Renunciation for the sins of the fathers must ever be his lot. And did not the foul act that had laid waste his property deserve retributive justice? He would be a deserter and renegade, indeed, were he now to turn his back on his native place, and on the beloved, who, though she seemed lost to him eternally, might still be cherishing timid hopes of meeting him once more. No! for the future his flag should wave over the ruins of Schranden Castle, with the single word "Revenge" blazoned on it in fiery characters. And who but a cowardly cur would leave his flag in the lurch?
He stepped nearer the mayor, and with a threatening glance that seemed to penetrate him through and through, almost roared in his ear--
"Who set fire to the Castle?"
Herr Merckel winced as if his conscience p.r.i.c.ked him. Every Schrandener did the same when any question arose as to who it was had perpetrated the crime. Every Schrandener except one, and he was the criminal himself.
Herr Merckel was gathering up his strength for a glib answer when the suppressed murmur in the tap-room gave place to a sound which had a louder and more riotous note in it.
The landlord made a movement in the direction of the door, to bolt it on coming events, but before he could take the precaution it was stormed and burst open. A troop of wild-looking creatures led the a.s.sault, at the head of whom was a man of puny stature, in rags and tatters, with straight, black hair hanging in oiled ringlets to his shoulders, a grey, stubbly beard, and a pair of gla.s.sy, besotted eyes that rolled under red, lashless lids. He beat the air with his fists and cried--
"Where is the fellow--the brute? Let me catch the brute and I"ll strangle him!"
Then he beheld Boleslav"s tall, resolute form, and swallowed his words with a gurgling hiss. Behind him was a phalanx of angry, heated, inquisitive faces all turned on Boleslav as on a recently captured beast of prey.
"Every man"s hand is against me!" he thought, and his blood rose.
"Are you the carpenter Hackelberg?" he asked, holding the drunkard in thrall with his searching glance.
He was a.s.sociated with one of the dark memories of his childhood. Once his pitiable howls had frightened him out of his quiet, boyish slumbers, and on looking from his window he had seen him being whipped round the courtyard for poaching. Now he stood shaking his fists, grunting and spluttering with rage.
"You supply the village with coffins, I understand?"
The carpenter shook his head, stared vacantly in front of him, and then answered in a sepulchral voice--
"I am at work on only two coffins--one for myself, and one for my poor erring daughter."
The Schrandeners laughed in their sleeve. This formula was so familiar.
When any one died in the village the carpenter had to be fetched by force, locked up with a bottle of brandy and the necessary boards, and not let out till the coffin was finished. Taken all in all, this Hackelberg was a dangerous fellow, and no one knew it better than the Schrandeners, who never let him out of their sight for long. He was watched and shadowed, and many an arm was ready to strike him down when the right moment should offer itself.
Nevertheless they courted his society in the tavern, made him drunk, and humoured him. Sometimes they hung on his lips, at others, stopped his mouth. Either they put him under lock and key, or allowed him to bully them. It was as if they had endowed their own bad conscience with flesh and blood, and allowed it to run wild amongst them in the shape of this unkempt, half-crazed sot.
"Who else makes coffins in the village besides you?" Boleslav asked again.
The Schrandeners burst into jeering laughter. They knew how difficult he would find it to get any direct answer to his question.
"My poor, wretched child," he growled, fastening his gla.s.sy eyes on Herr Merckel"s amber heart, which appeared to possess a fascination for him. Then suddenly rousing himself once more from the half-stupor into which he had collapsed, he threatened Boleslav with his fists, and cried out excitedly--
"What do you want from me, _Herr_? A coffin? Is that what you want?
For whom do you want it? For the scamp, the dog, who betrayed his country--who seduced my child? Do you think I"d make a coffin for _him_? Look at me, _Herr_. Did you ever see such a spectacle?" He wrenched open his shirt, and exposed to view his s.h.a.ggy breast. "I"m a beauty--mere offal, that dogs would turn up their noses at. And whose fault is that, my dear young n.o.bleman? Why, the _Herr Baron"s_, your deceased father"s. He it was who reduced me to this, and made me an unhappy, forsaken, childless old man, such as you see." He wiped his eyes with the ragged sleeve of his corduroy jacket, while the Schrandeners applauded, and backed him up in his maudlin oration. "My child, my only child, was torn from my bosom. He robbed me of my child----"
"I believe you yourself sent her to the Castle," Boleslav interposed, without, however, making the least impression.
"He made my child a prost.i.tute, but what"s worse, young sir--what most lacerates my father"s heart--for though I"m a blackguard, I"m a patriot; for in Prussia even blackguards love their country--if there _are_ any blackguard Prussians ... but my child ... ah! do you know what he did with my child?... forced her with the lash to go out in the dark night and---- But since then do you think I"d own her? No ... she is my child no longer. I"ve cursed her--cast her off! I said to her, "You are my own flesh and blood no longer." That"s what I said, and----"
"But you took the wage of her sin all the same," Boleslav was on the point of interrupting, but recollected in time that in saying so he would be admitting his father"s guilt to this pack of wolves.
""And you are free," I said. "You may go where you like, and whoever you meet may kill you outright for all I care. Go to your _gnadigen Herrn_," I said, "and ask him to protect you." I said----"
At this juncture the shouts of the other Schrandeners became so much louder that they drowned the carpenter"s speech. They closed round him, and he was lost in the crowd; only his rasping laugh was still audible.
"What did I prophesy, _Herr Baron_?" asked old Merckel, with his unctuous smile.
Boleslav leant against the end of the sofa, and regarded the crew of Schrandeners pressing ever nearer with clenched teeth and unflinching eye.
"If one strikes me," he thought to himself, "the rest will tear me to pieces."
He felt how imperative it was to remain calm.
"Come, you people," he said, making a pa.s.sage through their ranks with his hands, "let me pa.s.s."
And whether it was his commanding air of cool determination, or the cross which shone in his military cap, that awed the tumultuous throng, not one of them attempted to impede his progress. He pa.s.sed into the thick of the mob, expecting every moment to be struck a fatal blow from behind; but nothing of the sort happened--unchallenged he found himself in the open air. Felix Merckel had kept in the background.
The whole mob, now including women and children, surged after him down the road.
As he reached the parsonage garden, whose white walls blazed in the rays of the mid-day sun, he was aware of an aching sensation at his heart, that rose in a lump to his throat. His last hope rested in the hands of the old pastor. Would he too spurn him from his threshold? But at this moment that was not his only anxiety. How could he help feeling anxious as to what _her_ reception of him would be, she in whose power it was to exalt him from the mire of shame and misery into a world of peace and purity. If she saw him in his present condition, dirty and dishevelled, with this escort of hooting ruffians behind him, would she not recoil in horror?
And she did.
A terrified hand threw back the gla.s.s door of the veranda. It was she--it must be she! For a moment he saw the glimmer of a white, slender figure; saw her raise an arm, as if to wave off the approach of him and the mob: and then, before Boleslav could give one questioning, imploring look at the beloved features, she vanished with a faint cry of alarm.
There was a mist before his eyes. Half stunned, he went up the steps of the veranda, closed the door behind him, and awaited the next turn in the course of events.
The Schrandeners blockaded the veranda, and some flattened their noses against the gla.s.s in order to see better what pa.s.sed within. A pane fell out; one of them had pushed his neighbour through it, whereupon the revered voice of the old pastor was heard raised in remonstrance.
He appeared on the veranda flourishing a thick, notched walking-stick.
His white hair blew about his lofty temples. The nostrils of his hawk-like nose dilated furiously as if they snorted battle. Beneath the snow-white s.h.a.ggy projecting brows his eyes glowed like fiery torches.
Such was the venerable Pastor Gotz, who, in the March of the year 1813, had gone from house to house, holding the big cross from the altar in his hand, followed by a drummer, and had beaten up recruits for the holy war. And had he not been left fainting by the roadside on the march to Konigsberg, in all probability he would have accompanied his soldier-parishioners into the field of action.
The Schrandeners stood in no little dread of his discipline, and no sooner did they catch sight of his formidable stick than they retreated quickly from the windows, and tried to regain the garden gate.
"You h.e.l.l-hounds, craven sheep!" he shouted from the gla.s.s door. "Come to G.o.d"s house on Sunday and I"ll give you a dressing."
Then turning on Boleslav, he measured him from head to foot with a scowling glance. His eye rested on the military cap he held in his hand.
"You were in the campaign?" he asked.
"Yes."
"If it were not for the cross I see on the brim of your cap, I should ask was it for or against Prussia?"
Boleslav, whose thoughts had followed the fleeting vision of light he had seen on the veranda, at first did not understand him; then he met the insinuation with signs of pa.s.sionate resentment. But the old pastor was not the man to be easily intimidated, and while they both glowered at each other, he cried--
"Boleslav von Schranden, am I, or am I not, justified in cherishing such a suspicion?"
Then Boleslav"s eyes fell before the condemnation in those of his former master. He opened the door of his study, where between the book-shelves hung pipe-racks and fire-arms, and said--
"Out of respect for the cap I will not refuse you entrance here. But make what you have to say as brief as possible. In this house no Schranden is a welcome guest."