AT THE SCHLOSS
The next afternoon we got down at last to the little guest-court where
our luggage was, and now could see a tower of Schweinstein half-a-league
away. Langler, however, had to take to his bed, and thus lost three days
more.
I, for my part, more easily overcame the effects of my night on the alp,
and during those days set myself to come at the truth as to whether or
no Baron Kolár was really at home; I must have questioned twenty people;
but the answer was always the same: his lordship was not in residence.
On our third morning (a Saturday) at the guest-court we received, to our
joy, a long letter from our wounded friend. I had thought it likely that
she would write us at the P.O. at Gratz, so I had written to the P.O.,
and they had now sent on this letter to us in the mountains. Langler's
hand trembled, and he had such a ravished smile as touched one to the
heart. She had fled to a village in Gloucestershire named Alvington, and
was still safely buried there, but meant, she said, to go back to
Swandale as soon as she should opine that we in Styria had had time to
work out our purpose. The letter for the most part was in a tone of
affected lightness; she described the inn where she lodged, its
flower-beds, its cat, the landlady's mows, the gambols of the wren; she
even gave the political news! Diseased Persons had become law, and now
it was the Education Bill that was the row: "as Satan and Michael
contended for the body of Moses," she wrote, "so Mr Edwards and Dr
Burton are striving for Ambrose Rivers"--Burton struggling to bring
Rivers and his "New Church" under the power of the ecclesiastical
courts, Edwards struggling tooth and nail against it; Dr Burton,
however, she said, had had an apoplectic fit, and was laid aside for the
time being. She begged to be remembered to "the good frock-coat" (_i.e._
to me), but, giving way in the end to her grief, cried out upon our pity
to return to her. For us it was a heart-rending letter. I, at any rate,
felt that if any mishap should befall her brother in this adventure,
then dangers too sinister to be breathed to one's own heart might
overhang her spirit. We had meant to present ourselves that day at the
castle, but Langler was too deeply moved by the letter, so we put it off
till the next day.
All those days I had not been idle, but had roved a good deal, trying to
get friends, and had explored, too, round about the castle by land and
river. There were quite thirty to fifty dwellings within two miles, but
I found all these people very reserved, given up to their swine and
agrarian cares, and looking upon me as a needless phenomenon. Swine
abounded! a pig was in every life. However, I won some of them into
saying something, and gathered, on the whole, that probably no one
_knew_ what had become of Dees, but that all probably had a guess that
he was, or had been, a prisoner in the castle, in which case they were
pleased, with a feeling of "serve him right"; also that no one had, or
wished to say that he had, any intuition whereabouts in the world his
lordship then was. This, too, was strange, that on that Sunday when
Langler and I at last walked down through the forest towards the river
and burg no sound of bell called the people to worship; Europe was on
its knees, but this one valley of Europe had washed its hands of the
Christian Church.
And everyone had only one excuse to offer for this--namely, that "it was
enough to do to keep body and soul together."
How clear and new-made was the air in there that Sunday afternoon! "Up
here," wrote Langler to his sister, "it is never hot nor muggy, I think,
for the breezes rest not day nor night, breathing eras of music through
the timber." He said that he had never felt better, though bitterly like
Don Quixote before the windmill! Old Lossow (our host) and two boys came
along with us, but they left us in a flurry at the outwork barbacan;
then we two stood before the gate, dressed to our gloves, and Langler
said to me: "you know, Arthur, that Christ of Castagno in the gallery at
Christ Church? it rises before me now as an expression of the
languishment of mind which I feel in the presence of this stronghold."
So I, too, felt; nor was I at all sure that, once in, we should ever
come out again; but there we were, and I summoned the castle--the
knocker being a cannon-ball hanging on a chain, whereat a woman opened,
we stepped into the bailey-court, and a somewhat loosely-dressed man,
with a tasselled smoking-cap on his head hurried towards us, followed by
a brown bear. "Kiss the hand, sirs," said he, "you are without doubt the
two English acquaintances of the baron from whom I have received a
communication." "Yes, sir," said I. "I am the burgvogt, Jan Tschudi,"
said he; "I take it that you still wish to inspect the burg?" "Still,
yes," said I, for I had a weapon on me. "Willingly from the heart will I
show you over the fortress," said he, "be so good as to come this way."
We followed him inward, Langler fondling the bear, which had a string of
rhododendrons round its neck, Herr Tschudi himself a burly German of
middle age, fresh-faced, with a bold brow under his smoking-cap. He led
us to some cannon, saying: "these two are fifteenth-century sakers,
those there are what they call culverins; and everything with us is of
this kind, sirs: here you will find all old, nothing splendid." He next
led us into the gaudy little church, which Langler examined lingeringly,
especially two curious niches in the south wall beside the altar, where
the elements had been kept, over which he bent so long that Herr Tschudi
and I became restless; "I see," I said meanwhile to Tschudi, "that your
front row of seats are really easy-chairs, as I once heard Baron Kolár
say that they are."
"Yes," he answered, with a smile. And he added, with a certain flush and
challenge: "we once had a particularly brilliant preacher here whom the
baron used to take a pleasure in coming down to hear on Sunday mornings;
hence the chairs, for his lordship is fond of his ease."
I could see his lordship reclining, stroking back his scrap of hair, and
enjoying the "real toil" of another!
"Who, then, was that brilliant preacher?" I asked.
"He was called the Pater Dees, sir."
"And what has become of him now?"
"I could not tell you."
"But can it be the same Pater Max Dees of whom I have heard that he has
been a prisoner in the castle?"
"The very same."
"May I ask--what was his offence?"
"The sin of ingratitude."
"Indeed? What is the story?"
"Ah, I'm afraid it might be long: you would regret having asked to hear
it."
"I don't often regret what I do. But ingratitude! Does one go into
prison in the alp for that?"
"It may happen!"
"But in a private castle?"
"Sir, let me tell you what you are not perhaps aware of, that among the
ancestors of his lordship on the distaff side have been several
Reichsunmittelbarer-Fürsts, and that till late times the lords of this
castle have been rechts-fähig" (able to make private laws).
"Quite so, quite so," said I, "but still, a prisoner in a private
castle ... in our times...."
"It is a mere nothing; you should not let that trouble you."
"But is Father Dees--still a prisoner, if one may ask?"
"Surely one may ask: there is no harm in asking, you know. But all that
was five long years ago, of course. Here, however, is your friend, the
connoisseur, at last."
Langler now at last joined us. As we set out afresh a youth with
ringlets and a velvet coif came up blushing, to be presented by Herr
Tschudi as "Mr Court-painter (Hof-maler) Friedrich." "But has the baron
a court?" I asked, to which Herr Tschudi answered: "not in strict
etiquette any longer perhaps; but it amuses the baron to keep up a
pretence of the old sovereign rights, and, being a dear heart at
bottom, he is ever fond of pets, of whom our friend, the court-painter
here, is one."
We now went on inward to the second court, a party thenceforth of five
(including the bear), and were shown the granary, storehouses, electric
set. "Do you keep a large staff of retainers?" I asked at the offices.
"A mere handful now," was the answer; and Herr Tschudi added with a
laugh: "but they are all trusty to the backbone, in case you ever think
of storming the castle!" This was the hard nut whom I had had the
fantastic thought of bribing to tell the truth as to Dees! He was full
of pride in his baron and castle, and such a hero-worshipper that I even
fancied that he tried to ape the baron's manner and speech. "Certainly,
the baron keeps some excellent horses," said I at the stables: "is he
fond of riding?" "Ach, not now," was the answer; "but he has been a
dashing bear and boar huntsman in his time, for whatever he attempts he
does with a more magnificent success than others; the mother of the good
Ami here (meaning the bear) was slain by him. As for the horses, the alp
is noted for them." "So, since the baron no longer rides," said I, "how
does he amuse himself now when in residence?" "Mainly in the laboratory,
which I will show you presently in the keep," he answered. "Indeed?"
said I, "is the baron a chemist?" "What, you did not know that?" said
he: "everyone knows that he is even a specially profound chemist, for
chemistry has been his life-study." "The baron is always found to be
more than one had thought him," said I; "I wonder if my friend and I
will have the honour of seeing him before we leave the alp?" "His
lordship's comings and goings," answered Herr Tschudi, "are always very
uncertain." "Strange to say," said I, "there is a rumour in the alp that
the baron is actually in residence; at least one woman told me that she
knows it for a fact." "Thundery weather!" cried the man with a flush,
"what is the woman's name?" "I don't know her name," I answered, not
wishing to get my good sennerin into any trouble.
A move was now made towards the keep with its square tower at each
corner. By an outside flight of steps we went up to the first
floor--there was no ingress to the ground floor--and were shown the old
hall (ritter-saal). The quality of this place was most quaint somehow,
with some feeling of ancient forests, damsels and nixen, and knights of
Lyones, yet all was quite plain, even shabby, save some rather
portentous portieres which shut off his lordship's private quarters. I,
for the most part, strolled with Herr Tschudi, while Langler, with Herr
Court-painter, bent over everything in his connoisseur way: there were
paintings by old abbots in tempera whose secret is lost, there were
cressets, gobelins, tables of pierced bone, painted hoch-Deutsch MSS.
Langler said hardly anything, and only once spoke to Herr Tschudi, when
he called out: "Is this pieta ancient?" to which Herr Tschudi answered:
"fifteenth-century, sir." "But," said Langler, "Herr Court-painter says
sixteenth-century," at which Herr Court-painter blushed all over his
broad face. "No, sir, fifteenth-century," repeated Herr Tschudi. "I
thought it modern," said Langler; "but what is this inscription on its
base?" We all now went to look at the pieta, a Virgin and dead Christ in
wax; but Herr Tschudi could make nothing of the inscription, for he
said, "it is some pious motto, but I do not know that language--do you,
perhaps, Herr Court-painter?" Herr Court-painter of the star-gazing
spectacles shook his ringlets, with the answer: "I do not know what it
says." "Does--the baron read Hebrew?" asked Langler suddenly. "Ach, not
now any more, I think," answered Herr Tschudi; "but he has been a master
of several old languages in his time." I noticed Langler's brow twitch,
but did not imagine that the matter was of any importance; I saw,
indeed, that the letters on the pieta were Greek, but all in capitals,
with the sigmas like C's, and much effaced, so my mind shirked the bore
of reading, and I turned away with the others from it.
After this we were shown the baron's laboratory, the upper rooms, one of
the four towers, and were now escorted by Herr Tschudi, Herr
Court-painter, and the bear back to the gate, where Herr Tschudi parted
from us with profound reverences.
"It is a fabulous place," Aubrey wrote of it, "imbued with an old
forlornness, and a waving of woods, and the pining of an alto wawl in
the windpipe of its airs," but certainly I felt rather foolish when I
left it, for I had learned nothing, and what we were now to do I had no
notion. At the entrance to the forest we met our old Lossow with his
pipe, and he climbed with me back to the guest-court, Langler meanwhile
striding well ahead of us, wrapped in silence.