"And yet, Madam," said Mathias, her tutor, "all Europe hath for years regarded Prince Karl as your future husband.""And what care I for that?" demanded the girl, hotly. "Have done, have done, sirs! You do weary me with all this. Let us to the hunt. Axel Dagg did tell me of a fine roebuck in the Maelar woods. See you to the courier of the Emperor and to his dispatches, Lord Chancellor; I care not what you tell him, if you do but tell him no. And, stay; where is that round little Dutchman, Van Beunigen, whom you did complain but yesterday was sent among us by his government to oppose the advices of our English friends. He is a greater scholar than horseman, or Imistake. Let us take him in our hunting-party, Karl; and see to it that he doth have one of our choicest horses."The girl's mischief was catching. Her cousin dropped his serious look, and, seeking the Dutch envoy, with due courtesy invited him to join the Queen's hunt.
"Give him black Hannibal, Jous," Christina had said to her groom;and when the Dutch envoy, Van Beunigen, came out to join the hunting-party, too much flattered by the invitation to remember that he was a poor horseman, Jous, the groom, held black Hannibal in unsteady check, while the big horse champed and fretted, and the hunting-party awaited the new member.
But Jous, the groom, noted the Dutchman's somewhat alarmed look at the big black animal.
"Would it not be well, good sir," he said, "that you do choose some steadier animal than Hannibal here? I pray you let me give you one less restive. So, Bror Andersson," he called to one of the under-grooms, "let the noble envoy have your cob, and take you back Hannibal to the stables."But no, the envoy of the States of Holland would submit to no such change. He ride a servant's horse, indeed!
"Why, sirrah groom," he said to good-hearted Jous, "I would have you know that I am no novice in the equestrian art. Far from it, man. I have read every treatise on the subject from Xenophon downward; and what horse can know more than I?"So friendly Jous had nothing more to say, but hoisted the puffed-up Dutch scholar into the high saddle; and away galloped the hunt toward the Maelar woods.
As if blind to his own folly, Van Beunigen, the envoy, placed himself near to the young Queen; and Christina, full of her own mischief, began gravely to compliment him on his horsemanship, and suggested a gallop.
Alas, fatal moment. For while he yet swayed and jolted upon the back of the restive Hannibal, and even endeavored to discuss with the fair young scholar who rode beside him, the "Melanippe" of Euripides, the same fair scholar--who, in spite of all her Greek learning was only a mischievous and sometimes very rude young girl--faced him with a sober countenance.
"Good Herr Van Beunigen," she said, "your Greek is truly as smooth as your face. But it seems to me you do not sufficiently catch the spirit of the poet's lines commmencing.[1]
