“TO THE END.”
Woven now, and waiting to be loosed from the loom, stands the web of
the old Cathedral Clock’s story; and yet before the lacings that hold
it be severed for good, the weaver would crave a few minutes’ grace for
scanning it, to see no threads of it hang obtrusively fraying. Nay, let
that be, that harsh, coarse-grained fibre, bursting through its thin
pinchbeck veneer. Never vex finger with it again. Leave it zig-zagging
there, in its place, and be thankful that Tobias Hackernagel is
disposed of. Lift rather but gently this light, parti-coloured,
somewhat slippery silken thread—which in the flesh is Otto von
Steinbach—and knot it down firm and secure with the honest unbreakable
stuff which makes up the nature of Gretchen Hackernagel.
Out of sore tribulation long refusing to be comforted, Otto von
Steinbach is happy again. Not carelessly happy, as in that long ago,
ere the Horologe was born or thought of; for dear as is the wife he has
taken to himself has come to be to him, not even she can fill the void
which broke into his life when Radegund died. Radegund, than whom no
mother could have been so sweet and pitiful, when life’s wearinesses
and vexations bruised his shallower nature too roughly.
It is hard to say what mischief in the earliest days of his loss, the
young man, wandering half-distraught up and down his great lonely
house, would not have done himself; but its first violence spent,
he found distraction in the fuss and excitement which his marriage
preparations brought, modest and quiet, as reasons many made them;
and long before he was a housefather, Otto was himself again. Till
that auspicious event befell, he kept his dead sister’s painting-room
religiously closed, allowing none excepting himself ever to cross its
threshold. His children’s voices, however, wakened in him cheerier
memories of Radegund, and he came to think that the spirit of her,
whose pride always melted like snow in sunshine, in the presence of
little children, and all innocent helpless creatures would, if indeed
it hovered there—as so it seemed to him it did—be in no wise troubled,
but rejoice at the pranks of those curly-locked youngsters whom
Mistress Gretchen von Steinbach declared had no match for loveliness
in all Strassburg, and growing more and more like their father each
hour they lived. A postulate which Otto swears to be all favour and
prejudice, as he bestows a sounding kiss on their mother’s smiling
lips, and a pinch on the cheek which is fuller and rounder than ever
was Gretchen Hackernagel’s.
And so it came to pass that the old studio was turned into a nursery;
and the carven deities who once looked down with their unchanging eyes
on the tragedy of the artist’s life, witnessed now the merry pantomine
of childhood’s antics and oddities. O tempora! O Mores!
Gretchen’s three sisters lived and died in that condition of single
blessedness, which they always enthusiastically advocated as the only
tolerable one in this wicked world. Their wants were duly provided
for by the State, to which their sire’s goods and chattels were made
over, but it was at no great pains to oppress them with superfluous
luxury. For any of life’s little sweets, they were beholden to the
thoughtfulness of their sister, whose lot they never ceased to
compassionate. “Poor Gretchen!” these ladies would sigh to their
gossips. “Well, well, but after all, what a providence, my dear, that a
man can always find _some_ woman to love him!”
And now what of this piece of tough, strong—Thunder weather! leave
metaphor alone, for Isaac Habrecht steps to the fore. And what is to
be said of the stout horologist, more than that he lived and died in
harness, unless indeed that one fine morning Master Habrecht said he
was going Schaffhausen way—on a little business matter—and should be
back in three days at midday. And so he was, on the stroke of it,
but not alone; and with a blush on his brown face, as deep, if not
as dainty, as those chasing each other on the comely cheeks of his
companion, and whom he introduced to his friends and acquaintance as
his wife.
“And a good sort of one I reckon she’ll turn out,” he remarked
confidentially to Dasipodius, as he took up his file and began to
scrape. “I put my question to her ten years and five months ago this
very day. And a real good thing,” he added, a little apologetically,
“is always a real good thing.”
“Quite true,” smiled Dasipodius. “And God bless you both, Isaac. And
what,” he added, laying his hand with the old gentle pressure on
Kaspar’s shoulder, “what is to become of our Treuer Kamerad here? Does
the good wife take him under her wing?”
“Ay, surely, with all his chips and rattletraps, or she’d never have
been wife of mine. That was a bargain. The lad and I are not going to
be parted, because a petticoat’s come to whisk about the Wheel.”
“Some of these fine days,” merrily laughed a gentle voice at the
professor’s elbow, “if you don’t look well after him, Master Habrecht,
there may come another petticoat to whisk him away.”
“Time enough for that, Mistress Dasipodius,” grunted the ungallant
husband with a grim smile. “Time enough to let himself be made a fool
of a dozen years hence.”
And so, while healthfully as ever the old science life at the Silver
Dial still throbs on, it is cheered and spiritualized now by love’s
sweet presence. There was a passing difficulty between Burgomaster
von Steinbach and the Professor Dasipodius when the time drew near
for the transplanting of the Lily from the Munster-gasse. “What could
be easier,” Niklaus demanded, “than for Conrad to give up his house
and all its contents, sentient and inanimate alike, to become part
and parcel of his own great house, where there was room enough to
quarter a garrison? But Christian would no more give up his old home,
than he would have given up Strassburg to France, and Dasipodius
gently but firmly stood by his father’s wish, until Niklaus declared
that of all proud, obstinate, stick-by-your-own-way fellows, commend
him to a mathematician. And as to Christian, when the Fleur-de-lis
floated from the Cathedral tower top, he’d first begin to know what
was really good for him.” And though a truce was speedily established
over the Marcobrunner, Niklaus to the end of his days would find his
opportunities for saying: “Never was such a thief as you, professor;
carrying off my lily-flower to bloom in your garden!”
“Nay”—for so Time, as he flew, furnished the mathematician with a
rejoinder—“but the buds, Burgomaster?”
“Well, well.” And the mollified Niklaus would smile and say no more;
for very dear to the grandfather’s heart were those same young
blossoms; and no sound was so sweet to him as the light patter of
the little feet about the great fountain in his courtyard, and their
pealing laughter as they pranked with the beauteous Antinous.
Mitte of course went with her mistress to her new home. _Le levo
l’incomodo_ is the wise Italian phrase; and while incontestably a more
charming creature than Mitte did not exist, the Burgomaster found
compensation for the void caused by her departure, in the comfortable
sense of being able to sit down in his own easy chair, without that
ejectment therefrom which had so frequently laid him open to the charge
of inhumanity.
The cession question between Christian and Burgomaster Niklaus remained
open to the end; although each renewed discussion gathered in animation
as years flowed on, and the little cloud both politicians fancied they
had long discerned, showed unmistakeably in the reddening horizon.
Christian’s forebodings, however, that Strassburg will throw off her
homely Teutonic garb, and find herself a lily-garlanded _belle-dame_,
will not be realized till he and his gossip have long lain sleeping
their last sleep. That notion of his is the one sole disturber of his
latter years. Far behind now, all his griefs lie, in memory’s dimming
distance; while across the Bourne, whither he is gently wending, the
fair form of her who went so long before, beckons him a welcome that
will rob death when it comes of all its bitterness. The blow which sent
him staggering, when first the knowledge of his son’s affliction burst
upon him, is now but an abiding pain he can bravely endure. Can he do
otherwise, when the blind man himself makes so light of it? Never the
faintest suspicion has Christian that his frank, truth-loving son can
so artfully play the hypocrite, and assume in his father’s presence a
lightheartedness he does not always feel.
When Bishop John was called to his rest, if there were many who
rejoiced, out of hope that, his mild rule removed, Protestantism
would find more breathing room in that divided city, there were many
who sorrowed deeply for his loss. Under a stately marble tomb they
reverently laid all of him that was mortal, “and his works do follow
him”. One more star faded from about Bruno Wolkenberg’s shadowy path,
when death took this man who had understood and so highly prized the
genius of his dead love. To him he had dared recall her memory; with
him he had taken counsel how best to expend that wealth the artist had
left in his stewardship for the good of her native city. There had been
no home claims upon her generosity; for besides Otto’s modest entail,
it had happened that the ancient aunt, on whose obliging departure
from this world he had for some time counted, died, and placed at his
disposal all her vast possessions; and if Otto had his faults, greed
was not one of them; and he was content, and proud to see the riches
his sister’s toil had garnered in go to bringing back sunshine to
poverty, and helping poor student artists to start fair on the road to
fame.
But the goodliest memorial of her was of Surgeon Wolkenberg’s creating
out of his own crushed hopes. He wandered through his desolate
chambers, conjuring up visions of sweet impossible joys, until
reason well-nigh forsaking him, he sat down beside their cheerless
hearthplaces, seeing there the pale ashes of his ill-starred love. The
terrible silence was eloquent of those low earnest tones—sweeter to him
than sweetest music, which never again in this world would gladden his
soul. Not to drown those echoes—ah! Heaven!—no! How rather to hold
them there for ever. How to make memory a consoling angel instead of
the haunting fiend it was. And, tested to the quick, there gleamed out
the true metal of Bruno’s heart. Misery’s verjuice could not corrode
its generosity, and dull out all sense of this world’s suffering except
his own. It rather quickened within him a project he had long nursed,
of transforming his goodly house into a home for those who had none,
and a refuge for the sick poor of the great city. A modest institution,
Doctor Wolkenberg’s hospital, uncommemorated by any foundation formulæ,
dedicated in no canonized saint’s name, but only to the memory of an
erring woman he loved.
That haven in the storm to many a shipwrecked soul and battered
body, the tide of change swept away generations ago, but in its day
it bravely achieved its manifold mission of healing; and from his
shadowy laboratory Bruno ruled his little colony, toiling from dawn to
midnight—ay, and often from midnight to dawn—onward, patiently till the
end might come, with a light in his face, which only grew the sweeter
as the years gathered.
Many a woman’s heart would turn from the gallantest gentleman’s wooing,
to yield homage to this man with the grizzled locks and care-lined lips
and brow; but Bruno heeded no such tender lures. Alone he bided his
Master’s bidding, come when it should. No visits, save to sick folks’
houses, the doctor ever paid—always excepting indeed one house, where,
in a quiet shadowy corner of the professor’s sitting-room, is a nook
family tradition calls “Doctor Bruno’s corner”. In the brief intervals
of leisure he sometimes allows himself towards evening, Doctor Bruno
will come and take up his place in the happy circle. It is hard to say
which of the three generations it embraces, loves best to hear the
surgeon’s step upon the threshold; not excepting Grandfather Niklaus,
who will romp with you as merrily as heart can desire, nor Grandfather
Christian, who will take you where sweetest violets grow, and find the
biggest nuts anybody ever saw, is more dearly loved than Doctor Bruno,
with his store of strange beautiful stories. Glorious they are;—such as
never the like were heard of. Giants and pigmies, knights and ladies,
demons and dragons, kelpies and castles, all spring into being at this
mighty magician’s bidding. His store is utterly inexhaustible. To
pronounce any preference where all is so enchanting would be almost
impossible. And yet—one sweet, sweet story there is. “That one of the
brave Crusader Knight, you know, Väterle,” says a little wistful voice.
“Ritter Toggenburg,” says the Professor, who has just come in from his
University lecture, and has seated himself beside the house-mother,
with her crown of golden hair, and the sleeping babe nestled to her
bosom, a picture as fair—if, alas! the sightless eyes could recall the
old comparison—as the gentle Madonna in the Cathedral choir. “It is
Ritter Toggenburg he means, isn’t it, Mütterle?” smiles Conrad, lifting
the youngster on to his knee.
“No, no, father; not Ritter Toggenburg. This knight I mean had a horse.”
“Surely. Du junger, Kerl, Du,” laughs Burgomaster Niklaus, pinching the
boy’s ear. “As all brave knights should have, shouldn’t they?”
“And a lady love,” adds Christian.
“Perhaps,” carelessly assents the eager little voice; “but the
horse—the dear, good, faithful horse——”
“Ay,” says Sabina. “Now I know what he means. It is the brave knight,
Conrad, who rode on, and on, and on——”
“Yes, yes,” cries the boy, clapping his hands.
“All alone, through a great wide wilderness——”
“Yes, until, you know, he came to a fair chapel, mother dear.”
“And there he got down, for his heart was sad and sore; and he wanted
to pray, and——”
“But tell it in the verses, Mütterle.”
“Nay. I cannot remember them. Can you, father, dear?” asks Sabina.
And the great mathematical professor cudgels his brain, but flounders
and bungles so deeply over it, that at last Mistress Dasipodius bids
him give over.
“Your stories,” she says, “never did have any more head nor tail to
them than——”
“A circle,” suggests the unabashed Conrad.
“And your poetry is fifty times worse than even your prose; when it’s a
question of fairy tales.”
“He doesn’t describe such whimsies so neatly as he does his
parallelograms, eh?” laughs Niklaus. “And we shall have to wait till
the doctor comes after all.”
“And—hey, presto!—here he is,” says the blind man, whose quick ear has
first caught Bruno’s footstep. “Our Necromancer-in-chief. Come now, Sir
Paladin, sit you down and square our difficulty for us. Our rhymes want
your surgery:
“Count Turneck, after a toilsome ride,
By night in a chapel desired to bide.”
“How does it go?”
“The chapel stood in a greenwood deep—
‘Yes, here,’ thought the Count, ‘I may safely sleep.’
“The Count he sprang from his horse on the plain—
‘Graze here,’ he said, ‘till——’”
“‘Till I come again,’”
prompted the doctor.
“Yes—that’s it!” cried the child, clapping his hands—“‘till I come
again’. Go on, dear Uncle Bruno. Quick.”
“The portal oped with a gnarring sound;
Deep stillness reigned in the vault around,”
goes on Bruno, thus adjured.
“‘Here by the Dead may the Living be borne;
I will rest me here till the break of morn.’
“The sun came over the mountains red;
The Count came never—the Count was dead.
“Three hundred years have rolled, and more;
Still tarries the steed before the door.
“The chapel is hasting to swift decay,
The steed grazes yet in the moon’s blue ray,”
concludes Bruno, standing in their midst, the waning golden of the
sunset transfiguring his face with a mysterious beauty.
“True to the end,” dreamily murmurs the little voice. “True to the end,
wasn’t he, father?”
“Ay, lad,” says the blind man, as his hand seeks Bruno’s, and clasps it
with a gentle pressure. “True to the End.”
FINIS.
* * * * *
[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text.
Page 17: look to looked—“looked puzzled.”
Page 18: churchmen to churchman—“groaned the churchman”.
Page 28: faaher’s to father’s—“causes of her father’s”.
Page 31: se to si—“_e pur si muove_”.
Page 33: Maitre to Maître—“Maître Léonard”.
Page 116: moated to moted—“whose moted haze”.
Page 138: abstracedly to abstractedly—“abstractedly—abstractedly”.
Page 172: Munster-strasse to Munster-gasse—“visit at the Munster-gasse”.
Page 190: Dasipodious to Dasipodius—“Conr—the Professor Dasipodius”.
Page 203: Rumpelpuppelschnarchentein to
Rumpelpuppelschnarchenstein—“Countess of Rumpelpuppelschnarchenstein”.
Page 287: celdre to celare—“_Ars celare Artem_”.
Page 303: wern’t to weren’t—“weren’t we, till”.
Page 335: repeated word “outside” removed—“outside the city gates”.
Page 361: Krauken-haus to Kranken-haus—“_Kranken-haus_”.
Page 408: “llevo il incommodo” to “levo l’incomodo”.]