Villa Eden Part 55

She had never repented leaving her own cla.s.s to marry her husband, she had been too happy for that; but she saw in Eric's position something like a grievous consequence of her own act. Moved by these thoughts, which she never expressed, she said,--

"I can easily understand how you feel drawn to this American; there is the greatest honor in being a self-made man. Let us unite the two plans then. You can bring it about, since the boy is in your hands, that the American shall entrust him to you, and you can at the same time maintain an independent position."

Eric replied that his objection to the situation did not consist simply in his receiving it as a favor; the task of conducting foreign visitors of princely rank through the art-collections was distasteful to him; he did not think that he could conform himself to it.

Suddenly his mother remembered that a letter had come for him, and she gave it to him. It was from Clodwig. The n.o.ble man placed at Eric's disposal twice the sum that he had asked for. Eric was made happy by this news, and his mother nodded with hearty a.s.sent when he said that the gift rejoiced him, but still more did the a.s.surance that his confidence in men had met with so glorious a confirmation.

Midnight was past, and mother and son still sat together. Eric begged his mother to go to bed and leave him to wait for Sonnenkamp's reply.

He sat long alone in the night, thinking over all which had pa.s.sed, till sleep overcame him.

In the spirits of men, as well as in the history of nations, thoughts and sentiments are formed which are to be brought into action from their own free will, when suddenly there comes an over-mastering fact, which converts the free choice into an inevitable necessity. Thus Eric's entrance into Sonnenkamp's household seemed to have been made an unavoidable necessity by Roland's rash step.

Eric went again, with scarcely audible steps, into the boy's room. So wholly was his spirit turned toward him that the sleeping child moaned, "Eric," but soon, turning over, slept soundly again.

Eric went back to the sitting-room, and then it first occurred to him that there was no night-watch at the telegraph office in Sonnenkamp's neighborhood; the father could not receive the news till morning. Eric also now went to bed.

Everything was late in the house of the professor's wife the next morning; Eric slept longest. When he entered the sitting-room, he found Roland already with his mother, holding a small wooden coffee-mill in his left hand and turning it with his right. This mill was an heir-loom which had belonged to Eric's grandfather, who had been a distinguished anatomist at the university. The mother had already told Roland this, and had shown him all sorts of ancient household furniture, also relics of the times of the Huguenots.

"Ah, how pleasant it is here with you!" cried Roland to Eric, as he entered.

Something of long-established family existence opened upon the young spirit, and, at this morning hour, with the friendly eyes of three people resting upon him, Roland felt very content in the simple, old-fashioned, domestic life.

CHAPTER XV.

AN EXTRA TRAIN.

"I've been through a great deal, but that I should ever be obliged to go through this! If we can only come out of this with a whole skin!

This may be called a wanton exposure of one's life--and one has no weapons of defence."

Such were the Major's words, stammered out at intervals, as he held on to a ta.s.sel of a first-cla.s.s railway car, and looked sorrowfully at the dog Laadi lying at his feet, while he was travelling with Herr Sonnenkamp in an extra train. Herr Sonnenkamp appeared to feel a joy in this mad speed.

"In America," he said, "they go three times as fast in an extra train."

He seemed to experience a secret satisfaction in showing the Major that there was a courage wholly different from that of the battle-field, which he possessed and the Major did not. He had accounts to tell of trips made in America on wagers. And when they stopped to take in water, Sonnenkamp took leave of the Major, saying that he was going to ride on the locomotive, for he must try once more how that seemed.

The Major sat with Laadi alone in the only car attached to the locomotive; he stared fixedly out of the window, where trees, mountains, and villages flew by like a whirlwind, and he thanked G.o.d that Fraulein Milch knew nothing of his consenting to make such a mad trip with Herr Sonnenkamp on an extra train.

And why is this man in such a hurry? The Major does not understand it.

Sometimes he was stingy about a kreuzer, and so very modest that he wished to make no show and to excite no observation, and then again he was very lavish with his money, and did every thing to attract people's attention. The Major did not understand the man. He must certainly have been a locomotive-driver; and what is there that he may not have been!

"Yes, Laadi," exclaimed he, speaking to the dog, "come, lie down by me.

Yes, Laadi; neither of us could ever dream of going through this! If we only once do get through it! Yes, Laadi, she will mourn for you too if we are killed."

The dog growled away to himself; he must have been full of wrath also at the fool-hardy Sonnenkamp.

Madder and madder was the speed: down they went over descending grades near the river, and the Major expected every instant that the locomotive would run off the track, and the pa.s.senger-car be dashed in pieces and tumbled into the stream. Yes, there came over him such a settled fear, or rather expectation, of immediate death, that he braced his feet against the back of the seat, and thought to himself,--

"Well, death, come! G.o.d be praised, I have never harmed anybody in the world, and Fraulein Milch has been cared for, so that she will never suffer need."

Tears wet his closed eyes, and he made a strange face in order to stifle his tears; he was unwilling to die, and then, too, when there was no need of it. He opened his eyes with rage, and doubled up his fists; this extra train is wholly unnecessary; Roland was known to be in good hands. But this man is such a savage!

The Major was very angry with Sonnenkamp, and yet more with himself, for being drawn into any such mad freak. All his heroic mood was gone, he was wholly unreconciled to the position, he had been duped, this was not fit for him. Fraulein Milch is right; he is weak, he cannot say no.

Whenever he looked out he became dizzy. He found a lucky expedient; he placed himself so as to ride backwards. There one sees only what has been gone over, and not what is coming. But neither does this do any good; it is even more terrible than before, for one sees now the bold, short curves which the road makes, and the cars incline on one side as if to plunge over. And now tears actually flow out of the Major's eyes.

He thought of the funeral service which the lodge, would perform for him after he was dead; he heard the organ-peal, and the dirges, saying to himself,--

"You eulogize me more than I deserve, but I have been a good brother.

The Builder of all the worlds is my witness that I meant to be."

The car rolled on at a more measured speed, and the Major consoled himself with the thought that no accident had ever yet happened on this road. But no, he went on thinking, perhaps one would be safer on a road where some accident has already happened; the people here are too careless, and thou must be the first victim. Which would Fraulein Milch consider the more dangerous, a road which had already experienced mishaps, or one like this, that has now to meet with them for the first time? I must take care to put the question to her. Don't forget it, Laadi, we must ask her. He had now overcome all fear, and he became so free and cheerful that he ridiculed his own apprehensions, thinking that the millionaire on the locomotive had a much greater stake involved, putting his life in peril, and that he would not do it if there were any real danger.

The dog must have scented out the peril of the rapid journey, for she was in a continual tremble, and looked up appealingly to her master.

"Thou art a lady, and thou art afraid," said the Major, addressing her.

"Take courage! Thou art not so faint-hearted. Come! so--so--get up into my lap. Clean enough, clean enough," he said, smilingly, as the dog licked his hand.

And from the midst of his anguish, the Major was already pleasing himself with the thought, how, in a few days, in the quiet arbor in his garden, he will tell Fraulein Milch of the imminent peril. He caressed Laadi, and rehea.r.s.ed to himself the whole story of the impending danger.

They arrived at the station where the road branches off to the university-town. Here they are told that no extra train could be furnished, as there was only one track. They must wait an hour for the next regular train.

Sonnenkamp stormed and scolded over these dawdling Europeans, who did not know how to put a railroad to its proper use; he had arranged, indeed, by telegram for a clear track. But it was of no use. The Major stood at the station, and thanked the Builder of all the worlds that all was so unalterably fixed. He went away from the river, and saluted the cornfields, where the standing corn, in its silent growth, allowed itself to be in no way disturbed out of its orderly repose; he rejoiced to hear, for the first time this season, the whistling of the quail, who has no home in the vineyard region; and he gazed at the larks singing as they flew up to heaven.

A train had come into the station and stopped. The Major heard men's voices singing finely, and he learned that many persons, who were already seated in the cars, were emigrating to America. He saw mothers weeping, fathers beckoning, and while the locomotive was puffing at the station, many village youths stood on the platform together, in a group, and sang farewell songs to their departing comrades. They sang with voices full of emotion, but they kept good time.

"It will rejoice Fraulein Milch when I relate this to her," thought the Major, and he mingled among those who remained behind, giving them words of consolation; he went to the emigrants and exhorted them to continue good Germans in America. In the midst of his weeping, an old man cried:--

"What are you waiting for? make it go ahead!"

The rest scolded the man for his rudeness, but the Major said,--

"Don't take it ill of him, he cannot do differently, he is too miserable." The old man nodded to the Major, and all the rest looked at him in surprise.

In the mean while, the train arrived which was to carry those going on the branch road.

"Herr Major! Herr Major!" shrieked the employes of the road from various quarters. They had great difficulty in bringing the Major over to the other side of the train.

"One might almost envy you, you are such a child; you allow yourself to be distracted by every occurrence on the way, and to be drawn, away from your destination like a child."

"Yes, yes," laughed the Major--he had recovered his broad laugh--"Fraulein Milch often tells me that."

He told Sonnenkamp of the affecting parting of the emigrants and their friends, but Sonnenkamp seemed to have no interest in it. Even when the Major said that the Freemasons had taken all pains to block the game of the kidnappers who cheated the emigrants, even then, Herr Sonnenkamp remained speechless. The Major sat by him in silence.

They reached the university-town. No one was there to receive them, and Sonnenkamp was very indignant.