CHAPTER XXXIII.
“GIVE UP THE PLANS!”
Meantime the Horologe was at a standstill, and its makers as sheep without a shepherd. Confusion reigned supreme among them. Some, vowing they would work under no other master than Dasipodius, among whom were the brothers Habrecht, sent in their resignations. Others, who because their daily bread depended on the work dared not give it up, grumblingly consented to remain; while a few, who had found their old chief’s conscientious supervision irksome, were delighted at the prospect of the new regime, and were eager to resume their places in the studio, which for a week past had remained closed.
Dasipodius himself had refrained from going near the place, and had spent nearly all his time beside Christian, who, weighed down by grief and mental distress, had been stricken by illness, which was only aggravated when he found it put a stop to his being present at the Chancellery on the important day. This, however, which Christian took so much to heart, was the source of not a little consolation to his son, who felt how much unnecessary pain it had saved Christian; and when he had returned home, and undergone a close cross-examination from the invalid as to what had passed, he did not scruple to put as brilliant a gloss upon the matter as it would well bear.
“And so you really think,” said Christian, with a suspicion of regret in his tones, “you really think it is best to give it all up? Well, well,—but will the resignation be accepted?”
“Oh, it must. A man can’t be made to work against his will.”
“That’s true,” mused Christian; “but I wouldn’t give you up, I know, if I were the town council.”
The mathematician smiled sadly, and gently stroked the old man’s hand.
“I am glad you can smile,” went on Christian a little petulantly, “I can’t somehow.”
“Yes, yes, but cheer up, Väterle. That is because you have been ill, and are still weak; but listen now, in a day or two we are going away—you and I, from the city, to have a little holiday. The spring-time is so near now, and we will go—you and I, and Rappel here,” and Dasipodius patted the head of the dog, who responsively wagged his tail, and barked a volley of short, quick, joyous barks, as if he understood, as no doubt he did understand, all they were saying. “Out into the fields, and among the fresh green and the flowers, and forget for awhile all about the Horologe and—and everything. Yes, Väterle, shall we?”
But Christian only said with a weary sigh: “I am glad your poor mother did not live to see this day. I never thought a time would come when I should thank God she was not beside me.”
And to this Conrad had no ready reply.
“It would have broken her heart,” went on the old man.
“Nay—nay, father, not that. If I had committed some crime, then indeed—” he paused. How nearly had he been told off for a criminal! “But,” he went on, “all is as God wills.”
“Ay,” said Christian fretfully, “I daresay it may be.” Then he turned his face to the wall, one by one silent tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks, and for a long time he refused to be comforted; but at last he fell asleep, and dreamed such sweet dreams of waving boughs, and green fields, and sparkling waters, that after all, Conrad’s efforts to cheer him were assuredly not entirely thrown away; and when morning came, Christian could smile, and chatted with Dr. Bruno Wolkenberg quite eagerly over that proposed trip.
Bruno being perfectly instructed in the little fiction, said it was indeed a most admirable notion, and sat on, discussing the matter with Christian, until the Burgomaster looked in to see his old friend; and Bruno, having watched the two safely launched into the great Cession question, felt that Christian was in a fair way to speedy recovery, and that his presence could be easily spared.
Leaving them to their talk, therefore, the surgeon made his way to the turret studio. He had barely gone half up the staircase before he heard the voices of Dasipodius and Habrecht engaged in such unwontedly animated discussion that even after he had opened the door, he hesitated to enter, for fear of disturbing them. The quick ear, however, of the blind man caught Bruno’s footfall. “Is that you, Bruno?” he said in strangely rapid and excited tones, and the surgeon saw there was brilliant fire in his eyes, and a red hectic spot burning into the cheeks grown so pale and haggard of late. “Come here then, and judge between us. Look at Isaac Habrecht there.”
And Bruno obeying, saw that after his own stolid fashion, Isaac was equally agitated, for the lines about his resolute mouth were deep and set, and every feature was silently eloquent of a firm adherence to some opinion of which he had apparently just delivered himself.
“Do you know,” said Dasipodius, gasping for breath as he convulsively clutched Bruno by the arm, “do you know what he would have me do?”
Wolkenberg looked again from Habrecht’s face to the uncontrollable agitation in his friend’s; wondering as he gently drew his hand in his, what could have turned its cool steady touch to the burning, trembling thing it was?
“I cannot guess,” he answered.
“No!” cried Dasipodius, laughing hysterically, “by the Rood that I’ll swear you cannot! Look at him, Bruno! look at him well. That is the man I thought my friend; oh, but it was a grievous error! every whit as bad as when I believed you”—and he broke into a hollow laugh—“you incorruptible—do you remember that, Bruno?”
“Nay, nay,” soothed Bruno, “but we are your friends, Conrad; I’ll stake my life on it, never man had more loyal ones,” he added, turning his eyes on Isaac, who seconded this assurance with an emphatic nod.
“Oh! I ask your pardon!” bitterly rejoined Dasipodius; “yes, you wish me well, to be sure. To be sure, and that is just what—what she said in that—letter of hers, and what the town council people said, and Hackernagel—Master Hackernagel—he said it too, ‘We are your best friends, Professor Dasipodius—your best friends I assure you’. Friends! and now Isaac—and you, Bruno Wolkenberg—oh! Heaven save me from you all! I had best have taken serpents to my heart, than any one of you! Friends, ho! ho!” and his mocking laughter echoed through the vaulted chamber. “No! no! keep off, I say. Let go my hands. Keep off,” he went on; “all your stuffs and anodynes can never cure these deadly stings! They have gone to my heart—to my soul, I tell you, through—and through!” and with a moan of mortal pain, Dasipodius clenched his hand upon his breast, and shrank away from Bruno. “And now it is all dead here, quite dead—dead. Tell me, Bruno Wolkenberg,” he said, after a momentary pause which neither of the other men dared to break, and coming once more beside the surgeon, he gripped him confidentially by the arm, “tell me—how long may a man live when all his life’s blood has been sucked away? How long, I mean, can he seem like living? how long?” and his breath, as he awaited Bruno’s answer, laboured cruelly, like one indeed mortally crushed.
“Hush now, be calm, Conrad, all is not lost——”
“Oh! not yet. No, not yet. He tried though, he tried his best to steal it from me, the traitor there,” whirled on Dasipodius, pointing at Habrecht, who, save by the occasional twitching of his brows, betrayed no more emotion than a wooden block. “‘Give them up,’ that is what he has been saying to me. Could you have believed it of him, Bruno? ‘Let him have them all’——”
“Ay, every shred,” said Habrecht, speaking for the first time.
“Have what?” asked the mystified Bruno.
“The plans, man—the plans!” wildly sobbed Dasipodius, sinking down on the chair beside his writing-table.
“Ay,” nodded Isaac, “the Horologe plans, Doctor Wolkenberg. They want them you see. Otto von Steinbach wants them.”
“I daresay he does,” said Bruno with a faint smile.
“And I say let him have them,” concluded Habrecht.
“You hear!” said Dasipodius, turning on Bruno.
“Oh! h’m—yes,” answered the surgeon. “Well—really—no, upon my honour, I think not. No, no.”
“God bless you, Bruno!” gasped the mathematician; “God bless you for that.”
“It would be feeding such a cruel injustice, you see,” said Bruno.
“It would be doing no such thing,” roundly contradicted Isaac.
“It would be too much——”
“Ay, ay, there you are right,” laughed he, “it would be too much indeed. That’s a good saying, Doctor Wolkenberg, ‘Give a dog rope enough, and he’ll hang himself’.”
“How?” queried Bruno interestedly. “Nay, Conrad, but he has his reasons; right or wrong, let him speak. How would he, Master Habrecht?”
“How?” echoed Habrecht, grimly measuring Bruno’s length and breadth. “Well, well, you are only a doctor. See here then,” he went on in slightly mollified tones, taking a formidably official-looking document from the table, “the town council in this commands my master to deliver up all the plans and drawings of our Horologe into the hands of this—this—Otto von Steinbach, in order that”—and a sardonic smile flitted over the grave rugged features—“that he may complete the Horologe from them. Very well, but first of all, Dr. Wolkenberg, comes the fellow himself, and makes the same demand. My master refuses both the one and the other.”
“Naturally,” assented Bruno.
“Wait; well and good, that’s how it seems; but that’s not how it is. Supposing they had these plans. What will they do with them?”
“Ah!” sighed Bruno, “they would contrive to finish off the Horologe from them somehow, I imagine.”
“Do you?” said Isaac; “I thought you did. But they couldn’t do it, they couldn’t do it though they died for it; and every batzen of the money these honest townspeople have contributed, might as well have been thrown into the Rhine for any good they’ll get.”
“That must occur in either case I suppose, whether their work is done from von Steinbach’s plans, or they——”
“Make a cuddle-muddle of ours? No; for they might go on and finish von Steinbach’s piece of gimcrackery for a stalking-horse of their stupidity; but a week at our models will make them drop it like monkeys with hot chestnuts. And so I say let them try, let them have every dot, every line, and be hanged to them all.”
“That is your advice,” said Bruno cogitatively.
“Yes,” said Isaac, “it is; and it would be any honest man’s. I’m not saying it’s nice, mind you, to have a pack of thick-skulled, thumb-fingered idiots poking and mauling——”
“Hold thy peace, Isaac!” moaned Dasipodius, shiveringly burying his face in his folded arms.
“But,” went on Isaac, “what they do can’t hurt it in the long run. A good thing is a good thing; and gold’s gold, and if it chances to be dragged through the mire, it comes out—well, when you’ve rubbed the dirt off it, it just comes out the brighter; and that’s like the work of my master’s hands, and like my master too; and he’d be the first to acknowledge what’s due to the people, and protect them from a handful of fools, when he’s himself. But he’s not himself now. They’ve worried him into a fever between them, God forgive them all. I suppose if they had his death on their hands they wouldn’t mind, and you’d best be seeing to him, Dr. Wolkenberg,” concluded Isaac, casting, as he slowly made his way to the door, a look of saddened indignation at the bowed form of Dasipodius; but when he had the latch in his hand, he turned and wistfully eyed a bundle of parchments on the table. “There they are,” he said; “I’d give my right hand for the master to be saying: ‘Take them, Isaac, and carry them to the Chancellery,’” and then he slowly opened wider the door to go out.
“Isaac!” said the mathematician, lifting his head, and his voice sounded so faint and low that it was hardly audible; but Isaac heard, and turning back once more, said: “Master?”
“Take the plans and carry them to the Chancellery.”
Then the mathematician’s head fell heavily again upon his folded arms, and he lay motionless as death; while Habrecht silently approached the table, and taking up the bundle of parchments, carried them to the Chancellery.