To-day she was walking restlessly up and down before dinner. The cousin, who heard every thing, had just told her that a maid from Ehrenthal's had run into the office to announce Bernhard's death to his friend. "How will he bear it?" thought she. And the name of Ehrenthal forced her thoughts back to the past, to one now far away, and to that painful hour when the struggle going on in her own mind had been suddenly brought to a close by a letter from the house of the departed. And Anton had known of that conquered feeling of hers. How considerate he had always been, how chivalrous, how helpful! She wondered if he had any idea of the completeness of her triumph over a girlish illusion. She shook her head. "No, he has not. It was here, at this very table, that an accident first betrayed me to him. That past time still rises like a cloud between us. Whenever I sit near Wohlfart of an evening, I am conscious of another's shadow at my side; and when he speaks to me, his tone, his manner always seem to say, 'You are not alone; he is with you.'" Sabine started, and lovingly passed her hand over the beautiful flowers on the table before her, as if to dispel a painful thought. She could not tell him that she was free from that long-felt sorrow. Now, however, when he had lost a friend whom he so much loved, she must show him that there were other hearts that clung to him still. And again she walked up and down, trying to devise a way of speaking to him alone.
Dinner was announced. Anton came with the rest, and took his place at once. There was no opportunity of exchanging a word during the meal, but he often met her sad and sympathizing eye. "He eats nothing at all to-day," whispered her cousin; "not even any of the roast," she added, reproachfully. Sabine was much perturbed. Mr. Jordan had already risen; Anton would leave the room with the rest, and she should not see him again the whole day through. So she called out, "The great Calla is fully blown now. You were admiring the buds the other day; will you remain a moment; I should like to show it you?" Anton bowed and staid behind. A few more awkward moments, then her brother rose too; and, hurrying to Anton, she took him to the room where the flowers were.
"You have had sorrowful tidings to-day," she began.
"The tidings themselves did not surprise me," replied Anton. "The doctor gave no hope. But I lose much in him."
"I never saw him," said Sabine; "but I know from you that his life was lonely—poor in affection and in enjoyment."
She moved an arm-chair toward Anton, and led him on to talk about his friend. She listened to every word with warm sympathy, and well knew what to ask and how to comfort. It was a relief to Anton to speak of the departed one, to describe his quiet way of life, his erudition, his poetical enthusiasm. After a pause, Sabine looked up frankly into his face, and asked, "Have you any tidings of Herr von Fink?"
It was the first time since his departure that she had ever breathed his name. Anton felt how touching her confidence was, given in this hour of his sadness. In his emotion, he seized her hand, which she was slow in withdrawing.
"He is not happy in his new life," he gravely replied. "There was a savage humor in his last letter, from which I gather, even more than from his actual words, that the business into which his uncle's death has thrown him does not suit him."
"It is unworthy," cried Sabine.
"At all events, it is not what would be recognized as honorable in this house," replied Anton. "Fink is upright, and has lived too long with your brother to take pleasure in the wild speculations so common on the other side the Atlantic. His partners and colleagues are for the most part men without a conscience, and his feelings revolt against their companionship."
"And can Herr von Fink tolerate such relations as these for a day?"
"It is a remarkable thing that he whose own will was ever so arbitrarily exercised, should now be obliged against that will to obey a pressure from without, and every where to work with his hands tied. The organization of such speculations in America is so complicated that one shareholder can do little to alter it; and, now that Fink has attained what used to be the goal of his wishes—a large capital, and the management of immense districts—his condition appears more uncertain than it ever was before. He was always in danger of thinking slightingly of others, now I am distressed at the bitter contempt he expresses for his own life. His last letter paints an intolerable state of things, and seems to point to some decisive resolve."
"There is only one resolve for him," cried Sabine. "May I ask what you said to him in reply?"
"I entreated him instantly, come what would, to free himself from the business in which he was entangled. I said that his own strong will might find a way of extrication, even if that which I pointed out proved impracticable. Then I begged of him either to carry out his old plan of becoming a landed proprietor in America, or to return to us."
"I knew that you would write thus," said Sabine, drawing a long breath. "Yes, Wohlfart, he shall return," said she, gently, "but he shall not return to us."
Anton was silent.
"And do you think that Herr von Fink will follow your advice?"
"I do not know. My advice was not very American."
"But it was worthy of you," cried Sabine, with proud delight.
"An officer wishes to speak to Mr. Wohlfart," said a servant at the door.
Anton sprang up. Sabine went to her flowers and bent mournfully over them. The shadows of others hovered still between her friend and her.
The few words spoken by the servant filled Anton with a vague terror. He hurried into the ante-room: there stood Eugene von Rothsattel. Anton was gladly rushing forward to greet him, but the young soldier's face of agony made him start back. He whispered, "My mother wishes to speak to you; something dreadful has occurred." Anton caught up his hat, ran into the office, hurriedly asked Baumann to excuse him to the principal, and then accompanied the lieutenant to the baron's house.
On the way, Eugene, who had lost all self-command, said unconnectedly to Anton, "My father last night accidentally wounded himself by a pistol-shot—a messenger was sent to summon me—when I came, I found my mother in a swoon—my sister and I do not know what to do—Lenore implored my mother on her knees to send for you—you are the only one in whom we have any confidence in our distress—I understand nothing about business, but my father's affairs must be in a dreadful state—my mother is beside herself—the whole house is in the greatest disorder."
From what Eugene said and what he did not say; from his broken sentences and his look of agony, Anton guessed at the horrors of the previous evening. In the boudoir of the baroness he found Lenore, weeping and exhausted.
"Dear Wohlfart!" cried she, taking his hand and beginning again to sob, while her head sank powerless on his shoulder.
Meanwhile Eugene walked up and down, wringing his hands, and at length throwing himself on the sofa, he gave himself up to silent tears.
"It is horrible, Mr. Wohlfart," said Lenore, lifting up her head. "No one may approach my father—Eugene may not, nor I—only my mother and old John are with him; and early this morning the merchant Ehrenthal was here, insisting that he must see my father. He screamed at my mother, and called my father a deceiver, till she fainted away. When I rushed into the room, the dreadful man went off threatening her with his clenched fist."
Anton led Lenore to a chair and waited till she had told him all. There was no possibility of comforting in this case, and his own heart was wrung to the utmost by the misery he witnessed.
"Call my mother, Eugene," said Lenore, at length.
Her brother left the room.
"Do not forsake us," implored Lenore, clasping her hands; "we are at the last gasp; even your help can not save us."
"He is dead who might perhaps have done so," mournfully replied Anton. "Whether I can be of any use I know not, but you can not doubt my willingness to be so."
"No," cried Lenore. "And Eugene, too, thought of you at once."
The baroness now entered. She walked wearily; but, steadying herself by a chair, she saluted Anton with dignity. "In our position," said she, "we need a friend who knows more of business than we three do. An unfortunate accident prevents the baron—possibly for a long time to come—from managing his own affairs, and, little as I understand them, I can see that our interests require prompt measures. My children have mentioned you to me, but I fear I am unreasonable in asking you to devote your time to our service."
She sat down, beckoned Anton to take a chair, and said to her children, "Leave us; I shall be better able to tell Mr. Wohlfart the little that I know when I do not see your grief."
When they were alone, she motioned him nearer and tried to speak, but her lips quivered, and she hid her face in her handkerchief.
"Before I can consent, gracious lady," said he, "to your reposing in me such confidence as this, I must first inquire whether the baron has no relative or intimate friend to whom you could with less pain make such a communication. I pray you to remember that my own knowledge of business is but small, and my position not one to constitute me a proper counselor to the baron."
"I know no one," said the baroness, hopelessly. "It is less painful to me to tell you what I can not conceal, than to one of our own circle. Consider yourself a physician sent for to visit a patient. The baron has this morning told me some particulars of his present circumstances." And then she proceeded to relate what she had gathered as to the nature of his embarrassments, the danger in which the family property was placed, and the capital needed to take possession of the Polish estate.
"My husband," continued she, "has given me the key of his desk, and he wishes Eugene, with the help of a man of business, to go over his papers. I now request of you to make this examination together with my son. When you need explanations, I will try to obtain them from the baron. The question is now, whether you are inclined to undertake this trouble for us, who are only strangers."
"I am most willing to do so," earnestly replied Anton; "and I hope that the kindness of my principal will allow me the time needful for the purpose, if you do not consider it more advisable to depute the baron's experienced legal adviser to the task."
"There will be an opportunity of asking that gentleman's advice later," said the baroness.
Anton rose. "When do you wish to begin?"
"Immediately. I fear there is not a day to lose. I shall do all I can to help you look the papers over." She led Anton into the next room, called in Eugene, and unlocked the baron's desk. As she opened it she lost her self-command for a moment, and moving to the window, the quivering of the curtains betrayed the anguish that shook her fragile frame.
The mournful task began. Hour after hour passed. Eugene was in no condition to peruse any thing, but his mother reached letters and documents to Anton, and, though often obliged to desist a while, she bravely returned to the task. Anton placed the papers in order, and sought, by glancing over each, to arrive at least at a superficial view of the facts of the case.
It was evening, when the old servant opened the door in dismay, and called out, "He is there again." The baroness could not repress a slight scream, and made a gesture of aversion.
"I have told him that no one is at home, but he will not be dismissed; he makes such a noise on the steps. I can not get rid of him."
"It will kill me if I hear his voice again," murmured the baroness.
"If the man be Ehrenthal," said Anton, rising, "I will try to get him away. We have now done what was most necessary; have the goodness to lock up these papers, and to allow me to return to-morrow." The baroness silently assented, and sank back in her chair. Anton hurried off to the ante-room, whence he could hear Ehrenthal's loudly-raised voice.
The appearance of the usurer shocked him. His hat pushed half off his head, his pale face swelled as if by drinking, his glazed eyes red with tears, Ehrenthal stood before him, calling in broken sentences for the baron, wailing and cursing alternately. "He must come! he must come at once!" cried he; "the wicked man! A nobleman, indeed! he is a vagabond, after whom I will send the police. Where is my money? Where is my security? I want my mortgage from this man who is not at home."
Anton went straight up to him, and asked, "Do you know me, Mr. Ehrenthal?" Ehrenthal turned his glazed eyes upon him, and gradually recognized the friend of his dead son.
"He loved you!" he cried, in a lamentable voice. "He spoke to you more than to his father. You were the only friend that he had on earth. Have you heard what has happened in the house of Ehrenthal?" continued he, in a whisper. "Just as they stole the papers he died. He died with a hand like this," and clenching his fist he struck his forehead. "Oh my son! my son! why didst not thou forgive thy father!"
"We will go to your son," said Anton, taking the arm of the old man, who unresistingly allowed himself to be led back to his own house.
From thence Anton hurried to Councilor Horn, with whom he had a long conversation.
It was late before he returned home. In the midst of his anxiety about those whose prosperity had filled his imagination years before, the confidence that they, in their adversity, reposed in him, dilated his breast with a feeling of pride. He burned with desire to help them, and hoped that his zealous devotion might yet find some way of rescue. As yet he saw none. Looking up at the great building before him, so firm and secure, in the moonlight, a thought flashed into his mind. If any man could help them, it was his principal. His keen eye would be able to unravel all the dark secrets in which the baron was entangled, and his iron strength of will would crush the villains who held the unfortunate nobleman in their power. And then he had a noble nature; he always decided on the right, without an effort or a struggle. Anton looked at the first floor. The whole house-front was dark, but in a corner room a light still burned. It was the private office of his chief.
With sudden resolve, Anton begged the servant to take him to Mr. Schröter, who looked with amazement at the unexpected visitor, and asked what brought him, and whether any thing had happened.
"I implore your counsel—I implore your help," cried Anton.
"For yourself or for others?" inquired the merchant.
"For a family with whom I have accidentally become connected. They are lost if a strong hand does not ward off the impending catastrophe." Anton then rapidly related the occurrences of the afternoon, and, seizing his principal's hand in his emotion, cried, "Have pity upon the unhappy ladies, and help them."
"Help them!" replied the merchant; "how can I? Have you been commissioned to apply to me, or are you only following the impulse of your own feelings?"
"I am not commissioned; it is only the interest that I take in the baron's fate which leads me to you."
"And what right have you to inform me of facts communicated in strict confidence to yourself by the baron's lady?" asked the merchant, dryly.
"I am committing no indiscretion in telling you what will, in a few days, be no secret, even to strangers."
"You are unusually excited, otherwise you would not forget that, under no circumstances whatever, does a man of business venture to make such a communication without the special permission of the parties concerned. Of course, I shall make no wrong use of what you have said, but it was by no means business-like, Wohlfart, to be so open toward me."
Anton was silent, feeling, indeed, that his principal was right, but yet it seemed hard to be blamed for reposing confidence at such a time as this. The merchant walked silently up and down; at length, stopping before Anton, he said, "I do not now inquire how you come to take so warm an interest in this family. I fear it is an acquaintance you owe to Fink."
"You shall hear all," said Anton.
"Not at present. I will now content myself with repeating that it is impossible for me to interfere in these affairs without being specially applied to by the parties themselves. I may add that I by no means wish for such an application, and do not disguise from you that, were it made, I should probably decline to do any thing for the Baron Rothsattel."
Anton's feelings were roused to the utmost. "The question is the rescue of an honorable man, and of lovely and amiable women from the toils of rogues and impostors. To me, this seems the duty of every one; I, at least, consider it a sacred obligation which I dare not shrink from. But without your support I can do nothing."
"And how do you think this embarrassed man can be helped?" inquired the merchant, seating himself.
With somewhat more composure, Anton replied: "In the first instance, by an experienced man of business making himself master of the case. There must be some way of circumventing these villains. Your penetration would discover it."
"Any attorney would be far more likely to do so, and the baron might readily engage the services of experienced and upright legal advisers. If his enemies have done any thing illegal, the quick eye of a lawyer is the most likely to detect it."
"Alas! the baron's own lawyer gives but little hope," replied Anton.
"Then, my dear Wohlfart, no other is likely to do much good. Show me an embarrassed man who has strength to grasp an offered hand, and bid me help him, and for the sake of all I owe you, I will not refuse to do so. I think you are convinced of this."
"I am," said Anton, dejectedly.
"From all I hear, however," the merchant went on, "this is not the case with the baron. From what I gather from general report, as well as from you, his embarrassments arise from his having fallen into the hands of usurers, which proves him deficient in what alone ennobles the life of any man—good sense, and the power of steady exertion."
Anton could only sigh his assent.
"To help such a man," inexorably continued the merchant, "is a futile attempt, against which reason may well protest. We are not to despair of any, but want of strength is the most hopeless case of all. Our power of laboring for others being limited, it becomes our duty to inquire, before we devote our time to the weak, whether we are not thus diminishing our chances of helping better men."
Anton interrupted him. "Does he not deserve every allowance to be made for him? He was brought up to exact much; he has not learned, as we have, to make his way by his own labor."
The merchant laid his hand on the young man's shoulder. "The very reason. Believe me, a large number of these landed gentry, who pay the penalty of their old family memories, are beyond help. I am the last to deny that many worthy and admirable men belong to this class. Indeed, wherever remarkable talent or nobility of character shoots up among them, no doubt their position offers peculiar scope for its development, but for average men it is not a favorable one. He who considers it his hereditary privilege to enjoy life, and who assumes a distinguished position in virtue of his family, will very often fail to put forth his whole strength in order to deserve that position. Accordingly, numbers of our oldest families are declining, and their fall will be no loss to the state. Their family associations make them haughty without any right to be so—limit their perceptions and confuse their judgment."
"Even if all this be true," cried Anton, "it does not absolve us from helping individuals of the class who have excited our sympathy."
"No," said the principal, "if it be excited. But it does not glow so rapidly in advancing years as in youth. The baron has endeavored to isolate his property from the current of circumstances, in order to leave it forever to his family. Forever! You, as a merchant, know how to estimate the attempt. True, every rational man must allow it to be desirable that the culture of the same soil should be handed down from father to son. We all prize what our forefathers have possessed before us, and Sabine would unlock every room in this house with pride, because her great-great-grandmother turned the same keys before her. It is therefore natural that the landed proprietor should desire to preserve those familiar scenes, which are the source of his own prosperity, to those nearest and dearest to him. But there must be means to this end, and these means are the making his own existence available for the maintenance and increase of his patrimony. Where energy dies in families or individuals, then it is well that their means die too, that their money should circulate through other hands, and their plowshare pass to those who can guide it better. A family that has become effete through luxury ought to sink down into common life, to make room for the uprising of fresh energies and faculties. Every one who seeks, at the cost of free activity for others, to preserve permanent possessions and privileges for himself or his family, I must look upon as an enemy to the healthy development of our social state. And if such a man ruin himself in his endeavors, I should feel no malicious pleasure in his downfall, but I should say that he is rightly served, because he has sinned against a fundamental law of our social being; consequently, I should consider it doubly wrong to support this man, because I could but fear that I should thus be supporting an unsound condition of the body politic."
Anton looked down mournfully. He had expected sympathy and warm concurrence, and he met with disaffection and coldness that he despaired of conquering. "I can not gainsay you," he at length replied; "but in this case I can not feel as you do. I have been witness to the unspeakable distress in the baron's family, and my whole soul is full of sadness and sympathy, and of the wish to do something for those who have opened their heart to me. After what you have said, I dare no longer ask you to trouble yourself with their affairs, but I have promised the baroness to assist her as far as my small powers permit, and your kindness allows. I implore you to grant me permission to do this. I shall endeavor to be regular in my attendance at the office, but if during the next few weeks I am occasionally absent, I must ask you to excuse me."
Once more the merchant walked up and down the room, and then, looking at Anton's excited face, with deep seriousness and something of regret, he replied, "Remember, Wohlfart, that every occupation which excites the mind soon obtains a hold over a man, which may retard as well as advance his success in life. It is this which makes it difficult to me to agree to your wishes."
"I know it," said Anton, in a low voice; "but I have now no choice left."
"Well, then, do what you must," said the merchant, gloomily; "I will lay no hinderance in your way; and I hope that after a few weeks you will be able to consider the whole circumstances more calmly." Anton left the room, and the merchant stood looking long with frowning brow at the place his clerk had occupied.
Nor was Anton in a more congenial mood. "So cold, so inexorable!" exclaimed he, as he reached his own room. He began to suspect that his principal was more selfish and less kindly than he had hitherto supposed. Many an expression of Fink's recurred to his mind, as well as that evening when young Rothsattel, in his boyish conceit, had spoken impertinently to the merchant. "Is it possible," thought he, "that that rude speech should be unforgotten?" And his chief's keen, deep-furrowed face lost inexpressibly by contrast with the fair forms of the noble ladies. "I am not wrong," he cried to himself; "let him say what he will, my views are more just than his, and henceforth my destiny shall be to choose for myself the way in which I shall walk." He sat long in the darkness, and his thoughts were gloomy as it; then he went to the window to look down into the dark court below. A great white blossom rose before him like a phantom. Striking a light, he saw that it was the beautiful Calla out of Sabine's room. It hung down mournfully on its broken stem. Sabine had had it placed there. This little circumstance struck him as a mournful omen.
Meanwhile Sabine, taper in hand, entered her brother's room. "Good-night, Traugott," nodded she. "Wohlfart has been with you this evening; how long he staid!"
"He will leave us," replied the merchant, gloomily.
Sabine started and dropped her taper on the table. "For God's sake, what has happened? Has Wohlfart said that he was going away?"
"I do not yet know it, but I see it coming step by step; and I can not, and still less can you, do any thing to retain him. When he stood before me here with glowing cheeks and trembling voice, pleading for a ruined man, I found out what it was that lured him away."
"I do not understand you," said Sabine, looking full at her brother.
"He chooses to become the confidential friend of a decayed noble. A pair of bright eyes draws him away from us: it seems to him a worthy object of ambition to become Rothsattel's man of business. This intimacy with nobility is the legacy bequeathed to him by Fink."
"And you have refused to help him?" inquired Sabine, in a low voice.
"Let the dead bury their dead," said the merchant, harshly; and he turned to his writing-table.
Sabine slowly withdrew. The taper trembled in her hand as she passed through the long suite of rooms listening to her own footfall, and shuddering as the feeling came over her that an invisible companion glided by her side. This was the revenge of that other. The shadow that once fell on her innocent life now drove her friend away from their circle. Anton's affections clung to another. She had but been in his eyes a mere stranger, who had once loved and languished for one now far away, and who now, in widow's weeds, looked back regretfully to the feelings of her youth.
The few next weeks were spent by Anton in over-hard work. He had great difficulty in keeping up his counting-house duties, while he spent every spare hour in conference with the baroness and the lawyer.
In the mean time, the misfortunes of the baron ran their course. He had not been able to pay the interest of the sums with which his estate was burdened. When last they were due, a whole series of claims was brought against him, and the estate fell under the administration of the district authorities. Complicated lawsuits arose. Ehrenthal complained loudly, claiming the first mortgage of twenty thousand dollars—nay, he was inclined to advance claims on the last mortgage offered by the baron in the recent fatal hour. Löbel Pinkus also appeared as claimant of the first mortgage, and asserted that he had paid the whole sum of twenty thousand dollars. Ehrenthal had no proof to bring forward, and had been for some weeks past quite unable to manage his own affairs, while Pinkus, on the contrary, fought with every weapon a hardened sinner can devise or employ, and the deeds which the baron had executed at Veitel's suggestion proved to be so capital a master-stroke of the cunning advocate, that the baron's man of business had, from the first, little hope of the case. We may here observe that Pinkus did eventually win it, and that the mortgage was made over to him.
Anton was now gradually gaining some insight into the baron's circumstances. But the double sale of the first mortgage was still kept a secret by the latter, even from his wife. He declared Ehrenthal's claim unfounded, and even expressed a suspicion that he had himself had something to do with the robbery in his office. Indeed, he really believed this. Then the name of Itzig was never broached, and the suspicion against Ehrenthal, which the baron's lawyer shared, prevented Anton seeking any explanation from him.
Meanwhile, an estrangement had sprung up between our hero and his principal, which the whole counting-house remarked with surprise. The merchant scowled at Anton's vacant seat when the latter chanced to be absent during office-hours, or looked coldly at his clerk's face, made pale as it was with excitement of mind and night-work. He took no notice of his new occupation, and never seemed to remark him. Even to his sister he maintained a stiff-necked silence; nor could all her attempts lead him to speak of Anton, who, on his side, felt his heart revolt against this coldness. After his return, to be treated like a child of the house, praised, promoted, petted, and now to be treated like a mere hireling, who is not worth the bread thrown to him; to be a toy of an incomprehensible caprice—this, at least, he had not deserved; so he became reserved toward the whole family, and sat silent at his desk; but he felt the contrast between the now and the then so keenly, that often, when alone, he would spring up and stamp on the ground in the bitter indignation of his heart.
One comfort remained. Sabine was not estranged. True, he saw little of her, and at dinner she seemed to avoid speaking to him, but he knew that she was on his side.
A few days after his first conversation with the merchant, she came down stairs as he stood in the hall, and had to pass him by so closely that her dress touched him. He had retreated, and made a formal bow, but she looked at him imploringly, and whispered, "You must not be estranged from me." It was an affair of a moment, but the faces of both were radiant with a happy understanding.
The time had now arrived when Mr. Jordan was to quit the firm. The principal again called Anton into his little office, and without any severity, but also without a trace of his former cordiality, began: "I have already mentioned to you my intention of appointing you Jordan's successor; but, during the last few weeks, your time has been more taken up with other business than would be compatible with such a post, I therefore ask you whether you are now at liberty to undertake Jordan's duties?"
"I am not," replied Anton.
"Can you name any—not very distant—time when you will be free from your present occupation? In that case I will endeavor to find a substitute until then."
Anton sorrowfully replied, "I can not at present say when I shall again be master of my whole time; and, besides, I feel that, even as it is, I tax your indulgence by many irregularities. Therefore, Mr. Schröter, I beg that you will fill up this post without any reference to me."
The merchant's brow grew furrowed and dark, and he silently bowed assent. Anton felt as he closed the door that the estrangement between them was now complete, and, resuming his place, he leaned his throbbing head on his hand. A moment later Baumann was summoned to the principal, and Jordan's situation conferred upon him. On returning to the office, he went up to Anton and whispered, "I refused at first, but Mr. Schröter insisted. I am doing you an injustice." And that evening Mr. Baumann, in his own room, read in the first book of Samuel the chapters treating of the unjust Saul (the principal), and of the friendship between Jonathan and the persecuted David, and strengthened his heart thereby.
The next day Anton was summoned to the baroness. Lenore and her mother sat before a large table covered with jewel-boxes and toilette elegances of every description, while a heavy iron chest stood at their feet. The curtains were drawn, and the subdued light shone softly into the richly furnished room. On the carpet glowed wreaths of unfading flowers, and the clock ticked cheerfully in its alabaster case. Under the shade of flowering plants sat the two love-birds in their silvered cage, hopping from perch to perch, screaming ceaselessly, or sitting up quietly close to each other. The whole room was beauty and perfume. "For how long?" thought Anton. The baroness rose. "We are already obliged to trouble you again," said she; "we are engaged in a very painful occupation." On the table were all manner of ornaments, gold chains, brilliants, rings, necklaces, gathered into a heap.
"We have been looking out all that we can dispense with," said the baroness, "and now pray you to undertake to sell these things for us. I have been told that some of them are of value, and as we are now in much need of money, we turn here for help."
Anton looked in perplexity at the glittering heap.
"Tell us, Wohlfart," cried Lenore, anxiously, "is this necessary? can it be of any use? Mamma has insisted upon setting apart for sale all our ornaments, and whatever plate is not in daily use. What I can give is not worth talking of, but my mother's jewels are costly; many of them were presents made to her in youth, which she shall not part with unless you say that it is necessary."
"I fear," said Anton, gravely, "that it will prove so."
"Take them," said the baroness to Anton; "I shall be calmer when I know that we have at least done what we could."
"But do you wish to part with all?" inquired Anton, anxiously. "Much that is dear to you may have but little value in a jeweler's eyes."
"I shall never wear an ornament again," quietly replied the baroness. "Take them all;" and, holding her hands before her eyes, she turned away.
"We are torturing my mother," cried Lenore, hastily; "will you lock up all that is on the table, and get them out of the house as soon as you can?"
"I can not undertake the charge of these valuables," said Anton, "without taking some measures to decrease my own responsibility. First of all, I will in your presence make a short note of all you intrust to me."
"What useless cruelty!" exclaimed Lenore.
"It will not take long."
Anton took out a few sheets from his pocket-book, and began to note down the different articles.
"You shall not see it done, mother," said Lenore, drawing her mother away, and then returning to watch Anton at his task.
"These preparations for the market are horrible," said she. "My mother's whole life will be sold; some memory of hers is linked with every single thing. Look, Wohlfart, the princess gave her this diamond ornament when she married my father."
"They are magnificent brilliants," cried Anton, admiringly.
"This ring was my grandfather's, and these are presents of poor papa's. Alas! no man can know how we love all these things. It was always a festival to me when mamma put on her diamonds. Now we come to my possessions. They are not worth much. Do you think this bracelet good gold?" She held out her hand as she spoke.
"I do not know."
"It shall go with the rest," said Lenore, taking it off. "Yes, you are a kind, good man, Wohlfart," continued she, looking trustfully into his tearful eyes; "do not forsake us. My brother has no experience, and is more helpless than we are. It is a frightful position for me. Before mamma I do all I can to be composed, else I could scream and weep the whole day through." She sank in a chair, still holding his hand. "Dear Wohlfart, do not forsake us."
Anton bent over her, and looked with passionate emotion at the lovely face that turned so trustfully to him in the midst of its tears.
"I will be helpful to you when I can," said he, in the fullness of his heart. "I will be at hand whenever you need me. You have too good an opinion of my information and my faculties; I can be of less assistance to you than you suppose, but what I can, that I will do in any and every possible way."
Their hands parted with a warm pressure; the affair was settled.
The baroness now returned. "Our lawyer was with me this morning," said she; "and now I must ask for your opinion on another subject. He tells me that there is no prospect of preserving the baron's family estate."
"At this time, when interest is high, and money difficult to get, none," replied Anton.
"And you, too, think that we must turn all our efforts toward preserving the Polish property?"
"I do," was the answer.
"For that, also, money will be necessary. Perhaps I may be able through my relatives to intrust you with a small sum, which, with the help of that"—she pointed to the iron chest—"may suffice to cover the first necessary expenses. I do not, however, wish to sell the jewels here, and a journey to the residence would be necessary in order to procure the sum to which I have just alluded. The baron's lawyer has spoken most highly of your capacity for business. It is his wish which now decides me to make a proposal to you. Will you for the next few years, or, at all events, until our greatest difficulties are over, devote your whole time to our affairs? I have consulted my children, and they agree with me in believing that in your assistance lies our only hope of rescue. The baron, too, has come in to the plan. The question now is whether your circumstances allow you to give your support to our unfortunate family. We shall be grateful to you, whatever conditions you affix; and if you can find any way of making our great obligations to you apparent in the position you hold, pray impart it to me."
Anton stood petrified. What the baroness required of him was separation from the firm, separation from his principal, and from Sabine! Had this thought occurred to him before, when standing in Lenore's presence or bending over the baron's papers? At all events, now that the words were spoken, they shocked him. He looked at Lenore, who stood behind her mother with hands clasped in supplication. At length he replied, "I stand in a position which I can not leave without the consent of others. I was not prepared for this proposal, and beg to have time allowed me for consideration. It is a step which will decide my whole future life."
"I do not press you," said the baroness; "I only request your consideration. Whatever your decision be, our warmest gratitude will still be yours; if you are unable to uphold our feeble strength, I fear that we shall find no one to do so. You will think of that," she added, beseechingly.
Anton hurried through the street with throbbing pulse. The noble lady's glance of entreaty, Lenore's folded hands, beckoned him out of the gloomy counting-house into a sphere of greater liberty, into a new future, from whose depths bright images flashed out upon his fancy. A request had been frankly made, and he was strongly inclined to justify the confidence that prompted it. Those ladies required an unwearied, self-sacrificing helper to save them from utter ruin, and if he followed his impulse he should be doing a good work—fulfilling a duty.
In this mood he entered the merchant's dwelling. Alas! all that he saw around him seemed to stretch out a hand to detain him. As he looked at the warehouse, the good-humored faces of the porters, the chains of the great scales, the hieroglyphics of the worthy Pix, again he felt that this was the place that he belonged to. Sabine's dog kissed his hand, and ran before him to his room—his and Fink's room. Here the childish heart of the orphan boy had found a friend, kind companions, a home, a definite and honorable life-purpose. Looking down through his window on all the long-familiar objects, he saw a light in Sabine's store-chamber. How often he had sought for that light, which brightened the whole great building, and brought a sense of comfort and cheerfulness even into his room. He now sprang up suddenly, and said to himself, "She shall decide."
Sabine started in amazement when Anton appeared before her. "I am irresistibly impelled to seek you," cried he. "I have to decide upon my future life, and I feel undetermined, and unable to trust to my own judgment. You have always been a kind friend to me since the day of my arrival. I am accustomed to look up to you, and to think of you in connection with all that interests me here. Let me hear your opinion from your own lips. The Baroness Rothsattel has to-day proposed to me permanently to undertake the situation of confidential adviser and manager of the baron's affairs. Shall I accept; or shall I remain here? I know not—tell me what is right both for myself and others."
"Not I," said Sabine, drawing back and growing very pale. "I can not venture to decide in the matter. Nor do you wish me to do so, Wohlfart, for you have already decided."
Anton looked straight before him and was silent.
"You have thought of leaving this house, and a wish to do so has sprung out of the thought. And I am to justify you, and approve your resolve! This is what you require of me," continued she, bitterly. "But this, Wohlfart, I can not do, for I am sorry that you go away from us."
She turned away from him and leaned on the back of a chair.
"Oh, be not angry with me too!" said Anton; "that I can not bear. I have suffered much of late. Mr. Schröter has suddenly withdrawn from me the friendly regard that I long held my life's greatest treasure. I have not deserved his coldness. What I have been doing has not been wrong, and it was done with his knowledge. I had been spoiled by his kindness; I have the more deeply felt his displeasure. My only comfort has been that you did not condemn me. And now, do not you be cold toward me, else I shall be wretched forever. There is not a soul on earth to whom I can turn for affectionate comprehension of my difficulties. Had I a sister, I should seek her heart to-day. You do not know what to me, lonely as I am, your smile, your kindly shake of the hand has been till now. Do not turn coldly from me, I beseech you."
Sabine was silent. At length she inquired, still with averted face, "What draws you to those strangers; is it a joyful hope, is it sympathy alone? Give this question close consideration before you answer it to yourself at least."
"What it is that makes it possible for me to leave this house," said Anton, "I do not myself know. If I can give a name to my motives, it is gratitude felt toward one. She was the first to speak kindly to the wandering boy on his way out into the world. I have admired her in the peaceful brightness of her former life. I have often dreamed childish dreams about her. There was a time when a tender feeling for her filled my whole heart, and I then believed myself forever the slave of her image. But years bring changes, and I learned to look on men and on life with other eyes. Then I met her again, distressed, unhappy, despairing, and my compassion became overmastering. When I am away from her, I know that she is nothing to me; when I am with her, I feel only the spell of her sorrow. Once, when I had to depart out of her circle like a culprit, she came to me, and before the whole scornful assembly she gave me her hand and acknowledged me her friend; and now she comes and asks for my hand to help her father. Can I refuse it? Is it wrong to feel as I do? I know not, and no one can tell me—no one but you alone."
Sabine's head had sunk down to the back of the chair on which she bent. She now suddenly raised it, and with tearful eyes, and a voice full of love and sorrow, cried, "Follow the voice that calls you. Go, Wohlfart, go."
On a cold October day, two men were seen driving through the latticed gate of the town of Rosmin on toward the plain, which stretched out before them monotonous and boundless. Anton sat wrapped in his fur coat, his hat low on his forehead, and at his side was young Sturm, in an old cavalry cloak, with his soldier's cap cocked cheerily on one side. In front of them a farm-servant, squatted on a heap of straw, flogged on the small horses. The wind swept the sand and straw from the stubble-fields, the road was a broad causeway without ditches or hedges, the horses had to wade alternately through puddles and deep sand. Yellow sand gleamed through the scanty herbage in all directions wherever a field-mouse had made her way to her nest or an active mole had done what he could to diversify the unbroken plain. Wherever the ground sank, stagnant water lodged, and there hollow willow-trees stretched their crippled arms in the air, their boughs flapping in the wind, and their faded leaves fluttering down into the muddy pool below. Here and there stood a small dwarf pine, a resting-place for the crows, who, scared by the passing carriage, flew loudly croaking over the travelers' heads. There was no house to be seen on the road, no pedestrian, and no conveyance of any kind.
Karl looked every now and then at his silent companion, and said at last, pointing to the horses, "How rough their coats are, and how pretty their gray mouse skins! I wonder how many of these beasties would go to make up my sergeant's horse! When I took leave of my father, the old man said, 'Perhaps I shall pay you a visit, little one, when they light the Christmas-tree.' 'You'll never be able,' said I. 'Why not?' asked he. 'You'll never trust yourself in any post-chaise.' Then the old boy cried, 'Oho! post-chaises are always of a stout build; I shall be sure to trust myself in one.' But now, Mr. Anton, I see that my father never can pay us a visit."
"Why not?"
"It is possible that he may reach Rosmin; but, as soon as he sees these horses and this road, he will instantly turn back. 'Shall I trust myself,' he'll say, 'in a district where sand runs between one's legs like water, and where mice are put into harness? The ground is not firm enough for me.'"
"The horses are not the worst things here," said Anton, absently. "Look! these go fast enough."
"Yes," replied Karl, "but they don't go like regular horses; they entangle their legs like two cats playing in a parsley-bed. And what things they have for shoes—regular webbed hoofs, I declare, which no blacksmith can ever fit."
"If we could only get on!" returned Anton; "the wind blows cold, and I am shivering in spite of my fur."
"You have slept but little the last few nights, sir," said Karl. "The wind blows here as if over a threshing-floor. The earth is not round hereabouts as elsewhere, but flat as a cake. This is a complete desert; we have been driving for more than an hour, and there is not a village to be seen."
"A desert indeed," sighed Anton; "let us hope it may improve." They relapsed into profound silence. At length the driver stopped near a pool, unharnessed the horses, and led them to the water's edge, without noticing the travelers.
"What the deuce does this mean?" cried Karl, jumping down from the carriage.
"I am going to feed," replied the servant, sulkily, in a foreign accent.
"I am anxious to know how that will be done," said Karl. "There is not the shadow of a bag of provender."
The horses, however, soon proved that they could live without corn; they stretched down their shaggy heads, and began to pull the grass and weeds at the edge of the pool, sometimes taking a draught of the dirty water. Meanwhile the servant drew a bundle from under his seat, settled himself under the lee of an alder-bush, and, taking his knife, cut his bread and cheese without even glancing at the travelers.
"I say, Ignatius or Jacob," cried Karl, sharply, "how long will this breakfast of yours last?"
"An hour," replied the man, munching away.
"And how far is it from here to the estate?"
"Six miles, or maybe more."
"You can make nothing of him," said Anton; "we must put up with the customs of the country;" and, leaving the carriage, they went to look on at the horses feeding.
Anton is on his way to the Polish property. He is now the baron's agent. Anxious months have the last proved to him. The parting from his principal and the firm had been painful in the extreme. For some time before it, indeed, Anton had found himself alone in the midst of his colleagues. The quiet Baumann still remained his friend, but the others considered him a castaway. The merchant received his resignation with icy coldness; and even in the hour of parting, his hand lay impassive as metal in Anton's grasp. Since then, our hero had undertaken several journeys to the capital and to creditors in the family's behalf, and now he was on his way to set the new estate in order, accompanied by Karl, whom he had induced to become the baron's bailiff.
Ehrenthal had, by the authority conferred on him, taken possession of the property from the time of the sale by auction, and hired the Polish bailiff for the baron. There had been unfair dealings between them at the time, and it was well known in Rosmin that the bailiff had sold off a good deal, and been guilty of all sorts of frauds since, so that Anton had even now no prospect of a quiet life.
"The hour is come when I may execute my commission," cried Karl, groping in the straw under the seat. He drew out a large japanned tin case, and carried it to Anton. "Miss Sabine gave me this in charge for you." He then joyously opened the lid, produced the materials for an excellent breakfast, a bottle of wine, and a silver goblet. Anton took hold of the case.
"It has a very knowing look," said Karl. "Miss Sabine planned it herself."
Anton examined it on all sides, and placed it carefully on a tuft of grass; then he took up the goblet, and saw his initials engraved on it, and underneath the words, "To thy welfare." Whereupon he forgot the breakfast and all around him, and stood gazing at the goblet, lost in thought.
"Do not forget the breakfast, sir," suggested Karl, respectfully.
"Sit down by me, my faithful friend; eat and drink with me. Leave off your absurd politeness. We shall have but little, either of us, but what we have we will share like brothers. Take the bottle if you have no glass."
"There's nothing like leather," said Karl, taking a small leathern drinking-cup out of his pocket. "As for what you have just said, it was kindly meant, and I thank you; but there must be subordination, if it were but for the sake of the others; and so, sir, be kind enough to let me shake hands with you now, and then let things be as they were before. Only look at the horses, Mr. Anton. My faith! the creatures devour thistles."
Again the horses were harnessed, again they threw out their short legs in the sand, and again the carriage rolled through the barren district—first through an empty plain, next through a wretched fir-wood, then past a row of low sand-hills, then over a tumble-down bridge crossing a small stream.
"This is the property," said the driver, turning round, and pointing with his whip to a row of dirty thatched roofs that had just come into sight.
Anton stood up to look for the group of trees in which the Hall might be supposed to stand. Nothing of the sort to be seen. The village was deficient in all that adorns the home of the poorest German peasant—no orchard, no hedged-in gardens, no lime-trees in the market-place.
"This is wretched," said he, sitting down again; "much worse than they told us in Rosmin."
"The village looks as if under a curse," cried Karl; "no teams working in the fields—not a cow or a sheep to be seen."
The farm-servant flogged his horses into an irregular gallop, and so they passed through the rows of mud huts which constituted the village, and arrived at the public house. Karl sprang from the carriage, opened the tavern door, and called for the landlord. A Jew slowly rose from his seat by the stove and came to the threshold. "Is the gendarme from Rosmin come?" He is gone into the village. "Which is the way to the farm-yard?"
The landlord, an elderly man with an intelligent countenance, described the way in German and Polish, and remained standing at the door—bewildered, Karl declared, by the sight of two human beings. The carriage turned into a cross-road, planted on both sides with thick bushes, the remains of a fallen avenue. Over holes, stones, and puddles, it rattled on to a group of mud huts, which still had a remnant of whitewash upon them. "The barns and stables are empty," cried Karl, "for I see gaps in the roofs large enough to drive our carriage through."
Anton said no more; he was prepared for every thing. They drove through a break between the stables into the farm-yard, a large irregular space, surrounded on three sides by tumble-down buildings, and open to the fields on the fourth. A heap ofdébrislay there—lime and rotten timber, the remains of a ruined barn. The yard was empty; no trace of farm implements or human labor to be seen. "Which is the inspector's house," inquired Anton, in dismay. The driver looked round, and at last made up his mind that it was a small one-storied building, with straw thatch and dirty windows.
At the noise of the wheels a man appeared on the threshold, and waited phlegmatically till the travelers had dismounted, and were standing close before him. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, with a bloated, brandy-drinking face, dressed in a jacket of shaggy cloth, while behind him peered the muzzle of an equally shaggy dog, who snarled at the strangers. "Are you the steward of this property?"
"I am," replied the man, in broken German, without stirring from where he was.
"And I am the agent of the new proprietor," said Anton.
"That does not concern me," growled the shaggy man, turning sharp round, entering the house, and bolting the door within.
Anton was thoroughly roused. "Break the window in, and help me to catch the rascal," cried he to Karl, who coolly seized a piece of wood, struck the panes so as to make the rotten framework give way, and cleared the opening at one leap. Anton followed him. The room was empty, so was the next, and in it an open window—the man was gone.
"After him!" cried Karl, and dashed on in pursuit, while Anton looked about the house and out-buildings. He soon heard the barking of a dog, and saw Karl capture the fugitive. Hurrying to his help, he held the man fast, while, with a kick, Karl sent the dog flying. They then contrived to force the steward back to the house, though he kept striking out violently all the way.
"Go to the tavern, and bring the gendarme and the landlord," cried Anton to the driver, who, undisturbed by all that had been going on, had meanwhile unpacked the carriage. The man accordingly drove leisurely off, and the fugitive being got into the room, Karl found an old cloth, and with it bound his hands behind his back. "I beg your pardon, sir," said he; "it is only for an hour or so, till the arrival of the Rosmin gendarme, whom we have appointed to meet us."
Anton then proceeded to examine the house, but there was nothing to be found but the merest necessaries; no books nor papers of any kind. It had doubtless been emptied already. A bundle projected from the coat-pocket of the prisoner, which turned out to be receipts and legal documents in Polish. In time, the driver returned with the landlord and the armed policeman. The landlord stood at the door in some perplexity, and the policeman explained in a few moments what remained to be done. "You must make a statement to the local judge, and give the man up to me. He shall go back in your carriage to Rosmin. You will do well to get rid of him, for this is a wild country, and it will be safer for you to have him at Rosmin than here, where he has friends and accomplices."
After a long search, a sheet of paper was found in a cupboard, the statement made and submitted to the policeman, who shook his head a little over the Polish composition, and the prisoner lifted into the carriage, the gendarme taking his seat beside him, and saying to Anton, "I have long expected something of the kind. You may have often occasion to want me again." The carriage then drove away, and thus the property came under Anton's administration. He felt as if cast on a desert island.
His portmanteau and traveling effects were leaning against a mud wall, and the Polish landlord was the only man who could give him and Karl any information or advice in their forlorn condition.
Now that the steward was fairly gone, the landlord grew more communicative, and showed himself serviceable and obliging. A long conversation ensued, and its purport was what Anton had apprehended from the warning given by the Commissary Walter and other Rosmin officials. The inspector had, during the last few weeks, done all he could in the way of spoliation, rendered daring by a report which had found its way from the town to the village, that the present proprietor would never be able to take possession of the estate. At last Anton said, "What that wretched man has done away with he will have to account for; our first care must be to preserve what is still to be found on the property. You must be our guide to-day."
They then examined the empty buildings. Four horses and two servants—they were gone into the wood—a few old plows, a pair of harrows, two wagons, a britzska, a cellar full of potatoes, a few bundles of hay, a little straw—the inventory did not take much time in drawing up. The buildings were all out of repair, not through age, but neglect.
"Where is the dwelling-house?" inquired Anton. The landlord led the way out of the yard to the meadow—a broad plain, gradually sloping down to the level of the brook. It had been a great pasture. The cattle had trodden it down into holes; the snouts of greedy swine had rooted it up; gray molehills and rank tufts of grass rose on all sides.
The landlord stretched out his hand. "There is the castle. This castle is famous throughout the whole country," he added, reverentially; "no nobleman in the district has a stone house like that. All the gentry here live in wood and mud buildings. Herr von Tarow, the richest of them, has but a poor dwelling."
About three hundred yards from the last out-building rose a great brick edifice, with a black slate roof and a thick round tower. Its gloomy walls on this treeless pasture-land, without one trace of life around, rose beneath the cloudy sky like a phantom fortress which some evil spirit had evoked from the abyss—a station from which to blight all the surrounding landscape.
The strangers approached it. The castle had fallen into ruins before the builders had finished their task. The tower had stood there for ages. It was built of unhewn stone, and had small windows and loop-holes. The former lords of the land had looked down from its summit on the tops of the trees, which then stretched far into the plain. They had then ruled with a rod of iron the serfs who cultivated their land, and toiled and died for them. Many an arrow had sped through those loop-holes at the enemy storming below, and many a Tartar horse had been overthrown before those massive walls. Years ago, a despot of the district had, in expiation of former sins, begun to add to the gray tower the walls of a holy monastery; but the monastery never got finished, and the useless walls had already stood there long, when the late count took it into his head to convert them into a lordly dwelling for his race, and to raise a house unparalleled for magnificence in the whole country.
The front of the house was added on to both sides of the tower, which projected in the middle. The intention had been to have a high terrace-road up to the castle, and the principal entrance had been made in the tower, and arched over; but the terrace never having been formed, the stone threshold of the main door was quite inaccessible without the help of ladders, and the wide opening was left. The window-spaces of the lower floor were merely closed up with boards, while on the second story were some window-frames of beautifully carved wood, in which large panes had once been placed, but they had got broken. In other windows were temporary frames of rough deal, with small panes of muddy glass let into them. A company of jackdaws sat on the top of the tower, looking down in amazement on the strangers, and every now and then one flew off, screaming loudly, to contemplate the intruders from a new point of view.
"A house for crows and bats, not for human beings," said Anton. "At least, I see no way of getting into it."
The landlord now took them round the building. Behind, where the two wings made a sort of horse-shoe, there were low entrances to the cellars and offices; beneath which, again, were stables, great arched kitchens, and small cells for the serfs. A wooden staircase led to the upper story. The door turned creaking on its hinges, and a narrow passage took them through a side wing to the front part of the house. There all was at least magnificently planned. The circular entrance-hall—an arched room of the old tower—was painted in mosaic, and through the great doorway-opening was seen a wide expanse of country. A broad staircase, worthy of a palace, led up to another round hall, with narrow windows, the second story of the tower. On each side lay suites of apartments: large, lofty, desolate rooms, with heavy oak folding-doors, and dirty plastered walls, the ceiling made of fir branches arranged in squares; in some rooms colossal green tile stoves, in other rooms no stoves at all; in some, beautiful inlaid floors, in others rude deal boards. An immense saloon, with two gigantic chimney-pieces, had merely a provisional ceiling of old laths. The castle was fitted for a wild Asiatic household, for hangings of leather and of silk from France, for costly woodwork from England, for massive silver services from German mines, for a proud master, numerous guests, and a troop of retainers to fill the halls and ante-rooms. The builder of the castle had looked back to the wealth of his wild ancestors when he devised the plan; he had had hundreds of trees cut down in the woods, and his hereditary bondsmen had kneaded many thousand bricks with their own hands and feet; but Time, the inexorable, had raised his finger against him, and none of his hopes had been realized. His ruin first, and then his death, occurred during the progress of the building; and his son, brought up among strangers, had, as fast as one fool could, hurried on the ruin of his house. Now the walls of the Slavonic castle stood with doors and windows gaping wide, but no guest spoke his good wishes as he entered; only wild birds flew in and out, and the marten crept over the floors. Useless and unsightly the walls stood there, threatening to crumble and fall, like the race that had raised them up.
Anton passed with rapid step from room to room, vainly hoping to find one in which he could even imagine the two ladies, who were looking forward to this house as their asylum. He opened door after door, went up and down creaking steps, disturbed the birds who had flown in through the open archway, and still clung to their last summer's nest; but he found nothing save uninhabitable rooms, with dirty plastered walls, or without any plaster at all. Every where draughts, gaping doors, and windows boarded up. Some oats had been shaken out in the large saloon; and a few rooms looked as if they might have been temporarily made use of, but a few old chairs and a rude table were all the furniture they contained.
At length Anton ascended the decayed staircase in the tower, and found himself on its summit. Thence he saw the whole pile of building below him, and looked far into the plain. To his left the sun sank down behind gray masses of cloud into the depths of the forest; to his right lay the irregular square of the farm-yard, and beyond it the untidy village; behind him ran the brook, with a strip of meadow-land on either side. Wild pear-trees, the delight of the Polish farmer, rose here and there in the fields, with their thick and branching crowns; and under each was an oasis of grass and bushes, gayly colored by the fallen leaves. These trees, the dwelling-places of countless birds, alone broke the monotonous surface of the plain—these, and at the verge of the horizon, on all sides, the dark forest mentioned above. The sky was gray, the ground colorless, the trees and bushes that bordered the brook were bare, and the forest, with its promontories and bays, looked like a wall that separated this spot of earth from the rest of humanity, from civilization, from every joy and charm of life.
Anton's heart sank. "Poor Lenore! poor family!" he groaned aloud; "things look terrible, but they could be improved. With money and taste every thing is possible. This house might, without prodigious expense, be metamorphosed by the upholsterer into a gorgeous residence. It would be easy to level the pasture-land around—to sow it with fine grass—to intersperse it with a few gayly-colored flower-beds—and to plant out the village. Nothing is wanting to change the whole face of the district but capital, industry, and judgment. But how is the baron to procure these? To make any thing of this place should be the task of some fresh and active life, and the baron is broken down; and thousands of dollars would be needed, and years would pass away before the soil would do more than pay the expenses of its culture, or yield any interest whatever on the capital sunk in it."
Meanwhile Karl was contemplating two particular rooms in the upper story with a knowing eye. "These take my fancy more than any of the others," said he to the landlord; "they have plastered walls, floors, stoves—nay, even windows. To be sure, the panes are a good deal broken, but, till we can get better glass, paper is not to be despised. We will settle ourselves here. Could you get me somebody who knows how to handle a broom and scrubbing-cloth? Good, you can; and now listen: try to bring me a few sheets of paper; I have got glue with me; we will first get some wood, then I will heat the stove, melt my glue, and paper up broken panes. But, above all, help me to carry up our luggage from the yard—and let us be quick about it."
His zeal communicated itself to the landlord; the luggage was got up stairs; Karl unpacked a case full of tools of every kind, and the host ran to call his maid from the public house.
Meanwhile horses' hoofs rang on the court-yard, and some well-dressed men stopped before the late steward's dwelling, and knocked loudly at the closed door. At a call from Anton, Karl hurried up to them.
"Good-morning," said one, in rather labored German; "is the steward at home?"
"Where is the steward? where is Bratzky?" cried the others, impatient as their prancing horses.
"If you mean the former steward," replied Karl, dryly, "he will not run away from you though you do not find him here."
"What do you mean?" inquired the nearest horseman; "I beg that you will explain yourself."
"If you wish to speak to Mr. Bratzky, you must take the trouble of riding to the town. He is in custody."
The horses reared, and their riders closed round Karl, while Polish ejaculations were heard on all sides. "In custody! On what account?"
"Ask my master," replied Karl, pointing to the doorway in the tower, where Anton stood.
"Have I the pleasure of speaking to the new proprietor?" inquired one of the party, taking off his hat. Anton looked down in amazement. The voice and face reminded him of a white-gloved gentleman whom he had met once before in a critical hour.
"I am the Baron Rothsattel's agent," replied he. The horse was pulled back, and the rider spoke a few words to his companions, upon which an older man with a fox-like face cried, "We are anxious to speak on private business with the late steward. We hear that he is in custody, and beg you will tell us why."
"He tried to evade by flight the surrender of the property to me, and he is suspected of dishonest dealings."
"Are his effects confiscated?" inquired one of the riders.
"Why do you inquire?" returned Anton.
"I beg your pardon," said the other, "but the man happens accidentally to have some papers that belong to me in his house, and it might embarrass me if I could not get possession of them."
"His effects are gone with him to town," replied Anton. Once more there was a consultation, and then the riders, bowing slightly, galloped off to the village, halted a few minutes at the public house, and disappeared where the high road turned into the wood.
"What can they want, Mr. Wohlfart?" inquired Karl. "That was a strange flying visit."
"Yes, indeed," replied Anton; "I have reason to think it remarkable. If I am not much mistaken, I have met one of the gentlemen before in very different circumstances. Perhaps that fellow Bratzky knew how to make himself friends through the mammon of unrighteousness."
The evening now wrapped castle and forest in its dark mantle. The servants returned with the horses from the wood. Karl led them into Anton's presence, made them a short Polish oration, and received them into the service of the new proprietor. Next came the landlord to look after them, bringing oats and a bundle of wood, and saying to Anton, "I recommend you, sir, to be watchful during the night; the peasants sit yonder in the bar, and discuss your arrival; there are bad men about, and I would not be sure that one of them might not stick a match into the straw yonder, and burn down the farm-buildings for you."
"I am sure enough that they will do nothing of the kind," said Karl, throwing another log into the stove. "A fresh breeze is blowing right on to the village. No one would be such a fool as to set his own barns on fire. We shall take care to keep the wind in this point as long as we are here. Tell your people that. Have you brought me the potatoes I asked for?"
Anton appointed the landlord to return the next morning, and the travelers were left alone in the desolate house.
"You need not heed that hint, Mr. Anton," continued Karl. "All over the world drunken rascals have a trick of threatening fire; and, after all, with reverence be it said, it would be no great harm. And now, Mr. Anton, that we are by ourselves, let us think as little as possible about this Polish affair—let us set to and be comfortable."
"I'm all right," said Anton, drawing a chair to the stove. The wood crackled in the green tiles, and the red glare threw a warm light over the floor, and flickered pleasantly on the walls.
"The warmth does one good," said Anton; "but do you not perceive smoke?"
"Of course," replied Karl, who was boring round holes in the potatoes by the firelight. "Even the best stoves will smoke at the beginning of winter, till they get accustomed to their work, and this great green fellow has probably not seen fire for a generation, so it is not to be expected that he should draw kindly at once. Be so good as to cut a bit of bread and hold it to the fire. I am getting our candles ready." He took out a great packet of candles, stuck one into each potato, cut off the lower half, and placed them on the table, and then produced the japanned case. "This is inexhaustible," said he; "it will last till the day after to-morrow."
"That it will," said Anton, cheerily. "I am wonderfully hungry. And now let us consider how we shall manage our housekeeping. What we absolutely want we must get from the town; I will make a list at once. We will put out one candle, though—we must be economical."
The evening was spent in plans. Karl discovered that he could make part of the necessary furniture out of the boxes and boards about, and the laughter of the two companions sounded cheerfully through the rooms of the starost's dwelling. At last Anton proposed that they should go to bed. They shook down straw and hay, unbuckled their portmanteaus, and produced some blankets and coverlets. Karl fastened a lock that he had brought with him into the room door, examined the loading of his carbine, took up his potato, and said, with a military salute, "At what time does major general the agent wish to be called to-morrow?"
"You good fellow!" cried Anton, reaching out his hand from his straw bed.