Regina, or the Sins of the Fathers Part 13

Night had come. The two flaring tallow candles in the bar illumined the overcrowded, oppressively hot room, and were reflected in the polished blades of the scythes. Then two or three boys, who had been stationed as spies on the drawbridge, burst in, shouting at the top of their voices--

"They're coming! They're coming!"

There arose a howl of fury. Every one pressed to the door. Felix Merckel hurried into his bedroom to take his sabre out of its scabbard, but he did not come back. Probably the sight of the weapon he had so often wielded in honourable warfare brought him to his senses.

His father continued to exhort the rioters to calmness and caution, especially those who had not yet paid for their drinks.

"Forwards!" spluttered old Hackelberg, "avenge my poor child. Mow them down!"

Outside, in the market-place, the whole population of the village was a.s.sembled. Even babies in swaddling-clothes had been s.n.a.t.c.hed out of their cradles, and their squalling mingled with the babel of many tongues. The moon came out from behind some clouds, and shed a pale twilight on the scene. The church tower rose dark and forbidding against the sky, and the parsonage, too, remained silent and dark. The old veteran had kept his word. He heard and saw nothing of what was pa.s.sing. A dark-red fiery glow appeared behind the cottages that lined the road to the river. Above the low roofs rose columns of thick black smoke. Like the reflection from a conflagration the purple vapour encroached on the pale dusk of the summer night.

With one accord the rabble took the path to the churchyard, which, a few yards from the last straggling houses, lay close to the street.

There by the gate they would best be able to bar the way to the invaders. Those who had been in the war fell into rank and stood ready for action. As far as they were concerned, it would be a case of soldiers pitted against soldiers.

"Where is Merckel?" one of them exclaimed in astonishment, expecting to hear the lieutenant's word of command. "Where is Merckel?" was echoed in consternation from all sides.

But the feeling that he must be coming, and had only gone to arm himself, allayed any momentary suspicion of his having shirked the business at the last. The lurid glow drew nearer and nearer. Soon the eye could distinguish something black and square, framed as it were in flames.

"The coffin--the coffin!" the crowd exclaimed, and involuntarily shuddered. Then, suddenly--who began it no one knew--it was as if it had flashed across every brain at the same instant, in a booming chorus the mob set up the weird chorale--

"_Our n.o.ble Baron and Lord Of Schrandener's souls abhorred; For the shame he has brought on our head, O G.o.d, let the plague strike him dead_."

And the coffin advanced. Already the light from the torches shone on the faces of the singing mob, and women and children retreated screaming.

The crowd opened wide enough for the procession to pa.s.s on, and closed again behind it. Six men carried the coffin on their shoulders and swung flaming pine-branches in their disengaged hands, which scared the throng and made it draw to one side. Six others followed with loaded muskets. At their head Boleslav, with his pistols c.o.c.ked in his hand, his military cap on the back of his head, piercing his antagonists with his burning gaze, cleared a road for his father's corpse. Deeper became the rent in the human vortex, thinner the s.p.a.ce that divided the procession from the armed Schrandeners, who looked uneasily from side to side, conscious that they were leaderless.

When Boleslav stood face to face with them they were about to make a forward dash, but a short military "Halt!" such as they had often heard in the campaign, compelled them to take a step backwards instead, for in spite of themselves, their limbs insisted on complying with the old habit of obedience. Boleslav, who had intended the order for the bearers, saw its effect on the armed line in front of him, and suddenly a new idea occurred to him.

"As you were!" he commanded again. No one moved a hair. His manner, his voice mastered them. "Which of you have been soldiers? Which of you has helped his king to make his country free?"

An indistinct, half-resentful murmur went through the ranks, but there was no answer.

"The king sent you home," he continued, "because he is now at peace with his enemies. Do you suppose that he would be pleased to hear you had taken it upon yourselves to break the peace once more in his realm?

Bah! he wouldn't believe it of you! He might believe it of Poles, but not of Prussians! So make room, my good people. Let us pa.s.s!"

The line wavered and began to break in places. For one moment the churchyard gate lay clear before Boleslav's eyes, but the next, fresh figures had moved up from behind and filled the breach.

Again the clamour arose, and mingling with it a loud, gurgling laugh of derision. In another instant something round, black, and polished was levelled at Boleslav's head, and behind it sparkled a pair of malignant eyes. He had only a second in which to realise what was going to happen, before a figure, supple as a panther's, shot past him and plunged into the midst of the Schrandeners' troops, which again showed signs of giving way. In the hiatus thus made, Boleslav saw two forms wrestling on the ground, one that of a woman, the other a man's. The woman overpowered her antagonist, and wrested from his hand the gleaming bore of a gun.

It was the carpenter Hackelberg and his daughter. She must, stealthily and un.o.bserved, have followed the funeral cortege, for since her disappearance on the other side of the stable ruins Boleslav had seen nothing of her. The crowd pushed forward, curious to find out who was struggling on the ground, and Boleslav, promptly taking advantage of the general confusion, pa.s.sed the combatants and gained the churchyard gate, the coffin following close at his heels.

Behind was heard the report of the gun, which exploded in the hand-to-hand struggle.

"Guard the entrance!" he called to the six who followed the coffin, while the bearers made their way between the mounds and tombstones to the burial vault of the Barons von Schranden.

Karl Engelbert stationed himself as sentinel beneath the gateway, and saw, by aid of the last flicker of the torches as they moved away, how the crowd closed round the wrestling father and daughter.

Three piercing shrieks escaped the girl's lips. Evidently the mob intended to wreak its thwarted fury on her. There seemed little doubt that she would perish at its hands, unless some one came quickly to her help.

"Leave her alone!" cried Engelbert, striking out right and left with his powerful fists. And then the figure, that had been so pitifully mauled and in such dire extremity till he interfered, emerged from the midst of her persecutors. She glided past him, dived into the dry ditch that skirted the churchyard wall, and then disappeared like a shadow, into the darkness. The Schrandeners began, with whoops and hoots, to pursue her.

"How about the burial?" cried one.

"The devil take the burial!" exclaimed another, and cast a shy glance at the men standing on guard by the churchyard gate--men who looked as if they were not to be trifled with. Certainly it was better sport to give chase to a defenceless creature than to risk one's skin in an encounter with them.

And the Schrandeners started off like bloodhounds. The carpenter Hackelberg tried to do likewise, but staggered instead into the ditch, where he lay full length and fell asleep.

CHAPTER VII

The last of the stone slabs that covered the vault had crunched back in its place with a resounding crash. Hans Eberhard von Schranden lay with his ancestors. In the little chapel, the men who had acted as grave-diggers bared their heads and said a short prayer. The torches that had burnt down to their sockets smouldered on the smooth surface of the flagstones, and cast a lurid glow as they flickered out over the stern faces of the worshippers.

Then without looking round at Boleslav they left the chapel. He stood in a remote corner with his hands before his face, brooding fiercely on the future that lay before him. The echoing footsteps roused him, and silently he followed his friends, letting the iron gate of the chapel that had been broken open when they came in, swing back in the lock.

The moon had again pierced the clouds, and illumined with a weird radiance the mounds and crosses that stood in regular rows, like columns drawn up for battle.

"Do you wish to bait me too?" Boleslav murmured as he contemplated the graves for a moment with a bitter smile. At the gate he overtook his friends. They joined the men on guard, who now had nothing to watch, for, with the exception of a group of women and old men who stood gossiping by the hedge, the street was empty. Hoots were heard proceeding from the distant fields, where the mob apparently were still in full pursuit.

"G.o.d have mercy on her, if they catch her!" said Karl Engelbert with folded hands. Then two of his comrades, one of whom was Peter Negenthin, came up to him and whispered earnestly in his ear.

Boleslav was too lost in thought to notice their strange and unnatural behaviour towards himself, and was not even aware, as they walked through the village, that he was always left to walk alone, though now and then he stepped confidentially to the side of one or other of them.

He had accomplished the first chapter of his work. His father was laid to rest as befitted his rank, and yet it seemed as if the real work was only just beginning. He beheld all he had to do towering like a great inaccessible mountain in front of him. The mouldering ruins must be built up again; what was now a waste overgrown by weeds must be restored to a waving sea of golden corn; he must strive to endow his neglected property with new wealth, and his tarnished name with new honour: and then he saw, as the goal of all this striving, the face of the beloved beckoning him onwards. If he was too bowed down now with a consciousness of shame and disgrace to look into her pure, maidenly eyes, _then_ he would be able to go to her and say, "Now, all is expiated. I am worthy to lay myself at your feet." Yes, he would struggle tooth and nail--work day and night--to attain this end.

At first it seemed almost madness to think of such a gigantic undertaking.... But he had his friends to help him.... After all, it would not be a single-handed struggle. Had not they to-day helped him to achieve the impossible? Would not they, true to their sacred oath, continue to stand by him in need with their advice and sympathy? And perhaps their n.o.ble example would in time break down the barrier that divided him from his fellow-creatures, and lead to his father's sin being at last consigned to the limbo of forgotten history.

Higher and higher rose his hopes as he meditated thus. They had left the village street behind them, and now reached the drawbridge, where the vehicles had been put up. The horses, each with its nose in a bundle of hay, waited patiently by the fence to which they were tethered. Immediately, without a moment's delay, the comrades set to work to harness them.

This frightened Boleslav out of his dream.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Off already, before I have thanked you?"

No one spoke.

"Won't you take a gla.s.s of wine now the job is finished? And I wanted to ask your advice about other matters."

Peter Negenthin strode up, and looking him straight in the face, drew his clenched fist from the sling.

"We would rather die of thirst," he hissed through his set teeth, "than take a drink of water from your hand."

Boleslav staggered backwards as if he had been hit between the eyes. He felt the earth reeling beneath his feet.

Then Karl Engelbert stepped forth from his sullen little band.

"It is much to be deplored, Baumgart--I call you so because you have been Baumgart to us till this minute--it is much to be deplored that you should thus be bluntly told of what our present feelings are towards you. Why did not you hold your tongue, Negenthin?... But the words have been spoken and cannot be recalled, so now you may as well know all. You summoned us, and we came. Some of us, it is true, were of opinion that we weren't obliged to obey your summons, considering you had deceived us about your name; but others said, whether it was Baumgart or no, we were bound by the oath taken in the church at Dannigkow, after our first battle--and none of us were desirous of breaking an oath. That is why we are here. You can imagine that we didn't come willingly. We are honest fellows, and to tell the truth, the work you gave us to do went against the grain. The long and short of it is, that when we go home, and people spit in our faces, we must put up with it, for they will have right on their side."