other bearings, I should rather lay
The inculpation on the Hungarian, who
Hath something which I like not; and alone
Of all around, except the intendant, and
The prince's household and my own, had ingress
Familiar to the chamber.