Between Whiles Part 12

A terrible presentiment shot into her mind of some ill to Wilhelm.

Vainly she wrestled with it. Why need she think everything that happened must be connected with him? It was not yet light; she could not have slept many minutes. With trembling hands she dressed, and running swiftly down the stairs was at the door just as her father appeared there.

"What is it? What is it, father?" she cried. "What has happened?"

"Go back!" he said in an unsteady voice. "It is nothing. Go back to bed.

It is not for vimmins!"

Then Carlen was sure it was some ill to Wilhelm, and with a loud cry she darted to the barn, and flew up the stairway leading to his room.

John, hearing her steps, confronted her at the head of the stairs.

"Good G.o.d, Carlen!" he cried, "go back! You must not come here. Where is father?"

"I will come in!" she answered wildly, trying to force her way past him. "I will come in. You shall not keep me out. What has happened to him? Let me by!" And she wrestled in her brother's strong arms with strength almost equal to his.

"Carlen! You shall not come in! You shall not see!" he cried.

"Shall not see!" she shrieked. "Is he dead?"

"Yes, my sister, he is dead," answered John, solemnly. In the next instant he held Carlen's unconscious form in his arms; and when Farmer Weitbreck, half dazed, reached the foot of the stairs, the first sight which met his eyes was his daughter, held in her brother's arms, apparently lifeless, her head hanging over his shoulder.

"Haf she seen him?" he whispered.

"No!" said John. "I only told her he was dead, to keep her from going in, and she fainted dead away."

"Ach!" groaned the old man, "dis is hard on her."

"Yes," sighed the brother; "it is a cruel shame."

Swiftly they carried her to the house, and laid her on her mother's bed, then returned to their dreadful task in Wilhelm's chamber.

Hung by a stout leathern strap from the roof-tree beam, there swung the dead body of Wilhelm Rutter, cold, stiff. He had been dead for hours; he must have done the deed soon after bidding them good-night.

"He vas mad, Johan; it must be he vas mad ven he laugh like dat last night. Dat vas de beginning, Johan," said the old man, shaking from head to foot with horror, as he helped his son lift down the body.

"Yes!" answered John; "that must be it. I expect he has been mad all along. I do not believe last night was the beginning. It was not like any sane man to be so gloomy as he was, and never speak to a living soul. But I never once thought of his being crazy. Look, father!" he continued, his voice breaking into a sob, "he has left these flowers here for Carlen! That does not look as if he was crazy! What can it all mean?"

On the top of a small chest lay the bunch of white Ladies'-Tress, with a paper beneath it on which was written, "For Carlen Weitbreck,--these, and the carvings in the box, all in memory of Wilhelm."

"He meant to do it, den," said the old man.

"Yes," said John.

"Maybe Carlen vould not haf him, you tink?"

"No," said John, hastily; "that is not possible."

"I tought she luf him, an' he vould stay an' be her mann," sighed the disappointed father. "Now all dat is no more."

"It will kill her," cried John.

"No!" said the father. "Vimmins does not die so as dat. She feel pad maybe von year, maybe two. Dat is all. He vas great for vork. Dat Alf vas not goot as he."

The body was laid once more on the narrow pallet where it had slept for its last few weeks on earth, and the two men stood by its side, discussing what should next be done, how the necessary steps could be taken with least possible publicity, when suddenly they heard the sound of horses' feet and wheels, and looking out they saw Hans Dietman and his wife driving rapidly into the yard.

"Mein Gott! Vat bring dem here dis time in day," exclaimed Farmer Weitbreck. "If dey ask for Wilhelm dey must all know!"

"Yes," replied John; "that makes no difference. Everybody will have to know." And he ran swiftly down to meet the strangely arrived neighbors.

His first glance at their faces showed him that they had come on no common errand. They were pale and full of excitement, and Hans's first word was: "Vere is dot man you sent to mine place yesterday?"

"Wilhelm?" stammered Farmer Weitbreck.

"Wilhelm!" repeated Hans, scornfully. "His name is not 'Wilhelm.' His name is Carl,--Carl Lepmann; and he is murderer. He killed von man--shepherd, in our town--last spring; and dey never get trail of him. So soon he came in our kitchen yesterday my vife she knew him; she wait till I get home. Ve came ven it vas yet dark to let you know vot man vas in your house."

Farmer Weitbreck and his son exchanged glances; each was too shocked to speak. Mr. and Mrs. Dietman looked from one to the other in bewilderment. "Maype you tink ve speak not truth," Hans continued.

"Just let him come here, to our face, and you will see."

"No!" said John, in a low, awe-stricken voice, "we do not think you are not speaking truth." He paused; glanced again at his father. "We'd better take them up!" he said.

The old man nodded silently. Even his hard and phlegmatic nature was shaken to the depths.

John led the way up the stairs, saying briefly, "Come." The Dietmans followed in bewilderment.

"There he is," said John, pointing to the tall figure, rigid, under the close-drawn white folds; "we found him here only an hour ago, hung from the beam."

A horror-stricken silence fell on the group.

Hans spoke first. "He know dat we know; so he kill himself to save dat de hangman have trouble."

John resented the flippant tone. He understood now the whole mystery of Wilhelm's life in this house.

"He has never known a happy minute since he was here," he said. "He never smiled; nor spoke, if he could help it. Only last night, after he came back from your place, he laughed and sang, and was merry, and looked like another man; and he bade us all good-night over and over, and shook hands with every one. He had made up his mind, you see, that the end had come, and it was nothing but a relief to him. He was glad to die. He had not courage before. But now he knew he would be arrested he had courage to kill himself. Poor fellow, I pity him!" And John smoothed out the white folds over the clasped hands on the quiet-stricken breast, resting at last. "He has been worse punished than if he had been hung in the beginning," he said, and turned from the bed, facing the Dietmans as if he const.i.tuted himself the dead man's protector.

"I think no one but ourselves need know," he continued, thinking in his heart of Carlen. "It is enough that he is dead. There is no good to be gained for any one, that I see, by telling what he had done."

"No," said Mrs. Dietman, tearfully; but her husband exclaimed, in a vindictive tone:

"I see not why it is to be covered in secret. He is murderer. It is to be sent vord to Mayence he vas found."

"Yes, they ought to know there," said John, slowly; "but there is no need for it to be known here. He has injured no one here."

"No," exclaimed Farmer Weitbreck. "He haf harm n.o.body here; he vas goot.

I haf ask him to stay and haf home in my house."

It was a strange story. Early in the spring, it seemed, about six weeks before Hans Dietman and his wife Gretchen were married, a shepherd on the farm adjoining Gretchen's father's had been murdered by a fellow-laborer on the same farm. They had had high words about a dog, and had come to blows, but were parted by some of the other hands, and had separated and gone their ways to their work with their respective flocks.

This was in the morning. At night neither they nor their flocks returned; and, search being made, the dead body of the younger shepherd was found lying at the foot of a precipice, mutilated and wounded, far more than it would have been by any accidental fall. The other shepherd, Carl Lepmann, had disappeared, and was never again seen by any one who knew him, until this previous day, when he had entered the Dietmans' door bearing his message from the Weitbreck farm. At the first sight of his face, Gretchen Dietman had recognized him, thrown up her arms involuntarily, and cried out in German: "My G.o.d! the man that killed the shepherd!" Carl had halted on the threshold at hearing these words, and his countenance had changed; but it was only for a second. He regained his composure instantly, entered as if he had heard nothing, delivered his message, and afterward remained for some time on the farm chatting with the laborers, and seeming in excellent spirits.