ILLUSTRATIONS

[The fitful flicker of the lanterns played over rapidly cooling eggs and grave faces][Frontispiece]
FACING PAGE
[I never saw such little shoes][14]
[Edelgard most inconsiderately leaving me to bear the entire burden of opening and shutting our things][38]
[The sun shone its hottest while we slowly surmounted this last obstacle][50]
[It was an unnerving spectacle][80]
[“Dear Baron,” said she, “do you think it is wrong to carry stew-pots?”][100]
[Thus, as it were, with blacking, did I cement my friendship with Lord Sigismund][102]
[Edelgard posing—and what a pose; good heavens, what a pose!][114]
[“But surely not here,” murmured Frau von Eckthum][124]
[The two nondescripts, who were passing, lingered to look][134]
[“But, lieber Otto, is it then my fault that you have forgotten the paper?”][142]
[“Do you, Jellaby,” I then inquired, “really understand how best to treat a sausage?”][182]
[“’Ere ’e is”][200]
[An imposing lady in the pew in front of us sat sideways in her corner and examined us with calm attention][230]
[The old gentleman was in the act of addressing me in his turn][268]
[Gentle as my voice was, it yet made her start][294]

THE CARAVANERS

CHAPTER I

IN JUNE this year there were a few fine days, and we supposed the summer had really come at last. The effect was to make us feel our flat (which is really a very nice, well-planned one on the second floor at the corner overlooking the cemetery, and not at all stuffy) but a dull place after all, and think with something like longing of the country. It was the year of the fifth anniversary of our wedding, and having decided to mark the occasion by a trip abroad in the proper holiday season of August we could not afford, neither did we desire, to spend money on trips into the country in June. My wife, therefore, suggested that we should devote a few afternoons to a series of short excursions within a radius of, say, from five to ten miles round our town, and visit one after the other those of our acquaintances who live near enough to Storchwerder and farm their own estates. “In this way,” said she, “we shall get much fresh air at little cost.”

After a time I agreed. Not immediately, of course, for a reasonable man will take care to consider the suggestions made by his wife from every point of view before consenting to follow them or allowing her to follow them. Women do not reason: they have instincts; and instincts would land them in strange places sometimes if it were not that their husbands are there to illuminate the path for them and behave, if one may so express it, as a kind of guiding and very clever glow-worm. As for those who have not succeeded in getting husbands, the flotsam and jetsam, so to speak, of their sex, all I can say is, God help them.

There was nothing, however, to be advanced against Edelgard’s idea in this case; on the contrary, there was much to commend it. We should get fresh air; we should be fed (well fed, and, if we chose, to excess, but of course we know how to be reasonable); and we should pay nothing. As Major of the artillery regiment stationed at Storchwerder I am obliged anyhow to keep a couple of horses (they are fed at the cost of the regiment), and I also in the natural order of things have one of the men of my battalion in my flat as servant and coachman, who costs me little more than his keep and may not give me notice. All, then, that was wanting was a vehicle, and we could, as Edelgard pointed out, easily borrow our Colonel’s wagonette for a few afternoons, so there was our equipage complete, and without spending a penny.