“FAVOUR AND PREJUDICE.”
There was, however, a third person concerned in their wooing, a very
important person too—the Burgomaster; and it was doubtful if he would
look favourably on the plan the lovers had marked out for themselves.
Sabina had her dower, and Conrad, at his father’s death, would inherit
a modest fortune, but the day when that should fall into his hands, he
hoped was far distant; beyond this, he had nothing but what his own
exertions brought him. Truly, the incentive to work had now become, if
possible, greater than ever, and the desire to gain money, hitherto a
very secondary consideration, had grown very strong indeed, ever since
that little _tête-à-tête_ he had had in the dining-hall with Sabina
von Steinbach. All the money, however, which he was likely to earn,
would not make anything like a fortune suitable for laying at the feet
of the wealthy Burgomaster’s daughter. Still von Steinbach was not
exactly a hard, money-grubbing man, and Conrad’s hopes ran high when he
explained the state of things; but Niklaus said:
“Now look here, Conrad Dasipodius, you are the last man in Strassburg
I should care to quarrel with. To the best of my belief, you’re a good
fellow, and I know you’re a clever one, and some day I’ve no doubt
you’ll be making a great name for yourself in the world. Meantime, what
are your means for keeping my child?”
“Your daughter refuses to speak of leaving you just yet, Master
Niklaus; and I am content to wait, until I can offer something worthy
her acceptance.”
“That sounds all very well. Meantime, I am growing old. Supposing, for
example, I should die?”
“We will suppose no such thing, Burgomaster.”
“Don’t interrupt; I say, supposing I should die, who is to take care of
my Sabina then?”
“Who but I?” fervently said Conrad.
“And live on love, and nothing a year, paid quarterly! You’re crazed,
Conrad Dasipodius; go back to your wheels and your coils, and forget
my little maiden. It is best for you.”
Dasipodius, however, had no heart for work until the other matter was
settled, and this he told Niklaus; and the old man’s eyes glistened
with something of pride and pleasure, for he had a sincere liking and
admiration for the young mathematician; still he laid his hand on his
shoulder and said: “How can I blame you, boy? for this Sabina is the
best and fairest girl in Strassburg, but your suit is in vain. Go, I
have other views for her—go!” And if Dasipodius had pleaded all night,
he would not have succeeded in extracting another word from the old man.
The truth was, that only that very morning, two offers of an eligible
kind had been made to the Burgomaster for Sabina’s hand; one of
these proposals was made by an offshoot of the great and noble house
of Eberstein. This gentleman’s fortunes were, however, somewhat
dilapidated, and he had a notion that Sabina von Steinbach’s dower
might help to build them up again. The Burgomaster’s keen eye saw
through all this; nevertheless, he thought it would be a fine thing
to see his darling an Eberstein. The other proposal was from Otto
von Steinbach. Now Otto at present was certainly no richer than his
fellow-student, Dasipodius, but he had great expectations from an old
great-aunt who idolized his handsome face; and this lady being very
aged, and full of dolorous ailments and twinges, could not last many
months. At least so Otto thought, and he represented as much to the
Burgomaster.
“You know,” he said, “she herself is always saying: ‘Please God, I
shan’t last long!’”
“And you say, Amen?” queried Niklaus.
“Well, look here, you know, I—I—well, it’s hard on a fellow, just
because favour and prejudice——”
“My good Otto, go and tell your tale to Sabina in your own way.”
And Otto went. “Poor Otto!” said the Burgomaster, when he was gone,
“he’ll never set the Rhine on fire; but there’s no harm in him, and if
Sabina—well, well, we shall see. At any rate, there can be no favour
and prejudice.”
This was true, for the Burgomaster did not interfere in his daughter’s
choice between the two suitors; he permitted each to plead his cause
in person, a permission which, by the bye, the careless Conrad had
omitted to ask; but Niklaus was a little taken aback, when he found
that his daughter had rejected both the one and the other. The scion of
the noble house of Eberstein did not stay to tell the Burgomaster of
his discomfiture, but hardly trusting his own ears, shook the dust of
that ungrateful household from his feet, and mounting his jennet, rode
off for ever and a day.
Neither could Otto von Steinbach grasp the fact that his cousin had
refused him. “What, Sabina,” he had said to her, “you are mocking me!
Have not I told you I think you the prettiest girl in Strassburg? and I
say there is not one who would suit me so well for a wife——”
“Nay, nay, cousin, ’tis all a mistake——”
“A mistake!—_Himmelsdonnerwetter_, I swear——”
“No don’t, Otto. Pray hush.”
“I will not hush. I say, I do not care one pin what becomes of me, if
you’re not my wife. Do you hear?”
“Yes, Otto, I hear; I am so sorry.”
“Sorry, _Aller Teufel!_” Then he paused, and his voice softened. “Look,
Sabina, only see! I am on my knees before you—I, who have won favours
from noble ladies. Yes, Sabina, I could whisper a tale or two——”
“Don’t, Otto, and get up. It is so foolish to see you there.”
“But when I say I love you, Sabina, you can not turn from me.”
Yet she had turned away, weeping. Her tender little heart, which shrank
from seeing the smallest insect in distress, was sorely disturbed at
sight of Otto’s face. He mistook those tears for signs of relenting;
but soon the girl dashed them aside, and turning to him once more,
said: “Otto, some day you will find one who will love you dearly. For
me it is impossible, since I love already.”
Otto von Steinbach started to his feet. “So,” he said, “then I have
been supplanted?”
“Yet—no,” proudly answered Sabina—“not supplanted; I never loved but
him.”
“Him!—who?—who has dared——”
“Otto!” There was a world of reproof in Sabina’s voice; and Otto stood
momentarily abashed. Soon, however, recovering himself, he demanded:
“Whom is this you love?”
“Conrad.”
“Conrad who?”—there was only one Conrad in the world for Sabina—“not
Dasipodius?”
Sabina flushed rosy red, and nodded gently. Otto, however, burst into
a loud, mocking laugh, and said that if maidens chose to sigh for the
moon, that was their affair; but that everybody knew Dasipodius had
given all his heart to his profession, and had none of it to spare for
love-sick girls.
“Nevertheless,” said Sabina, the red blood dyeing her brow crimson with
indignation, “he loves me, and I love him. You had best go home, Otto
von Steinbach.”
Furious with jealousy, Otto rushed from Sabina’s presence to the
Burgomaster’s little room behind his workshop, where Niklaus was busy
sorting a new consignment of rubies and pearls. “She has refused me!”
he cried.
Niklaus looked up. “She has refused—rejected me, I say!”
“So?” interrogated the goldsmith. “Then my Lord Count has won the day.”
“What Lord Count? No; it is that—that automaton, Conrad Dasipodius.”
“But it cannot be, nephew. Only this very morning I explained to the
child that it was out of the question.”
“I would have sworn,” burst forth Otto, “that there was favour and
prejudice at the bottom of this. And you knew then, all the time.”
“Certainly I knew the two creatures said they loved each other; but I
told them it could not be, and that they must think no more about it,”
placidly answered the Burgomaster, laying a pair of pearl earrings in
their velvet case.
“But they do think more about it. I tell you, Uncle, not five minutes
since, Sabina declared her love for Conrad Dasipodius to me—to me!”
“And that satisfaction was more than you deserved, if you brayed at my
little girl as you are braying at me now. D’ye think I’m deaf?”
“But you will not permit this folly. You will speak to Sabina.”
“It will not be in your favour, nephew; and were it not that I believe
your love-fancies had stolen your manners, I would turn you out of my
house.”
Otto stood silent, fidgeting at the smart gilt buckle on his hat. The
Burgomaster knitted his brow, and tapped it thoughtfully with his
finger.
“You think then,” he said presently, “that these two really love each
other?”
“Ay. It would seem so,” said Otto chokingly.
“And no favour or prejudice about it?” continued Niklaus, with a
half-smile. But Otto made no answer; he rushed out into the Dom-Platz,
and tore home to retail the story of his wrongs to his sister Radegund.
Niklaus von Steinbach meanwhile locked up his jewels in his
strong-room, and went in to dinner, his thoughtful mood still on him.
Sabina looked pale and tearful.
“Poor little one!” said the old man to himself. “Now if she had but a
dear mother to sigh out her pretty troubles to; but fathers are just
lumps of wood in affairs of this sort. Sabina,” he said aloud—the young
girl started—“what did the Count say to you this morning?”
“He asked me to marry him, Väterchen,” answered Sabina, growing pale.
“And you—what did you say?”
“I said it could not be.”
“And why, prithee?”
“I do not love the Count, Väterchen.”
“Humph! And what may Otto von Steinbach have been talking to you about
this long while?”
Sabina looked up imploringly, but she knew her father’s humour, and she
faltered: “He asked me to marry him, Väterchen.”
“And you—what did you say?”
“That it was impossible.”
“And why now, mistress?”
“I do not love Otto von Steinbach.”
“Love—what has that to do with it?”
No answer.
“Speak!” thundered the Burgomaster.
“It is everything,” said Sabina, looking down.
“Everything!—everything, is it? Oh these women! these women!” groaned
Niklaus. “Child, I gave you credit for sense above the average of your
kind, and positively you are crazier than the rest of them.”
And the Burgomaster, turning away, thrust his hands deep down into his
coat pockets, and strode to the hearth, where he stood glaring into
the logs, and crushing to powder the stray bits that fell smouldering.
Sabina burst into tears. “Well, now, what have you to cry about,
child?” he asked moodily, still staring at his logs.
“Oh! father dear—don’t. Leave me to myself!” sobbed Sabina.
But von Steinbach had no such intention; this was not at all the issue
he wanted to arrive at. “Have you seen aught of Conrad Dasipodius this
day or two?” he asked, and with his hands still in his pockets, he
stole a keen glance at his daughter from beneath his eyebrows’ grizzled
penthouse.
“No!” promptly answered the girl, but the bright blood flew to her
cheeks, and in spite of her best efforts, her voice shook.
“That is strange! You have forbidden him the house belike, as you have
your other swains?”
No, nor that neither; but she thought her father had; and a very
grievous thought it was to her.
“Neither have I forbidden him; but he will not come again yet awhile. I
know all about it, child; Conrad Dasipodius is an honourable man, but
he is poor, and my Sabina has the dignity of our house to maintain; so
I say it cannot be thought of for an instant. I respect this man—I
think well of him—very well—I don’t mind saying I do; but he’s poor,
poor as a rat, and I say it cannot be thought of for an instant.” Then
Niklaus drew himself up, and looking very stern and adamantine; and
gathering his gown about him, he strode majestically towards the door,
and lifting the arras, said: “Now dry thy tears, child, and when I come
back, let it be my own little Lily’s bright face again. There, kiss me
then; but these love-nonsenses do so put me out. You’re happy enough
with your old father? Hey, kiss me then—hey?” And so the Burgomaster,
happy in the conviction that he had warded off a troublesome little
domestic worry very successfully, went across the courtyard through the
drizzling sleet back to his affairs.
Sabina listened until the last echo of her father’s footsteps died
out, then she threw herself down beside the hearth, and burst into a
passionate fit of weeping; but at last, when the kind tears would no
longer flow, and only hard, cruel sobs shook her quivering frame, she
sat and gazed thoughtfully into the fire; but no comfort came to her,
the logs were damp and sputtered crossly, and the rude north wind
outside whistled a discordant duet with the rattling sleet, and to
the girl’s ears their refrain was: “It cannot be thought of for an
instant!—It cannot be thought of for an instant!” until it made her
head ache sadly, and she laid it down for rest on the old house-cat’s
furry pillow of a body, moaning out:
“Oh! Mitte dear, but I love him! I love him so dearly!—what shall I do?”
Then Mitte, gathering her velvet paws still closer up under her
comfortable self, began to purr out ever so loudly—“Courage, Sabina,
Sabina! Dear heart—Courage!” and the great clock up in the corner
began to burr (indeed he had been at it all the afternoon, only Sabina
had not heard): “Wait-tic!—wait-tac!” and this so perseveringly, that
presently the clock silenced the sputtering logs, until they began to
warm through, and make themselves quite pleasant; and then, just for a
moment before going to bed, the winter sun looked out good-humouredly,
and smiled down the harsh north wind, and quenched the spiteful hail,
and by the time night had set in, and the Burgomaster had come back,
Sabina looked quite herself again; and Niklaus congratulated himself
very highly on his tact. “Ah, these women and their fancies!” thought
he. “See now, it has all blown over!” But it had in no wise blown over;
only Sabina smiled as she listened to the advice of the steady old
clock up in his dark corner: “Wait-tic—wait-tac!”