Then a voice shrieked, in the midst of the tumult, "Holy Mother! my child, my poor child!" and a woman rushed up, tore the little girl out of Johannes"s arms, and covered her with tears and kisses.
A handsome young peasant followed her, and gazed, wringing his hands, and stupefied with horror, at his senseless child. "G.o.d in heaven! what have we done, that we should be visited so heavily?" he murmured, and would have fallen, had not two of his friends supported him.
"Her eyes should be torn out!" shrieked the mother, metamorphosed to a fury, while she pressed her child to her breast, as if to guard her darling from the danger to which she had fallen a victim. "To jail with her, abandoned, G.o.d-accursed wretch that she is!" And she kissed the child and bathed it in tears.
"Do not curse," said her husband gloomily,--"it"s sinful on a holiday.
G.o.d will one day," and he pointed to Kathchen, "demand this life at her hands. She will not escape punishment."
"May it soon overtake her!" sobbed the woman.
The priest now approached from the church, with all the consolation that the occasion required of him, and the schoolmaster humbly followed.
"See, see, reverend father, what they have done to my child," the mother cried, when she saw them. "And Herr Leonhardt too,--ah, she was his pet. What is to be done?"
"What a piteous sight!" said Herr Leonhardt, stooping over his little favourite, while the tears dropped from his poor eyes, and all the women wailed in chorus. But the priest felt called to utter a few solemn words of consolation in season.
"Give thanks, my dear Frau Keller," he said, raising his hands,--"give thanks for the abundant grace of our blessed mother Mary, in that she has so distinguished you above others as to call your dear child to be a holy angel in a better world, upon the very day of her own most blessed a.s.sumption."
"Reverend father," said Johannes, "this grat.i.tude is not necessary, thank G.o.d, as yet, for the child lives, and will live,--I will answer for it."
"Ah!" wailed the mother in despair, "you do not know what it is to bring such a child into the world, to love it and work for it night and day until it grows big, to go without many a bit yourself that it may have enough, and, when it has got to be a joy and pleasure to you, to pick it up here all crushed and broken! G.o.d punish her! G.o.d punish her!" With these words the woman hurried away, her husband supporting her trembling arms, that were scarcely able to sustain the child"s weight, and yet would not resign it. The pastor and the schoolmaster went with her.
"Here," called the Worronska after the retreating parents, "take this for the present. You shall have more by-and-by." She held out a heavy, well-filled purse.
"Keep your money, we do not want it," said the husband with sullen rage, and went on without turning his eyes from his child.
The countess looked down, pale and agitated.
"He is right, we do not want money, but justice," shouted the mob, and pressed so close around the carriage that Johannes reached it with difficulty. He hastily kicked away the stones from beneath the wheels, and cried out to the Worronska,
"Drive on, in Heaven"s name! Would you expose yourself to useless insults?"
"Don"t let her go," was the cry. "Take out the horses! Go for the burgomaster!"
"If one of us drives over a cat, he is carried off to the lock-up,--let the great folks fare the same."
Some even began to unharness the horses,--but Johannes interposed with iron determination, s.n.a.t.c.hed the whip from the countess, who never took her eyes from him, gave the n.o.ble animals the lash, and away they went through the living wall that was closing around them. A shout of rage arose, the carriage was pursued for a short distance, but it was out of sight in a few minutes, leaving behind only the unfortunate groom, cowering terrified in the middle of the road.
Then the universal indignation was turned upon Johannes, who stood quietly there with the whip in his hand. He had delivered the stranger from just punishment, and had a.s.sisted her to escape,--he was in league with her.
"You are one of her friends. You shall answer for her to us!"
"I certainly will, good people," said Johannes calmly and kindly.
"First let me do all that I can for the poor child, and then I will go with you to the burgomaster"s or wherever else you choose." This simple answer entirely disarmed the rage of the crowd.
"The gentleman is right, I know him," cried a newly-arrived peasant. It was the same man with whom Johannes had spoken upon his first visit to the castle.
"Why did you help that bad woman to escape?" asked some.
"Because she should be dealt with in an orderly manner. I promise you satisfaction, and much greater satisfaction than you would have in maltreating a woman."
"He is a just gentleman, a brave man!" said the people one to another.
"He takes it all upon himself,--that is honest!"
"Come, then, good people, and show me where the Kellers live,--afterwards we will have a word together."
The peasants a.s.sented, well content. "Yes, yes! that"s all right!"
They had not far to go to the wretched straw-thatched hut of the day-labourer Keller.
A wooden flight of steps upon the outside of the hut led to the upper story,--the s.p.a.ce beneath was used as a stable, and the one room above it, that served for sleeping room and dwelling-room, contained a large bed, an earthenware stove, two wooden chairs, and a table. Over the bed hung a carved crucifix, with a skull, and a vessel for holy water, and in the bed little Kathchen lay quiet and patient, almost smothered beneath the heavy coverlet, gazing at the by-standers with bewildered eyes. Her mother knelt by the bedside, weeping. Several women were trying to comfort her, telling her how quickly and well the broken limb would heal if she would only have a model of it in wax hung before the picture of the Holy Mother of G.o.d in the church. The waxen limbs of all kinds that already hung like a wreath around the sacred picture bore witness to the efficacy of this pious custom. Frau Keller must lose no time in presenting her offering,--for it was especially efficacious upon a.s.sumption day.
Frau Keller shook her head. She was obstinate in her grief, and did not believe in this kind of cure.
"Kaspar," she said, "hung up a leg before the Holy Mother, and paid a gulden for it. And what good did it do? Did he not die of the trouble in his leg after he went to town?"
The priest stood at the foot of the bed, listening to the conversation and shaking his head. "Columbane, Columbane," he now began, "you blaspheme! Do you not remember the cause of Kaspar"s death? Do not accuse the Blessed Virgin,--how could she help the man when he would not wait for her aid, but listened to the evil counsel of the Hartwich and had his leg cut off? He did not die of disease, but because he made friends with an enemy of the Holy Mother."
"Well, then," said one of the women, "perhaps the Holy Mother of G.o.d drew him to her again by that very leg."
"What? Then perhaps she might draw my little Kathchen to her in the same way," cried Frau Keller defiantly. "No, no! let me keep my child, crippled though she be, if she only lives. I am strong, and can work for her. No, Kathi dear, you do not want to go to heaven. You will stay with father and mother, even if they have only a crust for you."
"Yes, mother dear, I will stay with you," said the child in her sweet voice, leaning her head wearily upon her mother, who, sobbing, stroked the pale little cheeks. "Mother dear," she said, and there came the sweetest expression into her eyes, "do not cry so,--it does not hurt me much."
A dull cry of anguish broke from the mother"s breast, and she hid her face among the bedclothes. "My child! my child! complain,--only be naughty and fret,--your patience breaks my heart,--you seem already on the way to be a blessed angel."
Upon the other side of the bed, that stood with its head to the wall, were two silent figures, the father and the schoolmaster. The latter gazed down upon the child with hands clasped as if in prayer, while the father leaned against the wall, his face hidden in his hands. He looked up now, and said with emotion but with resignation, "Be quiet, wife, and let us bear it as well as we can. If we must lose the child, she is too good for us,--I almost believe so now."
"Father dear," said Kathchen, "if you talk so, I must cry, and then you will cry more."
Herr Leonhardt plucked the man by the sleeve, and whispered, "The child ought to be kept perfectly quiet. Rouse yourself, and send these women away."
"So I say," said Johannes, who had stood for a few minutes un.o.bserved upon the threshold of the door. "I pray you, good women, leave us to ourselves. So many people in this small room worry the child. Your friendly interest is very grateful; show it now by withdrawing."
The kindly neighbours willingly departed, he was such a handsome, pleasant gentleman who requested them to do so. The priest also look his leave; the schoolmaster only, at a sign from Johannes, remained.
Outside, there was no end to the questions and answers, as to how all was going on within, and how Kathchen, usually so nimble, could have got under the carriage-wheels. She was indeed a good little child, for it was at last ascertained that she had escaped herself and was perfectly safe, when she turned back to rescue a smaller child, a neighbour"s little boy, who was standing still in the middle of the road. The boy escaped, but his poor little preserver was thrown down by the horses, and so severely injured.
"She is a dear pet--Kathchen," the men declared; and the women cried, "Oh, if you could see her now lying there in bed, you would believe that she was half in heaven already."
She was indeed in heaven, as is every true, pure child; for there is a heaven so close to the earth that only little children can walk beneath its canopy. We have grown up away from it; its glories are veiled from our eyes; it lies below us, like golden clouds around a mountain upon whose summit we are standing.
"Well, Kathchen, how are you now?" asked Johannes, stepping up to the bedside.
"Very well, thank you," said Kathchen dutifully, as she had been taught to reply.
There was something exquisitely touching in the half-unconscious self-control of the child. Johannes was moved by it. He stooped down and kissed the pretty lips.