Tales from the German Volume I Part 30

Christine remained silently sobbing and wringing her hands.

'This silence answers me more clearly than you may wish,' said the governor with grave significancy. 'It is an acknowledgment that you are ashamed of the cause of your refusal, and clearly explains many things which have hitherto appeared dark to me. These tears confess your conviction that your foolish wishes can never be realized, and save me the trouble of proving it to you. I spare you the reproaches your conduct merits. Let the past be buried in oblivion. Render yourself worthy of this kindness by obedience. Give your hand to Arwed, my daughter.'

Christine gave Arwed an imploring look, but neither moved nor spoke.

The old man knit his eye-brows. His eyes flashed, and he angrily lifted up his hands. 'Shall I curse my disobedient child?' he thundered in her ears.

'Father!' groaned Christine, sinking to his feet.

'No further, my uncle!' cried Arwed, with generous anger. 'I should not deserve the name of a man if I could permit a n.o.ble maiden to be forced into my arms by a father's curse. The first severe word addressed to your daughter on my account, banishes me forever from Gyllensten. You have my word of honor for it!'

'Can you withstand such generosity, my daughter?' asked the governor, bending over Christine with mingled anger, love and anxiety.

'G.o.d is my witness,' cried the maiden, 'how willingly my heart would reconcile itself with your desire. Grant me a short respite for reflection. In the morning you shall know my determination.'

'Grant her the respite,' earnestly begged Arwed. 'Overhastening is a species of compulsion.'

The governor raised his daughter and looked sharply into her eyes.

'Does no artifice lie hidden in this request?' asked he with emphasis.

'Will you really explain yourself in the morning, openly and honestly, without equivocation, as becomes a n.o.ble Swedish maiden and my daughter?'

'By the holy evangelists!' cried Christine, almost out of her senses, 'in the morning you shall learn my determination, and with G.o.d be the result.'

'Respite the poor maiden for to-night,' entreated Arwed. 'The struggles of her soul have agitated her too violently, and your words were too sharp and heavy. Should your daughter's health give way under her sufferings, you would repent it too late.'

'Go, then, Christine,' said the governor, 'and bring me in the morning such a decision as I may be able to receive.'

Christine kissed his hand in silence, and then leaned, weeping, against a tree.

'Yes! children are the gift of heaven!' said the old man to Arwed, 'and the joys they bring us are the best in life. But when they are given in anger, they become the most terrible scourges in his hands, through the sorrows they cause.'

He walked slowly towards the castle, and Christine suddenly approached Arwed, threw her arms pa.s.sionately around him, impressed a burning kiss upon his lips, and sobbed, 'farewell, Arwed,--do not despise me! Oh that we had sooner met!'

She hastened away, and Arwed found himself alone.

CHAPTER XL.

The morning had dawned. The governor, with Arwed, had accompanied Megret down to the courtyard, where his horses stood ready saddled for the journey, and the traveler held out his hand to the governor to say farewell.

'Allow me to give you a well meant warning at parting,' said the colonel, dejectedly. 'Suffer not this Scot to remain longer at the castle,--he is not worthy of breathing the same air with you. If you would know more of him, ask your nephew. He witnessed a conversation which I held yesterday with that man. My duty calls me to the tumult of war. Should I ever return, I shall have a request to prefer to your heart, and shall rely upon the friendship of which you have hitherto deemed me worthy, for its favorable reception. Commend the remembrance of a man who adores her to your charming daughter. Say to her: notwithstanding the cruelty with which she has refused me a last farewell, her image will accompany me to the field of danger and incite me to victory or bless me in death!'

He overlooked the doubting shake of the head which preceded the answer the governor was about to make, threw himself upon his horse and rode rapidly out of the castle gate.

'The evening of my life will be clouded,' said the governor to Arwed; 'and already I seem to see the lightning flash which is to destroy my last earthly happiness. G.o.d's will be done! Is Mac Donalbain yet in the castle?' he asked of his steward, who approached at that moment.

'When he came out of the garden yesterday evening,' answered the steward, 'he merely took his gun and sporting pouch from the dining room, spoke a few words to the countess, and then rushed like a madman down the mountain. Since then I have seen no more of him. Something very disagreeable must have happened to him, for no one could look upon his face without terror.'

'You must relate to me the conversation which Megret had with Mac Donalbain,' said the governor; and then turning to the steward he asked him, 'is my daughter yet awake?'

'All is yet still in the chamber of the countess,' answered the latter.

'Let her be awakened,' commanded the governor. 'The breakfast waits for her.'

The steward departed, and the governor returned with Arwed to the lower hall. There, for a long time, they walked up and down the room together. Arwed dreaded lifting the veil under which the trouble was concealed, and his uncle, who remarked his reluctance, had not courage to repeat his request. Meanwhile the breakfast was brought in. The governor silently filled the goblets, looked occasionally toward the door, sighed, seized the cup mechanically and raised it to his lips, and then set it down again without drinking.

'Am I not like a child who is trembling with fear in antic.i.p.ation of a ghost story?' he at length said, with a forced jest. 'Courage! narrate it Arwed.'

Arwed was about to obey, when an anxious movement was heard without, and, pale as death, the steward re-entered with a billet in his hand.

'The countess is nowhere to be found,' stammered he. 'Her bed has not been disturbed. She was in the garden late last evening, and sent her chambermaid to bed.'

'What is that?' cried the governor rushing upon the steward. 'What holdest thou there?'

'A billet for your excellency,' answered the latter, 'I found it in the chamber of the countess.'

The governor seized, opened, and read it. As the oak of a thousand years yields to the force of its own weight when the axe has severed its roots, wavers, and finally rushes crackling to the ground; so wavered and fell that n.o.ble old man, whose mental agony was happily relieved by a suspension of consciousness.

Whilst the steward and hastening servants were endeavoring to recall him to life, Arwed raised the paper which had fallen from his trembling hand, and read as follows:

'Alike unworthy to call myself Arwed's wife and your daughter, I have not courage to meet your just anger. I therefore follow the man whose wife I already am in the sight of G.o.d. By the memory of my n.o.ble mother I conjure you curse me not. May you pardon me in another world!'

'Unhappy parent!' sighed Arwed with deep emotion.

Meantime the strong old man, who had partially recovered, raised himself up in his chair, and his first glance fell upon Arwed.

'You have read?' he asked, and as Arwed answered in the affirmative, he stretched out his hand to receive the billet, which Arwed with some hesitation handed to him. Having motioned to his people to withdraw, he again read it through.

'No, I will not curse thee, unhappy girl!' said he coldly, and tearing the note. 'An ungrateful child bears already the curse of heaven in her heart, and where love is dead the flames of anger find no nourishment.

You hope I shall pardon you in another world! It is possible I may, if in that world earthly conceptions of honor disappear, and a woman without virtue is no longer a disgrace to her s.e.x.'

'Will you not make an attempt,' asked Arwed, 'to tear the poor victim from her seducer? Let us seek her! Your arm reaches further than she can have flown in the course of the night.'

'Why should I?' said the governor, with listless anger. 'Should I bring her back, I should be compelled to take the life of the villain, whose wife she already is in the sight of G.o.d, and she would have nothing left on earth. Let them go!'

A deep and awful silence followed. The clattering steps of Arwed's horses, which Knut was leading out, awoke the uncle from his stupefaction.

'Your horses are ready,' said he, rising up. 'Go, and G.o.d be with you!'

'It is hard for me to leave you in this state of mind,' said Arwed.

'Your country calls you,' answered the governor, 'and I may venture to call myself a man. I have given proof of it. I have experienced the worst that can befall me, and sorrow has not killed me.'

'My n.o.ble, my unhappy uncle!' cried Arwed, sinking upon the old man's bosom.

'Fight bravely, Arwed,' said the uncle, 'but risk not your life with foolhardiness. You are my only heir. I know your disposition, that you disregard wealth, but the fact will serve to remind you that here lives an unhappy father of whom you are the last earthly prop.'