The young nobleman followed the others, who had already entered the house and gone into Brandow's room on the right of the hall, where the gaming-table, as Gotthold had noticed through the window, was already prepared.
"Why, Herr Weber, are you going to stay out here?" asked Rieke, who had been standing in the hall, and now approached him.
Her gray eyes rested upon him with a very friendly expression, and the thought passed through his mind that it probably depended only upon himself to win the goodwill of this avaricious creature, and even now he might make up for his neglect, nay must do so if he wished to accomplish the object for which he had returned to Dollan. He had given her a very handsome present when he took his departure that morning; perhaps he only needed to go on as he had begun.
"We didn't expect to see you again so soon," added the girl; "and you went away so suddenly: you left a great many things behind; a beautiful red silk handkerchief--shall I get it for you?"
She was now standing close beside him, and as if by accident, touched his arm.
"I think it would be very becoming to you," said Gotthold.
"Do you? I should think you would know a great deal about what was becoming to me. You never had eyes for anybody except--some one else."
"Where is your mistress to-day? Why doesn't she appear?" asked Gotthold, and then as he fancied he saw a cloud pass over the girl's face, added: "I would give a great deal to know."
"How much?" said the girl, with a roguish laugh.
"Rieke, where are you?" cried Brandow's voice from the dining-room.
"We want some more glasses. Where is the girl?" and he banged the door angrily behind him.
"He didn't see us," whispered Rieke. "I must go in now, but I'll come back again directly."
She glided away; Gotthold stood still a few moments, undecided whether to make an attempt to see Cecilia on his own account or not. There was no question that the girl could be of use to him if she chose; but would she choose? She seemed really frightened when Brandow called; but he had not relied much upon the fickle favor of the frivolous lass, and perhaps the whole thing was a preconcerted plot between Brandow and the girl in order to make sure of him, entangle him the more firmly in the net. No, it was better, trusting only to his own skill, to take advantage of the opportunity.
And the opportunity was more favorable, than any which might offer again. A second stolen glance through the window into the already lighted room showed him that the party were busily engaged in their game--faro apparently--and Brandow had the bank--so he could not leave now. Rieke was standing at the back of the tolerably large room with a waiter full of glasses, which the Pastor was filling from a large bowl--so she too was employed for the present. The hall was perfectly still; the table in the dining-room still stood just as the guests had left it--the solitary candle at which they had lighted their cigars flickered in the strong draught, as if ready to go out. This room was also unoccupied; so he succeeded in reaching the dusky garden unseen.
Although the sun had scarcely set, it was almost dark. The clouds, which had dispersed a little during the afternoon, were once more piled in huge dark masses, which a high wind blowing in irregular gusts, drove to and fro as if in wild sport. The tops of the old trees swayed hither and thither; and the tall hedges rustled and hissed like a thousand sharp tongues.
So it seemed to Gotthold. Again and again he paused, gasping for breath; he was so entirely unaccustomed to do anything by stealth. And yet it must be; he could not part from her forever in this way.
The end of the house, in the lower part of which was her chamber, and above it the room he had occupied, looked out upon a smaller garden, which was separated from the courtyard by a wall, shut in on the opposite side by a barn, and divided from the larger garden at the back of the house by a very thick, high hedge. It had originally been a fruit and vegetable garden, and a few huge old apple and pear trees still stood in different parts of it; but had afterwards been converted into a play-ground for the children of the house, for whose sake the asparagus and cucumber beds had been transformed into a grass plot, and a narrow door cut through the thick wall of the nursery.
Gotthold had repeatedly seen Cecilia, who always retired early in the evening, in this garden with the child, or--at a later hour--alone. His hope was to find her here, or at any rate to make known his presence, of which she had probably not been informed, and--he did not know what would, must happen then; he only said to himself that things could not, should not remain as they were.
The place, so far as it could be seen from the door, was empty, but a light appeared at first one and then another window. Cautiously as he closed the door, he could not prevent its creaking loudly on its rusty hinges; at the same moment a watch-dog with which Gretchen often played sprang towards the intruder with a loud bark, but was silent again as soon as it recognized Gotthold. He accepted the animal's caresses as a good omen, and walked cautiously on towards the light, which now streamed steadily from one window, that of the child's sleeping-room, which adjoined Cecilia's. Gotthold, with a beating heart, approached it and saw her.
She had apparently just put the little girl's playthings away, and then sank into a chair beside the table, supporting her forehead upon her left hand, the image of grief. The rays of the light standing behind her clearly revealed the exquisite shape of the head, the delicate outlines of the slender neck, the soft curves of the shoulders and bust, while the deep shadow seemed to increase the expression of sorrow upon the pure features. Gotthold's heart overflowed with love and pity. "Cecilia, dearest Cecilia!" he murmured.
She could not have heard the words; but at that moment she raised her head, and, glancing towards the window, perceived the dark figure before it. Starting from her chair with a low exclamation of joy, she extended her arms, then waved him back with both hands, crying in tones of agony:
"No, no, for God's sake!"
Gotthold had neither seen Cecilia's repellent gesture, nor heard her words. He had hastily entered by the door, which was only latched, and was now kneeling at her feet, clasping her hands, and covering them with passionate kisses.
All that had moved his heart and filled it to bursting during these last few days, so overflowing with the joy and anguish of love, all the nameless agony he had suffered from the night before until now, gushed from his lips in a torrent of wild, passionate words; and, however she might struggle against it, she felt herself carried away and borne along by the tide, until, springing up and clasping her in his arms, he cried: "So come, Cecilia! you must not remain another moment in this house, must not stay under the same roof with this scoundrel, who allows himself to be paid with paltry money for the shame of knowing that his wife is beloved by another, and loves him in return. I went away without you this morning--it all came upon me so suddenly, was so incomprehensible; I thought I must obey your command, although I did not understand you, although you acted from compassion for the man whom you had once loved, nay, out of a remnant of affection for him. Now I understand you better, now I know, once for all, that you love me, now I have found--we have found each other again; now no one, nothing shall part us! Cecilia! you do not answer me?"
She had gazed at him with eyes that expressed the most painful astonishment. Now she seized the light and led the way into her chamber, at the back of which stood her bed, and close before it the tiny couch of her child.
The little one lay with her eyes not quite closed, her lips half parted, and her round cheeks flushed with the childish slumber which follows waking hours, as the hues of twilight follow the setting sun. Cecilia did not point to the child; but her glance and the expression of her features said as plainly as words, "This is my answer."
Gotthold's eyes fell; in the selfishness of passion he had scarcely thought of the child at all, and certainly never as an obstacle. He did not understand it even now. "Your child will be mine," he faltered. "You shall never be parted from the child; I will never separate you from her."
She had placed the light on the floor, that it might not shine in Gretchen's eyes, and then knelt beside the little bed, pressing her forehead against the edge, and waving her hand for him to go. Gotthold stood beside the kneeling form with the despair of a man who feels that his cause is lost, and yet cannot and will not give it up. Suddenly the dog, which had followed them, began to growl, and then broke into a low bark as he put his nose to the threshold of the door which opened into the sitting-room; Gotthold thought he heard a rustling there, and walked towards it; Cecilia threw herself before him. Her countenance and gestures expressed the most deadly terror; she motioned towards the nursery, through which they had come, and as Gotthold did not instantly obey, hurried into the room herself. Gotthold mechanically followed.
"Go, go, for God's sake!" exclaimed Cecilia.
They were the first words that had escaped her lips.
"I will not fly again!"
"You must! or all has been in vain! The torture, the conflict, the shame--all, all."
"Cecilia," cried Gotthold, fairly beside himself, "I should be unworthy the name of a man, if I left you so again. I want light; I want to know what I am doing, why I am doing it?"
"I dare say no more; you must understand me; I thought you would have done so from the first, or I should not have had the courage; I should be the most miserable creature on earth if you did not understand me even now. But you will, or I could not love you. And now, by your love for me, Gotthold, you must not remain here an instant longer. Farewell, and farewell forever!"
It seemed as if a struggle had taken place between the two in the dimly-lighted room; he had held her and she had clung to him as if forever; then she desperately released herself from his hold, and pushed him from her, as if his presence must bring death and destruction. Then he once more held the dear form in his arms, clasped it to his heart, felt her hot, quivering lips pressed to his, and then stood outside in the garden, with the rain beating into his face, the swaying tree-tops above him rustling and whispering, and the tall hedges beside him hissing and muttering, as if with thousands and thousands of tongues: "Fool, silly fool, simpleton, to let yourself be cheated, once, twice, as often as she--or he chooses--how do I know?"
He burst into a loud laugh, and as he did so there was a burning sensation in his breast which grew hotter and hotter; he would have given much if he could have wept. But that he could not, would not do. After all, nothing was yet decided; nothing was yet lost, although his soul was as dark as the black night that covered the earth around him. No star pierced the rack of dense driving clouds; scarcely the faintest ray of light was visible in the west. And yet--this dull gleam came from the sun, which had set and would rise again to-morrow; it was a pledge that the gloomy night would not last forever. And on his lips still lingered a memory of her breath, the fervor of her kisses. No! no! There could be no eternal separation! This torture could not last forever!
Pretty Rieke had been detained in the dining-room longer than she liked, the Pastor had performed his office of cup-bearer with an unsteady hand, and moreover thought it necessary to accompany the performance with long-winded, incoherent speeches; but the gentlemen at the gaming-table had drunk the faster, and impatiently demanded more, until at last Rieke, tired of the continual running to and fro which seemed to have no end, resolutely carried the side-board with the bowl upon it to the gaming-table, and thus rendered it possible for the willing Pastor to present the glasses he filled himself. Then, after leaning over Hans Redebas' chair and watching the game a few minutes, she glided hastily out of the room.
She wanted to continue her conversation with Gotthold. The handsome, quiet man had always pleased her, and she had played the rôle of spy, which Brandow had assigned her, less from love for her master than jealousy of her mistress, to whom she grudged the attentions of the stately stranger. The generous present he had bestowed upon her that morning had in some degree touched, and even puzzled her, and the cordiality he had just shown had completely disarmed her. Of course he had only come back for her mistress' sake, but to her fickle heart it was no enigma how one object can be kept in view without losing sight of another. She would even help him, if he was very, very friendly to her; and after all, it was certainly better for her if the stranger finally ran away with her mistress.
But she did not find him at the door, where she had left him. Besides, the door was not a suitable place to continue the interesting conversation, and the hall was equally undesirable. Perhaps he was in the dining-room. He was not there; the trees in the garden, into which she cast a glance, were tossing quite too rudely. Where could he have gone? Where, except to his own room, to look after the things he had left there! She must help him; he could not find anything in the dark.
The pretty servant-girl drew a long breath, and then in the twinkling of an eye glided noiselessly up the stairs and across the hall to the gable room Gotthold had occupied during his stay. Here she paused, pressing her hands to her burning cheeks and heaving breast, and then after a low knock, to which she expected no reply, slowly opened the door, as if with timid reluctance. Her cheeks had burned, her heart had throbbed in vain-the room was empty. She went to the window, and instantly drew back again. There, close beneath her, in the children's playground, was the man she sought, cautiously approaching the window from which a faint, varying light fell upon the tree-trunks; and then he disappeared--where, except through the nursery to her? She had not given the two hypocrites credit for that; they knew how to help themselves, to be sure! It was too shameless! Then the promise he had made her several times, but which she had not really believed, that he would make her his wife if the other was once out of the way, might come true. At any rate, he should know it; they deserved nothing better.
"What does this mean?" cried Hans Redebas, as Brandow, with a hasty apology, rose from the table just as the cards had been cut.
"I'll come back directly," answered Brandow.
"That we should have expected," shouted Redebas. "Pastor, another glass!" Brandow left the table unwillingly; he had been winning considerable sums, and his gambler's superstition warned him that he ought, not to turn his back upon the game; but Rieke had beckoned to him over Hans Redebas' shock of black hair-something particularly important must have happened.
He followed the girl into the hall, and from thence into the sitting-room on the left, where she told him by signs to step lightly, until they reached the narrow door that opened into Cecilia's sleeping-room. A faint ray of light gleamed through the crack over the threshold. The girl crouched down and put her ear to the door. Brandow stood bending over her, also listening. They could distinctly hear some one speaking, but neither who it was, nor what was said. But what did it matter? To whom could she speak here, except to him? What could they say except what they dared not suffer others to hear? And now the light grew brighter--they had entered the sleeping-room. Brandow trembled from head to foot with jealous fury. Should he rush in and strangle the pair, expose them to open shame? But Gotthold was no longer the feeble boy of former days; the result of a conflict with him, man to man, was at least doubtful, and he had certainly already received his pay. The disgrace would cling to him, and--it was too late! The barking of the dog, which made him and his accomplice fly from the door, must have warned them too; he would find the nest empty. Be it so; he had heard enough.
"Well?" said Rieke, when they had glided back through the sitting-room and were again standing in the hall.
"Go in, and say I will come directly," replied Brandow.
The tone in which he spoke predicted some evil; Rieke was almost sorry for what she had done. "He isn't like you," she said soothingly, with the most perfect sincerity.
Brandow laughed scornfully. "Go in," he repeated, stamping his foot.
The girl obeyed; Brandow went to the open door and gazed across the dark court-yard towards the stables. The rain beat into his face, and with it came the sickly odor of native tobacco. On the left, directly under him, before the stone bench glowed a red spot, and a harsh voice asked:
"Well, what about harnessing the horses?"
It was the man for whom he had just been looking, upon whom he had depended for the execution of the plan of vengeance brooding darkly in his soul, nay the man, as he now imagined, who had implanted its first germ. So it was to be.
"He won't want to go away now, if it were only on account of the bad weather."
"The others must go too."
"They have stayed here often enough."
"Send them away."
Brandow reflected a moment. "If I win a few hundred more, they will go of their own accord," he murmured. "But you must give him a thorough soaking, Hinrich--a thorough one, mind."
"Where there is no bottom," said Hinrich.
The words quivered through Brandow's soul like a flash of lightning across a midnight sky. That was the very thing.
"And I'll give you whatever you ask!" he said, in a hoarse tone, bending down into the cloud of smoke that rose from Hinrich's pipe.
"No pay, no work,--and that trick with Brownlock a little while ago cost me five louis-d'or. I should like half down now."
"Here it is," said Brandow, feeling in his pocket, and giving him as much of the gold he had just won as he could grasp.
"You have always been a good master to me," said Hinrich, rubbing the gold pieces together in his horny palm.
"And will be a still better one in future."
"The gentlemen will go away if you don't come in at once," said Rieke, hurrying out. She had left the door of the room open, and Hans Redebas' gruff bass voice was heard shouting: "Brandow! Brandow!" amid shrill laughter, and a hoarse tone repeating: "We won't go home! We won't go home!"
"I'll get rid of you," muttered Brandow. "You will stay here, Hinrich."
"I'll wait, sir."
Brandow went back into the gaming-room.
"You are taking an undue advantage of the freedom the accidental absence of ladies bestows," said Brandow, with cutting contempt, as his guests received him with upraised glasses and a halloo, to which Gustav von Plüggen added a loud hip, hip, hurrah!
"Accidental?" cried Hans Redebas; "not at all accidental; you are driving a good business to-day."
"And where is your wife?" said Otto von Plüggen.
"I demand an explanation of this," cried Brandow; "I will not permit--"
He paused suddenly. Turning angrily towards Otto von Plüggen, he saw Gotthold, who must have entered the room directly behind him, and had unquestionably heard all. It was impossible to discuss this subject in his presence. So, with a violent effort, he forced back the furious hate that surged up in his heart at the sight of his face, and cried:
"So there you are at last! Where in the world have you hidden yourself? Thank God, you have come to put an end to this horrible gambling."
"Ho! ho!" exclaimed Hans Redebas, "horrible gambling! Is that the way the wind blows? I believe you! He has won six hundred or more already. Does that taste badly?"
"I owe no man any revenge, however," cried Brandow, with a gesture of exaggerated violence.
"But, Brandow," expostulated the Assessor, "you mustn't weigh every word; Redebas had no intention of offending you. He only wanted to continue the game, and, to speak frankly, I don't see what we could do better."
"Well, Herr Assessor, if you think what you have also won--"
"The few thalers!" said the Assessor, not without some little embarrassment.
"I can certainly make no objection," continued Brandow. "I only thought that this little consideration was due our friend Gotthold, who does not play, and of whom we have seen so little, or rather I should say, ourselves. He doesn't lose a great deal in dispensing with our society, but we do in losing his."
"Pray don't disturb yourselves on my account," said Gotthold.
"Well, then, in the devil's name, go on," cried Hans Redebas, seizing the cards. "I'll keep the bank for once, I can probably find a few little savings still."
And with his left hand he drew from the thick pocketbook lying before him a pile of bank-notes which he crushed together in a heap. "There now, play in regular order, Brandow and the rest of you, I beg."
"I am sorry, but what can I do? I hope you will excuse me," Brandow whispered to Gotthold, as he resumed his place at the table. Gotthold drew back, and could do nothing but accept the invitation of the Pastor, who was sitting in one corner of the great leather-covered sofa, and as Gotthold took his place beside him, leaned a little forward, not without difficulty, and began to talk with a faltering tongue.
"Yes, yes, my beloved friend, a sinful world, a wicked, sinful world, but we must not be too harsh, not too harsh, for Heaven's sake! You work all the week, or at least order your servants to work for you; but they must not do it on Sunday, on pain of a heavy punishment. Just before the beginning of this harvest, we sent out a paper written in the strongest terms. What were they doing with the long hours? Idleness is the beginning of all crimes: gambling, drinking--Rieke, a glass--two glasses--don't you drink? Do very wrong--brewed myself--from a receipt of my honored employer, Count Zernikow. I brewed more than three hundred bowls during my career as tutor--could do it at last with my eyes shut--with my eyes shut--eyes shut."
He had only stammered the last words, his heavy head fell forward, and the lower part of his face disappeared amid the folds of his crumpled white cravat. He sank helplessly back into his corner.
The vacant face filled Gotthold with angry contempt.
The man had realized the promise of the boy; intoxication had torn away the mask of hypocrisy, and there was the stupid, dissolute face of the Halle student, whom Gotthold so well remembered. It could not be otherwise. But that this pitiful creature should be his father's successor, this blinking owl sit in the eyrie of the eagle, whose fiery eyes had always sought the sun; this coarse buffoon be permitted to tinkle his bells in the very place where the preacher, with glowing eloquence, had summoned his hearers to repentance and atonement, seemed to him a personal insult. And yet this man was in his proper place; the flock was worthy of the shepherd; everything here was of a piece--like a picture drawn by some master hand, in the boldest outlines and most glaring colors: the drunken Pastor nodding in the sofa corner, the excited, wine-flushed faces of the gamblers, the voluptuous figure of the maid-servant passing to and fro and handing the fiery beverage to the revellers, exchanging a sly smile or hasty word with one, coquettishly pushing away the hand of another, who tried to pass his arm around her waist--the true goddess of this temple of sin!--and the whole enveloped in the circling wreaths of gray smoke which ascended from the constantly burning pipes, and floated in dusky red rings around the dim wicks of the candles; only that it was no picture, but the coarsest, rudest, most commonplace reality. And alas, the outrage that she should be compelled to live under this roof, that the wild riot should re-echo even in her quiet room--not for the first or last time!-that these were the men who frequented the house--these empty-headed, silly young noblemen, this rough upstart, with his coarse hands and coarser jests. And when this company of fauns and satyrs departed, to have for her only consoler solitude--solitude which stared at her with cold, hard, piercing serpent eyes. There they were, those very eyes; they had just glanced over the cards with a quick stealthy look! Those eyes, and hers--soft, gentle, tender!
Gotthold no longer saw the gamblers. He beheld her sitting in the lonely nursery beside her child's playthings; a touching figure, still so girlish in its soft, delicate outlines. He saw the sad face suffused with a roseate flush of joy, saw it disfigured with pain and terror-he lived over in imagination the whole scene, which already seemed like a dream; and dreamed on of a future which must surely come, a future full of sunlight, love, and poetry.
He could not have told how long he had been sitting absorbed in thought, when a loud noise at the gaming-table suddenly startled him. Something unusual seemed to have happened; Hans Redebas and Brandow alone retained their seats, the others were bending over the table with eager faces; even Rieke was gazing so intently that she forgot to push away the Assessor's arm, which had been thrown around her waist.
"Do you take it again?" cried Redebas.
"Yes."
"Another thousand? That will make it five!"
"Devil take it, yes!"
A breathless silence followed, in which Gotthold heard nothing but the noise of the cards Redebas dealt, and then another outcry and tumult, such as had previously roused him from his revery, only this time it was so loud that even the drunken Pastor staggered out of his corner. Gotthold approached the table. His first glance rested upon Brandow's face, which was deadly pale; but his thin lips were firmly compressed, and a disagreeable smile even sparkled in his stern, cold eyes, as he now cried, turning to the new-comer:
"They have plucked me finely, Gotthold; but night never lasts forever."
"But this," cried Redebas throwing the cards on the table, and making a memorandum in his pocket-book, "I decline!"
"What does that mean?" asked Brandow.
"That I will play no more," answered Redebas with a loud laugh, closing his pocket-book and rising heavily.
"I always thought the loser could break up the game, not the winner."
"If the winner is not sure of his point--oh! yes."
"I demand an explanation!" cried Brandow, pushing the table aside.
"Why, Brandow, do be reasonable!" exclaimed Otto and Gustav von Plüggen, in the same breath.
"Are you in partnership again?" answered Brandow with a sneering laugh, and then stepped before Redebas: "I demand an explanation at once!"
The giant had drawn back a step: "Oho," he cried; "if that's what you want, come on!"
"My dear Brandow," said the Assessor soothingly, putting himself between them.
"I know what I am doing, Herr Assessor," answered Brandow, pushing him aside.
"And I know too," cried Redebas, throwing up the window, and shouting across the quiet court-yard in a voice like the roar of a lion. "Harness the horses, August! harness the horses!"
A scene of wild confusion followed, in which all shouted together, so that Gotthold could only distinguish a word here and there. Hans Redebas raved loudest of all, but apparently quite as much from fear as anger, while Brandow remained comparatively calm, and was evidently intent upon separating the Assessor, who was constantly intermeddling, from the three others whom the Pastor now joined, and by all possible signs announced his intention of making a speech, in which he actually several times got as far as the beginning: "My beloved friends!"
The three carriages, to which the impatient coachmen had harnessed the horses long before, drove up. The quarrel had been continued from the room to the hall, from the hall to the door, and even to the carriage steps.
"We shall see, we shall see," cried Hans Redebas; "are you in, Pastor? Then, in the devil's name, drive on--we shall see," he shouted again from the carriage window, as the powerful Danish horses trotted away at a rapid pace towards the northern gate, from whence the shorter road, which, however, was scarcely visible in the darkness, led through the forest to Dahlitz.
Meantime Otto and Gustav von Plüggen had finally become involved in a quarrel with each other. Gustav, who had no lamps on his carriage, declared that he must go across the moor, while Otto wanted to follow Redebas. Gustav had already borne so much from his older brother that day, that he considered himself obliged to take this refusal as a personal insult. He had no bundle of hay in front of his head, and wouldn't run the risk of breaking his skull against the trees in the forest. "Then he could light the straw in it, and find his way home by that," Otto replied.
So they drove away in opposite directions.
"That is very foolish," said Brandow, looking after Gustav's carriage.
"One will get across and the other won't," replied Hinrich Scheel.
"We know that you are the best driver."
"An accident is liable to happen to any one."
"That is, you want it to be so."
"It seems you don't."
Brandow did not answer immediately. He had thought the matter less difficult; but he need not break his neck, only an arm or leg.
He cast a timid glance through the window; the light fell directly upon Gotthold's grave, handsome face. Brandow ground his teeth. No, it was not enough. He must have his life; the damned hypocrite deserved nothing better, and where was the crime? An accident might happen to the best driver.
Suddenly he started. He had not thought of that before. By his quarrel with his associates at the gaming-table he had fortunately prevented the whole party from remaining all night until broad daylight, as they had often done before, and thus robbed Gotthold of a suitable excuse for staying also, if such was his intention--and of that Brandow, after what he had heard, was firmly convinced. He had also, by intentionally keeping the Assessor out of the quarrel, made it impossible for the latter to go away at once with the others, though he had not lacked invitations, as thus his prey would have escaped him, for Gotthold probably would not have remained without the Assessor. But now--how could he separate the two? If the Assessor stayed--and he did not seem to think of leaving--Gotthold would stay also, or at least have a most plausible excuse for doing so; and if he forced the Assessor to go--
Again his sullen glance wandered towards the two men in the room--the Assessor talking to Gotthold with the most animated gestures; the latter, to judge from his expression and movements, listening reluctantly.
"I drove them both here, so I can drive them both back again," said Hinrich Scheel, pressing down the ashes in his pipe.
Both! One! yes; but what had the other done to him? Nothing! Nothing at all! And he had received ten thousand thalers from him to-day.
"It's a pity about the beautiful money, if any accident should happen to us on the moor," said Hinrich, knocking the tobacco out of his pipe; "I'll get the carriage ready, and take those jades of Jochen Klüts; it would be a pity to hurt our grays."
He walked slowly away. Brandow's eyes followed the short dark figure; he wanted to call him back, to tell him he need not harness the horses, but only a strange, hoarse, choking sound came from his throat; his tongue clung to his palate, and as he raised his foot he staggered like a drunken man, and was obliged to hold fast to the trunk of one of the old linden-trees, through whose thick branches a violent gust of wind was just roaring. The rain, which again began to fall, beat into his face, now burning with a strange flush, although he was shivering from head to foot.
There! What was that? The noise of the carriage which Hinrich was pushing out of the barn. There was still time! But, after all, he had said nothing, nothing at all; how could he help it if an accident happened to Hinrich on the moor at night?
Gotthold and the Assessor had remained in the room; the latter was trying to explain to Gotthold that Brandow had certainly been quite right when he asked that the game should be continued, but had done wrong to express his wish in so peremptory a manner; and finally he ought not to have forgotten that he was the host, and as such must overlook any little impropriety on the part of his guests.
During the latter part of his long speech, the Assessor had addressed himself in an admonitory tone, partly to Brandow, who had just entered the room, and going up to the side-board swallowed several glasses of wine. "I have in fact been compelled to overlook many such things to-day, and am obliged to you, Herr Assessor, for keeping me in practice up to the last minute."
The tone in which Brandow said this, and the gesture with which he approached the Assessor, were so peculiar that the latter was partly sobered, and stared in astonishment at his host, who now came a step nearer and said in a low voice:
"Or what do you call it, when the guests, in presence of the servants, subject the conduct of the master of the house to such an unsparing criticism?" and he pointed to Rieke, under whose direction another maid servant and the groom Fritz were beginning to remove the glasses standing about on the tables, and sweep up the fragments scattered over the floor.
The Assessor drew himself up to his full height.
"I beg your pardon," said he, "and will request you to be kind enough to place your carriage at my disposal for my return. I regret that I did not accept from your other guests the favor I must now solicit of you. I can still depend upon your company, Gotthold?"
"I think Brandow will make no objections."
"I beg the gentlemen to act their own pleasure."
They bowed to each other with distant civility. A few minutes after, the same light carriage that had brought the two gentlemen to Dollan a few hours before rolled over the rough road into the dark, gusty night. Hinrich Scheel drove the horses.
It was about ten o'clock, but, although the season was mid-summer and the moon must have already risen, dark as only a moonless night in autumn could be. And with autumnal chillness the wind blew over the rye stubble, and the rain, which had just begun to fall again with renewed violence, beat into their faces.
"Button your coat up," said Gotthold to his companion, who was swaying to and fro uncomfortably in his seat. "You seem very much heated."
"Because I have kept buttoned up all the evening," answered the Assessor. "I mean it in a literal sense, on account of the ten thousand thalers I have had in my breast-pocket; figuratively I might have been somewhat more so; but for all that, I beg of you, my dear friend, give me some explanation of Brandow's mysterious conduct. He actually turned me out of doors! And why? I don't understand it. After we had been on the most cordial terms the whole evening; after we had been, so to speak, hand-and-glove. And everything settled! The whole large sum paid in cash, down to the last penny, which, to be sure, is the greatest mystery of all. And he is to have the money from Wollnow! Did Wollnow mystify me? And why? I no more see any light in all this than I can see my hand before my eyes. Horrible darkness!"
"The moon has been up an hour already," said Hinrich Scheel.
"And is that why you have no lamps on the carriage?"
"Herr von Plüggen had none either."
"You thought your pipe would give us light enough, didn't you?"
"I needn't smoke, sir."
"Then don't; I can't say that the odor of your canaster is very agreeable."
"Folks like us can't smoke nice tobacco, like fine gentlemen," said Hinrich Scheel, emptying his pipe so roughly that the sparks flew in all directions through the darkness, and thrusting it into his breast-pocket.
"Isn't this the same fellow who drove us here this afternoon?" asked the Assessor in a low tone.
"The same," answered Gotthold; "and I should advise you to use the same precaution we adopted on the way here."
But the Assessor was not in the mood to follow Gotthold's counsel. The intoxication, from which the scene with Brandow had only roused him for a short time, returned with redoubled power, now that he was exposed to the cold night air. He began to abuse Brandow, in whose favor he had always spoken at the convent, who but for him would have been obliged to leave Dollan a year ago, who was greatly indebted to him in every respect, and now repaid him with the basest ingratitude. But his friendship and protection were now at an end. He still had the fine fellow under his thumb. The lease must yet be renewed. To be sure, Brandow had paid this time, but what guarantee of future security was there to be had from a man who, in his precarious situation, loaded himself with a gambling debt of five thousand thalers? He need only give the monks this piece of information, and Brandow would be cast off. Did Brandow expect to satisfy the convent by the assurance that he would win the race on Brownlock! Brownlock, nothing but Brownlock! Brandow had not won yet, and they were strict in their rules at the race-course. Only last year, young Klebenitz--eldest son of a nobleman though he was--had been excluded because it got noised abroad that he had been twenty-four hours late in paying a gambling debt. It was still very doubtful whether Redebas would have the five thousand thalers he had just won from Brandow lying on his desk by to-morrow noon.
Gotthold had tried in vain to interrupt his loquacious companion, and was therefore not at all displeased when the latter, after stammering a few incoherent words, suddenly relapsed into silence, and leaning back in his corner seemed to wish to sleep off his intoxication. Gotthold spread his own travelling-rug over his knees, turned up the collar of his overcoat, and gazing out into the darkness, resigned himself to his thoughts. Brandow's conduct was incomprehensible to him also. What could have induced him to insult the Assessor in this way?--a man whose favor he had every reason to keep. Had he been drunk too? But if so, the fit of intoxication must have come upon him very suddenly, and had at all events assumed a singular form--the form of the hatred which veils itself under the garb of cold politeness. Or, had all this concerned him alone? Had he been so anxious to get his enemy out of the house that he had even suffered it to cost him the friendship of the influential man? That was a solution so simple and natural, so unlike the cold calculating man; but if it was not drunkenness, or hate that wishes to satisfy itself, what was it?
And suppose it were hate that desires to satisfy itself at any cost? Suppose this hate was directed towards her, no less than him, nay perhaps even more. Suppose this terrible man wanted to clear the house of guests in order to give free course to his furious hate, to be able to riot in some fell vengeance.
Gotthold half started from his seat, groaning aloud, and then sank back again, reproaching himself for conjuring up such horrible apparitions. That was certainly the most improbable of all. Whatever means he had used the night before to break down the pride of one of the proudest of women, he had conquered, he was master of the situation; he might be satisfied! And was he not? He now knew the secret of coining gold, cunning alchemist that he was; and how soon he might be again in a situation where he would be obliged to make use of his art, that very evening had proved. What becomes of the water you take in your hand? What becomes of the money you give a gambler? Cousin Boslaf had been right.
But the more Gotthold endeavored to push aside the terrible thought as improbable, nay impossible, the more distinctly the scene appeared before his eyes. He saw him creep towards her chamber, cautiously open the door, glide into the room, up to the bed. Merciful Heaven! what was that? He had distinctly heard his name called in a piercing cry of mortal agony.
It was only a trick of his excited fancy, a horned owl perhaps, which, hurled along by the storm on noiseless wings, had swept close over his head, and in its surprise uttered the cry. This, or something of the sort.
Undoubtedly; but fancy continued the cruel sport none the less zealously, and converted the long-drawn howling and hollow roaring of the tempest over the moor, the rustling of the clumps of broom by the wayside, the creaking of the carriage, and the panting of the weary horses, into ghostly voices which muttered terrible words, voices and words such as might be uttered by the shapes which glided through the grayish black twilight over the masses of rock on the moor on the right of the carriage, or flitted on the left through the impenetrable darkness that brooded coldly over the morass.
The road had been gradually ascending for some time, and according to Gotthold's belief, they had almost reached the crest of the hill, when the horses suddenly stopped, snorting violently.
"What's the matter?" asked Gotthold.
Hinrich Scheel's only reply was several violent lashes, which urged the horses onward again, but only a few paces, then they stopped once more, snorting still louder, and pressing backward so that the carriage moved a little down the hill.
"The damned jades!" cried Hinrich Scheel, who was no longer on his seat on the box, but standing on the right of the carriage.
"What is the matter, I say?" cried Gotthold, starting up.
"Nothing at all," shouted Hinrich. "Sit still. The damned jades! This little pull! I'll teach them to shirk. Sit still, we shall be up directly! Damn the whip!"
Hinrich, who had been lashing the horses frantically, now disappeared from the side of the carriage, the frightened animals made a few more bounds forward--suddenly the vehicle leaned towards the left--farther and farther; like a flash of lightning the thought passed through Gotthold's mind, that if the carriage should upset here, it would undoubtedly fall sixty feet down the slope into the morass; he already had his hand on the back to swing himself out on the right, but would not save himself without his companion. But the latter did not rise, did not even stir. He seized him to drag him out of the carriage. Too late! There was a dull roaring, rushing, rattling, as if the earth itself was opening to engulf carriage, horses, and men; a whizzing sound in their ears--a terrible shock, a falling, rolling, crashing,--another crashing, rolling, shattering, and then--the horror was over!