On a cold October day, two men were seen driving through the latticed
gate of the town of Rosmin on toward the plain, which stretched out
before them monotonous and boundless. Anton sat wrapped in his fur coat,
his hat low on his forehead, and at his side was young Sturm, in an old
cavalry cloak, with his soldier's cap cocked cheerily on one side. In
front of them a farm-servant, squatted on a heap of straw, flogged on
the small horses. The wind swept the sand and straw from the
stubble-fields, the road was a broad causeway without ditches or hedges,
the horses had to wade alternately through puddles and deep sand. Yellow
sand gleamed through the scanty herbage in all directions wherever a
field-mouse had made her way to her nest or an active mole had done what
he could to diversify the unbroken plain. Wherever the ground sank,
stagnant water lodged, and there hollow willow-trees stretched their
crippled arms in the air, their boughs flapping in the wind, and their
faded leaves fluttering down into the muddy pool below. Here and there
stood a small dwarf pine, a resting-place for the crows, who, scared by
the passing carriage, flew loudly croaking over the travelers' heads.
There was no house to be seen on the road, no pedestrian, and no
conveyance of any kind.
Karl looked every now and then at his silent companion, and said at
last, pointing to the horses, "How rough their coats are, and how pretty
their gray mouse skins! I wonder how many of these beasties would go to
make up my sergeant's horse! When I took leave of my father, the old man
said, 'Perhaps I shall pay you a visit, little one, when they light the
Christmas-tree.' 'You'll never be able,' said I. 'Why not?' asked he.
'You'll never trust yourself in any post-chaise.' Then the old boy
cried, 'Oho! post-chaises are always of a stout build; I shall be sure
to trust myself in one.' But now, Mr. Anton, I see that my father never
can pay us a visit."
"Why not?"
"It is possible that he may reach Rosmin; but, as soon as he sees these
horses and this road, he will instantly turn back. 'Shall I trust
myself,' he'll say, 'in a district where sand runs between one's legs
like water, and where mice are put into harness? The ground is not firm
enough for me.'"
"The horses are not the worst things here," said Anton, absently. "Look!
these go fast enough."
"Yes," replied Karl, "but they don't go like regular horses; they
entangle their legs like two cats playing in a parsley-bed. And what
things they have for shoes--regular webbed hoofs, I declare, which no
blacksmith can ever fit."
"If we could only get on!" returned Anton; "the wind blows cold, and I
am shivering in spite of my fur."
"You have slept but little the last few nights, sir," said Karl. "The
wind blows here as if over a threshing-floor. The earth is not round
hereabouts as elsewhere, but flat as a cake. This is a complete desert;
we have been driving for more than an hour, and there is not a village
to be seen."
"A desert indeed," sighed Anton; "let us hope it may improve." They
relapsed into profound silence. At length the driver stopped near a
pool, unharnessed the horses, and led them to the water's edge, without
noticing the travelers.
"What the deuce does this mean?" cried Karl, jumping down from the
carriage.
"I am going to feed," replied the servant, sulkily, in a foreign accent.
"I am anxious to know how that will be done," said Karl. "There is not
the shadow of a bag of provender."
The horses, however, soon proved that they could live without corn; they
stretched down their shaggy heads, and began to pull the grass and weeds
at the edge of the pool, sometimes taking a draught of the dirty water.
Meanwhile the servant drew a bundle from under his seat, settled himself
under the lee of an alder-bush, and, taking his knife, cut his bread and
cheese without even glancing at the travelers.
"I say, Ignatius or Jacob," cried Karl, sharply, "how long will this
breakfast of yours last?"
"An hour," replied the man, munching away.
"And how far is it from here to the estate?"
"Six miles, or maybe more."
"You can make nothing of him," said Anton; "we must put up with the
customs of the country;" and, leaving the carriage, they went to look on
at the horses feeding.
Anton is on his way to the Polish property. He is now the baron's agent.
Anxious months have the last proved to him. The parting from his
principal and the firm had been painful in the extreme. For some time
before it, indeed, Anton had found himself alone in the midst of his
colleagues. The quiet Baumann still remained his friend, but the others
considered him a castaway. The merchant received his resignation with
icy coldness; and even in the hour of parting, his hand lay impassive as
metal in Anton's grasp. Since then, our hero had undertaken several
journeys to the capital and to creditors in the family's behalf, and now
he was on his way to set the new estate in order, accompanied by Karl,
whom he had induced to become the baron's bailiff.
Ehrenthal had, by the authority conferred on him, taken possession of
the property from the time of the sale by auction, and hired the Polish
bailiff for the baron. There had been unfair dealings between them at
the time, and it was well known in Rosmin that the bailiff had sold off
a good deal, and been guilty of all sorts of frauds since, so that Anton
had even now no prospect of a quiet life.
"The hour is come when I may execute my commission," cried Karl, groping
in the straw under the seat. He drew out a large japanned tin case, and
carried it to Anton. "Miss Sabine gave me this in charge for you." He
then joyously opened the lid, produced the materials for an excellent
breakfast, a bottle of wine, and a silver goblet. Anton took hold of the
case.
"It has a very knowing look," said Karl. "Miss Sabine planned it
herself."
Anton examined it on all sides, and placed it carefully on a tuft of
grass; then he took up the goblet, and saw his initials engraved on it,
and underneath the words, "To thy welfare." Whereupon he forgot the
breakfast and all around him, and stood gazing at the goblet, lost in
thought.
"Do not forget the breakfast, sir," suggested Karl, respectfully.
"Sit down by me, my faithful friend; eat and drink with me. Leave off
your absurd politeness. We shall have but little, either of us, but what
we have we will share like brothers. Take the bottle if you have no
glass."
"There's nothing like leather," said Karl, taking a small leathern
drinking-cup out of his pocket. "As for what you have just said, it was
kindly meant, and I thank you; but there must be subordination, if it
were but for the sake of the others; and so, sir, be kind enough to let
me shake hands with you now, and then let things be as they were before.
Only look at the horses, Mr. Anton. My faith! the creatures devour
thistles."
Again the horses were harnessed, again they threw out their short legs
in the sand, and again the carriage rolled through the barren
district--first through an empty plain, next through a wretched
fir-wood, then past a row of low sand-hills, then over a tumble-down
bridge crossing a small stream.
"This is the property," said the driver, turning round, and pointing
with his whip to a row of dirty thatched roofs that had just come into
sight.
Anton stood up to look for the group of trees in which the Hall might be
supposed to stand. Nothing of the sort to be seen. The village was
deficient in all that adorns the home of the poorest German peasant--no
orchard, no hedged-in gardens, no lime-trees in the market-place.
"This is wretched," said he, sitting down again; "much worse than they
told us in Rosmin."
"The village looks as if under a curse," cried Karl; "no teams working
in the fields--not a cow or a sheep to be seen."
The farm-servant flogged his horses into an irregular gallop, and so
they passed through the rows of mud huts which constituted the village,
and arrived at the public house. Karl sprang from the carriage, opened
the tavern door, and called for the landlord. A Jew slowly rose from his
seat by the stove and came to the threshold. "Is the gendarme from
Rosmin come?" He is gone into the village. "Which is the way to the
farm-yard?"
The landlord, an elderly man with an intelligent countenance, described
the way in German and Polish, and remained standing at the
door--bewildered, Karl declared, by the sight of two human beings. The
carriage turned into a cross-road, planted on both sides with thick
bushes, the remains of a fallen avenue. Over holes, stones, and puddles,
it rattled on to a group of mud huts, which still had a remnant of
whitewash upon them. "The barns and stables are empty," cried Karl, "for
I see gaps in the roofs large enough to drive our carriage through."
Anton said no more; he was prepared for every thing. They drove through
a break between the stables into the farm-yard, a large irregular space,
surrounded on three sides by tumble-down buildings, and open to the
fields on the fourth. A heap of _débris_ lay there--lime and rotten
timber, the remains of a ruined barn. The yard was empty; no trace of
farm implements or human labor to be seen. "Which is the inspector's
house," inquired Anton, in dismay. The driver looked round, and at last
made up his mind that it was a small one-storied building, with straw
thatch and dirty windows.
At the noise of the wheels a man appeared on the threshold, and waited
phlegmatically till the travelers had dismounted, and were standing
close before him. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, with a bloated,
brandy-drinking face, dressed in a jacket of shaggy cloth, while behind
him peered the muzzle of an equally shaggy dog, who snarled at the
strangers. "Are you the steward of this property?"
"I am," replied the man, in broken German, without stirring from where
he was.
"And I am the agent of the new proprietor," said Anton.
"That does not concern me," growled the shaggy man, turning sharp round,
entering the house, and bolting the door within.
Anton was thoroughly roused. "Break the window in, and help me to catch
the rascal," cried he to Karl, who coolly seized a piece of wood, struck
the panes so as to make the rotten framework give way, and cleared the
opening at one leap. Anton followed him. The room was empty, so was the
next, and in it an open window--the man was gone.
"After him!" cried Karl, and dashed on in pursuit, while Anton looked
about the house and out-buildings. He soon heard the barking of a dog,
and saw Karl capture the fugitive. Hurrying to his help, he held the man
fast, while, with a kick, Karl sent the dog flying. They then contrived
to force the steward back to the house, though he kept striking out
violently all the way.
"Go to the tavern, and bring the gendarme and the landlord," cried Anton
to the driver, who, undisturbed by all that had been going on, had
meanwhile unpacked the carriage. The man accordingly drove leisurely
off, and the fugitive being got into the room, Karl found an old cloth,
and with it bound his hands behind his back. "I beg your pardon, sir,"
said he; "it is only for an hour or so, till the arrival of the Rosmin
gendarme, whom we have appointed to meet us."
Anton then proceeded to examine the house, but there was nothing to be
found but the merest necessaries; no books nor papers of any kind. It
had doubtless been emptied already. A bundle projected from the
coat-pocket of the prisoner, which turned out to be receipts and legal
documents in Polish. In time, the driver returned with the landlord and
the armed policeman. The landlord stood at the door in some perplexity,
and the policeman explained in a few moments what remained to be done.
"You must make a statement to the local judge, and give the man up to
me. He shall go back in your carriage to Rosmin. You will do well to get
rid of him, for this is a wild country, and it will be safer for you to
have him at Rosmin than here, where he has friends and accomplices."
After a long search, a sheet of paper was found in a cupboard, the
statement made and submitted to the policeman, who shook his head a
little over the Polish composition, and the prisoner lifted into the
carriage, the gendarme taking his seat beside him, and saying to Anton,
"I have long expected something of the kind. You may have often occasion
to want me again." The carriage then drove away, and thus the property
came under Anton's administration. He felt as if cast on a desert
island.
His portmanteau and traveling effects were leaning against a mud wall,
and the Polish landlord was the only man who could give him and Karl any
information or advice in their forlorn condition.
Now that the steward was fairly gone, the landlord grew more
communicative, and showed himself serviceable and obliging. A long
conversation ensued, and its purport was what Anton had apprehended from
the warning given by the Commissary Walter and other Rosmin officials.
The inspector had, during the last few weeks, done all he could in the
way of spoliation, rendered daring by a report which had found its way
from the town to the village, that the present proprietor would never be
able to take possession of the estate. At last Anton said, "What that
wretched man has done away with he will have to account for; our first
care must be to preserve what is still to be found on the property. You
must be our guide to-day."
They then examined the empty buildings. Four horses and two
servants--they were gone into the wood--a few old plows, a pair of
harrows, two wagons, a britzska, a cellar full of potatoes, a few
bundles of hay, a little straw--the inventory did not take much time in
drawing up. The buildings were all out of repair, not through age, but
neglect.
"Where is the dwelling-house?" inquired Anton. The landlord led the way
out of the yard to the meadow--a broad plain, gradually sloping down to
the level of the brook. It had been a great pasture. The cattle had
trodden it down into holes; the snouts of greedy swine had rooted it up;
gray molehills and rank tufts of grass rose on all sides.
The landlord stretched out his hand. "There is the castle. This castle
is famous throughout the whole country," he added, reverentially; "no
nobleman in the district has a stone house like that. All the gentry
here live in wood and mud buildings. Herr von Tarow, the richest of
them, has but a poor dwelling."
About three hundred yards from the last out-building rose a great brick
edifice, with a black slate roof and a thick round tower. Its gloomy
walls on this treeless pasture-land, without one trace of life around,
rose beneath the cloudy sky like a phantom fortress which some evil
spirit had evoked from the abyss--a station from which to blight all the
surrounding landscape.
The strangers approached it. The castle had fallen into ruins before the
builders had finished their task. The tower had stood there for ages. It
was built of unhewn stone, and had small windows and loop-holes. The
former lords of the land had looked down from its summit on the tops of
the trees, which then stretched far into the plain. They had then ruled
with a rod of iron the serfs who cultivated their land, and toiled and
died for them. Many an arrow had sped through those loop-holes at the
enemy storming below, and many a Tartar horse had been overthrown before
those massive walls. Years ago, a despot of the district had, in
expiation of former sins, begun to add to the gray tower the walls of a
holy monastery; but the monastery never got finished, and the useless
walls had already stood there long, when the late count took it into his
head to convert them into a lordly dwelling for his race, and to raise a
house unparalleled for magnificence in the whole country.
The front of the house was added on to both sides of the tower, which
projected in the middle. The intention had been to have a high
terrace-road up to the castle, and the principal entrance had been made
in the tower, and arched over; but the terrace never having been formed,
the stone threshold of the main door was quite inaccessible without the
help of ladders, and the wide opening was left. The window-spaces of
the lower floor were merely closed up with boards, while on the second
story were some window-frames of beautifully carved wood, in which large
panes had once been placed, but they had got broken. In other windows
were temporary frames of rough deal, with small panes of muddy glass let
into them. A company of jackdaws sat on the top of the tower, looking
down in amazement on the strangers, and every now and then one flew off,
screaming loudly, to contemplate the intruders from a new point of view.
"A house for crows and bats, not for human beings," said Anton. "At
least, I see no way of getting into it."
The landlord now took them round the building. Behind, where the two
wings made a sort of horse-shoe, there were low entrances to the cellars
and offices; beneath which, again, were stables, great arched kitchens,
and small cells for the serfs. A wooden staircase led to the upper
story. The door turned creaking on its hinges, and a narrow passage took
them through a side wing to the front part of the house. There all was
at least magnificently planned. The circular entrance-hall--an arched
room of the old tower--was painted in mosaic, and through the great
doorway-opening was seen a wide expanse of country. A broad staircase,
worthy of a palace, led up to another round hall, with narrow windows,
the second story of the tower. On each side lay suites of apartments:
large, lofty, desolate rooms, with heavy oak folding-doors, and dirty
plastered walls, the ceiling made of fir branches arranged in squares;
in some rooms colossal green tile stoves, in other rooms no stoves at
all; in some, beautiful inlaid floors, in others rude deal boards. An
immense saloon, with two gigantic chimney-pieces, had merely a
provisional ceiling of old laths. The castle was fitted for a wild
Asiatic household, for hangings of leather and of silk from France, for
costly woodwork from England, for massive silver services from German
mines, for a proud master, numerous guests, and a troop of retainers to
fill the halls and ante-rooms. The builder of the castle had looked back
to the wealth of his wild ancestors when he devised the plan; he had had
hundreds of trees cut down in the woods, and his hereditary bondsmen had
kneaded many thousand bricks with their own hands and feet; but Time,
the inexorable, had raised his finger against him, and none of his hopes
had been realized. His ruin first, and then his death, occurred during
the progress of the building; and his son, brought up among strangers,
had, as fast as one fool could, hurried on the ruin of his house. Now
the walls of the Slavonic castle stood with doors and windows gaping
wide, but no guest spoke his good wishes as he entered; only wild birds
flew in and out, and the marten crept over the floors. Useless and
unsightly the walls stood there, threatening to crumble and fall, like
the race that had raised them up.
Anton passed with rapid step from room to room, vainly hoping to find
one in which he could even imagine the two ladies, who were looking
forward to this house as their asylum. He opened door after door, went
up and down creaking steps, disturbed the birds who had flown in through
the open archway, and still clung to their last summer's nest; but he
found nothing save uninhabitable rooms, with dirty plastered walls, or
without any plaster at all. Every where draughts, gaping doors, and
windows boarded up. Some oats had been shaken out in the large saloon;
and a few rooms looked as if they might have been temporarily made use
of, but a few old chairs and a rude table were all the furniture they
contained.
At length Anton ascended the decayed staircase in the tower, and found
himself on its summit. Thence he saw the whole pile of building below
him, and looked far into the plain. To his left the sun sank down behind
gray masses of cloud into the depths of the forest; to his right lay the
irregular square of the farm-yard, and beyond it the untidy village;
behind him ran the brook, with a strip of meadow-land on either side.
Wild pear-trees, the delight of the Polish farmer, rose here and there
in the fields, with their thick and branching crowns; and under each was
an oasis of grass and bushes, gayly colored by the fallen leaves. These
trees, the dwelling-places of countless birds, alone broke the
monotonous surface of the plain--these, and at the verge of the horizon,
on all sides, the dark forest mentioned above. The sky was gray, the
ground colorless, the trees and bushes that bordered the brook were
bare, and the forest, with its promontories and bays, looked like a wall
that separated this spot of earth from the rest of humanity, from
civilization, from every joy and charm of life.
Anton's heart sank. "Poor Lenore! poor family!" he groaned aloud;
"things look terrible, but they could be improved. With money and taste
every thing is possible. This house might, without prodigious expense,
be metamorphosed by the upholsterer into a gorgeous residence. It would
be easy to level the pasture-land around--to sow it with fine grass--to
intersperse it with a few gayly-colored flower-beds--and to plant out
the village. Nothing is wanting to change the whole face of the district
but capital, industry, and judgment. But how is the baron to procure
these? To make any thing of this place should be the task of some fresh
and active life, and the baron is broken down; and thousands of dollars
would be needed, and years would pass away before the soil would do more
than pay the expenses of its culture, or yield any interest whatever on
the capital sunk in it."
Meanwhile Karl was contemplating two particular rooms in the upper story
with a knowing eye. "These take my fancy more than any of the others,"
said he to the landlord; "they have plastered walls, floors,
stoves--nay, even windows. To be sure, the panes are a good deal broken,
but, till we can get better glass, paper is not to be despised. We will
settle ourselves here. Could you get me somebody who knows how to handle
a broom and scrubbing-cloth? Good, you can; and now listen: try to bring
me a few sheets of paper; I have got glue with me; we will first get
some wood, then I will heat the stove, melt my glue, and paper up broken
panes. But, above all, help me to carry up our luggage from the
yard--and let us be quick about it."
His zeal communicated itself to the landlord; the luggage was got up
stairs; Karl unpacked a case full of tools of every kind, and the host
ran to call his maid from the public house.
Meanwhile horses' hoofs rang on the court-yard, and some well-dressed
men stopped before the late steward's dwelling, and knocked loudly at
the closed door. At a call from Anton, Karl hurried up to them.
"Good-morning," said one, in rather labored German; "is the steward at
home?"
"Where is the steward? where is Bratzky?" cried the others, impatient as
their prancing horses.
"If you mean the former steward," replied Karl, dryly, "he will not run
away from you though you do not find him here."
"What do you mean?" inquired the nearest horseman; "I beg that you will
explain yourself."
"If you wish to speak to Mr. Bratzky, you must take the trouble of
riding to the town. He is in custody."
The horses reared, and their riders closed round Karl, while Polish
ejaculations were heard on all sides. "In custody! On what account?"
"Ask my master," replied Karl, pointing to the doorway in the tower,
where Anton stood.
"Have I the pleasure of speaking to the new proprietor?" inquired one of
the party, taking off his hat. Anton looked down in amazement. The voice
and face reminded him of a white-gloved gentleman whom he had met once
before in a critical hour.
"I am the Baron Rothsattel's agent," replied he. The horse was pulled
back, and the rider spoke a few words to his companions, upon which an
older man with a fox-like face cried, "We are anxious to speak on
private business with the late steward. We hear that he is in custody,
and beg you will tell us why."
"He tried to evade by flight the surrender of the property to me, and he
is suspected of dishonest dealings."
"Are his effects confiscated?" inquired one of the riders.
"Why do you inquire?" returned Anton.
"I beg your pardon," said the other, "but the man happens accidentally
to have some papers that belong to me in his house, and it might
embarrass me if I could not get possession of them."
"His effects are gone with him to town," replied Anton. Once more there
was a consultation, and then the riders, bowing slightly, galloped off
to the village, halted a few minutes at the public house, and
disappeared where the high road turned into the wood.
"What can they want, Mr. Wohlfart?" inquired Karl. "That was a strange
flying visit."
"Yes, indeed," replied Anton; "I have reason to think it remarkable. If
I am not much mistaken, I have met one of the gentlemen before in very
different circumstances. Perhaps that fellow Bratzky knew how to make
himself friends through the mammon of unrighteousness."
The evening now wrapped castle and forest in its dark mantle. The
servants returned with the horses from the wood. Karl led them into
Anton's presence, made them a short Polish oration, and received them
into the service of the new proprietor. Next came the landlord to look
after them, bringing oats and a bundle of wood, and saying to Anton, "I
recommend you, sir, to be watchful during the night; the peasants sit
yonder in the bar, and discuss your arrival; there are bad men about,
and I would not be sure that one of them might not stick a match into
the straw yonder, and burn down the farm-buildings for you."
"I am sure enough that they will do nothing of the kind," said Karl,
throwing another log into the stove. "A fresh breeze is blowing right on
to the village. No one would be such a fool as to set his own barns on
fire. We shall take care to keep the wind in this point as long as we
are here. Tell your people that. Have you brought me the potatoes I
asked for?"
Anton appointed the landlord to return the next morning, and the
travelers were left alone in the desolate house.
"You need not heed that hint, Mr. Anton," continued Karl. "All over the
world drunken rascals have a trick of threatening fire; and, after all,
with reverence be it said, it would be no great harm. And now, Mr.
Anton, that we are by ourselves, let us think as little as possible
about this Polish affair--let us set to and be comfortable."
"I'm all right," said Anton, drawing a chair to the stove. The wood
crackled in the green tiles, and the red glare threw a warm light over
the floor, and flickered pleasantly on the walls.
"The warmth does one good," said Anton; "but do you not perceive smoke?"
"Of course," replied Karl, who was boring round holes in the potatoes by
the firelight. "Even the best stoves will smoke at the beginning of
winter, till they get accustomed to their work, and this great green
fellow has probably not seen fire for a generation, so it is not to be
expected that he should draw kindly at once. Be so good as to cut a bit
of bread and hold it to the fire. I am getting our candles ready." He
took out a great packet of candles, stuck one into each potato, cut off
the lower half, and placed them on the table, and then produced the
japanned case. "This is inexhaustible," said he; "it will last till the
day after to-morrow."
"That it will," said Anton, cheerily. "I am wonderfully hungry. And now
let us consider how we shall manage our housekeeping. What we absolutely
want we must get from the town; I will make a list at once. We will put
out one candle, though--we must be economical."
The evening was spent in plans. Karl discovered that he could make part
of the necessary furniture out of the boxes and boards about, and the
laughter of the two companions sounded cheerfully through the rooms of
the starost's dwelling. At last Anton proposed that they should go to
bed. They shook down straw and hay, unbuckled their portmanteaus, and
produced some blankets and coverlets. Karl fastened a lock that he had
brought with him into the room door, examined the loading of his
carbine, took up his potato, and said, with a military salute, "At what
time does major general the agent wish to be called to-morrow?"
"You good fellow!" cried Anton, reaching out his hand from his straw
bed.
Karl went into the next room, which he had chosen for himself. Soon both
candles were extinguished--the first signs of life which had shone for
years in the forsaken dwelling. But in the stove the little Kobolds of
the castle lingered long over the newly-kindled fire; they hovered in
the smoke wreaths, they knocked at doors and windows in amazement at the
proceedings of the strangers. At length they assembled in a corner of
the old tower, and began to dispute as to whether or not the flames
lighted this evening would continue to burn, and to cast henceforth
their cheerful glow on meadow, fields, and woods; and as they doubted
whether the new order of things had strength enough to endure, the smoke
drove the bats from their home in the chimney, and they came flapping
down stupefied on the summit of the tower, while the owls in its
crevices shook their round heads and hooted in the new era.