CHAPTER LXIV.
“IN VINO VERITAS.”
“To think,” said the sacristan, sipping and tasting, and smacking his lips over the brimming glass, and then smacking and tasting and sipping again, and finally disposing summarily of the remainder. “To think,” he repeated, setting down the empty goblet with a sigh, and a nod of unqualified approval, while he cast his eyes with curiosity round the dingy room. “To think such stuff as that——”
“Try it again, friend,” said Tobias, replenishing the cup.
“Thanks, Master Syndic. I don’t mind if I do. Such stuff as that can come out of——” the sacristan paused, casting about for a less depreciatory term than the one which had first suggested itself, “this simple hostelry.”
“Good wine,” amiably enunciated Tobias, sipping his own modicum as gingerly as if it were some medicinal concoction, “needs no bush.”
“By the mass! that’s true; and as to this,” and the lay brother tossed off his second glass of the potent liquid, “there’s nothing in our cellars, and we’ve got good stuff in them, can hold a candle to it.”
“Then prove your appreciation,” urged Tobias, lifting the flagon again.
“Nay now,” objected Prudentius, coquettishly protecting the outworks of his glass with all his ten outspread fingers, but leaving its mouth utterly unguarded. “It’s heady drink I expect, and one must be careful, Master Syndic, eh? Yes?”
“Oh,” laughed Hackernagel, “dear me, you might drink this whole flagon full, and feel yourself none the worse.”
A comfortable sensation diffusing itself all over the sacristan’s inner man lent colour to this assurance.
“I say, Master Tobias,” he began in low tones, after a brief silence spent in a closer survey of the quarters in which he found himself, and a speculative consideration of the sleeping topers stretched about the benches, “we’re safe enough here of course? Oh, no offence, none in the world, only I—Holy Saints! what was that?” and hurriedly setting down his half-emptied glass, the sacristan rose to his feet. “What was it?”
“Thunder,” calmly said Hackernagel, making good the vacuum. “Sit down.”
But still on his feet, Prudentius drained his replenished glass to its dregs.
“Hadn’t we best be jogging homewards,” he said then, a little thickly.
“Ah!” returned Hackernagel with an impatient gesture. “There’ll be no storm yet awhile. Come, man, drink, drink. No heel-taps. Sit you down.”
“Oh no. N—no heel-taps,” echoed Prudentius, dropping heavily back into his seat, and grasping the jug by its neck, he proceeded to help himself to its contents. “No, ’twouldn’t be for the honour of the house, w—would it, Master Hackernagel?”
“Certainly not,” replied Tobias, sipping on delicately.
“No. N—not for the honour of the house; and,” continued Prudentius, drawing his portly little body up into a dignified attitude, and blinking gravely across into his companion’s face, “and it is an honourable house; and you’re all honourable gent—gentlemen here; and you’re the honourablest gent—gentleman among them, and—I say, Master Tobias, it’s time”—and the sacristan’s hand slid from the table’s edge, and grasped fumblingly after the bunch of keys at his side—“Master Tobias, I say, hadn’t we b—best—be jogging? I’ve got to be up betimes; and if—if a man don’t sleep, he don’t wake so easy. Eh, stands to reason he can’t, don’t it? That’s sound s—sense, say if it isn’t.”
“Very much so, my friend,” acquiesced his entertainer, sedulously keeping up his attentions to the sacristan’s glass.
“Yes, common sense, as you observe, M—Master Hack—Hack—Hackernagel. And so, as I say, o—old friend, if it’s all the same—the same to you, we’ll be jog—jog—what a devil of a row there is out there!”
Tobias started and glanced towards the window; then his lips relaxed into a smile, and he said laconically, “Frogs”.
“Frogs, is it?” said Prudentius, propelling himself with some little difficulty along the bench towards the window, where, resting his shaven crown against its worm-eaten upright, he leaned, and silently stared with preternatural gravity into the night. “Th—there’s a woman out there,” he said at last.
“A what?”
“A woman; a—ho! ho! ho! don’t be afraid, Master Tobias. Sh—she won’t hurt.”
“Fool!”
“I—I’ll take care of you. I’m not afraid. N—never be afraid of a woman; I’m not. I like w—women. I wonder what sh—she’s like, that one out there; d—don’t you.”
“Idiot!” muttered Tobias between his set teeth, “drunken——”
“N—no, none so d—drunk as—come, Master Tobias, shall we be j—jogging?” And as the words left his lips, the sacristan sank down like a log on the window seat, still staring with vacant intensity into the moonlight. “What the mischief can she be doing out there?” he added in low thick sotto voce; “where’s she got to? Ho! hi!—sh—I say, Syndic Tobias, sh—she’s gone. Come and see;” and he beckoned Hackernagel with his forefinger, describing a curiously irregular half-circle, “come and—see.”
“Drunken fool!” growled Hackernagel, engrossed in a thoughtful examination of the flagon’s drained interior, and speculating whether it would be necessary to sacrifice another gold piece on its replenishing.
“D—drunk yourself, Syndic,” returned the offended sacristan. “D—drunk, I like that! ho! and I’m no fool neither, m—mind that. If I was a f—fool, I suppose I shouldn’t exactly have been having th—these in my charge for twenty years last Corpus Domini,” and with tremulous uncertain hands he lifted the precious keys and shook them at Hackernagel. “Fool? N—no—no, not exactly, and I’m not d—drunk neither, I sh—should hope. And I’ve got my eyes as well as the biggest d—dog of a heretic in all the free city, and—and it is a free city, isn’t it? and I’m free to—to use my eyes; and I say there’s—a woman out there on the grass.” And propping himself up on to his feet by the aid of the window sill, Prudentius stood pointing persistently down over it to the spot immediately beneath; “and Master Tobias,” he went on, twitching his face with drunken leer, “what do you say man, sh—shall we go and fetch—fetch her in? Yes? It’s damp for her, isn’t it—out there on—on the grass.”
“Grass!” savagely echoed Hackernagel, “that isn’t grass, sheephead! It’s water.”
“Water?” returned Prudentius, swaying round, and gravely surveying it with blinking, lack-lustre eyes. “Water—ho! ho!—water is it?” he continued with a mocking chuckle. “Go and tell that to your grandmother, ho, ho—ha.”
“Upon my honour——”
“Ho—ho—come, come now, Syndic,” and Prudentius shook a warning finger at his gossip, “no swearing. And look you here, when I don’t know eh—chalk from cheese, then will be time for you to be trying to make a g—gull of me. I flat—flatter myself I can tell water from gr—grass, and—grass from w—water, any day of the week; and you—you’re just a d—drunken c—rop—eared igno—ignoramus of an anabap—baptist, and don’t know what you’re t—talking about. Water! ho! ho! if that’s water, why then, th—this”—and the sacristan stretching out his two arms, dragged the empty wine flagon to his breast, and hugged it affectionately against his cheek—“this is water; and—and I don’t know what—I’m talking about. And—hadn’t we best be j—jogging, Master Hack—er—na—gel?” And next instant Prudentius lay prone across the table, snoring in heavy drunken sleep.
Three out of those four candles have expired in their guttering grease, and the last fitful dying flashes of light through the long low-ceiled chamber, leave it in the intervals in almost complete darkness; but across the recess occupied by the two latest comers, the moonbeams cast a sickly lurid light; and Tobias Hackernagel’s face, peering cunningly intent from his shadowy corner over the sleeping sacristan, looks as hideously and maliciously ugly as one of the demon gurgoyles upon the Cathedral walls. “Come, friend,” he says, tentatively laying his fingers upon Prudentius’ shoulder, and roughly shaking him; but the sacristan, hugging his jug tighter and closer to him, only mutters “Water,” and sinks ten fathom deeper into his drunken sleep.
Small chance of his wakening for hours to come. “A man doesn’t exactly empty a flagon of Niersteiner as he would a glass of sugar water,” thinks Tobias to himself as he turns, and descending the step, makes a circuit among the slumberers scattered about the benches, and carefully investigates the condition of each. Then with a nod of satisfaction, for they could not be more hopelessly incapable and unconscious than they are, of what may be passing around them, he regards them collectively. No deception there; the Seven of Ephesus could not be more utterly dead to external influence; as many corpses would be as much aware of him and his doings as these; and softly closing the door which Ezra has left ajar, he recrosses towards the recess. Sh! what is that?
Swift as a lightning flash, some shadow flits over the lattice, obscuring for an instant the form of the sleeping man. Psha! and what else but lightning? for hark! one prolonged boom of distant thunder rolls through the leaden air; or perhaps it is no more than a bat’s flight, or the flap of an owlet’s wing, or the sudden breeze heralding the onward coming storm, sending the gaunt tree shadows athwart the panes. Psha!
Stepping lightly to the platform, Hackernagel seats himself on the bench beside the sleeping sacristan; then sweeping one keen rapid glance all round, he stoops over him and passes his hand deftly under the cluster of keys hanging on the stout leathern thong attached to the broad belt encircling the lay brother’s waist, and noiselessly lifting them on to his knees, he spreads them out fan-wise.
There, bright as gold itself amid its dull iron compeers, shines out Master Wenzel Jamitzer’s dainty piece of handiwork; and next instant Hackernagel’s fingers are grappling with the buckled fastening of the belt. As it yields to his careful handling, the Syndic’s meagre lips twitch with triumphant satisfaction. Like pearls crumbling beneath a hammer’s stroke, his chief difficulty has fallen before him. He had laid his plans, provided against every obstacle. In his pocket lies a knife of razor sharpness, and an assortment of tools in case of any necessity for proceeding to extremes, but nothing is plainer sailing. Strong in his integrity, the unfortunate sacristan had pointed to his buckle belt, and proudly said you might catch a weasel asleep, but it would go hard with the man who should ever dare to meddle with that. Yet now, it is simple child’s play. The well-worn metal works smoothly in its grooves; and ere the sleeper has drawn three more stertorous breaths, Tobias Hackernagel holds the thing he covets safe in his innermost pocket. Two more minutes, nay, less, hardly longer than it takes for that light restless shadow to sway once to and fro across the steel-blue lattice panes, and the nimble fingers have rethreaded the unthreaded keys in order due, and rearranged the cincture about the sacristan’s portly loins; and so once again descending the step and groping his way through the now utterly dark room, Hackernagel passes out into the corridor.
At the outer door Ezra Schlau is standing, contemplating the state of the atmosphere; and Syndic Hackernagel observing that there seems to be a threatening of rain, and that he will be getting homewards, bids him good-night.
“And your friend, Syndic?” enquires Schlau, jerking his head in the direction of the guest room.
“My friend?” echoes Hackernagel, turning with bland insouciance upon Ezra. “I do not apprehend you.”
“Prudentius the sacristan, who came with you.”
“Came with me!” ejaculated Tobias. “My good Ezra, you pain me. I did not look to be so misjudged by you. Friend! that papist and idolater the friend of Tobias Hackernagel! But I forgive you, Ezra; the day is yet to come when such as you are will be able to apprehend that it behoves us to extend charity and hospitality to—Hark ye—and mind now,” added Hackernagel with a sudden snarl in his tone, “if you’re asked any questions, I stumbled upon that fellow out in the copse there. Understand? and it’s not convenient to make an enemy of him and his just now.” A ray of intelligent acquiescence shot into the innkeeper’s face. “Good,” was his monosyllabic comment. “And I say,” continued Hackernagel, “that it behoves the true Christian to—Hark you here, friend Ezra, the best thing you can be doing with yonder sot is to turn him out of doors neck and crop as quick as you can. And if you value your credit at a batzen’s worth, I should be careful if I were you how I let slip that his shaven crown has ever been inside the Three Ravens. Our brethren in the spirit don’t quite perceive these things, and if you said much about it, custom might fall off. It might, you know, but you and I—we understand each other. Good-night to you, friend Ezra. May you always grow in grace and knowledge—good-night.”
“You understand yourself, perhaps,” soliloquized Schlau, watching him as he disappeared among the trees, “but may I turn double-dyed papist, if I understand you, or ever shall. But it’s your business, not mine; and what will be, will be, or it’ll be no fault of yours if it isn’t.”
Having thus delivered his mind, Ezra, chiefly impressed by his patron’s counsel touching the advisability of getting rid of his black sheep of a guest snoring away in the parlour, turned in and shouted to Hans to come and assist in the contemplated ejectment; but dishclout in one hand, and pipkin in the other, Hans was also wandering in the land of dreams, and so far gone, that not a little tax upon his gentle master’s pounding and punching powers was put into requisition, to charm him back again. And so much achieved, there still remained the poor wearied-out wretch’s wits to be collected; so that full a quarter of an hour slipped away before Ezra had succeeded in making him comprehend to all practical end the service required of him.
Without doors the place is as still, and save for the ceaseless frog chorus, as silent as a graveyard. Scarcely have Tobias Hackernagel’s footsteps died away among the fallen leaves than the old city’s belfry towers proclaim that it wants but two more hours to that midnight whose next dawning will usher in the long-expected festal day.
With the fall of the last lingering stroke upon the heavy air, a low rustling sound breaks from the margin of the pond, on the side which skirts up by the inn wall, and then splashing and floundering among the swampy weeds, with bared arms and fingers desperately clutching at the writhen willow and alder stems, a woman’s figure looms up ghostlike in the vaporous mist.
With low bent head, crouching close as hare to covert, her dripping garments clutched about her, she steals on among the tall rushes, until she attains the opposite bank, which is crested by a stunted hedge, beneath whose shelter, first pausing hurriedly to wring the water from her skirts, and twist up her dishevelled, luxuriant, red-brown hair, she peers cautiously forth.
Thrown into sharp distinctness by the moonlight, she can see the three ravens staring across at her with their inquisitive painted eyes; but no human eye marks her flitting, and gathering fresh courage, she clasps one hand across her throbbing heart, while with the other outstretched to tear aside the brambles clinging to her wet cloak, and cruelly tearing her half-naked feet, for the pond’s mud has detained her shoes, she speeds onward, stumbling over the rough ground, trampling down straggling bough and briar, and every stay and hindrance. And at last, clear of the brake, the woman gains the open river path. Then, still on, as though the Eumenides were giving her chase, swift as the lightning flashes playing about her, she speeds between the dark water and the tall hedgerows, past the massive walls of the St. Stephen’s Tower, slackening her pace for the first time only, as she nears the gate below the fishmarket, where the sentry, who is indulging in a hand of cards with a congenial spirit, coolly observes as he pockets the gold piece she flings at his feet, that the city has been consumedly dead alive of late, and if a lady or two of her sort—and the son of Mars winks playfully—has a fancy for joining in next day’s merrymaking—he’ll not be so ungallant as to deny her.
On again, fleeter than ever, through the echoing arches of the deserted fishmarket, across the Platz, where the Cathedral lies a silent black mass, with never a gleam within or without, to foretell to-morrow’s glories, its pinnacled roof lying in sharp fretted shadow on the moonlit ground—on—on, with just one glance towards yonder stately house, where lies one, wrapped no doubt now in virtuous slumber, whom passing dear that woman loves. There only, amid all the enshrouding darkness, a light shines hazily through the close-drawn red damask drapery; but what wonder in that, for does it not mark Radegund von Steinbach’s studio, and at what unholy hours will not her lamp be found burning?
A terrible impediment awaits the night fugitive just ahead in the shape of the watchman’s box at the Munster-gasse corner yonder, if only it be in working order; but six nights out of seven it is a mere scrape, since Master Hunx, its sexagenarian occupant, has a custom, which he rarely breaks in upon, of composing himself to sleep immediately upon taking up the reins of office. And Providence rules that to-night shall be no exception. Hunx has been, moreover, drinking success to the Professor Dasipodius and the Horologe, and now sits blessedly impervious, lantern on knees, thunderously snoring inside his shelter; and rounding the angle of the Munster-gasse, the woman flits on noiselessly, under the garlanded triumph arches, from which a few fresh fragrant rose petals flutter down upon her clinging mud-sodden cloak. Courage! and still on—only a few paces now, for the goal lies before her dimmed and straining eyes. There! there, where the high north-eastern wall of Burgomaster von Steinbach’s house is overhung by an oriel window, lovely in its gracious intermingling of green fragile summer creeper, and everlasting carven stone foliage; and gemlike through its painted glass, shines the flame of the little silver lamp burning night and day in the oratory of the Burgomaster’s daughter. So, so—well done! and staggering to clutch hold of the wall’s deep stone bosses for support, with closed eyes, and gasping convulsive breaths, but a smile of infinite content on her white-drawn lips, that woman stands.