CHAPTER XXVII.
On a cold October day, two men were seen driving through the latticed gate of the town of Rosmin on toward the plain, which stretched out before them monotonous and boundless. Anton sat wrapped in his fur coat, his hat low on his forehead, and at his side was young Sturm, in an old cavalry cloak, with his soldier's cap cocked cheerily on one side. In front of them a farm-servant, squatted on a heap of straw, flogged on the small horses. The wind swept the sand and straw from the stubble-fields, the road was a broad causeway without ditches or hedges, the horses had to wade alternately through puddles and deep sand. Yellow sand gleamed through the scanty herbage in all directions wherever a field-mouse had made her way to her nest or an active mole had done what he could to diversify the unbroken plain. Wherever the ground sank, stagnant water lodged, and there hollow willow-trees stretched their crippled arms in the air, their boughs flapping in the wind, and their faded leaves fluttering down into the muddy pool below. Here and there stood a small dwarf pine, a resting-place for the crows, who, scared by the passing carriage, flew loudly croaking over the travelers' heads. There was no house to be seen on the road, no pedestrian, and no conveyance of any kind.
Karl looked every now and then at his silent companion, and said at last, pointing to the horses, "How rough their coats are, and how pretty their gray mouse skins! I wonder how many of these beasties would go to make up my sergeant's horse! When I took leave of my father, the old man said, 'Perhaps I shall pay you a visit, little one, when they light the Christmas-tree.' 'You'll never be able,' said I. 'Why not?' asked he. 'You'll never trust yourself in any post-chaise.' Then the old boy cried, 'Oho! post-chaises are always of a stout build; I shall be sure to trust myself in one.' But now, Mr. Anton, I see that my father never can pay us a visit."
"Why not?"
"It is possible that he may reach Rosmin; but, as soon as he sees these horses and this road, he will instantly turn back. 'Shall I trust myself,' he'll say, 'in a district where sand runs between one's legs like water, and where mice are put into harness? The ground is not firm enough for me.'"
"The horses are not the worst things here," said Anton, absently. "Look! these go fast enough."
"Yes," replied Karl, "but they don't go like regular horses; they entangle their legs like two cats playing in a parsley-bed. And what things they have for shoes—regular webbed hoofs, I declare, which no blacksmith can ever fit."
"If we could only get on!" returned Anton; "the wind blows cold, and I am shivering in spite of my fur."
"You have slept but little the last few nights, sir," said Karl. "The wind blows here as if over a threshing-floor. The earth is not round hereabouts as elsewhere, but flat as a cake. This is a complete desert; we have been driving for more than an hour, and there is not a village to be seen."
"A desert indeed," sighed Anton; "let us hope it may improve." They relapsed into profound silence. At length the driver stopped near a pool, unharnessed the horses, and led them to the water's edge, without noticing the travelers.
"What the deuce does this mean?" cried Karl, jumping down from the carriage.
"I am going to feed," replied the servant, sulkily, in a foreign accent.
"I am anxious to know how that will be done," said Karl. "There is not the shadow of a bag of provender."
The horses, however, soon proved that they could live without corn; they stretched down their shaggy heads, and began to pull the grass and weeds at the edge of the pool, sometimes taking a draught of the dirty water. Meanwhile the servant drew a bundle from under his seat, settled himself under the lee of an alder-bush, and, taking his knife, cut his bread and cheese without even glancing at the travelers.
"I say, Ignatius or Jacob," cried Karl, sharply, "how long will this breakfast of yours last?"
"An hour," replied the man, munching away.
"And how far is it from here to the estate?"
"Six miles, or maybe more."
"You can make nothing of him," said Anton; "we must put up with the customs of the country;" and, leaving the carriage, they went to look on at the horses feeding.
Anton is on his way to the Polish property. He is now the baron's agent. Anxious months have the last proved to him. The parting from his principal and the firm had been painful in the extreme. For some time before it, indeed, Anton had found himself alone in the midst of his colleagues. The quiet Baumann still remained his friend, but the others considered him a castaway. The merchant received his resignation with icy coldness; and even in the hour of parting, his hand lay impassive as metal in Anton's grasp. Since then, our hero had undertaken several journeys to the capital and to creditors in the family's behalf, and now he was on his way to set the new estate in order, accompanied by Karl, whom he had induced to become the baron's bailiff.
Ehrenthal had, by the authority conferred on him, taken possession of the property from the time of the sale by auction, and hired the Polish bailiff for the baron. There had been unfair dealings between them at the time, and it was well known in Rosmin that the bailiff had sold off a good deal, and been guilty of all sorts of frauds since, so that Anton had even now no prospect of a quiet life.
"The hour is come when I may execute my commission," cried Karl, groping in the straw under the seat. He drew out a large japanned tin case, and carried it to Anton. "Miss Sabine gave me this in charge for you." He then joyously opened the lid, produced the materials for an excellent breakfast, a bottle of wine, and a silver goblet. Anton took hold of the case.
"It has a very knowing look," said Karl. "Miss Sabine planned it herself."
Anton examined it on all sides, and placed it carefully on a tuft of grass; then he took up the goblet, and saw his initials engraved on it, and underneath the words, "To thy welfare." Whereupon he forgot the breakfast and all around him, and stood gazing at the goblet, lost in thought.
"Do not forget the breakfast, sir," suggested Karl, respectfully.
"Sit down by me, my faithful friend; eat and drink with me. Leave off your absurd politeness. We shall have but little, either of us, but what we have we will share like brothers. Take the bottle if you have no glass."
"There's nothing like leather," said Karl, taking a small leathern drinking-cup out of his pocket. "As for what you have just said, it was kindly meant, and I thank you; but there must be subordination, if it were but for the sake of the others; and so, sir, be kind enough to let me shake hands with you now, and then let things be as they were before. Only look at the horses, Mr. Anton. My faith! the creatures devour thistles."
Again the horses were harnessed, again they threw out their short legs in the sand, and again the carriage rolled through the barren district—first through an empty plain, next through a wretched fir-wood, then past a row of low sand-hills, then over a tumble-down bridge crossing a small stream.
"This is the property," said the driver, turning round, and pointing with his whip to a row of dirty thatched roofs that had just come into sight.
Anton stood up to look for the group of trees in which the Hall might be supposed to stand. Nothing of the sort to be seen. The village was deficient in all that adorns the home of the poorest German peasant—no orchard, no hedged-in gardens, no lime-trees in the market-place.
"This is wretched," said he, sitting down again; "much worse than they told us in Rosmin."
"The village looks as if under a curse," cried Karl; "no teams working in the fields—not a cow or a sheep to be seen."
The farm-servant flogged his horses into an irregular gallop, and so they passed through the rows of mud huts which constituted the village, and arrived at the public house. Karl sprang from the carriage, opened the tavern door, and called for the landlord. A Jew slowly rose from his seat by the stove and came to the threshold. "Is the gendarme from Rosmin come?" He is gone into the village. "Which is the way to the farm-yard?"
The landlord, an elderly man with an intelligent countenance, described the way in German and Polish, and remained standing at the door—bewildered, Karl declared, by the sight of two human beings. The carriage turned into a cross-road, planted on both sides with thick bushes, the remains of a fallen avenue. Over holes, stones, and puddles, it rattled on to a group of mud huts, which still had a remnant of whitewash upon them. "The barns and stables are empty," cried Karl, "for I see gaps in the roofs large enough to drive our carriage through."
Anton said no more; he was prepared for every thing. They drove through a break between the stables into the farm-yard, a large irregular space, surrounded on three sides by tumble-down buildings, and open to the fields on the fourth. A heap of débris lay there—lime and rotten timber, the remains of a ruined barn. The yard was empty; no trace of farm implements or human labor to be seen. "Which is the inspector's house," inquired Anton, in dismay. The driver looked round, and at last made up his mind that it was a small one-storied building, with straw thatch and dirty windows.
At the noise of the wheels a man appeared on the threshold, and waited phlegmatically till the travelers had dismounted, and were standing close before him. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, with a bloated, brandy-drinking face, dressed in a jacket of shaggy cloth, while behind him peered the muzzle of an equally shaggy dog, who snarled at the strangers. "Are you the steward of this property?"
"I am," replied the man, in broken German, without stirring from where he was.
"And I am the agent of the new proprietor," said Anton.
"That does not concern me," growled the shaggy man, turning sharp round, entering the house, and bolting the door within.
Anton was thoroughly roused. "Break the window in, and help me to catch the rascal," cried he to Karl, who coolly seized a piece of wood, struck the panes so as to make the rotten framework give way, and cleared the opening at one leap. Anton followed him. The room was empty, so was the next, and in it an open window—the man was gone.
"After him!" cried Karl, and dashed on in pursuit, while Anton looked about the house and out-buildings. He soon heard the barking of a dog, and saw Karl capture the fugitive. Hurrying to his help, he held the man fast, while, with a kick, Karl sent the dog flying. They then contrived to force the steward back to the house, though he kept striking out violently all the way.
"Go to the tavern, and bring the gendarme and the landlord," cried Anton to the driver, who, undisturbed by all that had been going on, had meanwhile unpacked the carriage. The man accordingly drove leisurely off, and the fugitive being got into the room, Karl found an old cloth, and with it bound his hands behind his back. "I beg your pardon, sir," said he; "it is only for an hour or so, till the arrival of the Rosmin gendarme, whom we have appointed to meet us."
Anton then proceeded to examine the house, but there was nothing to be found but the merest necessaries; no books nor papers of any kind. It had doubtless been emptied already. A bundle projected from the coat-pocket of the prisoner, which turned out to be receipts and legal documents in Polish. In time, the driver returned with the landlord and the armed policeman. The landlord stood at the door in some perplexity, and the policeman explained in a few moments what remained to be done. "You must make a statement to the local judge, and give the man up to me. He shall go back in your carriage to Rosmin. You will do well to get rid of him, for this is a wild country, and it will be safer for you to have him at Rosmin than here, where he has friends and accomplices."
After a long search, a sheet of paper was found in a cupboard, the statement made and submitted to the policeman, who shook his head a little over the Polish composition, and the prisoner lifted into the carriage, the gendarme taking his seat beside him, and saying to Anton, "I have long expected something of the kind. You may have often occasion to want me again." The carriage then drove away, and thus the property came under Anton's administration. He felt as if cast on a desert island.
His portmanteau and traveling effects were leaning against a mud wall, and the Polish landlord was the only man who could give him and Karl any information or advice in their forlorn condition.
Now that the steward was fairly gone, the landlord grew more communicative, and showed himself serviceable and obliging. A long conversation ensued, and its purport was what Anton had apprehended from the warning given by the Commissary Walter and other Rosmin officials. The inspector had, during the last few weeks, done all he could in the way of spoliation, rendered daring by a report which had found its way from the town to the village, that the present proprietor would never be able to take possession of the estate. At last Anton said, "What that wretched man has done away with he will have to account for; our first care must be to preserve what is still to be found on the property. You must be our guide to-day."
They then examined the empty buildings. Four horses and two servants—they were gone into the wood—a few old plows, a pair of harrows, two wagons, a britzska, a cellar full of potatoes, a few bundles of hay, a little straw—the inventory did not take much time in drawing up. The buildings were all out of repair, not through age, but neglect.
"Where is the dwelling-house?" inquired Anton. The landlord led the way out of the yard to the meadow—a broad plain, gradually sloping down to the level of the brook. It had been a great pasture. The cattle had trodden it down into holes; the snouts of greedy swine had rooted it up; gray molehills and rank tufts of grass rose on all sides.
The landlord stretched out his hand. "There is the castle. This castle is famous throughout the whole country," he added, reverentially; "no nobleman in the district has a stone house like that. All the gentry here live in wood and mud buildings. Herr von Tarow, the richest of them, has but a poor dwelling."
About three hundred yards from the last out-building rose a great brick edifice, with a black slate roof and a thick round tower. Its gloomy walls on this treeless pasture-land, without one trace of life around, rose beneath the cloudy sky like a phantom fortress which some evil spirit had evoked from the abyss—a station from which to blight all the surrounding landscape.
The strangers approached it. The castle had fallen into ruins before the builders had finished their task. The tower had stood there for ages. It was built of unhewn stone, and had small windows and loop-holes. The former lords of the land had looked down from its summit on the tops of the trees, which then stretched far into the plain. They had then ruled with a rod of iron the serfs who cultivated their land, and toiled and died for them. Many an arrow had sped through those loop-holes at the enemy storming below, and many a Tartar horse had been overthrown before those massive walls. Years ago, a despot of the district had, in expiation of former sins, begun to add to the gray tower the walls of a holy monastery; but the monastery never got finished, and the useless walls had already stood there long, when the late count took it into his head to convert them into a lordly dwelling for his race, and to raise a house unparalleled for magnificence in the whole country.
The front of the house was added on to both sides of the tower, which projected in the middle. The intention had been to have a high terrace-road up to the castle, and the principal entrance had been made in the tower, and arched over; but the terrace never having been formed, the stone threshold of the main door was quite inaccessible without the help of ladders, and the wide opening was left. The window-spaces of the lower floor were merely closed up with boards, while on the second story were some window-frames of beautifully carved wood, in which large panes had once been placed, but they had got broken. In other windows were temporary frames of rough deal, with small panes of muddy glass let into them. A company of jackdaws sat on the top of the tower, looking down in amazement on the strangers, and every now and then one flew off, screaming loudly, to contemplate the intruders from a new point of view.
"A house for crows and bats, not for human beings," said Anton. "At least, I see no way of getting into it."
The landlord now took them round the building. Behind, where the two wings made a sort of horse-shoe, there were low entrances to the cellars and offices; beneath which, again, were stables, great arched kitchens, and small cells for the serfs. A wooden staircase led to the upper story. The door turned creaking on its hinges, and a narrow passage took them through a side wing to the front part of the house. There all was at least magnificently planned. The circular entrance-hall—an arched room of the old tower—was painted in mosaic, and through the great doorway-opening was seen a wide expanse of country. A broad staircase, worthy of a palace, led up to another round hall, with narrow windows, the second story of the tower. On each side lay suites of apartments: large, lofty, desolate rooms, with heavy oak folding-doors, and dirty plastered walls, the ceiling made of fir branches arranged in squares; in some rooms colossal green tile stoves, in other rooms no stoves at all; in some, beautiful inlaid floors, in others rude deal boards. An immense saloon, with two gigantic chimney-pieces, had merely a provisional ceiling of old laths. The castle was fitted for a wild Asiatic household, for hangings of leather and of silk from France, for costly woodwork from England, for massive silver services from German mines, for a proud master, numerous guests, and a troop of retainers to fill the halls and ante-rooms. The builder of the castle had looked back to the wealth of his wild ancestors when he devised the plan; he had had hundreds of trees cut down in the woods, and his hereditary bondsmen had kneaded many thousand bricks with their own hands and feet; but Time, the inexorable, had raised his finger against him, and none of his hopes had been realized. His ruin first, and then his death, occurred during the progress of the building; and his son, brought up among strangers, had, as fast as one fool could, hurried on the ruin of his house. Now the walls of the Slavonic castle stood with doors and windows gaping wide, but no guest spoke his good wishes as he entered; only wild birds flew in and out, and the marten crept over the floors. Useless and unsightly the walls stood there, threatening to crumble and fall, like the race that had raised them up.
Anton passed with rapid step from room to room, vainly hoping to find one in which he could even imagine the two ladies, who were looking forward to this house as their asylum. He opened door after door, went up and down creaking steps, disturbed the birds who had flown in through the open archway, and still clung to their last summer's nest; but he found nothing save uninhabitable rooms, with dirty plastered walls, or without any plaster at all. Every where draughts, gaping doors, and windows boarded up. Some oats had been shaken out in the large saloon; and a few rooms looked as if they might have been temporarily made use of, but a few old chairs and a rude table were all the furniture they contained.
At length Anton ascended the decayed staircase in the tower, and found himself on its summit. Thence he saw the whole pile of building below him, and looked far into the plain. To his left the sun sank down behind gray masses of cloud into the depths of the forest; to his right lay the irregular square of the farm-yard, and beyond it the untidy village; behind him ran the brook, with a strip of meadow-land on either side. Wild pear-trees, the delight of the Polish farmer, rose here and there in the fields, with their thick and branching crowns; and under each was an oasis of grass and bushes, gayly colored by the fallen leaves. These trees, the dwelling-places of countless birds, alone broke the monotonous surface of the plain—these, and at the verge of the horizon, on all sides, the dark forest mentioned above. The sky was gray, the ground colorless, the trees and bushes that bordered the brook were bare, and the forest, with its promontories and bays, looked like a wall that separated this spot of earth from the rest of humanity, from civilization, from every joy and charm of life.
Anton's heart sank. "Poor Lenore! poor family!" he groaned aloud; "things look terrible, but they could be improved. With money and taste every thing is possible. This house might, without prodigious expense, be metamorphosed by the upholsterer into a gorgeous residence. It would be easy to level the pasture-land around—to sow it with fine grass—to intersperse it with a few gayly-colored flower-beds—and to plant out the village. Nothing is wanting to change the whole face of the district but capital, industry, and judgment. But how is the baron to procure these? To make any thing of this place should be the task of some fresh and active life, and the baron is broken down; and thousands of dollars would be needed, and years would pass away before the soil would do more than pay the expenses of its culture, or yield any interest whatever on the capital sunk in it."
Meanwhile Karl was contemplating two particular rooms in the upper story with a knowing eye. "These take my fancy more than any of the others," said he to the landlord; "they have plastered walls, floors, stoves—nay, even windows. To be sure, the panes are a good deal broken, but, till we can get better glass, paper is not to be despised. We will settle ourselves here. Could you get me somebody who knows how to handle a broom and scrubbing-cloth? Good, you can; and now listen: try to bring me a few sheets of paper; I have got glue with me; we will first get some wood, then I will heat the stove, melt my glue, and paper up broken panes. But, above all, help me to carry up our luggage from the yard—and let us be quick about it."
His zeal communicated itself to the landlord; the luggage was got up stairs; Karl unpacked a case full of tools of every kind, and the host ran to call his maid from the public house.
Meanwhile horses' hoofs rang on the court-yard, and some well-dressed men stopped before the late steward's dwelling, and knocked loudly at the closed door. At a call from Anton, Karl hurried up to them.
"Good-morning," said one, in rather labored German; "is the steward at home?"
"Where is the steward? where is Bratzky?" cried the others, impatient as their prancing horses.
"If you mean the former steward," replied Karl, dryly, "he will not run away from you though you do not find him here."
"What do you mean?" inquired the nearest horseman; "I beg that you will explain yourself."
"If you wish to speak to Mr. Bratzky, you must take the trouble of riding to the town. He is in custody."
The horses reared, and their riders closed round Karl, while Polish ejaculations were heard on all sides. "In custody! On what account?"
"Ask my master," replied Karl, pointing to the doorway in the tower, where Anton stood.
"Have I the pleasure of speaking to the new proprietor?" inquired one of the party, taking off his hat. Anton looked down in amazement. The voice and face reminded him of a white-gloved gentleman whom he had met once before in a critical hour.
"I am the Baron Rothsattel's agent," replied he. The horse was pulled back, and the rider spoke a few words to his companions, upon which an older man with a fox-like face cried, "We are anxious to speak on private business with the late steward. We hear that he is in custody, and beg you will tell us why."
"He tried to evade by flight the surrender of the property to me, and he is suspected of dishonest dealings."
"Are his effects confiscated?" inquired one of the riders.
"Why do you inquire?" returned Anton.
"I beg your pardon," said the other, "but the man happens accidentally to have some papers that belong to me in his house, and it might embarrass me if I could not get possession of them."
"His effects are gone with him to town," replied Anton. Once more there was a consultation, and then the riders, bowing slightly, galloped off to the village, halted a few minutes at the public house, and disappeared where the high road turned into the wood.
"What can they want, Mr. Wohlfart?" inquired Karl. "That was a strange flying visit."
"Yes, indeed," replied Anton; "I have reason to think it remarkable. If I am not much mistaken, I have met one of the gentlemen before in very different circumstances. Perhaps that fellow Bratzky knew how to make himself friends through the mammon of unrighteousness."
The evening now wrapped castle and forest in its dark mantle. The servants returned with the horses from the wood. Karl led them into Anton's presence, made them a short Polish oration, and received them into the service of the new proprietor. Next came the landlord to look after them, bringing oats and a bundle of wood, and saying to Anton, "I recommend you, sir, to be watchful during the night; the peasants sit yonder in the bar, and discuss your arrival; there are bad men about, and I would not be sure that one of them might not stick a match into the straw yonder, and burn down the farm-buildings for you."
"I am sure enough that they will do nothing of the kind," said Karl, throwing another log into the stove. "A fresh breeze is blowing right on to the village. No one would be such a fool as to set his own barns on fire. We shall take care to keep the wind in this point as long as we are here. Tell your people that. Have you brought me the potatoes I asked for?"
Anton appointed the landlord to return the next morning, and the travelers were left alone in the desolate house.
"You need not heed that hint, Mr. Anton," continued Karl. "All over the world drunken rascals have a trick of threatening fire; and, after all, with reverence be it said, it would be no great harm. And now, Mr. Anton, that we are by ourselves, let us think as little as possible about this Polish affair—let us set to and be comfortable."
"I'm all right," said Anton, drawing a chair to the stove. The wood crackled in the green tiles, and the red glare threw a warm light over the floor, and flickered pleasantly on the walls.
"The warmth does one good," said Anton; "but do you not perceive smoke?"
"Of course," replied Karl, who was boring round holes in the potatoes by the firelight. "Even the best stoves will smoke at the beginning of winter, till they get accustomed to their work, and this great green fellow has probably not seen fire for a generation, so it is not to be expected that he should draw kindly at once. Be so good as to cut a bit of bread and hold it to the fire. I am getting our candles ready." He took out a great packet of candles, stuck one into each potato, cut off the lower half, and placed them on the table, and then produced the japanned case. "This is inexhaustible," said he; "it will last till the day after to-morrow."
"That it will," said Anton, cheerily. "I am wonderfully hungry. And now let us consider how we shall manage our housekeeping. What we absolutely want we must get from the town; I will make a list at once. We will put out one candle, though—we must be economical."
The evening was spent in plans. Karl discovered that he could make part of the necessary furniture out of the boxes and boards about, and the laughter of the two companions sounded cheerfully through the rooms of the starost's dwelling. At last Anton proposed that they should go to bed. They shook down straw and hay, unbuckled their portmanteaus, and produced some blankets and coverlets. Karl fastened a lock that he had brought with him into the room door, examined the loading of his carbine, took up his potato, and said, with a military salute, "At what time does major general the agent wish to be called to-morrow?"
"You good fellow!" cried Anton, reaching out his hand from his straw bed.
Karl went into the next room, which he had chosen for himself. Soon both candles were extinguished—the first signs of life which had shone for years in the forsaken dwelling. But in the stove the little Kobolds of the castle lingered long over the newly-kindled fire; they hovered in the smoke wreaths, they knocked at doors and windows in amazement at the proceedings of the strangers. At length they assembled in a corner of the old tower, and began to dispute as to whether or not the flames lighted this evening would continue to burn, and to cast henceforth their cheerful glow on meadow, fields, and woods; and as they doubted whether the new order of things had strength enough to endure, the smoke drove the bats from their home in the chimney, and they came flapping down stupefied on the summit of the tower, while the owls in its crevices shook their round heads and hooted in the new era.