The Last Miracle

by M. P. Shiel

"Which fashion, Aubrey?"

"I shall rouse the alp," said he, "I shall implant into each mind the certainty of Dees' imprisonment, I shall ignite their indignation, and lead them all to demand his release."

For some time I made no answer to this; then I said: "well, do so; and, if the human swineherds on this alp were theories, you might just possibly succeed: remember, however, that, in the event of your failure, it will be too late then to take the file, for the news of the boat and ladder will certainly by that time have reached the castle, and Dees will thenceforth be strictly guarded, or removed to another dungeon."

"Well, but I won't fail," said he—"at least let us hope that I won't fail, Arthur; one can but try one's purblind best, and it may perhaps be that time and tide will happen to him."

"Yes, I see how you feel, I see," said I; "but you know the awe, and even affection, which all these people here cherish for the baron: how, then, can you expect to 'lead' them against him? If you do manage it, the baron will send Herr Court-painter to stare them away with his spectacles——"

"No, I think that you underestimate the good people," he answered: "though indolent in the presence of a suspected wrong, they will not be slow to rise against a proved wrong. Do let us have some little trust in our kind."

I felt myself, as it were, caught in the toils with this sudden scheme of Langler's, seeing quite clearly, as I did, that no good would come of it, but the more I argued the more I seemed to fix him in it, till at last it almost looked as if a crick of contradiction to me had entered into his motive. I saw, indeed, his point of view: to approach the authorities might be fatally slow, to give Dees the file was "improper"—a touch of bigotry perhaps being added to this latter view by my unlucky claim that his sister would believe it proper, for he was touchy as to her judgments, and inflexible whenever the moral, or even the proper, was at all involved; but still, his way out of the fix appeared to me too wild. At one moment I even had the thought of taking the file to Dees without him, but I saw that I should probably fail single-handed; and, moreover, he was the head in this matter: to his house, not to mine, Max Dees' wren had come, and I had merely accompanied his undertaking.

Well, what happened that day is tedious to me to tell, and shall be told shortly: first, I saw Langler in head-to-head talk with Lossow, our host, who, though very friendly with us, had never yet let one word of Dees' history escape his lips; then after all the talk, the head-noddings, the finger-countings, I saw Langler giving money—a good mass of it, too—and I thought to myself: "what, has it become a question already of bribing the 'good people'? the disillusionment will grow!" Lossow then wrote out a list of names, which Langler conned, and near eleven in the morning they two rode out together. I offered to be with them: but it was felt that my heart was hardly in the business, and I was left out of it behind.

At one o'clock Lossow came back alone, and hurried to me, mopping his bald head, where I sat at the foot of a tree. This old man always seemed by some movement of the mouth to be trying to keep back a smile, but without success; he was stout and chubby, his arms hung from his stooped shoulders with a certain paralysed look, and he stepped short like a woman. "Kiss the hand!" he said, beaming, "all goes well, we have ridden like blackriders, and canvassed the folk. Herr Somebody will not only come, but will bring his two sons and his three day-labourers, and by three o'clock you will see gathered here the bravest swarm of them." "That should mean good trade in the beer for you, Lossow," said I. "The beer? good trade? for me?" said he, taken aback, "well, no doubt, folks must drink after all, folks must drink, what would you have? There's Karl and Jakub So-and-so have already struck work, and mean to make a day of it—it is the richest affair this day! You'll see them come gaping here like fish presently, the blessed swarm of them!" "But why gaping?" said I, "hasn't Herr Langler explained why they are to come?" "Ach, not to all," he answered, "for I whispered to Herr Langlaire, 'hasten with leisure,' 'many heads, many minds'; they of these parts are a curious lot, you know, oh, a curious lot, you wouldn't understand them even after many years, for one must be born among them." "On the contrary, Lossow," said I, "I understand you through and through: you mean that, if Herr Langler had told them everything, they would have been afraid to show their noses, and the rich affair would have been spoiled." "Ah, you are a rogue!" said he, "well, between us, it was something like that: what would you have? one is nearer to himself than to his neighbour. After all, these bauers and landsasses here are a mean-spirited swarm, what can you expect? As for me, if I had been they, I should have demanded the release of the Pater Dees long ago, yes, I!—if I had been they. Still, some of them have been told all, and there's Herr Somebody coming with his two sons, Wolfgang and Ernst——" "Who is this Herr Somebody?" I asked. "What," said he, "not know Herr Somebody yet? the Mittel-frei? with fifty acres of beet on the yon side of the Schwannsee? Between us, he keeps a little grudge against the baron, and is all for a lark, with a carouse to follow"——in this way he kept on gossiping, trying not to smile, but smiling, and full of the heyday. Langler, it appeared, was still "canvassing the folk," had five cottages more to visit, but would be back for dinner, which Lossow at last hurried off to see to.

Langler, returning near two, threw himself upon our sofa with a sad sigh, saying: "well, so far, so good; but the boat has been recovered, Arthur; all is known, and your things and my hat, with the ladder, have been taken to the castle. Perhaps some of them will shrink from coming to the rendezvous now." He sighed again.