"Yes, and on each occasion he has had to listen to a paternal lecture in which his brother-in-law has been held up as a pattern and extolled to the skies. I declare it has needed all my predilection for the model to keep me from detesting you! In fact, the whole marriage project dates from that. In one of these judicial encounters, I made the mistake of saying "Arthur did much worse in his time; it is only since he has been married that he has become so remarkable for his excellence," and then it immediately occurred to my father to have me married too.
"Well, I don"t care! I have no objection to make to Alma, and besides I shall take example by you and Eugenie. You began your wedded life with the utmost indifference, if not with downright aversion, to one another, and you have ended by turning it into a perfect romance which has not spun itself out yet. Perhaps it will be the same with us."
A very sceptical smile played round Arthur"s lips.
"I doubt it, my dear Con; you hardly seem to me to be cut out for a romance, and remember, every woman is not a Eugenie."
The young Baron laughed out loud.
"I declare, I thought something of that sort would come out. Just the same tone in which Eugenie said to me this morning, when we were talking of this: "You cannot think of placing Arthur on a level with other men!" I must say you are stretching out your honeymoon to a good length."
"We had to do without it at first, and one is generally inclined to take double of a thing one has waited for. So you really cannot stay?"
"No, my leave is out this evening. I came over princ.i.p.ally to tell you my father and brothers would soon be here. Good-bye for the present, Arthur."
His horse having been brought round while they were talking, he swung himself into the saddle, waved an adieu to his brother-in-law and galloped off. Arthur was about to return to the house, when an old miner appeared on the terrace and took off his hat to the master.
"Ah, Manager Hartmann!" said Berkow in a friendly tone. "Were you coming to me?"
The Manager came up with a respectful, but at the same time confidential, manner.
"Yes, if you will excuse it, Herr Berkow. I was out there yonder giving the orders, and I saw you come out with the young Baron. I thought I should like to thank you at once for having appointed Lawrence to be Deputy. It has brought great gladness to our house."
"Lawrence has shown himself so clever and capable during the last few years, he deserved the post, and he may want it with his ever-increasing family."
"Well, he has enough for his wife and children, I take care of that,"
replied the Manager good-naturedly. "It was a right good thought of Martha"s to make it a condition that he should come and live in my house. I am not left quite alone in my old age so, and I can take some pleasure in their children. I have nothing else left me in all the world."
"Cannot you get over the old grief yet, Hartmann?"
The Manager shook his head.
"I cannot, Herr Berkow. He was my only son, and though he oftener gave me pain than joy, though at last he had got far beyond all control of mine with his wild ways, still I cannot forget my Ulric. Ah, well-a-day! why was an old man like me saved just for that? With him everything went down into the grave for me."
The old man wiped the bitter tears from his eyes as he took the hand Berkow held out to him in silent sympathy, and then went quietly away, Eugenie had been standing in the doorway during the last few minutes; she had paused there, not wishing to disturb the conversation. Now she came up to her husband.
"Cannot Hartmann feel resigned even yet?" she asked in a low voice. "I never thought he cared so deeply, so pa.s.sionately, for his son."
"I can understand it," he said gravely, "as I could understand formerly the blind attachment of his comrades. There was something about that man which exercised a most powerful influence on all around him. If I felt this, I who was fighting for my life against him, how much more they for whom he fought! What might that Ulric not have achieved for him and his, if he had had a truer notion of the task before him, and had taken it up in another spirit than that of hatred, bent only on overturning all existing things."
His wife looked up at him half reproachfully.
"He showed us that he was capable of something better than hate. He was your enemy, but when it came to be a question of saving one of you, he s.n.a.t.c.hed you from the danger and freely encountered death himself."
At the remembrance of that time a shade fell on Arthur"s face.
"I, of all men, have least the right to bring accusations against him, and I never have done so since his hand rescued me from destruction.
But believe me, Eugenie, a complete reconciliation would never have been possible with such a nature as his. He would always have been an element of danger, disturbing the peace between me and the people, and striving with me for the dominion over them. Things had gone so far, he could not have been allowed to go quite unpunished. If I had not accused and pa.s.sed judgment on him, others would have done so. All that has been spared both him and us."
Eugenie leaned her head on her husband"s shoulder. It was the same fair beautiful head, with the dark, dark eyes, but her face was fresher and rosier than of old. The former paleness and marble stillness had given way to that expression which happiness alone can bring.
"That was a bad time, Arthur, which came after the catastrophe," said she with a slight tremor in her voice. "You had hard work to fight through, so hard that at times my courage nearly failed me when I saw the cloud growing darker and darker on your brow, your eyes more and more troubled, and I could do nothing but just stay at your side!"
He bent over her with infinite tenderness.
"And was not that enough? in that long struggle I learned all the power of those two words which brace a man to exertion and make it sweet. I used to repeat them whenever the waves threatened to close over me, and they helped me to success at last: my wife and my child."
The sun stood high in the heavens, shining down brightly from the clear summer sky and pouring its rays on the chateau with its gardens and flowery terraces; on the works out yonder, teeming with life and manifold movement, which made it seem not a small thing to be ruler over such a world; on the mountains ranged around, forest-crowns on their lofty heads, and within, hiding far below in their depths, a mysterious busy kingdom of their own. This sombre region, which the great rocky arms would fain have shut for ever from mortal eye, has yielded to the might of man"s mighty intellect, and opened to admit those forces which press ever onwards, pioneering their way despite of clefts and precipices. So the earth has been robbed of the treasures she held imprisoned in endless night, and they are borne up to the light of day, freed by the magic of human skill and industry.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 1: The expression used in the original has no equivalent in English. "Gluck auf!" the traditional greeting among miners, conveys to the person addressed a wish not only for his luck, but for his safety.
It forms the t.i.tle of the German story.]
THE END.