Success and How He Won It Part 25

"Dangerous? How do you mean?" said Wilberg diplomatically.

"Well, I don't know, but papa is so grave sometimes, it makes me feel quite nervous and frightened. He has talked too of sending mamma and me into town on a visit."

The young man's face a.s.sumed an expression of deep melancholy.

"The times are full of grave earnest," he said, "of terrible earnest! I cannot blame your father for wishing to place his wife and child in safety. We must stand and fight to the last man!"

"To the last man?" cried the girl, horrified. "Good Heavens, my poor papa!"

"Well, I only meant that in a figurative sense," said Wilberg soothingly. "There is no question of personal danger; and even if it should come to that, your father's years and his duties as head of a family would exclude him from all perilous service. In that case, we young ones should step into the breach."

"Would you?" asked Melanie, looking at him rather distrustfully.

"Certainly, Fraulein Melanie, I should be the very first."

With a view to giving greater emphasis to this declaration, Herr Wilberg was about to lay his hand solemnly on his breast, when all at once, he jumped back and hurried as fast as possible over to the other side, Melanie following him with equal speed. Close behind them stood Hartmann's gigantic form. He had come over the bridge unnoticed, and smiled now a contemptuous little smile as he saw the evident emotion of the young people.

"You need not be afraid, Herr Wilberg," said he quietly. "I am not going to hurt you."

The young clerk seemed to feel the absurdity of his sudden retreat, and to perceive also that, as the companion and protector of a young lady, he was bound to adopt a different line of conduct. He summoned up all his courage and, placing himself before the no less intimidated Melanie, answered with some show of firmness,

"I hardly suppose, Hartmann, that you mean to attack us in the open street."

"That is what you gentlemen seem to expect," said Ulric derisively.

"You run away, all of you directly I show myself, just as if I were a highwayman. Herr Berkow does not, he is the only one," the miner went on speaking with a growl now as he uttered the hated name. "He holds his ground, no matter if I have the whole gang at my back."

"Herr Berkow and her ladyship are just the only two who do not suspect"

... began Wilberg imprudently.

"Who do not suspect what?" asked Ulric, turning a dark look on him.

Whether the young official were exasperated by the derision with which he and his colleagues had been treated, or whether he considered it necessary to play the hero for Melanie's benefit, is uncertain; suffice it to say that he yielded to one of those fits of pa.s.sion which not seldom carry timid natures into extremes.

"We do not run away from you, Hartmann, because you are stirring up the people to rebellion and making it impossible to come to an understanding with them. It is not on that account we get out of your way, but because,"--here he lowered his voice so that the girl could not overhear his words--"because the ropes broke that day when you went below with Herr Berkow--if you must know the reason why every one avoids you."

They were very thoughtless, very rash words, particularly to be spoken by a man like Wilberg, but he little dreamed of the effect they would produce. Ulric started, uttered a half-suppressed cry of rage which was full of menace, then grew ashy pale, and letting fall his clenched fist, caught convulsively at the iron railings of the bridge. He stood there with heaving breast and teeth tightly ground together, gazing down at the two before him in speechless fury.

This proved too hard a trial for the young folks' courage. Neither knew which ran away first, dragging the other with him or her; but they both made off with all possible speed, and only slackened their pace when they had put several houses between them and the object of their fear, and convinced themselves that they were not followed.

"For Heaven's sake, what did it mean, Herr Wilberg?" asked Melanie anxiously. "What did you say to that dreadful creature Hartmann, that made him start like that? How rash of you to provoke him!"

The young man smiled, though his lips were still colourless. It was the first time in his life he had ever been accused of rashness, and he was conscious that the reproach was merited. Now only did he clearly see the full measure of the risk he had run.

"Offended pride!" he gasped. "The duty of protecting you, Fraulein! You see he dared not attack us after all."

"No, we got away in time," returned Melanie navely, "and it was a good thing we did, for our lives would have been in danger if we had stayed."

"It was only on your account I ran," said Wilberg, feeling a little hurt. "I should have held my ground if I had been alone, even at the risk of my life."

"That would have been very sad though," remarked the girl. "You who write such beautiful poetry!"

Wilberg blushed with agreeable surprise.

"Do you know my poems? I did not think in your house ... Your father has rather a prejudice against my lyrical tendency."

"Papa was talking to the Director about it a little while ago," said Melanie, and then suddenly came to a full stop. She could not tell the poet that her father had read aloud to his colleagues those verses, which to her sixteen-year-old imagination had seemed so touching, adding many a biting jest and malicious comment as he read, and finally throwing down the paper with the words:

"And the fellow can spend his time now on such rubbish as that!"

At the moment she had thought it rather cruel and unjust to the young man. He no longer seemed tiresome to her, now that she knew he had been crossed in love, as clearly as appeared from his verses. That explained and excused all the peculiarities of his behaviour. She hastened to a.s.sure him that, for her part, she thought his verses lovely, and in shy but fervent sympathy, tried to console him somewhat for his supposed misfortune.

Herr Wilberg suffered himself to be comforted. He found it indescribably refreshing to meet at last with a being who could understand him, and still more refreshing to feel himself compa.s.sionated by the said being. It was quite a misfortune that they had by this time reached the chief-engineer's house, and that the master of it, in his august person, stood at the window, watching them with surprised and rather critical looks. Wilberg had no wish to expose himself to his superior's jokes, which, he knew, would be inevitable, should it occur to Melanie to relate their meeting with Hartmann and their common flight. He took leave of the young lady therefore, and Fraulein Melanie ran up the steps, racking her brains to try and find out who the object of this interesting and unfortunate attachment could be.

Old Manager Hartmann sat at home in his cottage, leaning his head on his hand; not far from him, at the window, stood Lawrence and Martha.

As Ulric suddenly opened the door, the three broke off their conversation so abruptly, that the new-comer might easily have guessed they had been talking of him. He did not notice it, however, but closed the door, flung his hat on the table and threw himself without a word of greeting into the great arm-chair by the fireside.

"Good day," said the Manager, turning slowly round to him. "Don't you think it worth your while now to say a civil word when you come in? I should have thought you might have kept that up, at least."

"Don't worry me, father," exclaimed his son impatiently, throwing back his head and pressing his hand to his forehead.

The Manager shrugged his shoulders and turned away. Martha left her place by the window and sat down by her uncle, taking up the work she had laid aside while talking with Lawrence. For some minutes there was an oppressive silence in the room, then the younger man went up to his friend.

"Deputy Wilms has been here to speak to you, Ulric. He will come back in an hour. He has been making the round of all the neighbouring works."

Ulric pa.s.sed his hand over his brow, as though to chase away some tormenting dream.

"Well, and how goes it?" he asked, but in a listless mechanical way; he seemed hardly to know what the other was speaking of.

"They are going to join us. Our example appears to have given them courage, for the game is beginning everywhere now. The forges will strike first, and the other works will follow suit, unless all they ask is granted to them at once. That is out of the question, so in a week all the miners and works in the district will be empty."

"At last!" Ulric started up, as though electrified; all his dreamy listlessness and lack of interest had vanished. The man had regained his old elasticity. "At last!" he repeated, heaving a deep sigh of relief. "It was time; they have left us alone long enough!"

"Because we began alone in the first instance."

"May be so, but we could not wait. Things were not on the same footing here as on the other works. Each day's labour brought the Berkows a step forward and took us a step back. Has Wilms gone over to the villages? He ought to let the others know at once, it will raise their spirits."

"Not before they want it," said the Manager quietly. "Their courage seems to be on the wane. For the last fortnight not a stroke of the hammer has been heard. You are waiting and waiting, fancying that you will be asked to come back, or that, at least, some attempt at a bargain will be made up yonder, and yet they make no sign. The officials avoid you, and the master does not look as if he meant to give way an inch. I tell you, Ulric, it is high time you should find a.s.sistance somewhere."

"Nonsense, father," cried the young man. "We have hardly been off work a fortnight, and I told them beforehand, they might make up their minds to be idle a couple of months, if we meant to conquer, and conquer we must."

The old man shook his head.

"A couple of months! You and I and Lawrence, may hold out that long, but not those who have a wife and children to keep."

"They must," said Ulric coldly. "I did think, certainly, we should have managed it faster and with less trouble. I was mistaken in that. But, if they are determined up yonder to drive us to an extremity, we will let them have a thorough good taste of what it means."

"Or they us," put in Lawrence. "If the master really"----

Ulric gave an angry stamp with his foot.