Thoma sat down and folded her hands. She did not look up. "As you are
Landolin's daughter you may refuse to testify," said the judge in a
kindly tone. Thoma wearily raised her head.
"Father! What can I say?"
"What you saw."
She looked steadily into her father's face. She saw that he forced his
eyes to remain open, but the eyelids trembled as though they must close
before her glance. She turned away with a relentless movement of her
head, and laying her clenched hand upon the table, said:
"Your honor----I say--I--I refuse to testify."
Landolin groaned. He knew what was going on in his daughter's mind. She
rose and left the room without a look or a word for any one. They all
gazed after her in silence.
The judge now asked Landolin if any of the servants had seen the
affair. Landolin answered hesitatingly that he did not know; he had not
looked around; but that Tobias and Fidelis were at home. It was with
alarm that he perceived that his fate was in the hands of others.
The judge asked for his son Peter. Landolin shrugged his shoulders.
Nobody cared whether Peter was at home or not. He was an obstinate,
insignificant boy.
Nevertheless, though no one knew it, at this hour Peter had become an
important personage.
No one dreamed that the little sliding window, between the living-room
and the kitchen, was half-open, and that Peter lurked behind it. When
he heard his father's answer, he quickly pulled off his boots, sprang
noiselessly down the steps to the barn where Tobias was, and said:
"We now know how it happened. The stone did not hit Vetturi. Do you
hear? And you too?" turning to the hostler Fidelis. Tobias nodded
understandingly. Fidelis, on the other hand, made no answer.
There was no time to say anything more, for the two servants were
called into the house. Before Tobias left the yard he threw a stone
down near the gate.
Tobias was first reprimanded for having swept away the marks of blood.
He took it all quietly, and said, in a firm voice, that he had plainly
seen that Vetturi, who was always shaky, had not been hit by the stone,
but had fallen down himself on the paving-stones. When the head-servant
began speaking, Landolin had closed his eyes, but he now looked up
triumphantly. His elbow rested on the chair; he held his hand over his
mouth, and pressed his lips tightly together when Tobias concluded
with:
"The stone that Vetturi threw, lies down there yet, scarcely a step
from where the master stood."
Landolin raised himself to his full height. "That's the thing!
Self-defense! I must justify myself on that ground." Landolin grasped
the arm of the chair, as a drowning man, battling with the waves,
grasps the rope thrown out to save him; and, just so, his soul clung to
the thought of self-defense.
Fidelis said quite as positively that he had seen his master pick up a
paving-stone with both hands, lean back, draw a long breath, and throw
it. It had struck Vetturi on the head, and he had not seen Vetturi
throw anything.
Landolin started up with an angry exclamation. He was told to be
silent. The judge arose and said, evidently with forced calmness, that
he was sorry, but, in order to prevent any tampering with the
witnesses, he was compelled to place Landolin in confinement for the
present.
The chair moved violently, and Landolin cried:
"Your honor, I am Landolin of Reutershoefen; this is my house; out there
are my fields, my meadows, my forests. I am no adventurer, and I
sha'n't run away for a beggar who is nothing to me."
The judge shrugged his shoulders, and said that they would probably be
able to release him in a few days.
As the clerk folded his papers together, he cast a longing look at
the poured-out wine; but he had to content himself with licking the
ink-spots from his fingers.
"May I not send my husband a bed?" asked the farmer's wife. This was
the first word she had spoken. The judge replied with a compassionate
smile that it was not necessary.
Landolin took her hand, and, for the first time in many years, said in
an affectionate tone:
"Dear Johanna." Her face was illuminated as though a miracle had been
worked; and Landolin continued: "Don't worry. Nothing will happen to
me."
"Can't he take me with him?" asked his wife of the judge.
"I am sorry that it is impossible."
She was about to send a maid-servant for Thoma, but Landolin prevented
it, and said to the judge:
"I am ready to go now."
When Landolin had taken his seat in the carriage, a guard, who had been
standing before the house, sprang upon the box with the coachman. The
farmer's wife brought her husband's cloak, and he wrapped himself in
it, for he was shivering, although the air was mild. He pulled his hat
down to hide his face, and besides, it was night.
The carriage rolled away. The barking of the dog, and the rumbling of
the wheels over the plateau could long be heard. At last it died away,
and all was still.