What the Swallow Sang Part 30

"Which never can be. Dear, dear Gotthold, let me say to you what my husband would have said if he were here: Never! He will never yield if you go to him so, alone and helpless, without the bailiff and myrmidons of the law; you must be able to prove that you have him completely in your power, and that is not the case now. My husband said yesterday evening: 'If we could only confront him with Scheel. There is really nothing to be done without him; but where is Scheel? Perhaps at the bottom of the Dollan mora.s.s.' Ah! my dear friend, stay away from this den of murderers."

"And ought I to leave her there?" exclaimed Gotthold. "Woe betide me for having done so until now, for not having risked everything to take her away with me, her and her child, for it was only the child that detained her, and he would have sold the child too if I had had head and heart enough to offer him the right price. Now I can offer nothing except a mortal struggle; but I am sure, and he knows very well, that I shall not be conquered this time. Forgive me, my dear friend, for using so many words where acts would beseem me better, and--farewell."

Ottilie burst into tears. "And you," she exclaimed, "my dear, dear friend. Ah! yes, you must go, you must risk all if you love Cecilia, and that you did love her--I knew long ago, and my good Emil knew it, and--and--Emil would not act otherwise in your place, believe me, whatever he may have said before, and may say after! He knows what pa.s.sionate love is, nay, he would make no objections if he were eight and twenty, and in your place! But I can't help it if I am not as beautiful and intellectual as your dear dead mother was; and besides, I was not even in existence thirty years ago, and there are much more unhappy married couples than we, and, and--may you and your Cecilia be as happy!"

She embraced and kissed Gotthold very warmly, and then stood at the open window letting the rain drip upon her tear-stained face as she waved her handkerchief while his carriage jolted over the rough pavement.

In spite of all the delays, it was still nearly an hour before sunset when Gotthold left Prora, and the horses stepped out bravely; he must surely reach Dollan before dark. He repeated this to himself several times in the course of the next hour, and then reflected why he constantly recurred to this calculation over and over again, and what difference it made whether he reached Dollan before or after dark. He could find no answer, and even as he sought for one, said to himself once more: "Thank G.o.d, I shall get there before dark!" Were his thoughts beginning to get confused? That would be bad; his head would probably have much to bear to-day, then his anxious eyes wandered to the heavy clouds, wet stubble, and black fields, and he murmured: "It will grow dark earlier than I expected," and as if the obstinacy of the idea required a corresponding idea, even if it were a mild one, he added: "I shall not find her."

And now he could not shake off the new idea: he would not find her. As if she would hide herself from him, and he would be obliged to seek her in vain because it was too dark.

Or was all this only nonsense, such as arises in the confused brain of a man who for hours has jolted alone in a damp chaise, over rough country roads, staring out into the murky atmosphere, which grew grayer and denser every minute. Was it the terrible type of a terrible possibility. Hinrich Scheel had taken Brandow's horse when he came home, and two hours after Hinrich Scheel had disappeared. Now he had been at home at least four hours; so he had had twice as much time.

Gotthold tore away the curtain which was still fastened on one side; it seemed as if he was suffocating. At last! there was the smithy close before him; he would see and speak to the worthy Prebrows; they lived so near that they could surely tell him they had seen and spoken to her a short time before.

The smithy was lonely and deserted; several hours must have pa.s.sed since the bellows, had been used: a thick covering of ashes lay over the dead coals. It seemed as if the father and son, who lived alone in the old-fashioned little house, had just run away from their work. The piece of iron they had last been forging still lay on the anvil, the pincers and hammer were close beside it on the ground, as if they had been suddenly thrown down to rush out of the door, which stood wide open. The driver was very indignant; one of the springs of the chaise was almost broken. He had depended upon getting the injury repaired here so that it should go no farther. Gotthold told the lad to follow him slowly, he would go forward on foot.

He could not have waited a moment longer; the sight of the deserted smithy had infinitely increased the terrible anxiety which had tortured him all the way. He hurried up the ascending road over the moor, without heeding the rain that the wind drove into his face with redoubled violence as he walked hastily on, his eyes always fixed upon the nearest hillock which lay before him, and seemed inaccessible. Then he stood panting for breath on the top of the slope, but his view on the right was no clearer; a gray mist from the mora.s.s floated nearer and nearer, was so near already that the rugged side of the next hillock gleamed very dimly through the drizzling vapor, and he scarcely recognized the scene of the accident. On reaching the bottom he remembered that by keeping close to the edge one might pa.s.s between the hill and mora.s.s, so he left the height on the left, and took that course.

But as he turned towards the marsh he entered farther and farther into the fog that had now spread over the bog like a heaving gray sea, and whirled against the steep acclivity like surges dashed by a violent wind against the cliffs.

While the height on the left obstructed his view, and on the right he gazed into the gray mist, which scarcely permitted him to see where to set his feet, the terrible dread increased at every step; it seemed as if every moment the misty curtain must rise to reveal the horrible picture it now concealed, and the height against which it pressed was only there that he might not escape the scene. And there it was!

Gotthold stood trembling and staring into the mist with eyes fairly starting from their sockets. It could have been nothing but a trick of his over-excited fancy, for he now saw nothing, nothing at all, and yet he had seen it with perfect distinctness: four or five figures standing in a circle, thrusting long poles into the mora.s.s--misty spectres!

No, no; no spectres! Or else ghosts could speak with human voices, which he clearly distinguished, although he could not understand the words, and now he even caught a few.

"Could it possibly be here?"

"No, it was not possible--it was certain; he now knew why he had been so alarmed."

The next moment, with a single bound, he had dashed through the tall sedges which, at this spot, enclosed the mora.s.s with a broad girdle; the thin covering of turf rose and fell under him--he did not notice it; again and again the water dashed up under his flying feet--he did not heed it; his eyes pierced the mist in the direction from which he had heard the voices, and now heard them again still nearer; and now the figures, which a rift in the mist had just revealed to him, appeared again; he reached them.

"Cousin Boslaf!"

"Stand farther away, and you others, too! There are too many of us here; the ground won't bear, and I can do it alone."

They stepped back; again and again the old man let the long pole, furnished with an iron hook, slide cautiously down into the water which had here formed a small dark pool amid the rushes and nodding gra.s.s.

Then he drew it out and gave it to one of the men. "There is nothing here. This was the last place, we will go back; keep close behind me; and you too, Gotthold. Tread in my footsteps."

The old man, holding his gun on his shoulder, walked forward with the long, regular stride of a huntsman, till the others, among whom was Clas Prebrow, Jochen's brother, found it difficult to keep up with him.

He paused several times, and seemed to be trying the ground; but it was only for a few moments, then he moved on into the mist. The men followed without hesitation; they knew they could go on calmly if Cousin Boslaf led the way; and now the ground became firmer and firmer; they were on the very spot from which they had started an hour ago.

Cousin Boslaf called Gotthold to his side.

"Since when?" asked Gotthold.

"At two o'clock this morning; the dogs have been keen on her track; I knew it first three hours ago."

"And you still have hope?"

The old man gazed into the mist.

"We have not found her," said he, "so the others may not either, and in that case there would still be hope, although it is not probable that she could have gone far with the child in the darkness."

"With the child?" cried Gotthold, "with Gretchen! then all is well; she would do the child no injury."

"Injury!" said the old man, "injury! there are greater injuries than death."

Gotthold shuddered. She had not been willing to part from the child; she had thought herself obliged to bear--able to bear--anything for its sake. Now matters had become unendurable, and she was compelled to cast the burden aside. What would become of Gretchen? There are worse injuries than death.

CHAPTER XXVII.

They walked rapidly towards the house, old Boslaf still leading the way with his long, regular strides, his eyes now bent upon the ground, and anon gazing keenly into the gloom of the gathering twilight; but he did not speak, and Gotthold asked no questions. Yet before he reached the court-yard, he knew--from various remarks made by the other men--that when, towards noon, the rumor spread abroad among the laborers that the mistress had disappeared with her child, it was said at once that they were dead. No one had been the first to utter the words; every one had spoken them at the same time, and suggested that somebody should go to Cousin Boslaf. Cousin Boslaf had come instantly--with his old long-barrelled gun over his shoulder--and divided the men into parties.

Statthalter Moller, with one band, was to cross the fields and search the forest near the seash.o.r.e. Prebrow, the blacksmith, who had been sent for, was to head another company and go to the upper part of the moor, towards the Schanzenbergen; and Cousin Boslaf himself, with the remainder, down to the mora.s.s; then they would all meet at the house again. Two hours before--they were then still farther out in the mora.s.s, and there was some little fog, though it was by no means so thick--they had seen Herr Brandow come home, and very soon after ride away again. He had taken a wise course, for the men had resolved that the murderer should not leave the estate alive again; it was no matter about Hinrich Scheel, who was as bad as his master; but his wife and child--it was too much, and they had always said it would happen some day.

They had all said so and had let it happen! True, they had been unable to prevent it; but he! Gotthold thought his heart would burst with shame and horror.

They reached the house almost at the same moment as the two other parties, who had carefully searched the region a.s.signed to them, and found nothing, not the smallest trace.

What was to be done now?

Very little more could be done. True, the fog had dispersed, but twilight had already closed in; in half an hour, or an hour at latest, it would be perfectly dark. Besides, the men, who ever since noon had been constantly on their feet, searching bushes and woods, fields and mora.s.s, were evidently fatigued and exhausted, though quite ready to search the forest in the direction of Dahlitz, as soon as they had eaten the supper Cousin Boslaf had ordered to be brought out from the house. The old man himself neither eat nor drank; he stood with folded arms, leaning against the trunk of one of the huge old lindens, waiting patiently until the men should once more be ready to help him seek his great-granddaughter, the last of his race, at the bottom of the marl-pit, the depths of some forest ravine, or wherever she had fled with her child to die.

Gotthold had entered the house to look for Mine, a good young servant-girl whom he had often seen playing with Gretchen, and who appeared to be very devoted to Cecilia; perhaps he might learn from her something that would give a clew. He found her in the kitchen, where with eyes swollen with weeping, she was helping the housekeeper prepare bread and b.u.t.ter for the men's supper. When she caught sight of Gotthold she dropped the knife with a cry of joy, and came running towards him.

Gotthold told her to leave the room with him.

At first the good child's tears almost choked her words. The mistress had been very sad the last few weeks, much more sorrowful than usual; she had scarcely spoken except to Gretchen, whom she would never trust out of her sight, and even to her only when it was absolutely necessary. Yesterday she had remained out of doors alone until very late in the evening, and when she came in looked so pale and exhausted, and stared straight before her with such a fixed expression; she would not go to bed, however, but insisted that she should go to her mother in Neuenhof, who was very sick, and added that she need not come back before noon, and then the mistress had already been gone, no one knows how long. Rieke had certainly known it long before, but said nothing from fear of the other servants, and hid herself up stairs until the master came home. At first he scolded her furiously, and struck at her with his riding-whip, but Rieke cried and screamed that she would charge the master with it, and made such evil speeches that at last he took her away with him in the carriage; and her dear kind mistress had been obliged to go out of the house in the middle of the night, and dear sweet little Gretchen had not even had her new boots, for they were locked up in the closet, and she had the key in her pocket.

The girl began to cry again; Gotthold said a few words which were intended to be consoling, and was then obliged to turn away, for his own grief threatened to overpower him. The sobbing girl had reminded him of the sunny days when he sought out Cecilia in the garden, and played with Gretchen among the flower-beds.

When he came out of the house again, the men had finished their meals and were ready to set out. Prebrow, the blacksmith, was to search the forest on the left, and the Statthalter on the right of the road to Dahlitz. Cousin Boslaf would keep to the road itself. They were just going when Gotthold's chaise jolted into the courtyard; the spring was now entirely broken, and the tire was off of one wheel. Cousin Boslaf asked the Statthalter whether Herr Wenhofs old carriage was still there, and capable of being used. The carriage was there, and might be made fit for use. Then Clas Prebrow should repair it, put in a pair of fresh horses, and follow them. Gotthold looked at the old man inquiringly.

"I shall seek till I find her," said Cousin Boslaf, pushing the rifle farther over his shoulder, "and I shall find her--alive or dead; in either case we shall need the carriage."

They reached the forest; the men had already spread out to the right and left, and now pressed eagerly into its depths.

"I shall keep to the road," said Cousin Boslaf as they walked on side by side. "I can trust my old eyes, and I almost believe she has taken this way. She would reach the forest sooner, and directly behind the woods, in a ploughed field on the right, is the great marl-pit. When she was a child, a poor girl who had killed her new-born babe drowned herself there."

The old man did not change his long, regular stride as he spoke, and his keen eyes searched the deep furrows of the rough road, or glanced over the bashes and tree trunks on either side, between which, here in the depths of the forest, the darkness already brooded gloomily. The men within the woods shouted to each other, in order to keep together: oftentimes one of the dogs they had taken with them barked loudly, then for a moment all was silent again, save the wind sighing through the treetops, and shaking the rain-drops from the leaves. Then the old man paused, listened, and went on again, after convincing himself that the men still kept to their track, and nothing remarkable had happened.

So they came to the end of the forest, whose dark edge stretched out into the twilight on either side as far as the eye could reach. Nothing was to be seen of the men, who had been obliged to make their way through the underbrush more slowly. Cousin Boslaf pointed towards the right, where a short distance from the road, in the ploughed field, a round spot was relieved against the darker earth; it was the marl-pit, which the continual rain of the last few days had filled nearly to the brim.

They crossed the edge of the road to the field; the old man again took the lead, but more slowly than before, and his head was bowed lower, as if he wished to count every separate blade of the short wet gra.s.s.