For Sceptre and Crown Volume I Part 6

"But where is Fritz?" cried the lieutenant. "I have been surprised not to see him; eh! old Deyke, where is my old playmate?"

"Here, Herr Lieutenant," cried young Deyke's cheerful voice, as the handsome young peasant stepped from a dark corner of the hall and entered the sitting-room. "I am very glad you are here, sir, and that you remember me."

Whilst the lieutenant warmly greeted the young peasant, his elder brother shook hands with old Deyke, with a certain stiff politeness, and the president cried:

"Now, every one must eat and drink in the courtyard. It is the young people's turn to be pleased. It must never be said that my friends, after giving me so much pleasure, went away with empty mouths."

Madame von Wendenstein gave her eldest daughter a sign, and soon all the servants in the house were hastily carrying tables, white cloths, plates, jugs, and bottles into the courtyard.

The schoolmaster, however, whispered something to old Deyke, who said, "Herr President, the schoolmaster begs your kind entertainment may be put off until the other songs are sung, as he fears the voices will not be in such good order afterwards!"

"Are you going to sing to us again?" cried the president, with pleasure. "Pray go on then, Herr Niemeyer. Sit down with us, my dear Deyke, and let us drink a gla.s.s to old times!"

He had some arm-chairs rolled into the middle of the room, and made the old peasant sit with the pastor and himself. The lieutenant fetched some cigars; the eldest son filled the gla.s.ses. The old peasant moistened his cigar with his lips, and smoked it with carefully screwed-up mouth. He knocked his gla.s.s against the president's and the pastor's, half emptied it, with a satisfied nod at its contents; then he sat very upright on his chair, with a look which showed he was sensible what a high honour it was to sit in such company, as well as the conviction that he was quite the man on whom such honour should fall.

The schoolmaster and young Deyke had hastened out again, and soon the simple but beautiful _volkslied_ of the country commenced.

Madame von Wendenstein returned to her place on the sofa, and listened thoughtfully to the melodious sounds; her eldest son stepped, with Herr von Bergfeld, into a window-niche; the president's youngest daughter had followed her sister; the lieutenant walked up and down the room, listening to the singing with some impatience; for he longed to go out to the young peasants, whom he had known from childhood, and joke and laugh with them.

The pastor's daughter, forsaken by her young friends, stepped out on to the terrace. She leant against the stone bal.u.s.trade and looked up at the moon; its silvery rays fell on her thoughtful, beautiful face, and lighted up her large clear eyes.

After the lieutenant had paced up and down the room several times, he, too, went on to the terrace. He breathed in the fresh evening air, looked at the well-known plain below as it lay in the moonlight, and then perceived the young girl, whom he hastened to join.

"Are you indulging in romantic dreams in the moonlight, Miss Helena?"

he cried, jokingly. "May I share them, or is it needful to be quite alone?"

"The moon always makes me come out, whether I will or not," said Helena, "and the singing sounds even better here. But I was dreaming a little," she said, laughingly, as she raised herself from the stone bal.u.s.trade; "my thoughts were far away from here, up in the clouds,"

and she pointed with her hand to a black bank of clouds, stretching from the horizon towards the moon, whose light touched their edges with silver. They looked like a black mantle with a brilliant hem.

"I know your thoughts go far and wide, and I like to hear them, for they take me to a world I love, but to which I cannot go alone. You remember the old story of the wonderful garden no one could enter unless they knew the magic word which opened the door in the rock? you know this word. Even as a child I was never happier than when listening to your ideas; they took me so far away from every-day life. Tell me what you and the clouds have been talking about."

"Do you see," said the young girl, as she looked upwards, "do you see that black cloud resting so quietly in the moonlight? An image of peace, you might almost believe it had ever been there, and would ever remain; yet in a short time the cloud has spread itself far, far over the country--will it bring blessing and fruitfulness, or will it spread tempest and destruction over the land, destroying the hopes of the husbandman? Who can tell? but we know it will move away from the light now so peacefully shining upon it, though the moon will shine on as it has ever done. Such is life; such is the fate of man," she added, in a melancholy tone; "now we are in happy peace; soon we may feel the wild tempest."

"Your thoughts are always sad," said the lieutenant, with a slight smile, whilst a reflection of the young girl's enthusiasm appeared in his face, "always grave, but always beautiful; but I cannot imagine,"

he added, "how such ideas come to you."

"How can I help it?" she returned, "when they talk so much of war, and the threatening future; how soon our peaceful happiness may vanish like the moon if the cloud rises higher!"

The young officer looked grave, and was silent for a moment.

"How extraordinary!" he then said. "War is my business, and I have always wished for a brisk, merry war, instead of our tiresome garrison life; but what you say makes me sorry. Are we soldiers the black cloud which is to blot out the moon's peaceful light, to spread tempest and destruction, and to annihilate so many hopes? And may not the lightning resting in the cloud's bosom smite even ourselves?"

"Oh! that it were granted to human power to guide the course of clouds and the fate of men to light and peace," cried the pastor's daughter; "but as the moonlight silvers the black cloud, so must our hopes and prayers accompany those whom the storm of fate drives far away; such comfort will remain for those at home."

The lieutenant was silent. His eyes were fixed with dreamy surprise on the young girl's excited face, which looked almost inspired in the moonlight. He slowly approached her; but the singing ceased, loud voices and clanging gla.s.ses were heard in the court. The other young ladies came on to the terrace, and the lieutenant and Helena hastily joined them.

The president went into the hall, and again thanked the singers heartily for the pleasure they had given him, proposing they should now attack the refreshments. The whole party then mixed with the peasants, and cheerful talking and merry laughter were heard throughout the courtyard.

The lieutenant had gone into the drawing-room, and he remained there for a time grave and thoughtful, though his sister and Helena had gone to say a few friendly words to all the village maidens.

His elder brother went to the young peasants; he knew quite well what to say to them, for he had been brought up amongst them, and they talked to him without reserve: but it was somewhat of a ceremonious conversation which he carried on in a quiet voice, as he moved from group to group.

Loud bursts of laughter, however, accompanied the lieutenant, when he entered the courtyard shortly afterwards. Accompanied by Fritz Deyke, he spoke to all the young fellows, who, for a joke, arranged themselves in the stiffest of military att.i.tudes, under the auspices of some old cavalry soldiers.

All was life and mirth. At last the lieutenant was surrounded by some young folks, who made Fritz Deyke their spokesman. The lieutenant laughed when he heard their request, nodded his head, and went up to his father.

"They want to sing our Hanoverian air, father, but they wish for your consent: they are not sure if it is quite the thing, they say."

"If it is the thing?" cried the president, cheerfully, "of course it is; let them begin!"

Fritz Deyke, who had followed the lieutenant, hurried back to his friends. They formed a semicircle before the door of the house, and the curious song began, the words of which are scarcely comprehensible, and often altered _ad libitum_, but which it is the dear delight of every Hanoverian peasant and soldier to sing on every opportunity.

The president was delighted to hear the national song shouted by the merry young peasants with all the strength of their lungs. He joined in the chorus himself, as did the lieutenant, and

"Our king before us we did see, Riding straight on so merrilie; And to his brigadier cried he, 'Roystering Hanover boys are we,'"[4]

was loudly echoed back from the old castle walls to Blechow.

At last the peasants dispersed, and with loud laughter and cheerful conversation returned to the village. The pastor and his daughter also took leave, and went back to the quiet vicarage. Soon the whole castle was hushed in peace and darkness.

Madame von Wendenstein kissed her youngest son affectionately, as she bid him good-night, and her lips softly murmured,

"O G.o.d, our help in ages past, Our hope in years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home."

The lieutenant sat thinking in silence for a long time in an ancient arm-chair in his room; and when at last he went to bed and to sleep, he dreamt he was on a black cloud, whirled along by a tempest; the lightning flashed about him, the thunder groaned, and he was borne farther and farther from the mild rays of the moon, though she still pursued him with her peaceful light.

CHAPTER III.

VIENNA.

A number of carriages rolled rapidly along the Ballhofsplatz behind the royal castle of Hofburg in Vienna, and drew up one after another before the brilliantly lighted portal of the Office of State. Fashionable equipages, with servants in various liveries, arrived; the porter, in his light blue coat embroidered with gold and with his long staff, hurried to receive the ladies who alighted in rich evening dress, well wrapped up in their warm mantles and hoods; they hastened through the large doorway, mounted the broad staircase to the right and entered the upper apartments of the splendid palace in which Kaunitz and Metternich had striven to prove the words true, _Austria est imperatura orbi universo_. It was now occupied by Lieutenant Field Marshal Mensdorff-Pouilly, minister of the empire and of foreign affairs.

Amongst the carriages there were a number of _fesche_ (cabs); they are always used by the gentlemen of Vienna to go about in, in the town, however extensive their own stables, and the porter received them with the same alacrity that he bestowed on the occupants of the more fashionable carriages.

A young officer got out of one of these cabs dressed in the brilliant variegated Uhlan uniform of green and scarlet glittering with gold. He threw off his large white cloak, left it in the carriage, and desired the coachman to wait for him near the Burgplatz.

He gave a last look at his faultless costume, drew his small black moustache through his fingers, and then mounted the stairs happy and confident of success, as a young Uhlan officer always is, whether on the parquet or on horseback, and which this especial young officer had every reason to expect.

Lieutenant von Stielow, a native of Mecklenburg, had, like many of his northern compatriots, entered the Austrian service several years before; about a twelvemonth ago an uncle had died childless, and he had inherited from him such a considerable fortune, that his yearly income had excited astonishment even amongst the Austrian n.o.bility, who are accustomed to enormous revenues; and the extremely handsome and amiable young man, who had formerly been treated with cold politeness, was now welcomed by the highest n.o.bility of Vienna as an intimate friend, especially in those houses where there were daughters of an age to marry.

It was, then, only natural that the young man before whom life was opening so brilliantly should be full of joyful confidence as he mounted the steps of the Office of State. This was on one of the exclusive evenings, when the Countess Mensdorff, in contradistinction to her large official receptions, entertained her own especial friends.

These evenings, though of a strictly private nature, were much frequented by the political world; here it was hoped a corner of the veil might be raised, in which each diplomatic camp had shrouded its activity, trusting the world might believe nothing was taking place which could disturb its happy relations with its neighbours.