Therefore my Hope arose
From out her swound and gazed upon Thy face.
And, meeting there that soft subduing look
Which Peter's spirit shook
Sunk downward in a rapture to embrace
Thy pierced hands and feet with kisses close,
And prayed Thee to assist her evermore
To “reach the things before.” E. B. Browning
“I'm really thankful it is the last time I shall have to get this
abominable paper money,” said Raeburn, coming down the stairs. “Just
count these twos and fives for me, dear; fifteen of each there should
be.”
At that moment Brian had just passed the tall, white column disappearing
into the street which leads to the Borgo Ogni Santi. Erica turned to
begin her new chapter of life heavily handicapped in the race for once
more that deadly faintness crept over her, a numbing, stifling pressure,
as if Pain in physical form had seized her heart in his cold clasp. But
with all her strength she fought against it, forcing herself to count
the hateful little bits of paper, and thankful that her father was too
much taken up with the arrangement of his purse to notice her.
“I am glad we happened to meet Brian,” he remarked; “he goes by an
earlier train that I thought. Now, little son Eric, where shall we go?
We'll have a day of unmitigated pleasure and throw care to the winds.
I'll even forswear Vieusseux; there won't be much news today.”
“Let us take the Pitti Palace first,” said Erica, knowing that the fresh
air and the walk would be the only chance for her.
She walked very quickly with the feeling that, if she were still for a
single moment, she should fall down. And, luckily, Raeburn thought her
paleness accounted for by yesterday's headache and the wakeful night,
and never suspected the true state of the case. On they went, past
fascinating marble shops and jewelers' windows filled with Florentine
mosaics, across the Ponte Vecchio, down a shady street, and into the
rough-hewn, grim-looking palace. It was to Erica like a dream of pain,
the surroundings were so lovely, the sunshine so perfect, and her own
heart so sore.
But within that old palace she found the true cure for sore hearts. She
remembered having looked with Brian at an “Ecce Home,” by Carlo Dolci
and thought she would like to see it again. It was not a picture her
father would have cared for, and she left him looking at Raphael's
“Three Ages of Man,” and went by herself into the little room which is
called the “Hall of Ulysses.” The picture was a small one and had what
are considered the usual faults of the painter, but it was the
first “Ecce Homo” that Erica had ever cared for; and, whatever the
shortcomings of the execution, the ideal was a most beautiful one.
The traces of physical pain were not brought into undue prominence,
appearing not at all in the face, which was full of unutterable calm
and dignity. The deep, brown eyes had the strange power which belongs to
some pictures; they followed you all over the room there was no escaping
them. They were hauntingly sad eyes, eyes in which there lurked grief
unspeakable; not the grief which attends bodily pain, but the grief
which grieves for others the grief which grieves for humanity, for
its thousand ills and ignorances, its doubts and denials, its sins
and sufferings. There was no bitterness in it, no restlessness, no
questioning. It was the grief of a noble strong man whose heart is torn
by the thought of the sin and misery of his brothers, but who knows that
the Father can, and will, turn the evil into the means of glorious gain.
As Erica looked, the true meaning of pain seemed to flash upon her.
Dimly she had apprehended it in the days of her atheism, had clung to
the hope that the pain of the few brought the gain of the many; but now
the hope became certainty, the faith became open vision. For was it not
all here, written in clearest characters, in the life of the Ideal Man?
And is not what was true for him, true for us too? We talk much about
“Christ our example,” and struggle painfully along the uphill road of
the “Imitation of Christ,” meaning by that too often a vague endeavor
to be “good,” to be patient, to be not entirely absorbed in the things
which are seen. But when pain comes, when the immense misery and evil in
the world are borne in upon us, we too often stumble, or fail utterly,
just because we do not understand our sonship; because we forget that
Christians must be sin-bearers like their Master, pain bearers like
their Master; because we will let ourselves be blinded by the mystery of
evil and the mystery of pain, instead of fixing our eyes as Christ did,
on the joy that those mysteries are sure to bring. “Lo, I come to do Thy
will.” And what is the will of even a good earthly father but the best
possible for all his children?
Erica saw for the first time that no pain she had ever suffered had been
a wasted thing, nor had it merely taught her personally some needful
lesson; it had been rather her allotted service, her share of
pain-bearing, sin-bearing, Christ-following; her opportunity of doing
the “Will” not self-chosen, but given to her as one of the best of gifts
by the Father Himself.
“Oh, what a little fool I've been!” she thought to herself with the
strange pang of joy which comes when we make some discovery which
sweetens the whole of life, and which seems so self-evident that we can
but wonder and wonder at our dense stupidity in not seeing it sooner.
“I've been grudging Brian what God sees he most wants! I've been
groaning over the libels and injustices which seem to bring so much pain
and evil when, after all, they will be, in the long run, the very
things to show people the need of tolerance, and to establish freedom of
speech.”
Even this pain of renunciation seemed to gain a new meaning for her
though she could not in the least fathom it; even the unspeakable
grief of feeling that her father was devoting much of his life to the
propagation of error, lost its bitterness though it retained its depth.
For with the true realization of Fatherhood and Sonship impatience
and bitterness die, and in their place rises the peace which “passeth
understanding.”
“We will have a day of unmitigated pleasure,” her father had said to
her, and the words had at the time been like a sharp stab. But, after
all, might not this pain, this unseen and dimly understood work for
humanity, be in very truth the truest pleasure? What artist is there
who would not gratefully receive from the Master an order to attempt
the loftiest of subjects? What poet is there whose heart would not bound
when he knew he was called to write on the noblest of themes? All the
struggles, all the weary days of failure, all the misery of conscious
incompleteness, all the agony of soul these were but means to the end,
and so inseparably bound up with the end that they were no more evil,
but good, their darkness over flooded with the light of the work
achieved.
Raeburn, coming into the room, saw what she was looking at, and turned
away. Little as he could understand her thoughts, he was not the sort
of man to wound unnecessarily one who differed from him. His words in
public were sharp and uncompromising; in debate he did not much care how
he hit as long as he hit hard. But, apart from the excitement of
such sword play, he was, when convinced that his hearers were honest
Christians, genuinely sorry to give them pain.
Erica found him looking at a Sevres china vase in which he could not by
any possibility have been interested.
“I feel Mr. Ruskin's wrathful eye upon me,” she said, laughing. “Now
after spending all that time before a Carlo Dolci, we must really go
to the Uffizzi and look at Botticelli's 'Fortitude'. Brian and I nearly
quarreled over it the last time we were there.”
So they wandered away together through the long galleries, Erica
pointing out her favorite pictures and hearing his opinion about them.
And indeed Raeburn was as good a companion as could be wished for in a
picture gallery. The intense development of the critical faculty, which
had really been the bane of his existence, came here to his aid for he
had a quick eye for all that was beautiful both in art and nature, and
wonderfully keen powers of observation. The refreshment, too, of leaving
for a moment his life of excessive toil was great; Erica hoped that he
really did find the day, for once, “unmitigated pleasure.”
They went to Santa Croce, they walked through the crowded market, they
had a merry dispute about ascending the campanile.
“Just this one you really must let me try,” said Erica, “they say it is
very easy.”
“To people without spines perhaps it may be,” said Raeburn.
“But think of the view from the top,” said Erica, “and it really won't
hurt me. Now, padre mio, I'm sure it's for the greatest happiness of the
greatest number that I should go up!”
“It's the old story,” said Raeburn, smiling,
'Vain is the hope, by any force or skill,
To stem the current of a woman's will;
For if she will, she will, you may depend on't,
And if she won't, she won't, and there's an end on't.'
However, since this is probably the last time in our lives that we shall
have the chance, perhaps, I'll not do the tyrannical father.”
They had soon climbed the steep staircase and were quite rewarded by the
magnificent view from the top, a grand panorama of city and river and
green Apennines. Erica looked northward to Fiesole with a fast-throbbing
heart. Yet it seemed as if half a life time lay between the
passion-tossed yesterday and the sad yet peaceful present. Nor was the
feeling a mere delusion; she had indeed in those brief hours lived years
of the spirit life.
She did not stay long at that northern parapet; thoughts of her own
life or even of Brian's would not do just then. She had to think of her
father, to devote herself to him. And somehow, though her heart was
sad, yet her happiness was real as they tried together to make out the
various buildings; and her talk was unrestrained, and even her laughter
natural, not forced; for it is possible to those who really love to
throw themselves altogether into the life of another, and to lay aside
all thought of self.
Once or twice that day she half feared that her father must guess all
that had happened. He was so very careful of her, so considerate; and
for Raeburn to be more considerate meant a great deal for in private
he was always the most gentle man imaginable. His opponents, who
often regarded him as a sort of “fiend in human shape,” were strangely
mistaken in their estimate of his character. When treated with
discourtesy or unfairness in public, it was true that he hit back
again, and hit hard; and, since even in the nineteenth century we are
so foolish as to use these weapons against the expression of opinions
we deem mischievous, Raeburn had had a great deal of practice in this
retaliation. He was a very proud and a very sensitive man, not blessed
with overmuch patience. But he held his opinions honestly and had
suffered much for them; he had a real love for humanity and an almost
passionate desire to better his generation. To such a man it was no
light thing to be deemed everything that is vile; like poor Shelley,
he found it exceedingly bitter to let “murderers and traitors take
precedence of him in public opinion.” People in general took into
account all his harsh utterances (and some of them were very harsh),
but they rarely thought anything about the provocation received, the
excessively hard life that this man had lived, the gross personal
insults which he had had to put up with, the galling injustice he had
had to fight against. Upon this side of the question they just turned
their backs, pooh-poohed it, or, when it was forced upon their notice,
said (unanswerable argument!): “It wouldn't be so!”
When, as they were making the descent, Erica found the strong hand
stretched out for hers the moment the way grew dark, when she was warned
of the slightest difficulty by, “Take care, little one, a narrow step,”
or, “'Tis rather broken here,” she almost trembled to think that, in
spite of all her efforts, he might have learned how matters really were.
But by and by his serenity reassured her; had he thought that she was in
trouble his face would not have been so cloudless.
And in truth Raeburn, spite of his keen observation, never thought for
a moment of the true state of the case. He was a very literal
unimaginative man, and having once learned to regard Brian as an old
family friend and as his doctor, he never dreamed of regarding him in
the light of his daughter's lover. Also, as is not unfrequently the case
when a man has only one child, he never could take in the fact that
she was quite grown up. Even when he read her articles in the “Daily
Review,” or discussed the most weighty topics with her, she was always
“little son Eric,” or his “little one.” And Erica's unquenchable high
spirits served to keep up the delusion. She would as often as not end
a conversation on Darwinism by a romp with Friskarina, or write a very
thoughtful article on “Scrutin de Liste,” and then spring up from her
desk and play like any child with an India-rubber ball nominally kept
for children visitors.
She managed to tide over those days bravely and even cheerfully for
her father's sake. It was easier when they had left Florence with
its overbright and oversad memories. Peaceful old Verona was more in
accordance with her state of mind; and from thence they went to Trento,
and over the Brenner, passing Botzen and Brixen in their lovely valley,
gaining a brief glimpse of the spire-like Dolomito, and gradually
ascending the pass, leaving the river and its yellow reeds, and
passing through the rich pasture land where the fields were bright
with buttercups and daisies gold and silver of the people's property
as Raeburn called them. Then on once more between crimson and purple
porphyry mountains, nearer and nearer to the snowy mountain peaks; and
at last, as the day drew to an end, they descended again, and saw down
below them in the loveliest of valleys a little town, its white houses
suffused by a crimson sunset glow.
“Innsbruck, madame, Innsbruck!” said a fat old Tyrolean man who had
been showing them all the beauties of his beloved country throughout the
journey.
And, though nothing could ever again have for Erica the sweet glamour
of an Italian city, yet she was glad now to have seen the last of that
sunny land, and welcomed the homely little place with its matter-of-fact
houses and prosperous comfort. She felt somehow that it would be easier
to endure now that she was fairly out of Italy.
The day after their arrival at Innsbruck was Sunday. There was no
English service as yet for the season had not begun, but Erica went
to the little Lutheran church, and Raeburn, who had never been to
a Lutheran service, went with her for the sake of studying the
congregation, the preacher, and the doctrine. Also, perhaps, because he
did not want her to feel lonely in a foreign place.
All her life long Erica remembered that Sunday. The peaceful little
church with its high pews, where they sat to sing and stood to pray, the
homely German pastor with his plain yet forcible sermon on “Das Gebet,”:
the restful feeling of unity which so infinitely outweighed all the
trifling differences, and the comfort of the sweet old German chorales.
The words of one of them lingered always in her memory.
“Fuhlt Seel und Leib ein Wohl ergehen So treib es mich zum Dank dafur;
Last du mich deine Werke sehen, So sey mein Ruhmen stets von dir; Und
find ich in der Welt nicht Ruh, So steig mein Schmen Hinmel zu.”
After the service was ended, they wandered out into the public gardens
where birds were singing round the statue of Walter von der Vogelveice,
and a sparrow, to Erica's great delight, perched on his very shoulder.
Then they left the town altogether and roamed out into the open country,
crossing the river by a long and curiously constructed plank bridge,
and sauntering along the valley beneath the snowy mountains, the river
flowing smoothly onward, the birds singing, and a paradise of flowers on
every side. It was quite the hottest day they had had, and they were not
sorry to rest in the first shady place they came to.
“This is the right way to take pleasure,” said Raeburn, enjoying as only
an ardent lover of Nature can enjoy a mountain view. “Brief snatches in
between hard work. More than that is hardly admissible in such times as
ours.” His words seemed to them prophetic later on for their pleasure
was destined to be even briefer than they had anticipated. The hotel
at which they were staying was being painted, Erica had a room on the
second floor, but Raeburn had been put at the top of the house. They had
just returned from a long drive and were quietly sitting in Erica's room
writing letters, thinking every moment that the gong would sound for
the six-o'clock TABLE D'HOTE, when a sound of many voices outside made
Raeburn look up. He went to the window.
“Haloo! A fire engine!” he exclaimed.
Erica hastily joined him; a crowd was gathering beneath the window,
shouting, waving, gesticulating.
“Why, they are pointing up here!” cried Erica. “The fire must be here!”
She rushed across the room and opened the door; the whole place was in
an uproar, people rushing to and fro, cries of “FEUER! FEUER!” a waiter
with scared face hurrying from room to room with the announcement in
broken English, “The hotel is on fire!” or, sometimes in his haste and
confusion, “The fire is on hotel!” For a moment Erica's heart stood
still; the very vagueness of the terror, the uncertainty as to the
extent of the danger or the possibility of escape, was paralyzing. Then
with the natural instinct of a book lover she hastily picked up two or
three volumes from the table and begged her father to come. He made her
put on her hat and cloak, and shouldering her portmanteau, led the way
through the corridors and down the staircase, steadily forcing a passage
through the confused and terrified people, and never pausing for an
instant, not even asking the whereabouts of the fire, till he had got
Erica safely out into the little platz and had set down her portmanteau
under one of the trees.
They looked up then and saw that the whole of the roof and the attics of
the hotel were blazing. Raeburn's room was immediately below and was in
great danger. A sudden thought seemed to occur to him, a look of dismay
crossed his face, he felt hurriedly in his pocket.
“Where did I change my coat, Erica?” he asked.
“You went up to your room to change it just before the drive,” she
replied.
“Then, by all that's unlucky, I've left in it those papers for
Hasenbalg! Wait here; I'll be back in a minute.”
He hurried off, looking more anxious than Erica had ever seen him look
before. The papers which he had been asked to deliver to Herr Hasenbalg
in no way concerned him, but they had been intrusted to his care and
were, therefore, of course more to be considered than the most valuable
private property. Much hindered by the crowd and by the fire engine
itself which had been moved into the entrance hall, he at length
succeeded in fighting his way past an unceasing procession of furniture
which was being rescued from the flames, and pushing his way up the
stairs, had almost gained his room when a pitiful cry reached his ears.
It was impossible to a man of Raeburn's nature not to turn aside; the
political dispatches might be very important, but a deserted child in
a burning house outweighed all other considerations. He threw open the
door of the room whence the cry had come; the scaffolding outside had
caught fire, and the flames were darting in at the window. Sitting up in
a little wooden cot was a child of two or three years old, his baby face
wild with fright.
“Poor bairn!” exclaimed Raeburn, taking him in his strong arms. “Have
they forgotten you?”
The child was German and did not understand a word, but it knew in a
moment that this man, so like a fairy-tale giant, was a rescuer.
“Guter Riese!” it sobbed, appealingly.
The “good giant” snatched a blanket from the cot, rolled it round the
shivering little bit of humanity, and carried him down into the platz.
“Keep this bairnie till his belongings claim him,” he said, putting his
charge into Erica's arms. And then he hurried back again, once more
ran the gantlet of the descending wardrobes and bedsteads, and at last
reached his room. It was bare of all furniture; the lighter things his
coat among them had been thrown out of the window, the more solid things
had been carried down stairs. He stood there baffled and for once in his
life bewildered.
Half-choked with the smoke, he crossed the room and looked out of the
window, the hot breath of the flames from the scaffolding scorching his
face. But looking through that frame of fire, he saw that a cordon had
been drawn round the indiscriminate piles of rescued property, that the
military had been called out, and that the most perfect order prevailed.
There was still a chance that he might recover the lost papers! Then, as
there was no knowing that the roof would not fall in and crush him, he
made the best of his way down again among the still flowing stream of
furniture.
An immense crowd had gathered in the square outside; the awe-struck
murmurs and exclamations sounded like the roar of distant thunder, and
the shouts of “WASSER! WASSER!” alternated with the winding of bugles
as the soldiers moved now in one direction, now in another, their bright
uniforms and the shining helmets of the fire brigade men flashing hither
and thither among the dark mass of spectators. Overhead the flames raged
while the wind blew down bits of burning tinder upon the crowd. Erica,
wedged in among the friendly Tyrolese people, watched anxiously for
her father, not quite able to believe his assurance that there was no
danger. When at length she saw the tall commanding figure emerge from
the burning hotel, the white head towering over the crowd, her heart
gave a great bound of relief. But she saw in a moment that he had been
unsuccessful.
“It must have been thrown out of the window,” he said, elbowing his way
up to her. “The room was quite bare, carpet and all gone, nothing to be
found but these valuables,” and with a smile, he held up the last number
of the “Idol-Breaker,” and a tooth brush.
“They are taking great care of the things,” said Erica. “Perhaps we
shall find it by and by.”
“We must find it,” said Raeburn, his lips forming into the curve of
resoluteness which they were wont to assume when any difficulty arose to
be grappled with. “What has become of the bairn?”
“A nurse came up and claimed it and was overwhelmingly grateful to you
for your rescue. She had put the child to bed early and had gone for a
walk in the gardens. Oh, look, how the fire is spreading!”
“The scaffolding is terribly against saving it, and the wind is high,
too,” said Raeburn, scanning the place all over with his keen eyes.
Then, as an idea seemed to strike him, he suddenly hurried forward once
more, and Erica saw him speaking to two fire brigade men. In another
minute the soldiers motioned the crowd further back, Raeburn rejoined
Erica, and, picking up her portmanteau, took her across the road to the
steps of a neighboring hotel. “I've suggested that they should cut down
the scaffolding,” he said; “it is the only chance of saving the place.”
The whole of the woodwork was now on fire; to cut it down was a somewhat
dangerous task, but the men worked gallantly, and in a few minutes
the huge blazing frame, with its poles and cross poles, ladders and
platforms, swayed, quivered, then fell forward with a crash into the
garden beyond.
Raeburn had, as usual, attracted to himself the persons most worth
talking to in the crowd, a shrewd-looking inhabitant of Innsbruck,
spectacled and somewhat sallow, but with a face which was full of
intellect. He learned that, although no one could speak positively as
to the origin of the fire, it was more than probable that it had been no
mere accident. The very Sunday before, at exactly the same hour, a large
factory had been entirely destroyed by fire, and it needed no very
deep thinker to discover that a Sunday evening, when every one would
be out-of-doors keeping holiday, and the fire brigade men scattered and
hard to summon, was the very time for incendiarism. They learned much
from the shrewd citizen about the general condition of the place, which
seemed outwardly too peaceful and prosperous for such wild and senseless
outbreaks.
“If, as seems probable, this is the act of some crazy socialist, he has
unwittingly done harm to the cause of reform in general,” said Raeburn
to Erica when the informant had passed on. “Those papers for Hasenbalg
were important ones, and, if laid hold of by unfriendly hands, might do
untold harm. Socialism is the most foolish system on earth. Inevitably
it turns to this sort of violence when the uneducated have seized on its
main idea.
“After all, I believe they will save the house,” said Erica. “Just look
at those men on the top, how splendidly they are working!”
It was, in truth, a grand, though a very horrible sight to see the dark
forms toiling away, hewing down the burning rafters with an absolute
disregard to their personal safety. These were not firemen, but
volunteers chimney-sweeps, as one of the crowd informed Raeburn and it
was in the main owing to their exertions that the fire was at length
extinguished.
After the excitement was over, they went into the neighboring hotel,
where there was some difficulty in obtaining rooms, as all the
burned-out people had taken refuge there. However, the utmost
hospitality and friendliness prevailed, and even hungry Englishmen,
cheated of their dinner, were patient for once, while the overtaxed
waiters hurried to and fro, preparing for the second and quite
unexpected table d'hote. Everyone had something to tell either of his
escape or his losses. One lady had seen her night gown thrown out of the
window, and had managed adroitly to catch it; some one else on rushing
up to find his purse had been deluged by the fire engine, and Raeburn's
story of the little German boy excited great interest. The visitors were
inclined to make a hero of him. Once, when he had left the room, Erica
heard a discussion about him with no little amusement.
“Who is the very tall, white-haired man?”
“The man who saved the child? I believe he must be the Bishop of
Steneborough; he is traveling in the Tyrol, I know, and I'm sure that
man is a somebody. So much dignity, and such power over everybody!
Didn't you see the way the captain of the fire brigade deferred to him?”
“Well, now I think of it,” replied the other, “he has an earnest,
devotional sort of face, perhaps you're right. I'll speak to him when he
comes back. Ah!” in a lower voice, “there he is! And Confound it! He's
got no gaiters! Goodbye to my visions of life-long friendship and a
comfortable living for Dick!”
In spite of his anxiety about the lost packet, Raeburn laughed heartily
over Erica's account of this conversation. He had obtained leave to
search the deserted hotel, and a little before ten o'clock they made
their way across the square, over planks and charred rafters, broken
glass, and pools of water, which were hard to steer through in the
darkness. The fire was now quite out, and they were beginning to move
the furniture in again, but the place had been entirely dismantled, and
looked eerie and forlorn. On the staircase was a decapitated statue, and
broken and crushed plants were strewn about. Erica's room was quite bare
of furniture, nor could she find any of the things she wanted. The pen
with which she had been writing lay on the floor, and also a Japanese
fan soaked with water, but neither of these were very serviceable
articles to a person bereft of every toilet requisite.
“I shall have to lie down tonight like a dog, and get up in the morning,
and shake myself,” she said, laughing.
And probably a good many people in Innsbruck were that evening in like
case.
Notwithstanding the discomforts, however, and the past excitement, that
was the first night in which Erica had really slept since the day at
Fiesole, the first night unbroken by dreams about Brian, unhaunted by
that blanched, rigid face, which had stamped its image indelibly upon
her brain in the amphitheatre. She awoke, too, without that almost
intolerable dread of the coming day which had hitherto made early
morning hateful to her. It was everything to have an actual and
practicable duty ready to hand, everything to have a busy present which
would crowd out past and future, if only for a few hours. Also, the
disaster had its comic side. Through the thin partition she could hear
distinctly the complaints of the people in the next room.
“How ARE we to get on with no soap? Do go and see if James has any.”
Then came steps in the passage, and a loud knock at the opposite door.
“James!”
No answer. A furiously loud second knock.
“JAMES!”
“What's the matter? Another fire?”
“Have you any soap?”
“Any what?” sleepily.
“Any SOAP?”
Apparently James was not the happy possessor of that necessary of life
for the steps retreated, and the bell was violently rung.
“'What, no soap?'” exclaimed Erica, laughing; “'so he died, and she very
imprudently married the barber, etc.'”
The chamber maid came to answer the bell.
“Send some one to the nearest shop, please, and get me some soap.”
“And a sponge,” said another.
“And a brush and comb,” said the first.
“Oh! And some hair pins,” echoed the other. “Why, destruction! She
doesn't understand a word! What's the German for soap? Give me 'Travel
Talk.'”
“It's burned.”
“Well, then, show her the soap dish! Brush your hair with your hands!
This is something between Drum Crambo and Mulberry Bush!”
The whole day was not unlike a fatiguing game of hide-and-seek, and had
it not been for Raeburn's great anxiety, it would have been exceedingly
amusing. Everything was now inside the hotel again, but of course in the
wildest confusion. The personal property of the visitors was placed, as
it came to light, in the hall porter's little room; but things were to
be met with in all directions. At ten o'clock, one of Raeburn's boots
was found on the third story; in the evening, its fellow turned up
in the entrance hall. Distracted tourists were to be seen in all
directions, burrowing under heaps of clothes, or vainly opening
cupboards and drawers, and the delight of finding even the most trifling
possession was great. For hours Raeburn and Erica searched for the lost
papers in vain. At length, in the evening, the coat was found; but,
alas! The pocket was empty.
“The envelope must have been taken out,” said Erica. “Was it directed?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Raeburn. “But, after all, there is still a
chance that it may have tumbled out as the coat fell. If so, we may find
it elsewhere. I've great faith in the honesty of these Innsbruck people,
notwithstanding the craze of some of them that property is theft. That
worthy man yesterday was right, I expect. I hear that the proprietor had
had a threatening letter not long ago to this effect:
“'Sein thun unser Dreissig,
Schuren thun wir fleissig.
Dem Armen that's nichts
Dem Reichen schad's nichts.
That is tolerably unmistakable, I think. I'll have it in next week's
'Idol,' with an article on the folly of socialism.”
Judicious offers of reward failed to bring the papers to light, and
Raeburn was so much vexed about it, and so determined to search every
nook and cranny of the hotel, that it was hard to get him away even for
meals. Erica could not help feeling that it was hard that the brief days
of relaxation he had allowed himself should be so entirely spoiled.
“Now, if I were a model daughter, I should dream where to find the
thing,” she said, laughingly, as she wished him good night.
She did not dream at all, but she was up as soon as it was light,
searching once more with minute faithfulness in every part of the hotel.
At length she came to a room piled from floor to ceiling with linen,
blankets, and coverlets.
“Have all these been shaken?” she asked of the maid servant who had been
helping her.
“Well, not shaken, I think,” owned the servant. “We were in a hurry, you
see; but they are all fresh folded.”
“It might have slipped into one of them,” said Erica. “Help me to shake
every one of these, and I will give you two gulden.”
It was hard work, and somewhat hopeless work; but Erica set about it
with all the earnestness and thoroughness of her Raeburn nature, and at
length came her reward. At the very bottom of the huge pile they came
to a counterpane, and, as they opened it, out fell the large, thick
envelope directed to Herr Hasenbalg. With a cry of joy, Erica snatched
it up, pressed double the reward into the hands of the delighted
servant, and flew in search of her father. She found him groping in a
great heap of miscellaneous goods in the porter's room.
“I've found my razors,” he said, looking up, “and every
twopenny-halfpenny thing out of my traveling bag; but the papers, of
course, are nowhere.”
“What's your definition of 'nowhere'?” asked Erica, laughingly covering
his eyes while she slipped the envelope into his hand.
His look of relief made her happier than she had been for days. He stood
up quickly, and turned the envelope over to see that it had not been
tampered with.
“This is my definition of a dear, good bairn,” he said, putting his hand
on her head. “You have taken a hundred-weight off my heart, Eric. Where
did you find it?”
She described her search to him.
“Well, now, nothing will satisfy me but a mountain,” said Raeburn. “Are
you too tired? We could have a good climb before dinner.”
“Oh, let us!” she exclaimed. “I have had such a longing to get nearer
the snow.”
Each felt that the holiday had now begun. They threw care to the winds,
and gave themselves up altogether to the enjoyment of the loveliest walk
they had ever taken. Crossing the Kreuzer bridge, they made their way
past little wooden chalets, through groves of oak where the sunlight
came flickering in between the leaves, through pine woods whose long
vistas were solemn as cathedral aisles, until at last they gained the
summit of the lower range of hills, from which was a glorious view
on every hand. Down below lay the little town which would be forever
memorable to them; while above them rose the grand chain of snowy
mountains which still seemed as lofty and unapproachable as ever, though
they themselves were on high ground. Soft and velvety and green lay
that great upward sweep in the sunshine, shaded in some places by a dark
patch of pines, or gleaming with a heap of fallen snow. Here and there
some deep rugged cleft would be filled from top to bottom with the
gleaming whiteness, while above, crowning the steep and barren height,
the snow reigned supreme, unmelted as yet even by the hot May sun.
And Erica was, in spite of her sorrow, unfeignedly happy. She could not
be sad when her father was so thoroughly enjoying himself, when for once
he was altogether removed from the baleful influences of hatred, malice,
and all uncharitableness. Here instead of sweeping denunciations,
which invariably drove him, as they drove even the patient Job, to an
assertion of his own righteousness there was the silent yet most real
teaching of Nature; and he must be a small-souled man, indeed, who,
in the presence of grand mountain scenery, can not forget his own
personality, realizing the infinite beauty and the unspeakable greatness
of nature. Erica's father was unquestionably a large-souled man, in
every sense of the word, a great man; but the best man in the world is
to a great extent dependent on circumstance, and the circumstances of
Raeburn's life had been exceptionally hard. Only two things on earth
acted as a check upon the one great fault which marred an otherwise fine
character. Beauty of scenery made him for the time being as humble as
a child, and the devotion of his own followers sometimes made him ask
himself whether he were worthy of such love.
The following day the papers, which had caused them so much trouble and
anxiety, were safely delivered to Herr Hasenbalg at Salzburg; and then
came one more perfect holiday. In the months that followed, Erica loved
just to shut her eyes and forget a sad or stormy present, to call up
once more the remembrance of that time. To the minutest details she
always remembered it. The start in the early morning, which had seemed
cloudy and unpromising, the long, beautiful drive to Berchtesgaden,
and on beyond to the Konigsee. The perfect and unbroken calm of that
loveliest of lakes, so jealously guarded by its chain of mountains that
only in two places is it possible to effect a landing. The dark pines
and silvery birches clothing the sides of the mountains; the gray
limestone cliffs rising step and sheer from the water, in which their
slim, green skiff glided swiftly on, the oars, which were more like
long, brown spades, pulled by a man and woman, who took it in turns
to sit and stand; the man with gay tie and waistband, Tyrolese hat and
waving feather; the woman wearing a similar hat over a gayly embroidered
head-dress, ample white sleeves, a square-cut bodice, and blue plaid
skirt.
Here and there a group of light-green larches just caught the sunshine,
or a little boat coming in the opposite direction would suddenly glide
round one of the bends in the lake, its oars splashing a wide line of
silvery brightness in the calm water, in vivid contrast to the dark-blue
prow. Then, as they rounded one of the abrupt curves came a glorious
view of snow mountains blue shadows below, and above, in the sunshine,
the most dazzling whiteness, while close to the water from the sheer
precipice of gray rock, sprung here and there a hardy pine.
They landed beside a quaint little church with cupolas, and had an
exquisite walk through the woods just at the foot of the mountains where
the wealth of gentians and other Alpine flowers made Raeburn's felicity
complete.
Presently came the return to the little boat, and a quiet row back to
the landing place where their carriage awaited them. And then followed
the delightful drive home, past the river which tossed its green waters
here and there into snow-like wreaths of foam, over quaint and shaky
wooden bridges, between gray rocks and groves of plane trees whose
trunks were half veiled in golden-brown moss. Then on beneath a hill
catching faraway glimpses of a darkened and mysterious sky through the
forest of stems. Then past larger and taller pine trees which, standing
further apart, let in more sky, and left space for the brown earth to
be flecked with sunshine. And here, in the most peaceful of all country
regions, they met a handsome-looking peasant in gay Tyrolean attire much
adorned with silver chains since it was Ascension day and a festival. He
was leading by the hand his little daughter.
“That is a peaceful lot,” said Raeburn glancing at them. “Would we like
to change places with them, little son Eric?”
She laughed and shook her head and fell, nevertheless, into a reverie,
wondering what such a character as her father's would have been under
less hard circumstances, trying to picture a possible life in that
sheltered green valley. All was so perfectly peaceful; the very river
grew broader and calmer, cattle grazed by the road side, women walked
slowly along with their knitting in their hands, the fruit trees were
white with blossom. As they reached the pretty village of Berchtesgaden
the sun was setting, the square comfortable-looking white houses with
their broad, dark eaves and balconies were bathed in a rosy glow, the
two spires of the little church stood out darkly against the evening
sky; in the platz women were filling their pitchers at a stone fountain
made in the shape of a rampant lion while others were kneeling before
the calvary at the entrance to the village, praying with the reverence
which is one of the characteristics of the Tyrolese. Towering above all
in the background rose the two Wartzmann peaks, standing there white and
majestic like guardian angels.
“What foolish being called seven the perfect number?” said Raeburn,
turning back from a last look at the twin mountains which were now
assuming their cloud caps. “Two is the perfect number, is it not, little
one?”
She smiled and slipped her hand into his.
Then came a wild, desolate part of the road, which passed through a
valley shut in on all sides by mountains, some of them snowy, all wild
and precipitous, and looking strangely desolate in the falling light.
Erica could not help contrasting it with the view from the amphitheatre
at Fiesole, of that wider amphitheatre of green hills all glowing with
light and love. But presently came more peaceful glimpses; pretty little
Schellenburg with its serpentine river winding again and again through
the village street, and the happy-looking peasants chatting at their
doors with here and there a white-capped baby made much of by all.
At last in the cool of the evening they reached Salsburg once more. But
the pleasures of the day were not yet over for as they drew up at the
door of their hotel a well-known figure suddenly emerged from the porch
and hurried toward the carriage.
“Unexpected as a meteor,” said a hearty voice in slightly foreign
accents. “Well, my good friend, well my guardian angel, how are you
both? We meet under more auspicious circumstances this time!”
It was Eric Haeberlein.