Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

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knocked: the beadles were deaf. He applied his inestimable relic to the lock, and—whiz!
crash! clang! bang! whang!—the gate flew open! the organ went off in a fugue—the lights
quivered over the tapers, and then went off towards the ceiling—the ghosts assembled
rushed away with a skurry and a scream—the bride howled, and vanished—the fat bishop
waddled back under his brass plate—the dean flounced down into his family vault—and the
canon Schidnischmidt, who was making a joke, as usual, on the bishop, was obliged to stop
at the very point of his epigram, and to disappear into the void whence he came.
Otto fell fainting at the porch, while Wolfgang tumbled lifeless down at the altar-steps; and
in this situation the archers, when they arrived, found the two youths. They were
resuscitated, as we scarce need say; but when, in incoherent accents, they came to tell their
wondrous tale, some sceptics among the archers said—"Pooh! they were intoxicated!"
while others, nodding their older heads, exclaimed—"THEY HAVE SEEN THE LADY OF
WINDECK!" and recalled the stories of many other young men, who, inveigled by her
devilish arts, had not been so lucky as Wolfgang, and had disappeared—for ever!
This adventure bound Wolfgang heart and soul to his gallant preserver; and the archers—it
being now morning, and the cocks crowing lustily round about—pursued their way without
further delay to the castle of the noble patron of toxophilites, the gallant Duke of Cleves.
CHAPTER X.
THE BATTLE OF THE BOWMEN.
Although there lay an immense number of castles and abbeys between Windeck and
Cleves, for every one of which the guide-books have a legend and a ghost, who might, with
the commonest stretch of ingenuity, be made to waylay our adventurers on the road; yet, as
the journey would be thus almost interminable, let us cut it short by saying that the
travellers reached Cleves without any further accident, and found the place thronged with
visitors for the meeting next day.
And here it would be easy to describe the company which arrived, and make display of
antiquarian lore. Now we would represent a cavalcade of knights arriving, with their pages
carrying their shining helms of gold, and the stout esquires, bearers of lance and banner.
Anon would arrive a fat abbot on his ambling pad, surrounded by the white-robed
companions of his convent. Here should come the gleemen and jonglers, the minstrels, the