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The Baron Klopfzetterheim

or,

THE BEAUTIFUL BERTHA AND THE
BIG BAD BROTHERS OF BONN

FYTTE THE FIRST

	ear the town of St. Goar,
		On the bleak Rhenish shore,
	Dwelt a terrible Baron — a certain KLOPFZETTERHEIM
		I've not got it pat, But it sounded like that,
	Though whether it's properly spelt to the letter, I'm
		Not at all sure; I Confess for this story
	To memory (second-rate) only a debtor I'm.
		Indulgence I claim, It's a high sounding name,
	And a name, too, to which one can easily set a rhyme.

The Baron was wealthy, but horribly stealthy; He'd jewels from Ingy, but still he was stingy; Though rich from a babby, unbearably shabby; Though steeped to his eyes, sir, in wealth, yet a miser; From boyhood a dunce, always trying to shirk "hic, hoc, Haec," he was stupid and proud as a turkey-cock.   Stealthy and stingy and shabby and miserly, Every morning his wont was to rise early; Search out each inch of his rocky dominions, Count all the eggs and the apples and inions Listen at keyholes for candid opinions     In syllables bated For so he was hated By all his dependents, for reasons just stated.

Superior far To her horrid papa,   Was BERTHA. The daughters of barons oft are.     Her hair was fair, And flaxen rare; In the fine land called Rhineland, the best I declare; Its charms, in a single comparison summing, It looked like a "nimbus," but far more becoming; Besides, you could brush it, and alter the sit of it Play with its folds (did decorum permit of it), Tickle your cheek with a stray ray or so; Now you can't do all that with a "nimbus" you know. Flaxen, I said — I recant — not a bit of it;     A glorified hue (You find it on few) Gold mingled with brown — now I'm sadly put to     For an elegant noun (It must be gold and brown)   To which I can liken this natural crown; But commonplace thoughts prove effectual stoppers, And I can't think of any but sovereigns and coppers.   In length it was ample as you may suppose     For when BERTHA so fair Let down her back hair,   It rippled away till it reached to her toes. She'd have made (had necessity ventured to drive her)   A really respectable LADY GODIVA It was long, it was silky, and wavy, and mellow, And about as much "flaxen" as sunbeams are yellow.

FYTTE THE SECOND

is time now, I grieve, to my story to   weave two who love to deceive and to plunder and thieve; And this, by your leave, I'll attempt to   achieve in a style, I believe, known as recitative.     A neighbouring Pfalzgraf had three sons, and he in armour glistened 'em; RUPERT, CARL, and OTTO, as their noble father christened 'em. In Christendom than OTTO you would hardly find a finer knight; He set the women's hearts a-fire, which blazed away like pine a-light. To gain him, all the German mothers tried the worst rascalities, For he possessed the greatest of the German principalities;   In fact it brought him clear THREE HUNDRED POUNDS A YEAR — Enough, we know, to sanction matrimonial formalities.

Now RUPERT and CARL were cunning and bold,   And resolved to get hold Of the jewels and gold, In which it was said that KLOPFZETTERHEIM rolled. But OTTO was cast in a different mould, And couldn't help thinking of what he was told Of the beautiful BERTHA, shut up by her old   Unpopular father (Proprietor, rather); So high-minded OTTO Remarked (voce sotto), "These matters a pretty condition have got to;   Quite free from this fetter I'm Resolved for to set her — I'm Dashed if I'll suffer the Lord of KLOPFZETTERHEIM   Thus to imprison So lovely a miss, on The highly illogical plea that she's his'n."

Now the two elder brothers resolved to confide In the landlord, and promised with him to divide   The results, if he'd let them bide inside Two barrels, and so to the castle to ride,     To the Baron's old Rhenish hall   As though 'twere the liquor so rudely denied     To the Baron's old seneschal. So each of these worthies was packed in a barrel, But what with their size and their flowing apparel,     'Twas such a tight fit, That they couldn't e'en sit,   Turn, stoop down, or change their position a bit;     Only waiting to ask For a lantern and mask, They ordered the landlord to "head in the cask."

FYTTE THE THIRD

ood OTTO, not knowing   What matters were doing,  Or thinking in which way the wind it was blowing,   Paid what was owing For what they'd been stowing  Away in their waistcoats — then thought about going,   When he saw at the door A wine cart with four  Strong horses attached, and of Rhenish a store;   And on asking the host How now lay the coast, Was astonished to find That he'd quite changed his mind,  And was going to send both the wine and the car on  To his lordship and eminent highness the Baron.

Now being a brave and intelligent unit, he Thought he could see a first-rate opportunity Of seeing MISS BERTHA with perfect impunity.   It was not to be lost; So he said to the host, "If you'll dress me like one of your active young draymen (I'm sure I shall look like a chick of the same hen), I'' pay you right nobly, as I always pay men." The host, though the most irreligious of laymen, Responded to this with a clerical "Amen";   And quickly equipped him, Be-frocked and be-whipped him, And OTTO, on his part, unsparingly tipped him,   And started away, With the wine in the dray, Completely disguised in the drayman's array.   But pondering arter, The Baron's fair darter, He failed to remember his rôle as a carter, And nearly created the dickens's own "to do,"   For he knocked with a bang, And he noisily rang As gentlemen visitors only are wont to do;   Although I may tell You, he knew very well That a modest appeal at the area bell Would, in his new line of life, better have fitted him, As the flunkeys, with justice, remarked, who admitted him — But OTTO, the mild, from these wicked men turned his eyes, Contented with gently consigning to Bath them as Hurled at his head those unholy anathemas.

The Baron KLOPFZETTERHEIM — Deeply in debt, or I'm Greatly deceived (how these German names fetter rhyme!) —   Opened his eyes With excessive surprise, As he saw the two casks of respectable size With Rhenish replete; and he opened them wider When OTTO suggested, by way of a rider, His master's (the wine merchant's) deepest regret (Expressed in a note for his lordship's perusal)   That his foreman had let A ridiculous debt Occasion the Baron so coarse a refusal; But as it was done without even his knowledge, he Trusted the Baron would take his apology   In the way it was meant, For the wine he'd have sent In a second (the shortest space known in horology).

The Baron, delighted, was easily pacified,     For when Rhenish fails He fall back upon ales, And gets — p'raps not tipsy, but just rather BASS-fied The stages of drinking are not easily classified — I'm speaking or writing about it, just as if I'd Studied a failing, which horrid and fell I call); In short, he was just in a humour angelical. So he ordered SIR OTTO to take down each cask To the cellar, and told off MISS B. to the task     Of watching its storing In wine cellar, roaring And shaking his stick at poor OTTO (a penny thing); He told her to watch lest he pocketed anything.           OTTO goes to the cellar With BERTHA la bella (Who, like a good girl, always does what you tell her), Assisted by many a half-starved retainer;     But lost to his duty In BERTHA's great beauty (Many me4n have been dazzled by many a plainer), He made a mistake that he didn't observe — he Placed each of the casks on the ground topsy-turvey, And the horrible consequence was, that instead Of his feet, his two brothers stood each on his head!

FYTTE THE FOURTH

ow figurez vous     The terrible stew   Of two young noblemen (stout ones, too) Each in a cask, which a clumsy crew Had topsy-turvey placed, in lieu Of setting it down as they ought to do! Pf course the people none of them knew Of the couple of nice young gentlemen, who Were turning a most unusual hue, From scarlet to purple to indigo blue, As the blood to their head in a cataract flew; Who'd have raised a roaring hullaballoo, But that they feared to furnish a clue To their hiding-place, for they thought on a few Of the terrible things that would then fall due. So they cursed away at each clumsy boor, And as their chances of life grew fewer, They swore that gold should never allure Their innocent minds to thoughts impure; But in spite of these good resolves, these poor Young men grew bluer, and bluer, and bluer.

It's always an awkward thing, popping the question — Refusals agree with few people's digestion; So nine out of ten men are dreadfully slow about it — Their minds are unsettled and change to and fro about it, Because they don't know how young people should go about it;   They hesitate so about it, So frightened, I trow, about it; They deserve to get married, and that's all I know about it.       OTTO well knew That the right thing to do Was to say what he meant, and in syllables few.   So he ventured to say, In his tenderest way, "The man now before you Lives but to adore you." (With all that he said I'm not going to bore you; Not that I'm anxious to make any myth of it, But I think you'll be satisfied, quite, with the pith of it: He talked as talk WILKINSON, JOHNSON, or SMITH of it.)   Then his right hand he placed Round her delicate waist, As well as he was in the cellar pitch-dark able. He Wound up by adding, "I love you re-mark-able-y"; And when BERTHA indignantly answered him, "What, man, An offer — ha! ha! — from the family potman! My father your hide with his cudgel shall flay, man, And teach you respect, you impertinent drayman; In a moment your insolent manners he'll cure!" "I'm no more a drayman," says OTTO "than you're — A proof I'll afford you of this satisfactory." And though an extremely indifferent actor, he Took from his waistcoat a big parchment roll, and Proceeded to go through "The fair land of Poland," And handed the deed at the ballad's conclusion To BERTHA, who stood overwhelmed with confusion.       She read the recitals Of honours and titles, From the opening words of the deed — To "In witness whereof," with the air of a bencher (That she understood nothing, my fortune I'll stake on it). Then remarking she'd no requisitions to make on it, With appropriate action to OTTO returned it, And let him shake hands; and I think he had earned it.       Oh, careful papa! Oh, prudent mamma! Oh, uncle! oh, brother! which ever you are,   Whose well-lighted halls See parties and balls, Whose daughters go out and pay stiff morning calls,   And who think this proceeding, Of which you've been reading, Not quite in accordance with ladylike breeding, — Remember her father, detestably mean, Whose servant for fifteen long years she had been — Cooking poor dinners and scrubbing floors clean, And that OTTO was always considered, I ween, The handsomest noble that ever was seen.

FYTTE THE FIFTH

TTO told her the reason he wore a disguise Was to bask unrestrained in the light of her eyes. Then he made a neat speech about God of Love's dart, And offered his house, and his hands, and his heart (And whenever he mentioned that organ, he thumped at it); She didn't reject it — I may say she jumped at it; And OTTO had such a peculiar way with him, She agreed to elope from the castle that day with him, If he could but discover (she'd many a doubt of it) Some way by which she might get unobserved out of it. But OTTO's good luck set him in the right track again; There were two empty casks, he remarked, to go back again, And he thought that MISS BERTHA could nicely arrange (With judicious curtailing of under apparel), To cram herself comfortably in a barrel. So she ran up-stairs once just to pack up a change; This done to her own satisfaction, she bade an Undoubtedly faithful (though saucy) handmaiden   Instanter prepare, By smoothing her hair And "cleaning" herself (which a washing with soap meant — It's not a nice phrase), for a sudden elopement.     Then BERTHA and GRETCHEN descended to OTTO (Who was wondering where in the world they had got to); And at first he demurred, when he heard she preferred To take with her a third, and he thought it absurd That she'd not go alone in her OTTO's society, And all for the purpose of playing propriety.       With squeezing and crushing, And crowding and pushing, And crying and flushing, and chuckling and blushing, They entered the casks (each of which held a cushing).   MISS B. began brushing The tears that were gushing, And OTTO, outside, enjoined silence by "hush"-ing, Reproving her tears with "pooh-pooh"-ing and "tush"-ing.   Then the serfs took away, And placed safe on the dray, The casks which had held the material for lushing.

Little more to be told, Of the miserly old   Baron KLOPFZETTERHEIM, rolling in gold.     Of his beautiful BERTHA He heard nothing further, The clumsy old Baron could never unearth her, He ne'er could make out where his daughter had got to, For of course he knew nothing at all about OTTO, From the date of the wedding he didn't live long; Everything, after she left him, went wrong.       He broke a blood vessel, endeavouring to bless (or To curse — I don't know which) MISS BERTHA's successor (Appointed a few hours after she quitted), Because accidentally she had omitted His slippers to warm — he was much to be pitied!   He broke a big blood vessel up in his head, And fell on the floor of his palace, as dead As OTTO's big brothers deep down in the cellar, And his fortune descended to BERTHA la bella.

Few hours they tarried Before they got married In private — no bridesmaids, or breakfasts, or fitnesses; The clerk and the pew-opener were the witnesses; The bride (though in stuff) looked a beauty bewilderin'; They lived many years and had hundreds of childerin.

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