XXIII
How Simplicissimus Became a Page: And Likewise, How the Hermit’s Wife Was Lost
Now did the pastor keep me at his lodging till ten of the clock before he would go with me to the Governor, to tell him of my resolve: for so could he be his guest at dinner: for the Governor kept open house: ’tis true Hanau was then blockaded, and with the common folk times were so hard (especially with them that had fled for refuge to the fortress) that some who seemed to themselves to be somewhat, were not ashamed to pick up the frozen turnip-peelings in the streets, which the rich had cast away. And my pastor was so lucky that he got to sit by the Governor at the head of the table, while I waited on them with a plate in my hand as the chamberlain taught me, to which business I was as well fitted as an ass to play chess. Yet my pastor made good with his tongue what the awkwardness of my person failed in. For he said I had been reared in the wilderness, and had never dwelt among men, and therefore must be excused, because I could not yet know how to carry myself: yet the faithfulness I had shown to the hermit and the hard life I had endured with him were wonderful, and that alone deserved that folk should not only have patience with my awkwardness but should even put me before the finest young nobleman. Furthermore, he related how the hermit had found all his joy in me because, as he often said, I was so like in face to his dear lady, and that he had often marvelled at my steadfastness and unchangeable will to remain with him, as also at many other virtues which he praised in me. Lastly, he could not enough declare with what earnest fervency the hermit had, just before his death, commended me to him (the pastor) and had confessed he loved me as his own child. This tickled my ears so much that methought I had already received satisfaction enough for all I had endured with the hermit.
Then the Governor asked, did not his late brother-in-law know he was commandant of Hanau. “Yea, truly,” answered the pastor, “for I told him myself: but he listened as coldly (yet with a joyful face and a gentle smile) as he had never known any Ramsay, so that even now when I think thereupon, I must wonder at this man’s resolution and firm purpose, that he could bring his heart to this: not only to renounce the world but even to put out of his mind his best friend, when he had him close at hand.”
Then were the Governor’s eyes full of tears, who yet had no soft woman’s heart but was a brave and heroical soldier; and says he, “Had I known he was yet alive and where he was to be found, I would have had him fetched even against his will, that I might repay his kindnesses: but since Fortune hath denied me that, I will in his place cherish his Simplicissimus.” And “Ah!” says he again, “the good cavalier had cause enough to lament his wife, great with child as she was; for in the pursuit she was captured by a party of Imperialist troopers, and that too in the Spessart. Which when I heard, and knew not but that my brother-in-law was slain at Höchst, at once I sent a trumpeter to the enemy to ask for my sister and ransom her: yet got no more thereby than to learn the said party of troopers had been scattered in the Spessart by a few peasants, and that in that fight my sister had again been lost to them, so that to this hour I know not what became of her.” This and the like made up the table-talk of the Governor and the pastor regarding my hermit and his lady-wife: which pair were the more pitied because they had enjoyed each other’s love but a year. But as to me, I became the Governor’s page, and so fine a fellow that the people, specially the peasants when I must announce them to my master, called me the young lord already: though indeed one seldom sees a youngster that hath been a lord, but oftentimes lords that have been youngsters.