THE LOST SHAWL

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 January 1929, Page 7

THE LOST SHAWL

... A VIENNESE LEGEND It was a very hot day. The plain of Hungary and the Danube valley lay extended, brown, panting, shimmering in the great heat far away as the eye of Duke Henry Jasomirgott could see, as he sat under a tent on the rampart of his castle at Vienna, trying to cool the vast bulk of his form. Wherever he looked he beheld the same baking, shadeless heat; save only that far away up the Danube valley a low range of hills, the last foothold of the ! Alps ere they debouch on to the Hungarian Plain, seemed with their belts of thick green trees to offer cool shadow and consolation. On the last promontory of their line jutting right out over the river, s'tood the castle which the Babenberger predecessors of Duke Henry had built. The Duke felt he must bestir himself to go up there and walk about awhile in its enchanted wood paths and quiet ways. Yet it would be a fatiguing journey across the burning plain and he doubted much to find anything prepared for his arrival when he got there. Perhaps it was less trouble to stay where he was and so thinking he rolled lazily, back on the couch again. At this moment the shrill voice of his wife was heard within and all drowsiness fled from him at once. The red curtain communicating with the interior of the castle shook, parted and the Babenberger Princess, who was his wife, stepped out on to the rampart. Her peculiarly brilliant red hair was confined in a net, her face was pale and freckled, her nose was pointed and her eyes pin-points of brilliance. She was'dressed with an affectation of Byzantine splendour, having in her girlhood visited the Court •of the Greek EmpeTor, and many bracelets, whose perpetual jangle increased the general irritability of Henry’s temper, encircled her wrists. Over her shoulders hung a magnificent silken shawl. This shawl was properly considered by everybody to be one of the most precious things in all the land, for it came from unknown regions of remotest Asia, and it was of silk. Henry’s Dowag’er Mother, who only wore wool or cotton until the day of her death was wont to choke with envy at the sight of this shawl and on occasion would have to retire to her own apartments, what times the little Babenberger Princess would smile her thin sour smile and proffer condolences on her Lady Mother-in-law’s weak state of health in her small metallic voice. •

Now she stepped forward to the side of her husband’s couch. “My Lord,” she said, “It is overhot to-day. I pray my Lord to come and pass the evening more merrily at our Castle yonder on the hill, where ’twill be cool and we may sit and eat and drink at our ease and, watch the Danube flowing by.” And Henry, his irresolution gone, agreed, as he always didi and commanded his train to be prepared and meat and drinks to be made ready and the musicians to parade with their instruments.

At the end of an hour or so the cavalcade was ready to move off. Duke Henry’s picnic was an elaborate one. A troop of men-at-arms with swords and lancers led the procession. Next came the cooks, bearing some of the food to be consumed in large baskets and leading the rest, pigs, calves and the like, with much prodding and shouting. Next tjie -Court Chamberlain, a fat man, walked perspiring and after him a couple of almoners, a chaplain, various officials, the musicians, ladies of the Court and pages and finally on brown and white ponies seemingly engaged in most amicable discourse (perchance though ’twas bickering kept piano for appearances) the Duke and his Lady and the famous shawl. 1

For another hour or,-more the procession serpentined across the plain and at last began to climb into the hills. Half way up Henry’s pony collapsed, for its-master was a very heavy man, and deposited the Duke in a blueberry bush. His wife laughed outright] even the Duke’s mother, half-dead with heat encased in her woollen garments, perforce had to smile. The Duke, his digiiity considerably ruffled, was very angry, and, bellowing oaths declined to mount again. Pulling his wife off her pony he declared that up here the air,was cool and that it was pleasanter to walk. The retinue drew back into the bushes on either side to make way for them. She haughty but rather frightened, strode ahead. Henry walked very fast and the road was steep and stony and ere they reached the top his wife was in a very-considerable state of exhaustion and dragged along behind her stormy Duke, head drooping, shoulders bowed and the famous shawl trailing in the dust. Just as she was about to collapse, they rounded a comer, emerged from the trees and came out on the top. With a cry of relief the poor lady welcomed the stiff breeze which blew down from the Alps, a cooling gale, and stretched wide her arms to drink the goodness in—Hop la! Off went the shawl, carried by the wind, turning fantastically, the colours catching in the sun, away over the trees and out of sight. . . . Henry stood petrified. The jaws of the retinue dropped with horror, the poor Lady gazed fixedly at her empty hands. Then a bellow, “After it, you fools. Fetch it back, you gaping tunny fish, or ja so mir tu’ Gott, I’ll have the lot of you flayed, alive!” Stirred into activity they all hunted about; the men-at-arms clanked through the bushes and got blackberry brambles stuck in the joints of their armour, the cooks foraged the undergrowth and the priests stood still on a rock and said prayers. Hour after hour 'they searched, but found nothing,’ and when at last the sun lay down to rest behind the hill tops and it grew dark, back went Henry to Vienna and the ■picnic followed him, still uneaten.. For many months attempts continued to be made to recover the shawl. Bloodhounds given portions of the Princess’s garments tb smell, were sent out, posses of the leading citizens of Vienna scoured the countryside. One* and all drew blank. The Lady grew pale and despondent, for she loved her shawl: - And how it was that a very cunning person saw his opportunity. In a little community a few miles west of Vienna, beyond the castle rock where the] mishap had occurred, lived a priest! intelligent and He wanted advancement, he wanted to rule men,] but his* position was obscure and he saw no hope of bettering it until now his great chance came. He knew the Winds which blew about these hills, having lofig lived in the neighbourhood and had his roof blown off more than once; he knew the direction in

which the shawl had most likely been carried and so, in a certain rocky valley, under the hill slope he searched diligently and finally, hanging on a dead alder twig over the stream,'. he found the shawl. Carefully removing it, he carried it to a glade behind his house, and there rehung it on a tree in a thicket, im-' mediately after repairing with all speed to Henry’s Court. “My lord,” he said to the Duke, “God has vouchsafed to me, a poor parish priest, a dream, which with all humility I must tell to Your Mightiness. I dreamed and be-

hold, His voice spoke to me and said ‘Happy art thou among those who serve Me, for a mighty Abbey shall rise in My name upon thy dwelling place. Go, tell the Duke Henry that good intentions have their reward and, for that I know that it hath long been in his heart to build Me an Abbey, , even, as ere now he built Me a Church (at this, point Henry started. Had he not been a most pious Christian he might almost have questioned the thought-reading abilities of the Almighty) and where he buildeth it,

there shall he find that which he hath lost ” , The Duke, after rubbing his chin awhile in thought, decided to follow the poor priest and there in a glade behind his dwelling, after both had

searched long and diligently, hanging from a tree in a thicket, behold the shawl. • „ v-u So Duke Henry Jasomirgott, built a great Abbey on this spot called Klosterneuburg, with the priest in charge of it, and there it stands upon the Danube, bank for all to see unto this day.—Sydney. Cunliffe Owen, in “St. Martins' Review.” ,