Debit and Credit Part 67

"Where do you come from, welcome wanderer?" cried Anton, at length.

"From over there," replied Fink, pointing to the horizon. "I have only been a few weeks in the country. The last letter I got from you was dated last autumn. Thanks to it, I knew pretty well where to look for you. In the prevailing confusion, I consider it a remarkable piece of luck to have found you. There's Master Karl, too," cried he, as Karl sprang forward with a shout of delight. "Now we have half the firm a.s.sembled, and we might begin offhand to play at counting-house work; but you seem to have a different way of amusing yourselves here." Then turning to Lenore, he continued, "I have already presented myself to the baron, and heard from your lady mother where to find the martial young spirits. And now I have to implore your intercession. I have some acquaintance with this man, and would willingly spend a few days with him, but I am well aware how inconsiderate it would be to tax your hospitable home at a time like this with the reception of a stranger.

But yet, for his sake--he is a good fellow, on the whole--allow me to remain long enough clearly to understand the facon of the prodigious boots which the boy has drawn over his knees."

Lenore replied in the same strain: "My father will look upon your visit as a great pleasure; a kind friend is doubly valuable at a time like this. I go at once to desire a servant to place all Mr. Wohlfart's boots in your apartment, that you may be able to study their facon at your leisure." She bowed, and went off in the direction of the castle, leading her pony by the bridle.

Fink looked after her and cried, "By Jove! she is become a beauty; her bearing is faultless--nay, she even knows how to walk. I have no longer a shadow of doubt as to her having plenty of sense." Then, putting his arm into Anton's, he led him off to the shade of the wild pear-tree, and then, shaking him heartily by the hand, exclaimed, "I say again, well met, my trusty friend. Understand that I have not yet got over my astonishment. If any one had told me that I should find you painted red and black like a wild Indian, a battle-axe in your hand, and a fringe of scalp-locks round your loins, I should naturally have declared him mad.

But you--born, as it would seem, to tread in the footsteps of your forefathers--to find you on this desolate heath, with thoughts of murder in your breast, and, as I live, without a neckcloth! If we two are changed, you, at all events, are not the least so. Perhaps, however, you are pleased with your change."

"You know how I came here?" replied Anton.

"I should think so," said Fink. "I have not forgotten the dancing-lessons."

Anton's brow grew clouded.

"Forgive me," continued Fink, laughing, "and allow something to an old friend."

"You are mistaken," replied Anton, earnestly, "if you believe that any thing of pa.s.sion has brought me here. I have become connected with the baron's family through a series of accidents." Fink smiled. "I confess that these would not have affected me had I not been susceptible of certain influences. But I may venture to say that I am accidentally in my present responsible situation. At a time when the baron was very painfully circ.u.mstanced, I was fixed upon by his family as one who at all events had the will to be of use to them. They expressed a wish to engage my services for a time. When I accepted their proposal, I did so after an inward conflict that I have no right to disclose to you."

"All that is very good," replied Fink; "but when the merchant buys a gun and a sword, he must at least know why he makes those purchases; and therefore forgive me the point-blank question, What do you mean to do here?"

"To remain as long as I feel myself essential, and then to look out a place in a merchant's office," said Anton.

"At our old princ.i.p.al's?" asked Fink, hastily.

"There or elsewhere."

"The deuce!" cried Fink. "That does not seem a very direct course, nor an open confession either; but one must not ask too much from you in the first hour of meeting. I will be more unreserved and candid to you. I have worked myself free over there; and thank you for your letter, and the advice your wisdom gave. I did as you suggested, made use of the newspapers to explode my Western Land a.s.sociation. Of course, I flew with it into the air. I bought half a dozen pens with a thousand dollars, and had the New York gazettes and others continually filled with the most appalling reports of the good for nothingness of the company. I had myself and my partners cursed in every possible key. This made a sensation. Brother Jonathan's attention was caught; all our rivals fell upon us at once. I had the pleasure of seeing myself and my a.s.sociates portrayed in a dozen newspapers as bloodthirsty swindlers and scoundrels--all for my good money too. It was a wild game. In a month the Western Land Company was so down that no dog would have taken a crust of bread from it. Then came my co-directors and offered to buy me out, that they might be rid of me. You may fancy how glad I was. For the rest, I bought my freedom dear, and have left the reputation behind me of being the devil himself. Never mind, I am free at all events. And now I have sought you out for two reasons; first, to see and chat with you; next, seriously to discuss my future life; and I may as well say at once that I wish you to share it. I have missed you sadly every day. I do not know what I find in you, for, in point of fact, you are but a dry fellow, and more contradictious than often suits me. But, in spite of all, I felt a certain longing for you all the time I was away. I have come to an understanding with my father, not without hot discussion and subsequent coolness. And now I repeat my former offer--come with me.

Over the waters to England, across the seas, any where and every where.

We will together ponder and decide upon what to undertake. We are both free now, and the world is open to us."

Anton threw his arm round his friend's neck. "My dear Fritz," cried he, "we will suppose that I have expressed all that your n.o.ble proposal causes me to feel. But you see, for the present, I have duties here."

"According to your own most official statement, I presume that they will not last forever," rejoined Fink.

"That is true; but still we are not on equal terms. See," said Anton, stretching out his hand, "barren as this landscape is, and disagreeable the majority of its inhabitants, yet I look upon them with different eyes to yours. You are much more a citizen of the world than I, and would feel no great interest in the life of the state of which this plain and your friend are component parts, however small."

"No, indeed," said Fink, looking in amazement at Anton. "I have no great interest in it, and all that I now see and hear makes the state, a fragment of which you so complacently style yourself, appear to me any thing but respectable."

"I, however, am of a different opinion," broke in Anton. "No one who is not compelled to do so should leave this country at the present time."

"What do I hear?" cried Fink, in amazement.

"Look you," continued Anton; "in one wild hour I discovered how my heart clung to this country. Since then, I know why I am here. For the time being, all law and order is dissolved; I carry arms in self-defense, and so do hundreds like me in the midst of a foreign race. Whatever may have led me individually here, I stand here now as one of the conquerors who, in the behalf of free labor and civilization, have usurped the dominion of the country from a weaker race. There is an old warfare between us and the Slavonic tribes; and we feel with pride that culture, industry, and credit are on our side. Whatever the Polish proprietors around us may now be--and there are many rich and intelligent men among them--every dollar that they can spend, they have made, directly or indirectly, by German intelligence. Their wild flocks are improved by our breeds; we erect the machinery that fills their spirit-casks; the acceptance their promissory notes and lands have hitherto obtained rests upon German credit and German confidence. The very arms they use against us are made in our factories or sold by our firms. It is not by a cunning policy, but peacefully through our own industry, that we have won our real empire over this country, and, therefore, he who stands here as one of the conquering nation, plays a coward's part if he forsakes his post at the present time."

"You take a very high tone on foreign ground," replied Fink; "and your own soil is trembling under your feet."

"Who has joined this province to Germany?" asked Anton, with outstretched hand.

"The princes of your race, I admit," said Fink.

"And who has conquered the great district in which I was born?" inquired Anton, farther.

"One who was a man indeed."

"It was a bold agriculturist," cried Anton; "he and others of his race.

By force or cunning, by treaty or invasion, in one way or other, they got possession of the land at a time when, in the rest of Germany, almost every thing was effete and dead. They managed their land like bold men and good farmers, as they were. They have combined decayed or dispersed races into a state; they have made their home the central point for millions, and, out of the raw material of countless insignificant sovereignties, have created a living power."

"All that has been," said Fink; "that was the work of a past generation."

"They labored for themselves, indeed, while creating us," agreed Anton, "but now we have come into being, and a new German nation has arisen.

Now we demand of them that they acknowledge our young life. It will be difficult to them to do this, just because they are accustomed to consider their collective lands as the domain of their sword. Who can say when the conflict between us and them will be ended? Perhaps we may long have to curse the ugly apparitions it will evoke. But, end as it will, I am convinced, as I am of the light of day, that the state which they have constructed will not fall back again into its original chaos.

If you had lived much among the lower cla.s.ses, as I have done of late years, you would believe me. We are still poor as a nation--our strength is still small; but every year we are working our way upward, every year our intelligence, well-being, and fellow-feeling increases. At this moment we here, on the border, feel like brothers. Those in the interior may quarrel, but we are one, and our cause is pure."

"Well done," said Fink, nodding approval; "that was spoken like a thorough German. The wintrier the time, the greener the hope. From all this, Master Wohlfart, I perceive that you have no inclination at present to go with me."

"I can not," answered Anton, with emotion; "do not be angry with me because of it."

"Hear me," laughed Fink; "we have changed parts since our separation.

When I left you a few years ago, I was like the wild a.s.s in the desert, who scents a far-off fountain. I hoped to emerge out my prosy life with you into green pastures, and all I found was a nasty swamp. And now I come back to you wearied out, and find you playing a bold game with fate. You have more life about you than you had. I can't say that of myself. Perhaps the reason may be that you have had a home; I never had.

However, we have had enough of wisdom; come and instruct me in your mode of warfare. Let me have a look at your squatters, and show me, if you can, a square foot of ground on this charming property in which one does not sink up to one's knees in sand."

Meanwhile preparations were going on at the castle for the stranger. The baron made one servant ascertain that there was a sufficiency of red and white wine in the cellar, and scolded another for not having had the broken harness repaired. The baroness ordered a dress to be taken out which she had not worn since her arrival; and Lenore thought with secret anxiety about the haughty aristocrat, who had struck her as so imposing at the time of the dancing-lessons, and whose image had often risen before her since then.

Below stairs the excitement was no less, for, excepting a few pa.s.sing callers on business, this was the first visitor. The faithful cook determined to venture upon an artistic dish, but in this wretched country the materials were not to be had. She thought of killing a few fowls out of the farm-yard; but that measure was violently opposed by Suska, a little Pole, Lenore's confidential maid, who wept over the determined character of the cook, and threatened to call the young lady, till the former came to her senses, and sent off a barefooted boy to the forester's in all haste to ask for something out of the common way. A sudden onslaught was made upon spiders and dust; and a room got ready near Anton's, into which Lenore's little sofa, her mother's arm-chair, and carpet, were carried, to keep up the family dignity.

Fink, little guessing the disturbance his arrival occasioned, sauntered over the fields with Anton in a more cheerful mood than he had known for long. He spoke of his experiences, of the refinements in money-making, and the giant growth of the New World; and Anton heard with delight a deep abhorrence of the iniquities in which he had been involved break out in the midst of his jokes.

"Life is on an immense scale over there, it is true," said he, "but it was in its whirl that I first learned to appreciate the blessings of the fatherland."

While thus talking, they returned to the castle to change their dress.

Anton had merely time to glance in amazement at the arrangements of Fink's bed-room before they were summoned to the baroness. Now that the anxieties about domestic arrangements were over, and the lamps shed their mild radiance through the room, the family felt themselves cheerfully excited by the visit of this man of fashion. Once more, as of yore, there was the easy tone of light surface-talk, the delicate attention which gives to each the sense of contributing to another's enjoyment, the old forms, perhaps the old subjects of conversation. And Fink solved the problem ever offered by a new circle to a guest with the readiness which the rogue had always at his command when he chose. He gave to each and all the impression that he thoroughly enjoyed their society. He treated the baron with respectful familiarity, the baroness with deference, Lenore with straightforward openness. He seemed to take pleasure in addressing her, and soon overcame her embarra.s.sment. The family felt that he was one of themselves; there was a freemasonry between them. Even Anton wondered how it came about that Fink, the newly-arrived guest, appeared the old friend of the house, and he the stranger; and again something of the reverence arose within him which, as a youth, he had always felt for the elegant, distinguished, and exclusive. But this was a mere shadow pa.s.sing over his better judgment.

When Fink rose to retire, the baron declared with genuine cordiality how gladly he would have him remain their guest; and when he was gone, the baroness remarked how well the English style of dress became him, and what a distinguished-looking man he was. Lenore made no remark upon him, but she was more talkative than she had been for a long time past. She accompanied her mother to her bed-room, sat down by the bedside of the weary one, and began merrily to chat away, not, indeed, about their guest, but about many subjects of former interest, till her mother kissed her brow, and said, "That will do, my child; go to bed, and do not dream."

Fink stretched himself comfortably on the sofa. "This Lenore is a glorious woman," cried he, in ecstasy; "simple, open--none of the silly enthusiasm of your German girls about her. Sit an hour with me, as of old, Anton Wohlfart, baronial rent-receiver in a Slavonic Sahara! I say, you are in such a romantic position, that my hair still bristles with amazement. You have often stood by me in my sc.r.a.pes of former days as my rational guardian angel; now you are yourself in the midst of madness; and, as I at present enjoy the advantage of being in my right mind, my conscience forbids me to leave you in such confusion."

"Fritz, dear friend!" cried Anton, joyfully.

"Well, then," said Fink, "you see that I wish to remain with you for a while. Now I want you to consider how this is to be done. You can easily manage it with the ladies; but the baron?"

"You have heard," replied Anton, "that he esteems it a fortunate chance which brings a knight like you to this lonely castle; only"--he looked doubtfully around the room--"you must learn to put up with many things."

"Hmm--I understand," said Fink; "you are become economical."

"Just so," said Anton. "If I could fill sacks with the yellow sand of the forest, and sell it as wheat, I should have to sell many and many sacks before I could put even a small capital into our purse."

"Where you have pushed yourself in as purse-bearer, I could well suppose the purse an empty one," said Fink, dryly.