“[Copy.]“To MR. ADAMS RIGHTBODY, BOSTON, MASS.“Joshua Silsbie died suddenly this morning. His last request wasthat you should remember your sacred compact with him of thirtyyears ago.(Signed) “SEVENTY-FOUR.“SEVENTY-FIVE.”
In the darkened home, and amid the formal condolements of their friends who had called to gaze upon the scarcely cold features of their late associate, Mrs. Rightbody managed to send another despatch. It was addressed to “Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five,” Cottonwood. In a few hours she received the following enigmatical response:—
“A horse-thief named Josh Silsbie was lynched yesterday morning by the Vigilantes at Deadwood.”
The spring of 1874 was retarded in the California sierras; so much so, that certain Eastern tourists who had early ventured into the Yo Semite Valley found themselves, one May morning, snow-bound against the tempestuous shoulders of El Capitan. So furious was the onset of the wind at the Upper Merced Canyon, that even so respectable a lady as Mrs. Rightbody was fain to cling to the neck of her guide to keep her seat in the saddle; while Miss Alice, scorning all masculine assistance, was hurled, a lovely chaos, against the snowy wall of the chasm. Mrs. Rightbody screamed; Miss Alice raged under her breath, but scrambled to her feet again in silence.
“I told you so!” said Mrs. Rightbody, in an indignant whisper, as her daughter again ranged beside her. “I warned you especially, Alice—that—that—”
“What?” interrupted Miss Alice curtly.
“That you would need your chemiloons and high boots,” said Mrs. Rightbody, in a regretful undertone, slightly increasing her distance from the guides.
Miss Alice shrugged her pretty shoulders scornfully, but ignored her mother's implication.
“You were particularly warned against going into the valley at this season,” she only replied grimly.
Mrs. Rightbody raised her eyes impatiently.
“You know how anxious I was to discover your poor father's strange correspondent, Alice. You have no consideration.”
“But when YOU HAVE discovered him—what then?” queried Miss Alice.
“What then?”
“Yes. My belief is, that you will find the telegram only a mere business cipher, and all this quest mere nonsense.”
“Alice! Why, YOU yourself thought your father's conduct that night very strange. Have you forgotten?”
The young lady had NOT, but, for some far-reaching feminine reason, chose to ignore it at that moment, when her late tumble in the snow was still fresh in her mind.
“And this woman, whoever she may be—” continued Mrs. Rightbody.
“How do you know there's a woman in the case?” interrupted Miss Alice, wickedly I fear.
“How do—I—know—there's a woman?” slowly ejaculated Mrs. Rightbody, floundering in the snow and the unexpected possibility of such a ridiculous question. But here her guide flew to her assistance, and estopped further speech. And, indeed, a grave problem was before them.
The road that led to their single place of refuge—a cabin, half hotel, half trading-post, scarce a mile away—skirted the base of the rocky dome, and passed perilously near the precipitous wall of the valley. There was a rapid descent of a hundred yards or more to this terrace-like passage; and the guides paused for a moment of consultation, cooly oblivious, alike to the terrified questioning of Mrs. Rightbody, or the half-insolent independence of the daughter. The elder guide was russet-bearded, stout, and humorous: the younger was dark-bearded, slight, and serious.
“Ef you kin git young Bunker Hill to let you tote her on your shoulders, I'll git the Madam to hang on to me,” came to Mrs. Rightbody's horrified ears as the expression of her particular companion.
“Freeze to the old gal, and don't reckon on me if the daughter starts in to play it alone,” was the enigmatical response of the younger guide.
Miss Alice overheard both propositions; and, before the two men returned to their side, that high-spirited young lady had urged her horse down the declivity.
Alas! at this moment a gust of whirling snow swept down upon her. There was a flounder, a mis-step, a fatal strain on the wrong rein, a fall, a few plucky but unavailing struggles, and both horse and rider slid ignominiously down toward the rocky shelf. Mrs. Rightbody screamed. Miss Alice, from a confused debris of snow and ice, uplifted a vexed and coloring face to the younger guide, a little the more angrily, perhaps, that she saw a shade of impatience on his face.
“Don't move, but tie one end of the 'lass' under your arms, and throw me the other,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean by 'lass'—the lasso?” asked Miss Alice disgustedly.
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Then why don't you say so?”
“O Alice!” reproachfully interpolated Mrs. Rightbody, encircled by the elder guide's stalwart arm.
Miss Alice deigned no reply, but drew the loop of the lasso over her shoulders, and let it drop to her round waist. Then she essayed to throw the other end to her guide. Dismal failure! The first fling nearly knocked her off the ledge; the second went all wild against the rocky wall; the third caught in a thorn-bush, twenty feet below her companion's feet. Miss Alice's arm sunk helplessly to her side, at which signal of unqualified surrender, the younger guide threw himself half way down the slope, worked his way to the thorn-bush, hung for a moment perilously over the parapet, secured the lasso, and then began to pull away at his lovely burden. Miss Alice was no dead weight, however, but steadily half-scrambled on her hands and knees to within a foot or two of her rescuer. At this too familiar proximity, she stood up, and leaned a little stiffly against the line, causing the guide to give an extra pull, which had the lamentable effect of landing her almost in his arms.
As it was, her intelligent forehead struck his nose sharply, and I regret to add, treating of a romantic situation, caused that somewhat prominent sign and token of a hero to bleed freely. Miss Alice instantly clapped a handful of snow over his nostrils.
“Now elevate your right arm,” she said commandingly.
He did as he was bidden, but sulkily.
“That compresses the artery.”
No man, with a pretty woman's hand and a handful of snow over his mouth and nose, could effectively utter a heroic sentence, nor, with his arm elevated stiffly over his head, assume a heroic attitude. But, when his mouth was free again, he said half-sulkily, half-apologetically,—
“I might have known a girl couldn't throw worth a cent.”
“Why?” demanded Miss Alice sharply.
“Because—why—because—you see—they haven't got the experience,” he stammered feebly.
“Nonsense! they haven't the CLAVICLE—that's all! It's because I'm a woman, and smaller in the collar-bone, that I haven't the play of the fore-arm which you have. See!” She squared her shoulders slightly, and turned the blaze of her dark eyes full on his. “Experience, indeed! A girl can learn anything a boy can.”
Apprehension took the place of ill-humor in her hearer. He turned his eyes hastily away, and glanced above him. The elder guide had gone forward to catch Miss Alice's horse, which, relieved of his rider, was floundering toward the trail. Mrs. Rightbody was nowhere to be seen. And these two were still twenty feet below the trail!
There was an awkward pause.
“Shall I put you up the same way?” he queried. Miss Alice looked at his nose, and hesitated. “Or will you take my hand?” he added in surly impatience. To his surprise, Miss Alice took his hand, and they began the ascent together.
But the way was difficult and dangerous. Once or twice her feet slipped on the smoothly-worn rock beneath; and she confessed to an inward thankfulness when her uncertain feminine hand-grip was exchanged for his strong arm around her waist. Not that he was ungentle; but Miss Alice angrily felt that he had once or twice exercised his superior masculine functions in a rough way; and yet the next moment she would have probably rejected the idea that she had even noticed it. There was no doubt, however, that he WAS a little surly.
A fierce scramble finally brought them back in safety to the trail; but in the action Miss Alice's shoulder, striking a projecting bowlder, wrung from her a feminine cry of pain, her first sign of womanly weakness. The guide stopped instantly.
“I am afraid I hurt you?”
She raised her brown lashes, a trifle moist from suffering, looked in his eyes, and dropped her own. Why, she could not tell. And yet he had certainly a kind face, despite its seriousness; and a fine face, albeit unshorn and weather-beaten. Her own eyes had never been so near to any man's before, save her lover's; and yet she had never seen so much in even his. She slipped her hand away, not with any reference to him, but rather to ponder over this singular experience, and somehow felt uncomfortable thereat.
Nor was he less so. It was but a few days ago that he had accepted the charge of this young woman from the elder guide, who was the recognized escort of the Rightbody party, having been a former correspondent of her father's. He had been hired like any other guide, but had undertaken the task with that chivalrous enthusiasm which the average Californian always extends to the sex so rare to him. But the illusion had passed; and he had dropped into a sulky, practical sense of his situation, perhaps fraught with less danger to himself. Only when appealed to by his manhood or her weakness, he had forgotten his wounded vanity.
He strode moodily ahead, dutifully breaking the path for her in the direction of the distant canyon, where Mrs. Rightbody and her friend awaited them. Miss Alice was first to speak. In this trackless, uncharted terra incognita of the passions, it is always the woman who steps out to lead the way.
“You know this place very well. I suppose you have lived here long?”
“Yes.”
“You were not born here—no?”
A long pause.
“I observe they call you 'Stanislaus Joe.' Of course that is not your real name?” (Mem.—Miss Alice had never called him ANYTHING, usually prefacing any request with a languid, “O-er-er, please, mister-er-a!” explicit enough for his station.)
“No.”
Miss Alice (trotting after him, and bawling in his ear).—“WHAT name did you say?”
The Man (doggedly).—“I don't know.” Nevertheless, when they reached the cabin, after an half-hour's buffeting with the storm, Miss Alice applied herself to her mother's escort, Mr. Ryder.
“What's the name of the man who takes care of my horse?”
“Stanislaus Joe,” responded Mr. Ryder.
“Is that all?”
“No. Sometimes he's called Joe Stanislaus.”
Miss Alice (satirically).—“I suppose it's the custom here to send young ladies out with gentlemen who hide their names under an alias?”
Mr. Ryder (greatly perplexed).—“Why, dear me, Miss Alice, you allers 'peared to me as a gal as was able to take keer—”
Miss Alice (interrupting with a wounded, dove-like timidity).—“Oh, never mind, please!”
The cabin offered but scanty accommodation to the tourists; which fact, when indignantly presented by Mrs. Rightbody, was explained by the good-humored Ryder from the circumstance that the usual hotel was only a slight affair of boards, cloth, and paper, put up during the season, and partly dismantled in the fall. “You couldn't be kept warm enough there,” he added. Nevertheless Miss Alice noticed that both Mr. Ryder and Stanislaus Joe retired there with their pipes, after having prepared the ladies' supper, with the assistance of an Indian woman, who apparently emerged from the earth at the coming of the party, and disappeared as mysteriously.
The stars came out brightly before they slept; and the next morning a clear, unwinking sun beamed with almost summer power through the shutterless window of their cabin, and ironically disclosed the details of its rude interior. Two or three mangy, half-eaten buffalo-robes, a bearskin, some suspicious-looking blankets, rifles and saddles, deal-tables, and barrels, made up its scant inventory. A strip of faded calico hung before a recess near the chimney, but so blackened by smoke and age that even feminine curiosity respected its secret. Mrs. Rightbody was in high spirits, and informed her daughter that she was at last on the track of her husband's unknown correspondent. “Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five represent two members of the Vigilance Committee, my dear, and Mr. Ryder will assist me to find them.”
“Mr. Ryder!” ejaculated Miss Alice, in scornful astonishment.
“Alice,” said Mrs. Rightbody, with a suspicious assumption of sudden defence, “you injure yourself, you injure me, by this exclusive attitude. Mr. Ryder is a friend of your father's, an exceedingly well-informed gentleman. I have not, of course, imparted to him the extent of my suspicions. But he can help me to what I must and will know. You might treat him a little more civilly—or, at least, a little better than you do his servant, your guide. Mr. Ryder is a gentleman, and not a paid courier.”
Miss Alice was suddenly attentive. When she spoke again, she asked, “Why do you not find out something about this Silsbie—who died—or was hung—or something of that kind?”
“Child!” said Mrs. Rightbody, “don't you see there was no Silsbie, or, if there was, he was simply the confidant of that—woman?”
A knock at the door, announcing the presence of Mr. Ryder and Stanislaus Joe with the horses, checked Mrs. Rightbody's speech. As the animals were being packed, Mrs. Rightbody for a moment withdrew in confidential conversation with Mr. Ryder, and, to the young lady's still greater annoyance, left her alone with Stanislaus Joe. Miss Alice was not in good temper, but she felt it necessary to say something.
“I hope the hotel offers better quarters for travellers than this in summer,” she began.
“It does.”
“Then this does not belong to it?”
“No, ma'am.”
“Who lives here, then?”
“I do.”
“I beg your pardon,” stammered Miss Alice, “I thought you lived where we hired—where we met you—in—in—You must excuse me.”
“I'm not a regular guide; but as times were hard, and I was out of grub, I took the job.”
“Out of grub!” “job!” And SHE was the “job.” What would Henry Marvin say? It would nearly kill him. She began herself to feel a little frightened, and walked towards the door.
“One moment, miss!”
The young girl hesitated. The man's tone was surly, and yet indicated a certain kind of half-pathetic grievance. HER curiosity got the better of her prudence, and she turned back.
“This morning,” he began hastily, “when we were coming down the valley, you picked me up twice.”
“I picked YOU up?” repeated the astonished Alice.
“Yes, CONTRADICTED me: that's what I mean,—once when you said those rocks were volcanic, once when you said the flower you picked was a poppy. I didn't let on at the time, for it wasn't my say; but all the while you were talking I might have laid for you—”
“I don't understand you,” said Alice haughtily.
“I might have entrapped you before folks. But I only want you to know that I'M right, and here are the books to show it.”
He drew aside the dingy calico curtain, revealed a small shelf of bulky books, took down two large volumes,—one of botany, one of geology,—nervously sought his text, and put them in Alice's outstretched hands.
“I had no intention—” she began, half-proudly, half-embarrassedly.
“Am I right, miss?” he interrupted.
“I presume you are, if you say so.”
“That's all, ma'am. Thank you!”
Before the girl had time to reply, he was gone. When he again returned, it was with her horse, and Mrs. Rightbody and Ryder were awaiting her. But Miss Alice noticed that his own horse was missing.
“Are you not going with us?” she asked.
“No, ma'am.”
“Oh, indeed!”
Miss Alice felt her speech was a feeble conventionalism; but it was all she could say. She, however, DID something. Hitherto it had been her habit to systematically reject his assistance in mounting to her seat. Now she awaited him. As he approached, she smiled, and put out her little foot. He instantly stooped; she placed it in his hand, rose with a spring, and for one supreme moment Stanislaus Joe held her unresistingly in his arms. The next moment she was in the saddle; but in that brief interval of sixty seconds she had uttered a volume in a single sentence,—
“I hope you will forgive me!”
He muttered a reply, and turned his face aside quickly as if to hide it.
Miss Alice cantered forward with a smile, but pulled her hat down over her eyes as she joined her mother. She was blushing.
Mr. Ryder was as good as his word. A day or two later he entered Mrs. Rightbody's parlor at the Chrysopolis Hotel in Stockton, with the information that he had seen the mysterious senders of the despatch, and that they were now in the office of the hotel waiting her pleasure. Mr. Ryder further informed her that these gentlemen had only stipulated that they should not reveal their real names, and that they be introduced to her simply as the respective “Seventy-Four” and “Seventy-Five” who had signed the despatch sent to the late Mr. Rightbody.
Mrs. Rightbody at first demurred to this; but, on the assurance from Mr. Ryder that this was the only condition on which an interview would be granted, finally consented.
“You will find them square men, even if they are a little rough, ma'am. But, if you'd like me to be present, I'll stop; though I reckon, if ye'd calkilated on that, you'd have had me take care o' your business by proxy, and not come yourself three thousand miles to do it.”
Mrs. Rightbody believed it better to see them alone.
“All right, ma'am. I'll hang round out here; and ef ye should happen to have a ticklin' in your throat, and a bad spell o' coughin', I'll drop in, careless like, to see if you don't want them drops. Sabe?”
And with an exceedingly arch wink, and a slight familiar tap on Mrs. Rightbody's shoulder, which might have caused the late Mr. Rightbody to burst his sepulchre, he withdrew.
A very timid, hesitating tap on the door was followed by the entrance of two men, both of whom, in general size, strength, and uncouthness, were ludicrously inconsistent with their diffident announcement. They proceeded in Indian file to the centre of the room, faced Mrs. Rightbody, acknowledged her deep courtesy by a strong shake of the hand, and, drawing two chairs opposite to her, sat down side by side.
“I presume I have the pleasure of addressing—” began Mrs. Rightbody.
The man directly opposite Mrs. Rightbody turned to the other inquiringly.
The other man nodded his head, and replied,—
“Seventy-Four.”
“Seventy-Five,” promptly followed the other.
Mrs. Rightbody paused, a little confused.
“I have sent for you,” she began again, “to learn something more of the circumstances under which you gentlemen sent a despatch to my late husband.”
“The circumstances,” replied Seventy-Four quietly, with a side-glance at his companion, “panned out about in this yer style. We hung a man named Josh Silsbie, down at Deadwood, for hoss-stealin'. When I say WE, I speak for Seventy-Five yer as is present, as well as representin', so to speak, seventy-two other gents as is scattered. We hung Josh Silsbie on squar, pretty squar, evidence. Afore he was strung up, Seventy-Five yer axed him, accordin' to custom, ef ther was enny thing he had to say, or enny request that he allowed to make of us. He turns to Seventy-Five yer, and—”
Here he paused suddenly, looking at his companion.
“He sez, sez he,” began Seventy-Five, taking up the narrative,—“he sez, 'Kin I write a letter?' sez he. Sez I, 'Not much, ole man: ye've got no time.' Sez he, 'Kin I send a despatch by telegraph?' I sez, 'Heave ahead.' He sez,—these is his dientikal words,—'Send to Adam Rightbody, Boston. Tell him to remember his sacred compack with me thirty years ago.'”
“'His sacred compack with me thirty years ago,'” echoed Seventy-Four,—“his dientikal words.”
“What was the compact?” asked Mrs. Rightbody anxiously.
Seventy-Four looked at Seventy-Five, and then both arose, and retired to the corner of the parlor, where they engaged in a slow but whispered deliberation. Presently they returned, and sat down again.
“We allow,” said Seventy-Four, quietly but decidedly, “that YOU know what that sacred compact was.”
Mrs. Rightbody lost her temper and her truthfulness together. “Of course,” she said hurriedly, “I know. But do you mean to say that you gave this poor man no further chance to explain before you murdered him?”
Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five both rose again slowly, and retired. When they returned again, and sat down, Seventy-Five, who by this time, through some subtile magnetism, Mrs. Rightbody began to recognize as the superior power, said gravely,—
“We wish to say, regarding this yer murder, that Seventy-Four and me is equally responsible; that we reckon also to represent, so to speak, seventy-two other gentlemen as is scattered; that we are ready, Seventy-Four and me, to take and holt that responsibility, now and at any time, afore every man or men as kin be fetched agin us. We wish to say that this yer say of ours holds good yer in Californy, or in any part of these United States.”
“Or in Canady,” suggested Seventy-Four.
“Or in Canady. We wouldn't agree to cross the water, or go to furrin parts, unless absolutely necessary. We leaves the chise of weppings to your principal, ma'am, or being a lady, ma'am, and interested, to any one you may fetch to act for him. An advertisement in any of the Sacramento papers, or a playcard or handbill stuck unto a tree near Deadwood, saying that Seventy-Four or Seventy-Five will communicate with this yer principal or agent of yours, will fetch us—allers.”
Mrs. Rightbody, a little alarmed and desperate, saw her blunder. “I mean nothing of the kind,” she said hastily. “I only expected that you might have some further details of this interview with Silsbie; that perhaps you could tell me—” a bold, bright thought crossed Mrs. Rightbody's mind—“something more about HER.”
The two men looked at each other.
“I suppose your society have no objection to giving me information about HER,” said Mrs. Rightbody eagerly.
Another quiet conversation in the corner, and the return of both men.
“We want to say that we've no objection.”
Mrs. Rightbody's heart beat high. Her boldness had made her penetration good. Yet she felt she must not alarm the men heedlessly.
“Will you inform me to what extent Mr. Rightbody, my late husband, was interested in her?”
This time it seemed an age to Mrs. Rightbody before the men returned from their solemn consultation in the corner. She could both hear and feel that their discussion was more animated than their previous conferences. She was a little mortified, however, when they sat down, to hear Seventy-Four say slowly,—
“We wish to say that we don't allow to say HOW much.”
“Do you not think that the 'sacred compact' between Mr. Rightbody and Mr. Silsbie referred to her?”
“We reckon it do.”
Mrs. Rightbody, flushed and animated, would have given worlds had her daughter been present to hear this undoubted confirmation of her theory. Yet she felt a little nervous and uncomfortable even on this threshold of discovery.
“Is she here now?”
“She's in Tuolumne,” said Seventy-Four.
“A little better looked arter than formerly,” added Seventy-Five.
“I see. Then Mr. Silsbie ENTICED her away?”
“Well, ma'am, it WAS allowed as she runned away. But it wasn't proved, and it generally wasn't her style.”
Mrs. Rightbody trifled with her next question.
“She was pretty, of course?”
The eyes of both men brightened.
“She was THAT!” said Seventy-Four emphatically.
“It would have done you good to see her!” added Seventy-Five.
Mrs. Rightbody inwardly doubted it; but, before she could ask another question, the two men again retired to the corner for consultation. When they came back, there was a shade more of kindliness and confidence in their manner; and Seventy-Four opened his mind more freely.
“We wish to say, ma'am, looking at the thing, by and large, in a far-minded way, that, ez YOU seem interested, and ez Mr. Rightbody was interested, and was, according to all accounts, deceived and led away by Silsbie, that we don't mind listening to any proposition YOU might make, as a lady—allowin' you was ekally interested.”
“I understand,” said Mrs. Rightbody quickly. “And you will furnish me with any papers?”
The two men again consulted.
“We wish to say, ma'am, that we think she's got papers, but—”
“I MUST have them, you understand,” interrupted Mrs. Rightbody, “at any price.
“We was about to say, ma'am,” said Seventy-Four slowly, “that, considerin' all things,—and you being a lady—you kin have HER, papers, pedigree, and guaranty, for twelve hundred dollars.”
It has been alleged that Mrs. Rightbody asked only one question more, and then fainted. It is known, however, that by the next day it was understood in Deadwood that Mrs. Rightbody had confessed to the Vigilance Committee that her husband, a celebrated Boston millionaire, anxious to gain possession of Abner Springer's well-known sorrel mare, had incited the unfortunate Josh Silsbie to steal it; and that finally, failing in this, the widow of the deceased Boston millionaire was now in personal negotiation with the owners.
Howbeit, Miss Alice, returning home that afternoon, found her mother with a violent headache.
“We will leave here by the next steamer,” said Mrs. Rightbody languidly. “Mr. Ryder has promised to accompany us.”
“But, mother—”
“The climate, Alice, is over-rated. My nerves are already suffering from it. The associations are unfit for you, and Mr. Marvin is naturally impatient.”
Miss Alice colored slightly.
“But your quest, mother?”
“I've abandoned it.”
“But I have not,” said Alice quietly. “Do you remember my guide at the Yo Semite,—Stanislaus Joe? Well, Stanislaus Joe is—who do you think?”
Mrs. Rightbody was languidly indifferent.
“Well, Stanislaus Joe is the son of Joshua Silsbie.”
Mrs. Rightbody sat upright in astonishment
“Yes. But mother, he knows nothing of what we know. His father treated him shamefully, and set him cruelly adrift years ago; and, when he was hung, the poor fellow, in sheer disgrace, changed his name.”
“But, if he knows nothing of his father's compact, of what interest is this?”
“Oh, nothing! Only I thought it might lead to something.”
Mrs. Rightbody suspected that “something,” and asked sharply, “And pray how did YOU find it out? You did not speak of it in the valley.”
“Oh! I didn't find it out till to-day,” said Miss Alice, walking to the window. “He happened to be here, and—told me.”
If Mrs. Rightbody's friends had been astounded by her singular and unexpected pilgrimage to California so soon after her husband's decease, they were still more astounded by the information, a year later, that she was engaged to be married to a Mr. Ryder, of whom only the scant history was known, that he was a Californian, and former correspondent of her husband. It was undeniable that the man was wealthy, and evidently no mere adventurer; it was rumored that he was courageous and manly: but even those who delighted in his odd humor were shocked at his grammar and slang.
It was said that Mr. Marvin had but one interview with his father-in-law elect, and returned so supremely disgusted, that the match was broken off. The horse-stealing story, more or less garbled, found its way through lips that pretended to decry it, yet eagerly repeated it. Only one member of the Rightbody family—and a new one—saved them from utter ostracism. It was young Mr. Ryder, the adopted son of the prospective head of the household, whose culture, manners, and general elegance, fascinated and thrilled Boston with a new sensation. It seemed to many that Miss Alice should, in the vicinity of this rare exotic, forget her former enthusiasm for a professional life; but the young man was pitied by society, and various plans for diverting him from any mesalliance with the Rightbody family were concocted.
It was a wintry night, and the second anniversary of Mr. Rightbody's death, that a light was burning in his library. But the dead man's chair was occupied by young Mr. Ryder, adopted son of the new proprietor of the mansion; and before him stood Alice, with her dark eyes fixed on the table.
“There must have been something in it, Joe, believe me. Did you never hear your father speak of mine?”
“Never.”
“But you say he was college-bred, and born a gentleman, and in his youth he must have had many friends.”
“Alice,” said the young man gravely, “when I have done something to redeem my name, and wear it again before these people, before YOU, it would be well to revive the past. But till then—”
But Alice was not to be put down. “I remember,” she went on, scarcely heeding him, “that, when I came in that night, papa was reading a letter, and seemed to be disconcerted.”
“A letter?”
“Yes; but,” added Alice, with a sigh, “when we found him here insensible, there was no letter on his person. He must have destroyed it.”
“Did you ever look among his papers? If found, it might be a clew.”
The young man glanced toward the cabinet. Alice read his eyes, and answered,—
“Oh, dear, no! The cabinet contained only his papers, all perfectly arranged,—you know how methodical were his habits,—and some old business and private letters, all carefully put away.”
“Let us see them,” said the young man, rising.
They opened drawer after drawer; files upon files of letters and business papers, accurately folded and filed. Suddenly Alice uttered a little cry, and picked up a quaint ivory paper-knife lying at the bottom of a drawer.
“It was missing the next day, and never could be found: he must have mislaid it here. This is the drawer,” said Alice eagerly.
Here was a clew. But the lower part of the drawer was filled with old letters, not labelled, yet neatly arranged in files. Suddenly he stopped, and said, “Put them back, Alice, at once.”
“Why?”
“Some of these letters are in my father's handwriting.”
“The more reason why I should see them,” said the girl imperatively. “Here, you take part, and I'll take part, and we'll get through quicker.”
There was a certain decision and independence in her manner which he had learned to respect. He took the letters, and in silence read them with her. They were old college letters, so filled with boyish dreams, ambitions, aspirations, and utopian theories, that I fear neither of these young people even recognized their parents in the dead ashes of the past. They were both grave, until Alice uttered a little hysterical cry, and dropped her face in her hands. Joe was instantly beside her.
“It's nothing, Joe, nothing. Don't read it, please; please, don't. It's so funny! it's so very queer!”
But Joe had, after a slight, half-playful struggle, taken the letter from the girl. Then he read aloud the words written by his father thirty years ago.
“I thank you, dear friend, for all you say about my wife and boy. I thank you for reminding me of our boyish compact. He will be ready to fulfil it, I know, if he loves those his father loves, even if you should marry years later. I am glad for your sake, for both our sakes, that it is a boy. Heaven send you a good wife, dear Adams, and a daughter, to make my son equally happy.”
Joe Silsbie looked down, took the half-laughing, half-tearful face in his hands, kissed her forehead, and, with tears in his grave eyes, said, “Amen!”
I am inclined to think that this sentiment was echoed heartily by Mrs. Rightbody's former acquaintances, when, a year later, Miss Alice was united to a professional gentleman of honor and renown, yet who was known to be the son of a convicted horse-thief. A few remembered the previous Californian story, and found corroboration therefor; but a majority believed it a just reward to Miss Alice for her conduct to Mr. Marvin, and, as Miss Alice cheerfully accepted it in that light, I do not see why I may not end my story with happiness to all concerned.
It was the sacred hour of noon at Sammtstadt. Everybody was at dinner; and the serious Kellner of “Der Wildemann” glanced in mild reproach at Mr. James Clinch, who, disregarding that fact and the invitatory table d'hote, stepped into the street. For Mr. Clinch had eaten a late breakfast at Gladbach, was dyspeptic and American, and, moveover, preoccupied with business. He was consequently indignant, on entering the garden-like court and cloister-like counting-house of “Von Becheret, Sons, Uncles, and Cousins,” to find the comptoir deserted even by the porter, and was furious at the maidservant, who offered the sacred shibboleth “Mittagsessen” as a reasonable explanation of the solitude. “A country,” said Mr. Clinch to himself, “that stops business at mid-day to go to dinner, and employs women-servants to talk to business-men, is played out.”
He stepped from the silent building into the equally silent Kronprinzen Strasse. Not a soul to be seen anywhere. Rows on rows of two-storied, gray-stuccoed buildings that might be dwellings, or might be offices, all showing some traces of feminine taste and supervision in a flower or a curtain that belied the legended “Comptoir,” or “Direction,” over their portals. Mr. Clinch thought of Boston and State Street, of New York and Wall Street, and became coldly contemptuous.
Yet there was clearly nothing to do but to walk down the formal rows of chestnuts that lined the broad Strasse, and then walk back again. At the corner of the first cross-street he was struck with the fact that two men who were standing in front of a dwelling-house appeared to be as inconsistent, and out of proportion to the silent houses, as were the actors on a stage to the painted canvas thoroughfares before which they strutted. Mr. Clinch usually had no fancies, had no eye for quaintness; besides, this was not a quaint nor romantic district, only an entrepot for silks and velvets, and Mr. Clinch was here, not as a tourist, but as a purchaser. The guidebooks had ignored Sammtstadt, and he was too good an American to waste time in looking up uncatalogued curiosities. Besides, he had been here once before,—an entire day!
One o'clock. Still a full hour and a half before his friend would return to business. What should he do? The Verein where he had once been entertained was deserted even by its waiters; the garden, with its ostentatious out-of-door tables, looked bleak and bare. Mr. Clinch was not artistic in his tastes; but even he was quick to detect the affront put upon Nature by this continental, theatrical gardening, and turned disgustedly away. Born near a “lake” larger than the German Ocean, he resented a pool of water twenty-five feet in diameter under that alluring title; and, a frequenter of the Adirondacks, he could scarce contain himself over a bit of rock-work twelve feet high. “A country,” said Mr. Clinch, “that—” but here he remembered that he had once seen in a park in his native city an imitation of the Drachenfels in plaster, on a scale of two inches to the foot, and checked his speech.
He turned into the principal allee of the town. There was a long white building at one end,—the Bahnhof: at the other end he remembered a dye-house. He had, a year ago, met its hospitable proprietor: he would call upon him now.
But the same solitude confronted him as he passed the porter's lodge beside the gateway. The counting-house, half villa, half factory, must have convoked its humanity in some out-of-the-way refectory, for the halls and passages were tenantless. For the first time he began to be impressed with a certain foreign quaintness in the surroundings; he found himself also recalling something he had read when a boy, about an enchanted palace whose inhabitants awoke on the arrival of a long-predestined Prince. To assure himself of the absolute ridiculousness of this fancy, he took from his pocket the business-card of its proprietor, a sample of dye, and recalled his own personality in a letter of credit. Having dismissed this idea from his mind, he lounged on again through a rustic lane that might have led to a farmhouse, yet was still, absurdly enough, a part of the factory gardens. Crossing a ditch by a causeway, he presently came to another ditch and another causeway, and then found himself idly contemplating a massive, ivy-clad, venerable brick wall. As a mere wall it might not have attracted his attention; but it seemed to enter and bury itself at right angles in the side-wall of a quite modern-looking dwelling. After satisfying himself of this fact, he passed on before the dwelling, but was amazed to see the wall reappear on the other side exactly the same—old, ivy-grown, sturdy, uncompromising, and ridiculous.
Could it actually be a part of the house? He turned back, and repassed the front of the building. The entrance door was hospitably open. There was a hall and a staircase, but—by all that was preposterous!—they were built OVER and AROUND the central brick intrusion. The wall actually ran through the house! “A country,” said Mr. Clinch to himself, “where they build their houses over ruins to accommodate them, or save the trouble of removal, is,—” but a very pleasant voice addressing him here stopped his usual hasty conclusion.
“Guten Morgen!”
Mr. Clinch looked hastily up. Leaning on the parapet of what appeared to be a garden on the roof of the house was a young girl, red-cheeked, bright-eyed, blond-haired. The voice was soft, subdued, and mellow; it was part of the new impression he was receiving, that it seemed to be in some sort connected with the ivy-clad wall before him. His hat was in his hand as he answered,—
“Guten Morgen!”
“Was the Herr seeking anything?”
“The Herr was only waiting a longtime-coming friend, and had strayed here to speak with the before-known proprietor.”
“So? But, the before-known proprietor sleeping well at present after dinner, would the Herr on the terrace still a while linger?”
The Herr would, but looked around in vain for the means to do it. He was thinking of a scaling-ladder, when the young woman reappeared at the open door, and bade him enter.
Following the youthful hostess, Mr. Clinch mounted the staircase, but, passing the mysterious wall, could not forbear an allusion to it. “It is old, very old,” said the girl: “it was here when I came.”
“That was not very long ago,” said Mr. Clinch gallantly.
“No; but my grandfather found it here too.”
“And built over it?”
“Why not? It is very, very hard, and SO thick.”
Mr. Clinch here explained, with masculine superiority, the existence of such modern agents as nitro-glycerine and dynamite, persuasive in their effects upon time-honored obstructions and encumbrances.
“But there was not then what you call—this—ni—nitro-glycerine.”
“But since then?”
The young girl gazed at him in troubled surprise. “My great-grandfather did not take it away when he built the house: why should we?”
“Oh!”
They had passed through a hall and dining-room, and suddenly stepped out of a window upon a gravelled terrace. From this a few stone steps descended to another terrace, on which trees and shrubs were growing; and yet, looking over the parapet, Mr. Clinch could see the road some twenty feet below. It was nearly on a level with, and part of, the second story of the house. Had an earthquake lifted the adjacent ground? or had the house burrowed into a hill? Mr. Clinch turned to his companion, who was standing close beside him, breathing quite audibly, and leaving an impression on his senses as of a gentle and fragrant heifer.
“How was all this done?”
The maiden did not know. “It was always here.”
Mr. Clinch reascended the steps. He had quite forgotten his impatience. Possibly it was the gentle, equable calm of the girl, who, but for her ready color, did not seem to be moved by anything; perhaps it was the peaceful repose of this mausoleum of the dead and forgotten wall that subdued him, but he was quite willing to take the old-fashioned chair on the terrace which she offered him, and follow her motions with not altogether mechanical eyes as she drew out certain bottles and glasses from a mysterious closet in the wall. Mr. Clinch had the weakness of a majority of his sex in believing that he was a good judge of wine and women. The latter, as shown in the specimen before him, he would have invoiced as a fair sample of the middle-class German woman,—healthy, comfort-loving, home-abiding, the very genius of domesticity. Even in her virgin outlines the future wholesome matron was already forecast, from the curves of her broad hips, to the flat lines of her back and shoulders. Of the wine he was to judge later. THAT required an even more subtle and unimpassioned intellect.
She placed two bottles before him on the table,—one, the traditional long-necked, amber-colored Rheinflasche; the other, an old, quaint, discolored, amphorax-patterned glass jug. The first she opened.
“This,” she said, pointing to the other, “cannot be opened.”
Mr. Clinch paid his respects first to the opened bottle, a good quality of Niersteiner. With his intellect thus clarified, he glanced at the other.
“It is from my great-grandfather. It is old as the wall.”
Mr. Clinch examined the bottle attentively. It seemed to have no cork. Formed of some obsolete, opaque glass, its twisted neck was apparently hermetically sealed by the same material. The maiden smiled, as she said,—
“It cannot be opened now without breaking the bottle. It is not good luck to do so. My grandfather and my father would not.”
But Mr. Clinch was still examining the bottle. Its neck was flattened towards the mouth; but a close inspection showed it was closed by some equally hard cement, but not glass.
“If I can open it without breaking the bottle, have I your permission?”
A mischievous glance rested on Mr. Clinch, as the maiden answered,—
“I shall not object; but for what will you do it?”
“To taste it, to try it.”
“You are not afraid?”
There was just enough obvious admiration of Mr. Clinch's audacity in the maiden's manner to impel him to any risk. His only answer was to take from his pocket a small steel instrument. Holding the neck of the bottle firmly in one hand, he passed his thumb and the steel twice or thrice around it. A faint rasping, scratching sound was all the wondering girl heard. Then, with a sudden, dexterous twist of his thumb and finger, to her utter astonishment he laid the top of the neck, neatly cut off, in her hand.
“There's a better and more modern bottle than you had before,” he said, pointing to the cleanly-divided neck, “and any cork will fit it now.”
But the girl regarded him with anxiety. “And you still wish to taste the wine?”
“With your permission, yes!”
He looked up in her eyes. There was permission: there was something more, that was flattering to his vanity. He took the wine-glass, and, slowly and in silence, filled it from the mysterious flask.
The wine fell into the glass clearly, transparently, heavily, but still and cold as death. There was no sparkle, no cheap ebullition, no evanescent bubble. Yet it was so clear, that, but for a faint amber-tinting, the glass seemed empty. There was no aroma, no ethereal diffusion from its equable surface. Perhaps it was fancy, perhaps it was from nervous excitement; but a slight chill seemed to radiate from the still goblet, and bring down the temperature of the terrace. Mr. Clinch and his companion both insensibly shivered.
But only for a moment. Mr. Clinch raised the glass to his lips. As he did so, he remembered seeing distinctly, as in a picture before him, the sunlit terrace, the pretty girl in the foreground,—an amused spectator of his sacrilegious act,—the outlying ivy-crowned wall, the grass-grown ditch, the tall factory chimneys rising above the chestnuts, and the distant poplars that marked the Rhine.
The wine was delicious; perhaps a TRIFLE, only a trifle, heady. He was conscious of a slight exaltation. There was also a smile upon the girl's lip and a roguish twinkle in her eye as she looked at him.
“Do you find the wine to your taste?” she asked.
“Fair enough, I warrant,” said Mr. Clinch with ponderous gallantry; “but methinks 'tis nothing compared with the nectar that grows on those ruby lips. Nay, by St. Ursula, I swear it!”
No sooner had this solemnly ridiculous speech passed the lips of the unfortunate man than he would have given worlds to have recalled it. He knew that he must be intoxicated; that the sentiment and language were utterly unlike him, he was miserably aware; that he did not even know exactly what it meant, he was also hopelessly conscious. Yet feeling all this,—feeling, too, the shame of appearing before her as a man who had lost his senses through a single glass of wine,—nevertheless he rose awkwardly, seized her hand, and by sheer force drew her towards him, and kissed her. With an exclamation that was half a cry and half a laugh, she fled from him, leaving him alone and bewildered on the terrace.
For a moment Mr. Clinch supported himself against the open window, leaning his throbbing head on the cold glass. Shame, mortification, an hysterical half-consciousness of his utter ridiculousness, and yet an odd, undefined terror of something, by turns possessed him. Was he ever before guilty of such perfect folly? Had he ever before made such a spectacle of himself? Was it possible that he, Mr. James Clinch, the coolest head at a late supper,—he, the American, who had repeatedly drunk Frenchmen and Englishmen under the table—could be transformed into a sentimental, stagey idiot by a single glass of wine? He was conscious, too, of asking himself these very questions in a stilted sort of rhetoric, and with a rising brutality of anger that was new to him. And then everything swam before him, and he seemed to lose all consciousness.
But only for an instant. With a strong effort of his will he again recalled himself, his situation, his surroundings, and, above all, his appointment. He rose to his feet, hurriedly descended the terrace-steps, and, before he well knew how, found himself again on the road. Once there, his faculties returned in full vigor; he was again himself. He strode briskly forward toward the ditch he had crossed only a few moments before, but was suddenly stopped. It was filled with water. He looked up and down. It was clearly the same ditch; but a flowing stream thirty feet wide now separated him from the other bank.
The appearance of this unlooked-for obstacle made Mr. Clinch doubt the full restoration of his faculties. He stepped to the brink of the flood to bathe his head in the stream, and wash away the last vestiges of his potations. But as he approached the placid depths, and knelt down he again started back, and this time with a full conviction of his own madness; for reflected from its mirror-like surface was a figure he could scarcely call his own, although here and there some trace of his former self remained.
His close-cropped hair, trimmed a la mode, had given way to long, curling locks that dropped upon his shoulders. His neat mustache was frightfully prolonged, and curled up at the ends stiffly. His Piccadilly collar had changed shape and texture, and reached—a mass of lace—to a point midway of his breast! His boots,—why had he not noticed his boots before?—these triumphs of his Parisian bootmaker, were lost in hideous leathern cases that reached half way up his thighs. In place of his former high silk hat, there lay upon the ground beside him the awful thing he had just taken off,—a mass of thickened felt, flap, feather, and buckle that weighed at least a stone.
A single terrible idea now took possession of him. He had been “sold,” “taken in,” “done for.” He saw it all. In a state of intoxication he had lost his way, had been dragged into some vile den, stripped of his clothes and valuables, and turned adrift upon the quiet town in this shameless masquerade. How should he keep his appointment? how inform the police of this outrage upon a stranger and an American citizen? how establish his identity? Had they spared his papers? He felt feverishly in his breast. Ah!—his watch? Yes, a watch—heavy, jewelled, enamelled—and, by all that was ridiculous, FIVE OTHERS! He ran his hands into his capacious trunk hose. What was this? Brooches, chains, finger-rings,—one large episcopal one,—ear-rings, and a handful of battered gold and silver coins. His papers, his memorandums, his passport—all proofs of his identity—were gone! In their place was the unmistakable omnium gatherum of an accomplished knight of the road. Not only was his personality, but his character, gone forever.
It was a part of Mr. Clinch's singular experience that this last stroke of ill fortune seemed to revive in him something of the brutal instinct he had felt a moment before. He turned eagerly about with the intention of calling some one—the first person he met—to account. But the house that he had just quitted was gone. The wall! Ah, there it was, no longer purposeless, intrusive, and ivy-clad, but part of the buttress of another massive wall that rose into battlements above him. Mr. Clinch turned again hopelessly toward Sammtstadt. There was the fringe of poplars on the Rhine, there were the outlying fields lit by the same meridian sun; but the characteristic chimneys of Sammtstadt were gone. Mr. Clinch was hopelessly lost.
The sound of a horn breaking the stillness recalled his senses. He now for the first time perceived that a little distance below him, partly hidden in the trees, was a queer, tower-shaped structure with chains and pulleys, that in some strange way recalled his boyish reading. A drawbridge and portcullis! And on the battlement a figure in a masquerading dress as absurd as his own, flourishing a banner and trumpet, and trying to attract his attention.
“Was wollen Sie?”
“I want to see the proprietor,” said Mr. Clinch, choking back his rage.
There was a pause, and the figure turned apparently to consult with some one behind the battlements. After a moment he reappeared, and in a perfunctory monotone, with an occasional breathing spell on the trumpet, began,—
“You do give warranty as a good knight and true, as well as by the bones of the blessed St. Ursula, that you bear no ill will, secret enmity, wicked misprise or conspiracy, against the body of our noble lord and master Von Kolnsche? And you bring with you no ambush, siege, or surprise of retainers, neither secret warrant nor lettres de cachet, nor carry on your knightly person poisoned dagger, magic ring, witch-powder, nor enchanted bullet, and that you have entered into no unhallowed alliance with the Prince of Darkness, gnomes, hexies, dragons, Undines, Loreleis, nor the like?”
“Come down out of that, you d——d old fool!” roared Mr. Clinch, now perfectly beside himself with rage,—“come down, and let me in!”
As Mr. Clinch shouted out the last words, confused cries of recognition and welcome, not unmixed with some consternation, rose from the battlements: “Ach Gott!” “Mutter Gott—it is he! It is Jann, Der Wanderer. It is himself.” The chains rattled, the ponderous drawbridge creaked and dropped; and across it a medley of motley figures rushed pellmell. But, foremost among them, the very maiden whom he had left not ten minutes before flew into his arms, and with a cry of joyful greeting sank upon his breast. Mr. Clinch looked down upon the fair head and long braids. It certainly was the same maiden, his cruel enchantress; but where did she get those absurd garments?
“Willkommen,” said a stout figure, advancing with some authority, and seizing his disengaged hand, “where hast thou been so long?”
Mr. Clinch, by no means placated, coldly dropped the extended hand. It was NOT the proprietor he had known. But there was a singular resemblance in his face to some one of Mr. Clinch's own kin; but who, he could not remember. “May I take the liberty of asking your name?” he asked coldly.
The figure grinned. “Surely; but, if thou standest upon punctilio, it is for ME to ask thine, most noble Freiherr,” said he, winking upon his retainers. “Whom have I the honor of entertaining?”
“My name is Clinch,—James Clinch of Chicago, Ill.”
A shout of laughter followed. In the midst of his rage and mortification Mr. Clinch fancied he saw a shade of pain and annoyance flit across the face of the maiden. He was puzzled, but pressed her hand, in spite of his late experiences, reassuringly. She made a gesture of silence to him, and then slipped away in the crowd.
“Schames K'l'n'sche von Schekargo,” mimicked the figure, to the unspeakable delight of his retainers. “So! THAT is the latest French style. Holy St. Ursula! Hark ye, nephew! I am not a travelled man. Since the Crusades we simple Rhine gentlemen have staid at home. But I call myself Kolnsche of Koln, at your service.”
“Very likely you are right,” said Mr. Clinch hotly, disregarding the caution of his fair companion; “but, whoever YOU are, I am a stranger entitled to protection. I have been robbed.”
If Mr. Clinch had uttered an exquisite joke instead of a very angry statement, it could not have been more hilariously received. He paused, grew confused, and then went on hesitatingly,—
“In place of my papers and credentials I find only these.” And he produced the jewelry from his pockets.
Another shout of laughter and clapping of hands followed this second speech; and the baron, with a wink at his retainers, prolonged the general mirth by saying, “By the way, nephew, there is little doubt but there has been robbery—somewhere.”
“It was done,” continued Mr. Clinch, hurrying to make an end of his explanation, “while I was inadvertently overcome with liquor,—drugged liquor.”
The laughter here was so uproarious that the baron, albeit with tears of laughter in his own eyes, made a peremptory gesture of silence. The gesture was peculiar to the baron, efficacious and simple. It consisted merely in knocking down the nearest laugher. Having thus restored tranquillity, he strode forward, and took Mr. Clinch by the hand. “By St. Adolph, I did doubt thee a moment ago, nephew; but this last frank confession of thine shows me I did thee wrong. Willkommen zu Hause, Jann, drunk or sober, willcommen zu Cracowen.”
More and more mystified, but convinced of the folly of any further explanation, Mr. Clinch took the extended hand of his alleged uncle, and permitted himself to be led into the castle. They passed into a large banqueting-hall adorned with armor and implements of the chase. Mr. Clinch could not help noticing, that, although the appointments were liberal and picturesque, the ventilation was bad, and the smoke from the huge chimney made the air murky. The oaken tables, massive in carving and rich in color, were unmistakably greasy; and Mr. Clinch slipped on a piece of meat that one of the dozen half-wild dogs who were occupying the room was tearing on the floor. The dog, yelping, ran between the legs of a retainer, precipitating him upon the baron, who instantly, with the “equal foot” of fate, kicked him and the dog into a corner.
“And whence came you last?” asked the baron, disregarding the little contretemps, and throwing himself heavily on an oaken settle, while he pushed a queer, uncomfortable-looking stool, with legs like a Siamese-twin-connected double X, towards his companion.
Mr. Clinch, who had quite given himself up to fate, answered mechanically,—
“Paris.”
The baron winked his eye with unutterable, elderly wickedness. “Ach Gott! it is nothing to what it was when I was your age. Ah! there was Manon,—Sieur Manon we used to call her. I suppose she's getting old now. How goes on the feud between the students and the citizens? Eh? Did you go to the bal in la Cite?”
Mr. Clinch stopped the flow of those Justice-Shallow-like reminiscences by an uneasy exclamation. He was thinking of the maiden who had disappeared so suddenly. The baron misinterpreted his nervousness. “What ho, within there!—Max, Wolfgang,—lazy rascals! Bring some wine.”
At the baleful word Mr. Clinch started to his feet. “Not for me! Bring me none of your body-and-soul-destroying poison! I've enough of it!”
The baron stared. The servitors stared also.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Clinch, recalling himself slowly; “but I fear that Rhine wine does not agree with me.”
The baron grinned. Perceiving, however, that the three servitors grinned also, he kicked two of them into obscurity, and felled the third to the floor with his fist. “Hark ye, nephew,” he said, turning to the astonished Clinch, “give over this nonsense! By the mitre of Bishop Hatto, thou art as big a fool as he!”
“Hatto,” repeated Clinch mechanically. “What! he of the Mouse Tower?”
“Ay, of the Mouse Tower!” sneered the baron. “I see you know the story.”
“Why am I like him?” asked Mr. Clinch in amazement.
The baron grinned. “HE punished the Rhenish wine as thou dost, without judgment. He had—”
“The jim-jams,” said Mr. Clinch mechanically again.
The baron frowned. “I know not what gibberish thou sayest by 'jim-jams'; but he had, like thee, the wildest fantasies and imaginings; saw snakes, toads, rats, in his boots, but principally rats; said they pursued him, came to his room, his bed—ach Gott!”
“Oh!” said Mr. Clinch, with a sudden return to his firmer self and his native inquiring habits; “then THAT is the fact about Bishop Hatto of the story?”
“His enemies made it the subject of a vile slander of an old friend of mine,” said the baron; “and those cursed poets, who believe everything, and then persuade others to do so,—may the Devil fly away with them!—kept it up.”
Here were facts quite to Mr. Clinch's sceptical mind. He forgot himself and his surroundings.
“And that story of the Drachenfels?” he asked insinuatingly,—“the dragon, you know. Was he too—”
The baron grinned. “A boar transformed by the drunken brains of the Bauers of the Siebengebirge. Ach Gott! Ottefried had many a hearty laugh over it; and it did him, as thou knowest, good service with the nervous mother of the silly maiden.”
“And the seven sisters of Schonberg?” asked Mr. Clinch persuasively.
“'Schonberg! Seven sisters!' What of them?” demanded the baron sharply.
“Why, you know,—the maidens who were so coy to their suitors, and—don't you remember?—jumped into the Rhine to avoid them.”
“'Coy? Jumped into the Rhine to avoid suitors'?” roared the baron, purple with rage. “Hark ye, nephew! I like not this jesting. Thou knowest I married one of the Schonberg girls, as did thy father. How 'coy' they were is neither here nor there; but mayhap WE might tell another story. Thy father, as weak a fellow as thou art where a petticoat is concerned, could not as a gentleman do other than he did. And THIS is his reward? Ach Gott! 'Coy!' And THIS, I warrant, is the way the story is delivered in Paris.”