Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

205
That he did not find them was not his fault. The castle was vast, the chamber dark. There
were a thousand doors, and what wonder that, after he had once lost sight of them, the
intrepid Childe should not be able to follow in their steps? As might be expected, he took
the wrong door, and wandered for at least three hours about the dark enormous solitary
castle, calling out Wolfgang's name to the careless and indifferent echoes, knocking his
young shins against the ruins scattered in the darkness, but still with a spirit entirely
undaunted, and a firm resolution to aid his absent comrade. Brave Otto! thy exertions were
rewarded at last!
For he lighted at length upon the very apartment where Wolfgang had partaken of supper,
and where the old couple who had been in the picture-frames, and turned out to be the
lady's father and mother, were now sitting at the table.
"Well, Bertha has got a husband at last," said the lady.
"After waiting four hundred and fifty-three years for one, it was quite time," said the
gentleman. (He was dressed in powder and a pigtail, quite in the old fashion.)
"The husband is no great things," continued the lady, taking snuff. "A low fellow, my dear;
a butcher's son, I believe. Did you see how the wretch ate at supper? To think my daughter
should have to marry an archer!"
"There are archers and archers," said the old man. "Some archers are snobs, as your
ladyship states; some, on the contrary, are gentlemen by birth, at least, though not by
breeding. Witness young Otto, the Landgrave of Godesberg's son, who is listening at the
door like a lackey, and whom I intend to run through the—"
"Law, Baron!" said the lady.
"I will, though," replied the Baron, drawing an immense sword, and glaring round at Otto:
but though at the sight of that sword and that scowl a less valorous youth would have taken
to his heels, the undaunted Childe advanced at once into the apartment. He wore round his
neck a relic of St. Buffo (the tip of the saint's ear, which had been cut off at
Constantinople). "Fiends! I command you to retreat!" said he, holding up this sacred charm,
which his mamma had fastened on him; and at the sight of it, with an unearthly yell the
ghosts of the Baron and the Baroness sprung back into their picture-frames, as clowns go
through a clock in a pantomime.
He rushed through the open door by which the unlucky Wolfgang had passed with his
demoniacal bride, and went on and on through the vast gloomy chambers lighted by the
ghastly moonshine: the noise of the organ in the chapel, the lights in the kaleidoscopic
windows, directed him towards that edifice. He rushed to the door: 'twas barred! He