The hour of the baron's afternoon symposium was the time selected by Bertha for her errands of charity. Once he was fairly settled down to his second bottle, off went Bertha, with her maid beside her carrying a basket to bestow a meal on some of the poor tenants, among whom she was always received with blessings. At first these excursions had been undertaken solely from charitable motives, and Bertha thought herself plentifully repaid in the love and thanks of her grateful pensioners. Of late, however, another cause had led her to take even stronger interest in her walks, and occasionally to come in with brighter eyes and a rosier cheek than the gratitude of the poor tenants had been wont to produce. The fact is, some months before the time of our story, Bertha had noticed in her walks a young artist, who seemed to be fated to be invariably sketching points of interest in the road she had to take. There was one particular tree, exactly in the path which led from the castle gate, which he had sketched from at least four points of view, and Bertha began to wonder what there could be so very particular about it. At last, just as Carl von Sempach had begun to consider where on earth he could sketch the tree from next, and to ponder seriously upon the feasibility of climbing up into it, and taking it from that point of view, a trifling accident occurred, which gave him the opportunity of making Bertha's acquaintance, which, I don't mind stating confidentially, was the very thing he had been waiting for. It so chanced, that on one particular afternoon the maid, either through awkwardness, or possibly through looking more at the handsome painter than the ground she was walking on, stumbled and fell. Of course the basket fell too, and equally of course, Carl, as a gentleman, couldn't do less than offer his assistance in picking up the damsel and the dinner.
The acquaintance thus commenced was not suffered to drop; and handsome Carl and our good little Bertha were fairly over head and ears in love, and had begun to have serious thoughts of a cottage in a wood, et caetera, when their felicity was disturbed by their being accidentally met, in one of their walks, by the baron. Of course the baron, being himself so thorough an aristocrat, had higher views for his daughter than marrying her to a "beggarly artist," and accordingly he stamped and swore, and threatened Carl [{448}] with summary punishment with all sorts of weapons, from heavy boots to blunderbusses, if ever he ventured near the premises again. This was unpleasant; but I fear it didn't quite put a stop to the young people's interviews, though it made them less frequent and more secret than before.
Now, I'm quite aware this wasn't at all proper, and that no properly regulated young lady would ever have had meetings with a young man her papa didn't approve of. But then it's just possible Bertha mightn't have been a properly regulated young lady; I only know she was a dear little pet, worth twenty model young ladies, and that she loved Carl very dearly. And then consider what a dreadful old tyrant of a papa she had! My dear girl, it's not the slightest use your looking so provokingly correct; it's my deliberate belief that if you had been in her shoes (they'd have been at least three sizes too small for you, but that doesn't matter) you would have done precisely the same.
Such was the state of things on Christmas Eve in the year——stay! fairy tales never have a year to them; so on second thoughts I wouldn't tell the date if I knew—but I don't. Such was the state of things, however, on the particular 24th of December to which our story refers—only, if anything, rather more so. The baron had got up in the morning in an exceedingly bad temper; and those about him had felt its effects all through the day. His two favorite wolf-hounds, Lutzow and Teufel, had received so many kicks from the baron's heavy boots that they hardly knew at which end their tails were; and even Klootz himself scarcely dared to approach his master. In the middle of the day two of the principal tenants came to say that they were unprepared with their rent, and to beg for a little delay. The poor fellows represented that their families were starving, and entreated for mercy; but the baron was only too glad that he had at last found so fair an excuse for venting his ill-humor. He loaded the unhappy defaulters with every abusive epithet he could devise (and being called names in German is no joke, I can tell you); and, lastly, he swore by everything he could think of that if their rent was not paid on the morrow, themselves and their families should be turned out of doors to sleep on the snow, which was then many inches deep on the ground. They still continued to beg for mercy, till the baron became so exasperated that he determined to kick them out of the castle himself. He pursued them for that purpose as far as the outer door, when fresh fuel was added to his anger. Carl, who as I have hinted, still managed, notwithstanding the paternal prohibition, to see fair Bertha occasionally, and had come to wish her a merry Christmas, chanced at this identical moment to be saying good-by at the door, above which, in accordance with immemorial usage, a huge bush of mistletoe was suspended. What they were doing under it at the moment of the baron's appearance, I never knew exactly; but his wrath was tremendous! I regret to say that his language was unparliamentary in the extreme. He swore till he was mauve in the face; and if he had not providentially been seized with a fit of coughing, and sat down in the coal-scuttle—mistaking it for a three-legged stool—it is impossible to say to what lengths his feelings might have carried him. Carl and Bertha picked him up, rather black behind, but otherwise not much the worse for his accident. In fact, the diversion of his thoughts seemed to have done him good; for, having sworn a little more, and Carl having left the castle, he appeared rather better. After having endured so many and various emotions, it is hardly to be wondered at that the baron required some consolation; so, after having changed his tr—s-rs, he took himself off to his favorite turret, to allay by copious potations the irritation of his mind. Bottle after bottle was emptied, and pipe after pipe was [{449}] filled and smoked. The fine old Burgundy was gradually getting into the baron's head; and altogether he was beginning to feel more comfortable. The shades of the winter afternoon had deepened into the evening twilight, made dimmer still by the aromatic clouds that came, with dignified deliberation, from the baron's lips, and curled in floated up to the carved ceiling of the turret, where they spread themselves into a dim canopy, which every successive cloud brought lower and lower. The fire, which had been filed up mountain-high earlier in the afternoon, and had flamed and roared to its heart's content ever since, had now got to that state—the perfection of a fire to a lazy man—when it requires no poking or attention of any kind, but just burns itself hollow, and then tumbles in, and blazes jovially for a little time, and then settles down to a genial glow, and gets hollow and tumbles in again. The baron's fire was just in this delightful "da capo" condition, most favorable of all to the enjoyment of the "dolce far niente." For the little while it would glow and kindle quietly, making strange faces to itself, and building fantastic castles in the depths of its red recesses, and then the castles would come down with a crash, and the faces disappear, with a bright flame spring up and lick lovingly the sides of the old chimney; and the carved heads of improbable men and impossible women, hewn so deftly round the panels of the old oak wardrobe opposite, in which the baron's choicest vintages were deposited, were lit up by the flickering light, and seemed to nod and wink at the fire in return, with the familiarity of old acquaintances.
Some such fancy as this was disporting itself in the baron's brain; and he was gazing at the old oak carving accordingly, and emitting huge volumes of smoke with reflective slowness, when a clatter among the bottles on the table caused him to turn his head to ascertain the cause. The baron was by no means a nervous man; however, the sight that met his eyes when he turned round did take away his presence of mind a little; and he was obliged to take four distinct puffs before he had sufficiently regained his equilibrium to inquire, "Who the—Pickwick—are you?" (The baron said "Dickens," but as that is a naughty word we will substitute "Pickwick," which is equally expressive, and not so wrong.) Let me see; where was I? Oh! yes. "Who the Pickwick are you?"
Now, before I allow the baron's visitor to answer the question, perhaps I had better give a slight description of his personal appearance. If this wasn't a true story, I should have liked to have made him a model of manly beauty; but a regard for veracity compels me to confess that he was not what would be generally considered handsome; that is, not in figure, for his face was by no means unpleasing. His body was in size and shape not very unlike a huge plum-pudding, and was clothed in a bright-green tightly fitting doublet, with red holly berries for buttons. His limbs were long and slender in proportion to his stature, which was not more than three feet or so. His head was encircled by a crown of holly and mistletoe. The round red berries sparkled amid his hair, which was silver-white, and shone out in cheerful harmony with his rosy jovial face. And that face! it would have done one good to look at it. In spite of the silver hair, and an occasional wrinkle beneath the merry laughing eyes, it seemed brimming over with perpetual youth. The mouth, well garnished with teeth, white and sound, which seemed as if they could do ample justice to holiday cheer, was ever open with a beaming genial smile, expanding now and then into hearty jovial laughter. Fun and good-fellowship were in every feature. The owner of the face was, at the moment when the baron first perceived him, comfortably seated upon the top of the large tobacco-jar on the table, nursing his left leg. The baron's [{450}] somewhat abrupt inquiry did not appear to irritate him; on the contrary, he seemed rather amused than otherwise.
"You don't ask prettily, old gentleman," he replied; "but I don't mind telling you, for all that. I'm King Christmas."
"Eh?" said the baron.
"Ah!" said the goblin. Of course you've guessed he was a goblin.
"And pray what's your business here?" said the baron.