It turned out a long walk to Silberbach, the longest we had yet
attempted. Hitherto Herr von Walden had been on known ground, and
thoroughly acquainted with the roads, the distances, and all necessary
particulars; but it was the first time he had explored beyond Seeberg,
and before we had accomplished more than half the journey, he began to
feel a little alarm at the information given us by the travellers we
came across at long intervals "coming from," not "going to St. Ives!"
For the farther we went the greater seemed to be the distance we had to
go!
"An hour or thereabouts," grew into "two," or even "three" hours; and at
last, on a peculiarly stupid countryman assuring us we would scarcely
reach our destination before nightfall, our conductor's patience broke
down altogether.
"Idiots!" he exclaimed. "But I cannot stand this any longer. I will
hasten on and see for myself; and if, as I expect, we are really not
very far from Silberbach, it will be all the better for me to find out
the 'Katze,' and see that everything is ready for your arrival."
Frau von Walden seemed a little inclined to protest, but I begged her
not to do so, seeing that three able-bodied protectors still remained to
us, and that it probably was really tiresome for a remarkably good and
trained pedestrian like her husband to have to adapt his vigorous steps
to ours. And comfort came from an unexpected quarter. The old peasant
woman, strong and muscular as any English labourer, whom we had hired
at Seeberg to carry our bags and shawls through the forest, overheard
the discussion, and for the first time broke silence to assure "the
gracious ladies" that Silberbach was at no great distance; in half an
hour or so we should come upon the first of its houses.
"Though as for the 'Katze,'" she added, "that was farther off--at the
other end of the village;" and she went on muttering something about "if
she had known we were going to the 'Katze,'" which we did not understand,
but which afterwards, "being translated," proved to mean that she would
have stood out for more pay.
Sure enough, at the end of not more than three-quarters of an hour we
came upon one or two outlying houses. Then the trees gradually here grew
sparser, and soon ceased, except in occasional patches. It was growing
dusk; but as we emerged from the wood we found that we were on a height,
the forest road having been a steady, though almost imperceptible, ascent.
Far below gleamed already some twinkling cottage lights, and the silvery
reflection of a small piece of water.
"To be sure," said young von Trachenfels, "there is a lake at Silberbach.
Here we are at last! But where is the 'Katze'?"
He might well ask. Never was there so tantalising a place as Silberbach.
Instead of one compact, sensible village, it was more like three or
four--nay, five or six--wretched hamlets, each at several minutes'
distance from all the others. And the "Katze," of course, was at the
farther end of the farthest off from where we stood of these miserable
little ragged ends of village! Climbing is tiring work, but it seemed
to me it would have been preferable to what lay before us,--a continual
descent, by the ruggedest of hill-paths, of nearly two miles, stumbling
along in the half light, tired, footsore past description, yet--to
our everlasting credit be it recorded--laughing, or trying to laugh,
determined at all costs to make the best of it.
"I have no feet left," said poor Frau von Walden. "I am only conscious
of two red-hot balls attached somehow to my ankles. I daresay _they_
will drop off soon."
How thankful we were at last to attain to what bore some faint
resemblance to a village street! How we gazed on every side to discover
anything like an inn! How we stared at each other in bewilderment when
at last, from we could not see where, came the well-known voice of Herr
von Walden, shouting to us to stop.
"It is here--_here_, I say. You are going too far."
"Here," judging by the direction whence came the words, seemed to be
a piled-up mass of hay, of proportions, exaggerated perhaps by the
uncertain light, truly enormous. Was our friend buried in the middle of
it? Not so. By degrees we made out his sunburnt face, beaming as ever,
from out of a window behind the hay--cartful or stack, we were not sure
which; and by still further degrees we discovered that the hay was being
unloaded before a little house which it had almost entirely hidden from
view, and inside which it was being carried, apparently by the front
door, for there was no other door to be seen; but as we stood in
perplexity, Herr von Walden, whose face had disappeared, emerged in
some mysterious way.
"You can come through the kitchen, ladies; or by the window, if you
please." But though the boys and Nora were got, or got themselves, in
through the window, Frau von Walden and I preferred the kitchen; and
I remember nothing more till we found ourselves all assembled--the
original eight as we had started--in a very low-roofed, sandy-floored,
tobacco-impregnated sort of cabin which, it appeared, was the
_salle-a-manger_ of the renowned hostelry "zur Katze" of Silberbach!
Herr von Walden was vigorously mopping his face. It was very red, and
naturally so, considering the weather and the want of ventilation
peculiar to the "Katze"; but it struck me there was something slightly
forced about the beamingness.
"So, so," he began; "all's well that ends well! But I must explain," and
he mopped still more vigorously, "that--there has been a slight, in
short, a little, mistake about the accommodation I wish to secure. The
supper I have seen to, and it will be served directly. But as to the
beds," and here he could not help laughing, "our worthy host has beds
enough"--we found afterwards that every available mattress and pillow in
the village had been levied--"but there is but one _bedroom_, or two, I
may say." For the poor Herr had not lost his time since his arrival.
Appalled by the want of resources, he had suggested the levy of beds,
and had got the host to spread them on the floor of a granary for
himself, the three young men, and Reggie; while his wife, Nora, and I
were to occupy the one bedroom, which luckily contained two small beds
and a sort of settee, such as one sees in old farmhouses all over the
world.
So it was decided; and, after all, for one night, what did it matter?
For one night? that was for me the question! The supper was really not
bad; but the look, and still worse the smell, of the room where it was
served, joined no doubt to our excessive fatigue, made it impossible for
me to eat anything. My friends were sorry, and I felt ashamed of myself
for being so easily knocked up or knocked down. How thoroughly I entered
into Frau von Walden's honestly-expressed dislike to "roughing it"! Yet
it was not only the uncivilised look of the place, nor the coarse food,
nor the want of comfort that made me feel that one night of Silberbach
would indeed be enough for me. A sort of depression, of fear almost,
came over me when I pictured the two children and myself alone in that
strange, out-of-the-world place, where it really seemed to me we might
all three be made an end of without any one being the wiser of it! There
was a general look of squalor and stolid depression about the people
too: the landlord was a black-browed, surlily silent sort of man, his
wife and the one maid-servant looked frightened and anxious, and the
only voices to be heard were those of half-tipsy peasants drinking and
quarrelling at the bar.
To say the least, it was not enlivening. Yet my pride was aroused. I
did not like to own myself already beaten. After supper I sat apart,
reflecting rather gloomily as to what I could or should do, while the
young men and the children amused themselves with the one piece of
luxury with which the poorest inn in Thuringia is sure to be provided.
For, anomalous as it may seem, there was a piano, and by no means an
altogether decrepit one, in the sandy-floored parlour!
Herr von Walden was smoking his pipe outside, the hay being by this time
housed somewhere or other. His wife, who had been speaking to him, came
in and sat down beside me.
"My dear," she said, "you must not be vexed with me for renewing the
subject, but I cannot help it; I feel a responsibility. You must not,
you really _must not_, think of staying here alone with those two
children. It is not fit for you."
Oh, how I blessed her for breaking the ice! I could hardly help hugging
her as I replied--diplomatically--
"You really think so?"
"Certainly I do; and so, though perhaps he won't say so as frankly--so
does my husband. He says I am foolish and fanciful; but I confess to
feeling a kind of dislike to the place that I cannot explain. Perhaps
there is thunder in the air--that always affects my nerves--but I just
feel that I _cannot_ agree to your staying on here."
"Very well, I am quite willing to go back to Seeberg to-morrow," I
replied meekly. "Of course we can't judge of the place by what we have
seen of it to-night, but no doubt, as far as the inn is concerned,
Seeberg is much nicer. I daresay we can see all we want by noon
to-morrow, and get back to Seeberg in the afternoon."
Kind Frau von Walden kissed me rapturously on both cheeks.
"You don't _know_, my dear, the relief to my mind of hearing you say so!
And now I think the best thing we can do is to go to bed. For we _must_
start at six."
"So early!" I exclaimed, with a fresh feeling of dismay.
"Yes, indeed; and I must bid you good-bye to-night, for after all I am
not to sleep in your room, which is much better, as I should have had to
disturb you so early. My husband has found a tidy room next door in a
cottage, and we shall do very well there."
What sort of a place she euphemistically described as "a tidy room" I
never discovered. But it would have been useless to remonstrate, the
kind creature was so afraid of incommoding us that she would have
listened to no objections.
Herr von Walden came in just as we were about to wish each other
good-night.
"So!" he said, with a tone of amiable indulgence, "so! And what do you
think of Silberbach? My wife feels sure you will not like it after all."
"I think I shall see as much as I care to see of it in an hour or two
to-morrow morning," I replied quietly. "And by the afternoon the
children and I will go back to our comfortable quarters at Seeberg."
"Ah, indeed! Yes, I daresay it will be as well," he said airily, as
if he had nothing at all to do with decoying us to the place. "Then
good-night and pleasant dreams, and----"
"But," I interrupted, "I want to know _how_ we are to get back to
Seeberg. Can I get an _Einspaenner_ here?"
"To be sure, to be sure. You have only to speak to the landlord in
the morning, and tell him at what hour you want it," he answered so
confidently that I felt no sort of misgiving, and I turned with a smile
to finish my good-nights.
The young men were standing close beside us. I shook hands with
Trachenfels and Lutz, the latter of whom, though he replied as heartily
as usual, looked, I thought, annoyed. George Norman followed me to the
door of the room. In front of us was the ladder-like staircase leading
to the upper regions.
"What a hole of a place!" said the boy. "I don't mind quite a cottage
if it's clean and cheerful, but this place is so grim and squalid. I
can't tell you how glad I am you're not going to stay on here alone. It
really isn't fit for you."
"Well, you may be easy, as we shall only be here a few hours after you
leave."
"Yes; so much the better. I wish I could have stayed, but I _must_ be
back at Kronberg to-morrow. Lutz could have stayed and seen you back to
Seeberg, but his father won't let him. Herr von Walden is so queer once
he takes an idea in his head--and he _won't_ allow this place isn't all
right."
"But I daresay there would be nothing to hurt us! Anyway, I will write
to reassure you that we have not fallen into a nest of cut-throats or
brigands," I said laughingly.
Certainly it never occurred to me or to my friends what _would_ be the
nature of the "experience" which would stamp Silberbach indelibly on our
memory.
We must have been really very tired, for, quite contrary to our habit,
the children and I slept late the next morning, undisturbed by the
departure of our friends at the early hour arranged by them.
The sun was shining, and Silberbach, like every other place, appeared
all the better for it. But the view from the window of our room was not
encouraging. It looked out upon the village street--a rough, unkempt
sort of track--and on its other side the ground rose abruptly to some
height, but treeless and grassless. It seemed more like the remains of
a quarry of some kind, for there was nothing to be seen but stones and
broken pieces of rock.
"We must go out after our breakfast and look about us a little before
we start," I said. "But how glad I shall be to get back to that bright,
cheerful Seeberg!"
"Yes, indeed," said Nora. "I think this is the ugliest place I ever was
at in my life." And she was not inclined to like it any better when
Reggie, whom we sent down to reconnoitre, came back to report that we
must have our breakfast in our own room.
"There are a lot of rough-looking men down there, smoking and drinking
beer. You _couldn't_ eat there," said the child.
But, after all, it was to be our last meal there, and we did not
complain. The root coffee was not too unpalatable with plenty of
good milk; the bread was sour and the butter dubious, as Ottilia had
foretold, so we soaked the bread in the coffee, like French peasants.
"Mamma," said Nora gravely, "it makes me sorry for poor people. I
daresay many never have anything nicer to eat than this."
"Not nicer than this!" I exclaimed. "Why, my dear child, thousands, not
in Germany only, but in France and England, never taste anything as good."
The little girl opened her eyes. There are salutary lessons to be learnt
from even the mildest experience of "roughing it."
Suddenly Nora's eyes fell on a little parcel in blue paper. It was lying
on one of the shelves of the stove, which, as in most German rooms,
stood out a little from the wall, and in its summer idleness was a
convenient receptacle for odds and ends. This stove was a high one, of
black-leaded iron; it stood between the door and the wall, on the same
side as the door, and was the most conspicuous object in the room.
"Mamma," she exclaimed, "there is the parcel you brought away from the
china place. What is it? I wish you would show it me."