XV.
M. GOEFLE’S fourth meal had just been served, and he was seriously occupied in giving Master Nils a lesson in deportment, while the child, standing before him with a napkin on his arm, seemed in quite a teachable mood.
“Bravo, Christian, you have come precisely at the right time!” cried the doctor of laws; “I was on the point of taking my coffee all alone. I made it myself, for both of us; I can guarantee that it is excellent, and you must want something to warm your stomach.”
“I will join you in a moment, my dear doctor,” replied Christian, taking off his torn vest and preparing to wash his hands, which were covered with blood.
“Good gracious!” resumed M. Goefle, “are you wounded, or have you by chance cut the throats of all the bears of Sevenberg?”
“There has been a little of that,” replied Christian, “but I think it is human blood that is on my hands now, Oh, M. Goefle, I have such a story to tell you!”
“You are pale!” cried the lawyer; “you have something more serious to tell me about than a hunting exploit. What has happened—a quarrel—a misfortune? Speak quickly—you take away my appetite.”
“Nothing has happened to me that ought to have that effect upon you, M. Goefle. Go on with your supper. I will try to keep you company, and I will speak French, because of—”
“Yes, yes,” replied M. Goefle, in French; “because of the red ears of this little imbecile. Go on, I hear you.”
While Christian was giving M. Goefle all the particulars of his adventures, and confiding to him also his conjectures and his emotions, they heard from afar the sound of the noisy fanfares. The baron had left the forest as he so frequently disappeared from his saloons. The cold, the fatigue of the expedition, and, above all, his impatience to attend to the business treated of in Johan’s missive, were more than he could endure, and accordingly, after killing a deer, he had stepped into his sleigh under the pretence of going farther on, while the other hunters were requested to pay no attention to his movements, but to continue their sports in any way they chose. Soon after, Larrson and the lieutenant had joined this hunt, where, agreeably to the universal anticipation, no trace of any bears had been seen, but where some few white deer had been killed, and a great number of very large hares.
When the fog came on, the prudent people hastened to drive back to the chateau; but some of the young folks, escorted by all the peasants of the neighborhood, who had been employed as trackers, delayed too long in descending the mountain, and were obliged to stop at the foot ofthe hogar, where Larrson advised that they should wait until the moon arose, or until the vapors hanging over the lake should be lifted by the sudden gust of wind by which the rising of the moon is often preceded. Some of the party had the lanterns of their sleighs lighted, and preferred to return at once, but about a dozen remained. Plenty of brandy was distributed to the peasants, who dispersed to their various homes. The servants and marksmen blew trumpets, and lighted a large fire on the hogar, close to the formless fragments of the statue of snow, and the merry company assembled in the grotto, before which the game was piled up in the form of a pyramid, and gayly chatted there at their leisure, relating their adventures, and discussing the various episodes of the hunt.
But the major’s stories so far exceeded what any of his companions had to relate, that soon every one was silent, to listen to him. Among his audience, which included both sexes, were Olga, Martina, and Margaret, who had been allowed by her aunt to remain on the hogar with Mademoiselle Potin and the minister’s daughter.
“So, gentlemen,” said Olga to the major and the lieutenant, “you have been slyly performing dangerous exploits, the proof of which you promise to show us to-morrow, if we will consent to take a walk to your house.”
“Say theproofs!” replied the major; “an enormous creature, a spotted bear with blue eyes, quite a large black bear, and two cubs, which we intend to bring up, so as to have the pleasure of letting them loose and hunting them when they are grown.”
“But who was so fortunate as to kill or capture them all?” inquired Martina Akerstrom, the blond fiancée of the lieutenant.
“The lieutenant captured a cub,” replied the major, turning with an expressive smile to his friend; “the corporal and myself caught another; the peasant who was guiding us wounded the large she-bear, and attacked the black bear; but these two furious beasts would infallibly have torn him into pieces, if another of my friends, who reached thespot all alone, had not ripped open the first, and broken the head of the other with a ball, at half an inch from the poor devil’s face.”
If Christian’s exploit had been related a third time, it is quite evident that the distance between his ball and the danneman’s head would have been inappreciable. The major certainly did not intend to exaggerate: however, his auditors cried out in amazement; but the lieutenant struck his fist upon the table, and took an energetic oath that the distance, if anything, was less, rather than greater, than what the major had said. The lieutenant did not intend to exaggerate, either; how could his dear Osmund be mistaken?
“Well, at any rate,” said Margaret, “the slayer of the monsters you have described must be very courageous, and have great presence of mind, and I should like to offer him my sincere congratulations. Does he remain anonymous out of modesty, or is he not here?”
“He is not here,” replied the baron.
“Is it really true?” rejoined Martina Akerstrom, looking artlessly at her betrothed.
“It is only too true,” answered the lieutenant, heaving a heart-felt and equally ingenuous sigh.
“But did he make you promise,” said Margaret, “not to reveal his name?”
“We would not have consented to make any such promise,” replied the major, “we love him too well for that; but, when one has a secret which, by good luck, excites the curiosity of the ladies, he likes to make his importance felt, and so we will not tell you anything more—will we lieutenant?—until you have done your very best to guess the name of our hero.”
“Perhaps it was Monsieur Stangstadius,” said Mademoiselle Potin, laughing.
“No,” replied some one, “the professor was at our hunt, and he left with the Baron de Waldemora.”
“Well,” said Olga, “it may have been precisely to join these gentlemen that they went. Who knows whether it was not the baron?”
“Such exploits are not suited to his age,” said a young man, who wouldhave been very glad to pay court to Olga, in an affected tone.
“Why not?” she rejoined.
“I do not say,” observed Larrson, “that he is too old for such exploits, but it is my opinion that he has never had a taste for them. The baron has never, I believe, hunted in the new style; that is, without being intrenched behind a net of strong and well-stretched cords.”
“What!” cried Margaret, “did you hunt without nets?”
“In the same way as the peasants of the mountain,” rejoined the major; “it is the best way.”
“But it must be very dangerous!”
“It was our friend alone who found it so to-day. We will show you to-morrow his coat of reindeer skin. The way in which the claws of the bear have turned this excellent shield into a kind of lace, will show you that he was in very close quarters with the enemy.”
“But it is madness to expose yourself so,” cried Margaret. “Nothing in the world would induce me to witness such a spectacle!”
“And what is the name of this Meleager?” inquired Olga; “will you not satisfy our curiosity?”
“Confess,” said the major, “that you have not tried very hard to guess it.”
“Yes, indeed; but the best hunters at the chateau—all I should have thought capable of such feats—are here, and you say that your hero is not present?”
“You have forgotten some one who was at the chateau only last evening,” rejoined the lieutenant.
“I have tried in vain to think,” replied Olga; “I give it up, unless, indeed, it should be the black mask, the man of mystery, the learned buffoon, Christian Waldo—”
“Well, and why not?” said the major, glancing stealthily at Margaret, who had blushed deeply.
“Was it he?” she cried, with unaffected eagerness.
“Mon Dieu!” said the young Russian, but more through thoughtlessness than malice, for she was not bad-hearted. “One wouldsay, my dear child, that you are very much interested in knowing—”
“You know,” observed good Mademoiselle Potin, opportunely, “that Countess Margaret is afraid of Christian Waldo.”
“Afraid of him?” said the major, in surprise.
“Why, certainly,” replied the governess, “and I confess that I am a little in the same case. A mask always frightens me.”
“But you have never even seen Christian’s mask.”
“Oh, that only makes it the more alarming,” she answered, laughing. “We are only really afraid of what we have never seen. All the stories that are told of this witty comedian are so strange! And his death’s head, that they talk about! We have heard enough about him to make one dream all night, and tremble at hearing his name!”
“Well,” said the major, “do not tremble any more, ladies; we have seen the face of Christian Waldo all day long, and in spite of what the baron said last night, his pretended death’s head is the head of a young Antinous. Isn’t it true, lieutenant, that he is the handsomest young man you ever saw?”
“As handsome as he is amiable, educated, and brave,” replied the lieutenant.
And even Corporal Duff, who was outside smoking his pipe, and listening to the conversation, now raised his voice as if in spite of himself, to praise the cordiality, nobility, and modesty of Christian Waldo.
Margaret asked no questions, and did not even venture to make any mental comments upon what she had heard; but while apparently fully occupied in fastening her pelisse, for they had risen to go, she did not lose a word of the praises bestowed upon her friend of the previous evening.
“How is it?” said Olga, who was also preparing for their departure, “that an educated and distinguished man can consent to follow a calling, I will not say disgraceful, but certainly frivolous, and which, after all, will not be likely to make him rich?”
“He don’t make a business of his present occupation,” replied the major, eagerly; “he follows it merely as an amusement.”
“Oh, excuse me, he is paid for his entertainments.”
“Well, and so are we soldiers paid for serving the state. Are not our estates and revenues the salary we receive for our services?”
“There is a difference between a salary and wages,” said Margaret, with gentle melancholy; “but it begins to be cold: shall we not go? I don’t think it will be dangerous now on the lake.”
The major saw, or thought he saw, that Margaret was anxious to have a talk with him; he offered her his arm, therefore, to her sleigh, and begged Mademoiselle Potin to allow him to have a seat with them in returning to the chateau. With a few brief words he gave the lieutenant to understand that he would like to have Olga return in another sleigh with himself and Martina Akerstrom; and the good lieutenant, without troubling himself about the reason of the major’s request, which he obeyed as if it had been a military order, offered his services to his fiancée and the young Russian.
Thanks to this arrangement, Osmund was at full liberty to espouse Christian Waldo’s cause warmly, and to try and change the bad opinion which Margaret and Mademoiselle Potin, her discreet confidante, seemed to have formed of him. To succeed in this, he had only to repeat his conversation with Waldo, and inform them of his generous and eccentric determination to endure the greatest poverty and suffering, rather than continue his adventurous career, of which he himself disapproved. Margaret listened with apparent tranquillity, as if she had been called upon to express her approbation of some case in which she had no personal interest. However, she was not a skilful actress, and the major, who had sufficient delicacy to adopt the same tone as herself, was not deceived as to the interest with which she really regarded his friend in her secret soul.
In the meanwhile Baron Olaus had been laid upon his bed, where he appeared calm. The physician, as usual, eluded the questions of hisheirs. They all soon knew that theirdear and respectable unclehad returned from the hunt so feeble that his people had been obliged to carry him in, undress him, and put him to bed, like a child; but, according to the physician, he was suffering merely from one of his customary accidental and temporary attacks. Johan gave orders that the amusements and games should continue. The comedy of marionettes was announced for eight o’clock. And as for Doctor Stangstadius, who might have revealed how ill he really was, he had returned from the hunt only to ascend into the observatory of the chateau, to study at his leisure the phenomenon of the dry fog, which he attributed, and perhaps correctly, to volcanic exhalations proceeding from Lake Wetter.
The only person who was really anxious was Johan. As soon as he was left alone with his master, though the physician, who had retired to change his dress and take some food, had implored him to keep the baron from being disturbed, he resolved to find out what he was to think of his mental condition.
“Come, my master,” he said, with his customary familiarity, a privilege granted to him alone, which he was never afraid of abusing, and for very sufficient reasons; “are we really dead this time? Haven’t you a single smile for your old Johan? one of those sweet little smiles that mean, ‘I bid defiance to disease, and I mean to bury all the fools who would like to see me go to the devil’?”
The baron tried in vain to gratify him; the victorious smile which he attempted to summon to his countenance proved a melancholy grimace, accompanied by a deep sigh.
“Anyhow, you understand me?” resumed Johan; “that is something.”
“Yes,” replied the baron, in a feeble voice; “but I am very ill this time! That ass of a doctor—”
And he tried to show his arm.
“He bled you?” said Johan. “He says that it saved your life; let us hope so: but you must exert your will; you know perfectly well thatthat it is your only remedy. Your will performs miracles!”
“I have none left.”
“No will? Nonsense! When you say that, it always means that you are very determined indeed about something; and I can tell you what you want now—that these two orthreeItalians—”
“Yes, yes, all of them,” rejoined the baron, with a gleam of energy.
“There, now!” resumed Johan, “I knew I could bring you round! Did you see the proof?—”
“It is unanswerable.”
“Stenson’s writing?”
“And his signature—all the details! It is strange—strange! but it is true.”
“But where have you put it, in the name of heaven?”
“In the pocket of my hunting-dress.”
“I cannot find it.”
“You have not looked carefully. It is there. No matter! Listen: I am overcome with fatigue—Stenson in the tower!”
“At once?”
“No, during the comedy.”
“And the others?”
“Afterwards.”
“In the tower also?”
“Yes; some excuse.”
“That is easy. A silver plate slipped into the baggage of these jugglers. They will have stolen it.”
“Good!”
“But if their suspicions are awakened? If the true and false Christian do not come?”
“Where are they?”
“Who can find out in this fog? I have given orders; but an hour ago no one had returned to Stollborg, which is watched and surrounded on all sides.”
“In that case, what will you do?”
“The proof—that is the portfolio—destroyed, and the man who gave it up to you dead, his secret is dead too, since Christian Waldo does notknow anything about it.”
“Is that quite certain?”
“When we get hold of him we will make him confess.”
“But he is not in our hands yet.”
“Perhaps, by this time—I will go myself to Stollborg, and find out.”
“Go quickly!—But if he should refuse to come to the chateau this evening?”
“Then Captain Chimère will go over there with—”
“Very good! and the lawyer?—”
“I will tell him beforehand that you send for him. However—we must be ready for anything; if he refuses to obey?—”
“That will be the proof—”
“That he has an understanding with your enemies. And then?—”
“So much the worse for him.”
“That is serious—such a well-known man!”
“Do not harm him; keep him out of it.”
“Yes, if possible. No matter, I will try. I will go at once to Stollborg and slip your gold goblet into the pack-saddle of the ass. That will be the excuse for seizing the jugglers, even if we have to go there to catch them. But there may be some disturbance. Christian is a fighting man, and Stollborg is very near.”
“So much the better; they will silence him the sooner.”
“The major and the lieutenant have taken a great liking to this mountebank. We must be careful, and choose the right moment. I have ordered all the brass instruments in the chateau to be kept playing, and outside they are sending off rockets and fireworks every moment.”
“Well thought of!”
“How do you feel now?”
“Better; I think I can even recall—wait, Johan—that face—I dreamed about it again to-day. When was it? Wait, I say! Was it a dream? Destruction! I cannot, Johan, my head refuses—my brain is confused, as it was yesterday.”
“Well then, don’t torment yourself; I will find out all about it myself; it is my affair. Come, be quiet! you will come out victorious, as you always do. I will send Jacob to you.”
Johan went out. The baron, exhausted by the effort he had made, fainted in Jacob’s arms, and the physician, hastily recalled, had a great deal of difficulty in bringing him to his senses. Then the patient recovered a feverish energy.
“Off with you, doctor!” he cried; “I am tired of your face! You are ugly! every one is ugly! He is beautiful—beautiful, if they speak the truth; but that will not help him any. When one is dead he soon becomes hideous, does he not? Still, if I should die before him, I should like to leave him my fortune—that would be droll! But if I live, he must die; nothing shall save him. Say, then, doctor, do you think I am crazy?”
The baron, after raving in this way for a few moments, fell into a restless, feverish sleep. It was then six o’clock in the evening, and the company at the chateau were just sitting down to theaftonward, the light repast which precedes supper.
We are really grieved at being obliged to try the reader’s patience with so many meals, but we should not be true to facts if we should suppress a single one of them. We are forced to remind him that it is the custom of the country to eat every two hours, and that a century ago no one thought of deviating from it, especially in the country, and in winter. Pretty women lost nothing of their poetry in the eyes of their admirers by having an excellent appetite. It was not the fashion to be pale and hollow-eyed. The fresh and brilliant complexions of the beautiful Swedes did not rob them of their empire over heart and imagination, and though not at all sentimental, the young people of both sexes were really very romantic. The little Margaret, accordingly, and the tall Olga, the blonde Martina, and several other nymphs of these frozen lakes, after having taken coffee in the grotto of the hogar, ate their cream and cheese in the great gilded saloon of the chateau, each dreaming about love in her own way, and all of themhappily unconscious that fasting could be considered a necessary condition of sentiment.
There were no longer so many guests at the new chateau as there had been during the first few days of the Christmas holidays. Several mothers had carried away their daughters, when they found that Baron Olaus paid them no attention. The diplomats of both sexes, who had an interest in keeping up their relations with him, and his presumptive heirs—whom the baron was in the habit of calling, when he joked about them in French, hispresumptuousheirs—remained, in spite of the gloom that he shed around him. Countess Elveda was very much irritated at not being able to come to any understanding with her mysterious host; but she consoled herself by flirting with the Russian ambassador. The mornings and afternoons were occupied by the elderly ladies in making and receiving visits in their respective apartments, with a great deal of ceremony and solemnity. On such occasions, they always conversed about the same subjects: the beautiful winter weather, the magnificent hospitality of their host, his remarkable wit—perhaps a little severe—his indisposition, and the wonderful courage with which he bore it, so as not to interfere with the enjoyment of his guests; and, as they conversed thus, they stifled Homeric yawns. And then they talked politics, and argued with great bitterness, which did not prevent them from discoursing about religious topics in an edifying manner. For the most part they entertained the persons who had just come in, by saying all the evil possible of those who had just gone out.
The young people were the only ones who contrived to throw off the moral coldness and gloom which seemed to permeate the very atmosphere. There were about a score of them, of both sexes, who, with or without the consent of their families, had formed attachments among themselves, of a more or less tender character, and who, meeting freely, as they did every hour of the day, acted as each other’s chaperons and confidantes. With this happy group were associated some few persons who, though older, were nevertheless benevolent and cheerful;governesses, of whom Mademoiselle Potin was one, the pastor’s family, who were always very highly considered, and courted in all country festivities, several old country gentlemen, plain and simple-hearted, the baron’s young physician, when he could escape from the claws of his tyrannical and cunning patient; and, best of all, the illustrious Stangstadius, whenever they could get hold of him, and contrive to keep him with them by paying him—for their own amusement—the most extravagant compliments, the sincerity of which he never doubted, even when they referred to the charms of his person.
The collation of theaftonwardwas as gay to-day as ever, even although the geologist did not make his appearance. The young folks—as the matrons called them—did not even notice the anxious and agitated faces of the servants, who were not quite so blind to the real state of their master’s health, as they would have liked to persuade those among them whose business it was to act as spies upon the others.
After the collation, they declared that they had heard enough about the feats of the hunters, and Martina proposed that they should play hide-and-seek, a game that they had enjoyed very much the evening before, partly, perhaps, because they had to go to a different part of the chateau to play it. Instinctively, they avoided a certain isolated pavilion occupied by the master of the house, and perhaps, without openly admitting it, they were not sorry to have an excuse—that of not disturbing the host—for avoiding as well the stately apartments occupied by their parents and relatives. In the upper story of the outer circle of buildings, which was connected by numerous passages with the lower rooms—the latter were used for various domestic purposes, as wine-cellars, bleaching-rooms, etc.—there were a number of long, gloomy, and almost deserted galleries, where they had plenty of room to look for each other, and plenty of dark corners to hide in. They drew lots for the different parties, and Margaret found herself with Martina and her fiancée, the lieutenant.