When she came to the landing place, she was not a little startled at

seeing Walter sitting in the dark, on the upper steps, leaning his head

upon both his hands. She could not be certain whether he was awake, or

had fallen asleep; for he did not move when the door opened behind him.

She set down her candlestick upon the top of the banisters, and in a

moment she was seated by his side on the steps; he lifted up his head,

and made a movement, as if he would have risen and taken flight.

"I beg your pardon," he said; "I hardly know myself, how I came to be

sitting here; but I will go upstairs directly--"

"Stop one moment; pray do!" she whispered softly; "I am so glad to find

you here; I had no peace after I had been so cross to you. Forgive

me;--this has been an agitating day to me in many ways; there have been

many things to pain me, and I made you suffer, poor dear, for what you

could not help."

He did not answer, but looked straight before him over the dark

staircase.

"Are you really angry with me?" she asked; he shook his head. "Angry

with you, I never _could_ be, he said mournfully.

"What was it that made you come to me so late?" she began again, after a

short silence. "You wanted something, that I saw by your face, only

just then, I was in such perplexity about my own affairs, as to seem

cross and indifferent to those of others. Would you like to talk to me

now?"

"What good would that do? I shall hear it quite soon enough?"

"Hear what?"

Still no answer; only when she said: "I do believe you are seriously

vexed with me," it came out at last. "Is it true," he murmured, with

averted face; "is it true that you are going to be married to that

man?"

She started; a new sensation, strangely sweet, thrilled to her heart.

She laughed, as we do laugh, to ourselves, when we are quite alone, at

the memory of some delicious moment in the past; of happy love--of

brilliant triumph--of success in some feat of our boyish days. What it

was that delighted her so much, she could scarcely have defined.

"What makes you think such silly things?" she asked, completely

returning to their old footing; "don't you know I shall never be going

to be married to any man? When one has had a great big boy to educate,

and just got him out of the roughest rudiments, one really has no time

for other people; and who would thank me for bringing them such an

unruly step-son? Who put these fancies into your head?"

He told her; and they sate there side by side, for some minutes,

without saying anything.

"No, indeed, my dear boy," she began at last, in a tone of singular

solemnity; "I never mean to go and leave you, for the sake of any human

creature living. It is no sacrifice on my part; and you owe me nothing

for it. I should have to chain up my own heart first of all, were I

ever to settle down to any other mode of life, _any_ life in which you

were not the first and foremost. I have felt this for years, and shall

never feel otherwise probably as long as I live. But for you, there

must, of necessity, come a time, when the claims of your little mother

will have to be reduced by half; when she will have to content herself

with only a duty share in your thoughts and feelings; lucky if she does

not fare worse, and be stowed away in the lumber-room of memory, like

an antiquated piece of furniture. Don't you contradict me; I know well

enough what I have to expect, and a true mother never thinks of

herself. All mothers have to bear the same, and the best way to bear

it, is with a brave face; and now, away with care! For the present, I

am yours, and you are mine; and as far as I am concerned, nothing shall

ever part us. I give you my word, and here is my hand upon it, and

now--let us go to bed, and sleep upon it."

She rose, and he mechanically did the same. When she stood at the top

of the staircase, and he a few steps lower, she just reached to the

tall stripling's forehead; she threw her arms tenderly about his neck.

"You are not to get into the habit of that ugly frown, mind that!" she

said caressingly; "frowns don't become you, and you have no reason to

frown on life like any old grumpy misanthrope--such a spoiled creature

as you may well afford to laugh,--smooth away, I pray, all these

precocious wrinkles; and now, my son, good night!" She kissed him

softly on the forehead, and passed her hand lightly over his tangling

curls. Then, taking up her candle, she glided back into her own room.

* * * * *

The night that followed on such an eventful day, brought Helen both

repose and sleep. She believed her difficulties to be overcome, and her

troubles postponed for years at least. But she would hardly have looked

so cheerfully after Walter, as he walked away to his day's work at the

Burgermeister's Villa, had she known that he had not been able to close

his eyes till morning.

In painting that saloon, he was destined to have no assistance but that

of the two boys: the Meister being confined to his room, and Peter Lars

nowhere to be found. It was rumoured that he had been seen at the

"Star." It appeared to be his plan to stay away, and let himself be

missed so long as to be received with thanks, and not with abuse, when

he did come back at last. However the Meister seemed quite disposed to

do without him, gave Walter his instructions, wrote to the capital for

more assistance, and sent the truant's things after him to the Star,

without wasting any words upon the subject.

Thus a few days elapsed. The atmosphere of the house was lowering;

never a laugh now, nor a gay word. These three inmates--for Helen too,

had begun to wear a graver face--lived on together, without exchanging

more than a necessary word. When Walter came home in the evening--for

he did not even leave his work for dinner--he would swallow down the

food that had been kept for him, and then go straight to his room, on

plea of fatigue, regardless of the questions asked by poor Helen's

melancholy eyes. She well knew that if he left her, it was not to go to

bed; for in the morning she always found his light burned down.

And if he left home weary, it was not from over-eagerness to get to his

work. The villa was situated at about two miles' distance from the

town, just where the forest began and the country became more

undulated. It had originally been built as a ducal shooting-box. It had

passed through the hands of numerous owners--through some very careless

ones; and at last, in a farmer's, had been turned to more profitable

purposes. When the Burgermeister bought it, he found it dignified to

boast that he had a mere country-seat--a villa that cost so much and

rented nothing; and so he decided on having it entirely renovated in

the original style, and on opening the gardens to the admiration of the

public in the summer season. The distance was no more than a pleasant

walk for the townspeople. Yet Walter had been known to take two hours

to it and more. The boy apprentices enjoyed a game of ball in the

shell-gallery, or a little mischief in the gardens; while their young

taskmaster, in his meditations, loitered about among the leafless

glades, until the sun, darting into every nook and thicket, would rise

so high, as to remind him that he had been sent there in some other

capacity than that of overseer to the building of the birds'-nests.

Then he would hurry back to the house, scare the lads with a harshness

they had never seen in him before, and fall as violently to work as

though he meant to do in a day, or in half a day, what would be the

work of weeks. But he would soon let his brush drop, and sit motionless

upon the scaffolding, staring at some vacant spot on the opposite wall,

where his fancy had conjured up a charming vision--a pensive face, and

the turn of a graceful head resting on snowy shoulders, a pair of

admirably moulded arms, of that smooth pearly white, which art so

rarely renders, and is but too apt to turn the head of the artist who

attempts it.

Almost half the week had been spent in this desultory way, when one

morning the Meister called up Walter, and believing the ceiling of the

shell-gallery to be finished, all except the centre-piece, he gave him

an old engraving to sketch in with charcoal in the necessarily

increased proportions. The Meister proposed to be there before twelve

o'clock, to see if the sketch would do. It was an engraving after

Claude Lorraine, with some architecture in the foreground, set off by a

group of lofty trees. As for the sunrise in the background, that, the

Meister thought, he should like to do himself.

Walter set off with far more alacrity than usual. His task allured him;

frequent practice had made him quick at landscape-drawing, whereas he

always preferred to leave the figures to his comrades.

The ceiling had been originally planned with a centre-piece of

allegorical figures; but, of course, since Peter Lars' defection, that

was not to be thought of now.

Walter was just thinking of this disagreeable personage, and rejoicing

in his absence, when he heard a voice behind him, and looking round, he

saw the very man coming after him at a brisk pace. He stopped, and

waited for him with an instinct of vague curiosity. He wanted to

discover why he had been so suddenly turned off--he had heard no

particulars.

The black-faced little fellow, who was walking along in full travelling

trim, with staff and knapsack, appeared to be in his happiest mood; his

pursed-up lips wore their sliest sneer, with even more decided mischief

in it than usual. His eyebrows were drawn up to his cap, and as he

called after Walter, his voice sounded like the treble tones of a

chaffing boy.

"You are the very man I wanted to see;" he began, even before he had

come up with him. "Scheiden und meiden thut weh!--partings are

grievous, you know; and though I could have done all my partings with

my principal in writing, well enough, I wished to take leave of you,

for I had a thing or two to tell you, that would not have done quite so

well in a letter. So if your people did not forbid you to contaminate

yourself with an outlawed miscreant like myself, I will walk your way

with you a bit."

"As you please; but tell me what you did, Peter, to bring things to

such a sudden crisis?"

"Did? pshaw! a piece of nonsense! I was a donkey, my very dear and very

proper young friend, as, of course, you have heard--unless perhaps they

did not tell you, lest evil communications should corrupt good

manners."

"The chief thing, I suppose, I do know," said Walter reddening. He only

knew what old Christel had told him; viz., that Peter had come home

drunk, and been disrespectful to Helen.

"The chief thing!" sneered Peter; "a pretty chief thing to make a row

about! I have done many such chief things, and more to the purpose, in

my life, and not a cock crowed after me. If I had not been such a

confounded ass as to let myself be found out too soon, and get kicked

out like a mangy hound _before_ I had got what I came for, I could have

laughed in my sleeve, even if they did kick me out _after_. As it is, I

have made a fool of myself for nothing--got blown up and turned off,

while others remain behind to laugh at me as I deserve. Eh! why don't

you laugh. Propriety? You see _I_ laugh at my own clumsiness!"

"I don't see what there is to laugh at," said Walter coldly; for he

bitterly repented of having suffered this little villain to walk by his

side.

"Don't, then," he said jeeringly; "Milksop that you are!--You have a

spirit that is as blond as your head, and as your mother's was, when

she suffered herself to be so taken in--"

"Fellow!" cried Walter, flaring up with sudden passion; "if ever I hear

my mother's name on your lips,--" and he held his strong fist in the

wizened face of his tormentor, who stood still with a look of defiance.

"Softly, old boy, take it coolly," he said. "There are moments, I am

aware, when even the sweetest milk is apt to turn sour; but never mind;

I don't see what I should gain by quarrelling with you before I go. You

always treated me fairly--like a gentleman, I may say; for our

principal I was a mere machine; for our adorable Mamsell a toad; you

were the only person in the house who treated me as a fellow-creature;

and so, old fellow, I mean to do you a good turn before I go. When all

the rest are abusing me, you can say: 'Well, poor devil, he was not so

bad a fellow after all!'"

"Come to the point;" said Walter, losing patience; "I have work to do."

"Work, have you? Ah! poor dear, I dare say. Now you have to be first

and last; man-of-all-work, and Jack-of-all-trades, until the Meister

finds another Peter Lars--if he ever does--or ever looks for one. When

the old screw took you in, out of Christian charity, of course he had

no idea that you could ever grow up to be a man, and do the work of

two, and earn him a mint of money. Oh, no!--not he! he never dreamed of

such a thing! I say, has he ever increased your wages? or is my young

gentleman too high for such low ideas?"

"What are you driving at? what do you mean by all this nonsense?"

cried Walter, out of patience. "What can it signify to you, if my

foster-father--"

"Foster-father!" echoed the other, while his eyes were dancing with

malicious mirth. "Well, for a foster-father, perhaps, it might be fair

enough; but when we come to think of what a real father will do for a

son, we can't say much for what he has done for you--especially when we

consider what he ought to have done for your mother, that he left

undone."

Here he looked Walter full in the face. The young fellow stood before

him with heaving chest and quivering nostril, in fearful agitation. He

staggered back, and leaned against one of the trees that formed the

avenue. With a shriek of sardonic laughter: "Ha! is it possible?" he

cried, "just look at him! he really has no suspicion how things stand!

Ha! sancta simplicitas!--well, it was your luck that made me stop a day

or two at the 'Star', and lay hold of that old fellow of a porter, who

used to be in the Meister's service. I made him tell me the whole

story; and, but for me, this pretty pattern of a helpless orphan might

have lived to threescore-and-ten, without being so wise as to know its

own father!"

Walter still stood thunderstruck--his lips moved, but his voice failed

him.

"What makes the boy stand there, turning to stone, as though he had

just heard the trumpet sound for the judgment day? I say, don't you go

on being the soft chap you are, that anybody can take and twist to

their own purposes. You open your eyes, and look sharp, and take what

rightfully belongs to you. Take my advice--maintain your place in the

world in a proper manner, even if you did come into it in a manner that

may be called less proper.

"Come, let us be walking. I have a long way to go, and feel a most

desperate desire to get out of sight of that den of Philistines behind

us."

"Peter!" said Walter, struggling painfully to recover his composure;

"Is there more in what you have just been telling me, than mere talk

and gossipping nonsense?"

"Ask the old one, if you don't believe me. Ha! shouldn't I like to see

his face, when you come upon him unawares, and call him 'Dad!' And I

tell you it is all as true, and as well proved as twice two. And if you

had not been really as great a baby as they took such pains to make

you, you would have put this and that together, and worked out your

little reckoning years ago. I did, for one, as soon as ever I put my

nose into the house. I sometimes tried to give you a hint; and just

because you took no notice, 'Aha!' thinks I, 'he knows all about it,

and makes believe not to; and of course he has his reasons.'

"Besides, one has only to look at you two together to say--that is the

block, and this the chip. The same long limbs, the same build--put you

in the same clothes, and look at you from behind, and not one man in

ten could say which was which. Of course, what is grown dark and grey

and grizzled in him, is carried out in pink and white and yellow with

you--the colouring must have been your mother's; and a deuced pretty

woman she was, the old porter says. He saw her once, not long before

she died; he had to take some money to her--on the sly, of course;

since then he has never been able to forget her, he says, and that his

master felt so spooney about her, he can't wonder at; far rather,

that he could give her up, and marry the wife he did--our charming

Mamsell's sister, you know; the two sisters were totally different in

everything--except the tin, which was the same. I rather think the

Meister must have had a try at the younger sister first, and been

rejected; she was a haughty 'Froelen' even then, you see; and so he

turned to the other sister, who was neither haughty nor handsome, and

so she took him. However, I suppose she wouldn't, if she had but known

of your own sweet self--you were just beginning to run about in your

first little boots--and had known that her precious husband used, as

often as he could get away, to go and have a peep at his former family

about three or four times a year, on his business journeys. It was all

kept so cosy, that not a soul ever heard of it. A sly fox your governor

was--excuse the candour of the remark. But sly he must have been in

this business, if you really did live so long without ever having smelt

a rat; and in other respects you are as quick a lad as may be. His

wife, however, somehow or other, in time did smell it, and hunted it

down, and there was the devil to pay and all, as you may fancy. She

kept the keys of the strong box, so of course it lay in her power to

stop his business-travelling, and she did. More fool she! for it could

not tend to improve his temper, you know; and at last, when a letter

came--was it a letter, or the porter?--to say that your mother was ill

and dying, and past recovery, you can imagine that the governor was not

disposed to stand on ceremony. He started off alone, and did not come

back for three weeks and more; he had not written either--what could he

have written about her illness to his wife? Of course, the worst news

of the one, were the best to the other. However, he did come back at

last; and she might have lived in peace now that the other woman was

dead and buried; only she couldn't. And there was the greatest row

of all when one day he came home and surprised her with a little

present--orphan or foundling, or whatever he was pleased to call

you,--she might be as fractious as she would, the child was there, and

there was nothing to be done but to be cruel to it.

"And this she honestly did, to her heart's content, as you know best

yourself. The governor was forced to let two and two make five; he was

seldom at home, and you were a soft chap then, it seems, as you are

now, and you made no resistance, nor ever even complained of her. At

last the old porter could stand the thing no longer; and so he spoke

up, and told her it was a shame, and not the poor brat's fault if his

mother had pleased his father better than such a vixen could. Of course

she made the house too hot to hold him, and he said he felt glad to go,

for he could not bear to see a child so knocked about.

"It appears the Meister felt the same, and so he wrote to his

sister-in-law to come and stay with them. His wife was ill with spite

and rage, and things in the house went topsy-turvy. Well, and so our

adorable Helen came, and what she did, I need not tell you. So there it

is; and it is a special satisfaction to me"--and he gave a sneering

laugh--"that I got hold of Johann, and warmed him with a bottle of

Bordeaux, till he let the cat out of the bag. It was a fair trick to

play to that old screw.

"You can act upon it as you please; but I know, if I stood in your

shoes, I should not let myself be treated like a fatherless beggar, and

fed on charity. I would speak up and take another tone. He should send

me to travel, I know; with something in my pockets to chink as I went

along, to do or to leave undone, what I pleased. What business had he

to go and sell your mother for any amount of money-bags whatever? If he

did, I should expect the money bags to pay me for it."

With this they had reached the forest Walter never spoke a word;

breathing hard, he strode away as if Lucifer were at his heels. The

dwarf kept up with him, waving about his stick, and gesticulating with

grimaces so grotesque, as would have made any other companion laugh.

Now he stood still at a spot where the roads diverged, lifted his cap,

and turned round, for a last look at the little town he was leaving.

"I am truly thankful, that we definitively quarrelled, the Meister and

I, and did not make it up. Do you know, I actually did demean myself so

far as to write him a note this morning, with the conditions on which I

would have consented to return to him. For that he must miss me sorely,

no one can deny. So without ceremony, I wrote. I _may_ have been too

free and easy, and thawed too fast. But he certainly gave me back as

good as he got; for you know, when he is in the vein, he can write and

talk like Buonaparte; let him!--If I did knock under, it was for the

miserable reason that I could not find it in my heart to part from our

charming Mamsell, for all her abuse and scorn.

"Bah! when once I am away from her; I shall come to my senses soon

enough. But what I wanted to say to you, my boy, was this: follow my

example, do as I do, and cut your chalks. You have no reason to fear

that she will treat you ill; far more reason to fear the contrary.

"Do you know that she has given warning to her dangling lawyer?--and do

you know why? I will tell you; simply because she is smitten by those

two forget-me-nots of yours; and as you happen to be a spoon, you may

take your oath that some fine day you will inevitably be sold--that is,

married. You may stare if you like, and write me down an ass, if it be

not as I tell you. It would be a pity; for, after all, she is your

aunt; if not exactly, still she is old enough to be; and by the time

you are a man in your prime, like me, she will be a withered old thing,

and the very devil for jealousy, and you will have to sit by the

chimney-corner all your life, instead of seeing the world and enjoying

life while you are young, as every man ought to do.

"If I had been able to get her, I suppose I should have repented; but

then I was madly in love with her, which you are not. With you it would

have become a habit, if you go on as you are doing now.

"Well, well, no doubt you will cut your wisdom-teeth, at last. Think

on my words, my boy, for I wish you well. Heavens and earth! what a

face!--Have I upset you so by helping you to find a father?--and by no

means, let me tell you, the worst father you could have;--not by a

great deal, though I certainly have no reason to speak well of him. And

now fare thee well! old boy, and carry back my compliments to those

Philistines in their den. If we should chance to meet again somewhere

or other, knocking about the world, I hope I shall find you a trump:

give us a parting fist."

He held out his hand, but Walter did not take it; he continued staring

vacantly before him and did not move a finger. With a volley of parting

imprecations, half vicious and half facetious, Peter Lars twirled his

stick, and went sauntering on his way, whistling.

The state in which this dark spirit left the blond, is not to be

described. But the tumult of Walter's mind arose from such conflicting

sources, that the one appeared to balance the other, and to produce a

sort of silent stupefaction; only here and there, a word or two stood

out from the chaos, and sounded after all, more strange than ominous.

He sometimes thought his comrade had amused himself by stringing

together his own fanciful speculations, which in no way concerned him,

and that the best thing he could do would be to laugh at and forget

them.

He walked on, therefore, through the forest very cheerfully till he

reached the villa; he entered the sunny gallery of which the great

glass doors stood open to admit the mild spring-air, and having

appointed the two boys their tasks, he climbed up to the scaffolding.

He fastened the engraving before him, and proceeded without delay to

sketch in the landscape on the white grounding. As before said, he was

quick at architectural drawing, and very soon the temple stood out in

correct proportions from the high elms and plane-trees that surrounded

it.

Meanwhile, Peter Lars's disclosures had lain dormant in his mind, in a

sort of unconscious twilight. But when he had finished his temple, and

began to wonder whether the Meister would be pleased with it, he

suddenly recollected that the Meister had promised to come out himself,

and see what he had been doing. Yes, he would come--presently he

would walk in by that door----how should he address him?--how call

him?--Meister, as before?

The blood rushed to his forehead, and danced before his eyes. He sat

down upon the ladder, and covered his face with his hands. He

recalled his past life, and wondered what it would turn to now.

Every one of those words of Peter Lars recurred to him--he could

have put down every syllable in writing--in characters cut deep into

his heart. He read them over again from beginning to end--and

the end made him hesitate. What he had said of Helen appeared

improbable--inconceivable--impossible! Yet what could he remember to

oppose to it?--how much rather in corroboration of these conclusions?--

His blood was hammering violently at his temples, he dropped the

charcoal, for he could not hold it The deep depression of the first few

moments began rapidly to give way to a feeling of rapture, to which he

had almost given voice in a shout of ecstasy.

He looked down from his scaffolding, away over the sunny gardens, where

the discolored turf was rapidly changing to green velvet, and the young

leaves, still folded in their opening buds, were only waiting for one

drop of rain to burst forth full length. He heard the singing-birds

warbling in the transparent air, and under the roof of the semicircle

that formed the gallery, he saw the swallows busy about their nests.

His mood was glad and tender; he no longer thought how he should meet

his father; or how he should act in furtherance of his darling wish to

turn his back on paintpot and plaster.

He saw nothing but her earnest face, now with an unwonted look of

tenderness; and those ivory arms and shoulders; and heard her voice

with that accent in which she had said, as she had kissed him on the

forehead; "so spoiled a creature can afford to laugh."

He could not tell how long he had been dreaming, until the two boys

reminded him that it was time to eat his dinner. And he let them eat

it, and remained where he was. He wanted neither meat nor drink.

Presently he started violently, on hearing the old pensioner who kept

the gardens, say in answer to somebody's question: "You will find Mr.

Walter in the shell-gallery. I scarcely think he means to leave his

work to-day, so long as the light lasts."

His knees shook as he got up; and all his self-possession left him at

the thought that he was about to see his father for the first time,

consciously.

Only it was not the heavy uneven gait he expected that he heard coming

up the steps, though the eyes that looked up through the tall windows

in search of him upon his scaffolding were not less familiar to him.

"Helen!" he cried. "What brings you here?" and running down the steps,

he was by her side in a moment.

Never had he seen her look so charming. A rose on her cheek with the

air and exercise--her dark hair blown back in slight disorder under her

little hat; her eyes radiant with gaiety, a crimson handkerchief

loosely tied about her throat, and on her arm, a basket carefully

closed.

"No, no;" she said, as Walter attempted to take it from her; "that is

to come afterwards, and is only to be considered as an appendix to my

real mission. So first of all I must deliver myself of that: know

therefore, Claude Lorraine and his temple and his sunrise are all to be

thrown over, and your laudable labours of the morning wasted. It will

all have to be rubbed out and done over again. The Burgermeister has

just sent to say that he has other projects wherewith to astonish the

weak minds of his admiring friends. They are to have Naples and the

Mediterranean above their heads, and Vesuvius spouting lava over them.

Of coarse the Meister was indignant at any man's presuming to meddle

with his business; but you know his worship has his peculiar ideas

about the fine arts, and a not so peculiar intolerance of

contradiction. And then a most impudent letter from Peter Lars came to

make the measure full; and this shock seems to have fallen on the

Meister's limbs, so that he is quite unable to walk, or to come himself

to look after you, as he proposed; so I said I would come instead, and

tell you what I could--and, to-night, he will tell you the rest.

"So there is a truce for you, meanwhile; that is, as far as regards the

ceiling. But I don't see, young sir, that you have been so very busy

all this time--one or two of those Cupids I see over there have

scarcely a leg to stand on, and there are many gaps among the shells

and wreaths."

While her bright eyes were roving over the walls, he stood mute before

her, lost in contemplation.

"You are not communicative this morning; I rather think curiosity

concerning the contents of my little basket must have struck you dumb.

Know then, that my sense of my maternal duties was too strong to let me

set out on my diplomatic mission without having made a previous raid

into the store-room; for though art may profess to live on bread and

water, I never saw that it had any particular objection to meat and

wine. And as I don't deny that my walk has made me hungry, we will

proceed to explore our basket without farther ado. Only you must find a

breakfast-table for us--where it does not smell of plaster and fresh

paint, but rather, more seasonably, of spring violets. Let us walk

through the gardens till we find a shady spot and a bench. Every other

essential of an idyll is here already."

He laughed, though he did not seem to have heard; he answered half

shyly, half absently, in monosyllables.

As they walked down the steps of the gallery together, the greybearded

pensioner doffed his cap and nodded, with a sort of complacency and

paternal admiration of the handsome young couple, that made the young

man flush to his temples, as though he had heard the most hidden

secrets of his heart proclaimed from all the tree-tops.

He walked beside his companion without offering her his arm. He had

silently possessed himself of the basket, in spite of her resistance;

and she had slung her hat upon her arm in its place.

"It is not yet time for the sun to be dangerous," she said, and looked

steadily upwards at it; her face was radiant with unwonted gaiety.

"Don't we feel as if we had broken loose from prison," she said, "when

once we fairly escape from the town? A person who has always lived in

such a place as this need never grow old, I fancy--or at least, never

feel old, which would be the same thing. In fact, if I were not ashamed

of myself in the face of that venerable warrior, I feel as if I could

begin to dance, even at, my advanced age; the birds would make a

charming band."

"Come then and try," he said; "what would be the harm of it?--The

avenue is smooth enough."

She shook her head. "Breakfast first, and then, not play, but work; I

have so much to do at home, and have done nothing; the house is an

abomination to look at"--He did not press her farther, and hardly

ventured to look at her as they walked along together under the high

trees.

They did not meet a soul, the grounds were running wild; the

Burgermeister had quarrelled with the gardener over the projected

improvements, and dismissed him; so there had been a sudden stoppage,

and there were traces of this stoppage everywhere. But this unbroken

solitude made the place all the more enjoyable.

They came to a halt before a running stream that had been expanded to

an artificial lake. A wooden bridge had led across it to a little

island, where swans were kept, and a hermitage had been built beneath a

group of tall ash-trees. This bridge was to have been carried away and

replaced by a new one, but by the time the first half of his intentions

had been carried out, his worship dispatched a counter-order; and at

present there was no way of getting to the island but by a single plank

loosely thrown across the bridge posts. Helen was perplexed.

"I don't trust myself to cross," she said; "though I think that plank

would carry me; but I am afraid it would make me giddy."

"The swan is sitting;" he said, half to himself; "it is pretty to see

her; and then her mate, how he flaps his wings, and flies at any body

who comes too near."

"Have you been over?"

"Often; it is quite safe; come, let me carry you."

"We shall both fall in," and she laughed; "let us rather give it up."

"Don't; I want to shew you the hut; and there is a table in it, where

we might have our breakfast. You take hold of the basket, and leave the

rest to me."

He had her already in his arms--he hardly felt her weight; but the

loose plank swung and shook under his feet, and she clung to him with

both her arms round his neck. He stopped in the middle of the rushing

waters. "Suppose,"--he said, and his tone was strange;--"one, two,

three, eyes shut, and a jump, and it would be over."

"Don't talk so wickedly," she whispered; and he felt how her heart was

beating.--

When he had carried her over, he still held her high above the ground.

"I should like to try how long I could carry you without being tired,"

said he. And she: "I can't say I should like to try anything of the

kind. I have had seats that were more comfortable, and I only wish I

were safe over on the other side again;--but here we are at the

Hermitage. Suppose all the people who ever walked about under these

trees, were all to appear at once, what a curious masquerade it would

be!"

"I had rather do without them;" he said between his teeth.

"Still, those must have been strange times," she continued, in a

contemplative mood; "Pigtails and powder, and trumpery dress swords;

and with these they played at being hermits and Arcadian shepherds:

Nature is sure to avenge herself; turn her out as often as you please,

and she always slips in again, in some disguise or other."

"There are the swans;" and he pointed them out at some distance. She

thought it a pretty sight to see the brooding mother placidly sitting

upon her eggs, while her mate, in jealous haste, was vigilantly

swimming his patrol all round the nest.

"Do you hear him? how he hisses and threatens?" asked Walter.

"Yes, and it makes me feel disquieted; almost as if he were agitated by

human passion; and the contrast with the soft snow of his plumage makes

it still more curious.--I could stand here and watch these creatures

for hours together. Now let us go and sit in the hut, there is rain

coming in those clouds."

And in fact the first large drops were falling; pattering upon the bark

roof of the hut; they heard the sweet spring rain, and smelt it, with

the scent of a thousand blossoms wafted to them through the little

cobweb-curtained window; and as they sat on the only bench, eating

their breakfast off the roughhewn table, they looked through the open

door over the surface of the water all fretted and rippled by the rain.

The birds had ceased their song; and the two sat silent, listening to

the splashing and streaming above their heads.

"We can't even see to the other side," she said; "the rain is falling

like a thick veil; shutting us out from the rest of the world--which

would not be so great a loss after all."

"It looks as if we really were upon some desert island in the deep

sea;" he said, gazing on the water; "I only wish that shore were really

farther off; and that we were floating far away out of sight."

"A pretty Robinson you would make, to be sure, spoiled boy that you

are!"

"Why?--have I not all I want here with me?"

"Yes, till we come to the bottom of the basket, and have emptied our

one bottle; after that perhaps we might do battle to the poor swans,

and prey upon their eggs; and then the comedy would be over, and the

tragedy would begin. I read one, once, about a Count Ugolino, whom they

threw into a deep dungeon, with his children, to be starved to death.

But I don't think I should like to see it acted; still less, to take a

part in it."

He kept his eyes fixed on the little glass she had brought with her,

and had now filled for him.

"What man cares to sate his body," he murmured, "if his soul be

famished? I should prefer the reverse; should not you?"

"I don't think I always understand you now--you sometimes say odd

things."

"Drink out of this same glass then; and then, you know, you will be

able to guess my thoughts." He held it towards her; his whole face was

glowing, his eyes avoided hers, as they looked at him with surprised

enquiry. She took the glass, but held it in her hand, without drinking.

"I wish it could really help one to guess them. There is a certain

young man of my acquaintance, who used to have no secrets from me, and

of late he has been a mystery with seven seals; but I doubt if the

truth be really in this wine. I rather think----"

She stopped short, for a sudden perception began to dawn on her mind,

though she could hardly trust herself to admit it. He had raised his

eyes now, and was looking at her with wrapt gaze.

"Helen," he said, "when a man feels choking it is too late to ask him

what strangles him? All I know is, that I shall have to go away, and

leave you--"

"Go away! why, what are you thinking of?"

"You may well ask," he said, in a tone of desperation, without

venturing to look up. "I only know too well, I cannot live without

you."

His words thrilled to her very marrow, she held the wineglass

unconsciously, without seeing how she was spilling the wine.

"That is not what I meant," she said. "What makes you talk so

strangely?"

She would have risen, but he seized her hand so eagerly, that she

dropped the glass.

"Do not go," he cried. "Oh! stay and listen to me! You must. I must

talk so, because it is what I feel, and you must hear it, or it will

kill me. All this time I have felt as if my heart were dead within me.

To me there is nothing in the whole wide world but you. If this island

were to float away, and carry us away where nobody could reach us, you

know you would be mine and I yours to all eternity--you cannot deny

that; and therefore what difference should the world make to us? Can

all the talking and the gossipping in the world, make us one jot more

happy or one jot more wretched? You have nobody to consider; I am what

I always was--a penniless, homeless orphan; for if I have a father

living, I have no desire to see him. Why should we go back to those

people? We might cross the seas together; to any wilderness, where

there is nobody to ask for baptismal certificates, or parish registers;

and there we might be all in all to each other and be happy, and then

we might afford to laugh at a world that would have grudged us our

happiness."

He held her hand tight between both his own, while the words fell from

his lips in burning haste, and his devouring eyes were fastened on her

downcast lashes, or watching the quivering of her parted lips.

She could not speak; her brain was reeling, and her ears ringing. She

could not distinguish every word, but his meaning went straight to her

heart.

"Helen!" he cried, and dropping her hand, he caught her all trembling

to his heart; lifting her from the ground, and covering her face with

passionate kisses.

The intoxication that had so carried him away lasted but a second. With

a violent effort, she tore herself from his arms, and stood breathless,

facing him with flaming eyes. "No more!" she said. "Not another word!

thank God rather, that I have sense enough left for both, to take your

words for what they are, for the vagaries of an idle brain. Were I so

foolish as to take this nonsense for downright earnest, you should

never look upon my face again. But even a mother's indulgence has its

bounds, and if ever you are seized with such another fit of madness in

my presence, the last word will have been spoken between us two. I

shall take good care, however, that you do not so easily forget

yourself again. Hitherto I have forgiven many things; I trusted to the

natural candour of your disposition. But I am afraid you are not much

better than most young men of your age. I am sorry to believe it of

you, both for yourself and me. But it serves me right, for supposing

that ten years could be enough to know a man; even when one has brought

him up oneself!"

He stood before her without being able to utter a single word. If the

earth had opened and swallowed him up, it would have been a relief to

him. In the tumult of his ideas, he tried in vain to make her words

agree with all that he had seen and heard within the last few days; had

he ventured to look at her, he might have had some suspicion of the

struggle in her soul, while she was uttering those annihilating words.

"The rain is over;" she said after a pause, in a tone of complete

indifference, "I must go."

He prepared to follow her.

"I can find my way without you;" she said; "now that I know that the

plank is safe. Good-bye, Walter, you can send the basket by one of the

boys."

She stopped on the threshold of the hut. "See how suddenly all the

leaves have burst their buds," she said, and her voice had completely

recovered its tranquil tone. "Everything in nature has its season; we

can change nothing, and prevent nothing. Give me your hand, dear boy. I

am not going to leave you to mope by yourself, because you have just

given me another proof that you are but a child, and a dreamer of

childish dreams. I am not a bit angry with you now; so let us make

haste and forget all those ugly passionate words we said. By-and-by you

will laugh at them as I do now. And when you come home this evening, I

hope you will bring us your own bright face again, and the best

resolutions henceforth, to honour and obey your own little mother, that

your days may be--as the fourth commandment says. Bless you, my son."

She looked back affectionately at him, and waved her hand to say

good-bye, and then she walked steadily over the plank, with her light

elastic step, and turned into one of the paths that led through the

wood on the other side.

As long as she was to be seen, Walter looked after her; then he flung

himself on the grass, with his face to the ground, in an agony of shame

and grief, and self-reproach. He did not know that as soon as she was

out of sight, her brave heart failed her; she stopped, and leaning her

head against the stem of a young tree, she too relieved herself by a

flood of tears.

* * * * *

The day was fading into twilight; in the Meister's room it had grown

too dark for him to do anything until the lamp was brought. Putting by

the watercolor sketch of Naples and Mount Vesuvius, in which he had

been making some alterations in the foreground with a piece of chalk,

he was just about to exchange his favorite old dressing gown with the

sheepskin, for a more appropriate garment for an evening walk, when the

door was opened noiselessly, and Helen came in, with a serene

countenance, and an unfaltering voice that belied all her agitations of

the morning.

"Good evening, brother. I have been longer away than I expected. I had

a little piece of business to do on my way home, that should have been

settled long ago--Christel has been taking good care of you, I hope?

How have you been? better?"

The unusual friendliness of her manner took him by surprise, and

stopped the reproaches that had been ready on his lips. "How does the

gallery get on?" he asked, instead of answering. "You will have been

standing chattering there so long, that there will not have been much

work done."

"I left the gallery about twelve o'clock;" she said with a faint blush.

"If I had not gone astray among the woods, and done that business on my

way back, I should have been here ever so long ago. After all, it would

not so much signify, if the work were to last a few days longer. The

grounds are hardly planned, and the gallery will certainly be finished

in a week. Have you heard whether that assistant is to be counted on?"

"Not yet, why do you ask?"

She took a chair and seated herself with her back to the light. "I will

tell you why," she said. "I have been thinking over what you said the

other day, and I begin to see that you were right, when you said it was

time for Walter to be sent from home; I know him too well, not to see

that for him, it would be waste of time and talents, to go on plodding

as he is doing now, in this narrow sphere of action. If he is ever to

attain the fall development of which he is capable, we must transplant

him to a more congenial soil. However, I am aware that you would find

it hard to keep him in a strange place, unless he were to earn his own

livelihood by his present trade; and that would be hard on him, for he

takes no pleasure in it, and will take still less, if you send him

among strangers."

She paused, for her voice was failing her; he stood at the other

window, looking away from her, and drawing upon the vapoury panes with

his finger.

"Brother-in-law," she began again: "I have just done a thing without

your knowledge, that I hope you will approve of, as it is for Walter's

good. As I was walking home just now, I thought over all those long

years we have lived together, and I confess I have not been so friendly

with you as I should have been, to make our lives pleasanter to both. I

am sorry for it now. There were some things I never could forget,

although they were past and over, and we know that no one human being

has any right to judge another.

"With regard to Walter, I have not so much to reproach myself. I did my

duty by him, as far as I saw it; and I see that I would not be doing it

now, if I were to keep him at home, merely because I find it hard to

part from him. So it occurred to me, as the best plan for us all, that

I could give him an independence, by making him my heir, as a mother

should her only son. Don't mistake me, I am not thinking of dying--only

of making my will; and as women are ignorant in such matters, as soon

as I had made up my mind, I went straight to the proper authority,

Dr. Hansen, and asked him what would be the surest way of making a

will--not only with a sound mind, but a sound body--and of laying down

the burthen of one's thalers in the most legal form."

"You spoke to Hansen about this?"

"I did; and found him quite willing to assist me. I had a deed of gift

drawn up, which he will bring this evening, written out in proper form.

I also begged him to join you, as trustee for the management of the

property, and to provide for Walter's wants until he becomes of age. I

hope you will not object to this."

"Helen!"--cried the Meister--"and you yourself?"

"Don't imagine I could forget myself," she said merrily. "I took good

care to keep enough for my own livelihood; especially as I mean to look

out for a situation in some respectable family where there is an orphan

to bring up. I have been in a good school for that you know."

"And when you are old, and feel loath to be dependent upon strangers,

though you may think it so easy now?"

"I should not be forlorn or forsaken even then," she said very

earnestly. "I shall find a home for my old age in my dear Walter's

house, and I hope his young wife will never turn me from the door." A

long silence ensued.

"You don't seem to be entirely satisfied with my plan, brother," she

began again. "But it really is the best plan for all of us. When your

son is taken off your hands, you will be able to do what you have

wished for all your life. You can sell this house and garden, give up

the business, and go to Italy for a year or two. In that lovely Italy

you rave about, you would soon shake off your horrid rheumatisms, that

torment you so. And one fine day, Walter would cross the Alps and join

you, when he finished his studies; and then you could shew him all

those marvels of Art and Nature you are always yearning after, and you

would be happy both together--and I--"

Her voice faltered, she could not continue. The Meister turned from the

window,--and, in an instant,--for she was too unsuspecting to prevent

him, he had flung himself upon his knees before her, as though he had

lost his senses. He hid his rough grey head upon her lap, smothering

the strange sounds that fell from his lips; stammering and sobbing in

wordless protestation.

"Don't, brother;" she whispered, in a trembling voice, bending over

him; "come to your senses, and hear me out. I have a favor to ask of

you in return, that you may not feel inclined to grant me, and in case

you should refuse it, the whole plan falls to the ground."

He looked up in her face, without rising from his knees. The great

strong man lay helpless and crushed by the tempest of feeling that had

swept over him. He had taken one of her hands, and pressed it to his

lips. She went on.

"This thing I am going to do would be of no use whatever, if Walter

ever came to know I did it. He is not a child now; he has the pride and

the sensitiveness of a man. Were he to know that he owed this

inheritance to me, he never would accept it: my most solemn

protestations would be in vain. I might swear to him that all my

happiness is placed in his; that the only interest I have on earth, is

to provide for his future welfare; it would be no use, he would reject

it all. Therefore it behoves us to take the proper measures to deceive

him; and the safest way to deceive him in this, would be to undeceive

him in another matter: he must know his father, and his father must be

thanked for the change in his fortunes."

The Meister sprang to his feet, and paced to and fro in violent

agitation.

"Never!" he cried at last; "It is impossible, Helen, I can't do it."

"What can't you do?" and she looked very grave. He stood still before

her with an imploring look.

"Don't ask me to do that," he said; "It costs me nothing to take that

dear boy to my heart, and call him son, if you think it is in your

power to absolve me from the promise I made your sister. But that I

should appear as his benefactor, I who have done him and his poor

mother such grievous wrong--" She interrupted him--

"That wrong has been expiated, brother; and what there may remain, will

be expiated now by the penance I prescribe. I too have some wrong to

expiate, though not of my own doing. Had my poor sister, in the

delirium of her revenge, not destroyed the inheritance you had a right

to expect, things would have happened differently. Promise me,

therefore, to do as I ask you, and give me your hand upon it. Believe

me, it will be the saving of us all." She rose; "I hear steps in the

passage," she said; "if it be Walter, I hope you will not let this

night pass, without having spoken to him. Only do not tell him that it

was I who proposed his going; he has a real father now. I abdicate my

authority, and lay down my duties in your hands. I know he will not

have to suffer for the change." So saying, she left the room, without

waiting for his answer.

In the passage she met, not Walter, but the lawyer; who had brought the

deed of gift.

"I have already talked it over with my brother-in-law," she said in a

kindly tone, to the silent man before her. "He has consented to do as I

wish, and now I leave the rest to you and him, with entire confidence

in you both; would you be so kind as to go in and tell him what you

think about it?"

And bowing slightly to him, she passed on, to go into the garden.

There, in the morning, she had left the bushes and the fruit-trees with

their buds all shut, and now they were clothed in tenderest green.

She looked at them with tranquil pleasure; and while she walked down

the narrow gravel path, she thought to herself how soon she would have

to leave them, never to see them more. But there was not a shade of

regret in her meditations, and her heart, that had passed through so

many storms, had come to a sudden calm.

Half an hour later, she heard Dr. Hansen's step on the pavement of the

little court, which he crossed, and she saw that he was coming through

the garden gate. She made an effort to conceal a gust of emotion that

suddenly came over her, and she looked searchingly in his serious face.

"What news do you bring me? I hope we have not forgotten anything that

may prove a hindrance to so simple a desire as mine is?--"

"Nothing," he answered gravely. "It is settled in the most formal

manner, and all I have to do in this house in the capacity of lawyer,

may be considered as definitively concluded. Will you forgive me, if I

say that the lawyer has not succeeded in silencing the man?--who _will_

speak, even though he has so much reason to fear that he will not find

a hearing."

He paused, as if in expectation of some sign to interpret in his favor,

or against him.

She said nothing, and his courage rose.

"Yon know how I feel;" he continued, "and after our recent conversation

on Sunday evening, I certainly should not have presumed to molest you

with another word that sounded hopeful. Only the day after, I

ascertained from your brother-in-law, what I had already surmised with

pain, that your reason for rejecting every suitor who presented

himself, was because you felt no security that he sought you, not for

your fortune, but for yourself.

"It was small consolation for me to know that it was not, in the first

instance, any special aversion to myself, that had cut me off from all

my hopes of happiness. What could I ever do to convince you of the

bitter injustice of your distrust?--If my undeclared devotion has not

proved it to you in all those years, what farther assurance of mine

could ever convince you of it? But to-day you were so good as to take

me into your confidence, and to allow me to look deeper into your

heart, than would have been necessary for a simple affair of business.

In my office I could not thank you; and here--will you take me for a

madman, if I have not given up all hope, and venture to ask whether

circumstances may not have arisen to induce you to change your mind? In

me, you will never find a change."

She kept her eyes cast down. "Do not ask me now," she said, with

quivering lips. "I have need of all my resolution to do what has to be

done, and it has been sorely tried."

"Not now?" he whispered, "another time then?"

"My dear kind friend," she said, now looking him full in the face; "if

you really be a friend to me, wait until that young moon that is just

rising, has run its course, before you come here again. There is a

strange chaos in my mind. You would hardly understand it, if I were to

try to explain, and unravel all its mysteries. They will unravel

themselves in time, and then you may come for an answer to your

question. A clear straight-forward answer. This is all I can give you

for to-day."

"It is more than I dared to hope; more than I deserve," he said, with

deep emotion, and bent low to kiss the hand she had offered him as

farewell, and so they parted.

* * * * *

Four weeks later, the same pale crescent that had lighted our

yellow-haired young friend through the woods that evening, was shining

in full refulgence upon a street of a great city, in the quarter

chiefly inhabited by students and artists. Close to the open window of

a small lodging on the third story, catching the last glimpse of fading

light, a young man was seated before a great drawing board; with bold

pencil drawing great broad sepia lines, to relieve with light and shade

a correct and tasteful architectural ornament.

His landlady came in with a letter in her hand. "From home;" she said,

laid it down upon the table, and left the room again. The colour-box

and drawing board were thrown aside, and in an instant, with trembling

haste, he had broken the seal.

The young artist seated himself upon the windowsill, and read as

follows:

"My dear spoiled boy! That we have been almost three weeks parted, is a

fact I should find incredible, did I not know my almanack too well for

reasonable disbelief.

"There, the day of your departure has been branded with a thick black

stroke, and the days on which your letters came, distinguished with

bright red ones. It is a fact, for nineteen long days we have been

deprived of our six-foot son, and for how much longer, is past all

present reckoning.

"I began several letters which I never finished. I knew that your

father wrote, so that as for news, you were not starved. Anything more

your little mother might have wished to say, though she certainly is no

sentimental writer, would only have tended to make you homesick; and

home is a thing with which, at present, you are to have nothing more to

do.

"I had the satisfaction of hearing by your last letter, that you find

your new mode of life already becoming congenial to you; that your work

absorbs you, and your comrades suit you. Here steps in maternal

jealousy at once, and in terror of losing you altogether, I write this

letter as reminder; also because I have a thing or two to tell you

which may not be indifferent to you.

"In the first place, you must know, that yesterday was the day

appointed for the magic ceremonies with which the Burgermeister thought

fit to inaugurate his villa. The Heavens were pleased to smile on his

designs, and favored him with the loveliest day this year has brought.

In the grounds and garden, every flower that grows and blows, was in

fall bloom and fragrance. Our worthy host--you know him in his gala

mood--was courtesy itself. Wife and daughter attired from head to foot,

in correctest taste and newest fashion; and we poor provincials rigged

out in our best, each one according to his abilities.

"What will you say to your little mother, when you hear that she turned

out in fall ball dress!--worse--what will you say when you hear that

she actually danced?--Not merely a sober polonaise with our host, who

led us by torchlight all over the house, down to the lowest cellar, and

into the park and grounds--but actually valses and ecossaises; even a

heel-splitting mazurka, which your rival of old, the young

referendarius, led off with the daughter of the house.

"Alas! poor boy, it is not to be concealed from you, that the venerable

guardian of your youth took strange advantage of your absence, to wax

wild and wanton in her old age.

"Not only did I join the giddy throng myself; whirling round our

well-known gallery of shells, perfectly undaunted by any flaming

volcano whatsoever, but I succeeded in turning a far stronger and more

respectable head to my own mischievous purposes, and I fear we are a

superannuated couple who have fed the gossips with our follies, for

some time.

"My dear child, it is my own confession, or you might refuse to believe

the papers when you read it in them. Your mamma has finally made up her

mind to give you a stepfather, and her decision was solemnly celebrated

last night in a select circle of authorities and townspeople. Your

mother's health and her bridegroom's, was drunk with all the honors, as

the clock struck twelve.

"At first I thought that all the world must be astonished, and would

regard it as no less improbable than improper, that a mother should

think of weddings, when she has a great grown-up son so far away. But,

judging by their words at least, it did not astonish them at all, and

they seemed to think it quite correct; and so after all, I daresay,

there is no one to find fault with us, save precisely this grown-up

son. Here I would make the appropriate observation that a dutiful child

never presumes to judge its parents, but rather looks respectfully on

all their actions, as emanations of a maturer judgment.

"In the fond hope that my dear Walter is just such a dutiful child, I

send him his stepfather's love meanwhile, and I trust that he will not

fail to bring us his in return, when some fine day he comes back to us

as a distinguished architect; when, instead of the poky old house we

are to take possession of in autumn, he will have to build us a sunny

airy villa outside the gates; though I should not care for volcanoes or

shell-galleries.

"And now I must say good-bye to you for to-day. He (major) is just come

to fetch me for a walk; and as he is to be my master, of course I must

obey. Only about your father; he has grown quite young again, and his

leg is quite alert--to be sure the days are warm, and I don't really

think, that without that trip to Italy--It is no use trying. My master

will not leave me time to finish--I begin to fear that I have sold

myself to cruel bondage. Thank Heaven! I have a great strong son to

threaten with, who, I trust, will never forget, or cease to care for

his

"little mother."

"P. S. It would be dishonesty in me to suppress poor Lottchen's love:

she asked after you the very first thing, with a charming little air of

melancholy; which, however, did not prevent her dancing every dance,

and eating a vielliebchen at supper with the Burgermeister's son. Alas!

they are all alike!--Youth is given to folly; and even age----!"

Here came a long dash of the pen, which Walter sat looking at, without

moving for half an hour. Only when his landlady came in to ask him

whether he would have his lamp, he stared at her, shook his head, and

carefully putting away the letter in his pocket, he went downstairs,

and away towards a distant quarter of the town, to a modest little

wine-house, where he was wont to meet his comrades once a week, to

enjoy a sociable evening.

When he came home about twelve o'clock, his landlady heard him singing

a snatch of a student song as he walked up stairs--a very unusual

circumstance.

"What can have made him so jolly to-night, I wonder?" she said to

herself as she pulled the bed clothes over her ears; "he must have had

very good news from home.--This is the first letter he ever got, that

made him go to bed singing!"

THE END.

* * * * *

PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.

* * * * *

THE DEAD LAKE

AND

OTHER TALES

BY

PAUL HEYSE.

FROM THE GERMAN BY

BY

MARY WILSON.

_Authorized Edition._

LEIPZIG 1870

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.

LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MARSTON.

CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

PARIS: C. REINWALD, 15, RUE DES SAINTS PERES.

CONTENTS.

A FORTNIGHT AT THE DEAD LAKE

DOOMED

BEATRICE

BEGINNING, AND END

A FORTNIGHT

AT

THE DEAD LAKE.

A FORTNIGHT

AT

THE DEAD LAKE.

THE DEAD LAKE.

Summer was at its heighth, yet in one corner of the Alps an icy cold

wind revolted against its dominion, and threatened to change the

pouring rain into snow flakes. The air was so gloomy that even a house

which stood about a hundred paces from the shore of the lake, could not

be distinguished, although it was whitewashed and twilight had hardly

set in.

A fire had been lighted in the kitchen. The landlady was standing by it

frying a dish of fish, while with one foot she rocked a cradle which

stood beside the hearth. In the tap room, the landlord was lying on a

bench by the stove, cursing the flies which would not let him sleep. A

barefooted maid of all work sat spinning in a corner, and now and then

glanced with a sigh, through the dingy panes at the wild storm which

was raging without. A tall strong fellow, the farm servant of the inn,

came grumbling into the room: he shook the rain-drops from his clothes,

like a dog coming out of the water, and threw a heap of wet fishing

nets into a corner. It seemed as if the cloud of discontent and

ill-humour which hung over the house, was only kept by this moody

silence from bursting into a storm of discord and quarreling.

Suddenly the outer door opened, and a stranger's step was heard groping

through the dark passage; the landlord did not move, only the maid

rose, and opened the door of the room.

A man in a travelling suit stood at the entrance, and asked if this was

the inn of the dead lake. As the girl answered shortly in the

affirmative, he walked in, threw his dripping plaid and travelling

pouch on the table, and sat down on the bench apparently exhausted; but

he neither removed his hat heavy with rain nor laid down his walking

stick, as if intending to start again after a short rest.

The maid still stood before him, waiting for his orders, but he seemed

to have forgotten the presence of any one in the room but himself,

leant his head against the wall, and closed his eyes; so deep silence

once more reigned in the hot dark room, only interrupted by the buzzing

of the flies, and the listless sighs of the maid.

At last the landlady brought in the supper; a little lad who stared at

the stranger carried the candle before her. The landlord rose lazily

from his bench, yawned and approached the table leaving to his wife the

charge of inviting the stranger to partake of their meal. The traveller

refused with a silent shake of the head, and the landlady apologized

for the meagreness of their fare. Meat, they had none, except a few

live ducks and chickens. They could not afford to buy it, for their own

use, and now travellers never came that way, for two years ago, a new

road had been made on the other side of the mountain, and the post

which had formerly passed their inn now drove the other way. If the

weather was fine, a tourist, or a painter who wished to sketch the

environs of the lake now and then lodged with them; but they did not

spend or expect much, neither was the selling of a few fish very

profitable.

If however the gentleman wished to remain over night, he would not fare

badly. The bedrooms were just adjoining, and the beds well aired. They

had also a barrel of beer in the cellar, good Tyrolese wine, and their

spirits of gentian was celebrated. But all these offers did not tempt

the guest; he replied that he would stay for the night, and only wished

a jug of fresh water. Then he arose and without casting a single look

at the people seated round the table, and silently eating their supper,

or taking any notice of the little boy of ten, although the child made

the most friendly advances, and gazed admiringly at his gold watch

guard, which sparkled faintly in the dim light. The maid servant took

another candle from the cornice of the stove, and showed him the way to

the next room, where she filled his jug with fresh water, and then left

him to his own thoughts.

The landlord sent an oath after him. "Just their usual luck," he

grumbled, if any guest ever came to them, it was always some idle

vagrant who ordered nothing, and finally took his leave without paying

for his bed, often disappearing in company with the bedclothes. His

wife replied that it was just those folks, who regaled themselves on

all that larder and cellar could supply, and tried to ingratiate

themselves with the landlord. This gentleman was ill in mind or body,

as he neither ate nor drank. At this moment the stranger again entered

the room, and asked if he could have a boat, as he wished to fish on

the lake by torchlight, as soon as the rain had ceased.--The landlady

secretly poked her husband in the side, as if to say; "Now, you see! he

is not right in the head; don't contradict him for heaven's sake."

The landlord who was fully aware of the advantage to be gained by this

singular demand, answered in his surly manner, that the gentleman could

have both his boats, though it was not the fashion in these parts to

fish at night, but if it amused him he was welcome to do so. The farm

servant would prepare the torch immediately--so saying, he made a sign

to the tall fellow who was still occupied in picking his fish bones,

and opened the door for his guest.

The rain had not ceased and the water was dashing and gushing from the

gutters. The stranger seemed insensible to any outward discomfort; he

hastily walked towards the shore, and by the light of the lantern which

the farm servant had brought with him, he examined the two boats, as if

he wished to make sure which of them was the safest. They were both

fastened under a shed, where different fishing implements were lying

under some benches. Then sending back the farm servant under some

pretext or other, he sought on the shore of the lake for a couple of

heavy stones, which he placed in the largest of the two boats.--He drew

a deep breath, and stood for a moment with his eyes fixed on the dark

water, which as far as one could see by the light of the lantern was

furrowed by the drizzling rain. The wind had ceased for a moment, the

surf foamed, and dashed round the keel of the small boats; from the

house, one could hear the monotonous sing song of the landlady who was

lulling her baby to sleep. Even this sounded melancholy, reminding more

of the cares of motherhood than of its joys, and heightened the dismal

impression made by the forsaken aspect of this corner of the world.

The stranger was just returning to the house, when he heard on the road

coming from the south, along which he had also travelled that morning,

the cracking of a whip and the crashing and creaking of wheels which

were drawn heavily up the hill through the deep and sloughy ruts.

Shortly afterwards a lightly covered carriage stopped before the inn.

Lights were brought to the door, a female voice asked questions which

the landlady answered in her most amiable tones; then two women got out

of the carriage and carefully carried something wrapped up in cloaks

into the house. The farm servant helped the coachman to bring his

horses under shelter. A few minutes later every thing had relapsed into

the former silence.

It had all passed like a vision before the stranger, neither awakening

his curiosity, nor, still less, his interest. He once more looked up at

the dense clouds to see if there was any chance of their dispersing,

and then entered the house where lights were now shining in the room

opposite the tap room, and shadows were flitting to-and-fro behind the

curtains. He gave back the lantern to the man, and some orders about

baits and fishing hooks which he would require in the morning, and

retired to his room.

There he lighted the candle, and placed it in a bent candlestick, which

stood on the rickety table.--Then he threw open a casement to let out

the stuffy and damp air, and for a while looked out on the splashing

and spirting gutter in which a cork was restlessly dancing. Further off

no object could be discerned; the inky darkness of the cloudy sky hid

everything from view. The wind howled in a ravine near the lake, like

some caged beast of prey, and the trees near the house groaned under

the weight of the gushing rain. It was an unfavourable moment for

standing near an open window but the stranger seemed to be listening

intently to the dismal sound of the storm which raged without. Only

when the wind drove the rain straight into his face, he moved away, and

paced up and down between the bare walls of the little room, with his

hands crossed behind his back. His face was quite calm, and his eyes

appeared to be looking beyond what surrounded him, into some distant

world.

At last he took writing materials, and a small portfolio from his

travelling pouch, sat down beside the dim candle, and wrote as follows:

"I cannot go to rest, Charles, without bidding you good night. How

weary I am, you must have perceived when we met, unfortunately for so

short a time, six weeks ago. _Then_ I ought to have spoken to you, and

we might have come to an agreement on this chapter on pathology, as we

have done on so many others: Had I done so, I could now have quietly

smoked my last cigar, instead of tiring us both, with this dull

writing, but the words seemed to cleave to my lips. We should have

probably disputed about the matter--Each of us would have maintained

his own opinion, so I thought it useless to spoil the few hours we had

to spend in each other's society. I am well acquainted with your

principles, and know that if you were here, you would endeavour to

reconcile me to existence. But you would wrong me, if you thought that

I had caused this dissension between life and myself which nothing but

a divorce can appease. I would willingly live if I _could_. I am not

such a coward, or so fastidious that a few 'slings and arrows of

outrageous fortune' should drive me distracted and make me take the

resolution to leap out of my skin in the full sense of the word. Who

would throw over the whole concern, and fume against the inscrutable

powers because many things are disagreeable to bear? Are not the

decrees of the eternal powers equally unfathomable and indisputable?

But here lies the fault--I can play the part of a wise man no longer.

The desperate attempt to save reason at least from the general wreck of

soul and mind has failed. Just now when I watched an old cork which had

fallen into the gutter, and which lashed by the rain was helplessly

whirling about in the dirty puddle, the thought struck me that this

cork was my own brain which had stolen from out my heated skull, and

was now taking a shower bath. If such an absurd fancy could take

possession of my mind for a whole quarter of an hour, then must the

last prop of my reason be fast giving way.

"I have the highest idea of the self-sacrificing duties of a man

towards his fellow-creatures, yet I cannot calmly see the moment

approach when the asphyxiated soul is to be buried alive, watch the

loss of self-consciousness, and finally sink lower than the most

miserable brute. This, my dear Charles, would require the dullness of a

sheep patiently awaiting the butcher's knife, though it feels a worm

gnawing at its brain.

"But I quite forget that this will seem but a confused outpouring of

words to you, who are only aware of a portion of my calamities. You

only know what the rest of the world is acquainted with--that my

adopted sister died, this day year, that her father followed her a

few days later, and her mother in the spring of this year.--You also

know that my family consisted of only these three--that I loved them

dearly--that, in fact, except yourself, they were the only beings to

whom I was much attached.

"Under any circumstance their loss would have wounded me deeply, but I

should have ended by overcoming this grief. Even had they been severed

from me at a single stroke, I could have bravely outlived it. Truly the

death of one man is always irreparable but his life is never

indispensable. Science, my profession, my youth, would have healed the

wound.--Now, it is still open, and the blood which flows from it cannot

be stanched, for these three precious lives would have been spared, but

for me!...

"I must begin from the beginning, Charles, if I wish to make these sad

words clear to you.--You know, I believe, that I hardly ever saw my own

parents, that after the death of my father, I should have been brought

up at the orphan asylum, if those generous people had not taken pity on

the son of the poor surgeon, and adopted me. My foster-father was one

of the most opulent merchants of the town.--When he gave me a home, he

was still childless after eight years of marriage. He hoped that my

presence would cheer him, and his wife, and enliven the quiet dull

house. Unfortunately, at first, I but ill rewarded the kindness of the

worthy couple, though I was greatly attached to them. I was a reserved,

irritable, and unamiable lad, with a great tendency to ponder over

everything. My behaviour vacillated between a moody silence which

lasted for days, and sudden and passionate outbreaks of temper. Even

now I feel deeply ashamed when I think of the truly angelic patience

with which my foster-parents bore my perverseness, and tried to

moderate my violent temper without ever showing how sorely I

disappointed their hopes.

"Suddenly all was changed. When I had lived about two years in their

house, my adoptive parents saw their heart's desire fulfilled. A child

was born to them, the most beautiful and gifted creature I have ever

seen. As if by magic, everything grew bright--even I, was changed, and

became a good-humoured and sensible lad. I was quite infatuated about

the little girl, and watched her like a nurse. For hours together I

played with her. I taught her to speak, to run, forgot my dearest

occupations, and all my schoolfellows when with her.

"My behaviour towards her parents also completely altered. These

excellent people, instead of no longer caring for my society, now

redoubled their kindness towards me, and seemed to regard both of us as

their children and as having an equal right to their affection.

"As time went on, my fraternal love for the little Ellen only increased

with my years; the more so, that a curious similarity in our characters

became more perceptible every day. She was not one of those soft,

pliable and easily managed girls who give no more trouble to their

mothers, than to their future husbands. She would suddenly change from

the most extravagant gaiety, to the deepest melancholy--if one can use

the term, melancholy, in speaking of a child. In those moments, she

would steal out of the garden where she had been romping, and laughing

with her little companions, and, come to my little room, sit down with

grave face, opposite to me, at my writing-table, and read the first

book she could get hold of.

"From my school-days upwards, I had always been heart and mind, a

naturalist, and had no other thought, but that I would study medicine

as my father had done. I used to show her all my collections, even the

skeleton of a large monkey which stood in a corner behind my bed, and

to hold most unchildlike conversations with the little girl; at other

times she would communicate her childishness to me; I cooked for her

dolls and physicked them after having first carefully bedaubed their

faces with the tokens of the measles and I filled her little garden

with all sorts of medical herbs from my herborium. We never shewed much

tenderness towards each other. Only once I kissed her lips; it was when

I left for the University at nineteen years of age.

"Though I deeply felt the pain of leaving my adoptive home, yet I

fancied it would not become me as a man to show any emotion, still my

voice failed me when my dear mother embraced me with tears in her eyes.

Little Ellen stood pale, and silent by her side. I turned to her with

some joke and jestingly gave her different directions about the care of

my zoological collection, (preserved in camphor and spirits of wine)

which I had entrusted to her charge. Then I drew this child of eight

into my arms to bid her farewell. As I kissed her, I was startled by a

sudden shudder which ran through her frame, as if an asp had bitten

her. She staggered back with closed eyes and nearly fainted away. She

quickly recovered however, and next day wrote me a childishly merry

letter.

"Since that day I only once touched her lips again, and then they were

cold and closed for ever.

"How the six years of my University career passed, how I found life at

home when I returned for the holidays would be useless to relate. It

would be a long, and monotonous narrative. Some estrangement arose

between me and my foster-sister, partly through my fault, for science

and study monopolized my attention more and more. From year to year

this strange girl grew more reserved in my presence. Only in her

charming letters could I discover a trace of the old intimacy of our

childhood.

"Her outward development did not fall short of its early promise.

"She was fullgrown at the age of fourteen; somewhat slender, but quite

formed. The small portrait of her which I once showed you has but

little resemblance. Her character, if I may so express my self, was

even more mature than her person, and only betrayed itself in her

movements. A stately calm, an indifference, scarcely concealed for many

things which generally appear alluring at her age, isolated her a good

deal. Then again, when she wished to please, her smile, the gentle and

timid yielding up of herself had a charm not to be described. Few knew

her real value, her genuine upright soul; and among those few, her

brother was not. I was then too much engrossed by my studies, too eager

to solve the mysteries of physical science, to care about the secrets

of that young heart. Strange to say although I was always of a sensual

disposition, and certainly no paragon of virtue, and having eyes to see

could easily perceive, that all my conquests, compared with that

remarkable girl, appeared like housemaids beside a young princess, yet

it never entered my head to fall in love with her. When I wrote home,

it was always to my foster-mother, and she had to remind me sometimes,

of what was due to my little sister.

"She once wrote that the child who was as reserved as ever, did not

show what she felt, although my neglect seemed to hurt her, and one day

when I had forgotten even to mention her in my letter, she had cried

the whole night.

"I hastened to repair my negligence, and wrote her a most penitent

letter half in earnest, half in jest, accusing myself of the darkest

crimes towards my faithful little sister, protesting that she was a

thousand times too kind to me a petrified egotist whose very heart had

been turned to stone, among skeletons and anatomical preparations. Her

answer was full of loving kindness, and after that our fraternal

intercourse seemed re-established on the old footing.

"Then she was fourteen years of age. On her fifteenth birthday, I

passed my examination for a doctor's degree and we exchanged merry

congratulations by telegraph.

"Then I travelled during a year with you for a companion, and you will

remember that the letters I received from home often made me slightly

uneasy.

"My mother wrote that Ellen was not well; she did not complain, but her

altered looks only too visibly testified to her sufferings. The old

family physician looked rather grave about it. Now I was well

acquainted with this good old gentleman. He was a strict adherent of

the old school, and greatly prejudiced against the stethoscope,

otherwise he had the reputation of much experience in diagnostics, and

of great caution, and attention.

"Still this could not tranquillize me, and my parents who believed me

to be the greatest medical genius in the world, expressed a strong

desire, that if I could possibly get away, I should hasten home and

have a consultation with the old doctor. So I determined, as you know

to quit my studies in Paris--to hurry home, and decide for myself if

all was as it should be.

"When I arrived, Ellen advanced to greet me, looking so well, and

lively, that at the first moment, I asked with playful indignation, if

this was the august patient to attent to whose delicate health, a

celebrated young physician had been summoned from a great distance.

Poor child! the pleasure caused by my having set aside every other

consideration for her sake, gave that delusive air of blooming health.

I soon perceived that the old doctor had not looked grave without

cause. I was decidedly however opposed to his opinion that she was

threatened with pulmonary disease. After a most careful auscultation, I

had found her lungs to be perfectly sound, whereas the palpitations of

her heart seemed to be somewhat irregular; this symptom proceeded from

a morbid state of the nervous, and blood system. Accordingly the first

treatment which was principally directed against everything stimulating

and enjoined great quiet, seemed to me the reverse of salutary. I

prescribed steel, wine, and strengthening food, to rectify the poverty

of blood, and declared that the remedies by which the old doctor hoped

to ward off the disease were as bad as poison in her case. Her parents,

of course, sided with me, particularly as the apparent success of my

treatment during the first weeks of my stay with them corroborated my

statement. Ellen felt more lively, and stronger, her sleep and appetite

returned, and while the old practitioner withdrew deeply hurt, and

mortified, I enjoyed the first pleasures of fame though it still stood

on a very precarious footing, and I felt the happiness of having

delivered those dear to me, from a heavy care.

"I never intended to establish myself in that town. I knew that I could

only reside in a large capital where I could find better assistance in

my studies. I, therefore, carefully entrusted Ellen's treatment to the

second doctor of the place, a very humble man, rather irresolute, and

dependent on others, who in presence of so young, and far travelled a

colleague, meekly resigned any opinion of his own, and promised to keep

strictly to the enjoined course of treatment; and now and then to write

and inform me of the progress of the cure. The parents saw me depart

with heavy hearts, but my welfare, and their duty with regard to my

success in life, outweighed any wishes of their own, and Ellen eagerly

seconded my desire. I had already lost too much of my precious time on

her account, she said; she felt much better, and now that she knew my

orders, no one should induce her to do anything I had not sanctioned. I

still see the smile with which she bade me good-bye, while the

repressed tears choked her voice. Alas! Charles, it was the last time

that I saw a smile light up that dear face!

"So I departed entirely blinded, and at the commencement of my stay at

M---- I was so completely taken up with the exercise of my profession,

that in the letters from home I only noticed the favourable

particulars; especially as Ellen's frequent accounts of herself, which

almost formed a sort of diary, lulled me into so perfect a security,

that I fancied, the care and anxiety which now and then appeared in her

mother's letters to be only caused by the exaggerated fondness of a

mother's heart.

"My colleague full of respect for my green wisdom, did his best to

interpret every graver symptom in favour of my diagnostics, and so I

lived on, a rose coloured mist blinding my eyes, till the darkest night

suddenly closed around me.

"Ellen's letters which in the later weeks had become rather dispirited

suddenly stopped. In their stead I received a letter from the doctor,

about six months after my departure saying that another consultation

with me seemed to him most desirable. In the last few weeks several

symptoms had suddenly changed, so that he dared not proceed in the

former manner without further orders. My adoptive parents also eagerly

intreated me to come to them.

"But even in spite of all this, I still lingered, certainly not for any

frivolous reason; the life or death of some of my patients, just then,

depending on my stay. At last a telegraphic despatch startled me into

activity. A vomiting of blood had taken place: If you do not come

instantly, wrote her mother, you will not find her alive.

"Late at night I arrived at their house feeling as if I myself were

dying. On that dreadful journey the scales had suddenly fallen from my

eyes, and with the same ingenuity which I had formerly exercised to

confirm my own errors, I now sought out every argument expressly to

torment myself with the conviction that I alone was responsible for the

loss of this much cherished being. I tottered up the well-known stairs.

Her mother met me on the landing, tearless, but with a disturbed look

in her eyes. It seemed almost like a relief to me, when she exclaimed:

'you are too late!'--I had dreaded to meet the eyes of my poor sister,

as a murderer dreads the dying look of his victim. And yet it was more

painful to see the calm face, which reclined on her pillows, smiling,

and free from reproach.

"No one accused me; they still believed in me, and laid the blame on

different incidents, but I felt crushed under the weight of my despair,

and the wildest self-reproaches.

"On entering the chamber of death, her father looking like a corpse,

staggered heavily into my arms, and losing all self-command, burst into

such convulsive sobs, that the people passing in the streets stopped to

listen. Then the sight of all the old servants who had adored her; of

her mother so completely _changed_--even to this day my hair stands on

end when I think of that dreadful scene. The mother beside herself with

grief called for wine, for I was to drink Ellen's health--she supposed

the 'so called good God' would not object to that. But when the servant

brought it, the father taking the glass from the plate dashed it

against the wall, crying out: 'broken! dead!' A hundred times, till his

voice was choked by tears.--At last his wife led him away and I was

left alone with the dead.

"Enough of this dreadful night. I need only add that by dissection, I

obtained a full confirmation, of that, of which the quick penetration

of the old physician had foreseen the danger.--Could it have been

averted? Who can say with certainty whether a conflagration can be

stayed or not, if he does not know what feeds it, or from whence the

wind blows. I had poured fuel on the fire which had snatched away this

innocent life.

"You may imagine that I did not close my eyes that night. The morning

found me still sitting, racked with pain and fever, by the bed-side of

my sister, when the door opened, and her mother entered the room. She

had recovered the noble and gentle serenity of her features, now that

the first delirium of despair had passed. She kissed me, with

overflowing tears, and even in _my_ burning eyes the tears welled up,

'My dear son,' she said 'I here surrender to you a small packet which I

found in her writing-table: Your name is on it.'

"It was her diary, beginning with her twelfth year, up to a few days

before her death--On every page I found my name; on the last were these

words, 'I am dying, darling--I have known you and been permitted to

love you. What more can life bring me? I now have no other wish but

that you should know that I only lived for you, and through you!'--And

this to her murderer!!

"All the events that succeeded; the death of her father, the short

widowhood of her mother, who pined away till she was at last re-united

to her darling ones, all this, sad as it was, could no longer move me,

the darkness within me was so great--What mattered it if one spark more

died out or not? _That_ I never could forget or overcome--That all

hopes of ever being happy again were at end, was a conviction deeply

impressed on my heart.

"I repeated to myself a hundred times, that I had acted for the

best according to my belief, that every one of my colleagues had

experienced a like misfortune, that we were only responsible for our

intentions--But in spite of all this, did these three lives weigh the

less on my soul? Could I absolve myself, were all the judges in Heaven

and earth to proclaim me free from guilt? I had destroyed the only joy

of my benefactors, and had miserably deceived them.--I had neglected

this precious life, and how could I henceforth expect any man to

entrust his life to me?

"I know what you would oppose to this Charles--You have often told me

that I was too sensitive for a doctor's profession--That every one who

consults us knows beforehand that we are only human,--not omnipotent,

and omniscient Gods, and takes his chance.

"The best doctors are those who never let their feelings interfere, and

never paralyse their energies for the future, by useless regrets for

the unalterable past. I quite agree with you that these are most sound

maxims. But I know enough of disease to foresee that mine is incurable.

"When the first stunning pain had somewhat subsided, I said to myself,

that I _must_ bear it as well as I could, and at least try to be of

some use as a subordinate, having forfeited my rights as a master.--I

threw my whole energy into theoretical studies--I collected, dissected,

and observed--I might, perhaps, have reconciled myself to this new

existence, if the past had not thrown a shadow over every thing. Now I

loathed and revolted inwardly against all this groping on the

boundaries of human knowledge. A general, after losing a battle upon

which depended the destiny of a whole nation, will hardly like, as long

as the war lasts, to sit in a corner of some quiet library, and study

tactics and strategy. Then I believed that time would cure my wounds

and make life, at least, supportable to me, even if it should be for

ever sunless and gloomy.

"I had tried aimless wandering and had only experienced the truth of

that hacknied saying that shifting of scenes can never change Tragedy

into Comedy.

"Only once it seemed as if I might be allured back to that part of my

life alone worth living for--my profession!

"It was on a steamer between Marseilles and Genoa--We had left the

coast far behind us--suddenly the Captain came up in great

consternation, and asked if there was any doctor among the passengers.

A lady had been taken ill, and was lying in the cabin writhing with

pain--I was just lying down to sleep, determined not to meddle in this

matter, when I heard moans and exclamations from the cabin which would

not let me rest. I asked the Captain to take me down, and after

searching the ship's medicine chest; found some remedies which soothed

the pain. The lady would not let me go, but insisted in a strange medly

of Spanish, and French on my passing the night on a sofa in the

adjoining cabin. At last she went to sleep, and my eyes also closed,

weary with gazing through the open hatchway at the moon-lit sea.

"All at once, I felt something like an icy cold hand drawn across my

face. I started up, believing it to be the spray which was dashing off

the wheels into the cabin--but to my intense horror, I saw the figure

of Ellen standing beside me, just as she had looked when lying in her

coffin, only her dim widely opened eyes were fixed on me, and her white

finger was laid to her lips, as if to say: 'Do not betray me.' Then she

approached the couch of the stranger, lifted one of the green silk

curtains and after gazing for several minutes on the sleeping woman she

sadly shook her head, and looked gravely at me as if to reproach me for

caring for another when I had left _her_ to die. For one moment she

sunk down at the foot of the bed as if greatly exhausted: then

beckoning three times to me she glided through the hatchway like a

streak of mist. Since that night I have never again approached a

sick-bed. You know, Charles, that I was never of a visionary nature,

that I do not believe in spirits. Of course I know as well as you do

that this was only a delusion of the senses. An apparition caused by

the over excited state of my nerves. But does this alter the main point?

Did I suffer the less because I knew it to be owing to the power of my

nerves over my reason? How can one, whose senses are at variance with

him, hope to gain peace? and how is _he_ to live, who hopes no longer?

"I have become a superfluous guest at the banquet of life, and so I

prefer taking leave of it, and only press your hand once more before

disappearing. My existence is now no longer necessary to any one--not

even to a dog.

"None but a healthy and cheerful egotist could tolerate a life which

subsists only for itself. Pardon me, my dear friend, I know that you

will now and then miss me, but you would surely prefer; never to meet

me again, than to recognize me some day in a mad-house; clothed in a

straight waistcoat, and muttering soliloquies.

"This letter has nearly attained the dimensions of a volume, but as it

is the last I shall ever write, its length may be pardoned. I shall

seal this enclosure with a steady hand, for I am only about to do that

which I must, that which I believe to be for the best.

"Here in this solitary inn, they will only suppose me to be some crazed

Englishman who insists on fishing by torch-light, in the middle of the

night. Tomorrow when they see the boat driven on the lake without me,

they will say, I have only suffered for my folly, by falling asleep,

and tumbling overboard. Let all my acquaintances suppose the same. And

now good night. I own that on the point of going to sleep, I feel some

curiosity, and hope to have many things--made clear to me.--It is a

pity that I shall not be able to impart my observations to you, as we

have always done when studying together on terrestrial subjects.

"I am also desirous to witness what dreams may haunt us in eternal

sleep, if a dead man can witness anything.

"Nothing further has any interest for me--My will was deposed six

months ago in the court of justice--You are my executor--I thank you

once more for your faithful and firm friendship--Let this be my last

word.

"Eberhard."

He did not read over what he had written but immediately folded it, put

it in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote the address--Then he again

looked out of the window--The storm had gradually subsided. He lighted

a cigar and pacing his room, he watched the long-legged spiders

crawling about the low ceiling, and observed the effects of tobacco on

them, by blowing a thick cloud of smoke over their backs. But he soon

grew tired of this interesting occupation, and stared vacantly at the

white washed walls that surrounded him. Suddenly a clamour arose in the

adjoining tap-room. He heard through the door a gruff voice which

belonged neither to the landlord, nor to the farm servant, complaining

of some unreasonable demand. "Yes it was always so, just those women

who cried and lamented if a baby had a cold, did not feel the least

compassion for two poor horses, but would drag them from the manger,

and after a journey of fifteen miles, in this cursed weather; mostly

uphill, and over those dreadful roads, would force them to trot for ten

miles further, and the whole night through, regardless as to whether

they could move a limb on the morrow or not. But he would not stir; no,

not if they were to lay down a hundred kronenthalers on the very spot.

He was not in the service of a knacker, but had to deliver up his

roadsters in the same condition in which he got them; and besides to

say the truth he wished for some rest for himself, and did not care to

break his limbs on the way or get drowned in a puddle."

A timid female voice which had now and then interrupted this speech

with beseeching words was silenced by this conclusion, which was

accompanied by a fierce oath, and a heavy thump of the fist on the

table. The landlord intervened in his abrupt way by seconding the

coachman, and ordering some beer from the cellar. Then the two men

began to converse on other subjects, the coachman chiefly abusing the

bad roads which ruined horses and carriage. The landlord fully agreed

with him, and asked him how it was that the ladies had preferred coming

by this side of the dead lake. The coachman informed him that a

landslip had made the other road quite impassable, at least for

twenty-four hours. The rest of the passengers had been contented to wait

at the station, but these ladies had insisted on continuing their

journey on this dangerous road; perhaps because of the child, which

never ceased to wail and moan. At this moment the door opened, and the

men's rough tones were suddenly hushed. A melodious woman's voice was

heard whose touching accents seemed to quiet even these coarse fellows.

At least the coachman, who on her renewing her prayer to him to prepare

for their departure, answered quite civilly, and without any

superfluous oaths, that it was almost impossible to gratify her wishes,

and gave his reasons. She appeared to acquiesce in their importance,

and after a moment's silent reflection, asked if any messenger could be

found who for a considerable gratification would undertake to summon

the nearest doctor, otherwise the child would probably not live through

the night. In saying this her voice trembled so much that the

involuntary listener was touched to the heart. He walked to the

casement, hoping to drown those soft tones in the rushing sound of the

rain. At this moment however the clouds above the lake dispersed

showing the moon's clear and silvery crescent and the sudden stillness

forced him to hear the rest of the parley.

The landlord called his servant, and asked him if he would take a

message to the doctor who lived six miles distant, in the small

market-town which was situated in a neighbouring valley. The man

replied that he had no objection to the long walk, or the bad road, if

the lady gave him a liberal fee; but he knew that it would be useless

for Hansel the forester's assistant had told him that very day, that

his friend Sepp had to wait another week to have the ball extracted

from his thigh, for the doctor himself was ill, from a fall from his

horse, and his apprentice had an unsafe hand, as he was renowned for

drinking too much brandy. Then the sad and gentle voice of the lady

asked, after a silence of several minutes, if it would not be possible

to procure a litter, and carry the child to the nearest place where a

doctor resided, she herself would help to carry it; she only required a

couple of trustworthy men, and a guide with a lighted torch.

That could not be done either, the landlord answered;--they had no

litter on which the child could be carried comfortably, and then they

could not all leave the house; however he would speak to his wife about

it.

He was just reluctantly leaving his bench by the stove, when the

landlady herself rushed into the room, and cried out that the nurse

begged her mistress to come to the child--that departure was now not to

be thought of, for the child was dying.

The listener in the adjacent room turned from the window as if drawn by

some magic power; he took a few steps towards the door, then stopped

and shook his head with a sigh. He tried to recommence his walk up and

down the small room; but at every second step, he stood still to listen

for some further sound. His cigar had gone out. Mechanically he

approached it to the candle to light it, but before he was aware of

what he was doing, his breath had extinguished the feeble flame. He

remained staring at the dying sparks in the wick--one moment more and

the last would disappear. Possibly in the next room a little flame far

more valuable than the miserable light of this penny candle was on the

point of relapsing into the darkness of night.

Well let it die out; what right had any one to meddle in the matter.

Perhaps by trying to kindle it again, it would only the more surely be

extinguished by his clumsy hands. What can it signify? Why try to save

a human being's life, who may, some day or other, wish that he had

never been born, and who may perhaps also see the hour, when he shall

have to bid good night to his dearest friend----

Again he listened, and held his breath not to lose a sound of what was

passing in the next room. He fancied he heard a child's plaintive

moaning, then the lady's gentle voice trying to soothe it, passionate

weeping, and then silence. He could stand it no longer in the solitude

of his room. He only wished to hear how the child was going on. He

began to think himself a barbarian, to be quietly hiding in a corner,

when even these rough peasants showed some sympathy. Hastily opening

the door, he groped his way through the dark empty tap-room, and across

the passage. The door was ajar, and a ray of light streamed through the

chink. He now distinctly heard the child moan and the mother quieting

it. "We ought to prepare some tea for the poor child in order to

bring on a perspiration," said the hostess, "We must try and find

some."--"The elder berries, in the drawer up-stairs, would not do badly

in case of need," answered her husband; then silence reigned again,

only interrupted by the sighs of the house-maid, who knelt in a corner,

repeating one pater-noster after another.

"Put another feather-bed on the child," advised the coachman; "it has

caught cold; see how its little hands twitch convulsively--it is

freezing."

The farm-servant, who stood near the stove, was just going to lay

another log on the still glowing embers, when he was arrested by a firm

hand which was laid on his shoulders. He turned round and perceived the

stranger standing before him. "I forbid you to put on another chip of

wood;" he said, in a voice which denoted that he was accustomed to be

strictly obeyed; "and you all," he continued, turning to the rest of

the idle spectators, "get out of the room; do you hear? the air here is

bad enough to stifle even a healthy man." They all looked at each

other--only the mother and nurse of the child had not perceived the

entrance of the stranger. The mother knelt beside the bed with one arm

clasped round the moaning child as if to defend it from assassins. The

nurse stood by her, and stared in helpless despair on her little

charge--on its wandering eyes, and fever parched lips, from which now

and then a low wail escaped. She started back, as if death in person

was approaching her, when the stranger stept up to the bed, laid his

hand on the burning brow, and took up one of the little thin arms to

feel the pulse.

The shriek of horror which the nurse involuntarily uttered, awakened

the mother from the lethargy of despair. She looked wonderingly at the

stranger, and a sudden ray of hope brightened her face.

"Madam," he said, "will you entrust your child to one entirely unknown

to you, who though he has not the presumption to promise to save its

life, yet knows what in these cases, is prescribed by our feeble

science."

She could not answer him; this unlooked for aid in her direst distress

overpowered her. "Take this," he said, drawing a card from his

pocket-book, "my name may not be known to you, but the title which

stands before it will show you, that others too have trusted to my

skill; with what result, has nothing to do with the present case."

The young woman remained in her former position, but she stretched

towards him the arm not engaged in supporting her child's head, and

said: "The Almighty seems to have sent you, He has had compassion on

me. I fully confide in you!"