The next day the village of Schranden received an unexpected visitation
that proved no small shock to its inhabitants. At about five o'clock in
the afternoon two coaches appeared in the village street each of which
contained half-a-dozen occupants, young fellows in Jaeger uniforms, with
their muskets slung over their shoulders from wide leather belts.
In the first coach there was also a female occupant, who, the moment
the horses' heads turned in the direction of the space opposite the
church, alighted with a wild leap, and scudded away towards the Castle.
Every Schrandener recognised in her the deceased Baron's sweetheart,
but all were too much taken aback to think of following her.
The coaches halted before the Black Eagle, the windows of which were
eagerly opened, and before the strangers had moved from their seats, an
enthusiastic welcome was extended to them.
"The Heide boys--Hurrah!" shouted Felix Merckel, who had many a time
fought side by side with these comrades of the Sellinthin squadron, and
he stretched a foaming jug out of the window.
His father threw open the door of the little room reserved for
"gentry," where only wine was drunk, in the hopes that at least some of
these wealthy yeomen would patronise it. But, without answering the
warm greetings, they proceeded in gloomy silence to unharness the
horses, and to take out of their vehicles all manner of tools, such as
hatchets, files, and spades.
The Schrandeners were astounded.
"Good gracious! have you lost your tongues?" Felix Merckel called from
the window. "And why haven't you brought your paragon, Lieutenant
Baumgart, with you?"
Still no answer.
The Schrandeners began to think these strangers must be playing off a
joke on them, and burst into extravagant laughter.
Then Karl Engelbert, who evidently had the command of the expedition,
came under the window from which Felix's broad-shouldered form obtruded
itself, and, greeting him with a half-military salute, said--
"With your permission, Herr Lieutenant, we have come here not to take
part in any festivities or anything of that sort. We are a funeral
party."
"But here in Schranden no one is going to be buried," cried Felix
Merckel, still laughing, but his face appreciably lengthened.
"Indeed, Herr Lieutenant! Nevertheless, we have been invited to a
funeral."
"Who has invited you?"
"Our former officer, Lieutenant Baumgart."
"Nonsense! There's no Lieutenant Baumgart here. I thought you were
going to bring him with you."
"Pardon, Herr Lieutenant, he is here already."
"Where is the fellow hiding, then?"
"Probably you know him better under another name--Herr von Schranden."
The stone jug in Felix's hand fell and crashed to pieces at Engelbert's
feet. The beer splashed his legs up to the knee.
A tumult arose inside the inn. As if in preparation for battle, windows
were speedily closed, and Johann Radtke, driven by thirst to ascend the
steps to the main entrance, found the door banged in his face.
"Hunted from the threshold like tramps!" grumbled the dark-haired Peter
Negenthin, and clenched his fist in his sling.
"Do you wish to perjure yourself?" asked Engelbert in a low voice,
coming close to him. "If so, then go back. What is required of us we
must do. Whoever forgets the church at Dannigkow is a cur!"
"And if we are dry we must wet our whistles with holy water, I
suppose," added Radtke with a sigh.
Engelbert shouldered his musket and gave the orders to move on. The
procession filed off in the direction of the Castle, a handful of
natives, out of respect for the muskets, bringing up the rear.
Boleslav stood on the bridge to receive his friends.
He rushed towards them in delight, and could hardly articulate, for
emotion, the words of gratitude that rose to his lips.
Engelbert held out his hand in silence. Boleslav was going to embrace
him, but he drew back. In his excitement Boleslav did not notice the
rebuff.
"I knew you'd come," he stammered forth at last--"knew that I had
friends who would not leave me undefended to the tender mercies of this
pack of wolves."
No one made any response. They stood drawn up in an unbroken line,
their eyes looking beyond rather than at him, in embarrassment.
Engelbert was the first to break the silence.
"You have summoned us, and we have come--but our time is short; tell us
what you want us to do."
For a moment Boleslav wondered at being addressed in this curt,
somewhat surly fashion, by the comrade who, of all others, had been his
favourite. But it was only for a moment. Why should he doubt them? Had
they not come? And then, incoherently enough, he related how his
father's disgrace had descended on him, and what he had resolved to do,
with their help.
All the time a pair of shining eyes watched him from the other side of
a rubbish heap, and a woman's figure that sat cowering there trembled
like an aspen.
"They are here--they are in the village!" she had called out to him in
timid excitement, as she had flown into the yard like a Maenad. At first
he had not recognised her in a light cotton skirt, a bed-jacket
buttoned over her panting bosom, and a handkerchief of many colours on
her head, tied under the chin, according to a fashion of the peasant
girls in the neighbourhood.
"They gave me these things to put on," she had added apologetically, on
observing his puzzled looks.
And then in pleasure at the news that his friends had arrived, he had
forgotten her, till, while waiting for them on the bridge, he had
caught sight of her hovering about the ruins. The head-dress had fallen
on her neck, and the wild black tresses escaped, and waved in confusion
about her sunburnt face. She seemed to be smiling absently to herself.
He was ashamed to think his friends had seen this woman, and decided to
pay her off and dismiss her on the spot, so that they should not
encounter her again.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
She started.
"Nothing, _Herr_," she replied, guiltily lowering her eyes.
"Why did you smile?"
"Ah, _Herr_," she murmured, "I was so glad."
"Why?"
"Because I had got safely back here again."
What strange fascination had this spot of earth for the abandoned
creature who had suffered on it nothing but shame and degradation and
endless misery? He remembered to have heard of domestic cats who, when
the house to which they belong is deserted by its inhabitants, prefer
to starve beneath its mouldering roof than to take up their abode
elsewhere. And if this cat-like propensity were incurable in her--what
then? After all, perhaps it would be cruel at this moment to pass
sentence of banishment upon her. She might as well stay till to-morrow
morning, so long as she kept out of his way.
"Go," he had commanded, "and don't come near me and my visitors again."
And she had hung her head humbly, and vanished behind the rubbish heap,
and there she cowered now, in terror of being discovered.
When Boleslav had finished his story, Engelbert exchanged significant
glances with his friends, then said--
"We have brought the requisite tools with us. If you can supply us with
the wood, we will knock you up a coffin in a very short time."
"Naturally it won't be a very grand one," remarked Peter Negenthin with
a stony smile.
Engelbert looked at him reprovingly. A subdued growl passed from
mouth to mouth through the little party, which Boleslav, in his most
light-hearted confidence in his friends' good will, did not hear.
"Do you remember," he exclaimed, "that coffin we made for the young
Count Dohna in the dark? We took two hours over it, though we couldn't
see an inch before our noses."
But his reminiscences met with no response.
"One of you hold the horses," said Engelbert, "and the rest of us will
go and look for wood. All must be ready before nightfall."
Boleslav bethought him of the wine in the cellar, which the fire had
spared, where also was the frugal larder, containing bread and salt
meat, but not enough with which to entertain his friends.
"I have next to nothing to offer you to eat," he said, "but I wish you
would at least refresh yourselves with a bottle of wine before setting
to work."
The friends were silent, and their faces clouded.
"Never mind refreshment," said Engelbert, trying to assume a facetious
tone. "Wine makes a man lazy, and we haven't a minute to spare."
He stooped to test some scorched rafters that lay about among the
stable ruins.
"This will do," he said, "but we won't saw off the blackened part; that
will serve us instead of paint."
And he walked on farther with Boleslav to look for more rafters.
Something white rose suddenly out of the earth in front of them, and
disappeared in a twinkling behind a neighbouring wall.
Boleslav instinctively balled his fists, for he had recognised Regina.
"I ought to apologise," he said, "for not being able to send you a
better messenger. I had no one else to send."
Engelbert was about to speak, but seemed to think better of it.
"You were obliged to supply her with clothes, I understand?"
"Yes," answered Engelbert, his natural loquacity getting the upper
hand. "I found her lying on the doorstep with scarcely a rag to her
back. She was dead beat. I got up in the night to see what the dogs
were barking at."
"What? Was it in the night?"
"Two o'clock in the morning. Here is a sound rafter. We can use
that.... She ran the twenty miles in seven hours. I should never have
thought it possible; she lay like an otter that has been shot down--so
straight and fair--and gasped for breath. Your sheet of paper she clung
to with both hands. She tried to stand up, but fell backwards. Then I
fetched her brandy, rubbed her temples, and gave her----"
One of his companions who were following behind, now came up, and gave
him such a look of astonishment and reproach that he broke off in the
middle of a sentence.
For the next few hours an industrious sawing and hammering proceeded
from the Castle island, which sounds fell disagreeably on the ears of
the fierce and much perturbed Schrandeners on the opposite bank of the
river. It seemed to portend that their nicely-laid plans were at the
last moment to be frustrated.
Old Hackelberg appeared in the street with his gun, which, as a rule,
lay buried in a dung-heap, because he was afraid that it might be taken
away from him, as had once happened when he amused himself by shooting
bats in the market-place, declaring that they followed him in swarms
wherever he went. With this famous gun he used in old days to go out
poaching every night, but since his once unerring hand had become weak
and tremulous from drink, he had been obliged to give up the trade.
Only when he had drunk even more than usual did the old sporting
instinct rise strongly within him, and he would rush to the shed,
unearth his gun, and bring down a swallow in full flight through the
air.
Now he was on the war-path, and with the babbling rhetoric peculiar to
him, shouted--
"Schrandeners, duty calls! Arm yourselves against the traitors. I am an
unhappy father. Robbed of my child. I'll shoot him dead, the brute."
"But he _is_ dead," some one interposed.
"Is he? Well, it doesn't matter--the other must be shot--all must be
shot down."
Meanwhile Felix Merckel was ramping about the parlour of the Black
Eagle like a bull of Bashan. He remembered enough about the Heide
youths to know that when once irritated or attacked they would go any
length. The inevitable result of offering them opposition would be such
bloodshed as the rioters outside had no conception of. And then--what
then? Would not he as ringleader be the first object on which the wrath
of the outraged law would expend itself?
On the other hand, did the swindler who had dared under a false name to
obtain a lieutenancy and abuse the confidence of his comrades,
thereby incurring the contempt and abhorrence of every honourable
brother-in-arms--did he deserve to be allowed to score such a triumph?
While his son was debating thus, Herr Merckel, senior, was also
troubled with anxiety from another cause. It struck him as a pity that
such a quantity of noble enthusiasm should be seething about aimlessly
in the open air, and determined to put an end to the nuisance.
He stepped into the porch, and addressed the rabble in his suavest,
most paternal tones.
"I, as your local functionary, cannot bear to see you, my children,
turning our public square into a bear-garden. Go under cover, and then
you may make as much noise as you please."
Of course, "under cover" could only mean the parlour of the Black
Eagle; and, five minutes later, the consumption of inspiriting
stimulants left nothing to be desired.
Felix had bowed his curly head between his hands, and stared gloomily
into his glass.
Surely no Prussian patriot who had ever worn a sword ought silently to
look on at what was coming to pass this night? Rather die! Rather!----
He jumped up, and began to speak inspiringly to the crowd.
His speech was not without effect. One after the other stole out and
returned with some sort of weapon, a flint-gun, a bent sabre, or a
scythe.
"Calm, and patriotic, my children!" exclaimed old Merckel, grinning,
and counting the empty tankards with his argus eye.
Night had come. The two flaring tallow candles in the bar illumined the
overcrowded, oppressively hot room, and were reflected in the polished
blades of the scythes. Then two or three boys, who had been stationed
as spies on the drawbridge, burst in, shouting at the top of their
voices--
"They're coming! They're coming!"
There arose a howl of fury. Every one pressed to the door. Felix
Merckel hurried into his bedroom to take his sabre out of its scabbard,
but he did not come back. Probably the sight of the weapon he had so
often wielded in honourable warfare brought him to his senses.
His father continued to exhort the rioters to calmness and caution,
especially those who had not yet paid for their drinks.
"Forwards!" spluttered old Hackelberg, "avenge my poor child. Mow them
down!"
Outside, in the market-place, the whole population of the village was
assembled. Even babies in swaddling-clothes had been snatched out of
their cradles, and their squalling mingled with the babel of many
tongues. The moon came out from behind some clouds, and shed a pale
twilight on the scene. The church tower rose dark and forbidding
against the sky, and the parsonage, too, remained silent and dark. The
old veteran had kept his word. He heard and saw nothing of what was
passing. A dark-red fiery glow appeared behind the cottages that lined
the road to the river. Above the low roofs rose columns of thick black
smoke. Like the reflection from a conflagration the purple vapour
encroached on the pale dusk of the summer night.
With one accord the rabble took the path to the churchyard, which, a
few yards from the last straggling houses, lay close to the street.
There by the gate they would best be able to bar the way to the
invaders. Those who had been in the war fell into rank and stood ready
for action. As far as they were concerned, it would be a case of
soldiers pitted against soldiers.
"Where is Merckel?" one of them exclaimed in astonishment, expecting to
hear the lieutenant's word of command. "Where is Merckel?" was echoed
in consternation from all sides.
But the feeling that he must be coming, and had only gone to arm
himself, allayed any momentary suspicion of his having shirked the
business at the last. The lurid glow drew nearer and nearer. Soon the
eye could distinguish something black and square, framed as it were in
flames.
"The coffin--the coffin!" the crowd exclaimed, and involuntarily
shuddered. Then, suddenly--who began it no one knew--it was as if it
had flashed across every brain at the same instant, in a booming chorus
the mob set up the weird chorale--
"_Our noble Baron and Lord
Of Schrandener's souls abhorred;
For the shame he has brought on our head,
O God, let the plague strike him dead_."
And the coffin advanced. Already the light from the torches shone on
the faces of the singing mob, and women and children retreated
screaming.
The crowd opened wide enough for the procession to pass on, and closed
again behind it. Six men carried the coffin on their shoulders and
swung flaming pine-branches in their disengaged hands, which scared the
throng and made it draw to one side. Six others followed with loaded
muskets. At their head Boleslav, with his pistols cocked in his hand,
his military cap on the back of his head, piercing his antagonists with
his burning gaze, cleared a road for his father's corpse. Deeper became
the rent in the human vortex, thinner the space that divided the
procession from the armed Schrandeners, who looked uneasily from side
to side, conscious that they were leaderless.
When Boleslav stood face to face with them they were about to make a
forward dash, but a short military "Halt!" such as they had often heard
in the campaign, compelled them to take a step backwards instead, for
in spite of themselves, their limbs insisted on complying with the old
habit of obedience. Boleslav, who had intended the order for the
bearers, saw its effect on the armed line in front of him, and suddenly
a new idea occurred to him.
"As you were!" he commanded again. No one moved a hair. His manner, his
voice mastered them. "Which of you have been soldiers? Which of you has
helped his king to make his country free?"
An indistinct, half-resentful murmur went through the ranks, but there
was no answer.
"The king sent you home," he continued, "because he is now at peace
with his enemies. Do you suppose that he would be pleased to hear you
had taken it upon yourselves to break the peace once more in his realm?
Bah! he wouldn't believe it of you! He might believe it of Poles, but
not of Prussians! So make room, my good people. Let us pass!"
The line wavered and began to break in places. For one moment the
churchyard gate lay clear before Boleslav's eyes, but the next, fresh
figures had moved up from behind and filled the breach.
Again the clamour arose, and mingling with it a loud, gurgling laugh of
derision. In another instant something round, black, and polished was
levelled at Boleslav's head, and behind it sparkled a pair of malignant
eyes. He had only a second in which to realise what was going to
happen, before a figure, supple as a panther's, shot past him and
plunged into the midst of the Schrandeners' troops, which again showed
signs of giving way. In the hiatus thus made, Boleslav saw two forms
wrestling on the ground, one that of a woman, the other a man's. The
woman overpowered her antagonist, and wrested from his hand the
gleaming bore of a gun.
It was the carpenter Hackelberg and his daughter. She must, stealthily
and unobserved, have followed the funeral cortege, for since her
disappearance on the other side of the stable ruins Boleslav had seen
nothing of her. The crowd pushed forward, curious to find out who was
struggling on the ground, and Boleslav, promptly taking advantage of
the general confusion, passed the combatants and gained the churchyard
gate, the coffin following close at his heels.
Behind was heard the report of the gun, which exploded in the
hand-to-hand struggle.
"Guard the entrance!" he called to the six who followed the coffin,
while the bearers made their way between the mounds and tombstones to
the burial vault of the Barons von Schranden.
Karl Engelbert stationed himself as sentinel beneath the gateway, and
saw, by aid of the last flicker of the torches as they moved away, how
the crowd closed round the wrestling father and daughter.
Three piercing shrieks escaped the girl's lips. Evidently the mob
intended to wreak its thwarted fury on her. There seemed little doubt
that she would perish at its hands, unless some one came quickly to her
help.
"Leave her alone!" cried Engelbert, striking out right and left with
his powerful fists. And then the figure, that had been so pitifully
mauled and in such dire extremity till he interfered, emerged from the
midst of her persecutors. She glided past him, dived into the dry ditch
that skirted the churchyard wall, and then disappeared like a shadow,
into the darkness. The Schrandeners began, with whoops and hoots, to
pursue her.
"How about the burial?" cried one.
"The devil take the burial!" exclaimed another, and cast a shy glance
at the men standing on guard by the churchyard gate--men who looked as
if they were not to be trifled with. Certainly it was better sport to
give chase to a defenceless creature than to risk one's skin in an
encounter with them.
And the Schrandeners started off like bloodhounds. The carpenter
Hackelberg tried to do likewise, but staggered instead into the ditch,
where he lay full length and fell asleep.