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 Möller, with one band, was to cross the fields and search the forest near the seashore. 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 morass; then they would all meet at the house again. Two hours before--they were then still farther out in the morass, 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 assigned 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 morass, 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 butter 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 grass. Suddenly he paused: "Here!"
He pointed to the wet ground, upon which, as Gotthold now also perceived, were the marks of footprints, a large one, with a smaller one beside it. The footprints came from the road they had just left, but had emerged from the forest sooner, and gone towards the marl-pit, and they had come upon it farther down at a right angle. The old hunter and the young man looked at each other; neither spoke--they knew the decisive moment had come.
Slowly and cautiously they followed the clew, which ran straight before them towards the marl-pit, on whose surface they already saw the rippling of the water, as the strong breeze blew it against the edges. Only about fifty paces more, and all would be decided.
Gotthold's eyes rested fixedly upon the horrible water, which glittered spectrally in the last feeble glimmer of twilight; he saw her standing on the edge holding the child by the hand, gazing--
One of the old man's hands rested on his shoulder, the other pointed downwards. "She took the child in her arms here."
There was only one footprint, the larger one, and the mark was deeper--five, ten, fifteen steps--
"Stay!"
The old man had uttered the word, and waving Gotthold back with his hand at the same moment, he fell upon his knees. The footprints were confused, as if she had taken a few steps irresolutely to and fro, and then the trail became distinct again, going straight on, but parallel with the edge of the marl-pit, and then they turned back in the direction of the road, and remained in that course to the bank, from whose sharp edge a small piece of turf had been torn as she stepped upon the path with her burden.
The two men stood in the road once more; Gotthold felt as if the solid earth were reeling under him; he threw himself into the arms of the old man, who clasped him in a warm embrace.
"We may hope now, my dear son; but we are not yet at the end."
"I will bear and risk everything, so long as I can still hope," cried Gotthold.
The dark figures of men now emerged singly and in pairs from the gloomy forest, and approached the place where they stood. They had found nothing; and Statthalter Möller asked whether they should now search the marl-pit; they could probably do no more than that today; it had grown too dark, and the people were completely worn out.
"But if Herr Wenhof wants us to do anything, we will, won't we, men?" asked Statthalter Möller.
"Ay, that we will," they replied in chorus.
"I thank you," said Cousin Boslaf, "you can help me no more now; I will go on alone with this gentleman, as soon as Clas Prebrow comes with the carriage, and I now have a hope that I may find my great-grandchild alive."
The old man's voice trembled as he pronounced the last words, and the people looked at him in astonishment.
"Yes, my great-grandchild," the old man began again, and his voice was now strong, and had acquired a strangely deep, solemn tone, "for that she is--my great-grandchild, and the great-grandchild of Ulrica, the wife of Adolf Wenhof. You have aided me so faithfully to-day that I cannot help telling you the truth. There is no one living whom it can harm, but it may do you good to know that the truth must always be spoken, that an old man of ninety must speak it, for no other reason than that it is the truth. And now go home, children, and don't allow yourselves to be tempted to take vengeance on him who has driven my child from house and home--don't vent your anger on the house and farm. Better men have lived there before him, and better ones will dwell there after him; and now once more I thank you, children."
The men had listened in silence; one after another removed his cap--they did not exactly know why; and when the old man and Gotthold entered the carriage, which meantime had quietly driven up, all stood around it with bared heads, and even after the coach had gone on, and they had set out on their way home, it was long ere any one ventured to speak aloud.
But the coach drove on through the darkness towards the fishing village of Ralow. It was a delightful road on a summer evening, and Cecilia had been fond of walking here with the child. Gotthold thought she would follow this direction, and the old man had assented. "It is your turn now," said he. "We were seeking a dead body, and an old man is well suited for that; now that we are in search of a living woman, young blood may be better."