The Count of Nideck Part 6

"That is the Wald Horn; this is the Tiefenthal. There you see the cascade of the Steinbach; it has stopped running now, and hangs like an ice cloak over the shoulder of the Harberg,--a cold garment for this season of the year. Down there is the path that leads to Tubingen; a fortnight more and we shall have difficulty in tracing it."

An hour pa.s.sed thus; I could not tear myself away from the scene.

A few birds of prey, with gracefully hollowed wings, were sailing about the tower; a flock of herons flew above them, escaping their claws by reason of their loftier flight. Not a cloud was visible in the sky; all the snow had fallen to earth. The hunting-horn saluted the mountain for the last time.

"That is my friend Sebalt mourning down there," said Sperver. "No one is a better judge of horses and dogs than he, and when it comes to sounding the horn, there is not his equal in all Germany. Just hear how mellow those notes are, Gaston. Poor Sebalt! he is pining away since our master became ill; he cannot hunt as he used to. His only consolation is to climb the Altenberg every morning just at daybreak, and play the Count's favorite airs. He thinks that may cure him."

Sperver, with the tact of a man who himself loves beautiful things, had not interrupted my contemplation; but when, dazzled by the growing light, I turned back into the chamber, he said:

"Gaston, things look more encouraging; the Count has had no return of the convulsions."

These words brought me back to a more practical world.

"Ah, I am glad to hear it."

"And it is your doing, too."

"Mine? I haven't even prescribed anything yet."

"What of that? You are here."

"You're joking, Gideon; what could my mere presence accomplish?"

"You bring him good luck."

I looked at him closely; he was in earnest.

"Yes," he repeated seriously; "you are a bringer of good luck. In past years, our master has had a second attack the day after the first, and then a third, and fourth; but you have prevented this and arrested the course of the malady. That is clear enough."

"Not to my mind, Sperver. On the contrary, I find it exceedingly obscure."

"We are never too old to learn," continued the worthy fellow. "There are forerunners of good fortune and harbingers of ill. Take that rascal Knapwurst, for example; he is a sure sign of bad luck. If ever I happen to run across him as I am going out hunting, I am sure to meet with some accident; my gun misses fire, I sprain my ankle, or a dog gets ripped open. Knowing this, I always take care to set off just at daybreak, before the scamp, who sleeps like a dormouse, has got his eyes open; or else I steal through the postern gate."

"A wise precaution; but your ideas seem odd to me, Gideon."

"But you, on the other hand," he continued without noticing my interruption, "are an open-hearted, honest lad. Heaven has bestowed many blessings upon you; just one glance at your good-natured face, your frank gaze, and your kindly smile, is enough to make any one happy. And you bring good luck; that is certain. Do you want a proof of what I say?"

"Why, certainly. I am not sorry to discover that I possess so many hitherto unknown virtues."

"Well," said he, seizing my wrist, "look down there!"

He pointed to a hillock a couple of gunshots distant from the Castle.

"Do you see that rock half buried in the snow, with a bush to the left of it?"

"Distinctly."

"And you see nothing near it?"

"No."

"Well, that is easily accounted for; you have driven the Black Plague away. Every year, on the second day of the Count's illness, she was to be seen there, with her arms clasped around her skinny knees. At night, she lighted a fire, warmed herself, and cooked the roots of trees. She was a curse to every living thing. The first thing I did this morning was to climb up to the signal-tower and look around me. The old hag was nowhere to be seen. In vain did I shade my eyes with my hand and gaze to right and left, up and down, across the plain and over the mountain,--not a sign of her anywhere. She has scented you, sure enough!"

Wringing my hand in his enthusiasm, the good fellow cried excitedly, "Oh, Gaston, Gaston! How lucky it was that I brought you here! How angry the old hag will be!"

I must confess to a feeling of embarra.s.sment at discovering so much merit in myself, which had hitherto escaped my observation.

"So the Count has pa.s.sed a comfortable night, Sperver?" I continued.

"Very comfortable," he replied.

"That is welcome news. Let's go down-stairs."

We once more crossed the little courtyard, and I was able to obtain a better view of our means of egress, whose ramparts attained to a prodigious height,--continuing along the edge of the rock to the very bottom of the valley. It was a flight of precipices, so to speak, shelving one below another into the dizzy depths beneath. On looking down, I became giddy, and recoiling to the middle of the landing, I hastened down the pa.s.sageway which led to the Castle.

Sperver and I had already traversed several broad corridors, when a wide-open door blocked our pa.s.sage. I glanced in and saw, at the top of a double ladder, the little gnome Knapwurst, whose grotesque physiognomy had struck me the night before. The hall itself attracted my attention by its imposing aspect. It was a storehouse for the archives of Nideck, a high, dark, dusty apartment, with long Gothic windows reaching from the ceiling to within three feet of the floor.

There were to be found, ranged along the broad shelves by the careful abbots of olden times, not only all the doc.u.ments, t.i.tle-deeds, and genealogical trees of the families of Nideck, establishing their rights, alliances, and relations with the most ill.u.s.trious n.o.bles of Germany, but also the chronicles of the Black Forest, the collected remnants of the old Minnesingers, and the great folios from the presses of Gutenberg and Faust, no less venerable on account of their origin and the enduring solidity of their binding. The deep shadows of the alcoves, draping the cold walls with their grayish gloom, reminded you of the ancient cloisters of the Middle Ages; and in the midst of it all sat the dwarf at the top of his ladder, with a huge, red-edged volume lying open on his bony knees, his head buried to the ears in a fur cap; gray-eyed, flat-nosed, the corners of his mouth drawn down by long years of thought, with stooping shoulders and wasted limbs; a fitting _famulus_--the rat, as Sperver called him--to this last refuge of the learning of Nideck.

That which gave to the place a unique interest, however, was the line of family portraits that covered one whole side of the ancient library.

There they were, knights and ladies, from Hugh the Wolf down to Count Hermann, the present owner; from the crude daubs of barbarous days to the perfect work of the best painters of our own time. My attention was naturally centred upon this part of the room. Hugh I., with a bald head, seemed watching you from his frame as a wolf glares at the traveller whom a sudden turn in the forest path discloses to view. His gray, blood-shot eyes, bristling beard, and large, hairy ears, gave him an air of singular ferocity.

Next to him, like the lamb next the savage beast, was a young woman, with a gentle, sad expression, her hands clasped on her breast, her long, silken tresses of fair hair parted over the forehead and falling in thick waves about her face, which they encircled with a golden aureole. I was struck with her resemblance to Odile of Nideck. Nothing could have been more delicate and charming than this old painting on wood, a little stiff in its outline, but charmingly simple and ingenuous.

I had been studying this portrait for some minutes, when another, hanging beside it, drew my attention in its turn. Here, too, was a woman, but of the true Visigothic type, with a broad, low forehead, yellow eyes, and prominent cheek-bones, red hair, and nose like an eagle's beak. "That woman must have been to Hugh's liking," I said to myself, and I began to study the costume, which was in perfect keeping with the energy expressed in the face, for the right hand clasped a sword, and the waist was encircled in a steel corselet.

I know not how to describe the thoughts that succeeded one another in my mind as I gazed upon these three faces. My eye roamed from one to another with singular curiosity, and I found it impossible to terminate my study. Sperver, standing on the threshold of the library, gave a sharp whistle, seemingly to attract Knapwurst's attention, who looked down at him from the top of his ladder without stirring.

"Is it me you are whistling to like a dog?" said the dwarf.

"Aye, you imp! None else."

"Listen to me, Sperver," replied the gnome with supreme disdain; "you cannot spit so high as my shoe; I defy you!" and he stuck out his foot.

"And if I should come up there?"

"I would squash you flat with this volume."

Gideon laughed, and replied:

"Come, come, Knapwurst! Don't get angry! I don't wish you any harm; on the contrary I have the greatest respect for your learning; but what the devil are you doing at this hour, seated over your lamp? Any one would think you had spent the night here."

"So I have, reading!"

"Aren't the days long enough for you?"

"No! I am looking up an important question, and I shan't sleep till I have settled it."