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Regina, or the Sins of the Fathers

by Hermann Sudermann · English · Gutenberg #33892 · 481,020 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Regina, or the Sins of the Fathers

Author: Hermann Sudermann

Translator: Beatrice Marshall


        
Release date: October 30, 2010 [eBook #33892]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33892

Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books


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Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books






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                                 Regina
                                   or
                        The Sins of the Fathers






                                 REGINA
                       OR THE SINS OF THE FATHERS


                                   BY
                           HERMANN SUDERMANN




                            _TRANSLATED BY_
                          _BEATRICE MARSHALL_




                   LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
                  NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMVII






                          COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY
                               John Lane.

                               *   *   *

                          COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
                           John Lane Company.






                                 REGINA
                       OR THE SINS OF THE FATHERS




                               CHAPTER I


Peace was signed, and the world, which for so long had been the great
Corsican's plaything, came to itself again. It came to itself, bruised
and mangled, bleeding from a thousand wounds, and studded with
battle-fields like a body with festering sores. Yet, in the rebound
from bondage to freedom, men did not realise that there was anything
very pitiable in their condition. The ground from which their wheat
sprang, they reflected, would bear all the richer fruit from being
soaked in blood, and if bullets and bayonets had thinned their ranks,
there was now more elbow-room for those who were left.

The yawning vacuums in the seething human caldron gave a man space to
breathe in. One great chorus of rejoicing from the Rock of Gibraltar to
the North Cape ascended heavenwards. Bells in every steeple were set in
motion, and from every altar and from every humble hearth arose prayers
of thanksgiving. Mourners hid their diminished heads, for the burst of
victorious song drowned their lamentations, and the earth absorbed
their tears as indifferently as it had sucked in the blood of their
fallen.

In glorious May weather the Peace of Paris was concluded. Lilies
bloomed once more out of lakes of blood, and from the obscurity of
lumber-rooms the blood-saturated banner of the _fleur de lys_ was
dragged forth into the light of day. The Bourbons crept from their
hiding-places, whither they had been driven by fear of Robespierre's
knife. They rubbed their eyes and forthwith began to reign. They had
forgotten nothing and learnt nothing, except a new catchword from
Talleyrand's _en tout cas_ vocabulary, _i.e_. Legitimacy. The rest of
the world was too busily engaged in wreathing laurels to crown the
conquerors, and filling up bumpers to drink their health in, to pay any
attention to this farce of Bourbon government. All eyes were turned in
a fever of expectancy towards the West, whence were to come the
conquering heroes, the laurel-crowned warriors who had been willing to
sacrifice their lives for the honour of wife and child, for justice,
and for the sacred soil of their fatherland. They had been under the
fire of the Corsican Demon, the oppressor whom they in their turn had
hunted and run to earth, till at last he lay in shackles at their feet.

When the victors began the homeward march, the German oaks were
bursting into leaf, soon to be laughingly plundered of their young
green foliage. On they came in swarms, first, joyous and lighthearted,
the pride and flower of the Fatherland, the sons of the wealthy, who,
as Volunteer Jaegers, with their own horses and their own arms, had gone
forth to the war of Liberation. Their progress through Germany was one
magnificent ovation. Wherever they came, their path was strewn with
roses, the most beautiful of maidens longed for the honour of winning
their love, and the most costly wines flowed like water. Behind them
followed a stream of Kossacks, riding over the German fields with a
loose rein. A year before, when they had galloped like a troop of
furies in the rear of the hunted remnant of the Grande Armee, the whole
country had greeted them as saviours of Germany. Public receptions had
been organised in their honour, hymns composed in their praise, and all
sorts of blue-eyed German sentiment was lavishly poured out on the
unwashed Tartar horde. To-day, too, they were conscientiously feted,
but the gaze of all true-hearted Germans was directed with intensest
longing beyond them, looking for those who were still to come, of whom
they seemed but the heralding shadows.

And at last these came, the men of the people, who had taken all their
capital, their bare lives, in their hand, and gone forth to offer it up
for the Fatherland. They advanced with a sound as of bursting trumpets,
half hidden by dense columns of dust. Not exalted and splendid
beings as they had often been painted in the imagination of the
"stay-at-homes," with a halo of diamonds flashing round their heads,
and a cloak flung proudly like a toga round their shoulders. No; they
were faded and haggard, tired as overdriven horses, covered with
vermin, filthy and in rags; their beards matted with sweat and dust.
This was the plight in which they came home. Some were so emaciated and
ghastly pale that they looked as if they could hardly drag one weary
foot after the other; others wore a greedy, brutalised expression, and
the reflection of the lurid glare of war seemed yet to linger in their
sunken, hollow eyes. They held their knotty fists still clenched in the
habitual cramp of murderous lust. Only here and there shone tears of
pure, inspired emotion; only here and there hands were folded on the
butt-end of muskets in reverent, grateful prayer. But all were welcome,
and none were too coarse and hardened by their work of blood and
revenge to find balm in the tears and kisses of their loved ones, and
to greet with hope the dawn of purer times. Of course it could not be
expected that passions which had been lashed into such abnormal and
furious activity, would all at once calm down and slumber again. The
hand that has wielded a sword needs time before it can accustom itself
to the plough and scythe, and not every man knows how to forget
immediately the wild licence of the camp in the hallowed atmosphere of
home.

Every peace is followed by a period of delirium. It was thus in Germany
in anno '14. That year, from which to this generation nothing has
descended but the echo of a unison of paeans, swelling organ-strains,
and clash of bells, was in reality more remarkable for tyranny and
crime than any year before or since. More especially was this the case
in districts where before the war the overweening arrogance and cruelty
of the French occupier had been most heavily felt. Here the beast was
let loose in man. The senses of those who stayed at home had been so
inflamed by the scent of blood from distant battle-fields, and the
smoke of burning villages, that they conjured up before their mental
eyes scenes of horror and devastation at which they had not been
present. Many thirsted for vengeance on secret wrongs, on acts of
cowardice and treachery as yet unexpiated. After all, it seemed
as if the awakened fervour of patriotism, the flowing streams of
freshly-spilled blood, could not suffice even now to wipe out the
memory of the shame and humiliation of previous years.

No one had any suspicion, then, that the Corsican vulture, set fast in
his island cage, was already beginning to sharpen his iron beak,
preparatory to gnawing through its bars, and that before his final
capture thousands of veins were yet to be opened and drained of their
blood.




                               CHAPTER II


One August day in this memorable year, a party of young men were
gathered together in the parlour of a large country house.

The oak table round which they were seated presented a goodly array of
tankards, and short, bulky bottles containing _schnaps_. Their faces,
flushed with brandy and enthusiasm, were almost entirely concealed from
view by the dense clouds of smoke they puffed from their huge pipes.

They were defenders of their country only lately returned home, and
were revelling in reminiscences of the war. There was that distinct
family likeness among them which equality in birth, breeding, and
education often stamps on men between whom there exists no tie of
blood-relationship.

Warfare had coarsened their honest, healthy countenances, and left its
mark there in many a disfiguring scar and gash. Two or three still wore
their arms in slings, and evidently none of them had as yet made up
their minds to lay aside the black, frogged military coat to which
they had become so proudly accustomed. For the most part they were
well-to-do yeomen belonging to the village of Heide and its outlying
hamlets, and though their homes were scattered they were united in a
strong bond of neighbourly friendship. Some still lived on their
fathers' patrimony, others had come into their own estate. It had never
been their lot to experience the pinch of poverty, to till the soil and
follow the plough, and so they had remained unaffected by the great
changes Stein's new code a few years before had brought about in the
position of the peasantry. In the spring, when the King's appeal to his
subjects had resounded through the land, they could afford to leave
their crops and, like the sons of the nobility, hurry with their own
arms and their own horses to enlist in the ranks of the volunteer
Jaegers.

Only one member of the little group apparently belonged to another
station in life. He occupied the one easy-chair the house boasted, an
ungainly piece of upholstery, much the worse for wear.

His face was pale, somewhat sallow in colouring. The features were
refined and delicately chiselled. The brown, melancholy eyes were
shaded by long black lashes, which when he looked down cast a heavy
fringe of shadow on his thin cheeks. Though he must certainly have been
the youngest of them all, having hardly completed his twenty-second
year, he looked like a man who had long ago ceased to take any pleasure
in the mere frivolities of life.

On his smooth, square brow were lines that denoted energy and defiance,
and in the blue hollows round his eyes lay traces of a past sorrow. He
wore a grey overcoat that seemed too narrow across the shoulders, and
beneath it a woollen shirt finely tucked, and ornamented with a row of
mother-of-pearl buttons. The only military thing about him was the
forage-cap bearing the Landwehr badge, which he had pushed on to the
back of his head, to prevent the hard edge pressing on the scarcely
healed wound which made a lurid streak on his forehead, close to where
the dark hair clustered in heavy masses.

He was the cynosure of all eyes. Every one waited anxiously for him to
take the lead in conversation. Next to him, on his right, sat a
muscular youth, not much older than himself, who regarded him with
unceasing and tender solicitude. To all appearances he was the host.
There was a patch of white plaster on one of his temples, but his
round, jovial face beamed radiantly nevertheless out of its frame of
unkempt fair hair that hung about his neck and throat in wildest
confusion.

"I say, lieutenant, you are positively drinking nothing," he exclaimed,
pushing the bottle nearer him. "Because you aren't used to our beer,
and still less used to our schnaps, there's no reason why you should be
shy of swilling that red stuff of which we have plenty to spare.... We
aren't rich, as you know, but if you stopped here till Doomsday we
could supply you every day with a bottle like that. Couldn't we, lads?"

The others assented, and pressed round him eagerly to clink their mugs
and liqueur-glasses against his cracked wine-glass.

A ray of gratitude and pleasure illumined momentarily the sad, pale
face.

"I knew," he said--"I knew that if I came here you'd make me feel at
home. Otherwise I should have gone on my way."

"That would have been kind of you, I must say," cried the host---"what
did we enter into our covenant of blood for, and swear to be true till
death after our first battle, don't you remember? In the church at ...
where was it? I never can pronounce the name of the cursed hole!"

"The hole was Dannigkow," answered the young stranger addressed as
"lieutenant."

"Ah, yes, that's it!" the host went on. "And do you imagine we went
through that little ceremony with the sole purpose of letting you avoid
us in future? Was it for that we chose you for our commanding officer,
and blindly followed you into the thickest of the fight? No, Baumgart,
there's no cement like blood and powder. So the devil take it, man, you
must promise to stay with us a bit, now we've got you----"

"Don't talk nonsense, old fellow, it is impossible," the lieutenant
replied, and blew thoughtfully on the purple mirror of his wine. But
his friend was not to be silenced.

"You needn't be frightened," he continued, "that we shall plague you
with curious questions. From the first we got into the way of looking
on you as a sort of mystery. When we others used to lie by the bivouac
fire and talk of our homes and parents, our sweethearts and sisters,
your lips were resolutely sealed as they are now. And if one of us
plucked up courage to ask you where you came from, and what you had
been before the war, you always got up and walked away. We gave up
questioning you at last, and thought to ourselves, 'He has gone through
a furnace, may be, that has spoilt his life, and what concern is that
of ours?' You were a good comrade, all of us can testify to that, and
what is more, the most fearless, the bravest.... Ah, well, the fact is,
that you had only to tell one of us to cut off his right hand, and he'd
have done it without a murmur. Isn't it true, lads?"

An exclamation of assent went round the table.

"For mercy's sake, say no more," said the young lieutenant. "I don't
know which way to look because of all this undeserved praise."

"Wait, I've more to say yet," the master of the house insisted on
continuing. "Once we were really almost angry with you. You know why
that was. During the armistice, shortly before we joined forces with
the Lithuanians under Platen and Buelow, you were in the guard-room one
evening, when you suddenly made a clean breast of it and announced that
you must go away. You said, 'Don't ask me the reason, lads. But believe
me, I can't help myself. The Landwehr wants officers. I know it is not
much of an honour to leave the Jaegers, for the Landwehr; but I'm going
to do it, all the same.' Those were your very words, weren't they,
Baumgart?"

The lieutenant nodded, and a bitter smile played round his lips.

"Tears were in your eyes as you spoke, otherwise one or other of us
would have asked you if that was all the thanks we were to get for the
confidence we had placed in you, to be deserted just then ... just when
we longed to show those Platen fellows what baiting the French really
meant.... We let you go without raising an objection, but our hearts
bled.... Afterwards we heard nothing of you, no news in reply to all
our inquiries; but I can tell you this much, we never ceased to talk of
you every night for months. We racked our brains to think what had
taken you away; speculated on where you were gone, and the like, till
the men who joined later and had known you got sick of it, and implored
us to give up talking about you, and to consign you to the Landwehr
refuse-heap once for all. So you see how we pined for you; and now,
after two days, you actually propose to turn your back on us again!
It's a long journey from the Marne to the Weichsel, and a solitary one
to walk, and your wounds still smarting. Stay and take a good rest, and
relate at your leisure what your adventures with the greybeards really
were, and how you came to be taken prisoner ... it must have been a
strange accident that betrayed _you_ into captivity?"

He glanced down with ingenuous pride at the iron cross which dangled
between the froggings of his coat. It had been bestowed on him in
reward for the intrepidity with which he had, unpardoned, hewn his way
out of a nest of French Hussars and regained his liberty.

The lieutenant's breast was bare of ornament. At the end of the
campaign, when a shower of decorations had rained down on the
victorious warriors, he had not been present to receive his share. A
painful sensation of being passed in the race, almost akin to shame,
swept over him. He pushed his cap farther on to his brow, and drew
himself erect in his chair, as if its fusty cushions threatened to
suffocate him.

"Thank you," he said, "for your kind intentions, but I must go to
Koenigsberg directly to report myself to the Commandant."

"I'm afraid you'll have some difficulty in finding him there," put in a
curly-headed young man with twinkling dark eyes, who wore his right arm
in a black sling.

"Don't you know that directly it came back the Landwehr was disbanded?"

"Even the staff is broken up," remarked another.

"Then I must try my luck with the Commissioner-General," replied
Lieutenant Baumgart. "I have more reason, perhaps, than any one else to
be extra careful that my discharge papers are in good order. At least,
I fancy so. I don't want the reproach to be fastened on me that I
sneaked out of the army secretly. So, please let me know as soon as you
can if there will be any conveyance going to-morrow to Koenigsberg?"

A storm of indignation arose. They all left their seats, some seizing
his hand, some forming a cordon round him, as if to prevent his
departure by physical force.

"Stay at least a little longer, lest the fete we are organising in your
honour should fall through," exhorted Karl Engelbert, the young host,
as soon as he could make his voice heard above the hubbub.

Baumgart turned to him with a quick gesture of inquiry.

"In _my_ honour?" he exclaimed. "Are you mad?"

"There's no getting out of it now," was the answer. "It was all settled
the day you turned up here. I despatched Johann Radtke at once with a
list of all the Jaegers in the country round who are at home. Then, you
know, we have representatives of six or seven regiments living about
here.... Especially did I impress on him that he was to go to
Schranden, where Merckel lives. Merckel," he added, "went over to the
Landwehr, too; for if he hadn't, he couldn't have made sure of his
lieutenancy. So there was more sense in his taking the step."

Baumgart at the mention of his name winced, but quickly recovering
himself, gripped convulsively the arms of the battered easy-chair, and,
with head bowed, listened in silence to what his well-meaning friends
had to say about the gala-day arranged in his honour. He gave up
protesting further, because he saw open resistance was useless. But the
uneasy glances he cast about him seemed to indicate that he was
meditating immediate flight.

His friends, however, did not observe his restlessness. After the
excitement of war which had stirred their blood out of its normal
channel, they found it irksome to subside into the ordinary routine of
private life, and hailed with delight any excuse for varying its
monotony with a few hours' roistering and dissipation. They were now
engaged in eagerly discussing the result of their messenger's mission,
whose return from Schranden, a few miles away, they had been expecting
hourly all the morning.

"I wonder," said Peter Negenthin, the youth with the black sling, "how
the Schrandeners are getting on with that fine landlord of theirs?"

Lieutenant Baumgart started and listened with all his ears.

"They set his house on fire long ago," remarked another. "For five
years he's been roosting among the blackened ruins like an owl."

"Why didn't he build his castle up again?" asked a third.

"Why? Because the peasants and farmers down in the village would have
thrashed any one at the cart-wheel who dared to work for him. Once he
tried getting labourers over from his foreign estates, thinking that as
they couldn't understand German it would be all right; ... but there
was a free fight one day down at the inn, and heigh presto!--the Poles
were hounded back to where they came from. Since then he hasn't made
any more attempts to cultivate his land."

"How does he live then?

"Who cares how he lives! Let him starve."

In the midst of laughter, mingled with growls of hate which this humane
remark had called forth from these doughty sons of the soil, the
anxiously awaited ambassador entered the room. He was a stoutly built
short man, whose straight fair hair, as yellow and bright as new
thatch, hung over his round face, which was the colour of a lobster
from exposure to the heat of the sun. Steaming with perspiration, and
breathless from his hurried ride, he seized the stone jug of monstrous
girth that stood in the middle of the table, before speaking a word,
and held it to his lips with both hands, where it remained so long that
it had at last to be torn away from his mouth by force, much to the
amusement of the company. After a fusilade of banter and jokes had been
discharged at him from all sides, he blurted forth his news. The idea
of the fete had, it seemed, been caught at with enthusiasm. Every one
in the neighbourhood was willing to lend his countenance to festivities
in honour of those who had done such splendid service in the cause of
German Unity. The only difference of opinion was as to where they were
to come off. The Schrandeners, with Lieutenant Merckel at their head,
declared that no spot on earth could be a more appropriate scene for
their celebration than their own village.

"Then you see, lads," explained the messenger, "the Schrandeners have
private reasons for being particularly gay just now. They are dancing
in front of their houses, and scarcely know whether they are standing
on their head or their heels. I'll tell you why. Perhaps you know that
little chorale that they've for the last seven years been singing in
church?

                 "_Our gracious Baron and Lord
                  Of Schrandeners' souls abhorr'd.
                  For the shame he's brought on our head,
                  O God, let the plague strike him dead._"

"Well, in a fashion their prayer has been answered. The betrayer of
their country, who never tired of cursing and damning them up hill and
down dale, and heaped on them every foul epithet he could lay tongue
to, may now lie and rot in a ditch for all they care. They have sworn
not to bury him."

Then arose excited shouts and eager questioning.

"Is he dead, the dog?

"Has the devil taken him to himself at last? Ha! ha! Bravo!"

Suddenly, above the din of voices, a grinding crunching noise was
heard. Baumgart's arm had clasped the back of his chair with such
vehemence that the long-suffering worm-eaten wood had collapsed. He sat
rigid and motionless, staring at the speaker with wide, strained eyes,
unconscious of the injury he had inflicted on the ancestral piece of
furniture. Then garrulous Johann Radtke proceeded--

"Yes, happily enough, they were the cause of his death at last. They
have never ceased to harass and torment him, and it was while they were
trying to demolish the Cats' Bridge that he had a stroke of apoplexy
from rage, and fell down foaming at the mouth."

"Lieutenant, have you ever heard of the Cats' Bridge?"

Still he neither moved nor uttered a word; only set his teeth on his
under lip, till it bled. As if turned to stone, he sat gazing fixedly
up into the speaker's face.

"It was by the Cats' Bridge that the French made the famous, or rather
I should say infamous, sortie which surprised the Prussians, and it was
the Baron who showed them the secret path which leads to it. You have
heard of the Schranden invasion, of course. It's recorded in every
calendar?"

The lieutenant nodded mechanically like a doomed man, who, swooning,
resigns himself to inevitable fate.

"The stroke took him before their very eyes," Radtke went on. "His
precious sweetheart, the village carpenter's daughter, the baggage who
lived with him, you know, threw herself on his body, for the Lord only
knows what liberties they might not have taken with it when their blood
was up."

"And now they refuse to bury him, you say?" interrupted the
good-natured Karl Engelbert, shaking his head meditatively. "Is such a
scandalous outrage as that allowed to pass unpunished in a Christian
country?"

Johann laughed scoffingly.

"The Schrandeners are like a flock of sheep. If one declines to pollute
his hands with bearing such carrion to the grave, all the rest decline
also. And who can blame them?"

"But," some one suggested, "suppose it came to the ear of the law?"

"The law! Ha, ha! Old Merckel is their magistrate, and he says, as far
as he is concerned, they might have flayed----"

He broke off abruptly, for with a smothered cry of pain, and a gesture
half threatening, half self-defensive, the young lieutenant had started
to his feet. He was whiter than the whitewashed wall behind him, and a
thin thread of crimson trickled from his blanched lips, over his chin.

"Stop, for God's sake!" he stammered in a strange muffled almost
inaudible voice, and those who caught his words shrank away in horror.

"He was my father!"




                               CHAPTER III


The moon had risen and flooded the tranquil heath with its soft bluish
radiance. Down in the marshes the alder-bushes were tipped with crowns
of light, and the white, slender trunks of the birches which flanked
the highway in interminable rows shone and shimmered, till the road
seemed to stretch away and lose itself between hedges of burnished
silver. Silence reigned everywhere. The last note of the birds' evening
chorale had long since died away. Peace, the peace of well-being,
peculiar to late summer, pervaded the wide-stretching level fields.
Even the grasshopper in the ditch, and a fieldmouse scurrying in alarm
through the tall blades of corn, hardly broke the stillness.

A traveller with staff and knapsack came along the road, gazing
absently before him, evidently oblivious of the magic of the moon-lit
landscape. It was the young lieutenant, on his way home to bury the
father whose memory was held in such universal detestation. His host
had put his best equipage at his disposal, but his comrade had firmly
refused to accept the offer, and he had been obliged to content
himself with accompanying his guest part of the way on foot. At parting
he had solemnly affirmed that the compact of eternal friendship that
they had entered into as brothers-in-arms after their first baptism
of fire would hold good now and always, "the sins of the fathers"
notwithstanding. Whenever he was in need of help and sympathy in the
future, he might rely on the good-will of him and his neighbours.

This was meant well, but brought no comfort to the young man's sore
heart. The allusion to "the sins of the fathers" stung him to the
quick. It sounded very much like an insult, yet an insult that he was
powerless to resent openly, as there was no shuffling off the incubus
of shame which, as his father's heir, now weighed on his innocent
shoulders.

Thus fiercely brooding he walked on, and pictures of the past
involuntarily rose before his mental vision. He had never loved his
father--the harsh, tyrannical man who flogged the peasants, whose
laughter was more terrible than his oaths, to whom he, his only son,
had been not much more than the pet dog that one minute was allowed to
bite his heels when he was in a good humour, only to be hurled across
the room the next with a savage kick. As long as he could remember,
the small muscular figure, the sallow face with its high cheek-bones,
coal-black goat's beard, and little keen grey eyes, had been the terror
of his childhood. His mother he had never known. She had succumbed, a
few years after his birth, to a long and tedious illness. It was
rumoured at the time, in the village, that her lord's ungovernable
passions had been the death of her--that his love was as terrible as
his hate.

Her picture had hung at the end of a long line of ghostly portraits in
the dimly-lighted picture-gallery with its vaulted roof, where one's
footsteps echoed uncannily between the stone walls, and where it was
possible to shiver with cold on the hottest summer day.... The picture
of a gentle, tired-looking woman with thin bloodless lips, and
half-closed lids that seemed to droop from sheer weariness and lack of
spirit.

Many a time, unseen, the boy had stood by the hour before this picture,
and waited--waited for the heavy lids to lift, that one warm ray of
maternal love might at last be shed into his lonely young life. He
would fold his hands in prayer, and lift a tear-stained face in eager
anticipation, while his heart beat for fear; but the picture never came
to life. Tired and slumberous as ever, as if already half-closed in
their last long sleep, the heavily shadowed, star-like eyes continued
to look down on him with a strange, cold, metallic gleam, till he could
bear it no longer, and would rush from the spot half distracted with
disappointment.

Not far from his mother's picture hung another still more
remarkable--the portrait of an exquisitely beautiful woman with
blue-black hair. The artist had represented her in the act of mounting
a horse. A red velvet cloak, embroidered with gold and bordered with
fur, hung over her left shoulder, and in her right hand, which was
covered with a long, wrinkled, gauntleted glove, she tenaciously
grasped her riding-whip. It was easy to imagine her bringing it down
with a will on the back of a _mauvais sujet_. The whole figure was
instinct with indomitable spirit and energy. Life glowed in the dark
eyes that flashed imperiously from the canvas, as if demanding the
homage of all who came within their radius. This was his grandmother in
her youth--the old lady whose shrill scolding tongue, and witch-like
appendages in the shape of gold-headed canes, liqueur-glasses, and
snuff-boxes, were indissolubly associated with the boy's earliest
memories. She had been the evil star of his house. Before her marriage,
one of the most admired beauties of the Polish Court in Saxony, she had
instilled into his father with the milk from her breast love for the
country of the Pole, so that he, a nobleman of German name and lineage,
living on German soil, grew up to hate the land of his birth, and to
set all his affections on the moribund chimera of Polish nationality.
Though he had married a German lady, he had not hesitated to give his
son a Polish name, which, to be doomed to bear at a time when the
spirit of hyper-sensitive patriotism was rampant in the land, seemed a
worse misfortune by far than being afflicted by some hereditary
disease.

But what was the innocent name of Boleslav compared with the indelible
disgrace that his father, through his insane infatuation for the Poles,
had since brought on him and his race?

And now he was dead, this father, and of the dead one should speak no
evil. Yet even as he repeated this truism to himself, the consciousness
of the stain with which he was branded, which no power on earth could
remove, overwhelmed him with acutest anguish.

Passionately he threw up his arms towards the soft, blue, star-spangled
heavens, as if he fain would demand that the soul of his father should
be instantly brought to judgment, no matter in what remote planet it
might be hiding.

Then came a reaction. His vehemence was succeeded by a gentler mood. He
flung himself on the damp, dewy grass by the roadside, and buried his
face in his hands. He felt he should like to cry. But his lids remained
dry and burning. The thought of his immediate future was almost more
than he could bear. He reflected that in a few hours he should find a
forsaken wilderness, a howling desolation, where once bathed in all the
rosy radiance of his boyish vision he had beheld a scene of sylvan
peace and beauty.

For though he had been a lonely, motherless boy, it would have been
wicked and ungrateful to maintain that even _his_ childhood had not had
its share of sunshine, and boasted its hours of unalloyed delight. Had
he not been allowed to roam where he listed, through field and forest,
untrammelled by conventions about meals and bedtime, as free to do as
he pleased as any Robin Hood or gipsy in Arcadia? When the soft May
zephyrs breathed on the shaking grasses, and the yellow butterfly
danced from flower to flower, he had lain on his back between the tall
blades and meadow-sweet, looking up into the blue sky, his day-dreams
undisturbed. He might have stayed there from morning till night; so
long as he was not hungry he did stay, and it mattered to no one.

If he took it into his head to wander off with the shepherd to the
distant moorlands, to partake of black bread from his wallet, and
quench his thirst at the babbling streams, who was there to prevent it?
He was his own master. Round the Castle, which commanded an extensive
view of the country, flowed the sparkling, merry river, in great
serpentine curves, between its wooded banks and green terraces. By the
river-side there was always something of interest going on. There the
grooms watered the horses, the tanner washed his skins, and the boys
winked from behind their fishing-rods at the servant-girls paddling
bare-legged in and out of the water. But greatest delight of all--when
the sun went down behind the alders, the stately wild deer would
venture cautiously out of the neighbouring thicket, climb down the
steep incline, through bush and briar, and thirstily lap up the
moisture with its parched tongue. Often it was necessary to lie in
ambush more than half-an-hour without moving so much as a hair to
witness this enchanting spectacle, otherwise it would have vanished
like a mirage. And what in the world could be more glorious than, when
the moon rose and cast a silver network on the ripples; when the alders
looked like white-veiled princesses, and the lively wenches sang over
their griddle snatches of plaintive song, to plunge into the depths of
the wood, and with a canopy of foliage overhead, and moonbeams dancing
round you, dream the night away, and wake to greet the dawn? He let his
hands fall from his face; and stared round him with vacant, wild eyes.
The fields lay white and still in the moonlight.

Only the tree under which he rested cast dark, jagged bars of shadow
over the peaceful landscape. A pitiful sound like the scream of a child
in distress arose in the distance. It came from a young hare that had
lost itself in the furrows, and frightened and hungry was crying for
its mother, little suspecting that every yell was but a fresh signal to
its murderers. He was thrilled with compassion for the sufferings of
dumb creation, as he rose and pursued his way.... Reminiscences still
kept pace with his footsteps.

Now it was his school-days that came vividly back to him--the time when
the old Pastor Goetz had undertaken his education, and the white
parsonage among the nut-bushes became his second home. No more vagabond
roamings now, for the grey-bearded, fiery-tempered old parson was a
stern disciplinarian, and kept his pupils in good order. There were ten
or twelve of them--boys and girls together;--children of the well-to-do
farmer class. He had, of course, never associated with the children of
the peasantry, who were allowed to run wild and grow up like young
cattle. This was not to be wondered at, considering the village
schoolmaster, an ex-valet of his father's, superannuated through drink,
spent most of the time that should have been engaged in teaching the
young idea how to shoot, in the various taverns of the neighbourhood.

Felix Merckel, son of the village innkeeper, was the one of his
comrades he remembered best--a strapping, unruly lad, who, at the age
of ten, wore top-boots and carried a gun, and whose tendency to bully
kept the whole school in subjection. Even Boleslav himself, though two
years younger, and of a retiring nature that had little in common with
the elder boy's somewhat bumptious temperament, was much influenced by
him. Yet his position as the squire's son was never lost sight of, and
Felix joined with his other schoolfellows in paying him a sort of sly
homage in deference to it. Felix was his mentor in all boyish
accomplishments. He taught him to swim, to row, to snare birds, to make
fireworks, to shoot rabbits, and even to plunder the poor peasants'
garden during church time on Sunday evenings. And though the fruit in
his own garden, which he was at liberty to pick whenever he liked, was
a thousand times sweeter and more luscious than the hard, sour stuff he
clambered after at the risk of breaking his neck, he could not
withstand the allurements of those secret raids. Afterwards he was
often seized with remorse on account of them, and was so heartily
ashamed of himself that he would pay back in the morning a hundredfold
what he had stolen over-night. Such acts of reparation, nevertheless,
were only received with scowls or smiles of malice, for the unfortunate
_canaille_ were compelled by benighted feudal laws to plough and delve
on his father's estates, and were sorely oppressed; therefore it was
only natural that the boy should reap to the full the harvest of bitter
hate sown by the father.

Of his other companions, especially of the girls, he had nothing but
the haziest recollection. There was, of course, _one_ exception. Her
bright image had floated before him, through all the pain and heartache
that had gradually darkened his whole existence, pain which even the
fascinations of war could not alleviate. It was her image, that like a
lodestar had led him into the thickest of the fight, and had not faded
from him as he lay wounded, and, as he believed, dying.

Intense longing for her had become identified with that vague yearning
after happiness which still sometimes possessed him, just as if his
chances of happiness had not, by his father's misdeeds, been
irretrievably ruined.

How this love had sprung up in his breast and grown apace, becoming
stronger every day, till at last the whole world seemed filled with its
reflection, he hardly knew himself.

As a child, the pastor's small daughter had always been distant in her
manner. The fresh, neat, fairylike little creature never could be
coaxed by any of them into jumping a ditch, even if the bottom was dry,
and was very particular at hide-and-seek not to allow her frocks to be
caught hold of lest "the gathers should go." Now and then, when they
were alone together, Helene would show off with pride the glories of
her doll's house, and point out that the tiny towels had hemmed edges
and a monogram. They would be getting quite confidential till, in an
outburst of boyish spirits, he was sure to do something rough or clumsy
which brought down on his head a gentle rebuke, and he was reminded of
the limitations of their friendship. Hurt and ashamed, he would
afterwards try to keep out of her way, but a smile of forgiveness never
failed to bring him to her feet, for there was a kind of sovereignty in
her little person that was not to be resisted.

Felix resented her power. He called her affected and a mollycoddle, and
teased her as only he could tease. She, on her part, had an aggravating
trick of turning up her nose and appearing to look down on him, though
he was a good head taller, which goaded him into tormenting her the
more, and ended in her running to her father, and with streaming eyes
begging that Felix might be punished.

At twelve years old, Boleslav left his birthplace. Some relations on
his mother's side, belonging to the old Prussian official nobility,
proposed to continue his education. His father had every reason to
congratulate himself at getting rid of him. The life he had led since
his wife died was scarcely of a character to bear the scrutiny of
innocent, questioning, childish eyes. The Baron was in the habit of
bringing back to the castle from his visits to the capital curious
company, chiefly women, and many a half-opened bud, indigenous to the
soil, had fallen an unwilling victim to his unbridled lust. Not that he
carried on his intrigues openly and unashamed. It was simply that in
his private life he refused to recognise the restraint of any moral
law, and, after all, what he did was only, for the most part, what his
fathers had done before him. Such amours were a part of the traditions
of his house, and were not likely to excite surprise or comment, unless
it were from the boy, who had occasionally been an involuntary witness
of assaults on virtue and heartrending appeals for mercy.

There were many other transactions besides these going on at the castle
that were not meant for his eyes. When the great Napoleon's call to
arms roused that miserable cat's-paw of European ambitions, the
lacerated country of Poland, from its death-throes, mysterious
movements were set on foot in every quarter where the peculiar hiss of
Polish speech was heard, and even extended so far as the unadulterated
German regions of East Prussia.

Foreigners with slim, supple figures, and sharply-cut features used to
arrive at Schranden Castle, driving through the village at express
speed in small carriages, and leave again in the middle of the night.
The post brought innumerable sealed packages bearing the Russian
post-mark; and for weeks together the Baron's study was locked against
all intruders. He himself became taciturn and pre-occupied, going about
like a man in a dream, actually permitting the stripes and weals on the
backs of his serfs to heal and fade away.

It was at this time that Boleslav migrated to his relations in
Koenigsberg. Afterwards, years passed calmly away, years in which he
grew in stature and developed in mind under the watchful care of the
widow of a former chancellor, who stood in the place of a mother to
him. All the leading families in the town opened their houses to him,
and by degrees the old familiar scenes and faces of his home became
little more than shadowy memories. His father's rare and hurried visits
only demonstrated how estranged he had become from his son, and how
little love was lost between them.

Then came that terrible winter in which the war-fury was let loose,
devastating the old Prussian provinces, and the victorious march of
Napoleonic cohorts resounded between the Weichsel and the Memel. Scores
of provincial fugitives sought refuge from the invaders within the
walls of Koenigsberg. Every house, from cellar to garret, was crammed
with human beings, and in the streets smouldered the bivouac-fires of
the soldiers who were camping out in the open air.

In the midst of war's alarms, to the accompaniment of beating of drums
and bugle-blasts, it was vouchsafed to Boleslav to dream for the first
time "love's young dream."

He had lately turned sixteen, and his upper lip was already shaded with
a pencilled line of down. He knew Horace's odes to Chloe and Lydia by
heart, and the passion which Schiller, who had recently died, had
cherished for his Laura was no longer a mystery to him. One January
evening on his way home from the gymnasium, as he crossed the castle
square where Russian and Prussian orderlies were galloping hither and
thither, he caught a glimpse of a pair of blue eyes which seemed turned
on him with an expression of friendly inquiry. He blushed, but when he
ventured to look round the eyes had vanished. The same thing happened
again the next evening. Not till it happened a third time could he
summon sufficient courage to watch more carefully and discover that the
eyes belonged to a fair young face, which could boast besides a
straight little nose, delicately curved lips, which naively smiled at
him. The face reminded him of an old altar-piece in the cathedral
representing the Virgin Mary standing in a garden of stiff white lilies
and short-stalked crimson roses. Of something else it reminded him too,
and it puzzled him to think what. He was racking his brains to
remember, when a rosy glow tinged the girl's fair cheeks, and the
charming lips opened.

"Boleslav!" they lisped. "Is it you?"

Now, of course, he knew.

"Helene, Helene! You!" he exclaimed joyously. Had she not bashfully
evaded him, he would have embraced her then and there in the middle of
the crowded square, regardless of spectators in the shape of giggling
servant-maids and ribald soldiers. They withdrew into a more secluded
street, and she told him that on the advance of the enemy her father
had sent her for the sake of safety to board with an old aunt, who had
set up an institution for the daughters of poor clergymen. Here she was
very happy, and was making the most of her time, studying French and
music, for she hoped that in the future she might render her father
assistance with his school, for it was not likely she would ever marry.

All this she related in a quiet, old-fashioned way, which excited his
respectful admiration, casting smiling side-long glances at him as she
talked. Of his father she could not tell him much; the last time she
had met him he had looked very fierce. It was some time since she had
had any news from home, because the French were quartered there; but
Felix Merckel was in Koenigsberg, and she saw him now and then. He was
apprenticed to a corn merchant, and thought himself quite the fine
gentleman. He wasn't likely to come to any good though, for he smoked
cigars and wore loud Turkish neckties. She ended by giving him leave to
call on her at her aunt's on Friday--Friday being the day for visitors
at the institution.

Then she tripped lightly away, swaying her slender limbs from side
to side, and as he watched her, he felt as if the Virgin in the
altar-piece had graciously condescended to appear to him in the flesh,
and was now returning to her lilies and crimson roses.

On Friday he pulled the bell of the institution and was admitted. He
did not find her, it is true, among lilies and roses, but there were
some plants of fuchsia and geranium in the room, whose faded, dusty
leaves made a pretty background to the girlish figure. The glow of the
winter sunset came through the diamond-pane windows, and spread a rosy
veil over her face. Perhaps, too, the pleasure of meeting an old friend
made her blush a little. The aunt, a toothless, antique spinster, with
patches and a powdered toupee, exhausted herself with curtseying and
compliments, and after regaling the distinguished visitor with
chocolate, in a bowl of superb old English china, vanished as
noiselessly as if the earth had swallowed her up. That was the first of
a succession of blissful, beatific Fridays.

Troops went forth to battle and returned, but he did not even notice
them. The thunder of cannons at Eylau reverberated through the town,
but he was deaf, and heard nothing. It often seemed to him, as he
looked up at the sky, that he must be lying far down in the depths of
the blue sea, and that the world in which he had lived before was
somewhere a long way off on the other side of the azure empyrean. But
that he still in reality belonged to that world, he was forcibly
reminded one Sunday afternoon, when the door of his attic-chamber,
where he was dreaming over his books, was boisterously flung open, and
his heaven invaded.

"Hurrah! my boy!" cried the intruder, with outstretched arms. "I've
been looking for you everywhere for a year past, and it's been as
difficult as searching for a needle in a bottle of hay. Even now I
mightn't have tracked you out if that pious little girl Helene had not
given me a hint of your whereabouts."

It was the harum-scarum Felix, and the Turkish necktie of which the
beloved had spoken, flapped over either shoulder in aggressive fly-away
ends.

Boleslav returned the greeting more heartily than a few weeks ago he
would have thought possible; since his meeting with Helene, the old
home and the old life had come back to him very distinctly, and his
heart felt drawn to this once inseparable friend of his boyhood.

Felix did not stand on ceremony, but threw himself on the sofa, and as
he stretched his legs on the leather cushions looked round him in
amazed admiration. The room seemed to him the embodiment of luxury and
magnificence.

"You are domiciled here like a prince in the 'Arabian Nights,'" he
exclaimed; "that's what comes of being born a _Junker_, I suppose. I
wish I was. Such as we have to rough it, and----"

He paused in order to shoot through his front teeth a stream of
dark-brown saliva, a habit he had learnt from the sailors on the quays.
After this, he frequently visited Boleslav's sequestered retreat,
devoured the dainties his aunt sent up to him, borrowed money and
books, and initiated him in the mysteries of life at the water's edge.
In short, he conducted himself as do most "men of the world" between
fifteen and nineteen years of age, who are apt to gain an ascendency
over deeper and more thoughtful natures than their own.

Boleslav sometimes thought of making him his confidant in his love
affair, but never, when it came to the point, could find the right
words in which to express himself. So his secret remained, as he
thought, buried in his heart of hearts. But one day Felix astounded him
by saying--

"Don't think I am blind! I have discovered some time ago that you are
head over heels in love with a certain little prude. She's pretty
enough, but a bit too good for me."

The blood mounted swiftly and angrily to Boleslav's brow, and he
demanded with dignity that henceforth no disrespectful word be spoken
of the fair Helene in his presence. And Felix, though he made a
contemptuous grimace, was careful not to offend again by any jibing
allusion to his love.

Later he announced his intention of enlisting in the English navy as a
midshipman, that he might be "revenged on the tyrant of his downtrodden
Fatherland," as he expressed it, and Boleslav looked up to him in
consequence with a profounder reverence than ever.

Then a day came when this friend passed him in the street without
bestowing on him a shake of the hand, or even a nod. Only a scornful
shrug of the shoulders indicated that he had seen him at all. Utterly
disconcerted, he gazed after the rapidly disappearing figure that
seemed anxious to get out of his way as quickly as possible.

What could be the meaning of this extraordinary behaviour? The same
evening, with tears pouring down his face, he wrote asking for an
explanation. Before there was time for an answer, a messenger brought
him a parcel of books and a note that ran as follows:--


"_To His Hochgeboren Herrn_
        _Boleslav von Schranden_.

"Having become apprised of events that have recently taken place in
Schranden, I consider that it would be beneath my dignity, and contrary
to all my patriotic principles, to continue our intercourse. The books
you have lent me are therefore returned. The money will follow in due
course as soon as I have earned the same. Meanwhile the messenger will
hand you five silver groschens.--In humble submission, your
Hochgeboren's obedient servant,

                                   "Felix Merckel."


Boleslav felt as if some one had struck him a blow from behind. He was
so bitterly humiliated that for a whole day he daren't look any human
being in the face. At last he resolved to tell Helene of his trouble,
in the hope that she might be able to give him tidings that would at
least end his fearful suspense. She had forbidden him to speak to her
in the street, because she considered such meetings out of doors
unnecessary and improper, as he was allowed to call at the institution.
Yet, in spite of her veto, he waylaid her and showed her Felix's
letter. As usual, she smiled sweetly and consolingly, but could throw
little light on the matter. The last time she had heard from her
father, the letter had been full of nothing but the unfortunate
engagement which had taken place in the wood near Schranden, when the
Prussian soldiers had been completely routed. That had been in all the
newspapers. There was only one means of learning the whole truth.
Helene could walk along by the river's bank, where the clerks from the
great warehouses lounged away their spare time, and make inquiries of
Felix. This she consented to do, though reluctantly; and he, in a fever
of anxiety, waited for her return on one of the bridges.

"He does think too much of himself!" she said, as she came back slowly
from her errand, the colour deepening in her cheeks. "And so they all
do, these merchants' clerks. It's not likely that I should allow any of
them to make love to me!"

She smiled, and hid her burning face in the blue silk reticule she
always carried.

"But you needn't mind him, dear Boleslav. Since he has determined to go
as a midshipman, he has got love for the Fatherland on the brain."

"How have I interfered with his love for the Fatherland?" asked
Boleslav. "Don't I abominate that bloodhound Bonaparte as much as he
does?"

Helene was silent, and gathered the folds of her cloak closer about her
slender limbs, to keep out the bitter winter wind. Then she continued--

"You may rely on me. I will never bear a grudge against you for it."

"For what? Good God, tell me at once!"

And then at last the mystery was cleared up.

"You mustn't take it too much to heart, dearest Boleslav. At home in
the village they all say that your father showed the French the path by
the Cats' Bridge in the middle of the night, so that they might
surprise the Prussians; and that gipsy-looking Regina, the carpenter's
daughter--you remember the little curly-headed thing who was at school
with you and me--she confessed it, because it was she who really led
the way. And now the people call your father the betrayer of his
country, and refuse to work for him any more, and have burnt down his
house."

Ah! so that was it. Now he knew all. In that hour his life's budding
joys and hopes were withered like the blossoms of a tree struck by
lightning in May. How intolerable were these memories of darkest hours
of silent torture-hours in which he was oppressed with a sense of
crime, and when shame literally consumed him!

It was some time before the news of the betrayal was openly spoken
about in Koenigsberg. Months passed before the first signs that it had
become known manifested themselves, and during these months his whole
character underwent a complete change.

His glance became shifty and uneasy, his colour often forsook him. Shy
and awkward he withdrew himself more and more from society, and
frequented none of his old haunts. He would start and tremble at every
word unexpectedly addressed to him. Then came days when the masters
at the gymnasium began to look askance at him, and the pupils to shun
him--days in which his aunt kept her room to escape his morning
greeting, and the family sat in conclave behind closed doors, when the
servants began to set his orders at defiance, and from time to time
spat on the ground as they passed his door.

So he watched it creeping on, nearer and nearer, the cold, clammy
monster, that, snake-like, was to bind his limbs and freeze the blood
in his veins. He watched its wriggling progress, heard the gloating
hiss of its approach, and defenceless, paralysed, he stared it stonily
in the face, lacking the courage to cry out, or even to moan.

He had lost Helene too. Not through any fault of hers. She had still
allowed him to go on pulling the institution bell on Fridays as if
nothing had happened, and had been friendly as ever, and had even tried
to distract his thoughts from the painful subject on which they
incessantly brooded, with mild little jokes. But was it because he was
himself so altered that he could only see the rest of the world through
a distorting mist of shame, or had she really, since that day of the
revelation, adopted a tone of pitying compassion towards him? Anyhow,
he became more and more embarrassed in her presence, and dared not meet
her eye.

One day, instead of Helene, the old schoolmistress received him alone.
She curtseyed and grinned as usual, and assured him, a hundred times at
least, that she was his humblest servant; but what she proceeded to
unfold seemed to Boleslav the last straw. Her dear nephew, the _Herr
Pastor_, she stuttered, thought it best that the intimacy between his
daughter and the young nobleman should terminate, and in order that
there should be no further temptation to continue it, had decided to
remove her instantly from the town of Koenigsberg. A note sealed with
blue sealing-wax contained Helene's farewell:--


"Dear, Dear Boleslav,--My father commands me to give up my friendship
with you. I must obey him. Good-bye. I shall always be fond of
you----always. I swear it. Your

                                   "Helene."


Six hastily scribbled lines! Were these to be his food and drink
through a life of longing and renunciation? Yet had he any right to
expect more? Had she not promised to be true, and to hold to him though
everyone else had cast him off? From that time forward she became for
him transfigured and a saint. Her face became more than ever identified
in his imagination with that of the Madonna he had seen in the
Cathedral, and whenever he pictured her he beheld her adorned with an
aureole, and surrounded by lilies and roses.

Had it not been for his extreme youth, energy and self-reliance might
possibly have helped him over the abyss of enervating grief; but a
habit of childlike respect, a latent instinct of veneration, put the
idea of asking his father to explain what had happened, much less of
calling him to account for it, out of the question. It was his
unexpected appearance on the scene that at last roused in him a spirit
of revolt.

He was now seventeen, and would have been ready to pass into the
university, even if the authorities of the gymnasium had not repeatedly
hinted that his withdrawal would be in every way desirable. Even his
kindly aunt, who had carefully avoided referring to the rumour through
which she herself suffered keenly, had, as mercifully as she knew how,
spoken to him about the advisability of his going somewhere else to
finish his studies.

Under other circumstances, his pride, his zeal for fair play and his
own honour, would have rebelled against this unjust dismissal. But now,
in his unspeakable bitterness, he cherished only one wish, and that was
to hide away somewhere with his disgrace, and be seen by no human eye.

And in this mood he stood one day face to face with his father.

The baron had come to town, to call in the aid of the law in dealing
with his rebellious peasants, but had found every door shut in his
face. His fury knew no bounds; he appeared to have lost all control
over himself, and his demeanour was one of desperate defiance.

At the sight of the short, stubborn figure, the bull-neck and the grey,
fiery eyes rolling in their red sockets, Boleslav was seized with the
old boyish terror. He had to pull himself together with a tremendous
effort before he could bring the fatal question over his lips.

"Father, is it true what people are saying, that----"

Suspicion blazed up in the small grey eyes.

"Eh?--what are people saying?" he interrupted.

"That it was through you that the French found out the path by the
Cats' Bridge."

"And what if it was through me, you Hottentot? What if I did avenge the
wrongs of the down-trampled Pole on this pack of cowardly Russian
thieves? These hulking, stupid, lazy serfs, who would only get their
deserts if the great Napoleon extirpated them altogether from off the
face of the earth. Don't gape at me like that, clown! What I did was
done as a sacred duty. Heavily chained, scourged human beings cried out
imploringly to me, 'Save us, save us!' I could not save them, it is
true; that work was reserved for a greater than I--but I could at least
_help_, help him, who like an avenging angel swept over Europe and laid
it waste--help to annihilate a handful of ruffians I saw providentially
delivered into my hand."

As he held forth thus, his short figure seemed to grow. His eyes
flashed fire. The demon of fanaticism that so strongly resembles
inspiration, its angelic sister, enveloped him in its red-hot, glowing
mantle.

Boleslav shrank away, trembling. He felt keenly, how completely every
tie between him and this man was now severed.

"Let them whisper, and nudge each other as I pass," he continued, "and
make faces; what the devil do I care? They daren't do it so long as the
Corsican lion held them in his claws. And after all, who is to prove it
against me? If it hadn't been for that fool Regina, who let her father
hunt her down in the Bockshorn, every one would naturally have supposed
that General Latour, with his inventive brain, had found out the way
over the river and through the wood of his own accord. As it is, the
wretches are all at my throat.... The peasants are no longer to be
brought to heel with the knout. They've always been so fond of me, you
see. If what the papers say is true, and the king is willing to let the
mutiny continue, they'll lynch me, as sure as fate. You will have good
cause to congratulate yourself on your succession, my boy!"

Those were the last words his father had ever spoken to him, for the
conversation which had taken place in his own study, was interrupted at
this point by the entrance of his aunt.

The aristocratic old lady recoiled from the touch of the Baron's red
muscular hand as from that of some poisonous reptile. But mastering her
repugnance, she asked for a few minutes' private talk with him.

What decision they came to over his future he was never to know, for
even before the short interview had elapsed, his former life already
lay behind him like a nightmare, and he stood in the street and
reflected through which of the city-gates he should wander out into the
wide world. Finally, the goal of his travels proved to be a small
property in a remote corner of Lithuania, where he found rest in hard
work, and an opportunity of fitting himself for the duties of a landed
proprietor.

Years went by. For him they meant unremitting labour for his daily
bread--a struggle for existence full of hardships, which, however,
could be engaged in without shame, or any wounding of his _amour
propre_. For now he no longer bore the abhorred name of his fathers. If
at the same time he only could have cast off, like a soiled garment,
the host of bitter recollections with which it was associated, he would
have been happier. But consciousness of the infamy that clung to the
discarded name remained ever present. Love for his country, which
hitherto had only slumbered in his heart, now bounded into full life.
The passion of patriotism grew and grew, till it became a tormenting
demon which scourged him with scorpions, drove the blood from his face,
the sleep from his eyes, and heaped the guilt of Prussia's misfortunes
on his shoulders.

Only once during this time did news of his home reach him. That was
when he read in a Koenigsberg news-sheet that Schranden Castle, which
had enjoyed such an unenviable notoriety in the winter of 1807, had
been burned down with all its outlying buildings. Then he had folded
his hands, and a sound had escaped his lips like a prayer of
thanksgiving.

Expiation! expiation! must be the watchword of his soul.

But as yet nothing could be expiated. Still the unhappy Fatherland lay
crushed beneath the heel of the dictator. Then came the downfall of the
Great Army on the snow-covered plains of Eastern Europe, and the rising
of Prussia quickly followed.

Now the hour had come. His hour! He would die--give his life for the
Fatherland, and expiate his father's sin with his own blood.

In the volunteer Jaeger Baumgart, who rode into Koenigsberg on the 5th of
March 1813, no one recognised the youthful Baron von Schranden, who,
just five years before, had fled from the town unable to face the
dishonour brought upon his name; and there were many now hailing him
with shouts and cheers of welcome, who then would have driven him out
with stones and brickbats.

He attached himself to a cluster of intrepid sons of the soil, from
whose mouths the dialect of his lost home fell familiarly and musically
on his ear. He became their friend and their leader, till suddenly a
well-known face cropped up in the camp, the sight of which immediately
drove Lieutenant Baumgart out of it.

Felix Merckel, he knew too well, would not have hesitated to betray him
to his comrades, and to inform them who it was that led them to battle.

What followed was like a ghastly confused phantasmagoria, in which
bloodshed, salvoes, and death-rattles played their part. Why had he not
died? How had he lived through it? These were the questions he asked
himself on first regaining consciousness and opening his eyes on the
world, after lying for months between life and death. For him, then, no
French sabre had been sharpened, no French bullet fired.

The one complete atonement his conscience told him it was in his power
to make had been denied him. Was a heavier one awaiting him now, as he
drew near the dusky woodlands of his birthplace in the dim, grey dawn
of day?




                               CHAPTER IV


It was eight o'clock in the morning, and already the rays of the sun
had strengthened, as Boleslav left the wild tangle of the forest behind
him, and beheld his home stretched out at his feet.

He had not set eyes on it for ten years. His first fierce impulse now
was to shake his fist at the village which lay there so hypocritically
idyllic in the calm of early morning, with its white toy cottages set
in bowers of green bushes, its curls of blue-grey smoke, and opalescent
slate church spire rising peacefully against the sky.

Beyond were the magnificent groups of old trees with dark, almost black
foliage and yellowish trunks belonging to the Castle park, which sloped
away on the eastern side of the hill. But the Castle itself, that had
crowned the hill with its shining battlemented twin-towers, and had
queened the landscape far and wide--where was it? Had the earth opened
and swallowed the imposing structure whole? For a moment he was
startled and shocked at its total disappearance. Then he remembered.
How stupid it was to have forgotten! They had burnt it down, razed it
to the ground.

Many and many a time he had thought of that deed of violence, which had
laid waste the inheritance of his fathers, with a sort of grim
satisfaction. But now, when he saw with his bodily eyes the scene of
the conflagration, he felt sullen resentment rise in his heart.

"Incendiaries! Accursed incendiaries!" he cried, and once more shook
his fist at the homesteads of his enemies. _His_ enemies? Yes, in the
flash of a moment it seemed clearly demonstrated that his father's
enemies must be his enemies. Had he not inherited them, together with
these woods and fertile valleys, with yonder smoked, blackened heap of
ruins (he now noticed it for the first time) that reared itself like
the mighty hand of a giant calling down the wrath of Heaven--together
with that awful crime, which no one on earth hated more than he did,
from which no one had suffered as he had suffered.... And though,
instead of filial love, he had cherished nothing but a sensation of
paralysing fear towards his father, though for years he had
deliberately cut himself adrift from ties of kindred, and the
performance of duties that custom and civilisation impose on those who
are destined to hand down an ancient name and inherit vast estates--in
spite of it all, the fact remained that it was his father's blood
flowing in his veins, and he felt it at this moment coursing through
them tumultuously, and rising in hot anger at the wrong that had been
done his race.

A wild gleam shone in his eyes as he fumbled with his left hand for the
leather case strung over his shoulder, from which obtruded the
burnished knobs of a pair of cavalry pistols.

"Won't bury him!" he murmured through his clenched teeth, clasping the
pistols close. "Won't bury him, indeed! We shall see!" And with a
bitter, mirthless laugh, he walked resolutely down into the village.

The one long straggling street lay before him, deserted and basking in
the brilliant sunshine. The cart-ruts in the rich clay soil shone as if
they had been glazed; bottle-glass and rags from old besoms filled the
interstices to prevent the accumulation of stones. On either side of
the road stood the thatched cottages of the peasants, shaded by limes
and chestnuts, some of whose leaves were even now beginning to look
autumnally sere and yellow. These peasants had formerly been under the
jurisdiction of the Castle, and only since the new rural laws came into
force had been relieved of their service and joined the freemen.

Here and there he saw a new fence painted in glaring colours, as if the
owner wished to mark off his recently acquired possession from the rest
of the inhabited globe. In other respects the new _regime_ had left
everything much the same. Sunflowers and herbs bloomed in the front
gardens as they had always done; damp mattresses hung out of the
windows to air just as of old. Only the number of taverns had
increased. Boleslav counted three, whereas once the Black Eagle had
reigned supreme and met all the requirements of the place.

Nearer the church were the white houses of the free artisans, burghers
as they were called, who paid to the Castle ground-rent, and therefore
enjoyed the privilege of cultivating their own vegetable plots as they
pleased. There were a couple of blacksmiths with the sign of a
horseshoe over the entrance of their forges, two or three cobblers, a
wheelwright, a basketmaker, and a----

He paused and let his eyes rest on a dilapidated tumble-down hovel, the
most wretched in the whole row. A dirty green shield hung over the
door, bearing the almost obliterated inscription--


                           "HANS HACKELBERG,
                   CARPENTER AND PARISH UNDERTAKER."


A coffin, also painted green, supported by pillars, loomed down on the
neglected garden, and gave to those who couldn't read, the necessary
information. At the sight of it an incident long forgotten occurred to
Boleslav with extraordinary distinctness. He saw again a little untidy
girl with great, dark, tearful eyes and a tangled cloud of black, curly
hair flying about her face and shoulders in wild dishevelment. She had
clung to this garden gate with one hand, while with the other she held
the corner of her blue print pinafore convulsively pressed against her
bosom. A pack of village hobbledehoys were pelting her with sticks and
stones. He was not much taller than she was, but at his approach the
little crowd made way for him, shy and awestruck. For he was the "young
_Junker_," who had only to lift his finger, they thought, to bring down
blessings or curses on their heads.

"What is going on here?" he had asked, whereupon the persecuted child
had humbly advanced, and opened her pinafore just wide enough for him
to get a glimpse inside.

"Beasts! They wanted to take it away from me!" she had exclaimed,
lifting her wet eyes to his, blazing with indignation.

A poor unfledged sparrow, which somehow or other had fallen out of the
nest, reposed in the pinafore.

"Give it to me," he had demanded, for he loved young birds; and
obediently she had held out her pinafore for him to snatch it away. As
beseemed a lordling, he had not said thank you, or troubled himself
further about the giver.

And that was _she_--the girl who, it was said, had shown the French the
path by the Cats' Bridge, and had lived with his father as his mistress
to the last.

Why had he defended her then? Why had he prevented the pack hunting her
down? One blow on the forehead from a stone might then and there have
cut short her mischievous career!

He walked on. Now and then a dull, dirty face peered at him curiously
through the small, dark window-panes, or a cur barked. But he passed
unmolested through the village. It was unlikely enough that any one
would recognise him. The parsonage came in view with its shady veranda,
trim flower-beds, and nut-trees. It looked as quiet and peaceful as on
that morning long ago, when, with a sigh of relief at escaping from
the pastor's stern rule, he had seen it for the last time from the
post-chaise, and Helene had waved him farewell with her little cambric
handkerchief. With lowering brow he now took a short cut that he might
avoid passing it. It seemed as if Helene must still be standing on the
lawn waving her handkerchief. But what if she had been there? It would
have been impossible for him to go to her. A path on his left led down
to the river, which divided the Castle domain from the villagers'
territory. As he turned into it he became aware of the frightful
ravages the fire had made. Instead of the long line of barns and
stables which had been ranged on this side of the river stood a row of
ruins, falling walls and scorched beams, grown over with celandine and
valerian. Beyond could be seen, through gaps in the walls, the
courtyard, now a weedy, grass-grown rubbish heap, and on the summit of
the hill, behind a lattice formed of the leafless branches of dead
elms, a black ruined mass of fantastically jagged brickwork--all that
remained of the once proud Castle.

His arms fell heavily to his sides. A sound escaped him like a sob, a
sob for vengeance.

He dragged his way laboriously along the banks of the river to the
drawbridge, which was the main mode of access to the island; for, since
his grandfather's time, the whole of the Castle grounds had been, by
means of an aqueduct, practically converted into an island. The
drawbridge, at least, was still _en evidence_. It looked like a remnant
of antiquity as it hung with its grey projecting timbers on its black,
clumsy buttresses, at the foot of which the ripples broke with a
gurgling sound. The rusty chains were tightened, and between _terra
firma_ and the floating edge of the bridge was a space of about three
feet, which could be jumped with ease. Some one had evidently tried to
draw it up, and failed in the effort.

Boleslav sprang over and passed through the stone gateway, whose
nail-studded doors, half-burnt, were thrown back on their hinges.
Suddenly he heard a sharp clicking sound at his feet resembling the
snap of a bowstring. He stopped, and saw, to his horror, the iron
semicircle of a fox-trap half-buried in the rubbish, and carefully
covered with birch-broom. The long pointed teeth of the iron jaw had
closed on each other in a tenacious grip. By a miracle he had escaped
an accident which might have laid him up for many weeks.

Feeling the ground with his stick, he pursued his way more cautiously
through the refuse and litter, amongst which he came across
occasionally a disused waggon or the rotten barrel of a brandy cask
held together by iron hoops. He went on, up the hill to the Castle. The
path was overgrown with brambles as tall as himself, and again he came
on traps, their wide open maws greedily eager to seize him by the leg.
The whole place seemed strewn with them--the only signs of civilisation
he had as yet encountered.

The Castle lay before him, with yawning window-frames and sundered
walls, a complete ruin. Piles of fallen tiles and plaster, between
which rank grass and weeds had sprung up, formed a mound round its
foundations. The vestibule, with its drooping rafters, had become a
perfect bower of creepers and evergreens, whose luxuriant growth seemed
almost impenetrable. A white tablet hung among the leaves, on which, in
his father's handwriting, were the words, "_Caution to trespassers_."

He shuddered at this, the first trace he had seen for six years of the
man to whom he owed his existence, and whom he had now come to bury.

In a few moments he would be standing probably beside his corpse.

But how was he to find it? What resting-place could his father have
found here while yet alive?

No door or unbroken window, no signs of a human habitation, were
visible amidst all this fearful wreckage. He turned, and walked slowly
the length of the Castle facade, past the towers which flanked the
gabled roof; here over the blackened stonework the ivy had begun to
grow afresh, enshrouding it in a peaceful melancholy. From this point
his eye caught a vista of the park, with its giant timber and wealth of
undergrowth. And then he saw a few yards off, on the grass-plot where
once had stood the statue of the goddess Diana, of which nothing now
was left but the shattered fragments and pedestal, a woman.... A
slender, strongly-built woman, with long plaits of dark curling hair
hanging down her back. Her primitive costume consisted of a red
petticoat and a chemise. She was digging energetically with a heavy
spade in the dark rich soil, and was apparently too engrossed to notice
his approach. She set her naked foot at regular intervals, as if
beating time on the hard edge of the spade, and with the slightest
possible pressure drove it deep into the earth. As she dug she sang a
song on two notes, a high and a low, which welled out of her full
breast like the sound of a sweet-toned bell. The chemise, a coarse and
roughly made garment, had slipped off her shoulders, laying bare the
strong, magnificently moulded neck. When he addressed her, she drew
herself erect with a sudden movement of surprise and alarm, and stood
before him half naked.

She turned on him a pair of lustrous, large dark eyes. "What do you
want here?" she asked, grasping the spade tighter, as if intending to
use it as a weapon of defence. Then lifting her other arm she calmly
raised the chemise over her shapely bosom.

"What do you want?" she repeated.

Still he did not answer. "So this is she," he was thinking, "the
traitress, the courtesan, who---- Should he point his pistol at her,
and drive her instantly from the island, so that the ground he trod on
might at least be clean?"

Meanwhile his bearing seemed to have convinced her of the peacefulness
of his intentions.

"This is no place for strangers," she went on. "Go away again at once.
You are lucky not to have been caught in a wolf's trap."

She stood, drawn to her full height, and waved him off. Then gradually
she became confused under his searching glance, and regarded him
nervously out of the corners of her eyes. Tossing back the black tangle
of hair from her sunburnt cheeks, she began to fidget with her
inadequate garment, seeming conscious for the first time of her
half-nude condition.

"Show me his corpse!" he asked imperatively.

She started and stared at him for a moment with astonished, questioning
eyes, then threw herself weeping at his feet.

"_Gnaediger Herr_!" she murmured, in a voice stifled with emotion.

He felt her fingers seeking his hand, and pushed her violently from
him.

"Show me his corpse!" he commanded again, "and then you may go."

She rose slowly, kicked the spade away with her foot, and led the way
down to the park. As they neared some bushes she turned round and said
timidly, "There's a trap here." He stepped quickly to one side,
otherwise he would have walked straight into the snare. She held
back the brambles of the thicket through which they were making their
way, to prevent the thorns scratching his face. They came to a clearing
in the wood where stood a small one-storied cottage with a tall
chimney, surrounded by broken hot-house frames and lime heaps. It was
the gardener's house, in which as a boy he had often played with
flower-pots, seeds, and bulbs; the one solitary building the ravages of
the fire had left untouched, because the incendiary had been unable to
find his way to it.

Again his guide warned him. "Take care! That is dangerous," she said,
pointing to a heap of earth like a mole-hill. "Whoever steps on it is a
dead man," she added half to herself. He knelt down, and with his hands
dug out the bomb that lay concealed in the soft earth, and hurled it
with all his might far away, so that it exploded with a loud report
against the trunk of a tree. She cast a shy, half-scandalised glance at
him over her shoulder, for to her what he had done was an act of
desecration.

Then she opened the door, and he found himself in a dark passage. The
cottage had only two rooms. The one on the left of the front-door had
been the gardener's dwelling-room, the other his workshop.

From the former, the door of which stood ajar, issued a powerful death
odour.

He went in. A body veiled in white lay on a low bier in the middle of
the close, gloomy little room.

"Leave me," he said, without looking round, and he threw back the
cloth.

His father's rigid features, covered with bristles, stared up at him.
The eyes had sunk far back in his head; the brows were contracted. In
the hollows of his cheeks bushy black hair had sprouted, while the
beard had turned partially grey. The short, thick nose had shrunk, and
close to the firmly-shut lips that had not parted in death lay a deep
line, denoting intense suffering, and, at the same time, defiant scorn;
as Boleslav looked down on it, the line seemed to deepen still more,
and at last to quiver and play round the mouth that was still for ever.

He dropped on his knees, and, with folded hands, prayed a paternoster.
His tears fell fast, and rained heavily on the waxen face of the dead
man.

"Your guilt is my guilt," he whispered hoarsely. "If I don't defend
your memory, who else will? No one in all the world."

Then he covered up the body again with the white cloth, for flies were
swarming round it. As he turned away, he observed the girl's dark head
pressed against the foot of the bier. Her symmetrical neck and
shoulders shone out in relief from the shadowy background.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded roughly. She crouched down,
shivering, and raised her left shoulder, as if to ward off a threatened
blow. Her eyes flashed a warm ray through the masses of her curly hair.

"No one has ever driven me away from him before," she murmured.

"But _I_ drive you away," he answered with decision.

She rose and quietly vanished. He tore open a window, for he felt half
suffocated, and then took a survey of the apartment. It was small and
wretched enough, and was filled up without any attempt at arrangement
with the most inappropriate and heterogeneous assortment of furniture,
most of it evidently rescued in haste from the fire; a gold-legged
table harmonised ill with rickety kitchen chairs; a peasant's canopied
bed stood near gorgeous consoles of inlaid marble, and a cracked
Venetian mirror hung beside a bullfinch's simple wicker cage. But
nothing looked more out of its element than the life-size portrait of
the beautiful Pole, his grandmother, and the original cause of all the
evil that had befallen him. Her haughty, arrogant eye still pierced the
distance triumphantly; the small gloved hand still grasped the flexible
riding-whip. "Kneel, slave," the full proud lips seemed to say. Only
the diamond pin which used to glitter in her bosom like a star was
gone, for just there the colour had warped, and the grey canvas beneath
was exposed to view. The once elegant and artistically carved frame
representing a garland of gilded roses and cupids had suffered too,
being chipped and cracked in various places, where patches of coarse
orange paint had been daubed on to repair the damage.

"Probably he took every care to save that first," thought Boleslav, and
had not the presence of his father's corpse restrained him, he would
have pulled it down from the wall, and trampled it under foot.

A case containing arms stood in a corner. The newest and most costly of
shooting weapons were ranged there, including every variety of pistol,
sword, and spear. Above it was unrolled a plan of the Castle island,
showing the spots where ingeniously contrived man-traps, mines, and
spring-guns awaited the trespasser--roughly calculated, there were over
a hundred of them.

Boleslav shuddered. Surely this unhappy man had been punished enough
for his misdeeds in the life he had been compelled to lead during his
last few years on earth! Caged up like a hunted wild beast, his
murderous contrivances were a perpetual source of menace to himself,
for to have forgotten for a moment the position of one of his
death-traps must have instantly proved fatal.

When Boleslav went out at the door he stumbled over Regina, who was
cowering on the threshold. She started to her feet with a low cry of
pain, like the whine of a trodden-on dog. He felt a momentary thrill of
compassion for her, but it vanished before he had spoken the kind words
that involuntarily rose to his lips.

"What were you lying there for?" he inquired harshly.

"It's my place," she answered, always regarding him with the same
humble, luminous glance.

"Indeed? It's a dog's place as a rule."

"It's mine too."

"Your name is Regina Hackelberg?"

"Yes, _gnaed'ger Junker_."

"It was you who led the French over the Cats' Bridge?"

"Yes, _gnaed'ger Junker_."

"Why did you do it?"

"Because I was told to do it."

"Who told you?"

She cast down her eyes.

"Why don't you answer?"

"Because I was forbidden to tell."

"Who forbade you; my--_he_?"

"Yes; the _gnaed'ger Herr_."

"So that's what you call him, eh?"

"Yes, _gnaed'ger Junker_."

"Call me, if you please, _Herr_, and not _Junker_. I am not _Junker_."

"Very well, _gnaed'ger Herr_."

"_Herr_, I say--simply _Herr_. Do you understand?"

"Yes, _gnaed'ger Herr_."

"_Himmelkreuzdonnerwetter_! Didn't I say you were to call me _Herr_,
without any prefix?"

She trembled nervously at his oath; but when it dawned on her what he
meant, a smile of pleasure illumined her face.

"I see, _Herr_," she said, and nodded.

"I shall expect you to tell me everything," he went on. "Do you hear?"

"The _gnaed'ger Herr_ did not wish me to speak about it.... Not to any
one."

"Did he say not to _any one_?"

"Yes."

He bit his lip. Why should he inquire further into the matter, when it
was all as clear as daylight? This creature had been used as a tool
because she was stupid, and bad enough to let herself be so used.

"How old were you at the time the French came?"

Again she cast down her eyes. "Fifteen, _Herr_."

Once more he felt softened towards her, but almost immediately dark
suspicion stifled his pity.

"You were paid for your work?" he asked between his clenched teeth.

"Yes, _Herr_," she responded calmly.

He was overwhelmed with disgust.

"How much was it? Your bribe?"

"I don't know, _Herr_."

"What! You mean to say you did not stipulate for a certain sum
beforehand?

"She seemed unable to comprehend.

"My father took it all away from me," she answered. "He said it was the
wages of sin. It was a whole big handful of gold. I know that."

He looked at her in amazement.

The fine head, with its wealth of wild hair clustering on her neck, was
humbly bent. She appeared not to have the slightest perception of the
scorn she had aroused in him; or was she so used to it that she took
his contempt as a matter of course?

"What were you doing at the Castle when the French were quartered
there?"

A dark flush suffused her face, neck and bosom. He had struck some
chord of memory that awakened in her a spark of shame.

"I was helping with the sewing," she stammered.

"Why did you come to the Castle?"

"My father told me I must. He said I was to go up and ask the
_gnaed'ger_ Herr if there was any sewing for me to do. I was to earn my
bread somehow, he said."

"Oh, indeed!" There was a pause, then he continued: "Go and put on a
jacket, Regina."

She passed her hand over her bosom and drew her linen garment tighter
round her chest, till the string cut into the swelling flesh.

"Well, why don't you go?"

"I haven't got a jacket."

"What! Didn't he clothe you?"

"They tore my jacket off my back yesterday."

"Who?"

A gleam of burning hate flashed from her eyes.

"Who? Why, they--the people down there, of course," and she spat in the
direction of the village.

A feeling of mingled surprise and satisfaction arose within him, for
here was a being who could share his hatred; some one whom fate was to
associate with him in the coming struggle with the villagers below.

"So the people down there are your foes?" he said.

She laughed jeeringly.

"I should just think they were. They throw stones at me whenever they
get the chance--stones as big as this." She joined the hollows of her
hands together to show the size.

"For how long have they thrown stones at you?"

"It must be six years," she said after a moment's calculation.

"And how often have they hit you?"

"Oh, lots of times. Look here!" and she let the chemise slip down
again, to display a scar extending from her shoulder to the root of her
bosom, which marked the warm olive skin with a thin line of scarlet.

"But now I always take the tub with me."

"The tub?"

"Yes; the wash-tub. I hold it over my head and neck when they come
after me."

What a wretched existence was hers--worse than a dog's!

"Why have you gone on staying here when they treat you thus?" he asked.
"There are other places in the world."

She gazed at him in astonishment, as if she did not grasp his meaning.

"But I belong here," she said.

"You might at least have left the island, and betaken yourself
somewhere where your life would not always be in danger."

She gave a short laugh.

"Was I to leave _him_ to starve?" she asked; and then, growing suddenly
red, she added, correcting herself shyly, "I mean the _gnaed'ger Herr_."

He nodded to reassure her, for she looked as if she expected to be
chastised on the spot for her slip of speech, poor miserable creature!

"I don't go down there oftener than I can help. Generally I go over the
Cats' Bridge by night to Bockeldorf, three miles away. There, at
Bockeldorf, I could get flour and meat, and everything else that
_he_--the _gnaediger Herr_--wanted, if I paid double the price for it,
and be back by the morning. But sometimes it's impossible to get
there--in a snow-storm, for instance, or a flood. So when the weather
was very bad I was obliged to go down to the village, and had to pay
still more money there, and even then perhaps get nothing but blows.
So"--she laughed a wild, almost cunning laugh--"I just took what came
handy."

"That means--you thieved?"

She gaily nodded assent, as if the achievement was deserving of special
praise.

She was so depraved, then, this strange, savage girl, that she was
quite incapable of distinguishing the difference between right and
wrong!

"And what were you doing in the village yesterday?" he questioned anew.

"Yesterday? Well, you see, _he_ must be buried. It's time, _Herr_,
quite time. And I thought to myself, however much I cry, that won't get
him under the earth."

"So you cried, did you?" he asked contemptuously.

"Yes," she replied. "Was it wrong?"

"Well, never mind: go on."

"And so I took the tub and went down to the pastor's. But the pastor
said I mustn't contaminate his house by coming near it, so on I went to
landlord Merckel, who is mayor as you know, _Herr_. And there the
soldiers saw me----"

"What soldiers?"

"The soldiers who have just come from the war." She paused again.

"Go on!" he commanded.

"And the soldiers cried out 'Down with her--strike her down!' and then
the chase began, and my father joined in and called out 'Down with
her!' too, but he was only drunk, as he nearly always is.... The stones
flew about, and the women and children caught hold of me and held me
fast, that they might strike me; but I had the tub and held it with
both hands high over their heads, hacking with it right and left like
this." She illustrated her story by holding up her rounded muscular
arms in the air, and bringing them down again like a pair of clubs.

The tall, magnificent figure before him, reminded him of some antique
statue in bronze. Strange, that in spite of all the degradation and
vileness amidst which she had been reared, it should have blossomed
into such fulness of triumphant splendour. There was something classic,
too, in the mere unaffected freedom with which she exposed its charms.
But of course in reality she was nothing but a shameless hussy, long
since lost to all sense of decency.

"Perhaps you have got a shawl, if not a jacket," he suggested, turning
his back.

"Yes, I have a shawl, a woollen one."

"Then put it on at once."

She disappeared silently through the door before which they had been
standing, and after a few moments returned in a brilliant red tippet
which she had crossed over her breast and tied in a knot behind. Now
that she had awakened to the fact that her half-clothed condition
shocked him, she began to be ashamed of even her naked arms, which she
had no means of concealing. She kept them folded behind her back, and
crept into the darkest corner of the passage.

"Did they refuse to bury the _gnaediger Herr_?" he demanded.

"No-no-one said anything," she answered, "because I never asked."

"Why not?"

"Because I couldn't for the stones that were hurled at me. And then I
thought it was no good. Nobody would ever come and fetch him. I might
as well shovel him in myself, as best I could."

"_You_ proposed to do it! Without help?"

"If I could carry him from the Cats' Bridge into the house without
help, I ought to be able to bury him too."

"Where--in the churchyard?"

"The churchyard? Ha! ha! That would have been a pretty piece of
business. I should never have got him through the village and been
alive afterwards to tell the tale. It was in the garden, over by the
Castle. I was in the middle of digging the grave when the _Herr_
arrived."

Now he felt strongly inclined to praise her. Such canine fidelity,
unquestioning, unhesitating, touched him deeply. Did not the girl who
had faced death readily a thousand times for her master's sake, deserve
some sort of reward? Yes. He would repay her in coin; good hard cash
would doubtless be more acceptable than anything else, poor thing! And,
directly he had laid his father in his last resting-place, he would
dismiss her from his service. Till then she might stay where she was.

But, at all costs, his father's bones must lie with those of his
ancestors. His first duty, his bounden duty as a son, was to procure
for him a decent burial, such as was granted to every Christian human
being. No matter what difficulties might stand in the way, he
determined to accomplish the sacred task, even if he were driven to
resort to extreme measures, and call in the aid of the law. He knew at
least one magistrate in Prussia, a relative of his mother's, who would
take his side, and enforce justice with an armed contingent if the
worst came to the worst.

He was just in the act of walking off in the direction of the village,
when it occurred to him that it was impossible to take a hundred steps
on his own property without being snared into a hundred death-traps.
Without the woman he detested to guide him, he was as helpless as a
child.

"Lead me to the drawbridge," he said; "and while I am gone clear away
all the traps."

"Yes, _Herr_."

But she remained motionless, as if rooted to the spot.

"What are you waiting for?"

"I beg the _Herr's_ pardon, but he has been travelling all night, and I
thought----"

"What did you think?"

"That the _Herr_ must be very tired, and hungry perhaps; and----"

She was right He could hardly stand from sheer exhaustion. But the idea
of taking even a crust from her hands filled him with loathing. Rather
would he be fed by his enemies.




                               CHAPTER V


Meanwhile in the Black Eagle a group of Schrandeners, burghers and
burghers' sons, were enjoying their morning pint together. The
Schrandeners, who had always thought the ideal of a happy life was to
spend as much time as possible in the tavern, were now at liberty to
indulge their taste from morning to night. What work they did must have
been accomplished very early in the day, judging by the hour at which
they began their recreation.

Young Merckel presided at their carousals. He had grown up into a fine,
broad-shouldered young fellow, with a cavalry moustache aggressively
curled up at the ends, which suited his cast of countenance, and a
manner, that even in bouts of clownish dissipation retained a certain
swaggering _bonhomie_. At the conclusion of the war, instead of getting
his discharge, he had come home on leave, to consider at his ease
whether or not it would be advisable to attach himself to a standing
army. His profession was not likely to interfere with his decision one
way or the other, as practically he had none.

Till his twenty-fourth year he had been employed in "seeing life" in
different parts of the world at his father's expense, and had hailed
with joy the outbreak of war as a legitimate outlet for his energy,
which otherwise might have been turned into unworthy channels.

Like Baumgart he had entered the army as a volunteer Jaeger; like him
had passed into the militia and had been promoted to the rank of
lieutenant, but unlike him, he wore as a recognition of his bravery the
iron cross dangling on his proudly swelling breast. For the time being,
he had no intention of leaving his birthplace again, where he was
perfectly content to be regarded in the light of a hero and a lion.

He drank, blustered, and helped to fan the flame of hate against the
traitor, hate which since the return of the victorious soldiers had
blazed up more fiercely than ever. At his instigation the Schrandeners
had gone forth to destroy the Cats' Bridge in order to cut the baron
off, on his island. That he would be struck dead before their very eyes
none in their boldest dreams had dared to hope, and without having
achieved their mission they had hurried back to the village to proclaim
the glad tidings.

It was a foregone conclusion that the man who had betrayed his country
would be refused Christian burial. This would put the crown on their
work of vengeance. They gloried in reflecting on it. The mayor was on
their side; the parson appeared to shut his eyes to what was going on;
and there was no reason to be afraid of the interference of higher
authority.

That a champion of the dead would arise at the eleventh hour was the
last thing any one expected.

For the _Junker_--God alone knew what had become of the _Junker_--had
he not totally disappeared, probably to die of shame in a distant
land?...

"There's some one coming, wearing a Landwehr cap," said Felix Merckel,
looking out through a crack in the blinds on to the market-place, which
lay glaring and dusty in the heat of the mid-day sun.

The sounds of revelry subsided, in expectation of the advent of a
stranger. Felix Merckel stretched out his legs and began to toy
indifferently with his medal.

The door swung back. The new-comer brought a momentary stream of
sunlight into the cool, darkened room. Without a word of greeting he
walked to the buffet, behind which a barmaid sat knitting a stocking,
and inquired if he could speak a few words with the mayor. The mayor
was not at home; he had just gone out into the fields, the barmaid told
him.

Herr Merckel was fond of leaving the inn in charge of his son, for he
found the beer disappeared twice as fast from the barrels when he was
not present. Felix adopted a method of stimulating customers to drink,
which would not have been becoming in the host. He couched his
invitations in military slang and in figures of speech learnt in the
camp; to resist them would, the Schrandeners held, be casting a slight
on their lieutenant, so it followed that Felix was the means of adding
treasure to his father's exchequer.

He was piqued at the stranger in the Landwehr cap not vouchsafing him a
salute, although he must have seen the officer's badge on his coat, and
determined to ignore him.

"Can I wait here till the mayor comes back?" the stranger asked.

"Of course. This is the tap-room," the barmaid replied.

He took a seat in the farthest corner from the topers, with his back
turned to them, put down his knapsack, and bowed his head in his hands.

Herr Felix regarded such conduct as a kind of challenge to himself.
Like the true son of his father, he was indignant at a stranger coming
in and ordering nothing to drink.

"Ask the gentleman, Amalie, what he will take," he called out, bursting
with a sense of his own importance. Apparently the stranger didn't
hear, for he took no notice. The barmaid stood behind his chair and
stammered something about the excellent quality of Schrandener beer.

"Thank you; I will drink nothing," he replied, without looking up.

Herr Felix twisted with vigour the ends of his moustache. It was clear
that a rebuke must be administered to the stranger for his churlish
behaviour. He therefore rose to his feet, and swinging his tankard,
began in a somewhat blatant tone to address his boon-companions.

"Dear comrades and fellow-burghers and every one present, Prussia's
glorious battles have been fought. Our beloved Fatherland has risen
from the dust in new and unsuspected splendour. Most of us have bled on
the field of glory, and felt the enemy's bullets pierce our breast.
Whoever is a true Prussian patriot will now drink with me his country's
health and honour!"

With high-pitched hurrahs, the mugs with one accord were lifted to the
revellers' mouths, but before they could drink, an incisive "Halt!"
from the lieutenant stopped them.

"I see there is some one here," he cried, "who seems inclined to shirk
this sacred duty;" and he rose and walked with clanking spurs across
the room to the stranger's table.

"Sir," he asked aggressively, "do I understand you don't wish to drink
to Prussia's fame and glory?"

"I wish to be left in peace," answered the stranger, not turning round.

"What, sir? You who wear the honourable symbol of a defender of your
country in your cap, decline----"

A sudden movement on the part of the stranger, who grasped his pistols,
made him break off. The next moment he saw firearms gleam in his hand,
saw him spring up, and stood aghast, staring into a pale, overcast face
that he knew well, but from which two such angry eyes had never blazed
at him before.

He understood the situation at once; he stood face to face with a man
desperately resolved to go to any extremity if necessary.

"Look at me, Felix Merckel," said the stranger, who was stranger no
longer, "and learn that I wish to have nothing to say to you. But
understand that if you or any of your friends come too near, they will
rue it. The first who approaches within an inch of me I will shoot down
like a dog."

Felix Merckel quickly regained his composure.

"Ah! the _Herr Baron_!" he exclaimed, with a profound bow. "Now I am
not surprised that Prussia's----"

The click of the double trigger of the cavalry pistol made him stop
short again.

"I warn you once more, Felix Merckel. I am an officer as well as
yourself."

And the reiterated warning had its effect.

"Certainly, it is not my concern," Felix said, and with another low
bow, went back to his place; this time the clatter of his spurs was
scarcely audible.

The Schrandeners put their heads together and whispered, and then old
Merckel entered the room. His round, sleek, clean-shaven face beamed
with prosperity and self-satisfaction. As beseemed the village
patriarch, he passed by the common drinking-table with a dignified
gait. A heavy silver watch-chain hung on his greasy satin waistcoat,
suspended from a gold keeper in the form of a Moor's head, to which was
also attached an amber heart.

"The _Herr_ wished to speak to me?" he asked, with a profound
obeisance, which, however, he seemed to repent, when his little grey
lynx eyes remarked that the stranger had no glass before him. To be
obsequious to a non-drinker was a waste of time.

The Schrandeners kept their ears open. Felix had jumped up as if to
seize this favourable opportunity of going for his whilom friend with
his fists.

"I say, father, it's the young _Herr Baron_," he exclaimed, with a
discordant laugh.

Old Merckel withdrew a few steps. His benevolent smile died on his
lips; his fleshy fingers fumbled nervously with the Moor's-head keeper.

"Can I speak to you alone?"

"Oh! _Herr Baron_--of course, _Herr Baron_--is the _Herr Baron_ going
to stay?"

He flung wide a side door, which opened into the little best parlour
reserved for gentry. A sofa, covered with slippery oil-cloth, and a few
velvet, bulky arm-chairs, were ready for the reception of distinguished
customers. Over a cabinet containing tobacco hung a placard with the
inscription, "Only wine drunk here."

Before the host closed the door behind Boleslav, he made a reassuring
sign to his fellow-burghers as if to allay their anxiety. Then from
under his drooping lids he took a rapid survey of the newly-returned
young aristocrat's person, which seemed to fill him with satisfaction,
for again his smug, slimy smile played about his fat lips.

"How the _Herr Junker_ has grown, to be sure!" he began. "Wonderful!"

Boleslav fixed his eyes on him silently.

"And the _Herr Junker_--pardon, I ought to say Herr Baron--has come
home to find the old Herr Baron no longer alive. A pity he was not in
time to close the eyes of the sainted dead----"

He broke off, and caught violently at his amber heart, for Boleslav's
piercing, threatening gaze began to make him feel uneasy. What if this
was a desperado, who would think nothing of taking him by the throat?

"At any rate I have come in time," Boleslav burst forth at last, "to
repair the shameful scandal that has been perpetrated here in refusing
my father the last honour due to his position."

"Shameful scandal, my _Herr Baron_?"

"I advise you, my worthy man, not to put on that air of saint-like
innocence. I can read you through and through. Something has come to my
ears concerning you, for which you deserve to be thrashed on the spot."

"_Herr Baron_!" and he showed signs of taking flight through the door.

"Stay where you are!" commanded Boleslav, barring the way. Thank God
that in confronting this scum he felt the old inherited instinct of
conscious power come back to him. "Is this the gratitude you show my
house, to whose favours you owe everything?"

This was true enough. The present landlord of the Black Eagle had once
hung about the Castle in search of a situation, and had finally, as its
ubiquitous commissionaire, amassed a considerable fortune, although he
now chose to adopt an attitude of injured virtue, and rubbed his hands
self-righteously.

"Dear _Herr Baron_," he said, a paternal kindliness suffusing his broad
countenance, "I willingly pardon the insults you have just heaped on
me, and will give you the best advice, as if nothing had happened. Now,
you will surely understand how friendly are my intentions."

"I decline your friendship," thundered Boleslav. "As mayor of the
village of Schranden, you will answer my questions. Beyond that, I have
no dealings with you."

"The Schrandeners, dear _Herr Baron_, are really terrible people. I
always have said so. I said so many times to my dear wife. You knew
her, _Herr Baron_. Why, of course, she often took the little _Junker_
in her arms, little thinking that----"

"Keep to the point, if you please," Boleslav interrupted.

"'Marianne,' I used to say, 'these Schrandeners, when once they get an
idea into their heads, nothing will move them.' Once they took it into
their heads not to drink my brandy. Good, pure, beautiful Wacholder,
_Herr Baron_. In the same way they've now got it into their heads not
to bury the old noble lord, and--well, upon my word, no God and no
devil will force them to do it. It's no good _your_ trying either,
_Herr Baron_. I'll tell you why. The hearse belongs to the corporation,
and they won't let you have it. Horses, too, they wouldn't let out....
As for bearers--dear God! Go round the village and see if you can find
one, and if you can, see if he is not well flogged for it quarter of an
hour afterwards. Oh! these Schrandeners! And then there is the _Herr
Pastor_--who really in the end has the most voice in the matter. Go to
the _Herr Pastor_, and hear what _he_ says. Putting ceremonials and
paternosters out of the question, you won't even get the coffin made."

"We shall see," said Boleslav, gnashing his teeth. He felt his spirit
of resistance rise, the more clearly he saw the web that hatred and
malice were weaving around him.

"You _shall_ see," exclaimed old Merckel in badly concealed triumph,
"if you wish it, _Herr Baron_."

He opened the door of the tap-room, from whence proceeded a low hum of
many voices. Half the village seemed to have collected there during
Boleslav's interview with the mayor.

"Hackelberg! come here!" he called, and then hurriedly banged the door
to again, for he saw hands laid on it that threatened to tear it off
its hinges.

"If he has got over his debauch of yesterday, _Herr Baron_, he will
certainly come and himself give you his views on the subject." For a
moment the little lynx eyes sparkled with malignant joy. Then resuming
his benevolent patriarchal smile, he went on, twisting the amber heart.

"You have repudiated my friendship, young man. You have insulted me,
and shown no respect for my grey hairs--I don't resent it. You wouldn't
have done it if you had known how I, at the risk of my life--for if the
Schrandeners had got wind of it they would have done me to death--how I
saved many a time the noble baron, of blessed memory, from starvation.
Ask the _Fraeulein_.

"What _Fraeulein_?"

"The pretty, faithful _Fraeulein_ Regina--your deceased father's best
beloved. She is a pearl, _Herr Baron_; you ought to hold her in high
esteem, and take her away with you on your travels. Often in the
darkness of the night have I stuck a loaf and a sausage in her apron,
_Herr Baron_, and sometimes a pound of coffee, _Herr Baron_, while I
have made my own breakfast off rye-bread for fear of the embargo, _Herr
Baron_."

"Weren't you paid for your trouble?"

"Well; yes, yes. When one risks one's life one expects to be paid.
There is still a little bill due, however, _Herr Baron_, left standing
from last winter; if the _Herr Baron_ will have the goodness to----"

"Write out your account, and the money shall be sent you."

"There's no hurry, _Herr Baron_. I have confidence; can trust you,
_Herr Baron_. What I wish to say is, take the advice of an old and
experienced man, and go home now without more ado; dig a grave behind
the Castle, and lay the deceased _Herr_ in it--do it at night, mind, on
the quiet, quite on the quiet--_Fraeulein_ Regina will assist you--then
make the turf perfectly smooth, so that no one will know where you've
laid him, and before the dawn of another day ride away again with
_Fraeulein_ Regina on your saddle to where----"

He paused suddenly, for Boleslav's hand was on the butt-end of his
pistols. Then the devilish mockery beneath this suave old hypocrite's
counsel was goading him into drastic measures. While he listened to it,
a new thought had flashed across his brain with vivid distinctness. The
funeral would after all only be the first step in the work that it was
incumbent on him to complete. Never would he slink away under cover of
night like a criminal, and abandon what remained of the inheritance of
his ancestors to utter ruin. No! he would stay and endure all things.
Set at defiance all these malicious hyenas, the worst of whom stood
before him, now grinning, with greedily gleaming eyes, only awaiting
his opportunity to pounce on the masterless unowned possessions.

Endure! Endure!

Renunciation for the sins of the fathers must ever be his lot. And did
not the foul act that had laid waste his property deserve retributive
justice? He would be a deserter and renegade, indeed, were he now to
turn his back on his native place, and on the beloved, who, though she
seemed lost to him eternally, might still be cherishing timid hopes of
meeting him once more. No! for the future his flag should wave over the
ruins of Schranden Castle, with the single word "Revenge" blazoned on
it in fiery characters. And who but a cowardly cur would leave his flag
in the lurch?

He stepped nearer the mayor, and with a threatening glance that seemed
to penetrate him through and through, almost roared in his ear--

"Who set fire to the Castle?"

Herr Merckel winced as if his conscience pricked him. Every Schrandener
did the same when any question arose as to who it was had perpetrated
the crime. Every Schrandener except one, and he was the criminal
himself.

Herr Merckel was gathering up his strength for a glib answer when the
suppressed murmur in the tap-room gave place to a sound which had a
louder and more riotous note in it.

The landlord made a movement in the direction of the door, to bolt it
on coming events, but before he could take the precaution it was
stormed and burst open. A troop of wild-looking creatures led the
assault, at the head of whom was a man of puny stature, in rags and
tatters, with straight, black hair hanging in oiled ringlets to his
shoulders, a grey, stubbly beard, and a pair of glassy, besotted eyes
that rolled under red, lashless lids. He beat the air with his fists
and cried--

"Where is the fellow--the brute? Let me catch the brute and I'll
strangle him!"

Then he beheld Boleslav's tall, resolute form, and swallowed his words
with a gurgling hiss. Behind him was a phalanx of angry, heated,
inquisitive faces all turned on Boleslav as on a recently captured
beast of prey.

"Every man's hand is against me!" he thought, and his blood rose.

"Are you the carpenter Hackelberg?" he asked, holding the drunkard in
thrall with his searching glance.

He was associated with one of the dark memories of his childhood. Once
his pitiable howls had frightened him out of his quiet, boyish
slumbers, and on looking from his window he had seen him being whipped
round the courtyard for poaching. Now he stood shaking his fists,
grunting and spluttering with rage.

"You supply the village with coffins, I understand?"

The carpenter shook his head, stared vacantly in front of him, and then
answered in a sepulchral voice--

"I am at work on only two coffins--one for myself, and one for my poor
erring daughter."

The Schrandeners laughed in their sleeve. This formula was so familiar.
When any one died in the village the carpenter had to be fetched by
force, locked up with a bottle of brandy and the necessary boards, and
not let out till the coffin was finished. Taken all in all, this
Hackelberg was a dangerous fellow, and no one knew it better than the
Schrandeners, who never let him out of their sight for long. He was
watched and shadowed, and many an arm was ready to strike him down when
the right moment should offer itself.

Nevertheless they courted his society in the tavern, made him drunk,
and humoured him. Sometimes they hung on his lips, at others, stopped
his mouth. Either they put him under lock and key, or allowed him to
bully them. It was as if they had endowed their own bad conscience with
flesh and blood, and allowed it to run wild amongst them in the shape
of this unkempt, half-crazed sot.

"Who else makes coffins in the village besides you?" Boleslav asked
again.

The Schrandeners burst into jeering laughter. They knew how difficult
he would find it to get any direct answer to his question.

"My poor, wretched child," he growled, fastening his glassy eyes on
Herr Merckel's amber heart, which appeared to possess a fascination for
him. Then suddenly rousing himself once more from the half-stupor into
which he had collapsed, he threatened Boleslav with his fists, and
cried out excitedly--

"What do you want from me, _Herr_? A coffin? Is that what you want?
For whom do you want it? For the scamp, the dog, who betrayed his
country--who seduced my child? Do you think I'd make a coffin for
_him_? Look at me, _Herr_. Did you ever see such a spectacle?" He
wrenched open his shirt, and exposed to view his shaggy breast. "I'm a
beauty--mere offal, that dogs would turn up their noses at. And whose
fault is that, my dear young nobleman? Why, the _Herr Baron's_, your
deceased father's. He it was who reduced me to this, and made me an
unhappy, forsaken, childless old man, such as you see." He wiped his
eyes with the ragged sleeve of his corduroy jacket, while the
Schrandeners applauded, and backed him up in his maudlin oration. "My
child, my only child, was torn from my bosom. He robbed me of my
child----"

"I believe you yourself sent her to the Castle," Boleslav interposed,
without, however, making the least impression.

"He made my child a prostitute, but what's worse, young sir--what most
lacerates my father's heart--for though I'm a blackguard, I'm a
patriot; for in Prussia even blackguards love their country--if there
_are_ any blackguard Prussians ... but my child ... ah! do you know
what he did with my child?... forced her with the lash to go out in the
dark night and---- But since then do you think I'd own her? No ... she
is my child no longer. I've cursed her--cast her off! I said to her,
'You are my own flesh and blood no longer.' That's what I said,
and----"

"But you took the wage of her sin all the same," Boleslav was on the
point of interrupting, but recollected in time that in saying so he
would be admitting his father's guilt to this pack of wolves.

"'And you are free,' I said. 'You may go where you like, and whoever
you meet may kill you outright for all I care. Go to your _gnaedigen
Herrn_,' I said, 'and ask him to protect you.' I said----"

At this juncture the shouts of the other Schrandeners became so much
louder that they drowned the carpenter's speech. They closed round him,
and he was lost in the crowd; only his rasping laugh was still audible.

"What did I prophesy, _Herr Baron_?" asked old Merckel, with his
unctuous smile.

Boleslav leant against the end of the sofa, and regarded the crew of
Schrandeners pressing ever nearer with clenched teeth and unflinching
eye.

"If one strikes me," he thought to himself, "the rest will tear me to
pieces."

He felt how imperative it was to remain calm.

"Come, you people," he said, making a passage through their ranks with
his hands, "let me pass."

And whether it was his commanding air of cool determination, or the
cross which shone in his military cap, that awed the tumultuous throng,
not one of them attempted to impede his progress. He passed into the
thick of the mob, expecting every moment to be struck a fatal blow from
behind; but nothing of the sort happened--unchallenged he found himself
in the open air. Felix Merckel had kept in the background.

The whole mob, now including women and children, surged after him down
the road.

As he reached the parsonage garden, whose white walls blazed in the
rays of the mid-day sun, he was aware of an aching sensation at his
heart, that rose in a lump to his throat. His last hope rested in the
hands of the old pastor. Would he too spurn him from his threshold? But
at this moment that was not his only anxiety. How could he help feeling
anxious as to what _her_ reception of him would be, she in whose power
it was to exalt him from the mire of shame and misery into a world of
peace and purity. If she saw him in his present condition, dirty and
dishevelled, with this escort of hooting ruffians behind him, would she
not recoil in horror?

And she did.

A terrified hand threw back the glass door of the veranda. It was
she--it must be she! For a moment he saw the glimmer of a white,
slender figure; saw her raise an arm, as if to wave off the approach of
him and the mob: and then, before Boleslav could give one questioning,
imploring look at the beloved features, she vanished with a faint cry
of alarm.

There was a mist before his eyes. Half stunned, he went up the steps of
the veranda, closed the door behind him, and awaited the next turn in
the course of events.

The Schrandeners blockaded the veranda, and some flattened their noses
against the glass in order to see better what passed within. A pane
fell out; one of them had pushed his neighbour through it, whereupon
the revered voice of the old pastor was heard raised in remonstrance.
He appeared on the veranda flourishing a thick, notched walking-stick.
His white hair blew about his lofty temples. The nostrils of his
hawk-like nose dilated furiously as if they snorted battle. Beneath the
snow-white shaggy projecting brows his eyes glowed like fiery torches.
Such was the venerable Pastor Goetz, who, in the March of the year 1813,
had gone from house to house, holding the big cross from the altar in
his hand, followed by a drummer, and had beaten up recruits for the
holy war. And had he not been left fainting by the roadside on the
march to Koenigsberg, in all probability he would have accompanied his
soldier-parishioners into the field of action.

The Schrandeners stood in no little dread of his discipline, and no
sooner did they catch sight of his formidable stick than they retreated
quickly from the windows, and tried to regain the garden gate.

"You hell-hounds, craven sheep!" he shouted from the glass door. "Come
to God's house on Sunday and I'll give you a dressing."

Then turning on Boleslav, he measured him from head to foot with a
scowling glance. His eye rested on the military cap he held in his
hand.

"You were in the campaign?" he asked.

"Yes."

"If it were not for the cross I see on the brim of your cap, I should
ask was it for or against Prussia?"

Boleslav, whose thoughts had followed the fleeting vision of light he
had seen on the veranda, at first did not understand him; then he met
the insinuation with signs of passionate resentment. But the old pastor
was not the man to be easily intimidated, and while they both glowered
at each other, he cried--

"Boleslav von Schranden, am I, or am I not, justified in cherishing
such a suspicion?"

Then Boleslav's eyes fell before the condemnation in those of his
former master. He opened the door of his study, where between the
book-shelves hung pipe-racks and fire-arms, and said--

"Out of respect for the cap I will not refuse you entrance here. But
make what you have to say as brief as possible. In this house no
Schranden is a welcome guest."

He put his stick in a corner, and drawing his flowered dressing-gown
close about his loins, paced up and down the room.

Boleslav cast about for words. He felt like a criminal in the presence
of this man, whose speech was like molten brass. Of a truth it was no
easy matter, this taking the guilt of another on to one's own guiltless
shoulders.

"_Herr Pastor_," he began, stammering, "can't you forget for a moment
that I bear the name of Schranden?"

The old man laughed bitterly. "That's asking a little too much," he
murmured; "a little too much."

"Regard me simply in the light of a son who wishes to bury his father,
and who is prevented from fulfilling that most sacred duty by the
wickedness and malice of the _canaille_."

For answer the old parson contracted his shaggy brows without speaking.

"I appeal to you as a priest of the Christian Church. Will you suffer
such a scandal in your parish?"

"Such a thing cannot happen in my parish," the old man declared.
"Wherever it is my duty to lead souls to God, every one must be granted
a decent burial."

"And yet they dare----"

"Stop! Whose burial is in question!"

"My father's."

"The Freiherr Eberhard von Schranden?"

"Yes."

"That man has been dead for seven years."

"_Herr Pastor_!"

"For seven years he lived ostracised from the society of his
fellow-creatures. Seven years he practically rotted in the earth.
Therefore, don't trouble me about him further."

"_Herr Pastor_, I was once your pupil. From your lips I first learnt
the name of God. I always thought you a brave, upright man. I retract
that opinion now; for what you have just been saying are lying,
cowardly quibbles."

The old man drew himself up. His beard worked; his nostrils expanded.
With lurid eyes he came nearer to Boleslav.

"My son," he said, "do I look like a man who would countenance a lie?"

Boleslav maintained his defiant attitude. But, much as he struggled
against it, he felt the old, long-forgotten sentiment of respect for
the schoolmaster awaking in him once more.

"My son," went on the old man, "a word from me, and the rabble that
waits for you on the other side of that hedge would lynch you, but, as
I said before, for the sake of the cap you wear, I will be merciful. If
you like, I can prove that what I said just now is no lie."

He went to a cupboard, where stood a long line of ragged folios,
containing church and parish documents, took out a volume, and, opening
it, pointed to a page dated 1807.

"Here, my son, read this."

And Boleslav read--

"On March 5th, died Hans Eberhard von Schranden. _Ex memoria hominum
exstinguatur_."

Beneath were three crosses.

"That is a forgery!" exclaimed Boleslav.

"Yes, my son," the old man answered solemnly, "that is a palpable,
shameless forgery; a stain on my office; and if you choose to report it
to the magistrates, I shall be suspended and end my days in prison. Do
exactly as you think fit. My fate lies in your hands."

A shudder of mingled horror and reverence passed through Boleslav. He
had himself experienced too often the wild _elan_ and reckless delight
of making sacrifices for the love of his country, not to understand
what impulse had driven the old clergyman to this insane confession.

"With those crosses," he continued, "I buried the man seven years
ago--the man who, in spite of his cruelty and ungovernable passions,
had till then been my friend. From that day, whoever dared to breathe
so much as his name in my house was sent out of it. Then came that
night of arson, when these walls were illumined by the reflection of
the burning Castle. I jumped out of my bed, and, throwing myself on my
knees, prayed God to forgive the incendiaries, for it began to burn at
all four corners at once, a sure proof that the fire was not an
accident. Now, I thought, not only the deed, but the scene of it, will
be erased from men's minds. I didn't concern myself in the least about
the spectre that was doomed to haunt the ruins of Castle Schranden. And
now you come, my son, and tell me that that spectre was no spectre, but
a living creature, who only a few days ago gave up the ghost, and now
awaits interment. Well, I forbid it Christian burial, on the strength
of this register. I never bury any one twice. Report me, and--and I
shall be tried for my offence. But you know I am prepared. Do as you
like. Bury the corpse with all the honours you consider due to it; have
a procession grander and more imposing than an emperor's, but kindly
leave me out of the show."

He settled himself in his green-cushioned armchair, supported his face
with his wrinkled, muscular hands, and stared vacantly at the open
register. There was nothing to hope from this iron-willed man of God.
It would be madness to keep up any illusion on the subject, and that
other illusion, that the loved one might still be won on earth after
long waiting and renunciation, must be abandoned too. All the shy
dreams and hopes that he had yet dared to cherish in his embittered
heart now seemed finally wrecked.

"So this is the divine grace, the forgiveness of sins, you preach!" he
cried, tears of wrath filling his eyes.

The old man rose slowly and let his hand fall heavily on Boleslav's
shoulder.

"Because of your cap, my son, I will reason with you, although the
sight of you is hateful to me. Listen! It is a year and a half now
since there came here from Russia a rabble of ragged French beggars,
starving and frost-bitten. The Schrandeners would have felled them to
the earth with their scythes and pitchforks, and perhaps would have had
right on their side, for they were mere carrion-serfs in the pay of
Napoleon. But I opened the church door to them that they might take
refuge in the shelter of God's altar. I kindled a fire for them on the
flagstones, and had a hot supper cooked for them and gave them straw to
lie on. I told the Schrandeners that, though they were enemies, they
were human beings like themselves, bearing the cross of human suffering
as the Saviour once bore it on His shoulders. I told them to go home
and pray that God might spare them as they had spared those miserable
Frenchmen. So you see I can be pitiful and show mercy.... To return to
the subject of the funeral. I have never refused any sinner his lawful
resting-place. If I could have my will, even suicides should not be
excluded from the churchyard. That those who have been unhappy in their
lifetime should be comfortable in death has always been my principle.
And if the body of a man who had murdered his mother was brought here
from the scaffold, I would go to his graveside in full canonicals and
pray the King of kings 'to forgive him, for he knew not what he did.'
Yes, I'll extend mercy to all, only not to your father. For he who sins
against his country outrages every law human and divine; he disgraces
the mother who bore him and the children he propagates. Such a one is a
social outcast. He is like the leper who brings death and corruption
with him wherever he goes, or a mad dog who spurts poison from his jaw
on every living thing that comes in his way. And do you realise the
extent of your father's guilt, the mischief it has worked? It is not so
much the lives of those two or three hundred Pomeranian youths whose
bones lie buried there on the common that are to be reckoned against
him. They would probably have met death somewhere, later. The grass
grows high on their graves; even their parents have long since become
reconciled to their loss. No, it is not on their account that I bear
the grudge. But----come here, my son----"

He clutched Boleslav's hand and led him to the window.

"Look out--what do you see on the other side of the garden hedge? A
gang of turbulent wild animals thirsting for the blood of their prey,
and yet too craven-hearted to spring on it, even when they have it
within their reach. And look at me, my son. I am here, appointed by God
as His minister to preach the gospel of love, and I preach hate. Words
sweet as honey should flow from my lips, and instead, scorpions spring
out of my mouth directly I open it, for I too am become a wild animal.
And this is what your father's crime has made us. There is no goodness
left in Schranden; the venom of your father's hate ferments in us, is
inoculated into our children and children's children. So will it ever
be till the Lord not only wipes the scene of infamy, but your accursed
name with it, from off the face of His blessed earth. Amen!"

He stood with raised hands like some anathematising prophet of the Old
Testament, and foam rested in the corners of his mouth.

Boleslav, half-dazed and horror-stricken, turned in silence to the
door. The old man did not call him back. As he crossed the hall he
started violently, for he was sure he heard the rustle of a woman's
dress behind a half-opened door. But not for the world would he meet
her now. Not in this dark hour, when he was completely overpowered by a
sense of having had the remnants of all that was good and noble in him
shattered and laid in the dust.

"If _they_ are become wild beasts, I can become one too," he thought,
as he thrust his hand in the breast-pocket that held his pistols, and
walked towards the Schrandeners. The old pastor was right. Though they
danced, whooped, and jostled around him with the lust of murder
gleaming in their savage eyes, they dared not lay a finger on him.


                           *   *   *   *   *


When he reached the drawbridge, behind the palings of which a girl's
figure crouched, awaiting his return, he was full of a desperate
resolve. His father should be carried to his last resting-place by an
armed force.

"Are you ready to earn another large sum of money?" he asked the girl,
who flushed and stood up quickly at his approach.

She looked at him for a moment in reflective surprise, and then, as his
meaning dawned on her, she shook her head violently.

"Why not?" he demanded.

She began to tremble. "What's the good of money to me, _Herr_?" she
asked, in subdued, bitter tones. "They would only take it away from
me."

"Who?"

"People--those people. Please, oh please, give me no money."

"Her mind is clearly unhinged," thought Boleslav.

"Besides, there is money enough," she continued in a whisper, glancing
round her timidly, "in the cellar--great boxes full--where the wine is.
I used to take what I wanted from there--for him, I mean--the _gnaed'ger
Herr_. For myself I never want any, unless it's to buy a new jacket
with."

"Will you earn a new jacket?"

"There's no need to earn it, _Herr_. Next time I go to Bockeldorf--for
the _Herr_ must have food--I can get one."

So, unreasoning as a beast of burden, she performed her duties, and
expected no return except her food!

"Will you, then, without earning anything, go a long way for me this
very night?"

"Oh, won't I, _Herr_, if you wish it?"




                               CHAPTER VI


The next day the village of Schranden received an unexpected visitation
that proved no small shock to its inhabitants. At about five o'clock in
the afternoon two coaches appeared in the village street each of which
contained half-a-dozen occupants, young fellows in Jaeger uniforms, with
their muskets slung over their shoulders from wide leather belts.

In the first coach there was also a female occupant, who, the moment
the horses' heads turned in the direction of the space opposite the
church, alighted with a wild leap, and scudded away towards the Castle.

Every Schrandener recognised in her the deceased Baron's sweetheart,
but all were too much taken aback to think of following her.

The coaches halted before the Black Eagle, the windows of which were
eagerly opened, and before the strangers had moved from their seats, an
enthusiastic welcome was extended to them.

"The Heide boys--Hurrah!" shouted Felix Merckel, who had many a time
fought side by side with these comrades of the Sellinthin squadron, and
he stretched a foaming jug out of the window.

His father threw open the door of the little room reserved for
"gentry," where only wine was drunk, in the hopes that at least some of
these wealthy yeomen would patronise it. But, without answering the
warm greetings, they proceeded in gloomy silence to unharness the
horses, and to take out of their vehicles all manner of tools, such as
hatchets, files, and spades.

The Schrandeners were astounded.

"Good gracious! have you lost your tongues?" Felix Merckel called from
the window. "And why haven't you brought your paragon, Lieutenant
Baumgart, with you?"

Still no answer.

The Schrandeners began to think these strangers must be playing off a
joke on them, and burst into extravagant laughter.

Then Karl Engelbert, who evidently had the command of the expedition,
came under the window from which Felix's broad-shouldered form obtruded
itself, and, greeting him with a half-military salute, said--

"With your permission, Herr Lieutenant, we have come here not to take
part in any festivities or anything of that sort. We are a funeral
party."

"But here in Schranden no one is going to be buried," cried Felix
Merckel, still laughing, but his face appreciably lengthened.

"Indeed, Herr Lieutenant! Nevertheless, we have been invited to a
funeral."

"Who has invited you?"

"Our former officer, Lieutenant Baumgart."

"Nonsense! There's no Lieutenant Baumgart here. I thought you were
going to bring him with you."

"Pardon, Herr Lieutenant, he is here already."

"Where is the fellow hiding, then?"

"Probably you know him better under another name--Herr von Schranden."

The stone jug in Felix's hand fell and crashed to pieces at Engelbert's
feet. The beer splashed his legs up to the knee.

A tumult arose inside the inn. As if in preparation for battle, windows
were speedily closed, and Johann Radtke, driven by thirst to ascend the
steps to the main entrance, found the door banged in his face.

"Hunted from the threshold like tramps!" grumbled the dark-haired Peter
Negenthin, and clenched his fist in his sling.

"Do you wish to perjure yourself?" asked Engelbert in a low voice,
coming close to him. "If so, then go back. What is required of us we
must do. Whoever forgets the church at Dannigkow is a cur!"

"And if we are dry we must wet our whistles with holy water, I
suppose," added Radtke with a sigh.

Engelbert shouldered his musket and gave the orders to move on. The
procession filed off in the direction of the Castle, a handful of
natives, out of respect for the muskets, bringing up the rear.

Boleslav stood on the bridge to receive his friends.

He rushed towards them in delight, and could hardly articulate, for
emotion, the words of gratitude that rose to his lips.

Engelbert held out his hand in silence. Boleslav was going to embrace
him, but he drew back. In his excitement Boleslav did not notice the
rebuff.

"I knew you'd come," he stammered forth at last--"knew that I had
friends who would not leave me undefended to the tender mercies of this
pack of wolves."

No one made any response. They stood drawn up in an unbroken line,
their eyes looking beyond rather than at him, in embarrassment.
Engelbert was the first to break the silence.

"You have summoned us, and we have come--but our time is short; tell us
what you want us to do."

For a moment Boleslav wondered at being addressed in this curt,
somewhat surly fashion, by the comrade who, of all others, had been his
favourite. But it was only for a moment. Why should he doubt them? Had
they not come? And then, incoherently enough, he related how his
father's disgrace had descended on him, and what he had resolved to do,
with their help.

All the time a pair of shining eyes watched him from the other side of
a rubbish heap, and a woman's figure that sat cowering there trembled
like an aspen.

"They are here--they are in the village!" she had called out to him in
timid excitement, as she had flown into the yard like a Maenad. At first
he had not recognised her in a light cotton skirt, a bed-jacket
buttoned over her panting bosom, and a handkerchief of many colours on
her head, tied under the chin, according to a fashion of the peasant
girls in the neighbourhood.

"They gave me these things to put on," she had added apologetically, on
observing his puzzled looks.

And then in pleasure at the news that his friends had arrived, he had
forgotten her, till, while waiting for them on the bridge, he had
caught sight of her hovering about the ruins. The head-dress had fallen
on her neck, and the wild black tresses escaped, and waved in confusion
about her sunburnt face. She seemed to be smiling absently to herself.

He was ashamed to think his friends had seen this woman, and decided to
pay her off and dismiss her on the spot, so that they should not
encounter her again.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

She started.

"Nothing, _Herr_," she replied, guiltily lowering her eyes.

"Why did you smile?"

"Ah, _Herr_," she murmured, "I was so glad."

"Why?"

"Because I had got safely back here again."

What strange fascination had this spot of earth for the abandoned
creature who had suffered on it nothing but shame and degradation and
endless misery? He remembered to have heard of domestic cats who, when
the house to which they belong is deserted by its inhabitants, prefer
to starve beneath its mouldering roof than to take up their abode
elsewhere. And if this cat-like propensity were incurable in her--what
then? After all, perhaps it would be cruel at this moment to pass
sentence of banishment upon her. She might as well stay till to-morrow
morning, so long as she kept out of his way.

"Go," he had commanded, "and don't come near me and my visitors again."

And she had hung her head humbly, and vanished behind the rubbish heap,
and there she cowered now, in terror of being discovered.

When Boleslav had finished his story, Engelbert exchanged significant
glances with his friends, then said--

"We have brought the requisite tools with us. If you can supply us with
the wood, we will knock you up a coffin in a very short time."

"Naturally it won't be a very grand one," remarked Peter Negenthin with
a stony smile.

Engelbert looked at him reprovingly. A subdued growl passed from
mouth to mouth through the little party, which Boleslav, in his most
light-hearted confidence in his friends' good will, did not hear.

"Do you remember," he exclaimed, "that coffin we made for the young
Count Dohna in the dark? We took two hours over it, though we couldn't
see an inch before our noses."

But his reminiscences met with no response.

"One of you hold the horses," said Engelbert, "and the rest of us will
go and look for wood. All must be ready before nightfall."

Boleslav bethought him of the wine in the cellar, which the fire had
spared, where also was the frugal larder, containing bread and salt
meat, but not enough with which to entertain his friends.

"I have next to nothing to offer you to eat," he said, "but I wish you
would at least refresh yourselves with a bottle of wine before setting
to work."

The friends were silent, and their faces clouded.

"Never mind refreshment," said Engelbert, trying to assume a facetious
tone. "Wine makes a man lazy, and we haven't a minute to spare."

He stooped to test some scorched rafters that lay about among the
stable ruins.

"This will do," he said, "but we won't saw off the blackened part; that
will serve us instead of paint."

And he walked on farther with Boleslav to look for more rafters.
Something white rose suddenly out of the earth in front of them, and
disappeared in a twinkling behind a neighbouring wall.

Boleslav instinctively balled his fists, for he had recognised Regina.

"I ought to apologise," he said, "for not being able to send you a
better messenger. I had no one else to send."

Engelbert was about to speak, but seemed to think better of it.

"You were obliged to supply her with clothes, I understand?"

"Yes," answered Engelbert, his natural loquacity getting the upper
hand. "I found her lying on the doorstep with scarcely a rag to her
back. She was dead beat. I got up in the night to see what the dogs
were barking at."

"What? Was it in the night?"

"Two o'clock in the morning. Here is a sound rafter. We can use
that.... She ran the twenty miles in seven hours. I should never have
thought it possible; she lay like an otter that has been shot down--so
straight and fair--and gasped for breath. Your sheet of paper she clung
to with both hands. She tried to stand up, but fell backwards. Then I
fetched her brandy, rubbed her temples, and gave her----"

One of his companions who were following behind, now came up, and gave
him such a look of astonishment and reproach that he broke off in the
middle of a sentence.

For the next few hours an industrious sawing and hammering proceeded
from the Castle island, which sounds fell disagreeably on the ears of
the fierce and much perturbed Schrandeners on the opposite bank of the
river. It seemed to portend that their nicely-laid plans were at the
last moment to be frustrated.

Old Hackelberg appeared in the street with his gun, which, as a rule,
lay buried in a dung-heap, because he was afraid that it might be taken
away from him, as had once happened when he amused himself by shooting
bats in the market-place, declaring that they followed him in swarms
wherever he went. With this famous gun he used in old days to go out
poaching every night, but since his once unerring hand had become weak
and tremulous from drink, he had been obliged to give up the trade.
Only when he had drunk even more than usual did the old sporting
instinct rise strongly within him, and he would rush to the shed,
unearth his gun, and bring down a swallow in full flight through the
air.

Now he was on the war-path, and with the babbling rhetoric peculiar to
him, shouted--

"Schrandeners, duty calls! Arm yourselves against the traitors. I am an
unhappy father. Robbed of my child. I'll shoot him dead, the brute."

"But he _is_ dead," some one interposed.

"Is he? Well, it doesn't matter--the other must be shot--all must be
shot down."

Meanwhile Felix Merckel was ramping about the parlour of the Black
Eagle like a bull of Bashan. He remembered enough about the Heide
youths to know that when once irritated or attacked they would go any
length. The inevitable result of offering them opposition would be such
bloodshed as the rioters outside had no conception of. And then--what
then? Would not he as ringleader be the first object on which the wrath
of the outraged law would expend itself?

On the other hand, did the swindler who had dared under a false name to
obtain a lieutenancy and abuse the confidence of his comrades,
thereby incurring the contempt and abhorrence of every honourable
brother-in-arms--did he deserve to be allowed to score such a triumph?

While his son was debating thus, Herr Merckel, senior, was also
troubled with anxiety from another cause. It struck him as a pity that
such a quantity of noble enthusiasm should be seething about aimlessly
in the open air, and determined to put an end to the nuisance.

He stepped into the porch, and addressed the rabble in his suavest,
most paternal tones.

"I, as your local functionary, cannot bear to see you, my children,
turning our public square into a bear-garden. Go under cover, and then
you may make as much noise as you please."

Of course, "under cover" could only mean the parlour of the Black
Eagle; and, five minutes later, the consumption of inspiriting
stimulants left nothing to be desired.

Felix had bowed his curly head between his hands, and stared gloomily
into his glass.

Surely no Prussian patriot who had ever worn a sword ought silently to
look on at what was coming to pass this night? Rather die! Rather!----

He jumped up, and began to speak inspiringly to the crowd.

His speech was not without effect. One after the other stole out and
returned with some sort of weapon, a flint-gun, a bent sabre, or a
scythe.

"Calm, and patriotic, my children!" exclaimed old Merckel, grinning,
and counting the empty tankards with his argus eye.

Night had come. The two flaring tallow candles in the bar illumined the
overcrowded, oppressively hot room, and were reflected in the polished
blades of the scythes. Then two or three boys, who had been stationed
as spies on the drawbridge, burst in, shouting at the top of their
voices--

"They're coming! They're coming!"

There arose a howl of fury. Every one pressed to the door. Felix
Merckel hurried into his bedroom to take his sabre out of its scabbard,
but he did not come back. Probably the sight of the weapon he had so
often wielded in honourable warfare brought him to his senses.

His father continued to exhort the rioters to calmness and caution,
especially those who had not yet paid for their drinks.

"Forwards!" spluttered old Hackelberg, "avenge my poor child. Mow them
down!"

Outside, in the market-place, the whole population of the village was
assembled. Even babies in swaddling-clothes had been snatched out of
their cradles, and their squalling mingled with the babel of many
tongues. The moon came out from behind some clouds, and shed a pale
twilight on the scene. The church tower rose dark and forbidding
against the sky, and the parsonage, too, remained silent and dark. The
old veteran had kept his word. He heard and saw nothing of what was
passing. A dark-red fiery glow appeared behind the cottages that lined
the road to the river. Above the low roofs rose columns of thick black
smoke. Like the reflection from a conflagration the purple vapour
encroached on the pale dusk of the summer night.

With one accord the rabble took the path to the churchyard, which, a
few yards from the last straggling houses, lay close to the street.
There by the gate they would best be able to bar the way to the
invaders. Those who had been in the war fell into rank and stood ready
for action. As far as they were concerned, it would be a case of
soldiers pitted against soldiers.

"Where is Merckel?" one of them exclaimed in astonishment, expecting to
hear the lieutenant's word of command. "Where is Merckel?" was echoed
in consternation from all sides.

But the feeling that he must be coming, and had only gone to arm
himself, allayed any momentary suspicion of his having shirked the
business at the last. The lurid glow drew nearer and nearer. Soon the
eye could distinguish something black and square, framed as it were in
flames.

"The coffin--the coffin!" the crowd exclaimed, and involuntarily
shuddered. Then, suddenly--who began it no one knew--it was as if it
had flashed across every brain at the same instant, in a booming chorus
the mob set up the weird chorale--

                 "_Our noble Baron and Lord
                  Of Schrandener's souls abhorred;
                  For the shame he has brought on our head,
                  O God, let the plague strike him dead_."

And the coffin advanced. Already the light from the torches shone on
the faces of the singing mob, and women and children retreated
screaming.

The crowd opened wide enough for the procession to pass on, and closed
again behind it. Six men carried the coffin on their shoulders and
swung flaming pine-branches in their disengaged hands, which scared the
throng and made it draw to one side. Six others followed with loaded
muskets. At their head Boleslav, with his pistols cocked in his hand,
his military cap on the back of his head, piercing his antagonists with
his burning gaze, cleared a road for his father's corpse. Deeper became
the rent in the human vortex, thinner the space that divided the
procession from the armed Schrandeners, who looked uneasily from side
to side, conscious that they were leaderless.

When Boleslav stood face to face with them they were about to make a
forward dash, but a short military "Halt!" such as they had often heard
in the campaign, compelled them to take a step backwards instead, for
in spite of themselves, their limbs insisted on complying with the old
habit of obedience. Boleslav, who had intended the order for the
bearers, saw its effect on the armed line in front of him, and suddenly
a new idea occurred to him.

"As you were!" he commanded again. No one moved a hair. His manner, his
voice mastered them. "Which of you have been soldiers? Which of you has
helped his king to make his country free?"

An indistinct, half-resentful murmur went through the ranks, but there
was no answer.

"The king sent you home," he continued, "because he is now at peace
with his enemies. Do you suppose that he would be pleased to hear you
had taken it upon yourselves to break the peace once more in his realm?
Bah! he wouldn't believe it of you! He might believe it of Poles, but
not of Prussians! So make room, my good people. Let us pass!"

The line wavered and began to break in places. For one moment the
churchyard gate lay clear before Boleslav's eyes, but the next, fresh
figures had moved up from behind and filled the breach.

Again the clamour arose, and mingling with it a loud, gurgling laugh of
derision. In another instant something round, black, and polished was
levelled at Boleslav's head, and behind it sparkled a pair of malignant
eyes. He had only a second in which to realise what was going to
happen, before a figure, supple as a panther's, shot past him and
plunged into the midst of the Schrandeners' troops, which again showed
signs of giving way. In the hiatus thus made, Boleslav saw two forms
wrestling on the ground, one that of a woman, the other a man's. The
woman overpowered her antagonist, and wrested from his hand the
gleaming bore of a gun.

It was the carpenter Hackelberg and his daughter. She must, stealthily
and unobserved, have followed the funeral cortege, for since her
disappearance on the other side of the stable ruins Boleslav had seen
nothing of her. The crowd pushed forward, curious to find out who was
struggling on the ground, and Boleslav, promptly taking advantage of
the general confusion, passed the combatants and gained the churchyard
gate, the coffin following close at his heels.

Behind was heard the report of the gun, which exploded in the
hand-to-hand struggle.

"Guard the entrance!" he called to the six who followed the coffin,
while the bearers made their way between the mounds and tombstones to
the burial vault of the Barons von Schranden.

Karl Engelbert stationed himself as sentinel beneath the gateway, and
saw, by aid of the last flicker of the torches as they moved away, how
the crowd closed round the wrestling father and daughter.

Three piercing shrieks escaped the girl's lips. Evidently the mob
intended to wreak its thwarted fury on her. There seemed little doubt
that she would perish at its hands, unless some one came quickly to her
help.

"Leave her alone!" cried Engelbert, striking out right and left with
his powerful fists. And then the figure, that had been so pitifully
mauled and in such dire extremity till he interfered, emerged from the
midst of her persecutors. She glided past him, dived into the dry ditch
that skirted the churchyard wall, and then disappeared like a shadow,
into the darkness. The Schrandeners began, with whoops and hoots, to
pursue her.

"How about the burial?" cried one.

"The devil take the burial!" exclaimed another, and cast a shy glance
at the men standing on guard by the churchyard gate--men who looked as
if they were not to be trifled with. Certainly it was better sport to
give chase to a defenceless creature than to risk one's skin in an
encounter with them.

And the Schrandeners started off like bloodhounds. The carpenter
Hackelberg tried to do likewise, but staggered instead into the ditch,
where he lay full length and fell asleep.




                              CHAPTER VII


The last of the stone slabs that covered the vault had crunched back in
its place with a resounding crash. Hans Eberhard von Schranden lay
with his ancestors. In the little chapel, the men who had acted as
grave-diggers bared their heads and said a short prayer. The torches
that had burnt down to their sockets smouldered on the smooth surface
of the flagstones, and cast a lurid glow as they flickered out over the
stern faces of the worshippers.

Then without looking round at Boleslav they left the chapel. He stood
in a remote corner with his hands before his face, brooding fiercely on
the future that lay before him. The echoing footsteps roused him, and
silently he followed his friends, letting the iron gate of the chapel
that had been broken open when they came in, swing back in the lock.

The moon had again pierced the clouds, and illumined with a weird
radiance the mounds and crosses that stood in regular rows, like
columns drawn up for battle.

"Do you wish to bait me too?" Boleslav murmured as he contemplated the
graves for a moment with a bitter smile. At the gate he overtook his
friends. They joined the men on guard, who now had nothing to watch,
for, with the exception of a group of women and old men who stood
gossiping by the hedge, the street was empty. Hoots were heard
proceeding from the distant fields, where the mob apparently were still
in full pursuit.

"God have mercy on her, if they catch her!" said Karl Engelbert with
folded hands. Then two of his comrades, one of whom was Peter
Negenthin, came up to him and whispered earnestly in his ear.

Boleslav was too lost in thought to notice their strange and unnatural
behaviour towards himself, and was not even aware, as they walked
through the village, that he was always left to walk alone, though now
and then he stepped confidentially to the side of one or other of them.
He had accomplished the first chapter of his work. His father was laid
to rest as befitted his rank, and yet it seemed as if the real work was
only just beginning. He beheld all he had to do towering like a great
inaccessible mountain in front of him. The mouldering ruins must be
built up again; what was now a waste overgrown by weeds must be
restored to a waving sea of golden corn; he must strive to endow his
neglected property with new wealth, and his tarnished name with new
honour: and then he saw, as the goal of all this striving, the face of
the beloved beckoning him onwards. If he was too bowed down now with a
consciousness of shame and disgrace to look into her pure, maidenly
eyes, _then_ he would be able to go to her and say, "Now, all is
expiated. I am worthy to lay myself at your feet." Yes, he would
struggle tooth and nail--work day and night--to attain this end.

At first it seemed almost madness to think of such a gigantic
undertaking.... But he had his friends to help him.... After all, it
would not be a single-handed struggle. Had not they to-day helped him
to achieve the impossible? Would not they, true to their sacred oath,
continue to stand by him in need with their advice and sympathy? And
perhaps their noble example would in time break down the barrier that
divided him from his fellow-creatures, and lead to his father's sin
being at last consigned to the limbo of forgotten history.

Higher and higher rose his hopes as he meditated thus. They had left
the village street behind them, and now reached the drawbridge, where
the vehicles had been put up. The horses, each with its nose in a
bundle of hay, waited patiently by the fence to which they were
tethered. Immediately, without a moment's delay, the comrades set to
work to harness them.

This frightened Boleslav out of his dream.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Off already, before I have thanked you?"

No one spoke.

"Won't you take a glass of wine now the job is finished? And I wanted
to ask your advice about other matters."

Peter Negenthin strode up, and looking him straight in the face, drew
his clenched fist from the sling.

"We would rather die of thirst," he hissed through his set teeth, "than
take a drink of water from your hand."

Boleslav staggered backwards as if he had been hit between the eyes. He
felt the earth reeling beneath his feet.

Then Karl Engelbert stepped forth from his sullen little band.

"It is much to be deplored, Baumgart--I call you so because you have
been Baumgart to us till this minute--it is much to be deplored that
you should thus be bluntly told of what our present feelings are
towards you. Why did not you hold your tongue, Negenthin?... But the
words have been spoken and cannot be recalled, so now you may as well
know all. You summoned us, and we came. Some of us, it is true, were of
opinion that we weren't obliged to obey your summons, considering you
had deceived us about your name; but others said, whether it was
Baumgart or no, we were bound by the oath taken in the church at
Dannigkow, after our first battle--and none of us were desirous of
breaking an oath. That is why we are here. You can imagine that we
didn't come willingly. We are honest fellows, and to tell the truth,
the work you gave us to do went against the grain. The long and short
of it is, that when we go home, and people spit in our faces, we must
put up with it, for they will have right on their side."

"Why didn't you say all this before?" Boleslav stammered forth. "Why,
oh why have you let it come to my standing here before you--like
a--like a--Ha! ha! ha! _If you spit in my face, I must put up with
it!_"

"You need not reproach yourself on our account," Engelbert replied.
"You have quite enough to bear without that. But now that we have
discharged our duty--without grumbling, you must admit--I can only ask
you, on behalf of myself and my comrades, to release us from our oath,
as we release you from yours. Of course we cannot compel you against
your wish, but all I can say is, that if you don't choose to do it, we
must leave home and kindred, and wander forth into the world, lest
people----"

"Stop!" cried Boleslav, feeling as if more would kill him. "Your desire
is fulfilled. I now wish it as earnestly as you do. Of a truth I should
deserve my disgrace, were I ever to ask another favour of you.... I
will not even insult you by saying 'Many thanks' for the service you
have just rendered me. May God reward you, and may He forgive you for
having put me in my present position; rather would I have thrown the
corpse into the river and myself after it; let us say no more. Perhaps
you will allow me to assist in putting the horses in, as there is
nothing else I can do for you?"

"I am sorry," Engelbert said, his voice quivering with emotion; "it
pains us deeply. We are as fond of you yourself as we have ever
been--but, you see----"

"I see all, dear Engelbert; no excuses are necessary."

"Well then, we wish you farewell."

"Farewell!"

The horses were put in. All were in readiness to start. Staring
vacantly before him, Boleslav leant against the wall. Engelbert turned
and took a last look at him from the box-seat.

"And don't forget Regina!" he said. "That is to say, if she escapes
with her life. It is to her, not to us, you are indebted."

"Very well," answered Boleslav, not taking in the meaning of what had
been said to him.

"Adieu!"

"Adieu, and _bon voyage_!"

The drivers cracked their whips; in another moment the heavy wheels had
thundered over the loose flooring of the drawbridge. Like silver-girt
phantoms the coaches disappeared in the misty moonlight.

He was alone--more alone than any outcast in God's wide world. What
should he do?

He began wearily to drag his footsteps up the incline. The brambles
that tangled the ground wound round his ankles. A firefly made a zigzag
thread of flame in front of him. From the top of the hill the great,
weird, dark masses of the Castle ruins looked down on him, as if
threatening to fall on him and bury him beneath their debris. Through
the yawning window-casements the moon shone, giving them the appearance
of huge ghostly eyes. He roamed absently past the towers, a sudden
exhaustion weighing like lead upon his limbs. If only he could fall
asleep and never wake again.

He tried to remember what it was his friend had called out to him from
the coach at parting. He racked and racked his brains, but his memory
failed him.

The grass plot, where he had first found the half-wild girl, lay before
him brightly illumined by the moon. The spot where she had begun to dig
the grave stood out in uncanny blackness from the rest of the shining
turf.

If only he had shovelled the corpse into it and gone on his way,
perhaps somewhere at the other end of the world some sort of happiness
might still have been in store for him.

But now it was too late. Now all he could do was to endure--to complete
the work of defiance begun to-day under such gloomy circumstances.
Desolate and alone till the end. Never to feel again the clasp of a
friendly hand, never to look with trust and affection into any human
face, since the doughty comrades he had so firmly believed in had
recoiled from him shuddering.

And had not the beloved shrunk from him too in horror? It seemed clear
now for the first time why she had avoided him and hidden herself.

He was cut adrift from all the joys and sorrows that form a common bond
between the hearts of men--cut adrift from love, hope, compassion, from
everything but ignominy and hate.

With his face buried in his hands, he staggered over the lawn in the
direction of the gardener's cottage, when his foot struck against
something round and soft that lay across the path. It was the figure of
a woman, lying with her head buried in the dry leaves and her limbs
outstretched. Regina--positively it was Regina!

"What are you doing here? Get up."

There was not a sound or a movement. Where had he seen her last? Ah! to
be sure; under the churchyard gateway, screening him from the gun that
was pointed at his brain. That ghastly moment came back to him with all
its terrors. For his sake she had flung herself on the murderer; for
his sake risked her life. And how had he rewarded her? He had pushed
carelessly past her; consigned her to the mercy of the murderous,
bloodthirsty crew who were greedy to take her life, without a shadow of
a thought of how he might save her troubling him for an instant. Even
if she were the most abandoned creature on the face of the earth, she
had not deserved such dastardly treatment at his hands. Certainly she
had not.

"Regina, wake up."

He bent over her and raised her, but her head fell back lifeless among
the bushes. There was blood on his fingers from touching her. Her hair
was damp and matted.

Was she dead? No; it must not, could not be. Sacrificed for him; that
would mean adding original guilt to the sin he had inherited, and the
idea of owing so much to such a degraded creature, was in the last
degree humiliating. She must at least live till he had paid her. He
tore open her chemise with a rough, eager hand, and laid his ear on the
cool, rounded breast.

God be praised! Her heart was still beating. And as he raised her once
more, she slowly opened her great eyes and looked round her vacantly.
As if shocked at being caught holding her thus, he let her head slip
out of his arms.

She moaned slightly as she sank back, for the swaying briars hurt her.
Then regaining consciousness, she lifted herself on her elbow and gazed
at him in dumb inquiry.

"Get up, Regina," he said.

The sound of his voice made her tremble. She tried to struggle on to
her feet, but fell back helplessly.

"Let me lie where I am," she begged, with a timid, imploring glance.

"Stand up. I will help you."

"Must I go?" she asked, evading the proffered support. Grief and
anxiety were depicted on her blood-stained, beautiful face.

"You would rather stay with me?"

"Ah, _Herr_, how can you ask?"

"But you'll have a bad time of it if you do."

"Oh, no, _Herr_. The _gnaediger Herr_ used to whip me every day. I am
quite accustomed to it."

"But somewhere else they would treat you better."

"Somewhere else?" New consternation showed itself on her features.

"Good God! A woman like you, who is willing and hard-working, and has
such strong limbs, is sure----"

She shook her head violently. "I shouldn't go far, _Herr_. If you hunt
me away, I shall only lie down in a ditch and starve to death."

A softer look came into his eyes. No matter how bad, stupid, and
corrupt she might be, she was the only human being in the wide world
who clung to him. Why should he drive her from his threshold, when he
himself was despised, ostracised, and a social outcast? Were they not
both under the ban of the same misfortune?




                              CHAPTER VIII


The next few days proved how little he was in a position to live on his
own estate without her services. He was far more dependent on her than
she on him. Helpless as a shipwrecked mariner on a desert island, he
stole about the ancestral grounds. Though the mines and wolfs'-traps no
longer dogged his steps, finding his way among the chaos of smoked and
tumbling walls made him giddy, and decay had altered everything so
much, that the landmarks of his childish memories afforded him no
assistance. Even the park, where once he had known every tree and bush,
through long years of neglect, had become such a wilderness that at
every step he nearly lost himself in it.

When the first flush of his defiance and despair had subsided, the
question arose, "What was he to do next?" It was a problem that pressed
for solution, as the miserable rations of bread and meat in the cellars
were running out.

His pride prevented his seeking advice from Regina; he had not spoken
to her again. Apparently she understood the wisdom of making herself
scarce. But when he returned of a morning from the river, where he went
for a bath, he found the red-flowered counterpane of the canopied bed
neatly arranged, the floor swept, and strewn with sand and fragrant fir
spikes, and saw awaiting him on the gold-legged table (the fourth leg
of which was propped up with a brick) a steaming brown coffee-pot, and
dainty slices of black bread lying beside it.

His shyness at taking food from her hands had soon to be got over. At
first he had still hesitated a little to break bread that she had
brought him, but it looked so appetising, and bathing in the cold
autumn mornings sharpened his hunger, that at last his scruples had
gone to the wall.

At midday, a soup made of bread, and slices of roast meat, stood ready
for him, not to mention a bottle of good wine; and in the evening, by
some clever stratagem, another meal of a different character was
contrived out of the same unpromising materials. Thus she knew how to
keep house with nothing but the scanty larder he had found in the
cellar at her disposal.

He often saw her whisk past the window with pots and kettles, on her
way to wash them in the river. When she came back she would cautiously
peer with her lustrous eyes through the shrubs, to ascertain whether
the coast was clear. If he happened to be at the door, or looking out
of the window, she would immediately disappear in the wood.

She made the gardener's former workshop her domain. One morning when he
had watched her go down to the river, he went in to look at it. He
found a low, sloping room, with a roof composed of old greenhouse
frames. The green, dusty, lead-bordered panes were much cracked, and in
places let in the winds and rains of heaven. The ground was neither
floored nor paved, but covered with a dark moist garden soil resembling
peat. Attached to the walls were rude wooden shelves, once used by the
gardener for his flower-pots. They now held all the house's scanty
stock of crockery. Pots, plates, and dishes were arranged on them in
perfect order, and had been polished till they shone. A blackened door
off its hinges, evidently rescued from the fire, supported by two
wooden boxes about two feet from the ground, was spread with straw and
a haircloth, of the kind that are thrown over the backs of horses to
protect them from cold. This was her bed--"Many a dog has a better," he
thought. The brick fireplace was in the opposite corner; a home-made
contrivance of beams was meant to guide the belching smoke from the
hearth into its proper channel, but only partially succeeded.

In this smoky hole, with its cold damp floor, she was domiciled, and
desired nothing better. Here her heart was centred as in a dearly
cherished Paradise. Poor, wretched woman! and to be driven forth from
it meant to her death and perdition.

And then one evening she disappeared. He had at last made up his mind
to speak to her about the provisions, and went to call her. No answer
came. The kitchen was empty. He sought her in the park, among the
ruins, on the bridge, all over the island, but there was no sign of
her. Her name rang clearly out through the night air as he called her,
and had she been anywhere about she must have heard it. He became
suspicious. Probably after the hard work of her lonely days, she took
it out at night in the arms of a swain. She was, of course, well versed
in the arts of vice, and would not scruple to yield herself to the
embraces of some rustic gallant. Many of her persecutors below may have
desired the body they stoned. How otherwise could her obstinate
adherence to her present miserable mode of living, after his father's
death, be explained, except by the existence of a new sin--a sin which,
perhaps, had long been carried on hand-in-hand with the old. He was
filled with loathing and disgust at the thought.

"If she can't behave herself, I'll pack her off early to-morrow
morning;" and with this resolution he retired to rest. But he could not
sleep for thinking of what the future would be without her. To send her
away would involve going himself the same day.

At about six o'clock he was awakened out of a doze by a stealthy
opening of the outer door. He got up and dressed himself quickly,
determined to call her to account without loss of time. He entered the
kitchen and found her on the hearth with inflated cheeks, blowing the
pine logs she had just set alight into a flame.

She turned on him slowly, her eyes big with astonishment, and said,
"Good morning, _Herr_."

He trembled in angry excitement. "Where have you been all night?" he
thundered.

Her arms fell to her sides, and she shrank away terrified.

"Tell me at once."

"Ah, _Herr_," she stuttered, hanging her head, "I thought you wouldn't
notice I had gone, and that I should be back before the _Herr_ was
awake----"

"So, if I don't _notice_, you amuse yourself by running about all
night?"

She had retreated still farther from him.

"But--but--I was obliged to go," she said, stammering painfully. "There
was scarcely anything at all left--and--and the _Herr_ has eaten
nothing but salt meat for so long."

The scales fell from his eyes.

"You went, then, to fetch food?"

"Of course, _Herr_. I have brought veal and fresh eggs and butter--and
sausage and lots of things. It's all in the cellar."

"Where did you get it?"

"Oh, I told you, _Herr_--in Bockeldorf. I know a grocer there, who gets
ready a supply of what we want beforehand, and when I knock at nights
he lets me in at the back door. Not a living soul besides his wife
knows. And he's not very dear. Herr Merckel, down in the village,
charges a thaler a pound for meat, and swears at me into the bargain."

"And you have walked six miles there and back to-night, and carried all
those heavy parcels?"

Still frightened, she regarded him with surprise.

"I think you know, _Herr_, that I can do it, for I told you so before."

"But it's a physical impossibility. Don't lie to me, girl. From my
experience during the campaign, I know how much fatigue a _man_ can
stand."

Now that she saw he was no longer angry she dared to draw herself to
her full height. She exhibited her powerful arms proudly, and exclaimed
with a pleased smile--

"I can stand more than any man, _Herr_, else I should be no good at
all."

"For how long have you been going on these journeys, Regina?"

"For five years, _Herr_. Every week. Sometimes oftener. In summer it's
child's play. But in autumn and winter, when the snow lies two feet
thick in the wood, or when the meadows are flooded, it's no joke. But
there's one thing to be thankful for, the nights are long then, and at
least no one can see you. And I'd a hundred times rather walk the six
miles than go to that beast--I beg pardon, I mean Herr Merckel--who
takes a thaler for a pound of meat. Isn't that abominable? And in the
village----"

She paused suddenly, as if she feared being scolded for talking too
much.

"What were you going to say, Regina?" he asked in a kindlier tone.

"Oh, nothing, but I should like to beg the _Herr's_ pardon for having
gone without leave. But I thought he might perhaps like a change for
breakfast--a fresh egg----"

"Never mind, Regina," he said, turning away; "you are a good girl."

He went down to the river to bathe. When he came back he found his room
tidied as usual, only the coffee was not there.

"She is so tired out that she's fallen asleep," he thought, and
resigned himself to wait. At least, she should not be reprimanded any
more to-day.

But in consequence of his bath he was bitterly cold, and found he could
not forego the customary warm beverage much longer. So, in order not to
wake her he went on tiptoe into the kitchen to see to the fire himself.
But she was not asleep, though at the first glance it looked like it.
She sat on the edge of her couch, motionless, with her hands before her
face. Now and again a quiver passed through her frame, a symptom of the
sleep of exhaustion. Yet on regarding her closer, he saw that
glistening tear-drops were falling through her red, plump fingers, and
her breast was shaking with gurgling sobs.

"What's the matter, Regina? Why are you crying?"

She did not answer, but her sobs became louder.

"Have I hurt your feelings, Regina? I shouldn't have scolded you if I
had known where you had been."

She let her hands fall from her face, and looked at him with eyes
swollen from weeping.

"Ah, _Herr_!" she said in a voice half choked by tears. "No
one--ever--called me that before; and--it's not--true."

His mood changed and became harsh again. He was not conscious of having
used any abusive epithet. It was too ridiculous of this creature, who
was accustomed to being hounded about from pillar to post, to pretend
to be thin-skinned and fastidious.

"What isn't true?" he demanded.

"What you said."

"What did I say? Good heavens!"

"That I--I was a good----" She broke again into convulsive sobs that
stifled her voice.

He shook his head, perplexed at her distress. He had never looked very
deeply into the most complex problems of the human soul, and did not
know that even dishonour has its code of honour. Laughing, he laid his
hand on her shoulder.

"Don't cry any more, Regina; I meant no harm. And now get my breakfast
ready."

"May--I--bring it in?" she asked, still sobbing.

"Do you want me to come and fetch it?"

"I only thought I mightn't--" She moved to the hearth and began blowing
the smouldering fire, using her tear-stained cheeks as bellows.

After that she was no longer shy of entering his room when he was
there. Ever anxious to forestall his wishes, she seemed to read his
countenance without a question passing her lips.

Boleslav had found, in the recesses of the cellar in which money and
wine were stored, great masses of papers stuffed into chests, where
chaos reigned supreme. They contained the whole of his father's
correspondence, deeds, and documents of every description. His first
search among them had brought to light nothing less important than his
aunt's last will and testament, in which her Excellency bequeathed to
Boleslav von Schranden, the only son of her favourite niece, the whole
of her fortune, "to compensate him for the wrong," so ran the clause,
"from which he would suffer to the end of his days."

Boleslav's pleasure at first was not great; it was only when he
considered that here was a weapon put into his hand to use in the
coming struggle, that he began to appreciate the value of the gift. He
scarcely gave a thought to the giver, who had always been kindness
itself to him, so hardened had he become, so completely was his mind
engrossed by contemplation of the grim work that it was his duty to
carry on.

If only he could have seen a way clear before him, which he could have
pursued instantly, without looking to the right or left, with the
impetuous zeal characteristic of his nature! But for months the
prospect must be one of paralysing hopeless inaction. The war which he
had determined to wage against the Schrandeners must be conducted on an
ambitious scale, if it were not to end in the pitiful failure that had
soured and impoverished the last years of his father's life. It would
need an army of workmen to inspire the serfs, who had so long run wild,
with new respect. And where were these to be engaged, when there was
not a soul in the neighbourhood who would not have disdained to enter
his service? But nearly everything is attainable with money, and
doubtless many a swaggering patriot, who now spat at the mention of his
name, could be brought, cringing and servile, to heel, by the bribe of
a triple wage. Only, for this his means were not sufficient. The cash
that at the first glance had seemed such vast wealth, proved, on nearer
calculation, to be wholly inadequate to float his scheme. It was 4500
thalers, left from outstanding debts, that the old baron had hastily
saved from the conflagration, when the whole world must have appeared
to him to be melting into flame. For the sort of existence that,
following his father's example, he was now leading with Regina, such a
sum would last for years; but for the project he had in view, it was a
mere drop in the ocean.

Before the discovery of the will he had with a heavy heart entertained
the idea of offering the fine old timber, which had been the pride of
his ancestors, for sale, and to dispose of it below its value if the
need arose. Now he had abandoned the plan as impracticable. Granted
that he could find a market for it as easily as he hoped, it must be
months before the actual cash came into his hands. Besides winter was
at hand, one of those severe East Prussian winters, when work in the
open air is out of the question. For this year at least neither
building nor ploughing was to be thought of. Why, then, make a
sacrifice which with a little patience might be avoided altogether? If
on the first of April he claimed his legacy, and was able with full
pockets to enlist workers in his service, by May the building would be
in full swing, and possibly the ground ready for the sowing of crops.

But till then--till then--! How would he be able to support the barren
monotony of grey winter days spent in enforced and dreary idleness when
his hands were burning to be at work? How endure the thought that his
beloved was in the near neighbourhood and he unable to ask her the
fateful question on which his life and happiness hung? Would she wait?
Would she forgive? Would she steel her heart against the atmosphere of
hate and slander that surrounded her, and so keep her affection for him
unchanged?

The Madonna in the cathedral came back to him. He wondered if she still
resembled it. If only for one moment he might have gazed into her face!
There was a white and red mist before his eyes; he saw lilies and
roses, and a radiant virgin figure bending over them with a smile, but
the features of the girl he had loved he could only dimly recall.

Veiled from his sight, perhaps she was destined to be the invisible
guardian-angel who was to watch over his endeavours till his work was
completed, when she would set the crown to it by revealing herself. He
became gradually reconciled to the thought, and ceased to yearn for a
meeting; and one word or sign to assure him that his hopes in her
constancy were not ill-founded would have more than satisfied him.

More and more he buried himself in the chaos of papers, which seemed to
increase instead of diminish, in spite of his arduous sifting. The
yellowed parchments stood in great piles against the wall of his
sitting-room, reaching higher than the head of his beautiful
grandmother, and yet in the vaults there still remained chests and
boxes full, untouched. The whole archives of the family seemed to have
been gathered together at a moment's notice, and hurled into a place of
safety without the slightest regard to method or arrangement. Out of
this confusion he wanted to find documents relating to the property,
which were important, not to say indispensable. Among others, were
missing those that concerned agreements with the emancipated peasants
relating to land boundaries. The _canaille_ below were certain to have
grabbed from the domain that had become ownerless, more than their
legal share. He saw how law-suits would have to be fought over almost
every inch of ground, and he must be able to back his claim with
irrefragable documentary proof.

Nevertheless he felt an insuperable aversion to appealing to the
courts. The picture of his father, as he had seen him the last time
alive, stood out vividly in his memory; the ostracised baron, who had
been bold enough to seek the aid of the law, had then found every door
closed in his face. Truly Prussia at that time was not itself. The
walls of the State were tottering to their foundations, and the rats
were having it all their own way. But what guarantee was there that the
son of such a father would find the ear of justice less deaf to his
appeal? The law had shifts and resources in plenty by which an
unpopular person could be rendered powerless to benefit by its help,
and he did not doubt that he would fall a victim to such casuistry. His
deserted and forlorn position so distorted his view of things that law
and order took the form of wild beasts lying on the drawbridge in
ambush for their prey. Even his military duties had no interest for him
now. Lieutenant Baumgart was on the list of killed. Why trouble the
authorities with the work of his resurrection? They would not thank him
for it.

A text from the Bible came into his mind: "His hand shall be against
every man, and every man's hand against him." The curse that
accompanied Hagar's son through life, he by dint of stubborn defiance
would turn into a blessing.

Weeks went by, but he hardly observed the flight of time. He sat
immersed day after day in his papers, wandering forth of an evening to
stumble about the ruins, or to take a walk in the overgrown park. There
was only one place he carefully avoided. That was the path which led to
the Cats' Bridge. When he chanced to find himself nearing it, his heart
beat quicker, and he would hurry breathlessly by the shrubs that
concealed it from view. Yet he was tormented by a grim desire to stand
on the scene of the disaster, a desire which at length became almost
irrepressible.

It was one evening towards the end of September when, for the first
time since his return home, the moon was full. He roamed restlessly in
the glades of the park, the dry leaves rustled at his feet, and the
autumn wind shook the branches of the trees. The moonbeams shimmered on
the grass like flocks of white sheep. Before him the shrubs rose in a
dark, jagged line of wall. An impulse of sinister curiosity suddenly
got the better of the superstitious repugnance that had hitherto held
him back, and he plunged through the thicket that, with a sort of
protecting air, hid the path. The descent to the river was steep,
almost perpendicular, and the mirror-like surface of the water was
entirely concealed by alder-bushes. A faint rippling and splashing
below fell mysteriously on his ear. From the top of the precipice a
railed plank shot boldly out into mid-air. A rude scaffolding, planted
firmly in the rock of the precipice, supported it with iron bars. On
the opposite bank the trunk of a giant oak formed the support. In the
middle there was a yawning gap of from ten to twelve feet. Like two
arms longingly outstretched but never meeting, the planks branched
forth on either side above the abysmal depths.

If they had never reached each other the crime would never have come to
pass. But an easier job for a joiner could not be conceived. The plank
on this side had two loose boards, which, by means of a wedge, could
easily be pushed across; and the position of the hand-rail, by being
unhinged, could also be reversed. Everything seemed to have been
arranged expressly to facilitate the treacherous transaction. As a
memorial of eternal shame, the dark, crude structure loomed out through
the white mists of the brilliant night.

Beneath, the splashing from the invisible river grew more pronounced.
It sounded as if its waters were still foaming with rage at the deed
that so long ago had been enacted near at hand, and which death itself
could not consign to oblivion.

Like a man in a dream, he stepped on to the plank, and looked down on
the silver surface, which seemed to be emitting myriads of diamond
sparks. Then he beheld the figure of a woman, who stood up to her knees
in the water, with her skirts pinned round her waist. It was Regina,
doing her washing, and wringing out the articles among the sandbanks
and osiers.

His brows contracted. That he should encounter her _here_ of all
places! But in common justice he was obliged to admit it was not her
fault. Whenever she could she avoided him, and he had no reason to
complain that he saw too much of her.

He leant absently on the railing and watched her. She had no idea that
he was anywhere in the neighbourhood. She bent low over the water, the
muscles in her neck and arms strained by her exertions, and shook the
wet clothes with a will, sending up a spray of glistening drops. From
time to time she chanted the song on two notes, that he had heard her
hum while digging the grave, breaking off abruptly when the water
spurted into her nose and mouth.

What a hard worker she was! He had imagined her long ago gone to bed,
and here she was instead, at this time of night, washing as if her life
depended on it!

She started in alarm. His foot had disturbed some small pebbles, which
fell splashing into the water close to where she stood. Her first
thought was that some one was lying in wait for her among the shrubs,
and she moved suspiciously nearer the opposite bank. When at last it
occurred to her to look up at the Cats' Bridge, she gave a startled
cry.

"Don't be frightened, Regina," he called down to her. "I am not going
to hurt you."

Whereupon she returned calmly to her washing.

"How do you get down there?" he asked.

She wiped her face with her naked arm. "I'm a good climber," she said,
looking up at him for a moment with blinking eyes.

"Doesn't the water freeze you? So late in the year, too!"

She made some response that he did not understand. He was curious to
see how she would clamber up the steep declivity with her burden, so
remained where he was and continued to watch her.

In a few minutes she packed up her washing and climbed on the bank. The
moonlight cast a flashing halo round the masses of her hair, which
to-day had been combed till it was almost smooth. She looked as if she
wore a coronet. With one shy glance to ascertain that he was still
standing there, she dived into the shrubs, and he saw her dart rapidly
from branch to branch with the agility of a wild-cat. At the top she
let down her skirts, and would have flown with her basket, had he not
called her back.

"Why do you do your washing at night?" he inquired, making an effort to
look friendly disposed towards her.

"Because in the daytime they give me no peace."

"The villagers?"

"Yes, _Herr_."

"What do they do to you?"

"What they always do--throw things at me."

"Over the river?"

"Yes, _Herr_."

"The next time any one assaults you, come and fetch me."

She did not answer. "Do you understand?" She folded her hands, and
looked at him beseechingly.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Please, _Herr_, don't shoot at them," she stammered. "They like you to
do that. He--the _gnaediger Herr_, I mean--tried it once. Then they
began to shoot too, from the other side, and there was firing here and
firing there; the wonder was no one got shot. Don't you see, if they
get into the habit of carrying guns about with them always, they are
certain to hit me one day, for I'm obliged to go off the island
sometimes?"

It was the longest and most sensible speech he had as yet heard from
her lips. He had not suspected the existence of so much thoughtful
wisdom behind that low brow, in its frame of wild hair.

"You are right, Regina," he replied. "For your sake I must forbear from
provoking them."

He saw in the moonlight a dark flush suffuse her face.

"For my sake, _Herr_?" she said hesitatingly. "I don't quite understand
what you mean, _Herr_."

"Oh, well, never mind," he answered evasively. "What I wanted to ask
you, Regina, was--are you satisfied in my service? can I do anything to
make you more comfortable?"

She stared at him in dumb amazement.

"You mustn't think, Regina," he went on, "that I am unfriendly. My mind
is occupied with many things, and I prefer to be quite alone with my
troubles. So if I don't speak to you often you will understand how it
is."

Her eyes drooped. Her hands fumbled for the balustrade as if seeking a
support, then the next moment she turned, and leaving her basket in the
lurch, scampered off, as if driven by furies.

"Strange creature!" he muttered, as he looked after her. "I must be
kinder to her. She deserves it." Then he leant over the balustrade
again, and gazing into the silver water fancied he saw growing there a
garden of lilies and crimson roses.




                               CHAPTER IX


Lieutenant Merckel was far from being pleased at the course events had
taken on the day of the funeral. He called the Schrandeners poltroons
and old women, and declared they were unworthy ever to have worn the
king's uniform.

When some one ventured to ask why he had not shown himself in it to the
procession, and had left the mob leaderless at a critical moment, he
replied that that was a different matter altogether: he was an officer,
and as such bound only to draw his sword in the service of the king.

The Schrandeners, not accustomed to logical argument, accepted the
explanation, and promised to retrieve their reputation the next time
the opportunity offered itself. But this did not satisfy Felix Merckel.

"Father," he said, late one evening when the old landlord was counting
the cash taken during the day, "I can't bear to think that scoundrelly
cur holds the rank of Royal Prussian officer as I do. I am ashamed to
have served with him. Our army doesn't want to be associated with
people like him. It drags the cockade through the gutter, not to speak
of the sword-knot. I know what I'll do; I'll call him out and shoot
him."

He stretched his legs on the settle, twisting his cavalry moustache
with a bland smile. The old man let fall, in horrified dismay, a
handful of silver that he was counting, and the coins rolled away into
the cracks of the floor.

"Felixchen," he said, "you really mustn't drink so much of that
Wacholder brandy. It's good enough for customers, but you, Felixchen,
shall have a bottle of light wine to-morrow, and perhaps some of them
will follow your example, and so it won't cost me anything."

"Father, you are mistaken," Felix answered. "It's my outraged sense of
honour that gives me no peace. I am a German lad, father, and a brave
officer. I can't stand the stain on my calling any longer."

"Felixchen," said the old man, "go to bed, my son, and you'll get over
it."

"Father," replied his son, "I am sorry to have to say it, but you have
no conception of what honour is."

"Felixchen," went on the old man, ignoring the taunt, "you haven't
enough occupation. If you would only look after the bottles--of course
the barmaid is there for the purpose--but it would do you good. It
would distract your thoughts. Or you might go out shooting sometimes."

"Where?"

"Lord bless my soul! there are the woods and forest of Schranden.
Whether the hares devour each other, or you annex your share of them,
is all the same."

"That won't do for me, father. I am an officer, and don't wish to be
caught poaching."

"Good gracious, Felixchen, how you talk! Do you forget that I am
magistrate here. I am not likely to sentence you to the gallows.
But do as you like, my boy. Of course you _might_ go oftener to the
parsonage. The old pastor enjoys a game of chess; there's nothing to be
gained by chess, I know, but some people seem to like it, and then
there's--Helene."

"Ah, Helene!" said Felix, stroking his chin and looking flattered.

The old man examined the artificial fly in the centre of his amber
heart.

"I have a strong notion that she would be a good match if the pastor
consented, and she liked you."

"Why shouldn't she like me?" asked Felix.

"Well, there might be some one else who----"

Felix smiled sceptically.

"Or do you mean that she has already set her heart on you?"

Felix shrugged his shoulders.

"You see, Felixchen, that would be a great piece of good fortune for
us. People are constantly carping at the way in which they think I
acquired my bit of money--without the smallest ground of course. If
only the pastor gave you his daughter as wife, it would stop their
mouths once for all. A man like Pastor Goetz has great weight and
influence. Well then, as I said, it's worth while your hanging about
there a little. Court her, and a fellow like you is sure----"

"Dear father, spare me your advice, if you please," interrupted his
son. "Whether Helene becomes my wife or not, is my own affair. I have
not yet made up my mind. She has a pretty enough little phiz, but she
is too thin. She might be fattened up with advantage. Then there's
something old-maidish about her, something sharp and prudish that I
don't quite fancy. For instance, if you put your arm round her waist
she says, 'Ah, dear Herr Lieutenant, how you frightened me!' and
wriggles away. And if you squeeze her arm, by Jokus, she screams out
directly, 'Oh, dear Herr Lieutenant, don't do that, I've got such a
delicate skin.' Of course that's all airs and affectation, and perhaps
if a man caught hold of her firmly and didn't give in, she'd allow
herself to be kissed at last; but as I say, I have not made up my mind,
so don't build too much on it."

The old landlord, who with deft hand was rolling up his sovereigns in
paper, looked proudly across at this magnificent son of his. Then he
became anxious again.

"And you won't think any more about the duel, eh, Felixchen? That's all
nonsense.... You wouldn't go and risk your life so recklessly as that."

Felix threw back his chest. "In affairs of honour, father, please don't
interfere, for you know nothing about them. Directly I can find a
respectable second----"

"What is that, Felixchen?"

"Why, the man who'll take the challenge."

"Where--to Boleslav?"

"Of course."

"To the island?"

"To the island."

"But, Felixchen, what are you thinking about? No Christian dare set
foot on the island. It swarms with wolf-traps, bombs, and other deadly
instruments. Look at Hackelberg; he was caught in one, and limps to
this day--but never mention it. It mustn't come out that Hackelberg was
ever on the island. Do you see?... As I was saying, you wouldn't get
any one to go on such a dangerous errand--or to come in contact with
such a man as that. No, my boy, think no more about it There's nothing
to be gained by it."

"But I _will_ challenge him all the same to meet me here," growled
Felix.

The old man contemplated him with the greatest concern for a few
moments, then rose, filled a liqueur-glass with peppermint-schnaps, and
brought it over to him.

"Drink it up, Felixchen," he said, "it'll soothe you." Felix obeyed.

"Leave the matter in the hands of your good, honest old father. Trust
him to find in the night some other means of satisfying your so-called
sense of honour. Good-night, Felixchen."

"The good, honest old father" had not promised more than he was able to
perform.

The next morning, when he met his son at the breakfast table, he asked
in an accent of benevolent sympathy--

"Well, Felixchen, have you slept off all those silly notions?"

Felix grew angry. "I told you, father, that on that subject you
were----"

"Totally ignorant! Very good, my boy. But I want to be clear on one
point. Is it with the Baron von Schranden that you propose to fight a
duel, or with Lieutenant Baumgart?"

Felix did not answer at once. A suspicion of what his father was darkly
hinting, dawned on him.

"Don't deal in subterfuges, father," he said. "I am an upright, simple
soldier, and don't understand them."

"But, Felix, you needn't be so headstrong. I mean well. As the Baron
von Schranden never was an officer, there is no reason why you should
concern yourself about him; and as Lieutenant Baumgart has proved a
swindler, and 

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