To do him justice, he seemed equally
willing to get me under the cold stone; but a word from your good father
changed the current; and as I thought I could serve our friend better
free than behind bars, I accepted liberty. Pshaw! I should have
accepted it any way, to tell the truth, for your German dungeons are
mortal shivering ratty places. So rank me no hero, fair Mistress
Margarita, though the temptation to seem one in such sweet eyes was
beginning to lead me astray. And now, as to our business in the streets
at this hour, believe the best of us.'
'I will! I do!' said Margarita.
'Lisbeth! Lisbeth!' called Gottlieb. 'Breakfast, little sister! our
champion is starving. He asks for wurst, milk-loaves, wine, and all thy
rarest conserves. Haste, then, for the honour of Cologne is at stake.'
Aunt Lisbeth jingled her keys in and out, and soon that harmony drew a
number of domestics with platters of swine flesh, rolls of white wheaten
bread, the perpetual worst, milk, wine, barley-bread, and household
stores of dainties in profusion, all sparkling on silver, relieved by
spotless white cloth. Gottlieb beheld such a sunny twinkle across the
Goshawk's face at this hospitable array, that he gave the word of onset
without waiting for Berthold, and his guest immediately fell to, and did
not relax in his exertions for a full half-hour by the Cathedral clock,
eschewing the beer with a wry look made up of scorn and ruefulness, and
drinking a well-brimmed health in Rhine wine all round.
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