Only a Girl Part 41

The foremost in the mob gave way. Just then Frau Keller appeared at the door. She held the cup of holy water, which usually hung above the bed, and she sprinkled with its contents the spot where Ernestine had been standing. Her pious act was greeted with a shout of applause. Ernestine saw her, and trembled and turned pale, while large tears gathered in her eyes; she grew dizzy, and would have fallen had not Johannes supported her.

"Courage, courage," he whispered,--"do not let such folly distress you."

"Look, look! she cannot bear the holy water. She didn't mind the stones,--but a few drops of water are too much for her." Thus shouted the mob, and the uproar began again.

"Is this possible?" cried Johannes, casting prudence to the winds. "Is it possible that in the nineteenth century, and in a civilized country, such utter barbarian stupidity should exist? Do you really believe, if Fraulein Hartwich were in league with the devil, that she would have borne your abuse, that she would not have thrown her spells over you long ago, and escaped your brutality? Do you think that she listens to you from choice, and likes to have stones thrown at her? Why, the very patience and resignation with which she has endured your outrageous insults might prove to you that she has no supernatural power at her command,--that she has not even the protection of a bold nature, like the other lady, with whom you were justly indignant. But let me tell you that I am neither feeble nor weak, and that my patience is exhausted, and my power, although not supernatural is quite sufficient to punish such excesses as this, and to conjure up among you a host of evil spirits in the shape of a detachment of gens-d'armes. Therefore be quiet, and let us pa.s.s on our way. Every moment of delay increases the weight of the charges that I shall bring against you before the magistrate."

So saying, he put one arm about Ernestine, and with the other cleared a path for himself through the throng, who were somewhat quelled by his last words, and gave place grumbling.

And now the clergymen, followed by the schoolmaster, appeared, with every sign of hurry and amazement.

"You come too late, gentlemen, to prevent what must cover those under your charge with shame," said Johannes with severity. "I supposed such scenes impossible in our day. You, gentlemen, have taken care that I should be better informed, and have prepared a rich page in the history of our civilization. I am well aware from what source the insults heaped by these misguided people upon Fraulein Hartwich draw their inspiration, and I consider you, gentlemen, responsible for the restoration of order and the safety of this lady." He drew Ernestine's arm more firmly within his own, and walked on without waiting for a reply from the reverend gentlemen, who stood there speechless with alarm and embarra.s.sment, looking after him with a degree of respect that they could not control.

In silence the pair reached the castle and entered the garden.

Ernestine pa.s.sively allowed herself to be led through the shady walks.

Involuntarily Johannes turned towards the little eminence where he had seen her for the first time. He had resolved not to leave Ernestine here, but to place her that very evening beneath his mother's protection. How should he persuade her to such a step? This was the question that he propounded to himself, breathlessly searching for the answer.

Ernestine was for the time incapable of speech. She could not raise her eyes to her protector. Mortification, profound mortification, overpowered her. How thoroughly she had recognized his position as a man, and her own as a woman! She admired him,--she was ashamed of herself. What a feeling it was!--yes, it was the same self-humiliation that she had felt once before, beneath the oak tree where, when flying as to-day from insults and sneers, she had met the handsome lad who had given her the prophetic book. But when would the prophecy in the fairy-tale be fulfilled? When should she cease to be laughed at, despised, and insulted? When should the lonely, persecuted, weary swan unfold its plumage upon calm waters in sunshine and peace? And in an access of pain she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. She sank down upon the mound and sobbed like a child. Johannes stood silent before her. His mind was filled with the same thoughts, the same memories, and, like an answer to her mute soliloquy, there came from his lips, in tones of melting tenderness, the words, "Poor swan!" Ernestine's hands dropped from her face, she stared at him with wide-open eyes,--then sprang up, and, while her pale cheeks flushed, and her whole frame trembled, gazed at him still, as if she would look him through, her agitation increasing every moment. "There--there is only one person on earth who knows that," she faltered.

"What?" asked Johannes with a beating heart.

"What I was thinking of--about the swan!" she articulated with difficulty, for her voice failed her.

Johannes, who stood somewhat below Ernestine, looked up at her expectantly. "And who is that person?" he asked gently.

Ernestine could not reply,--a strange thrill pa.s.sed through her, and she awaited the issue of the miracle of the moment.

"Ernestine, do you remember the lad who once rescued a wild, timid girl from mortal peril?"

She bowed her head in a.s.sent. "Ernestine, did you ever then for one moment in your childish heart think of him with love?"

She raised her eyes to the twilight skies, and was silent for a moment; then she breathed a scarcely audible "Yes."

A light, feathery cloud hovered above her head. Was it the little mermaid, dead for her beloved's sake, and, dissolved in foam, borne away by the daughters of the air to eternal bliss? Could it return again,--that fair, half-forgotten love-dream of her childhood,--the only one she had ever dreamed?

And she looked after the floating cloud as it grew thinner and thinner, until it was gradually dissolved in air, and the gentle radiance of the evening star appeared where it faded.

"Ernestine, do you know me now?" said Johannes. "See, this is the second time that G.o.d has placed me by your side to rescue you from a self-sought peril, and, as when I then brought you down from the broken bough, so now I open wide my arms to you, and pray you, 'Seek refuge and safety here!' Oh, little dryad, you are the same as then, for all that you have grown so tall and beautiful! There are the same mysterious dark eyes, the same strange, lonely spirit imprisoned in the delicate frame, bewailing its t.i.tan descent. I knew then that there was only one such creature in the world,--and I should have recognized you among thousands as I recognized you when you stood alone upon this hill. Wondrous and fairy-like creature that you are, if you do not dissolve in air at the touch of a mortal, come to this heart; if an earth-born being may approach you with earthly love, take mine and learn to love a mortal. Yes, pure, aspiring spirit, for whom this earth has never been a home, I am only a man,--and yet a faithful, true, and loving man. Can you love me again?"

Ernestine stood immovable. She had raised her hands to her forehead, as one is apt to do at hearing the mysterious, the incomprehensible.

"You do not speak; have you no words for me? Look, Ernestine, do you not remember the boy about whose neck you once clasped your trembling arms so willingly?"

At last she stretched out both hands to the earnest speaker, with a look of unrestrained delight. "Johannes," she cried, as tear after tear coursed down her cheek, "Johannes Mollner,--my childhood's friend,--I know you now."

He hastened to her side, and opened his arms to clasp her to his heart, but she recoiled with such a burning blush, with such childlike alarm painted upon her face, that Johannes controlled himself, and only pressed her delicate hands to his lips. Her maidenly reserve was sacred to him.

CHAPTER X.

NOWHERE AT HOME.

On this very evening there was a social meeting of the Professors at the Staatsrathin's. Johannes had entirely forgotten it. As the afternoon pa.s.sed and evening approached without bringing him, the Staatsrathin grew really anxious about him, apart from the embarra.s.sment which his absence caused with regard to her guests, to whom she knew not what excuse to make. She was walking to and fro in her garden behind the house, where her guests were to a.s.semble and enjoy the lovely twilight in the open air.

Suddenly Angelika joined her in breathless haste. "Mother, mother, I have found out where Johannes has been all day long!" she cried, taking her hat off to cool her forehead, and throwing herself into a garden-chair. "Moritz has just got back from Hochstetten, whither he was called this afternoon, and he tells a wonderful tale. The whole village is in commotion,--the behaviour of the Hartwich has actually excited a tumult. There was an outbreak, and Johannes,--our Johannes,--publicly declared himself her champion!"

The Staatsrathin clasped her hands and gazed incredulously at Angelika.

"Is this true?"

"Oh, this is not all!" Angelika went on to say. "Moritz did not even see Johannes, for he was all the time--now, be composed, mother--in the castle with the Hartwich!"

"Good heavens!" cried her mother, seating herself upon a bench. "Has it gone so far already?" A long pause ensued. At last the anxious mother folded her hands in her lap and said softly to herself, "My son, my son, what are you doing?"

Angelika said nothing, but turned away. The same evening star that had beamed so gently upon Ernestine and Johannes glittered in the tears which filled the sister's eyes as she looked up at it.

"Angelika," said her mother mournfully, "you should not have told me this without some preparation. You forget that I am grown old, and my many trials of late years have robbed me of the power of endurance that I once possessed. How much I have gone through since your uncle Neuenstein's bankruptcy! All our misfortunes have come from Unkenheim,--your uncle's unlucky scheme in the purchase of the Hartwich factory, the loss of three-fourths of our property in the affair, and the consequent necessity of our leaving our home that Johannes might practise his profession for his livelihood here. And nothing of all this would have happened if we had never seen Unkenheim! And this wretched Hartwich girl comes too from that place! You will see that she is going to bring us additional misfortune! Shall we never draw a free breath again? Why should this creature disturb our dearly-purchased peace of mind?"

"Mother dear," Angelika entreated, kneeling down beside the Staatsrathin, "mother dear, do not cry now when we expect guests. Be comforted,--things will not go as wrong as you fear. Come, be again the calm, prudent mother who never seemed so great to me as in misfortune.

I trust in G.o.d, and our Johannes----"

She did not finish her sentence, but arose hastily, for several of their friends appeared at the garden-gate. The Staatsrathin, accustomed to control herself, had regained her self-possession, and received her guests with her usual graceful cordiality.

"Where is your son?"

"Is your son not at home?"

To this question, asked at least twenty times, she replied always with unwearied patience, "He was suddenly called away, but I hope he will soon be here."

When old Heim appeared, he listened with a queer smile to the terrible tale that Angelika whispered into his ear.

"What a fellow he is,--this Johannes!" he said with kindly humour.

"With her! with her at the castle! That's going rather too fast,--eh?"

"Oh, uncle!" cried Angelika, "is that all the sympathy you have for us in so grave a matter?"

"Why, you see, my child, the matter does not seem so grave to me as to you. Johannes is a man, and knows what he is about. You act as if he were a beardless boy, whose nurse ought to follow him about. If this clever girl pleases him, it is a proof of his taste. Whatever you do, I will not league with you for all the beseeching glances of those forget-me-not eyes of yours." And the old gentleman seated himself deliberately upon Angelika's straw hat, that she had forgotten to take from the chair where she had thrown it. "G.o.d bless me! what kind of a cushion have you put in my chair?" he cried, producing, amid universal laughter, a flattened ma.s.s of straw and violets that bore not the faintest resemblance to a hat.

"That comes of leaving one's things about. Who would have supposed that I should go about in my old age sitting upon straw hats? Well, well, child, to-day is a day of misfortunes!"

The company quickly a.s.sembled. The ladies seated themselves at the large round tea-table, the gentlemen stood about in groups, and, as smoking was allowed, puffed forth blue clouds of smoke into the clear evening air.

The moon began to cast a pale light through the crimson evening glow.

Night-moths fluttered hither and thither, and now and then a big booming beetle would fly around the heads of the startled ladies. The tired birds flew in among the bushes to seek their nests, arousing the alarm of the younger girls who were in great terror of bats.

Suddenly a wiry voice without was heard chirping Ruckert's song: