The Undying Past Part 18

He wanted every one to rejoice with him, and to be as thankful to the Almighty as he was. His mother felt a soft pressure on her arm. She was walking beside him in her black satin dress and silver embroidered lace shawl, full of a pride and joy too great for words.

Now she looked up at him and inquired gently, "What is it, my son?"

He bent down to her and kissed her through her veil on both cheeks.

Silently she choked back her tears. Almost at the same moment the two young girls in front yielded to the same impulse and gave each other a kiss, looking round afterwards as if it were a crime.

"See," Leo whispered in his mother's ear. "They imitate their elders."

"There is so much love in the world that doesn't know what to do to find an outlet," said she.

"Now, mummy," he laughed. "You speak as if you wore trousers."

"Why, dear boy?"

"Because that remark is almost too apt to come from any one in petticoats."

Grandmamma thought this an abominable insinuation, and pa.s.sing on to speak of Hertha, she expressed her fear that the way in which he treated her was not the right one, that it had evidently damped her, and might alienate her from him altogether.

He was going to make some reply, but at that moment they came within the sacred boundary which surrounded the small unpretending village churchyard, where, under the shadow of the primeval limes, the Sellenthins for centuries had found their last resting-place. A row of ivy-covered mounds, each enclosed in its simple iron railings, ran along under the whitewashed church wall, only divided from it by a narrow gravel path. There was a soft rustling in the boughs of the limes, and the deep tones of the organ, subdued and indistinct, coming through the high round window, fell on Leo's ear.

Involuntarily he stood still and folded his hands.

His mother, who divined his feelings, withdrew her hand quietly from his arm, and fell back a few steps. The girls, who had hurried on, were now out of sight.

He felt his heart swell like a flood within him.

Since he was four years old he had trodden this path. Within the whitewashed fence, at the gate of which the village swains gathered, and where, as of old, the bread-woman with her basket of loaves, and the old soldier with the wooden-leg and forage-cap, crouched on the cobble-stones, he had been used to shake off the week-day dust and cobwebs that clogged his soul. The high spirits and troubles of the schoolboy; the youth's defiance, and war of the senses; the grown man's household cares and imperiousness; aye, and that wild sweet mysterious something which now was done with for ever,--all these had been left behind him as he entered the churchyard gates. The graves of his ancestors had ever sent a pure, soothing thrill through his being, so that he had come into G.o.d's House as one absolved and purified. And yet the feeling of holy reverence which awoke in him now was not comparable with anything that had ever before appealed to his careless heart with exhortation and blessing. He asked himself, in astonishment, how he could all these years have borne so carelessly the terrible dead weight on his mind, without doing violence to the world or going mad. Only now, when the burden had dropped off, did he know what he had been dragging about with him, and a sense of unutterable blissful relief took possession of him at the thought that he might in future hold up his head as a free man.

He caught his mother's hand in his. She had been busying herself with removing weeds from the foot of the railings, but now came and stood beside him before the last grave in the row, the grave of Leo's father.

Leo Eberhard von Sellenthin.

"Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high."

Such was the inscription which, according to the desire of the deceased, was carved on the rugged marble tombstone. He had been a powerful man, irresistible when amiable, terrible in wrath. He had maintained a whole troop of mistresses, and had allowed two magnificent estates, Ellerthal and Rothwitz, to pa.s.s into a stranger's hands, to save, as he said, the honour of his house. Old Kletzingk, Ulrich's father, and Count Prachwitz, Johanna's husband, had been his cronies.

It was current gossip amongst the country folk that in an hour of dissipation he had gambled away his young and blooming eldest daughter to the count, a daring steeple-chase rider, and a man given up to betting and horse-racing. Before he reached his seventieth year he had been laid in his grave, and his neglected wife, to whose share there had fallen from time to time only a few crumbs of love from the table of others, sighed and mourned for him still, and held his memory sacred.

Mother and son breathed a quiet prayer, and took stolen glances at each other the while. She would fain gather from his face whether he had forgiven his father for the sale of the land; he from hers whether she still cherished love and regret in her heart for the dead. And then they both smiled.

"I thank you so much," she said softly, caressing his arm. "I should still have loved him, even if he had left us naked to beg by the roadside."

"But why do you thank me?" he asked.

"Because I can read in your face that you no longer reproach him."

"Would it be fitting for me to reproach him," he answered, "when I began where he left off? But never mind, mummy, all is going to look up now. I have got such a nice motto of my own. It will help me a lot, even to contend with the devil himself! But I would rather keep it to myself, and not tell you what it is, for if you knew how much hangs on it, you would be sure to cry out and wring your hands. Five or even ten years hence we will talk of this again, and then I shall be able to tell you if it has answered."

They turned and walked to the vestry, where the two girls were waiting for them.

The squire's family enjoyed the privilege of entering the church by the vestry door. The first two rows of pews, which were cushioned and divided from the rest by a carved oak screen, were reserved for their use. The pastor must already have gone into the chancel, for the vestry was empty. Leo had wanted to greet him before service, and he was a little put out now that he had not first paid him a visit in his own house.

"Is Johanna there?" he asked Elly, who was peeping at the congregation through a crack in the door.

She started as if she had been caught committing a theft, for she had just at that moment seen the Herr Kandidat, who was by this time seated in the parsonage pew.

"What's the matter?" asked Leo.

Whereupon Hertha threw her arm round her waist protectingly, and gave him a hostile look.

"Allons," he said, smiling, and then set his face, for he knew that as he came into the church the gaze of all his tenants would be fastened upon him.

The first thing he saw was Johanna's dark eyes with a peculiar light in them. She fixed them on him unflinchingly. He gave her a careless, indifferent nod, but took care that the girls as well as his mother should fill the places in the pew between him and his eldest sister. He had no wish to be disturbed in his worship by the near proximity of the gloomy, inscrutable face.

The pastor had mounted the pulpit and thrown himself on his knees, with his head resting against the edge of the pulpit cushion. His face remained buried in his arms, and only the well-oiled dome of his skull flashed down on the congregation. Leo gave him a scrutinizing upward glance, and murmured to himself, with a sly smile, "He's feeling sick, I'll bet."

Just above the worthy man's crown a wisp of hair stood on end, and, like a reed in the wind, flopped hither and thither. Leo's father used to gauge the sabbatical alcoholic condition of the stout minister by this unmistakable sign. The knowledge had early descended from father to son, and when his old tutor was in a good humour Leo had many a time teased him about it.

"Wonder how he'll come through the ordeal," thought he. For of course the old fellow would have to refer to the home-coming of his high-born patron and send up a prayer of thanksgiving to Heaven. He leaned back comfortably in his seat, twirled his thumbs, and felt prepared to sit through cheerfully the service of praise which seemed especially ordained to glorify himself. The sunbeams danced everywhere, casting little shafts of red, green, and yellow light on the steps of the altar, the desks of the choir, and the tiles of the floor, illuminating the grey faces of the old, and making the bright colouring of the young more radiant. They climbed up the leaden organ-pipes and sat laughing on the brown-paper hymn-books. The branches of the limes swayed gently against the stained-gla.s.s windows, as if they too wished to greet the returned squire; and when the leaves swept the window-panes there was a rustling and murmuring, like children whispering to each other before falling asleep. A peaceful dreamy atmosphere of home reigned in the quiet little church.

Pastor Brenckenberg lifted his head. From his bloated countenance his eyes, full of gloom and bull-dog obstinacy, surveyed the congregation.

They pa.s.sed from one to the other as if they would have liked to devour one after the other. When they reached Leo they remained riveted.

"What have you taken into your old pate to-day?" the latter said to himself, and acknowledged the tyrant with a friendly wink; but it was not returned with any sign of recognition.

The prayers came to an end. The epistle followed uneventfully. But in the big man's voice there was a growling undertone which reminded Leo of his worst boyish sc.r.a.pes in the days when that great red puffy hand wielded the birch over him.

"Beloved in the Lord," the pastor began his discourse, making his ten finger-tips meet as he spoke, "last night I had a curious and terrifying dream...."

"Yes, yes, I dare say," thought Leo. "Why drink so much beer on Sat.u.r.day night, old boy?"

"I dreamt that I was Nathan, that prophet of the Old Testament who walked the earth in the days of the G.o.dly King David, and to whom it was granted to see the greatest glory of the people of Israel. Well, I was this prophet." He made a pause, and blew his nose. When he had straightened himself again, his eyes rolled so threateningly in their red sockets that Elly, who sat next to Leo, involuntarily edged nearer him. "There appeared to me the Lord, the Lord of Sabaoth, at the mention of whose very name we all shudder. He it was, and no other. His beard was of flames, His eyes were burning suns, a mantle of fire hung from his shoulders and nearly covered the whole horizon with its folds.

I fell on my knees and trembled. Have any of you ever seen me tremble?

Not one of you ... but, beloved brethren, at the sight of the Lord I trembled, for that was no small thing. One of you arch-sinners in Wengern, who idle all day under the hay-ricks and play the fool all night in the taverns, would simply be blown to the four winds of heaven if the Lord deigned to reveal Himself to any such beggarly hound."

"A good beginning," thought Leo, who knew this little joke of old; and he chuckled to himself, well-pleased; but the glances which the old man again cast on him seemed to promise him nothing pleasant.

"And the Lord spoke to me. His voice was like the roar of the sea when a storm is raging. He spake, 'Nathan, get thee gone to David thy king and My servant. He has done evil in My sight, and his deed stinks before heaven!' 'What has he done, dear G.o.d?' I asked. 'What has he done? Shame on you, you short-sighted priest, if your eyes have not seen. He has seduced Uriah's wife, and Uriah the Hitt.i.te he hath suffered to be put to death at the hands of his captain, Joab, before the gates of Thebez, so that she should tarry with him and live as his wedded wife.' 'Verily, dear G.o.d,' said I, 'that is an ugly story. But Thou knowest how here on earth every deadly sin is permitted to the great--robbery, murder, adultery, bearing false witness, and other crimes; but the poor and humble, the peasants, and in particular the peasants' sons, may not commit the smallest sin--not even play with their tobacco-pouches in church'--of which those sitting on the back benches may make a note."

A solemn silence followed; only from the bottom of the church came a rustling sound like some one hurriedly putting things away.

Leo's smile died. He let his folded hands drop from the white waistcoat and fidgeted uneasily.

The old man went on: "'And what is more, dear G.o.d,' said I to the Lord, 'how easily I might come to lose my office of prophet and have to go begging in the streets, for the kings of this world do not like to be told the truth.' But the Lord spake, 'Fear not, what thou doest is done in My name.' Therewith He disappeared. But I girded up my loins and set forth to journey to the palace of the king. There I expected to find King David weeping in sackcloth and ashes, such as he has described in the beautiful psalm of repentance, which of course you all would know, if you did not prefer spending Sunday afternoon shooting at the bull's-eye, instead of staying at home piously reading your Bibles....

But what do you think met my eyes? The king was seated at meat in splendid raiment, laughing and jocund, a bottle of sweet wine before him, and beside him on the right hand was his beloved Bathsheba--for that was the woman's name. He had grown stout, and he raised his gla.s.s to drink to me. Therewith he called out to me, 'Well, you priestling, what's brought you to me once more?' For like all the great ones of the earthy he delighted to mock at the servants of the Lord, although they can't do without them, if they want all their people to obey them, even such sc.u.m as have gone to sleep again to-day in this church. But I knew no fear, for the spirit of the Lord was within me. And I rent my garments and cried, 'Woe, woe, unto thee, my king, what hast thou done?'"