His cares as a landlord multiplied. It was true there was a prospect of the harvest being carried in good time, and the grain, which could be quickest turned into money, had succeeded splendidly, but after all, what were the few groschens that would come into the exchequer by this means? The work of undoing root and branch the mischief of previous mismanagement needed several thousands in hand.
Leo worked with all his might. From the first sound of the call-bell in the morning to the extinguishing of the last stable lantern at night, he was on his legs, and when all the windows of the house showed a dark front, he sat bowed over the old writing-table, where he calculated and reckoned till the papers became dim and the figures swam before his eyes.
But what good did it all do? Capital was lacking, and capital could not be manufactured. To begin with, Ulrich's gifts of love must be yielded as mortgages; as a man of honour, he owed this step to himself and his friend. And after that, any one who would make further loans would deserve to be incarcerated in an asylum. So, for weal or woe, things must jog along in the old way, till the first economies allowed of starting improvements or galvanizing dead investments into life. And at this time, when he went to bed and closed his eyes in sleep, he did not dream, as once he was wont to do, of the fine figure of a girl, a thoroughbred, or some bold escapade. Instead, there would hover before his eyes, as the goal of his yearning desires, a massive vaulted roof for the piggery, six new covered carts, a threshing-machine after the latest Zimmermann pattern, and an unending procession of similar objects which stretched their distorted shadows over the borders of dreamland. The pungent humour which it was a peculiarity in his temperament to exercise at his own expense never deserted him, and made it easy to put away from him the memory of even recent occurrences of an unpleasant description.
"Where should I be now without work?" he said, thinking of the interview with his sister. Ulrich's fate loomed largely in his soul, and he could not silence the impulse to help and save him. He surprised himself sometimes, as he rode over the fields, with his pipe gone out in his mouth and his hand slackening on the reins, deaf and blind to all around, while his imagination painted the hour which would give him back again the companion of his youth in new and unalterably happy circumstances.
Oh, how he hated the woman and hated himself, when he was riding thus on his grey mare over fields of yellow stubble--in the blue distance the shining reed-fringed stream which in a few minutes might be crossed, but which, nevertheless, lay wider than the ocean between him and his friend!
Although he had vowed to himself that a future meeting was not to be thought of, he now and then hit on a pretext for ferrying across the river at Wengern, and by riding up the high-road to Münsterberg, clutched at the mere chance of it. Twice he had caught sight of him in the distance on horseback in his meadows. He still rode the roan which Leo had broken in for him six years ago; which, when the rider on its back swayed to one side, stood firm as a rock.
He drew up under one of the trees by the roadside, and watched him as he ambled away in the direction of Uhlenfelde. Once, too, he thought he had seen her. A lightly clad figure in an open landau had driven along the road. The servants wore the Uhlenfelde livery. Who else could it be but she?
This time he did not draw rein. He dug his spurs into his mare and galloped off at headlong speed. He thought with a shudder of the moment, which must inevitably come, when they could not avoid meeting. Should he greet her silently, or would he pass her with averted eyes? He did not know. That they would one day come face to face was certain, but he prayed that the day might be far off. The most likely place to meet in would have been Münsterberg, where he hardly ever went. He avoided the town, because he had made no formal calls on the neighbours since his return, and he was afraid of their cold looks.
Yet it was imperative that, with the harvest progressing, the right opportunity for selling should not be missed. So in the middle of August he paid the "Jew" a visit. "The Jew"--as the landowners called him for short--was an influential merchant, Jacobi by name, who was the medium by which the produce of the estates round Münsterberg was brought into the markets of the world. He gave and lent wherever credit was possible, and many a proud knight's inheritance belonged by rights to his pocket.
He never misused his power, and a single case in which he had played the shark was unknown. "To give is the best policy," he used to say, and, acting on this precept, he enjoyed unbounded confidence, and became richer year by year.
He was sitting at the oak desk in his counting-house in the same corner, and looking the same, with his grey mutton-chop whiskers, and glasses on the flattened tip of his nose, as he had done five years ago when Leo had said good-bye to him.
"Ah, so it is you, Herr Baron," he said, getting up, and he took off his pince-nez. He addressed all nobly born landed proprietors with whom he did business as "Herr Baron," and all the bourgeoise as "Herr Lieutenant." An almost paternal smile flitted over his yellow, haggard, Hebrew countenance as he looked up at Leo with his red-rimmed eyes, which had a clever and penetrating twinkle in them.
"Have you had an enjoyable tour, Herr Baron?" he continued, and opened the little door in the partition, which was an invitation to Leo to enter his inner sanctum. "Now, please be seated, Herr Baron. I was half afraid that the Herr Baron was never to sit on this chair again. But the crops are good, Herr Baron. Good crops, and one could see certain signs of smartening up, which told of the Herr Baron being at home once more. Not sold the grain yet? Next week prices will rise, and the Herr Baron should let it wait till prices rise. For this year, I will make nothing out of the Herr Baron."
"You are a good fellow, Jacobi," said Leo, shaking the old Jew's hand. He was conscious that here was a person that knew better than himself how things stood with him. And then, taking heart, he asked--
"What do you think, Jacobi? Shall I be able to hold on?"
"If you don't mind my saying it, Herr Baron," replied the old man, "when a man is what the Herr Baron is, such a question is ridiculous. A man like the Herr Baron has only to say, 'I'll do this or that,' and he can compass what he likes. And in addition, when he has a friend like the Herr Baron of Uhlenfelde, who is the wealthiest man in the district, well, then, he can hold on to the day of judgment."
Leo felt the blood mount to his temples. It was taken for granted, then, by those who knew the circumstances, that he had been living on his friend. And the old Jew went on--
"Only five minutes ago, as the Herr Baron von Kletzingk drove by, I said to myself----"
Leo started up, and asked hastily in which direction he had driven.
"Towards the station," was the answer.
"Was he alone?"
The old man tried to look politely blank, as if he had not understood the real drift of the question, and replied that, so far as he could see, the Herr Baron had been alone.
Leo seized his cap, promised to come back, and rushed out. The desire to overtake Ulrich, to hold his hand for a second in his, gained such sudden ascendency over him, that everything else receded into the background. The station was ten minutes' walk from the market-place. Already he could see Ulrich's yellow basket-carriage waiting at the foot of the stone steps. He could not evade him.
The Herr Baron had gone to the waiting-room, he was informed by Wilhelm, who reigned on the box, as worthy and dignified a coachman as thirty years ago. He found the waiting-room empty, except for the presence of a boy in the window-seat. Leo scarcely noticed him, for he recognised amongst the packages thrown on the table, Ulrich's old travelling gear, his plaid rug, tan hand-bag and hat-box. Beside them were articles strange to him. So he was going away? for a long time perhaps. He was all the more glad to think that he had caught him.
Should he go out and find him? No, it would be better to await him here, where there was no one to look on curiously at their meeting. No one but that small boy, who gazed up at him with the great brown eyes set in a pale, delicate little face.
The eyes struck him as familiar, and the gaunt thin cheeks, too, seemed to remind him of a face belonging to his past. There was some unpleasant memory associated with it, but what it was he was unable to guess for the moment.
He would have liked to ask the little fellow his name, then he recollected what had brought him there and how little the outer world concerned him. He flung himself in a sofa-corner and meditated, his eye fixed absently on the yellow bag which bore Ulrich's initials.
Then he heard a voice, a low, hesitating childish voice, say, "Uncle Leo."
He started. The voice sounded like one he knew. But already it had all dawned on him. A stream of ice seemed to flow from his heart and paralyse his limbs. He could not move.
And again he heard, "Uncle Leo."
There lay in the timid, trembling tone a gentle questioning reproach which children only use to their particular friends when they consider themselves neglected by them.
Now, worse luck, he was bound to look up. The boy had come out of his corner. With his right arm round the plaid rug, he stood by the table glancing up shyly at Leo with a half-pathetic, half-excited smile.
"Who are you, my little man?" he stammered.... He felt as if he had seen a ghost. Here werehereyes in Rhaden's peaky face.
"Why, I am Paul, of course," said the boy. "Don't you really know me any more, Uncle Leo?"
He forced himself into a joyous exclamation of surprise. There had always been a tie of affection between him and the poor little fellow. He could not hurt his feelings now without cause. His hands clasped together convulsively.
"Warn him not to touch them," something cried aloud within him. But the boy had caught hold of them already, and leaning against him, he began to chatter freely--
"I knew you at once, Uncle Leo. Directly you came in. But what a long beard you've got now. You had a beard before, but it was much shorter. Oh, it is such a dreadful long time since you went away. And I thought when you came back you would sure to bring me something, ... because you always used to bring me presents.... The rocking-horse you gave me once I have got still. But it is too little for me now, and I have got a bigger one, yours is the foal. You should just see how pretty they look together."
Leo bit his lips, and nodded, smiling.
"How long have you been home, Uncle Leo?" the boy asked.
"About a month. Paulchen," he answered.
"And why haven't you been to see us?" he asked again. "When my other papa was alive you used to come every day."
"I have had no time, Paulchen."
"But you will come soon?"
"When I can, of course, Paulchen."
A proud smile now beamed on the boy's thin face, the short crooked brows of which had been working nervously up and down.
"But I shan't be at home when you come," he said, putting his hands in his pockets. "I am going to school."
Leo gasped. "To school? Where?"
"Ever so far away," answered the little fellow. "Wiesbaden is the name of the town. It is a very beautiful town, mamma says. And mamma has given me a lot of lovely new toys, and I am taking them all with me."
"And don't you feel frightened?" asked Leo.
"Mamma says, schoolboys are never frightened," answered Paul. "Boys must be brave. But poor mamma is dreadfully frightened herself. She cries and cries! Look here, won't you go to mamma, and tell her there is nothing to be frightened about?"
"I suppose you will be going at Michaelmas?" asked Leo, flabbergasted.
Paulchen laughed contemptuously. "No, indeed!" he said. "We are starting now. Papa and I, by this very train. Papa is gone to look after the big luggage, and I am waiting here for him."
Leo sprang up. Then she must be at the station too! Any minute she might come in at that door. The hideousness of the situation, which, in listening to the boy's pretty talk, he had almost forgotten, broke on him afresh.
He clutched at his cap. Like a thief, he must slink away by the side door.
"Are you going so soon, Uncle Leo?" the child asked anxiously.
"I must, Paulchen."
"And aren't you going to say good-bye to me?"
An irresistible impulse seized him. He caught up the boy in his arms with warmth, murmuring inarticulate words over him. He felt the childish lips pressing against his cheeks caressingly.
He trembled; and then the door opened, and not she whom he expected, but Ulrich came in. He let go of the boy, and seemed to himself as if he were a criminal discovered in an act of desecration. Yet when he saw Ulrich's look of dismay and reproach, he went to him quickly, and, taking his hand, said in a low voice--
"Don't be angry, and don't reproach me. It was pure chance. I did not even recognise him when I first came in and found him sitting here. I could not run away when he came and spoke to me. I have bid him good-bye, and in secret asked him to forgive me. There is nothing wrong in that?"
"No, nothing wrong," agreed Ulrich; "that is true."
Leo now noticed that he looked even a shade more wretched and worn than on that evening when he had paid him his farewell visit. His breath was short, his eyes burned in their blue hollows.
"You are not well, my dear old fellow?" Leo inquired. Had he not known by experience the tenacity of Ulrich's constitution, he would have had the gravest fears.
"I have been much worried." Then, looking at his step-son, he added questioningly, "You know?"
Leo nodded.
Ulrich stroked the small smooth head of the boy, whose closely cropped brown hair grew in two half-circles low on his thoughtful forehead.
"Have you said good-bye to Wilhelm?" he asked.
No; he had forgotten to do that.
Ulrich looked at the clock. There were still ten minutes before the train was due. "Run along, then," he said, "and when it's time I will fetch you."
The boy ran out, slightly dragging one leg, a habit of delicate children.
Ulrich looked after him with a smile full of sad, anxious tenderness. "It will be hard for me to part with him," he said; "he was about all I had."
"Must it be?" asked Leo, to whom the suddenly made plan, of which there had been no hint a month ago, seemed not a little extraordinary.
Ulrich nodded, wrinkling his forehead. "Yes, it must," he said. "I should never have consented to it, of course, perhaps simply from selfish reasons, if I had had the right to decide over the child's future. But he ishers, and she wishes it."
"She is not here?" asked Leo, again betraying uneasiness.
"No," Ulrich answered; "with great difficulty, I persuaded her to stay at home. Just before we started she had an hysterical fit, and if she had had another on the platform it would have made a scene."
"But if she feels it so much, why does she send him away?"
A shadow of pained self-dissatisfaction, which Leo knew from childhood, passed over Ulrich's face. "I believe it is my fault," said he.
"Of course, everything is your fault," replied Leo. "If a stone falls on some one's head in Borneo, it is your fault."
Ulrich smiled.
"Look at the boy," he said, "and then at me, and you must see that if he were my own flesh and blood he could not be more like me. Sickly he has been from birth--sensitive, anæmic, just as I have been. And since he has become attached to me, he moulds himself more and more after my pattern. And nothing could be worse for him. Who knows what I should have grown to be without your pluck and muscularity to rely upon? He has had no such comrade as I had in you. Instead, he has only had me to pamper and pet him. Under my guidance he must grow up a weakling and a milksop, and no man. In order that he should have a stronger hand over him, I advised Felicitas to engage your pastor's son as his tutor. And when that young gentleman began to demoralise my household, I winked at it for the boy's sake. Finally, Felicitas herself got sick of him, and sent him packing. For two or three weeks after that she taught the little chap herself, but Felicitas is not the person to stick long to that sort of thing. And she was certainly right when she decided on a new move. I dare not take on my shoulders the responsibility of being the ruin of her son."
It all sounded rational enough, yet in spite of that it was monstrous.
"But if you must sacrifice him," exclaimed Leo, "why send him to the other end of the country? He might be ill and die before you got to him."
"Hold me answerable for as much as you like," answered Ulrich, and his eyes glistened with anxiety; "but just in this matter you must leave me out. The child is not my child, and I am bound to acquiesce. All I can do is to see that the thing is properly done. Felicitas chose the school. The energy with which she set about it astonished me. She declares that such a thorough change of air may prove most blessedly beneficial to the boy, both mentally and physically, provided that the influence of his earlier surroundings are entirely eradicated. I should be quite ready to agree with her in theory, if the application of that theory did not tear my heartstrings. But why do I talk of myself? She is the mother by blood of the child. She must suffer more than I. Ah, and what will she not yet have to suffer."
Leo was silent. Suspicion, dim at first, that his coming home had something to do with what had happened, grew clearer and stronger in his mind. Was it fear that, now he was in the neighbourhood, some rumour of the horrible deed might poison the heart of the child, which had prompted the mother to send him away? The poor little creature's peace of mind and innocence might be blasted for ever by the tactless gossip of a servant or an overheard tag of conversation. For this she was parting with him, sending him into banishment, that the well of his pure childhood's days should remain undefiled. He had never suspected her of such powers of renunciation. It seemed almost too great a sacrifice to be wrung from a mother's heart. However frivolous she might be, this atoned for much.
The wonder was that Ulrich saw or suspected nothing of all this. Despite his being the practical philosopherpar excellence, be always seemed to be more and more hopelessly out of touch with the practical side of life. But to open his eyes would have been cruel--cruel to himself more than to any one else. Why impose a fresh burden on their friendship, already bowed to the earth?
The bell announcing the incoming train sounded outside. Ulrich sprang up.
"Go out that way," he said, pointing to the door that led into the waiting-room, "so that you don't see him again."
"Yes, you are right. I promise that it shall be the last time," replied Leo. He squeezed his friend's hand and went, and behind him he heard a voice calling, "Uncle Leo."
Hertha was not feeling happy. She had built such high hopes on Leo's return, that it was only natural that she should be disappointed. How she had thought about him, prayed and worked for him! and now she had to retire into the background. His teasing wounded her; his demand that she should obey him seemed almost an insult, and since her stepmother had migrated to the dower-house, Hertha thought seriously of leaving Halewitz altogether. She had written three letters already to her guardian, asking to be taken away, but had torn them up. Then, it would not be easy to separate herself from this spot of green earth, where the sun seemed to shine brighter and hearts to be kindlier than anywhere else in the world.
Nobody, not even grandmamma, suspected anything of these struggles going on in her heart; they came, and then were over as if they had never been. They were a luxury reserved for lonely musing hours; at rosy sunset, or by pale moonlight, in the glorious drowsy solitude of the forest and on dew-glittering meadow paths. They began of themselves, but ceased at the sound of a human voice. She derived from them a painful joy, a defiance that longed to be conquered and cling to some one, a thirst for battle which she only wished to end in a slowly bleeding, prostrate martyrdom.
The reaction was a wild whirl through house and courtyard. As before, she would romp and skip about to her heart's content, fraternizing with all the live stock, and as she no longer might superintend the milking, she slept, from pique, till the sun was high in the heavens.
Elly trotted obediently in her wake as she had always done. Only sometimes, when her friend's pranks were a little too much for her, did she strike and go to grandmamma with complaints, for which Hertha gave her a scolding, and she became her abject slave once more.
For the rest, grandmamma took care that the trees did not grow into the sky. Now that there was nothing more to do in the gardening or the housekeeping line, there was time for reading French in the morning, doing fancy-work, and practising drawing-room pieces on the piano. After that was over, one was free to go for walks, to bathe, or to loaf as much as one pleased.
It was a sultry, steamy evening at the beginning of September. The river lay softly gleaming like a mirror of molten silver. Blue-black clouds rose on the horizon, which now and then opened with a faint flash, unanswered by any echo of thunder. On the wooded rising ground above the river the glossy, fat red pony, half harnessed to his small governess-cart, was standing, flapping with tail and mane at the midges, which to-day seemed more impertinent in their onslaughts than usual. Occasionally he sent forth a pathetic neigh in the direction of the bank, where the white awning of a swimming-bath glimmered above the woolly heads of the bulrushes. From inside came those long-drawn shrieks, half frightened, half joyous, in which young women-folk indulge when disporting themselves in the water.
It was some time before the canvas-covered door opened and Hertha appeared, glowing-red, still steaming from the damp, warm air within. She jumped on to the landing-stage, that oscillated violently, while Elly, always rather pale, but still whiter after bathing, poked her delicate little nose out guardedly, waiting till Hertha should have left the dangerous plank. Not till then did she become fully visible.
Near the swimming-bath a light rowing-boat danced on the dark water. It could not have been used for a long time, and had been left neglected, to its own devices. The seats were missing, the rudder had been torn out, and at the bottom, between its thin ribs, a muddy whirlpool gurgled up at its every motion.
"What a pity the nice boat should not be used!" said Hertha, and sprang into it. The dirty water spurted up and sprinkled her face, but she did not mind that. Laughing, she tucked her skirts up above her knees; her shoes and stockings were still in her hand, and her legs, firm, round, and softly moulded like pilasters of Parian marble, stood out from the black background.
Then she squatted on the steerer's seat--the only one there was--put her footgear in safety, and seemed as if she were quite prepared to stay there.
Elly looked alarmed. "Oh dear I what are you going to do?" she cried, tripping about on the steps of the landing-stage. "Do come back and be good!" The exhortation "be good" she had retained from her childhood.
Hertha clasped her hands behind her head and stared into the distance, dumbly weaving fancies. Out into the current, circling with the eddies, swept ever onwards away to the wide ocean--into the blue immensity, that was what she longed for at this moment.
Then drawing herself erect, she asked, "I say, how does the boat come here?"
"Leo used to keep it years ago, lying on the sandbank, so that he could get over by it quickly to Uhlenfelde and the Isle of Friendship," Elly informed her.
The Isle of Friendship! A double romance cast its halo about the little island, with its hazel-nut bushes, and high-arched coronet of alders and birches above, which, like the curly head of some drowned giant, reared itself from the water and looked fiercely across to the other side. A tiny morsel of white masonry gleamed through the sombre density of the foliage. That must be the temple of which the country-folk with superstitious awe whispered mysterious legends into each other's ears.
In ancient times the island had been the scene of heathen sacrifices. It was said that the terrible stone was still to be seen from which the Druid priest had spurted the blood of the slain victim towards heaven. And when on dark nights you passed the island, you saw, even now, figures swathed in long white robes crouching in the branches of the alders. In more modern times, the two friends had invoked the old spirit, and brought it back to life. And people related, besides, that on either side of the mossy sacrificial stone they had each opened a vein of the other, and drank the warm blood; that they had composed hymns to the white statue, and burnt incense before it, so that red fire was seen rising nightly into the sky. Hertha had heard all this from Elly's lips at school, and it had fired her imagination. The romances of her history-primers, the heroes of which had long ago been cast away as rubbish with her old exercise and composition books, lived again, a decade later, in her soul, glowing and glorious with mystery.
Before she knew Halewitz at all, she had pined to see the Isle of Friendship, and as, thanks to grandmamma's anxious vigilance, she had not been allowed to set foot on it yet, the very thought of it possessed a magic which filled her with the same sweet thrills which had been her delight in twilight hours at school.
She got up, and stretched out her arms longingly. If only she might get across!
At that instant her eye caught sight of an oar lying horizontally along the edge of the boat and wedged into it, but the twin oar was missing. An audacious plan began to take shape in her mind. She remembered to have seen an old key hanging up inside the bathing-house, which apparently belonged to the boat. She would make Elly fetch it.
Elly was horrified. "Whatareyou going to do?"
Hertha banged with her fist on the side of the boat. When she commanded, she expected blind obedience. A few seconds later the little implement, covered with rust, was thrown into her lap.
A sudden furious ardour came over her. With the unfastened lock still in her hand, she tore the oar out of its old resting-place, and dug it with all her strength deep in the morass, from which glittering bubbles came gurgling to the surface. Poor Elly's lamentations died away unheeded. The boat began slowly to break through the reeds and sedges, and to drift up the stream.
Hertha calculated that if she kept to the calm shallows near the bank and worked her way up to a point where she would have left the island a hundred paces behind her, she might hope by skilful steering and even with only one oar to master the current, and reach her goal by a circuitous route.
When she saw that she was really making progress, she uttered a cry of triumph, and worked on with yet hotter zeal.
Meanwhile Elly, like a motherless chicken, ran wildly up and down amongst the reeds and rushes on the bank, getting her shoes stuck in the slime, and falling over willow-stumps. She wrung her hands, and implored Hertha to come back, but for answer was laughed to scorn.
But Hertha's Nemesis soon overtook her. The boat that unintentionally she had launched into a whirling side-current began to turn round of itself. For a few moments it stayed motionless, as if not sure what to do next, then began to glide, at first slowly, and afterwards more and more rapidly towards the valley. It passed the bathing-house and the island, and descended gaily in mid-stream.
Elly saw how Hertha lost her grasp of the oar and threw it away, how she spread out her arms, and called out some words quite unintelligible, so that she did not know whether they meant triumph or despair. She went back to her cart, sat down on the grass beside the pony to await coming events, and wept.
Thus it happened that when supper was ready at Halewitz, neither of the girls put in an appearance. Leo tried to laugh away his mother's uneasiness, but at once ordered the mare to be resaddled, which stood sweating in the stable, put a flask of brandy in his pocket, whistled for his namesake, and started off two minutes later over the dewy meadows to the river.
The thunderstorm, which had been threatening all day, had dispersed. A crescent moon shone serenely in the blue and gold expanse of cloud. He could not deny that he was anxious about the girls. Two such giddy young creatures, it was true, might certainly lose themselves without being in any particular danger. But Hertha had the devil in her, and her escapades were generally serious. The dog, who had bounded on before him, discovered the pony cart with a howl of joy. He was about to give a sigh of relief, when he saw Elly was crouching on the ground alone, bathed in tears. The reins slid from his hand, and the mare and everything else seemed to spin round.
"Where is Hertha?" he burst forth.
His sister with a sob pointed to the stream.
He saw nothing but green and yellow sparks dancing before his eyes.
"Drowned?" he asked hoarsely.
She shook her head, but it was some time before he could get a clear account of what had happened.
"Why did you not instantly make for home and fetch help?" he demanded, his hand tightening on the bridle.
"You really mustn't shout at me like that, I am so awfully afraid of you," was her plaintive reply, accompanied by one of her practised glances from tear-filled eyes which would have melted a heart of stone.
He laughed, half annoyed, half mollified, and gave her orders to drive home at express speed and tell the bailiff to send a conveyance with servants and lanterns immediately to Newferry, the nearest village, three-quarters of a mile away in the valley.
She climbed obediently into the cart, and he lashed his horse and tore over stubble, marsh, and sedge into the dusk; his gaze fixed on the stream, which, glowing and vapouring as if covered with burning petrol, ran beside him on the other side of the reed-wall. Every sandbank and every drifting plank stood out black and sharply defined from the fiery gold channel beneath. Yet night was drawing on apace. In another quarter of an hour even, it would be impossible to discern the little craft, driven on noiselessly through the shadows. And from the side of the reed-hedge a quarter of the stream's breadth was hidden from view already. He drew up, and called her name through the silence. There was no answer, except the barking of his hound, who had taken advantage of the pause to go off on a hunt for birds' nests and nocturnal vermin sneaking amongst the wheat and stubble.
He rested in his stirrups, and surveyed the landscape.
From this point the river could be seen for a quarter of a mile, but there was not a sign of a boat upon it, for during the summer droughts shipping was at a standstill, and what lighter craft might be about sought a haven at nightfall in the little landing-places of the inns, where the shrubs and woodwork protected them from the current.
He rode on.
The surface of the water became darker and darker, and his uneasiness increased. If she spent the night on the mist-enveloped stream, sitting in the little boat half-filled with water, she would probably catch her death.
The bank which, so far, had sloped down to the reeds in slight declivities, became lower here. A dyke made by human hands replaced the natural one of boscage.
Now the prospect was more open, but this availed nothing, for the face of the stream had become a monotonous dark blue. The moon had sunk, and only the reflection of a star here and there trembled, softly gleaming on the waters.
Once more his call rang out into the distance. Croaking frogs held their tongues, and that was the only result. Here the outlying houses of Newferry showed in black outline near the dyke. Two or three mongrels rushed out of the yards, and set up a furious yapping, which Leo the hound received in lofty silence, till they, growing more impertinent, ventured to touch him. Then he seized them one after the other by the back, and administered a sound shaking. There was a faint whine, and all was still again. In the houses every one seemed to have gone to bed. The inn itself lay dark and deserted. Nowhere did a boat cast its shadow on the bank.
Nevertheless, he stopped and called her name across to the house. He listened awhile, but no sound came except the renewed barking of the dogs.
There would be time enough on his way back to wake the people of the inn, if he had not found her before that. He resumed his gallop over the loamy ground of the dyke, the black line of which uncoiled itself like a serpent before him, and was lost in the bluish haze down-stream.
He passed more villages, two, three altogether, and met with the same luck everywhere.
A cloud of steam rose from his horse's haunches, its head was sticky from sweat, and great flecks of foam flew about from its snorting nostrils. The dog's breath came in short, panting gasps, as if he too apparently had begun to come to the end of his powers.
Leo calculated that he had ridden about two miles along the bank of the river. Further than this it would be impossible for her to have reached in the last four hours. Somewhere, then, within this compass she must yet be afloat, if she was not making her way home to Halewitz. He sent the dog into the reeds and began to ride back at a walking pace. The late-summer night slowly spread its white damp veil over the landscape. The crickets chirruped, and now and then there was a swish in the water, as a water-rat shot out from the shore into the mirror-like surface.
By the time he had reached Newferry again, he had given up the search, and resolved to raise the alarm among the inhabitants. The conveyance from Halewitz had not arrived, for the inn still lay in darkness and silence.
He got off his horse, tied the bridle to the sunk fence over which sunflowers poked their round faces, like night-capped women giving a sleepy and sulky greeting. He stretched his limbs with a groan, for they had become damp and stiff from riding through the mist.
He regarded the excitement of the last few hours almost in the light of a blessing, for it had taken his mind off the one eternal thought that had tormented it for weeks. Now, of a sudden, it came back and then was gone again, like an arrow whizzing past the ear as a reminder from a hidden enemy.
"When once I have found her," he thought, "I don't mind what I go through into the bargain."
He would never have thought it possible that the strange young creature, whose stony defiance and noisy, boisterous tricks had alternately annoyed and amused him, could have become so dear to his heart.
He walked with stiff legs in high riding-boots along the dark wooden palings to the front door, on the stone threshold of which the dog, stretched on all fours, was howling and scratching as if he wanted to bore his way inside like a mole. The low door yielded to a push. He stumbled down into a dark vestibule, but through the door beyond a fire flickered brightly on the open hearth, and, lifting his eyes, he beheld the lost girl standing before him illuminated by the flames.
She wore a short red gathered peasant's skirt, from beneath which her naked feet shone forth. She held a coarse woollen crossover with her thin brown arms tightly round her bosom. The short sleeves of a rough, yellowish linen chemise of the kind that peasants spin themselves showed under it. She stared aghast at the intruder, her face deadly pale. The dog sprang up on her with a yelp of pleasure, but she did not touch him.
"My dear, dear child," cried Leo, stretching his hands out to her in unfeigned gladness, "I have found you. Thank God--found you."
The blood came rushing back into her cheeks, and she cast down her eyes, but made no sign of taking the hands held out to her.
Then she said in a low voice, without lifting her eyes from the floor--
"Will you be so kind. Uncle Leo, as to tell the dog to be quiet. The woman here is ill, and her husband is gone to Münsterberg for the doctor."
A motion of his foot sent the dog into a corner.
"But how about you, my child?" he exclaimed, "you don't speak of yourself."
She had been quite prepared for a scolding, and was not sure in what tone she should answer this overwhelming friendliness. A wavering smile, alike defiant and pained, played about the corners of her mouth.
"Well, you see what I am doing," she said, evading his glance. "I am here brewing elder tea for the sick woman."
A kettle stood on the tripod near her on the hearth, licked by the ruddy flames.
"And what have you got on?" he asked.
She stepped quickly out of the circuit of light cast by the fire, and drew the shawl, with her left hand, closer round her throat.
"I had to put on just what I could find," she stammered, "so please don't look at me."
There hung drying above the fire on a clothes' line a wet skirt, which still steamed, and near it a draggled rag, which was the light cotton blouse she had been wearing that day.
"You were upset!" he exclaimed, hardly able to master his horror.
She tried to shrug her shoulders indifferently, but looked rather piteous as she did so.
"Upset?" she said; "well, what of that? I simply swam ashore."
"In those clothes?" he asked. "What woman could ever swim in clothes?"
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, with her eyes still on the floor; "why not? The things I could do without I left in the boat.... To-morrow they will turn up somewhere."
"Now, child, tell me all about it," he urged.
"What am I to tell you?" she replied. "You will only scold me;" and her lips curled saucily.
"I promise I won't," he assured her.
"Then, here goes," she said, and fetched a deep breath as if to gain courage for the task. "When I found, all at once, that I had got into the current, and saw that with one wretched oar I couldn't get out again, I thought to myself, 'God's will, be done. At any rate, you will enjoy the beautiful evening till some one comes to pick you up;' but no one came. But I didn't mind that either. It was really so wonderful to see reeds and banks rushing by. It was like being in the middle of fairyland."
She paused and looked up at him with great scared eyes, as if she suddenly recollected to whom she was speaking. Then she devoted herself to the kettle, raised the lid, and blew the flames.
"Why don't you go on?" he insisted on knowing.
"I can't," she said softly. "Youwilllook at me all the time."
"I'll look the other way," he said.
Then she resigned herself to fate and continued--
"After it had lasted half an hour and more, it began to bore me. I had no place to rest my feet on, for the water splashed about at the bottom of the boat. When the houses of Newferry came in sight I thought to myself, now my troubles will end, and I called out and yelled at the top of my voice, but all in vain. The hole is called Newferry, but not a sign of a ferry-boat was to be seen anywhere. Well, then I simplified matters by jumping into the water."
"Girlie, you must have been possessed by a demon," he cried, half angry, half laughing.
"So the people thought in the village," she replied; "because when I bobbed up at the dyke they all ran away from me. It was a good thing that I happened to know the people at the inn. They used to rent our ... that is to say ...thepublic-house at Halewitz."
He mentioned the name that occurred to him.
Yes. Buttkus; that was it. And then she told him of the miserable plight she had found the house in. The woman lay in bed delirious from fever; the landlord in desperation had resorted to the brandy bottle.
"I sent the fellow off on the spot to Münsterberg to fetch the doctor," she concluded, "and I shall stay here till he comes back, whether you think that I ought or not."
And she gave him a challenging look as if she saw herself being carried out of the place by force.
But he at once soothed her. Nothing was farther from his thoughts than to disturb her in her noble work of charity.
"One question you must answer, however," he said.
"Well?"
"An hour ago you were here?"
"Certainly I was."
"Didn't you hear your name being called?"
She seemed embarrassed, reflected a little, and then said in a decisive tone--
"Yes."
"And why didn't you answer?"
There was silence.
She took the kettle off the tripod and poured the water, which was boiling, into a stewpan, from which rose the fragrant scent of elder flowers.
"You'll allow me at least to take the woman her tea?" she said. "The poor thing has such shivering fits."
And without waiting for his response she went out at the door, holding the handle of the hot stewpan deftly between two fingers.
Leo devoured with his eyes the slender virginal figure in its rough costume as it disappeared into the darkness.
He seated himself on an oak stump which, chopped up, was used for firewood, and let his fingers idly run along the teeth of the hatchet, turned into an instrument of gold by the flickering firelight.
The St. Bernard looked up at him with intelligent eyes.
"Like a fairy tale," she had said. And this was like being in a fairy tale, too. The walls were covered with rough household utensils. The huge open chimney-place was all encrusted with glittering flakes of soot that struggled upwards in fantastic zigzag shapes, and when loosened from the velvet cloud of smoke, rained down on to the hearth in a shower of metallic scales. Above the fire of crackling logs, along which the blue flames greedily felt their way before plunging into their heart, the steaming flower-patterned blouse belonging to the careless child wreathed the hearth with a festive-looking garland. The quivering reflection of the flames shot up brilliantly and filled the room one moment, the next they sank, giving place to dark shadows, his own shadow most conspicuous, magnified to gigantic proportions on the wall and rising to the ceiling, with a black hatchet grasped in his hand ... a grim sentinel.
Like this shadow, he thought, holding the hatchet and waiting a chance to bring it down, was that old sin. There was no path along which it did not follow him. Where he was, it was, too. In this hour it would not tolerate for a moment that he should forget it. He looked at the clock. Ten minutes past eleven; and still there was no sound of the carriage coming.
He rose and went out on tiptoe up to the dyke to look round. As he came to where his mare was standing, he saw with alarm that its smoking body was convulsed with cold shivers.
"Well to be born a landed proprietor," he reflected. "If I was my groom this negligence would cost me my situation and bread."
Hurriedly he went back and found in a corner of the kitchen a patchwork square such as the poor people use instead of carpet. In this he wrapped the shaking animal, after he had dried its legs and flanks with a towel.
Far and wide darkness and silence reigned. Only on the other side of the stream a torchlight came and went, and reappeared in another place. Probably nocturnal crab-catchers were abroad. The mist had thickened, and appeared to be heavy on the river. Bluish-white tags detached themselves now and then, and melted in the starry sky, or hung about the bushes and shrubs, whose blurred blackness rose out of a milky surface. He heard a soft trickling sound coming from the trees near. The dew was falling. He shivered in his damp clothes.
"God be praised that I have got her safe," he thought, and turned back to the house. As he stepped softly over the threshold, he fancied he heard Hertha speaking his name. He stood still in astonishment.
"Leo ... my dear, dear,dearLeo!"
He had never heard any words in his life so fervid, so full of awed and hesitating tenderness.
But the problem was soon solved. She was sitting on the oak stump, bending down caressing the dog whose head rested between her feet, which were now shod in stockings and wooden shoes.
He was inwardly vexed, and laughed. But she, when she heard him coming, sprang up with a cry as if she had been doing something very wrong.
"I was so big a blockhead for a minute," he confessed, laughing, "as to think that was meant for me."
A fresh wave of colour swept her cheeks. Then, shrugging her shoulders, she said, "You are mistaken."
"Yes, I always am being mistaken," he answered; and turning to the dog, he added, "You are lucky, old boy. Your master is treateden canaille, but you who arecanailleitself get caresses and endearments."
"Uncle Leo," she began, with flashing eyes, "I hope that you will be chivalrous enough, to-day at least, not to take advantage of my helpless position to scoff at me."
"But, my dear child, ..." he said soothingly.
"Don't call me your dear child. I am not your dear child.... I am a stranger to you, as much as any one else. I am a lonely forsaken girl, whom you found receiving hospitality under your roof; you let her stay, because you cannot very well tell her to go. But simply because I am still your guest, I beg that you will not speak to me now, but go away. Leave me to my fate. I dare say that I can find my way home, though after that I am not quite certain what I shall do."
She stood leaning against the inglenook biting her lips, and stared at the fire, which cast a golden glow over her flowing hair and naked brown arms. He was quite unmanned by the loveliness of the picture.
He came close to her, and smiling into her amazed eyes, stroked her on the forehead and cheeks three times.
She gazed up at him motionless, with half-open mouth. She seemed scarcely to comprehend what was happening. For it was the first time any man had ever stroked her cheek.
"What's the matter, sweet one, dearest? What have I done to you?" he asked in a low voice, leaning over her. "Tell me why you rage so furiously against me."
She tried to speak, but her lips would not obey. She wanted to guard herself, but her arms sank to her sides.
"Listen," he continued, "I delight in you, every hour that I see you. Every day you grow dearer to me. You are the sunshine of the house, but you keep up your feud with me, just as if I were positively your arch-enemy, or God knows what monster."
She shut her eyes, and swayed as if she must lie down and fall asleep.
"And look here," he began again. "If I have teased you a little now and then, you must take it in good part. While I have been away, all of you have just got into the habit of doing what you like. But I want to inculcate method and order; and you, too, my dear child, I would have fall in with my rules. And that won't be so difficult, for I shall require nothing very dreadful of you. Will you agree? Say yes, please. Do me the favour."
Whereupon she dropped down on the wooden stump, and covering her face with her hands, began to cry bitterly.
"What a quaint young thing it is," he thought. "Instead of throwing herself into my arms, which I, as a good uncle, deserve, she sits down and howls."
He placed himself beside her, and looked down on her head. Slowly, half uncertain, he raised his left hand. "May I?" he wondered, and let it glide gently over her damp hair, which shone, red as a fox, in the firelight.
Then she clung with both hands to his arm, and leaning her head against it, whispered, still sobbing--
"Why--why are you so horrid to me?"
"When have I been horrid? I have always meant to be good to you, child."
"Really! Will you really be good to me?"
"Of course, my child."
He stooped, and was going to kiss her on the forehead; but as at this moment she moved her head sideways, it happened that their lips rested on each other.
"How innocently she lets herself be kissed," he thought.
And then suddenly she jumped up, and tore out of the room as fast as her clattering pattens would permit.
He ran both hands through his hair, and strode like one possessed up and down the uneven tiles of the kitchen.
A childlike, foolish blissfulness filled his soul. He felt as if he was again fifteen years old, in jackets and with curly hair, coming home triumphant from his first rendezvous, when Felicitas had given him her first kiss.
Felicitas!
Like the stab of a knife the thought of her pursued him. But the next minute he laughed out loud, and raised his hands in proud confidence to the ceiling. The kiss of the innocent child had opened founts of youthful gladness within him.
If he dared hope one day to win this young heart for his own, then all would be made right again. Then the burden of guilt, borne for years, would fall of itself. Then what filled his life with vague uneasiness, and made him sometimes not know himself, would yield to peace and a happy state of mind. It would die away--die like that flickering, greedy, leaping flame, which now, at last, had sunk, and lay at rest in a dull red-hot glow. And when he turned round he saw that the grand spectre which had cast its shadow, hatchet in hand on the wall, had gone too.
His mood became pleasantly dreamy. He rested his head in his hands, and his foot on the body of the dog that lay stretched full length on the hearth luxuriating in the warmth. As he stared at the red ashes, an earnest of how his future was to shape itself made him feel as if a cool hand were laid soothingly on his brow.
He must have sat musing thus for quite a quarter of an hour, when the St. Bernard barked. Carriage-wheels sounded without, and voices.
"How glad I am they didn't come before," he thought, full of gratitude for the blessings the last hour or so had rained upon him. He went out. A long waggonette full of men and lights stood on the dyke, and close behind it one of the smaller Halewitz carriages, from which his mother's voice greeted him, half choked by tears.
"Found!" he cried, gleefully.
There was great rejoicings at the news. His mother climbed down from the carriage followed by the stout lady-help, who was laden with a supply of dry clothes.
Elly had, of course, given wrong directions. For two hours the carriages had been driving about from village to village.
His mother went into the house with the clothes, and begged him to wait outside.
"Don't scold her," he called after her on the threshold. "She has already had her share."
"I hope that you were not too hard on her!" she exclaimed.
He felt that he was growing red, and did not meet her glance.
It was a long time before any one came out again. The servants stamped on the dyke to keep their feet warm. The brandy bottle circulated. The maids let themselves be tickled, and gave a suppressed squeal when the lads went too far. Some of them hummed now and again a snatch of song. He leaned against his grey mare. Sounds and shadows passed before his consciousness like a dream. At last, after about half an hour, she appeared, holding his mother's hand, in the doorway, her head wrapped in a woollen shawl and a wide fur-cloak flung round her.
The servants wanted to cheer, but he forbade any demonstration.
"Just think," protested grandmamma, while her eyes beamed with delight; "the little rogue did not want to come away a bit. Only when I had promised that Mamselle should stay and tend the sick woman, would she graciously condescend to follow me."
Hertha cast down her eyes and was smiling coy dreamy smiles. When she came into the light of the lanterns he saw that her whole face was radiant with great excitement. Her cheeks seemed rounder, her mouth like a flower.
"What a charming metamorphosis," he thought. "A woman all in a minute, before she has become a woman."
And when they had settled her comfortably in her corner, they began the homeward journey. He put a short pipe in his mouth, and rode in the wake of the carriage.
A soft breeze had risen, and drove the mist in his face. The grasshoppers were silent, and a great stillness lay on the world. Slowly he recalled one sweet picture after the other, and as they passed before his mind's eye, one in particular arrested him.
How expectantly her lips had been rounded to receive his threatened kiss, and to return it with emphasis.
He felt the impression of it still, he felt, too, the thin outline of the slight young form as his arm had encircled it.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" something spoke within him. "Don't hurt the child. Don't carry on a 'bud' flirtation."