Debit and Credit Part 72

"But the other? He looks as changeable as a cloud."

"He is not that," replied Anton; "if he has difficulties to contend with, all the energy of his nature awakes; he is only bored by what gives him no trouble."

Lenore was silent, and dug on more zealously than ever. Just then a hum of cheerful voices sounded from the farm-yard, and the laborers ran from their dinner to the road. "Mr. Sturm is coming," cried one of them to the diggers. A stately procession was seen moving through the village toward the castle. First of all came half a dozen men all dressed alike, in gray jackets, wearing broad-brimmed felt hats set on one side, and decorated with a green sprig, a light gun on their shoulder, and a sailor's cutla.s.s at their sides. Behind them came a series of loaded wagons: the first full of shovels, spades, rakes, and wheelbarrows symmetrically arranged; the latter laden with sacks of meal, chests, bundles of clothes, and household furniture. The procession was closed by a number of men dressed like those above described. As they neared the castle, Karl and a stranger sprang down from the last wagon; the former placed himself at the head of the procession, had the wagons driven to the front of the castle, arranged the men in two rows, and made them present arms. Last of all came Fink galloping up.

"Welcome!" cried Anton to his friend.

"You are bringing an army and ammunition," laughed Lenore, greeting him.

"Do you always march with such heavy baggage?"

"I bring a corps that will henceforth be in your service," replied Fink, jumping down. "They seem decent folk," said he, turning to Anton; "but I had some trouble to collect them. Hands are scarce just now, and yet nothing gets done. We have been drumming and bribing in your country like recruiting sergeants. These fellows would hardly have been got here merely to work; the gray jackets and the cha.s.seurs' caps settled the matter. Some of them have served already, and your hussar knows how to keep them together as well as any born general."

The baron and his lady now entered the court. The laborers, at Karl's bidding, raised a loud hurrah, and then strolled off to the side of the castle and lay down in the sunshine.

"Here are your pioneers, my chief," said Fink to the baron; "since your kindness allows me to be your inmate for some time to come, I have now a right to do something toward the security of your castle. The condition of this province is serious. Even in Rosmin they do not feel safe for a single day; and your imbodying a militia has not escaped the enemy, and called attention to your house."

"It is an honor to me," interposed the baron, "to be obnoxious to the rebels."

"No doubt," politely chimed in Fink. "But this is only an additional motive to your friends to watch over your and your family's personal safety. As yet you are hardly strong enough to defend the castle from an a.s.sault of the rascals immediately around. The dozen laborers that I bring will form a guard for your house; they have arms, and partly know how to use them. I have bound them to the performance of certain military functions which will help to keep them in order. They can work a few hours less daily, and exercise during the interval, patrol, and, in so far as you, baron, may think it desirable, keep up a regular correspondence with the neighboring districts. Of course their support and payment is my affair, and I have accordingly provided for it. I wish to run up a slight building for them on the land they are to cultivate, but just now it will be well to keep them as near the castle as possible, and therefore I have to ask you for temporary quarters for all these as well as for myself."

"Just as you like, dear Fink," cried the baron, carried away by the young man's enterprising spirit; "all the room we have is at your disposal."

"Then allow me to suggest," said Anton, "that a room in the lower story should be fitted up as a guard-room. There arms and implements can be safely kept, and some of the men might nightly take up their quarters there. The rest must be billeted in the farm-yard. In this way they will get accustomed to consider the castle their place of rendezvous."

"Capital," said Fink, "so that the disturbance thus caused does not prove an annoyance to the ladies."

"The wife and daughter of an old soldier will gratefully submit to any measures taken for their safety," replied the baron, with dignity.

Accordingly, the new colony began to settle by universal consent. The wagons were unloaded, the manager and his men accommodated for the moment in the farm buildings.

The first thing they did was to free the furniture from its wrappings of straw and canvas, and to carry it into the apartments of their new master.

The castle servants stood round and looked with curiosity at its simple style. One article, however, excited such loud admiration, that Lenore joined the group of gazers. It was a small sofa of singular aspect. The legs and arms were made of the feet of some great beast of prey, and the cushions were covered with the bright yellow skin, all dotted over with regular black spots. At the back and on the bolsters were three large jaguars' heads, and the framework, instead of wood, was of beautifully carved ivory.

"How exquisite!" exclaimed Lenore.

"If the thing does not displease you," said Fink, coolly, "I propose an exchange. There is a small sofa in my room, on which I rest so comfortably that I should like to keep it there. Will you allow your people to carry off this monster to some other room in the castle, and to leave me that sofa instead?"

Lenore could find no reply, and bowed a silent consent; and yet she was dissatisfied with herself for not having at once declined such an exchange. When she returned to her room, she found the jaguar-sofa already there. That vexed her still further. She called Suska and the man-servant, and desired them to move it elsewhere; but they so loudly protested that the beautiful creature was nowhere more in keeping than in their young lady's chamber, that Lenore, to avoid observation, sent them away and put up with the exchange. Thus it came to pa.s.s that her fair form rested on the jaguar-skins that Fink had shot in the far forests of the West.

The next day the new undertaking began. The manager went with his apparatus to the land in question, and the men had their work portioned out to them. Karl hunted out day-laborers from the German and Polish districts around, and even found a few in the village ready to help, so that in a few days there were fifty hands employed. It must be owned that things did not go on altogether undisturbed; the laborers came less regularly than might have been wished, but still the work progressed, for Fink as well as Karl well understood keeping men in order--the one by his haughty energy, the other by the invariable good-humor with which he praised or blamed. The forester came a.s.siduously from his forest to conduct the military exercises, the castle was nightly watched, and patrols regularly sent to the villages around. A warlike spirit spread from the castle over the whole district. A strong esprit de corps soon sprang up among the broadbrims, which made discipline easy, and after a few days Fink was besieged with pet.i.tioners for a like uniform, and a gun, and the privilege of being taken into his service.

"The guard-room is ready," said Fink to Anton; "but you must have holes for muskets cut in the shutters of the lower story windows." Thus the troublous time was endured with fresh spirit. The stranger-guest gave a new impulse to each individual life; the very farm-servants felt his influence, and the forester was proud to do the honors of his wood to such a gentleman. Fink was a good deal in the woods with Anton, who, as well as Karl, soon fell into the habit of asking his advice. He bought two strong cart-horses--for his own use, he said--but he cleverly contrived that they should work on the baron's farm, and laughed at Anton's scruples. The latter was happy to have his friend near him.

Somewhat of their former pleasant life had returned--of those evenings when the two youths had chatted, as only youths can, sometimes in mere childish folly, sometimes gravely on the highest subjects. Fink had changed in many respects. He had become more quiet, or, as Anton expressed it in counting-house phrase, more solid; but he was more inclined than ever to make use of men for his own varying interests, and to look down upon them as mere instruments. His physical strength was unabated. After having stood all morning superintending his workmen--after having wandered all through the wood with the forester, ridden, spite of Anton's remonstrances, far into the disturbed districts to seek information or establish relations there, and inspected on his return all the sentry-posts on the estate, there he was at the tea-table of the baroness, a lively companion, with such inexhaustible funds of conversation that Anton had often to remind him by signs that the strength of the lady of the house was not equal to his own. As for the baron, Fink had completely subjugated him. He never showed the least deference to the sarcastic humor which had become habitual to the unfortunate n.o.bleman, never allowed him a bitter observation against Wohlfart or Lenore, or any one else, without making him at once sensible of its injustice. Consequently, the baron learned to exercise great self-control in his presence. On the other hand, Fink took pains to give him many a pleasure. He helped him to play a rubber of whist, initiated Lenore in the game, and gradually drew in Wohlfart as the fourth.

This had the effect of pleasantly whiling away many a weary hour for the baron; of making Wohlfart one of the family circle, and keeping him up, so that Fink might, if so minded, drink a gla.s.s of Cognac punch and enjoy his last cigar in his company. The ladies of the house alone did not seem to feel the cheering influence of Fink's presence. The baroness fell sick; it was no violent ailment, yet it came suddenly.

That very afternoon she had spoken cheerfully to Anton, and taken from him some letters which the postman had brought for her husband, but in the evening she did not make her appearance at the tea-table, though the baron himself treated her indisposition as trifling. She complained of nothing but weakness, and the doctor, who ventured from Rosmin to the castle, could not give her malady a name. She smilingly rejected all medicine, and said it was her firm conviction that the exhaustion would pa.s.s away. That she might not detain her husband and daughter in her sick-room, she often expressed a wish to join the family circle, but she was not able to sit up on the sofa, and lay resting her head on the pillows. Thus she was still the silent companion of the others. Her eyes would dwell uneasily upon the baron, or searchingly upon Lenore, as they sat at the whist-table, and then she would close them and seem to rest, as if from some great exertion.

Anton looked with sincere sympathy at the invalid. Whenever there was a pause in the game, he took the opportunity of quietly stepping to the sofa and asking her commands. It was a pleasure to him to hand her even a gla.s.s of water, or take a message for her. He gazed with admiration at the delicate face, which, pale and thin as it was, retained all its beauty of outline. There was a silent understanding between the two. She spoke, indeed, less to him than to the rest; for while she often addressed her husband in a cheerful tone, or followed Fink's lively narratives with looks and gestures of interest, she did not take the trouble of hiding her weakness from Anton. Alone with him, she would collapse or gaze absently straight before her; but when she did look at him, it was with the calm confidence with which we are inspired by an old friend from whom we have no longer any secrets. Perhaps this arose from the baroness being able fully to appreciate his worth--perhaps, too, it arose from her never having looked at him in any other light than that of an obliging domestic since he first promised his services; but had this view of hers been discernible to our hero, it would in no way have shaken his allegiance to the n.o.ble lady. She seemed to him perfect, just as she was--a picture that rejoiced the heart of all who came within its influence. He could not get rid of the impression that some external cause, perhaps one of those letters he had himself given her, was answerable for the change in her health; for one of them was directed in a trembling hand, and had an unpleasant look about it, which had made Anton instinctively feel that it contained bad news. One evening, while the others were at the card-table, the invalid's head sunk down from the silken cushions; Anton having arranged them more comfortably, she looked at him gratefully, and told him in a whisper how weak she was. "I wish to speak with you once more alone," continued she, after a pause; "not now, but the time will come;" and then she looked upward with an expression of anguish that filled Anton's heart with painful fears.

Neither the baron nor Lenore, however, shared his anxiety.

"Mamma has often suffered from similar attacks of weakness before," said the latter. "The summer is her best cure, and I hope every thing from warmer weather."

But indeed Lenore was too preoccupied to be a good judge of what was going on around her. She too was changed. Many an evening she would sit mute at the tea-table, and start if addressed; at other times she would be immoderately lively. She avoided Fink; she avoided Anton too, and was reserved in manner to both. Her blooming health appeared disturbed; her mother would often send her out of doors from her own sick-room; and then she would have her pony saddled, and ride round and round the wood, till the indignant pony would take her home without her finding it out.

Anton saw this change with silent sorrow. He was deeply conscious how different Lenore's relation to him had become, but he did not speak of this to her, and kept his feelings to himself.

It was a sultry afternoon in May. Dark thunder-clouds hung over the forest, and the sun threw its burning rays on the parched land, when the patrol which had been sent to Kunau came hurrying back to the guard-room to say that there were strange men lurking in the Kunau woods, and that the villagers wished to know what was to be done. Fink gave the alarm to his laborers, and sent a message to the forester and to the new farm.

While the men carried the implements into the castle, and the farm-servants rode home with teams and prepared for a sally, a horseman came from Kunau to say that a band of Poles had broken into a court-yard in the village, and that the peasants requested help. All were now in the cheerful excitement which an alarm occasions when it promises adventures.

"Keep some of the workmen back," said Fink to Anton, "and guard the castle and village. I will send the forester with his little militia to Kunau, and ride over thither myself first of all, with Karl and the servants."

He sprang to the stable and saddled his own horse, while Karl was getting ready that of the baron for himself.

"Look at the clouds, Herr von Fink," said Karl. "Take your cloak with you; we shall have a tremendous shower."

Fink called accordingly for his plaid, and the little band galloped off toward Kunau. When they entered the forest they remarked how stifling the atmosphere was. Even the rapid pace of their horses brought with it no relief.

"Look how restless the beasts are," said Karl. "My horse p.r.i.c.ks his ears. There is something in the wood."

They stopped for a moment. "I hear a horse's tread, and a rustling among the branches."

The horse that Karl rode stretched out his neck and neighed loudly.

"It is an acquaintance--one of our own number," said Fink, looking at the animal. The branches of the young trees parted, and Lenore, mounted on her pony, sprang out and barred the way. "Halt! who goes there?"

cried she, laughing.

"Hurrah! the young lady!" exclaimed Karl.

"The pa.s.sword?" cried Lenore, in true martial style.

Fink rode up, saluted her, and whispered, "Potz Blitz, das ist ja die Gustel von Blasewitz."

Lenore blushed and laughed. "All right," said she; "I shall ride with you."

"Of course," cried Fink; "only let's go on."

The pony exerted himself to keep up with the tall horse of the stranger, and thus they reached Kunau and stopped at the rendezvous, where the village militia was a.s.sembled; and its commander, the smith, met the riders with an anxious face.

"Those hidden in our wood," cried he, "are an accursed set--armed Poles.

This very day, in broad noonlight, a band of the men, carrying guns, came to Leonard's farm, which lies out there by the wood, invested the doors and gate, while their leader and some of the men marched into the room where the farmer and his family were sitting, and demanded money and the calf out of the stable. He was a blackguard fellow, with a long gun, a peac.o.c.k feather in his cap, and a red scarf around his loins, like a thorough Klopice. The farmer refused to give up his money, at which they took aim at him; and his wife, in terror, ran to the closet, and threw all the money they had at the rascals. Next, they carried away the geese from the yard, and went off with their booty into the wood, leaving four rogues armed with guns to mount guard, and prevent any one getting off the premises till they were far enough. Next, two of the thieves discharged their guns into the roof, and then all ran away. The thatch took fire, but fortunately we got it put out."

"Hours have pa.s.sed since then," cried Fink; "the rogues are over the mountains by this time."

"I do not think so," replied the smith. "I at once sent off Leonard to the border with our mounted men, that they might watch whether the thieves crept out of the wood or not, and a woman who crossed it two hours ago saw Poles there. They had some beast with them too, but the woman was too much terrified to know whether it was a calf or a dog; if it were a calf, the hungry wolves would rather eat it than carry it farther. I have just come from Neudorf; the men there are a.s.sembled like ourselves. We might make a search through the forest if your people would help us, and if you would show us the way." "Good," said Fink; "let us set about it." He then sent a message to the forester to the effect that those in the castle should set out on the search from their side, and discussed with the smith the best way of disposing the Kunau men. He next dispatched Karl and the servants to join the Kunau hors.e.m.e.n on the opposite side of the wood. "Don't stand upon ceremony with the rascals," he called out after Karl, with a significant tap on his pistols. "Now, then," said he to the smith, "I will go to Neudorf. When you have searched your half of the wood, wait for us; you shall then be joined by the Neudorf detachment."

The Kunau men set off accordingly to avenge the robbery committed. Fink, accompanied by Lenore, rode off to the neighboring village. On the way thither, he said, "At Neudorf we must part, lady." Lenore was silent.

Fink glanced sidelong at her. "I don't think," said he, "that the rogues will do us the pleasure of awaiting our approach; and if they are minded to run off, the evening is closing in, and we shall hardly hinder them; but the chase will be good practice for our people, and therefore we must make the most of it."