Through Night to Light Part 16

"That's right, Xen.o.bia! here you are, back again!" he said. "By the great d.i.c.kens, we could not get on at all without you. Good-by, professor! Thanks for the escort! You must turn back here, or you won't find the way to Fichtenau."

"I'll go a little further with you," replied the man in the blouse.

"All right!" said Mr. Schmenckel; "the further the better. Such a good old brick, like yourself, we do not meet with every day. Is all right in there? Well, go on then!"

The wagon was set in motion. After a few minutes the whole procession--wagon, horses, and men, had been swallowed up by the thick gray fog.

CHAPTER XII.

The town of Grunwald played, in days previous to those to which this story belongs, a far more important part than now. It had been an honored member of the great Hanse League, and rivalled Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck in wealth and power. Its ships sailed on all the northern seas, and the Grunwald flag was well known even in the ports of Genoa and Venice. The citizens were a broad-shouldered, hard-headed race, strong in their love and their hatred, and thorough in all their ways.

They were justly proud of their liberties and their privileges, and trusted implicitly in their secure position, amid the ocean and bottomless swamps, and the high walls and ramparts of the city, but more fully yet in the sword by their side and the brave heart in their bosom. Even in the Thirty Years' War, Grunwald still proved its ancient reputation in fierce battle against the Imperialists, and the recollection of the glorious deeds of their forefathers survives to this day in the hearts of the present inhabitants.

They must unfortunately fall back upon past glory, for modern times have done little for them in this respect. The long and tortuous ca.n.a.ls in the great bay on which the town is situated admit only of small vessels of light draught, and navigation nowadays cannot well get along with such ships; trade has, besides, sought other roads and found other markets, and Grunwald has slowly but steadily sunk from its proud eminence, till it has fallen at last to the level of a small provincial town of no account in the great world, as far as political influence and commercial importance are concerned.

The harbor is filled up now, the ramparts are razed, and the once enormous walls exist only in fragments, and yet there is a melancholy sheen of former greatness about the old Hanse town which attracts the thoughtful traveller, as the mouldy smell of an old parchment charms the book-worm. In spite of all the efforts made by the last generations to give the town a sober, trivial appearance, they have after all not been able to straighten all the crooked narrow streets, and to destroy all the poetry of many an old house, with its narrow, lofty, and richly-adorned gable-end. And above the labyrinth of streets, lanes, and courts, with their half-modern, half-mediaeval character, there tower still the steeples of glorious churches, which are far too grand for the reduced proportions of Grunwald. But at night, when they cast their gigantic shadows far over the town which sleeps beneath them in the pale moonlight, or in the evening as you approach the harbor from the open sea, and gray mists rising from the water spread over the whole a mysterious veil, the illusion is yet strong, and the effect full of grandeur.

Justice requires, however, to add that Grunwald can be called insignificant only in comparison with former days of great power and surpa.s.sing splendor. The town is still of vast importance for the whole province in which it is situated. If her flag no longer waves on every sea, her port is still continually crowded with schooners and sloops, and near her wharves many a larger vessel awaits completion on the stocks. If her walls have been torn to pieces by the artillery of the Imperialists, and her ramparts have been razed by the French, the town is still a fortress, whose commandant would not sleep quietly unless he had received from all the guards and posts the report that all is quiet. If the town has lost her ancient privileges, and no longer enjoys as of old perfect freedom and sovereign independence, she has profited on the other hand largely by becoming an integral part of a great monarchy. Grunwald has not only a numerous garrison of infantry and artillery, but is also the seat of the highest court of the province; and above all, as everybody knows, enjoys a university, although the light shed by this seat of the muses cannot be said to penetrate far into distant lands. Grunwald is, moreover, the favorite residence of the surrounding n.o.bility, which is particularly rich, and enjoys a very great influence on public life. When the magnificent crops upon their vast domains have been safely housed, when the trees in their parks lose their foliage in the autumn winds, and the crows migrate from the bare woods to the towns, then all the counts and barons and smaller n.o.blemen also come to Grunwald. From the great island, which lies right opposite the town, and from the whole surrounding country, they come in their lumbering state carriages, all driven four-in-hand, and settle down with children, servants, tutors, and governesses for the whole winter. They own stately houses all over the town, which in summer are easily known by their utter silence, the closed curtains, and the gra.s.s growing in idyllic happiness between the flags of their court-yards--far different from the ordinary houses inhabited by ordinary people, who have to pay taxes, enjoy no privileges, and are forced to work summer and winter alike.

CHAPTER XIII.

It is autumn. The fields are bare; from the linden-trees in the court-yard at Grenwitz the brown leaves are falling in showers. Thick fogs cover the sea, the high sh.o.r.es of the island with their n.o.ble beech-forests, and the low coast of the continent. The towers of Grunwald rise out of the mist like giants of former days, and around the lofty steeples crows and blackbirds are fluttering, having left the unhospitable forests to move to warm cities.

The sun has set for an hour, and the last blood-red streak, just above the edge of the sea, has turned pale in the shadow of the heavy, low-drifting clouds. The streets of the town have grown silent, and the lamplighter is lighting one after the other the oil lamps, whose dim light is useful only in making the mist still denser and the darkness still darker. He has just done with two unusually large and bright lamps before the entrance-gate to a huge, ma.s.sive building in one of the streets that lead down to the harbor. It was the first time this year--a proof that the great family which has owned this house for many a generation, and which lives on its estates regularly in summer, and quite frequently in the winter also, has moved into town on that very day.

Nevertheless the windows of the mansion which look upon the street are still dark. They are, to be sure, rarely seen lighted up, only on solemn occasions, when the family gives one of those stiff evening parties, to which of course only the n.o.bility and the very highest officials in the government service are ever invited.

Ordinarily these state apartments remain closed, exactly like the lofty halls and grand reception-rooms of the hereditary castle in the country, and the family are content to live in the less gorgeous rooms which look upon the rear. The modest, exceedingly unpretending taste of the mistress of the house prefers the latter, all the more as the front rooms can only be heated at great expense, and the woods of the Grenwitz estate, as far as entailed, are rented out at the ludicrously small sum of ten thousand dollars.

In one of these rooms, which was stately enough, sits the Baroness Grenwitz on a sofa before a round table, on which two wax-candles are burning brightly. She looks as if the last six weeks had added as many years to her age. Her forehead has become narrower and more angular, the dark hair shows here and there a silver thread, her eyes look larger and more fixed and meaning than ever. Her nephew, Felix, is lounging in a most comfortable position opposite her, in a large easy-chair, filled with soft cushions. The young man wears his right arm in a sling, and the sickly pallor of his face contrasts strangely with his hair, as carefully parted and curled as ever, and with the whole toilet, which is as perfect as usual. Between the two stands a table, covered with letters and papers, all of them written in the same handsome handwriting. The baroness and Felix seem just to have finished the perusal of these doc.u.ments, and to be still too busy with the thoughts which have been suggested by them, to be able to speak. They are brooding in silence over the impression produced on each one, while the monotonous tic-tac of the pendulum of the rococo clock on the mantel-piece is the only noise heard in the room.

At last the young man breaks the silence.

"The thing looks more serious than either of us thought," he says, raising himself slightly in his easy-chair, and taking up once more the paper he had been reading last.

"I still do not believe a word of it," replied the baroness.

"That is saying a good deal, _ma tante_! although you have read the whole story in black and white."

"In Timm's handwriting! In Timm's handwriting! what must the scamp have invented and written up!"

"Certainly nothing but what is in the original doc.u.ments."

"And why does he not send us the originals?"

"But, pardon me, _ma tante_, that is rather a nave question. To surrender the originals--that is to say, the weapons which he means to use against us--would be an act of generosity or stupidity such as you cannot possibly expect from my good friend Timm, who is a very sly fox, I a.s.sure you. He evidently does not fear to be unmasked, but only to be deceived or over-reached by us, else he would not have made the offer to submit the original papers in the presence of a third party, an umpire, to our minute examination. No, no, dear aunt; do not give yourself up to idle hopes. These letters and papers are really in existence; you may take poison upon that."

"What do you say?"

"I mean, you may rely on that. I, for my part, am as fully convinced that this Monsieur Stein is related to the family of Grenwitz as of my own existence, and therefore I hate the man, as one is apt to hate such an interloper of a relative, especially if he happens to be a conceited, vain, puffed-up, impertinent, accursed blackguard, like this scamp of a good-for-nothing fellow."

This flood of names, little suitable to the place, would under other circ.u.mstances have infallibly brought down upon the ex-lieutenant a severe reprimand from his highly moral aunt. At this moment, however, the lady was too busy with other things.

"But nothing has as yet been proved," she said, with obstinate vehemence, "as long as the ident.i.ty of that man with the child of that Marie Montbert has not been fully established by the clearest evidence.

I grant the thing is probable--it may be plausible even; nevertheless we cannot afford to throw away hundreds of dollars for mere probabilities or plausibilities."

"Hundreds?" replied Felix, with a contemptuous smile. "You may say thousands! Timm will not let us slip out of his tight grip so cheaply."

"You cannot be in earnest?" said the baroness, raising her eyebrows, Juno-fashion. "That man will surely not carry his impudence so far as that!"

"_Nous verrons!_" replied the dandy, laconically, and fell back into his easy-chair.

There followed a pause in the conversation of the accomplices, which Felix improved to subject his fingernails to a minute examination, while the baroness busied herself in arranging the papers on the table according to their numbers (for they were all methodically numbered).

"The gentleman keeps us waiting," said the baroness.

"He pretends to be indifferent," replied Felix. "I know him from of old. Whenever he pretended to be tired, and to wish to go home, we could be sure that he was determined to break the bank!"

At that moment the servant announced: "Mr. Albert Timm desires to pay his respects."

"Show him in," said the baroness, raising herself upright, with her accustomed dignity; but her voice was not as firm as usual.

"For heaven's sake keep your temper, aunt!" said Felix in great haste, while the servant went to show in Timm. "If the rascal sees that our pulse goes faster, he'll pull the screws tighter, and----"

"I am perfectly calm," replied the baroness, although the unusual flush on her cheeks and the quick breathing announced just the contrary.

Half a minute's intense excitement on the part of the persons in the room and the door opened, admitting Mr. Timm, who walked in rapidly.

His appearance was, aside from a somewhat more carefully chosen costume of fashionable cut, precisely the same which lingered still in Anna Maria's recollection from last summer: the same white brow, the same smoothly-brushed light hair, the same fresh, rosy cheeks, and the same impertinent smile upon the smooth, handsome face. If the baroness looked at her favorite, in spite of his unchanged appearance, with very different eyes now, the fault was evidently her own. Mr. Timm was not disposed to allow the cold reception to have the slightest influence on his own warm greetings.

"Good evening, baroness! Good evening, baron!" said Mr. Timm, in his clear, fresh voice, kissing Anna Maria's right hand, which she granted him most reluctantly, and heartily shaking Felix's left hand (the other was in the sling). "Delighted, baroness, to see you look so remarkably well--so cheerful too; and as for you, baron,--well, I may say, considering the circ.u.mstances, not so bad! Permit me to follow your example----"

And Mr. Timm moved one of the heavy arm-chairs which were standing around the table, sat down, and looked at the two with eyes beaming with insolence and intense delight, as far as one could judge, through his gla.s.ses.

"Mighty comfortable!" he continued, stretching out his legs and patting the arms of the chair with his hands "And the baron stayed at home!

Must be devilish uncomfortable in the big, damp, old box."

"The baron had to attend to some very important business," said the baroness, merely to say something.

"Business!" cried Mr. Timm. "How can anybody trouble himself about business when his business is, like the baron's, not to have any business at all! Incomprehensible!"

"You ought to be able to comprehend that very well, Timm," said Felix, with very perceptible irony; "otherwise I should not be able to guess why you have troubled yourself about a certain business."