CHAPTER IITHE SPY
Dorotheaand her father both looked round and caught sight of the new-comer at the same moment. They saw a tall, handsome fellow of about thirty, dressed like an artisan of good standing. The dust on his boots showed that he had walked a long way. His dark, firmly stamped features bore the marks of thought and endurance, and his whole bearing was bold, resolute—almost defiant.
Old Franz drew back with a scowl as this stranger presented himself before the gate. But Dorothea, after one look at his face, gave a glad cry, and, darting through the gateway, clasped her arms round his neck and kissed him on both cheeks.
The young man received her embrace with an indulgent smile, while he turned a stern glance on the forester.
“Father,” exclaimed Dorothea, releasing her hold, “don’t you see? It is Johann!”
“Yes, I see it’s Johann,” muttered the old man, in a tone half surly and half timorous, as he slowly extended his hand. “And what wind blows you here?” he demanded.
“I had business in the neighbourhood, and I thought Dorothea would be glad to see me,” was the curt response. “But you must say nothing about my visit,” he added, turning to the girl. “No one must know that I have been here.”
Dorothea looked bewildered. Her father gave a dissatisfied grunt.
“More mysteries,” he remarked. “You will get into trouble again one of these days, mark my words. I shouldn’t wonder if you were in some conspiracy at this very moment.”
“Well, uncle, I have not asked you to join in it, anyway,” retorted Johann. “Who are those two men who have just gone into the forest?”
Before answering Franz snatched time to throw a warning look at his daughter, as a hint to keep silence.
“Only two gentlemen from the Castle, who came here to drink a cup of our cider. I don’t want to be brought into disgrace by you and your doings,” he went on hastily, not relishing the new turn to the conversation. “It is bad enough to hear about your goings-on in Mannhausen. I can’t think why they don’t clap the whole lot of you into prison.”
“For what? For demanding that the people may have freedom to better their lot?”
“Oh, don’t talk to me about the people! Old King Leopold knew how to deal with fellows like you. You were afraid of him, but now you have the insolence to attack King Maximilian, who is too good for you. Don’t let me catch you in any of your seditious practiceshere, that’s all, or the King shall hear of it, as sure as my name’s Franz Gitten.”
The forester spoke bitterly. There is no hatred like the hatred of the favoured servant for those who would enfranchise him against his will. Johann frowned as though he were about to make some angry reply, when Dorothea laid a gentle hand upon his arm, and looked up beseechingly in his face.
“Don’t, Johann! Don’t talk about it any more. Come in and rest after your journey, and have something to eat. We have got a hare pie and a custard.”
The young man’s features relaxed their sternness. He turned and followed her into the house, while Franz resumed his post of sentinel at the gate. But this time the puffs of smoke from the china bowl came in fierce, uneven jerks, and an uneasy frown crossed and recrossed his face.
His daughter led Johann inside the house, into the kitchen, where he seated himself on the old-fashioned settle, while she busied herself in getting ready a meal.
“So gentlemen come here from the Castle, do they?” murmured the young man half to himself. “I wonder what is the attraction that brings them here?”
He glanced at his cousin as she moved lightly to and fro in the sunshine. The yellow beams splashed on her rippling hair like rain falling upon running water.
“How old are you by this time, Dorothea?”
“Seventeen next birthday, Johann. I am making myself a dress with long skirts to go to church in.”
“And where did you get that pretty brooch?”
Dorothea smiled with innocent gratification, as she answered—
“Herr Maurice gave it me—one of those gentlemen you saw going away.”
“Ha!” Johann sat up, alert. “Then this is not the first time they have come here?”
“It is the first time his friend has been here, but Herr Maurice comes nearly every day.”
“Does he? And pray who is this Herr Maurice? What is his surname, and what is he at the Court?”
“We do not know—at least, I don’t, though I sometimes think my father has some idea. But when I ask him he always says that if Herr Maurice wished us to know who he was he would tell us of his own accord.”
“I see. My uncle is prudent. What kind of man is he? Young? Handsome?”
“Oh, no—not young. At least, I should think he was quite thirty.” Johann smiled. “And not so very handsome. There is something in his eyes that almost frightens me sometimes. I fancy he is shy. He often sits thinking by himself, and never says a word.”
Johann looked less and less pleased as he listened, and almost forgot to eat his food.
“Well, do not have too much to say to him, Dorothea. I don’t like gentlemen who do not give their names, and make presents of brooches, and sit thinking by themselves. Do you like him? Should you miss him if he left off coming here?”
Dorothea began to grow uneasy under this fire of questions.
“Miss him? Yes, of course; this place is so lonely that I should miss any one. Do you like the hare?”
“Ay. Is it one of the King’s?”
“You must ask father that. He shot it. But where have you been all this while? and why have you never come here?”
“I have been in the capital working at my trade, of course. They don’t print newspapers in the forest; so, you see, I should starve if I spent much time here.”
Dorothea stole up to him, and whispered a timid question.
“I hope it isn’t true what father said about conspiracies? You don’t really hate the good young King, do you, Johann?”
“I don’t hate any one who is good. But never mind the King. I haven’t come here to talk about him. Give me some cider, if you can spare any from your friend who gives the brooches.”
The young girl gave a swift look at him, then, turning away, with a gesture equally swift she snapped the brooch from her neck, and slipped it into her pocket. Then she went to fetch the cider.
A soon as Johann had refreshed himself sufficiently, he got up, and announced that he must take his departure. Dorothea followed him out to the gate, where her father was still lounging, with a sullen but determined look on his face.
“Where are you going?” was the only remark he vouchsafed by way of farewell to his nephew.
Johann pointed to the path through the woodland, by which the two friends had disappeared. His uncle instantly gripped him by the arm.
“No,” he cried hoarsely; “not that way! Not to the Castle!”
“Why not?” demanded Johann, fiercely. “Are you afraid of my discovering who is the gentleman who has fallen in love with your—cider?”
He pronounced the last word with a sarcastic emphasis which made the old man recoil, and turn a startled glance at Dorothea. The girl was gazing from one to the other with quickly dawning consciousness.
“I had one errand to the Castle already; now I have two,” pursued the young man, pitilessly. “Be assured I will find out this Herr Maurice, and demand an explanation from him.”
“No, no!” exclaimed the alarmed forester, carried away by his fears. “You must not meddle with Herr Maurice. I know who he is.”
Johann’s eyes flashed.
“What? Out with it, man, or it will be the worse for him and you!”
The old man gave an anxious glance at his daughter, and then bent forward and whispered two words in his nephew’s ear. His caution was thrown away.
“The King! I might have known it was that cursed race!”
And without even looking at Dorothea, Johannthrew wide the gate, and strode on into the depth of the forest.
His first rush of anger worn off, Johann went forward steadily, shaping his course straight towards the royal palace, and walking with the step of one who has an errand of weight.
The forester and his daughter stood helplessly gazing in the direction in which he had vanished from their sight. Dorothea’s mind was overwhelmed beneath a sensation of amazement. The revelation made by Johann’s parting words was enough to keep her thoughts busy, without giving them time to dwell upon the significance of his sudden departure. But old Franz was seriously alarmed as he stood there turning over the threatening language which he had just heard his nephew use.
For these were restless times, and even the old forester in his snug retreat had heard something of the discontents which were agitating the distant capital, and in stirring up which he suspected that his nephew had borne an active part. He had heard of Johann’s connection with revolutionary societies during the reign of the old King, Leopold IX., and now that these fanatics were raising their heads again in enmity to the mild government of Maximilian, he felt pretty sure that Johann was having a finger in the pie.
“What do they want?” he grumbled, rather to himself than to his daughter. “They have changed King Stork for King Log, and still they are not satisfied. And now this reckless fellow is going to do somethingthat will bring disgrace upon his family, and perhaps lose me my post!”
Too much agitated to say anything, Dorothea turned from him and went indoors, her mind in a state of pitiable confusion. The startling information which she had just received, coupled with the bitter language used by her cousin, produced on her the effect of a stunning blow. In every life there come moments which change the whole current of existence, and which set up barriers between the past and the future that can never be repassed. To Dorothea it seemed as though she had suddenly awaked from childhood, as from a pleasant dream, to find herself confronted with a new life which she did not understand. During the next few hours she went about her little household employments with a forlorn sense of discomfort, the meaning of which she struggled to realise in vain.
In the mean time, if it were Johann’s object to overtake Maximilian and his companion on their way to the Castle, he was destined to fail. The two friends had, quite unconsciously, baffled any pursuit by striking into a by-path, along which they made their way back undisturbed.
Coming along they discussed the situation at the forester’s lodge. The King was anxious to know what impression Dorothea had produced on his friend.
“You promised to speak plainly, Auguste,” he reminded him. “Tell me exactly what you think of her.”
“You need hardly ask,” was the answer. “I havenever seen a more charming little creature. It is not merely her face which is so captivating, but her exquisite gentleness and innocence. Why, she does not even suspect that you love her. And her manners are as graceful as if she had spent all her days in a palace.”
“So she has,” responded Maximilian warmly. “She has lived in the palace of Nature, in this noble forest, far removed from the vulgar surroundings that transform the poor of cities into little better than brutes.”
“I am afraid I cannot agree with you there,” said Bernal. “So far as I can see, her surroundings have very little to do with it. I have known many cases of refinement among the denizens of slums, and I have never come across a more depraved brute than that old man we have just left.”
“What makes you say that?” asked the King, uneasily.
“His own confession. The fellow boasted openly to me of the price for which he had agreed to sell his daughter. You ought to be ashamed of stooping to such a bargain.”
Maximilian blushed and bit his lip.
“I am ashamed of it,” he said. “I loathe that man as much as you do. He is so odious to me that the thought of having to encounter him almost deters me from going there, sometimes. But what else could I do? I could not expect him to understand the nature of my feelings towards his daughter. As soon as he showed me what kind of man he was, I thought thebest plan was to take him at his own value, and bribe him to stand aside and hold his tongue.”
“Nevertheless it was a miserable thing to do. How should you feel if the girl were to learn the understanding you had come to with her father?”
“Ah, that is what I dread most. At all costs I must keep her innocent. You little know—and yet perhaps you do know—how deeply I feel about that girl. Surely you have been in love at some time, Auguste. You must see how difficult it is for me. I am not like the man whose love is hopeless because it is fixed on one too far above him. What I have to fear is that my love will prevail too easily, not for my own sake, but because I have the misfortune to be a king. That is why I have been coming here secretly. I want to win Dorothea’s heart, Auguste. I do not want her to become my slave. I want her to love me.”
“I am afraid she does not love you yet, my friend. Perhaps she is too young. Perhaps even in your assumed character she looks upon you as one too far above her to be thought of as a lover.”
“I am afraid of that, too. I ought to have gone there as a peasant, or as one of the foresters. But my first visit was quite accidental, and I have gone on ever since on the same footing.”
Auguste considered a moment as he walked along. Then he made a suggestion.
“Why not take her away from her father, and place her in some better position?”
“I have thought of that,” answered Maximilian.“But I hardly dare do that yet. You see, she is little more than a child, and as shy and timid as a fawn. I fear to break the spell by taking any step that might open her eyes. It is not only because I do not want to influence her consent that I have kept my rank concealed. I am almost equally afraid of frightening her, and causing her to become uneasy and constrained with me. I have watched her carefully; and from something which she let drop only to-day, I foresee what might happen if she got an inkling of whom I really was.”
“But this state of things cannot last forever. Sooner or later she must find it all out.”
“I know; and that is what torments me. The very shyness and simplicity which make me love her must perish as soon as I once declare my love. That is my curse. What can I do? I can only go on and enjoy this Arcadian life as long as fate allows it to last. When it is over—”
He did not finish the sentence, and for a little while the pair strode on side by side in silence, the elder man picking his way carefully over the dead branches and little spots of moisture which broke the path, while the younger one crunched blindly over everything in his way, his eyes half-closed in dreamy abstraction.
“Yes? When it is over?”
It was Auguste who spoke, with a meditative glance at his friend’s countenance.
“I cannot make up my mind. I do not know yet what I shall do.”
“You forget that you are in love,” observed the other cynically. “Perhaps there is not so much room for doubt as to what you will do as you suppose.”
The King smiled at him with a slight tinge of scorn.
“Perhaps you do not understand me, Auguste. The doubt in my mind is whether I shall make Dorothea—”
He hesitated. His friend stopped dead, and gazed at him in unconcealed dismay.
“What?”
Maximilian stopped too, and looked steadily back at him.
“My wife.”
This time Auguste was fairly astounded. For some moments he could do nothing but stand and stare at the speaker. At length his lips parted, and the exclamation escaped him—
“Good heavens! Are you mad?”
It was the second time that afternoon that the word had been pronounced in the young man’s hearing. He turned pale, and, casting himself on the ground at the foot of a tree, burst into tears.
Overwhelmed with sorrow and remorse, his friend knelt down beside him, and tenderly sought to soothe him into a calmer frame of mind. For some time he could effect nothing, but at last the King conquered his weakness. He arose, and, thrusting his arm through his companion’s in token of forgiveness, they proceeded in silence to the palace.
In the glorious woodland lurk deadly enemies to man—thefierce wild boar and the treacherous gliding adder. Maximilian went through the forest with his friend, in ignorance that its green shades concealed the presence of two men who represented two threatening dangers in his path. He recked not of the stern, resolved messenger who was tramping steadily behind, with a grim purpose written on his face. As little did he dream that he was being preceded on his way back by another messenger, whose watchful eye had seen him enter and leave the forester’s lodge, who had started up from his hiding-place in the brushwood when the two friends emerged from the lodge gate, and, plunging into the thickness of the trees, hurried on before them to the Castle.
The spy was a young man of nearly the same age as Maximilian himself; he was dressed in a livery or uniform of green cloth, bound at the edges with red braid, of the colour of holly-berries, and ornamented with buttons of the same warm tint. He was not ill favoured—at first sight his face looked handsome—but there was a weakness in the lines of the chin, the hair and eyebrows were too light, and the eyes were of that sort that blink and turn away when closely gazed into.
Dodging skilfully in and out among the trees like a practised woodman, and breaking into a run whenever the nature of the ground allowed of it, he was not long in covering the distance to the further edge of the woodland. He took a round-about course, and emerged at a point which would not suggest to any chanceonlooker the direction from which he had really come. Once out in the open grounds before the Castle, he walked swiftly up to a side entrance and made his way quietly into the building.
The Castle of Neustadt was an imposing pile dating from that period of the last century when the German kinglets were engaged in imitating the age of Louis XIV., and smaller copies of the Versailles arose in every quarter of the Empire.
Safe within this huge but ugly palace, the spy lost no time in threading his way through the corridors, with the assured air of one who felt himself at home, till he came to a suite of apartments situated on the first floor of the left wing. There he stopped, and rapped confidently at a door.
His knock was answered by a page wearing the royal livery, who appeared instantly to recognize him.
“Tell the Princess Hermengarde that Karl Fink is in attendance.”
The page nodded at these words, and withdrew from the door. The next minute he returned.
“Her Royal Highness will see you now,” he said.
And, beckoning Karl to follow, he led the way into the presence of the King’s aunt.