Dame Care Part 23

The servant gave him such a terribly sinister glance that Paul was alarmed at the thought that he had suffered this man near him so long without any foreboding; he kept his eyes fixed upon him, for he feared every moment to be attacked by him.

But the servant turned away in silence, went to the stables, where he tied up his bundle, and two minutes later walked out at the gate. During the whole terrible scene he had not uttered a single word.

"That's done! now to father," said Paul, firmly resolved to bear all blows and abuse calmly.

He unlocked the door, and expected that his father would rush upon him.

The old man was sitting huddled up in the corner of the sofa, staring before him. He did not move, either, when Paul came up to him and said, beseechingly,

"I did not like doing it, father, but it had to be done."

He only gave him a shy look askance; then said, bitterly,

"You can do what you like; I am an old man, and you are the strongest."

Then he sank back again.

From that day forward Paul was master in the house.

CHAPTER XIV.

Three weeks had pa.s.sed since then. Paul worked like a galley-slave. In spite of that a strange unrest was upon him. When he allowed himself a few moments' repose he could not bear to stay at home. He felt as if the walls were falling in upon him. Then he rambled about on the heath or in the wood, or he lingered near Helenenthal.

"If I should meet Elsbeth I think I should sink into the ground with shame," he said to himself, and yet he looked about for her everywhere, and trembled with fear and joy when he saw a female figure coming towards him in the distance.

He also began to neglect his night's rest. As soon as all in the house were asleep he crept away, and often returned only in the bright morning to go to work again with swimming head and weary limbs.

"I will make amends--amends," he murmured often to himself; and when his scythe hissed through the corn, he said, keeping time with it, "make amends--make amends." But how to do so was totally vague to him; he did not even know if Douglas had been seriously hurt by the dog's bite.

Once when he was roving about at twilight on the other side of the wood he saw Michel Raudszus coming from Helenenthal. He carried a spade over his shoulder, on which hung a bundle. Paul looked at him fixedly; he expected to be attacked by him, but the servant only gave him a shy side-glance and a wide berth.

"That fellow looks as if he were brooding over some evil," he thought, looking after him.

Douglas had taken the expelled workman into his service, so one of the laborers said, and when his father heard this he laughed, and said, "That's just like the hypocrite--he will brew something nice for me."

He was firmly convinced that Douglas had given his case into the hands of the law; indeed, he found a certain satisfaction in the thought that he would be judged "unjustly," of course, and as from one day to the other the summons never came, he explained, scornfully,

"The n.o.ble lord is fond of respites."

But Douglas seemed willing totally to ignore the ignominy he had suffered; he did not even demand the capital lent on mortgage.

Paul's soul was overflowing with grat.i.tude, and the less he found means to show it the deeper he felt the shame--the more his unrest haunted him.

So one night he again stood motionless at the garden fence of Helenenthal.

Early autumn mists lay on the ground, and the withering gra.s.s quivered lightly.

The White House disappeared in the shadows of the night, and only from one of the windows there shone a dull, dark-red light.

"There she is, watching near her sick mother," Paul thought. And as he found no other means to call her he began to whistle. Twice, three times, he stopped to listen. n.o.body came, and anxiety rose within him.

With groping hand he searched for the gap in the fence which Elsbeth had shown him once, and when he had found it he penetrated to the inner garden. The branches tore his clothes as, in a sort of wilderness, he crept along the ground to find a path. At last he came to an open place.

The white gravel threw out a dim light which shone brighter than the little lamp in the sick-room.

He seated himself on a bench and looked thither. He thought he saw a shadow moving behind the curtains.

Then suddenly all around grew light; the rose-trees were visible in the night; the gravel sparkled, and the gables of the dwelling-house, which had just before stood out in a dark ma.s.s, now showed in dark reddish tints, as if the light of dawn had fallen upon it.

Wonderingly he turned round; the blood froze in his veins; a purple flash of fire shot up in the dark sky. The black clouds were outlined with edges of fire, white flames whirled upward, and high above shot the glowing beams, as if there was an _aurora borealis_ in the sky.

"Father's house is burning!"

His head fell heavily against the back of the bench; the next moment he raised himself up, his knees shook, the blood hammered in his temples.

"On, on! save what is to be saved!" cried a voice within him; and with a wild rush he broke through the bushes, climbed the garden fence, and sank down into the ditch on the other side.

The burning farm glared over the heath like the rising sun. The stubble shone, and the black wood was dipped in a red glow.

The dwelling-house was as yet unhurt; its walls shone like marble, its windows sparkled like carbuncles. The yard was as bright as in daylight.

It was the barn that was burning--the barn, filled to the roof with the harvest. His work, his happiness, his hope, lost like this in smoke and flames.

He gathered himself up again; in wild haste he rushed across the heath.

When he pa.s.sed the wood he thought he saw a shadow flitting away which, at his approach, sank flat on the ground. He scarcely heeded it.

"On, on! save what is to be saved!"

Tumultuous screams greeted him from the yard. The farm-servants were rushing about wildly, the maids were wringing their hands, his sisters ran about calling his name.

The village had just awakened.... The high-road filled with people....

Water-buckets were dragged forth, and a rotten fire--engine came also rattling along.

"Where is your master?" he shouted to the servants.

"Just being carried in; he has broken his leg," was the reply.

Misfortune upon misfortune.

"Let the barn burn," he called out to others who, losing their heads entirely, were pouring tiny buckets of water into the flames.

"Save the cattle--take care that they do not run into the flames."

Three or four men hurried to the stables.

"You others to the house; don't carry anything out of it."

"Don't carry anything out," he repeated, tearing the objects out of the hands of some strangers who were just dragging them out of the house.

"But we want to save the things."