The Lost Manuscript Part 16

"That I have never done," replied Laura.

"Do not deny it," cried out Mrs. Hahn.

"I never speak an untruth," said the girl proudly.

"My husband's name is Andreas Hahn, and what you call this beast is heard by the whole neighborhood."

Laura's pride was roused. "This is a misunderstanding, and the dog is not so called. What you say is unjust."

"How is it unjust?" returned Mrs. Hahn. "In the morning the father, and in the afternoon the daughter call him so."

A heavy weight fell on Laura's heart; she felt herself dragged down into an abyss of injustice and injury. Her father's conduct paralyzed her energies, and tears burst from her eyes.

"I see that you at least feel the wrong you are committing," continued Mrs. Hahn, more calmly. "Do not do it again. Believe me, it is easy to pain others, but it is a sorry business, and my poor husband and I have not deserved it from you. We have seen you grow up before our eyes; and even though we have had no intercourse with your parents, we have always been pleased with you, and no-one in our house has ever wished you ill. You do not know what a good man Mr. Hahn is, but still you ought not to have behaved so. Since we have dwelt here we have experienced many vexations from this house; but that you should share your father's views pains me most."

Laura endeavored in vain to dry her tears. "I repeat to you that you do me injustice; more I cannot say in self-justification, nor will I. You have grieved me more than you know, and I am satisfied that I have a clear conscience."

With these words she hastened into the house, and Mrs. Hahn returned home, uncertain as to the result of her visit.

Laura paced up and down her little room wringing her hands. Innocent and yet guilty in spite of her good will, wounded to the quick, dragged into a family feud, the unhappy results of which could not be foreseen, she reviewed the events of the past day in her excited mind. At last she seated herself at her little writing-table, took out her journal, and confided her sorrows to this silent friend bound in violet leather.

She sought comfort from the souls of others who had borne up n.o.bly under similar griefs, and at last found the confirmation of her experience in the expressive well-known pa.s.sage of Goethe's Faust:

"Reason doth folly, good doth evil grow; The child must reap the mischief that the fathers sow."

Had she not wished to do what was reasonable and kind, and had not folly and evil arisen from it? And had not misfortune befallen her without her fault merely because she was a child of the house? With this sentence she closed a pa.s.sionate effusion. But in order not to appear to her conscience devoid of affection, the poor child wrote immediately underneath these words: "My dear, good father." Then she closed the book, feeling more comforted.

But the severest humiliation to her was the feeling that she should be judged unjustly by the people over the way; and she folded her arms and thought how she could justify herself. She, indeed, could do nothing; but there was a worthy man who was the confidant of every one in the house, who had cured her canary bird when ill, and removed a stain from the nose of her little bust of Schiller. She resolved, therefore, to tell only the faithful Gabriel what Mrs. Hahn had said, and not a word to her mother unless obliged to do so.

It happened that toward evening Gabriel and Dorchen entered into conversation in the street. Dorchen began to make bitter complaints of the spitefulness of the Hummels, but Gabriel earnestly advised her not to allow herself to be dragged into these disputes. Said he, "there must be some who take a neutral stand. Be an angel, Dorchen, and bring peace and good will into the house; for the daughter is innocent."

Whereupon the history of giving the name was spoken of, and Laura honorably acquitted.

Then, when Gabriel, a little later, incidentally remarked to Laura: "This matter is settled; and Mr. Hahn has said that it had at once appeared to him improbable that you should be so ill-disposed toward him,"--a heavy weight fell from her heart, and again her soft song sounded through the house. And yet she did not feel satisfied, for the annoyance to the neighboring house caused by her father's anger still continued. Alas! she could not restrain that violent spirit, but she must endeavor secretly to atone for his injustice. She pondered over this while undressing late at night; but when in bed, after entertaining and rejecting many projects, the right idea suddenly struck her; she jumped up at once, lighted her candle, and ran in her night-dress to the writing-table. There she emptied her purse, and counted over the new dollars that her father had given her at Christmas and on her birthday. These dollars she determined to spend in a secret method of reparation. Highly pleased, she took the precious purse to bed with her, laid it under her pillow, and slept peacefully upon it, although the spectral dogs raged round the house in their wild career, horribly and incessantly.

The following morning Laura wrote in large, stiff characters, on an empty envelope, Mr. Hahn's name and address, and affixed a seal on which was the impression of a violet with the inscription, "I conceal myself," and put it in her pocket. On her way to town to make some purchases she stopped at a hot-house, the proprietor of which was unknown to her. There she bought a bushy plant of dwarf orange, full of flowers and golden fruit--a splendid specimen of the greenhouse; with a beating heart, she drove in a closed cab, till she found a porter, to whom she gave an extraordinary gratuity, and bade him leave the plant and envelope at Mr. Hahn's house without word or greeting of any kind.

The man performed the commission faithfully. Dorchen discovered the plant in the hall, and it caused an agreeable excitement in the Hahn family--fruitless imaginations, repeated inspection, and vain conjectures. When at noon Laura peeped through the arbor into the garden, she had the pleasure of seeing the orange plant occupying a prominent place in front of the white Muse. Beautifully did the white and gold of the shrub glitter across the street. Laura stood long behind the branches, unconsciously folding her hands. Her soul was unburdened of the injustice, and she turned from the hostile house with a feeling of proud satisfaction.

Meanwhile there was a complaint issued and a suit was pending between the two houses, which was seriously increased on that very day by the adoption of the dogs' names "Fighthahn" and "Spitehahn."

Thus the peace in house and neighborhood was still disturbed. At first the pealing of bells had excited public opinion against Mr. Hahn, but this was entirely altered by the introduction of the dogs: the whole street went over to the man of _straw_; the man of _felt_ had all the world against him. But Mr. Hummel cared little for this. In the evening he sat in the garden on the upturned boat, looking proudly at the neighboring house, while Fighthahn and the other dog sat at his feet blinking at the moon, who in her usual way looked down maliciously on Mr. Hummel, Mr. Hahn, and all the rest of the world.

It happened on the following night that amidst the barking of the dogs and the light of the moon all the bells were torn down from the temple of Mr. Hahn and stolen.

_CHAPTER VIII_.

TACITUS AGAIN.

There is a common saying that all lost things lie under the claws of the Evil One. Whoever searches for a thing must cry: "Devil, take thy paws away." Then it suddenly appears before the eyes of men. It was so easy to find. They have gone round it a hundred times. They have looked above and below, and have sought it in the most improbable places, and never thought of that which was nearest them. Undoubtedly it was so with the ma.n.u.script; it lay under the clutches of the Evil One or of some hobgoblin, quite close to our friends. If they were to stretch out their hands they might lay hold of it. The acquisition was only hindered by one consideration, by the single question, Where? Whether this delay would involve more or less suffering for both the scholars was still doubtful. Nevertheless, they might overcome even this uncertainty; the main point was, that the ma.n.u.script really existed and lay somewhere. In short, matters went on the whole as well as possible.

The only thing missing was the ma.n.u.script.

"I see," said the Doctor one day to his friend, "that you are strenuously exerting yourself to educate and fashion the ideas of the older people of the household. I put my hopes in the souls of the younger generation. Hans, the eldest, is very far from sharing the views of the father and sister; he shows an interest in the old treasure, and if we ourselves should not succeed in making the discovery, at some future period he will not spare the old walls."

In conjunction with Hans, the Doctor secretly resumed his investigations. In quiet hours, when the Proprietor was unsuspectingly riding about his farm, and the Professor working in his room or sitting in the honeysuckle arbor, the Doctor went prying about the house. In the smock-frock of a laborer, which Hans had brought to his room, he searched the dusty corners of the house high and low. More than once he frightened the female servants of the household by suddenly emerging from behind some old bin in the cellar, or by appearing astride on one of the rafters of the roof. In the dairy a hole had been dug for the forming of an ice-pit; one day when the laborers had gone away at noon, Mademoiselle, the housekeeper, pa.s.sed close to the uncovered pit, suspecting nothing. Suddenly, she beheld a head without a body, with fiery eyes and bristly hair, which slowly groped along the ground and which turned its face to her with a derisive, fiendish laugh. She uttered a shrill cry and rushed into the kitchen, where she sank fainting on a stool and was only revived by the copious sprinkling of water and encouraging words. At dinner she was so much troubled that every one was struck by her uneasiness. But at last it appeared that the fiendish head was to be found on the shoulders of her neighbor, the Doctor, who had secretly descended into the hole to examine the masonry.

It was on this occasion that the Doctor discovered, with some degree of malicious pleasure, that the hospitable roof which protected him and the ma.n.u.script from the blast and storm stood over an acknowledged haunted house. There were strange creakings in the old building.

Spirits were frequently seen, and the accounts only differed as to whether there was a man in a gray cowl, a child in a white shirt, or a cat as large as an a.s.s. Every one knew that there was in all parts a knocking, rattling, thundering, and invisible throwing of stones.

Sometimes all the authority of the Proprietor and his daughter was necessary to prevent the outbreak of a panic among the servants. Even our friends, in the quiet of the hight, heard unaccountable sounds, groans, thundering noises, and startling knocks on the wall. These annoyances of the house the Doctor explained to the satisfaction of the Proprietor by his theory of the old walls. He made it clear that many generations of weasels, rats, and mice had bored through the solid walls and tunnelled out a system of covered pa.s.sages and strongholds.

Consequently, every social amus.e.m.e.nt and every domestic disturbance which took place among the inmates of the wall was plainly perceptible.

But the Doctor listened with secret vexation to the m.u.f.fled noises of the denizens of the wall. For if they rushed and bustled thus indiscriminately around the ma.n.u.script, they threatened to render difficult the future investigations of science. Whenever he heard a violent gnawing he could not help thinking they were again eating away a line of the ma.n.u.script, which would make a mult.i.tude of conjectures necessary; and it was not by gnawing alone that this colony of mice would disfigure the ma.n.u.script that lay underneath them.

But the Doctor was compensated by other discoveries for the great patience which was thus demanded of him. He did not confine his activity to the house and adjoining buildings. He searched the neighborhood for old popular traditions which here and there lingered in the spinning-room and worked in the shaky heads of old beldames.

Through the wife of one of the farm-laborers, he secretly made the acquaintance of an old crone well versed in legendary lore in the neighboring village. After the old woman had recovered from her first alarm at the t.i.tle of the Doctor and the fear that he had come to take her to task for incompetent medical practice, she sang to him, with trembling voice, the love songs of her youth, and related to him more than her hearer could note down. Every evening the Doctor brought home sheets of paper full of writing and soon found in his collection all the well-known characters of our popular legends--wild hunters, wrinkled hags, three white maidens, many monks, some shadowy water pixies, sprites who appeared in stories as artisan lads, but undeniably sprang from a merman; and finally many tiny dwarfs. Sometimes Hans accompanied him on these excursions to the country people, in order to prevent these visits from becoming known to the father and daughter.

Now, it was not impossible that here and there a cave or an old well was supplied with spirits without any foundation; for, when the wise women of the village observed how much the Doctor rejoiced in such communications, the old inventive power of the people awoke from a long slumber. But, on the whole, both parties treated each other with truth and firmness, and, besides, the Doctor was not a man who could easily be deceived.

Once when he was returning to the Manor from one of these visits he met the laborer's wife on a lonely foot-path. She looked cautiously about and at last declared that she had something to impart to him if he would not betray her to the Proprietor. The Doctor promised inviolable secrecy. Upon this the woman stated, that in the cellar of the manor-house, on the eastern side, in the right hand corner, there was a stone, marked with three crosses; behind that lay the treasure. She had heard this from her grandfather, who had it from his father, who had been a servant at the Manor; and at that time the then Crown Inspector had wished to raise the treasure, but when they went in the cellar for that purpose, there had been such a fearful crash and such a noise that they ran away in terror. But that the treasure was there was certain, for she had herself touched the stone, and the signs were distinctly engraved on it. The cellar was now used for wine, and the stone was hidden by a wooden trestle.

The Doctor received this communication with composure, but determined to set about investigating by himself. He did not say a word either to the Professor or to his friend Hans, but watched for an opportunity.

His informant sometimes herself carried the wine which was always placed before the guests, to the cellar and back. The next morning he followed her boldly; the woman did not say a word as he entered the cellar behind her, but pointed fearfully to a corner in the wall. The Doctor seized the lamp, shoved half a dozen flasks from their places and groped about for the stone; it was a large hewn stone with three crosses. He looked significantly at the woman--she afterwards related in the strictest confidence that the gla.s.ses before his eyes shone at this moment so fearfully in the light of the lamp, that she had become quite terrified--then he went silently up again, determined to take advantage of this discovery on the first opportunity in dealing with the Proprietor.

But a still greater surprise awaited the Doctor; his quiet labor was supported by the good deceased Brother Tobias himself. The friends descended one day to Rossau, accompanied by the Proprietor, who had business in the town. He conducted his guests to the Burgomaster, whom he requested to lay before the gentlemen, as trustworthy men, whatever old writings were in the possession of the authorities. The Burgomaster, who was a respectable tanner, put on his coat and took the learned men to the old monastery. There was not much to be seen; only the outer walls of the old building remained; the minor officials of the crown dwelt in the new parts. Concerning the archives of the council the Burgomaster suggested as probable that there would not be much found in them; in this matter he recommended the gentlemen to the town-clerk, and went himself to the club in order, after his onerous duties, to enjoy a quiet little game of cards.

The town-clerk bowed respectfully to his literary colleagues, laid hold of a rusty bunch of keys, and opened the small vault of the city hall, where the ancient records, covered with thick dust, awaited the time in which their quiet life was to be ended under the stamping machine of a paper mill. The town-clerk had some knowledge of the papers; he understood fully the importance of the communication which was expected from him, but a.s.sured them with perfect truth that, owing to two fires in the town and the disorders of former times, every old history had been lost. There were also no records to be found in any private house; only in the printed chronicles of a neighboring town some notices were preserved concerning the fate of Rossau in the Thirty Years' War. After the war, the place had been left a heap of ruins and almost uninhabited. Since that time the town had lived along without a history, and the town-clerk a.s.sured them that nothing was known here of the olden time, and no one cared about it. Perhaps something about the town might be learnt at the Capital.

Our friends continued to walk unweariedly from one intelligent man to another, making inquiries, as in the fairy tale, after the bird with the golden feather. Two little gnomes had known nothing, but now there remained a third--so they went to the Roman Catholic priest. A little old gentleman received them with profound bows. The Professor explained to him, that he was seeking information concerning the ultimate fate of the monastery--above all, what had happened in his closing years to the last monk, the venerable Tobias Bachhuber.

"In those days no register of deaths was required," replied the ecclesiastic. "Therefore, my dear sirs, I cannot promise to give you any information. Yet, if it is only a question of yourselves, and you do not wish to extract anything from the old writings disadvantageous to the Church, I am willing to show you the oldest of the existing books." He went into a room and brought out a long thin book, the edges of which had been injured by the mould of the damp room. "Here are some notices of my predecessors who rest with the Lord; perhaps they may be useful to the gentlemen. More I cannot do, because there is nothing else of the kind existing."

On the introductory page there was a register of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the place in Latin. One of the first notices was: "In the year of our Lord 1637, and in the month of May, our venerated brother Tobias Bachhuber, the last monk of this monastery, died of the plague. The Lord be merciful to him."

The Professor showed the pa.s.sage silently to his friend the Doctor, who wrote down the Latin words; they then returned the book with thanks and took their leave.

"The ma.n.u.script after all lies in the house," said the Professor, as they went along the street. The Doctor thought of the three crosses and laughed quietly to himself; he had in no way a.s.sented to the tactics which his friend thought fit to adopt for the discovery of the ma.n.u.script. When the Professor maintained that their only hope rested on the sympathy which they might by degrees awaken in their host, the Doctor entertained the suspicion that his friend was brought to this slow way of carrying on the war not by pure zeal for the ma.n.u.script.

The Proprietor, however, maintained an obstinate silence regarding the ma.n.u.script. If the Doctor threw out any hint upon the subject, the host made a wry grimace and immediately changed the conversation. It was necessary to put an end to this. The Doctor now determined to insist upon a decision before his departure. When, therefore, they were sitting together in the garden in the evening, and the Proprietor was looking cheerfully and calmly on his fruit trees, the Doctor began the attack:

"I cannot leave this place, my hospitable friend, without reminding you of our contract."

"Of what contract?" inquired their host, like one who did not remember it.

"Regarding the ma.n.u.script," continued the Doctor, with emphasis, "which lies concealed in this place."

"Indeed! why you yourself said that every place sounds hollow. So we would have to tear down the house from roof to cellar. I should think we might wait till next spring. When you come to us again; for we should be obliged, under these circ.u.mstances, to live in the barns, which now are full."

"The house may, for the present, remain standing," said the Doctor; "but if you still think that the monks took away their monastic property, there is one circ.u.mstance which goes against your view. We have discovered at Rossau that the worthy friar, who had concealed the things here in April, died of the pestilence as early as May, according to the church register; here is a 'copy of the entry.'"