CHAPTER XI.
The following morning was so fine that it might well have cheered even a gloomier spirit than mine. And in my fatigue I had fallen so promptly asleep when I laid my tired head upon the pillow, and had slept so soundly, that it required some consideration upon awaking to recall the circumstances that had caused me so much agitation the previous evening. Gradually they recurred to my memory, and once more my cheeks burned, and I felt, as I always did when under excitement, that I must rush out into the free air and under the blue sky; so I hurried down the steep back-stair into the park.
Here I wandered about under the tall trees, which waved their light sprays in the morning breeze, along the wild paths, and among the bushes brightened with the sunlight, at intervals listening to some bird piping incessantly his monotonous autumn song, or marking some caterpillar swinging by a fathom-long filament from a twig overhead, while I bent my thoughts to the task, so difficult for a young man, of obtaining a clear view of my situation.
I had told Granow the evening before but the simple truth: so long as I had been upon the estate nothing had occurred to confirm his suspicion. During the whole of this time I had scarcely left the side of Herr von Zehren. No strangers had come about the place; there had been no suspicious meetings; no goods had been received, and none sent out, except a barrel or two of wine to the neighbors. To be sure, the people on the estate looked as if they were accustomed to anything rather than honest industry, and especially my tall friend Jock could not possibly have a clear conscience; but the cotters on the various estates around were all a rough, uncouth, piratical-looking crew, as indeed many of them had been fishermen and sailors, and were so still when occasion offered. That the gang which we had seen crossing the heath did not belong to our people, I was convinced when I passed the laborer's cottages, and saw Jock with two or three others lounging about the doors as usual.
And then, granting that Herr von Zehren was really all that evil tongues called him, still he did nothing more or worse than his neighbors. They all dabbled a little in it, Granow had said; and if all these aristocratic gentlemen made no scruple of filling their cellars with wine that they knew to be smuggled, the receiver was as bad as the thief, and Herr von Zehren was here, as always and everywhere, only the bolder man who had the courage to do what the others would willingly have done if they dared.
And, after all, I was bound to him by the firmest ties of gratitude. Should I go away for a mere suspicion, the silly gossip of a prating tongue, and abandon him who had always been so kind, so friendly to me?--who had given me his best--no, his second-best gun and dog; whose purse and cigar-case--and ah, what exquisite cigars he had!--were at all times at my service? Never! And even if he really were a smuggler, a professional smuggler--but how could I find out once for all whether he was or not?
Most simply, by going directly to himself. I had justification for doing so. My honesty was questioned by his friends; they did not know what to think of me. I could not allow this to go on unnoticed. Herr von Zehren could not expect that I should, on his account, incur the dishonoring suspicion of being either a spy or an accomplice. But suppose he were to say: "Very well; then go. I do not detain you."
I seated myself upon a stone-bench under a spreading maple at the edge of the park, and resting my elbow upon the half-fallen table, and leaning my head upon my hand, gazed at the castle which threw its shadow far over the lawn, now golden in the morning sun.
Never had the ruinous old pile seemed so dear to me. How well I knew each tall chimney, each tuft of grass growing upon the gray moss-covered roof of tiles, the three balconies, two small ones to the right and left, and in the middle the great one upon which the three glass doors opened from the upper hall, resting upon its massive pillars with the fantastic voluted capitals. How well I knew each window, with the weather-beaten wooden shutters that were never closed, and the most of which, indeed, were past closing. Some were hanging by a single hinge, and one belonging to the third window to the right always slammed at night when the wind was from the west. I had a dozen times resolved to secure it, but always forgot it again. The two windows at the corner to the left were those of my room, my poetic room with the precious old furniture, which to my eye had such an imposing effect that I felt like a young prince in the midst of all this magnificence. What happy hours had I already passed in this room! Early mornings, when, joyous in the anticipation of the day's sport, I sang as I dressed myself and arranged my ammunition; late evenings when I returned home with my friend, heated with wine and play and jovial discourse, and sitting at the window, inhaled the fragrant aroma of my cigar, or drank in large draughts the pure, cool night-air, while thoughts crowded one another in my mind, foolish and sentimental thoughts, all turning to the fair maiden who doubtless had been slumbering for hours in her chamber by the terrace.
What was it that the shameless slanderer had said of her? I scarcely dared to recall his words to my mind. I could not comprehend how I could have borne to listen to them, or how it was that I let him escape unchastized after so desecrating the object of my idolatry. The miserable creature! The conceited, upstart, envious little oaf! Little blame to her that she would have nothing to do with such a lover as he, or the rest of her country squires. And for this they now breathed their venomous slanders against her: said that she would have sold herself--she, the lovely, the noble, the pure, for whom a king's throne would have been too low! Was there any head more worthy of a diadem--any form more fit to be folded in the mantle of purple? Oh, I desired nothing for myself; it was enough for me if I might touch the hem of her vesture. But the others should honor her as well as I. No one, not if he were prince or king, should dare to approach her without her permission. If she would only, as she had jestingly said that night, let me keep watch at her threshold!
Thus humbly I thought of her in my full, young heart, that was breaking with love and longing. And I did it in the most assured conviction, in the firmest faith, of the nobility and purity of her I loved so dearly. I can truly say there was no drop of blood in my veins that did not belong to her. I would have given my life for her had she asked it of me, had she taken me for the true heart that I was, had she dealt honestly with me. Was it a presentiment of the brief space of time that I was still to cherish the simple faith that there is a spark of virtue in every human breast that nothing can entirely extinguish, that made me now bow my head upon my hands and shed hot tears?
I suddenly lifted my head, for I fancied I heard a rustling close behind me, and I was not mistaken. It was Constance, who came through the bushes hedging the path to the beech-wood. I sprang suddenly in confusion to my feet, and stood before her, ere I had time to wipe the traces of my tears from my cheeks.
"My good George," she said, offering me her hand with a gentle smile, "you are my true friend, are you not?"
I murmured some indistinct reply.
"Let me sit here by you a little while," she said; "I feel somewhat tired; I have been up so long. Do you know where I have been? In the forest by the tarn, and afterwards up at the ruin. Do you know that we have never again gone there together? I was thinking of it this morning, and was sorry; it is so beautiful up on the cliffs, and walking with you is so pleasant. Why do you never come there to bring me home? Don't you remember what you promised me: to be my faithful George, and kill all the dragons in my path? How many have you killed?"
She glanced at me from under her long lashes with her unfathomable brown eyes, and abashed I looked upon the ground. "Why do you not answer?" she asked. "Has my father forbidden you?"
"No," I replied, "but I do not know whether you are not mocking me. You have shown me lately so little kindness, that at last I have hardly dared to speak to you or even to look at you."
"And you really do not know why I have lately been less friendly towards you?"
"No," I answered, and added softly, "unless it be because I am so much attached to your father; and how can I be otherwise?"
Her looks darkened, "And if that were the reason," she said, "could you blame me? My father does not love me; he has given me too many proofs of that. How can any one love me who is 'so much attached to my father?'"--she spoke the last words with bitterness--"who perhaps reports to him every word that I say, and to the watchers and tale-bearers by whom I am surrounded adds another, so much the more dangerous as I should have expected from him anything but treachery."
"Treachery--treachery from me?" I exclaimed with horror.
"Yes, treachery," she answered, speaking in a lower tone, but more rapidly and passionately. "I know that Sophie, my maid, is bribed; I know that old Christian, who skulks about, day and night, watches me like a prisoner. I am not at all sure that old Pahlen, who shows some devotion to me, would not sell me for a handful of thalers. Yes, I am betrayed, betrayed on all sides. Whether by you--no; I will trust your honest blue eyes, although I had really good reason for suspecting you."
I was half distracted to hear Constance speaking thus; and I implored her, I adjured her, to tell me what horrible delusion had deceived her, for that it was a delusion I was ready to prove. She should, she must tell me all.
"Well then," she said, "is it delusion or truth that on the very first evening of your stay here, by order of my father, who brought you here for that purpose, you kept watch under my window, when afterwards you pretended to me that it was my music that had attracted you?"
I started at these last words, which were accompanied with a dark suspicious look. That dark figure then had really been stealing to a rendezvous; and he had been there since, else how could she know what had happened?
"You need make no further confession," said Constance, bitterly. "You have not yet sufficiently learned your lesson of dissimulation. And I, good-natured fool, believed that you were my faithful George."
I was near weeping with grief and indignation.
"For heaven's sake," I cried, "do not condemn me without a hearing. I went into the park without any special intention; without an idea that I should meet him--any one. If I had known that the man whom I saw from this point come out of the shrubbery yonder, came with your permission, I should never have intercepted him, but would have let him go unmolested where, as it seems, he was expected."
"Who says that he came by my permission, and that he was expected?" she asked.
"Yourself," I promptly answered. "The fact that you are informed of what none but he and I could know."
Constance glanced at me, and a smile passed across her features. "Indeed!" she said, "how skilful we are at combinations! Who would have believed it of us? But you are mistaken. I know of it from him, that is true; but I did not expect him, nor had he my permission. More than this: I solemnly assure you that I had no idea that he was so near. 'And now?' your look seems to inquire. Now he is as far as he ever was. He wrote to me by a medium--no matter how--that he made an attempt to see me on that evening, in order to communicate something which he did not wish me to learn from another. I answered him by the same way that I had already learned it through another, and that for the sake both of his peace and my own, I entreated him to make no attempt to approach me. This is all, nor will there ever be more. It is not my custom to ask of those that love me, to sacrifice for me their futures and their lives. And that would be the case here. That person can enter into no engagements without his father's consent, and my father has taken care that this consent shall never be given. He will only be free after his father's death. Before this happens years may pass. He shall not sacrifice those years to me."
"And he consents to this," I cried, indignantly; "he does not rather renounce his title and inheritance than give you up? He does not rather allow himself to be torn to pieces than renounce you? And this man possesses millions, and calls himself a prince."
"You know, then, who it was?" asked Constance, apparently alarmed, adding with bitterness: "To be sure, why should you not? Of course you are my father's confidant, and told him the whole adventure at once, as in duty bound."
"I never breathed a word of it to any living creature," I answered, "nor has Herr von Zehren ever in my presence uttered the name of the prince."
"What need of the name?" she retorted. "Things can be plainly told without mentioning names. But, whatever he may have told you, he never told you that Carl is my betrothed; that our union was prevented by his fault alone; that he has ruthlessly sacrificed my happiness to a haughty caprice, to revenge himself upon the father of my betrothed at the cost of us both; and that far from offering me an at least tolerable existence in requital for the brilliant future out of which he has cheated me, makes my life a daily and hourly torment. He killed my mother, and he will kill me."
"For God's sake, do not talk in that way," I cried.
"This life is no life; it is death--worse than death," she murmured, letting her head sink upon the table.
"Then you still love him who has abandoned you?" I said.
"No," she replied, raising her head; "no! I have already told you that as it is, so it must remain. I have freely and entirely renounced him. I am too proud to give my heart--which is all I have to give--to one who does not give me all in return. And, George, can one give more than his heart?"
I would have answered, "Then, Constance, you have my all;" but my voice failed me. I could but gaze at her with a look in which lay my whole heart--the full heart of a youth, overflowing with foolish, faithful love.
She pressed my hand, and said, "My good George, I will--yes, I must believe that you are true to me. And now that we have had our talk out, and are good friends again, let us go to the house, where old Pahlen will be expecting me to breakfast."
She had fallen at once into the tone in which we had commenced the conversation, and continued:
"Do you go shooting to-day? Are you fond of shooting? I used to go sometimes; but that is long ago--so long ago! I used to be a good rider, and now I think I could not keep my seat in the saddle. I have unlearned everything; but chiefly how to be gay. Are you always cheerful, George? I often hear you singing in the morning such charming merry songs; you have a fine voice. You should teach me your songs; I know none but sad ones."
How enchanting this prattle was to me! But as her recent unkindness had made me silent and reserved, so now the unlooked-for kindness she showed me produced the same effect. I went by her side, with a half confused, half happy smile upon my face, across the wide lawn to the house, where, on reaching her terrace, we separated, after exchanging another pressure of the hand.
In three bounds I had ascended the steep stair, flung open violently the door of my room, but stopped upon the threshold with some surprise, as I saw Herr von Zehren sitting in the great high-backed chair at the window.
He half turned his head, and said:
"You have kept me waiting long; I have been sitting here fully an hour."
This did not tend to restore my composure; from his chair one could see across the lawn directly to the seat under the maple. If Herr von Zehren had been sitting here an hour, he had certainly seen with his keen eyes much more than I could have wished. I returned his salutation with great embarrassment, which certainly did not diminish when he said, with a gesture towards the seat: "Mary Stuart, George, eh? Sir Paulet the cruel jailor with the great bunch of keys? Enthusiastic Mortimer--'Life is but a moment, and death but another'--eh? Faithless Lord Leicester, who has the convenient habit of taking ship for France as soon as heads are in danger!"
He filliped the ash from his cigar, and then with one of those instantaneous changes of humor to which I had grown accustomed, began to laugh aloud, and said:
"No, my dear George, you must not turn such a look of indignation upon me. I am really your friend; and, as I said to you yesterday, it is no fault of yours, and I frankly ask you to forgive me if I yesterday for a moment made you suffer for what you are entirely innocent of. She has to play her comedies; she has done it from a child. I have indeed often feared that she gets it from her unhappy mother. Many a one has suffered from it, and I not the least; but you I would willingly save. I have often enough warned you indirectly, and now do it plainly. What are you about?"
I had, at his last words, hurried across the room and seized my hat, which hung by the door. "What are you about?" he cried again, springing from his chair, and catching me by the arm.
"I am going," I stammered, while my eyes filled with tears that I vainly endeavored to repress, "away from here. I cannot bear to hear Fräulein Constance thus spoken of."
"And then it would be such a happy opportunity to get away from me too," said he, fixing his large dark eyes upon mine with a piercing look; "is it not so?"
"Yes," I answered, collecting all my firmness, "and from you too."
"Go then," he said.
I moved towards the door, and was feeling for the latch, for my eyes were blinded with tears.
"George," he cried, "George!"
The tone cut me to the heart; I turned, and seizing both his hands, exclaimed:
"No; I cannot do it. You have been so good to me; I cannot leave you of my own will."
Herr von Zehren led me gently to the great chair, and paced several times up and down the room, while I buried my head in my hands. Then he stood before me and said:
"What did Granow say to you yesterday? Did he slander me to you as he has slandered you to me? Did he warn you against me, as he has warned me against you? No; do not answer; I do not want to know. It is just as if I had been there and heard it all. Every one knows how double-tongued old women talk."
"Then it is not true?" I exclaimed, starting from the chair. "Certainly, certainly, it is not true; I never believed it. I did not believe that miserable creature yesterday--not for one moment."
"And now only, for the first time?" said he, turning his piercing look again upon me. But I did not again lower my eyes; I met his gaze firmly, and calmly answered:
"I will not believe it until I hear it from your own lips."
"And if I confirm it, what then?"
"Then I will implore you to have nothing more to do with it. It cannot end well, and it fills me with horror to think that it might end terribly."
"You think," he said, and a bitter smile contracted his features, "that it would not be a pleasant thing to read in the papers: 'To-day Malte von Zehren of Zehrendorf was condemned to twenty years' hard labor, and in pursuance of his sentence was conveyed to the penitentiary at S., the director of which, as is well known, is the brother of the criminal?' Well, it would not be the first time that a Zehren was an inmate of a prison."
He laughed, and began to speak with vehemence, sometimes pacing the room, and then stopping before me.
"Not the first time. When I was young--it may now be thirty years ago, or more--there stood in their cursed nest, in a waste place between the town wall and the ramparts, an old half-rotten gallows, and on the gallows were nailed two rusty iron plates, upon which there stood half-defaced names, and one of these names was Malte von Zehren, with the date 1436. I recognized it by the date; and one night, with the friend of my youth, Hans von Trantow--the father of our Hans--I wrenched it off, cut down the gallows, and pitched it over the rampart into the fosse. Do you know how my ancestor's name came there? He had a feud with the Peppersacks there in the town, and they had sworn, if they caught him, to hang him on the gallows. And though he heard of it, and knew that there would be no mercy for him, he slipped into the town in disguise, during the carnival, for the love of a townsman's pretty daughter. You see, my dear George, the women--they are at the bottom of all mischief. And they caught him too, early next morning, as he was stealing away, flung him into the dungeon, and the next day he was to be hanged, to the delight of all the good townsfolk. But a page who accompanied him, and who had escaped, carried the news to Hans von Trantow, and Hans sent off a score of riders to all cousins and kinsfolk over the whole island, and that night they crossed over in twenty boats, two hundred of them, with Hans at their head, forced their way into the town, broke into the dungeon and rescued my ancestor, the good fellows, and then set the old nest on fire at its four corners and burned it down. So as the townsmen had lost Malte von Zehren, they contented themselves with nailing his name upon the gallows.
"And what was the origin of the feud? The Sound-dues, which the Lords of Zehren had levied for centuries, and which the Peppersacks now laid claim to. By what right? I ask you now, by what right? At a time when their pedlars' nest was a mere cluster of hovels inhabited by wretched fishermen, the Zehrens were living as lords and masters in a block-house surrounded by a rampart, as men used to do in the earliest times; then in a castle of stone, with towers and battlements, and as far as the eye can reach from up yonder over forests and coves into the island, no hearth smoked in house or hut at which vassals and retainers of the castle did not warm themselves; and as far as the eye can reach from up there over the sea, no sail swelled and no pennon flew that did not pay tribute to the castle. Do you think, young man, that things like these can be forgotten? Do you suppose that I can learn to feel myself under one law with a crew that crawled before my ancestors in the dust? or to acknowledge any master over me? By the grace of God--and what is that? Where were these fellows 'by the grace of God' four or five hundred years ago? I could sit where they sit now, with just as good a right; my escutcheon instead of theirs would flaunt on every gate and guard-house, and in my name would tolls and taxes be levied. And now 'sdeath! here I sit, a Lord Lack-all, in this box of stone, which before long will fall in over my head, and not a foot of the soil on which I tread can I call my own. See there--" he stepped to the open window, and pointed out with a hand trembling with emotion--"you once asked me why I did not turn those into money. There are thousands upon thousands in the forest, and I answered that I had not the heart to have the old trees hewn down. It was the truth; I could not do it; and the only right that I have over them is that I can keep them from being cut down as long as I live. Not a tree belongs to me--not a sapling--not enough to serve for my coffin; every twig belongs to that mountebank, your Crœsus, who calls himself commerzienrath, and is well named Streber [Striver.] I see the stockfish still, distorting his crooked mouth as he counted down the pittance on the table and crammed the contract into his pocket. He thought: 'It will not last him long, and then he will blow out his brains.' It has not lasted long; and he may have been as correct in his other anticipation.
"But I cannot imagine what talkative demon possesses me this morning; I believe that I have been infected by that old washerwoman, Granow. Or perhaps it is because I have to make up for yesterday evening. In truth, George, I missed you exceedingly. Trantow, the good fellow, brought me home out of pure compassion, because he saw what a trial it would be to me to smoke my last cigar alone. And I tell you it cost me dearly that you were not with me. It went hard with me, George, terribly hard. Old hawk as I am, they plucked me until the feathers flew; but we will pay them back this evening. We shall meet at Trantow's, where I have always been lucky; but you are not to quit my side. And now drink your coffee, and come down in half an hour; I have a letter or two to write; the steuerrath wants to be once more delivered from his thousand-and-one embarrassments; but this time I cannot help him, at all events not today; he must wait awhile yet. In half an hour then, and afterwards we will go down to the beach. I feel a little feverish to-day, and the sea-breeze will do me good."
He went, and left me in a singular frame of mind. I felt as if he had told me everything, and yet, when I thought it over, it was no more than what he had often said to me before. I felt as if I had bound myself to him body and soul, and yet he had taken no promise from me. But this was just the thing which made me feel more than ever attached to this singular man. If he was magnanimous enough not to take me with him upon his ship, which he saw was driving to destruction, could I stand calmly on the safe shore and watch him struggling and sinking in the waves?
My youthful fancy kindled at his romantic story of the knight who had been at feud with my native town. I wished that I had been there; I fancied myself playing the part of the page who made his way out at risk of his life to bring help and rescue to his beloved lord. Should my thoughts be more mean, my actions more craven than those of that boy? And were we not in similar circumstances? Was not my knight at the last extremity? Had not the Peppersacks taken his all?--left him nothing of all the heritage of his ancestors--him, that kingly man? How he had stood before me, the tall noble form with flashing eyes, and anguish imprinted in his pale, deeply-furrowed face with its flowing beard. This man to have planned to sell his daughter! And a creature like the commerzienrath should one day be lord here in his stead! The creature with his close-shaven fox-face, his blinking, thievish eyes, and his clumsy, greedy hands; the man who had foredoomed me to the gallows. Yes, they had dealt with me no better than with my knight. They had driven me out of the town, and now, thank heaven, I had a right to hate them as I had always despised.
Thus my foolish brain was heated more and more. The charm of adventure, the inward delight in this uncontrolled life, which I called liberty, a monstrous confusion of the conceptions of right and duty, gratitude, hot blood of youth, passionate first-love--all held me spell-bound in this charmed circle, which was a world to me. All drew me with irresistible force to the man who seemed to me the perfect ideal of a knight and a hero, to the lovely maiden who so far exceeded my wildest dreams. And the fact that these two, to whom I clung with equal love, stood opposed to each other, only tended to confirm the dream of my own indispensability. In their several ways, each had been equally kind to me, had shown me equal confidence. The fulfilment of my most ardent wish, that of seeing them reconciled, had never appeared so near as this morning, when I paced my room and looked out of the windows at the blue sky, in which great white motionless clouds were standing, and upon the park whose majestic groups of trees and broad expanses of grass were magically lighted by the splendor of the sun.
How could I have believed that these white clouds would so soon spread into a sable pall and obscure that sun--that I had seen my paradise in its magic radiance for the last time?
CHAPTER XII.
The confidence with which Herr von Zehren had looked forward to that evening, which at the very least was to repair his former ill-fortune, was after all a deceitful one. It may be that an incident which occurred just previously, deprived him of that coolness which this evening he more than ever needed. For on our way up from the beach, where we had shot a brace of rabbits among the dunes, as crossing the heath we drew near to Trantowitz, a cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen, attended by a couple of liveried servants, came galloping by. My attention was entirely attracted by a slender young man riding a superb English horse, who, at the moment he passed me, was leaning over to one of the ladies with a charming smile on his pale face, on which a downy moustache just darkened the upper lip. The lady gave her horse a sudden cut with the whip, and they shot on in advance. I gazed for a moment after the company, and was turning to Herr von Zehren with the question: "Who are they?" when I checked myself in surprise at the change in his countenance. We had just been chatting pleasantly together, and there now lay in his looks an expression of the blackest wrath, and he had unslung his gun and half raised it to his shoulder, as if he would send a shot after the retreating party. Then he flung it hastily over his shoulder again, and walked a short distance silent at my side, until he suddenly broke out into the most furious execrations, which I had never before heard from him, though he could be angry enough upon occasion. "The hound!" he exclaimed, "he dares to come here upon the soil that belongs to my friend Trantow! And I stand quietly here and do not drive a charge of shot through him! Do you know who that was, George? The villain who will one day be lord of a hundred manors which by right are all mine, whose ancestors were my ancestors' vassals, and whose scoundrelly father came to me to tell me in my own apartment that he desired to marry his son according to his rank, and that he trusted we could come to some satisfactory arrangement. I clutched him by his accursed throat, and would have strangled him if others had not come between us. The thing has been gnawing at my heart incessantly, ever since I heard that the villain was going about the neighborhood here. And now you know why Constance and I are upon so unfortunate a footing. Heaven knows what fancies she is nursing; and it drives me mad to see that her thoughts still cling to the miscreant who has offered her the grossest insult that man can offer to woman; who has tarnished my ancestral escutcheon, and should fight me to the death, but for----"
He checked himself suddenly, and walked silently by my side, gnawing his lip. Not noticing the irregularities of the wretched road, he stumbled once or twice, and this stumbling, combined with the expression of his face, in which the wrinkles deepened to furrows whenever he was under strong emotion, gave him the appearance of a broken old man consumed by impotent anger. Never before had he appeared so much in need of help, so worthy of compassion, and never before had I pitied him so, or so yearned to assist him. At the same time I thought that so favorable an opportunity to clear up the misunderstanding that evidently existed between father and daughter in reference to their relations with the prince, would not easily again occur. So I plucked up a heart and asked:
"Does Fräulein Constance know how much she has been insulted?"
"How? What do you mean?" he asked in return.
I told him what I had been speaking of with Constance that morning; how little suspicion she seemed to have of the outrage that had been offered her; that on the contrary she had expressly told me that she had been betrothed to the prince, that their predetermined union had been prevented by Herr von Zehren's fault alone, and that she had renounced freely and utterly all thought of the possibility of their marriage. But the audacity with which he had attempted to approach her, the correspondence which had taken place between them, I kept to myself, feeling that this would only awaken anew the wrath of the Wild Zehren, and render him deaf to all reason.
But it was all to no purpose. He listened to me with every sign of impatience, and when I paused for breath in my eagerness, he broke out:
"Does she say that? What will she not say? And that too now, after I have told her not once, but a hundred times, what was asked of me, how my honor and my name were trampled in the mire! She will next asseverate that the Emperor of China has been a suitor for her hand, and that it is my fault that she is not now enthroned in Pekin! Why not? Turandot is as pretty a part as Mary Stuart. Prepare yourself soon to see her in Chinese attire."
It was easy to perceive how little mirth lay in these mocking words, and I did not venture to press further so painful a theme. We came, besides, in a few minutes to Trantowitz, where Hans received us at the door with his good-natured laugh, and led us into his living-room, (which, besides his chamber, was the sole habitable apartment in the great house,) where the other guests were assembled.
The evening passed like so many others. Play began before supper, and was resumed after that meal, during which the bottle had circulated freely. I had resolved not to play, and could the more easily keep this resolution, as all the rest, with the exception of our host, whom nothing could move from his accustomed equanimity, were entirely absorbed by the unusually high play, and had not time to pay any attention to me.
So there I sat, in the recess of a window, at a little distance from the table, and watched the company, whose behavior now, when I was not a participant in it, seemed strange enough. The fiery eyes in the flushed faces; the silence only broken by the monotonous phrases of the banker, or a hoarse laugh or muttered curse from the players; the avidity with which they poured down the flasks of wine; the whole scene wrapped in a gray cloud of cigar-smoke which grew denser every moment;--it was far from a pleasant sight, and strange, confused, painful thoughts whirled through my weary brain, as I sat watching the fortunes of the play, and listening at intervals to the rustling of the night-wind that bent the old poplars before the house, and drove a few rain-drops against the windows. Suddenly I was aroused from a half doze by a loud uproar that broke out among the players. They sprang from their chairs and vociferated at each other with wild looks and threatening gestures; but the tumult subsided as quickly as it had arisen, and they sat again bending in silence over their cards, and once more I listened to the wind in the poplars, and the dashing of the rain against the panes, until at last I fell asleep.
A hand upon my shoulder aroused me. It was Herr von Zehren. The first look at his pale face, from which his eyes were flashing wildly, told me that he had been losing again, and he confirmed it as we walked back the short distance to Zehrendorf through the black tempestuous night.
"It is all over with me," he said; "my old luck has abandoned me; the sooner I blow out my brains the better. To be sure, I have a week yet. Sylow, who is a good fellow, has given me so much time. In a week perhaps all may be managed; only to-morrow the draft falls due, and of course my brother cannot pay it. I must see about it, I must see about it."
He spoke more to himself than to me. Suddenly he stopped, looked up at the black lowering clouds, then walked on, muttering between his teeth:
"I knew it, I knew it, as soon as I saw the villain. It could not but bring me ill-luck; his accursed face has always brought me misfortune. And now to have to see how they quaff the foam from the beaker of life, while they leave us the bitter dregs! And I cannot have revenge--cannot take his life!"
We had reached a piece of woods near the house, which was really a projecting corner of the forest, but was considered as part of the park. The road here divided; the broader fork led along the edge of the wood; and the narrower, which was only a foot-path, ran directly through the trees. This was the nearer way, but also the rougher and darker, and Herr von Zehren, who in his present ill-humor had more than once grumbled at the darkness and the bad road, proposed that we should not take our usual path through the park.
"I should like to find out," I said, "if the buck whose tracks we saw day before yesterday, is belling in the south forest again. We cannot hear it from here, but in there we ought to hear it."
"You go through, then," he said, "but do not stay too long."
"I expect I shall be at the other side before you."
It was not so dark in the woods as I had feared; at times the moon shone pretty bright through the scudding clouds. I reproached myself for leaving Herr von Zehren alone at this hour, and had thoughts of turning back; but, impelled by the hunter's ardor, I pushed on, slowly and cautiously, often stopping and listening, while I held my breath, to see if I could catch any sound of the buck in the woods. Once I thought I heard a faint bellow, but I was not quite sure. If so, it must be very distant, and in a different quarter from where we expected the buck to be at this hour. It might be another. I was anxious to find out, and stood still again to listen. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me like the trot of a horse coming along the path in which I was. My heart stopped for an instant, and then began to beat violently. Who could be the rider, in the dead of night, upon a path lying alongside the main road to the castle?
The sound of the horse's hoofs, at first faint, had grown louder, and then suddenly ceased. In its place I now distinctly heard the steps of a man coming through the woods towards the place where I was standing, a little out of the path, in the dark shadow of some high trees. It could be no one but he. My heart, that was violently beating, cried to me that it could be no one but he. I tore the gun from my shoulder, as Herr von Zehren had done at the sight of the man he hated. Then, as he had done, I threw it back over my shoulder, so that I had both arms free. What did I need for such a fellow but those two arms of mine?
And just then I saw him plainly before me, as the moon slipped from behind a black cloud, and threw through the trees a clear light exactly upon the place where he was passing: the same slender form, and even in the same riding-dress--a low-crowned hat, close-fitting coat, trimmed with fur, and boots of soft leather reaching half-way up the thigh--one bound, one clutch--I had him in my hands!
The surprise must have paralyzed him at the moment, for he uttered no cry, and scarcely made a movement. But this was only for a moment, and then with an exertion of strength for which I had not given him credit, he strove to free himself from my grasp. So might a leopard, caught in the hunter's net, struggle frantically, leap, rend with his claws, and waste his strength in convulsive efforts. The struggle lasted perhaps a minute, during which time no word was spoken on either side, nor was any sound audible but our panting. At last his struggles grew weaker and weaker, his breath began to fail, and finally, yielding, he panted:
"Let me go!"
"Not so soon!"
"In my breast pocket is a pocket-book, with probably a hundred thalers in it; take them, but let me go!"
"Not for a million!" I said, forcing him, as his strength was utterly exhausted, down to his knees.
"What do you want? Do you mean to murder me?" he panted.
"Only to give you a lesson," I said, and picked up his riding-whip, which had fallen while we were struggling, the silver handle of which caught my eye as it glittered in the moonlight.
"For God's sake, do not do that," he said, grasping convulsively the hand in which I held the whip. "Kill me on the spot; I will not move nor utter a cry; but do not strike me!"
Such a request in such a tone could not fail to make a powerful impression upon a heart like mine. I no longer beheld in my antagonist the enemy of the Wild Zehren his daughter's lover. I saw in him only a boy who was in my power, and who would rather die than undergo disgrace. Involuntarily the hand with which I grasped him by the breast unclosed; indeed I believe I lifted him to his feet.
Scarcely did he feel himself free, when he hastily stepped back a few paces, and in a tone the lightness of which was in strong contrast with the terror he had first felt, said:
"If you were a nobleman, you should give me satisfaction; but as you are not, I warn you to be on your guard: I do not always travel without arms."
He slightly touched his hat, turned upon his heel, and walked back by the way he had come.
I stood as if rooted to the spot, and gazed after the slender figure, which soon vanished in the dark shadows of the forest. I knew that with a bound or two I could overtake him, but I felt not the slightest impulse to attempt it. The young prince had rightly judged the young plebeian. I would as lief have hewn off my hand as to raise it again against a man whom I had in a manner pardoned. And then I thought of what Granow had said, that were he the prince, he would not like to meet Herr von Zehren, and how very nearly this meeting had taken place, and that too at a moment when it would have given the Wild Zehren delight to shed his enemy's blood, and his own afterwards.
And now I heard a slight neigh, and then the gallop of a horse.
"Thank heaven!" I cried, drawing a deep breath, "it is better so, and it will be a lesson to him."
I thought no more of the buck. I scarcely listened when he began to bellow, at no great distance from me. I hurried on at a run to make up for the time I had lost, and in deep anxiety lest Herr von Zehren should have heard the gallop of the horse, for it was not possible that he could have heard anything that had happened in the wood.
But my anxiety was without cause. The Wild Zehren was too safely plunged in reflections over his misfortune for his senses to be as acute as they usually were. He did not even ask me about the buck; and I was glad that I was under no necessity of speaking. Thus we walked silently on until we reached the castle.
In the hall we were met as usual by the sleepless old Christian. Letters had come by express: he had laid them on his master's writing-table.
"Come in," said Herr von Zehren, "while I see what they are about."
We entered. "This one is for you, and so is this," he said, handing me two of the letters from the table.
The first letter was from my friend Arthur. It read:
"You have not sent me the money I asked you for; but that is the way: when we have anything, our friends may look out for themselves. I only write to you now, in order through you to entreat my uncle to do something to help papa. Our affairs must be in an awful state, for the merchant G.--you know whom I mean--from whom I borrowed twenty-five, saw papa about it to-day, and I did not get the smallest scolding. Mamma howls all day long. I wish I was a thousand miles away.
"P. S.--Papa has just come from Uncle Commerzienrath with a terribly long face. It is plain that the old Philistine will do nothing for us. I tell you Uncle Malte must help us, for we are in a terrible strait."
The second letter was from my father.
"My Son:--In renouncing your filial obedience to me, you compelled me to abandon all control over you. I have vowed not to restore you to your place as my son, until you acknowledge your misconduct and entreat me to do so; and this vow I will keep. To the choice that you have made for yourself, I have offered no opposition, have allowed you perfect freedom of action, for which you have always hankered, and am resolved to do this for the future. But all this cannot prevent me from wishing, with all my heart, that it may be well with you in the path that you have chosen for yourself, though I doubt it much; nor can it keep me from warning you where warning seems necessary. And this is now the case. Things have reached my ears concerning Herr von Zehren, which I trust in heaven may be founded upon error, but which are of such a nature that I think with horror of my son being in the house of a man under such suspicions, even if false. What I have heard I cannot reveal to you, as the information has reached me in the line of my official duties.
"I know that notwithstanding your disobedience, you are incapable of a base action, and that therefore you are so far safe, even if those suspicions are true, which God forbid. Still I entreat you, if you have any regard left for my peace, to leave the house of Herr von Zehren at once. I add what is scarcely necessary, that for the obedient son I shall be, what I have always been, his strict but just father."
I had read this letter twice through, and sat still gazing at the writing, incapable of clear reflection, when Herr von Zehren aroused me by asking: "Well, George, and what have you there?" I handed him both letters. He read them, paced the room a while, and then stopping before me said:
"And what do you propose to do?"
"The opportunity is a good one," he went on, seeing that I hesitated to answer. "I have a letter from the steuerrath which compels me to start for the town within the hour. I will take you with me; it is now twelve o'clock, and in three hours we can be there; you can ring up the old gentleman; sleep an hour or two in the garret of which you have so often told me; thank God to-morrow morning that you are clear of the Wild Zehren, and--go back again to school."
He spoke the last words with a slight contempt, which galled the most sensitive part in the heart of a young man, that of false pride.
"I will go with you wherever you go!" I exclaimed, starting up. "I said so this morning, and I now repeat it. Tell me what I shall do."
Herr von Zehren again paced the room for a few moments, and then paused before me and said in an agitated voice:
"Remain here--for a day or two at all events, until I return. You will do me a service."
I looked at him interrogatively.
"If you return now to-day," he continued, "that will only have the effect of confirming the rumors of which your father writes. The rats are leaving the house, they will say, and justly. And just now it is of importance to me that people shall say nothing, that as little attention as possible shall be directed to me. Do you understand, George?"
"No," I answered; "why now especially?"
I looked fixedly at him; he bore the scrutiny, and after a while answered, speaking slowly and in a low voice:
"Ask no further, George. Perhaps I would tell you if you could help me; perhaps I would not. They say of me that I use men and then throw them away when they can be of no further service to me. It may be so; I do not know that the most deserve any better treatment. With you, at all events, I would not thus deal, for I like you. And now go to bed, and let the Wild Zehren play out the game. Perhaps he will break the bank, and then I promise you it will be the last of his playing."
At this moment the wagon drove up; while reading my father's letter, I had not heard the order to old Christian to have the horses put to. Herr von Zehren looked through his papers, put some in his pocket, and locked others in his cabinet. Then old Christian helped him on with his furred cloak, he put on his hat, and stepping up to me, offered me his hand.
I had watched all his movements in a sort of stupefaction.
"And I cannot help you?" I now asked.
"No," he replied, "or only by waiting quietly here until I return. Your hand is cold as ice; go to bed."
I accompanied him to the door. His hunting-wagon was waiting, and long Jock, who usually filled the office of coachman, was on the front seat.
"The wagon will only take me to the ferry, and then return," said Herr von Zehren.
"And Jock?" I asked in a whisper.
"Goes with me."
"Take me in his place," I asked, imploringly.
"It cannot be," he said, with his foot upon the step.
"I entreat you," I urged, holding him by the cloak.
"It cannot be," he repeated. "We have not a minute to spare. Good-night! Drive on!"
The wagon drove off; the dogs yelped and barked, and then all was still again. Old Christian hobbled across the yard with his lantern, and vanished into one of the old buildings. I stood alone before the house, under the trees, in which the wind roared. The rain began to fall in torrents; shivering I returned to the house and carefully secured the door.
The light was still burning in Herr von Zehren's room. I went to get it and also my letters that were lying upon his table. As I took them I espied a paper on the floor, and picked it up to see what it was. A few words were written upon it, and I had read them before I thought what I was doing. The words were these:
"I am ruined if you do not save me. G. will give me no more time; St. is immovable; the draft will be protested. I put myself in your hands. You have held me above water too long to let me drown now. The moment, too, is as favorable as possible for the matter you know of. I can and will take care that no one sees our cards. But whatever is done, must be done at once. I have not always the game in my hand. Come at once, I adjure you, by what is most sacred to you--by our ancient name! Burn this at once."
The paper was not signed, but I recognized the writing immediately. I had seen it often enough in the documents on my father's table, and I could at once have affixed the signature with its pretentious flourish, which I had often enough tried to imitate.
This paper Herr von Zehren must have dropped while hastily thrusting it with the others into his pocket.
I looked at it again, and was once more trying to unriddle its enigmatical contents, when the candle, already burned to the socket, gave signs of going out. "Burn this at once!"--it was as if a voice had uttered this command close to my ear. I held the paper in the flame; it blazed up; the candle went out at the same moment; a glowing scrap of tinder fluttered to my feet, and then all around me was thickest darkness.
I groped my way from the room, through the dining-room to the hall, up the narrow stairway to my chamber, and after searching in vain for a match, threw myself dressed upon my bed.
But in vain did I, tossing restlessly upon my couch, endeavor to sleep. Every moment I started up in terror, fancying in my excitement that I heard a voice calling for help, or a step hurrying towards my door, while I kept racking my brain in the vain attempt to devise some plan for rescuing the two so dear to me from the ruin which I had a presentiment was impending over them, whose coming the elements themselves seemed to announce in thunder; and execrated my cowardice, my indecision, my helplessness.
It was a fearful night.
A terrible storm had arisen; the wind raved about the old pile, which shook to its foundations. The tiles came clattering down from the roofs; the rusted weather-cocks groaned and creaked; the shutters banged, and the third shutter to the right made frantic efforts now or never to get loose from the single hinge by which it had hung for years. The screech-owls in the crevices of the walls hooted dismally, and the dogs howled, while the gusts of wind dashed torrents of rain against the windows.
It seemed as if the ancient mansion of Zehrendorf knew what fate was awaiting its possessor and itself.