He arose and stood at the window, looking with a smile of satisfaction after Oswald, who with head held haughtily erect, face pale, and eyes flashing angrily, was striding directly across the square to the smithy.
"A splendid fellow--a true gentleman," the old man murmured. He was proud of this Austrian, product, and would gladly have paid a tax for the maintenance of this national article of luxury.
CHAPTER IX.
Arrived in Tornow only that morning, Oswald hardly finished his breakfast before he rode over to Kanitz, where, after his good-humoured despotic fashion he adjusted the whole affair with a smile, and soothed the anxious young tenant.
On the way back his horse lost a shoe, and his groom was well scolded by his impetuous young master for the carelessness resulting in such an accident. The riders had been forced to abate their speed and to take a roundabout way through Rautschin, that the nervous, high-bred animal might be relieved as soon as possible.
On the way they were overtaken by the storm. Perhaps Oswald would not have endured the very smoky atmosphere of the inn room so long, had he not been unconsciously interested in the talk of its three guests.
By no means indifferent to Doctor Swoboda's enthusiastic appreciation of his merits, he had enjoyed playing the part of the Emperor Joseph in the popular song and was meditating some pleasantly-devised way of surprising the old man with his thanks for his loyalty, when the vile insinuation made by the red-head drove everything else out of his mind.
The horse was shod; he flung himself into the saddle and galloped out of the town.
The rain had ceased, the clouds were broken. Steaming with moisture, its outlines glimmering in the light of the setting sun, Rautschin was left behind. Long streaks of violet cloud with golden edges, lay just above the horizon, and where the sun was setting, the sky glowed dully red. The storm had torn the bridal wreath from the head of spring; on the surface of the water lying in the ruts and hollows of the roads glinted snowy, fallen blossoms, and the apple-trees and pear-trees trembled softly in their tattered white array, like young people awakened from a dream. By the roadside stretched a sheet of water, its shores bristling with rushes, its surface bluish-gray and gloomy, like a large pool into which the sky had fallen and been drowned. A couple of ravens were flapping heavily above it.
The golden edges of the clouds grew narrower, the glow of the sunset was consumed in its own fire, the colours faded, and profound melancholy brooded over all the plain.