Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

"But don't keep always talking about 'suspicion,'" cried the little man, peevishly. "It is there just as it is everywhere else, they hang the little thieves and let the big ones go. The gentlemen of the custom-house know what they are about. A couple of thalers or louis-d'ors at the right time will make many things smooth; and when one has, like the old man, a brother councillor of excise, Mr. Inspector will probably not be so impolite as to interfere with the councillor's brother."

"That is an insult, Herr von Granow," I cried in a fury; "I have already told you that my own father is an officer in the customs."

"Well, but then I thought that you and your father were not on the best terms," said Herr von Granow. "And if your father has driven you off, why----"

"That concerns nobody!" I exclaimed, "unless it be Herr von Zehren, who has received me into his house, and been kind and friendly to me always. If my father has sent me away, or driven me off, as you call it, I gave him cause enough; but that has nothing to do with his integrity, and I will strike any man dead, like a dog, who asperses my father's honor."

As Herr von Granow did not and could not know in how many ways all that he had said had lacerated my tenderest feelings, my sudden wrath, which had been only waiting an opportunity to burst forth, must have appeared to him terrible and incomprehensible. A young man, who had probably always appeared to him suspicious, and now doubly so, of whose bodily strength he had seen more than one surprising proof, speaking in such a voice of striking dead--and then the desolate heath, the growing darkness--the little man muttered some unintelligible words, while he cautiously widened the distance between us, and then, probably in fear of my loaded gun, came up again and very meekly declared that he had not the slightest intention to offend me; that it was not to be supposed that a respectable officer like my father had knowingly placed his son with a notorious smuggler. And that, on the other side, the suspicion that I was a spy in the pay of the authorities, could not possibly be reconciled with my honest face and my straightforward conduct, and was indeed perfectly ridiculous; that he would with all his heart admit that everything that was said about Herr von Zehren was pure fabrication--people talked so much just for the sake of talking. Besides, he, who had only recently come into the neighborhood, could least of all judge what there might be in it; and he would be extremely delighted, and account it an especial honor, to receive me as a guest at his house, there where we could now see the lights shining, and where the others must have arrived long ago, and to drown all unpleasantness in a bottle of wine.

I scarcely comprehended what he said, my agitation was so extreme. I replied curtly that it was all right, that I did not believe he intended to offend me. Then asking him to excuse me to Herr von Zehren, I strode across the heath towards the road which I knew so well, which led from Melchow, Granow's estate, to Zehrendorf.

CHAPTER XI.

The following morning was so fine that it might well have cheered even a gloomier spirit than mine. And in my fatigue I had fallen so promptly asleep when I laid my tired head upon the pillow, and had slept so soundly, that it required some consideration upon awaking to recall the circumstances that had caused me so much agitation the previous evening. Gradually they recurred to my memory, and once more my cheeks burned, and I felt, as I always did when under excitement, that I must rush out into the free air and under the blue sky; so I hurried down the steep back-stair into the park.

Here I wandered about under the tall trees, which waved their light sprays in the morning breeze, along the wild paths, and among the bushes brightened with the sunlight, at intervals listening to some bird piping incessantly his monotonous autumn song, or marking some caterpillar swinging by a fathom-long filament from a twig overhead, while I bent my thoughts to the task, so difficult for a young man, of obtaining a clear view of my situation.

I had told Granow the evening before but the simple truth: so long as I had been upon the estate nothing had occurred to confirm his suspicion. During the whole of this time I had scarcely left the side of Herr von Zehren. No strangers had come about the place; there had been no suspicious meetings; no goods had been received, and none sent out, except a barrel or two of wine to the neighbors. To be sure, the people on the estate looked as if they were accustomed to anything rather than honest industry, and especially my tall friend Jock could not possibly have a clear conscience; but the cotters on the various estates around were all a rough, uncouth, piratical-looking crew, as indeed many of them had been fishermen and sailors, and were so still when occasion offered. That the gang which we had seen crossing the heath did not belong to our people, I was convinced when I passed the laborer's cottages, and saw Jock with two or three others lounging about the doors as usual.