“IN VINO VERITAS.”
“To think,” said the sacristan, sipping and tasting, and smacking his
lips over the brimming glass, and then smacking and tasting and sipping
again, and finally disposing summarily of the remainder. “To think,”
he repeated, setting down the empty goblet with a sigh, and a nod of
unqualified approval, while he cast his eyes with curiosity round the
dingy room. “To think such stuff as that——”
“Try it again, friend,” said Tobias, replenishing the cup.
“Thanks, Master Syndic. I don’t mind if I do. Such stuff as that
can come out of——” the sacristan paused, casting about for a less
depreciatory term than the one which had first suggested itself, “this
simple hostelry.”
“Good wine,” amiably enunciated Tobias, sipping his own modicum as
gingerly as if it were some medicinal concoction, “needs no bush.”
“By the mass! that’s true; and as to this,” and the lay brother tossed
off his second glass of the potent liquid, “there’s nothing in our
cellars, and we’ve got good stuff in them, can hold a candle to it.”
“Then prove your appreciation,” urged Tobias, lifting the flagon again.
“Nay now,” objected Prudentius, coquettishly protecting the outworks
of his glass with all his ten outspread fingers, but leaving its mouth
utterly unguarded. “It’s heady drink I expect, and one must be careful,
Master Syndic, eh? Yes?”
“Oh,” laughed Hackernagel, “dear me, you might drink this whole flagon
full, and feel yourself none the worse.”
A comfortable sensation diffusing itself all over the sacristan’s inner
man lent colour to this assurance.
“I say, Master Tobias,” he began in low tones, after a brief silence
spent in a closer survey of the quarters in which he found himself, and
a speculative consideration of the sleeping topers stretched about the
benches, “we’re safe enough here of course? Oh, no offence, none in
the world, only I—Holy Saints! what was that?” and hurriedly setting
down his half-emptied glass, the sacristan rose to his feet. “What was
it?”
“Thunder,” calmly said Hackernagel, making good the vacuum. “Sit down.”
But still on his feet, Prudentius drained his replenished glass to its
dregs.
“Hadn’t we best be jogging homewards,” he said then, a little thickly.
“Ah!” returned Hackernagel with an impatient gesture. “There’ll be no
storm yet awhile. Come, man, drink, drink. No heel-taps. Sit you down.”
“Oh no. N—no heel-taps,” echoed Prudentius, dropping heavily back
into his seat, and grasping the jug by its neck, he proceeded to help
himself to its contents. “No, ’twouldn’t be for the honour of the
house, w—would it, Master Hackernagel?”
“Certainly not,” replied Tobias, sipping on delicately.
“No. N—not for the honour of the house; and,” continued Prudentius,
drawing his portly little body up into a dignified attitude, and
blinking gravely across into his companion’s face, “and it is an
honourable house; and you’re all honourable gent—gentlemen here; and
you’re the honourablest gent—gentleman among them, and—I say, Master
Tobias, it’s time”—and the sacristan’s hand slid from the table’s edge,
and grasped fumblingly after the bunch of keys at his side—“Master
Tobias, I say, hadn’t we b—best—be jogging? I’ve got to be up betimes;
and if—if a man don’t sleep, he don’t wake so easy. Eh, stands to
reason he can’t, don’t it? That’s sound s—sense, say if it isn’t.”
“Very much so, my friend,” acquiesced his entertainer, sedulously
keeping up his attentions to the sacristan’s glass.
“Yes, common sense, as you observe, M—Master Hack—Hack—Hackernagel. And
so, as I say, o—old friend, if it’s all the same—the same to you, we’ll
be jog—jog—what a devil of a row there is out there!”
Tobias started and glanced towards the window; then his lips relaxed
into a smile, and he said laconically, “Frogs”.
“Frogs, is it?” said Prudentius, propelling himself with some little
difficulty along the bench towards the window, where, resting his
shaven crown against its worm-eaten upright, he leaned, and silently
stared with preternatural gravity into the night. “Th—there’s a woman
out there,” he said at last.
“A what?”
“A woman; a—ho! ho! ho! don’t be afraid, Master Tobias. Sh—she won’t
hurt.”
“Fool!”
“I—I’ll take care of you. I’m not afraid. N—never be afraid of a woman;
I’m not. I like w—women. I wonder what sh—she’s like, that one out
there; d—don’t you.”
“Idiot!” muttered Tobias between his set teeth, “drunken——”
“N—no, none so d—drunk as—come, Master Tobias, shall we be j—jogging?”
And as the words left his lips, the sacristan sank down like a log
on the window seat, still staring with vacant intensity into the
moonlight. “What the mischief can she be doing out there?” he added in
low thick _sotto voce_; “where’s she got to? Ho! hi!—sh—I say, Syndic
Tobias, sh—she’s gone. Come and see;” and he beckoned Hackernagel with
his forefinger, describing a curiously irregular half-circle, “come
and—see.”
“Drunken fool!” growled Hackernagel, engrossed in a thoughtful
examination of the flagon’s drained interior, and speculating
whether it would be necessary to sacrifice another gold piece on its
replenishing.
“D—drunk yourself, Syndic,” returned the offended sacristan. “D—drunk,
I like that! ho! and I’m no fool neither, m—mind that. If I was a
f—fool, I suppose I shouldn’t exactly have been having th—these in
my charge for twenty years last Corpus Domini,” and with tremulous
uncertain hands he lifted the precious keys and shook them at
Hackernagel. “Fool? N—no—no, not exactly, and I’m not d—drunk neither,
I sh—should hope. And I’ve got my eyes as well as the biggest d—dog of
a heretic in all the free city, and—and it is a free city, isn’t it?
and I’m free to—to use my eyes; and I say there’s—a woman out there on
the grass.” And propping himself up on to his feet by the aid of the
window sill, Prudentius stood pointing persistently down over it to the
spot immediately beneath; “and Master Tobias,” he went on, twitching
his face with drunken leer, “what do you say man, sh—shall we go and
fetch—fetch her in? Yes? It’s damp for her, isn’t it—out there on—on
the grass.”
“Grass!” savagely echoed Hackernagel, “that isn’t grass, sheephead!
It’s water.”
“Water?” returned Prudentius, swaying round, and gravely surveying
it with blinking, lack-lustre eyes. “Water—ho! ho!—water is it?”
he continued with a mocking chuckle. “Go and tell that to your
grandmother, ho, ho—ha.”
“Upon my honour——”
“Ho—ho—come, come now, Syndic,” and Prudentius shook a warning finger
at his gossip, “no swearing. And look you here, when I don’t know
eh—chalk from cheese, then will be time for you to be trying to make
a g—gull of me. I flat—flatter myself I can tell water from gr—grass,
and—grass from w—water, any day of the week; and you—you’re just a
d—drunken c—rop—eared igno—ignoramus of an anabap—baptist, and don’t
know what you’re t—talking about. Water! ho! ho! if that’s water, why
then, th—this”—and the sacristan stretching out his two arms, dragged
the empty wine flagon to his breast, and hugged it affectionately
against his cheek—“this is water; and—and I don’t know what—I’m talking
about. And—hadn’t we best be j—jogging, Master Hack—er—na—gel?” And
next instant Prudentius lay prone across the table, snoring in heavy
drunken sleep.
Three out of those four candles have expired in their guttering grease,
and the last fitful dying flashes of light through the long low-ceiled
chamber, leave it in the intervals in almost complete darkness; but
across the recess occupied by the two latest comers, the moonbeams
cast a sickly lurid light; and Tobias Hackernagel’s face, peering
cunningly intent from his shadowy corner over the sleeping sacristan,
looks as hideously and maliciously ugly as one of the demon gurgoyles
upon the Cathedral walls. “Come, friend,” he says, tentatively laying
his fingers upon Prudentius’ shoulder, and roughly shaking him; but
the sacristan, hugging his jug tighter and closer to him, only mutters
“Water,” and sinks ten fathom deeper into his drunken sleep.
Small chance of his wakening for hours to come. “A man doesn’t exactly
empty a flagon of Niersteiner as he would a glass of sugar water,”
thinks Tobias to himself as he turns, and descending the step, makes a
circuit among the slumberers scattered about the benches, and carefully
investigates the condition of each. Then with a nod of satisfaction,
for they could not be more hopelessly incapable and unconscious
than they are, of what may be passing around them, he regards them
collectively. No deception there; the Seven of Ephesus could not be
more utterly dead to external influence; as many corpses would be as
much aware of him and his doings as these; and softly closing the door
which Ezra has left ajar, he recrosses towards the recess. Sh! what is
that?
Swift as a lightning flash, some shadow flits over the lattice,
obscuring for an instant the form of the sleeping man. Psha! and what
else but lightning? for hark! one prolonged boom of distant thunder
rolls through the leaden air; or perhaps it is no more than a bat’s
flight, or the flap of an owlet’s wing, or the sudden breeze heralding
the onward coming storm, sending the gaunt tree shadows athwart the
panes. Psha!
Stepping lightly to the platform, Hackernagel seats himself on the
bench beside the sleeping sacristan; then sweeping one keen rapid
glance all round, he stoops over him and passes his hand deftly under
the cluster of keys hanging on the stout leathern thong attached to the
broad belt encircling the lay brother’s waist, and noiselessly lifting
them on to his knees, he spreads them out fan-wise.
There, bright as gold itself amid its dull iron compeers, shines out
Master Wenzel Jamitzer’s dainty piece of handiwork; and next instant
Hackernagel’s fingers are grappling with the buckled fastening of the
belt. As it yields to his careful handling, the Syndic’s meagre lips
twitch with triumphant satisfaction. Like pearls crumbling beneath a
hammer’s stroke, his chief difficulty has fallen before him. He had
laid his plans, provided against every obstacle. In his pocket lies a
knife of razor sharpness, and an assortment of tools in case of any
necessity for proceeding to extremes, but nothing is plainer sailing.
Strong in his integrity, the unfortunate sacristan had pointed to his
buckle belt, and proudly said you might catch a weasel asleep, but it
would go hard with the man who should ever dare to meddle with that.
Yet now, it is simple child’s play. The well-worn metal works smoothly
in its grooves; and ere the sleeper has drawn three more stertorous
breaths, Tobias Hackernagel holds the thing he covets safe in his
innermost pocket. Two more minutes, nay, less, hardly longer than it
takes for that light restless shadow to sway once to and fro across
the steel-blue lattice panes, and the nimble fingers have rethreaded
the unthreaded keys in order due, and rearranged the cincture about the
sacristan’s portly loins; and so once again descending the step and
groping his way through the now utterly dark room, Hackernagel passes
out into the corridor.
At the outer door Ezra Schlau is standing, contemplating the state of
the atmosphere; and Syndic Hackernagel observing that there seems to be
a threatening of rain, and that he will be getting homewards, bids him
good-night.
“And your friend, Syndic?” enquires Schlau, jerking his head in the
direction of the guest room.
“My friend?” echoes Hackernagel, turning with bland insouciance upon
Ezra. “I do not apprehend you.”
“Prudentius the sacristan, who came with you.”
“Came with me!” ejaculated Tobias. “My good Ezra, you pain me. I did
not look to be so misjudged by you. Friend! that papist and idolater
the friend of Tobias Hackernagel! But I forgive you, Ezra; the day is
yet to come when such as you are will be able to apprehend that it
behoves us to extend charity and hospitality to—Hark ye—and mind now,”
added Hackernagel with a sudden snarl in his tone, “if you’re asked
any questions, I stumbled upon that fellow out in the copse there.
Understand? and it’s not convenient to make an enemy of him and his
just now.” A ray of intelligent acquiescence shot into the innkeeper’s
face. “Good,” was his monosyllabic comment. “And I say,” continued
Hackernagel, “that it behoves the true Christian to—Hark you here,
friend Ezra, the best thing you can be doing with yonder sot is to turn
him out of doors neck and crop as quick as you can. And if you value
your credit at a batzen’s worth, I should be careful if I were you how
I let slip that his shaven crown has ever been inside the Three Ravens.
Our brethren in the spirit don’t quite perceive these things, and if
you said much about it, custom might fall off. It might, you know, but
you and I—we understand each other. Good-night to you, friend Ezra. May
you always grow in grace and knowledge—good-night.”
“You understand yourself, perhaps,” soliloquized Schlau, watching him
as he disappeared among the trees, “but may I turn double-dyed papist,
if I understand you, or ever shall. But it’s your business, not mine;
and what will be, will be, or it’ll be no fault of yours if it isn’t.”
Having thus delivered his mind, Ezra, chiefly impressed by his patron’s
counsel touching the advisability of getting rid of his black sheep of
a guest snoring away in the parlour, turned in and shouted to Hans to
come and assist in the contemplated ejectment; but dishclout in one
hand, and pipkin in the other, Hans was also wandering in the land of
dreams, and so far gone, that not a little tax upon his gentle master’s
pounding and punching powers was put into requisition, to charm him
back again. And so much achieved, there still remained the poor
wearied-out wretch’s wits to be collected; so that full a quarter of an
hour slipped away before Ezra had succeeded in making him comprehend to
all practical end the service required of him.
Without doors the place is as still, and save for the ceaseless frog
chorus, as silent as a graveyard. Scarcely have Tobias Hackernagel’s
footsteps died away among the fallen leaves than the old city’s belfry
towers proclaim that it wants but two more hours to that midnight
whose next dawning will usher in the long-expected festal day.
With the fall of the last lingering stroke upon the heavy air, a low
rustling sound breaks from the margin of the pond, on the side which
skirts up by the inn wall, and then splashing and floundering among the
swampy weeds, with bared arms and fingers desperately clutching at the
writhen willow and alder stems, a woman’s figure looms up ghostlike in
the vaporous mist.
With low bent head, crouching close as hare to covert, her dripping
garments clutched about her, she steals on among the tall rushes, until
she attains the opposite bank, which is crested by a stunted hedge,
beneath whose shelter, first pausing hurriedly to wring the water from
her skirts, and twist up her dishevelled, luxuriant, red-brown hair,
she peers cautiously forth.
Thrown into sharp distinctness by the moonlight, she can see the
three ravens staring across at her with their inquisitive painted
eyes; but no human eye marks her flitting, and gathering fresh
courage, she clasps one hand across her throbbing heart, while with
the other outstretched to tear aside the brambles clinging to her wet
cloak, and cruelly tearing her half-naked feet, for the pond’s mud
has detained her shoes, she speeds onward, stumbling over the rough
ground, trampling down straggling bough and briar, and every stay and
hindrance. And at last, clear of the brake, the woman gains the open
river path. Then, still on, as though the Eumenides were giving her
chase, swift as the lightning flashes playing about her, she speeds
between the dark water and the tall hedgerows, past the massive walls
of the St. Stephen’s Tower, slackening her pace for the first time
only, as she nears the gate below the fishmarket, where the sentry,
who is indulging in a hand of cards with a congenial spirit, coolly
observes as he pockets the gold piece she flings at his feet, that the
city has been consumedly dead alive of late, and if a lady or two of
her sort—and the son of Mars winks playfully—has a fancy for joining in
next day’s merrymaking—he’ll not be so ungallant as to deny her.
On again, fleeter than ever, through the echoing arches of the deserted
fishmarket, across the Platz, where the Cathedral lies a silent black
mass, with never a gleam within or without, to foretell to-morrow’s
glories, its pinnacled roof lying in sharp fretted shadow on the
moonlit ground—on—on, with just one glance towards yonder stately
house, where lies one, wrapped no doubt now in virtuous slumber, whom
passing dear that woman loves. There only, amid all the enshrouding
darkness, a light shines hazily through the close-drawn red damask
drapery; but what wonder in that, for does it not mark Radegund von
Steinbach’s studio, and at what unholy hours will not her lamp be found
burning?
A terrible impediment awaits the night fugitive just ahead in the shape
of the watchman’s box at the Munster-gasse corner yonder, if only it
be in working order; but six nights out of seven it is a mere scrape,
since Master Hunx, its sexagenarian occupant, has a custom, which he
rarely breaks in upon, of composing himself to sleep immediately upon
taking up the reins of office. And Providence rules that to-night
shall be no exception. Hunx has been, moreover, drinking success to
the Professor Dasipodius and the Horologe, and now sits blessedly
impervious, lantern on knees, thunderously snoring inside his shelter;
and rounding the angle of the Munster-gasse, the woman flits on
noiselessly, under the garlanded triumph arches, from which a few
fresh fragrant rose petals flutter down upon her clinging mud-sodden
cloak. Courage! and still on—only a few paces now, for the goal lies
before her dimmed and straining eyes. There! there, where the high
north-eastern wall of Burgomaster von Steinbach’s house is overhung by
an oriel window, lovely in its gracious intermingling of green fragile
summer creeper, and everlasting carven stone foliage; and gemlike
through its painted glass, shines the flame of the little silver lamp
burning night and day in the oratory of the Burgomaster’s daughter. So,
so—well done! and staggering to clutch hold of the wall’s deep stone
bosses for support, with closed eyes, and gasping convulsive breaths,
but a smile of infinite content on her white-drawn lips, that woman
stands.