Seldwyla Folks Part 6

She instantly made a full confession, being more dead than alive from terror, and Schafuerli and his boon companions were liberated. And then the Ruechensteiners made the formal demand to have the girl delivered up to them for adequate atonement, since she had injured a number of their townsfolk and caused the death of one of them. This, however, was not conceded to them, and then the Ruechensteiners departed in an angry mood, threatening dire reprisals. The body of the burgomaster's son they took along. But when later on they heard that the Seldwyla authorities had sentenced the girl but to a twelvemonth's mild incarceration, the ancient enmity which had slept for a number of years now reawakened, and it became a perilous adventure for any Seldwylian to be caught on Ruechenstein soil.

Now the town of Seldwyla counted as a fit penalty for misdeeds which according to their notions were reckoned among the lighter ones and which consequently required no severe treatment, not imprisonment proper but rather the awarding of the culprits to persons that became responsible for their further conduct. In the custody of such persons the culprits remained during the length of the sentence, and these custodians were held to employ them suitably and to feed and shelter them adequately. This mode of punishment was used most often with women or youthful persons. Thus, then, Kuengolt, too, was taken to one of the chambers of the town hall, and there she was to be auctioned off, at least her services and keep. And before that ceremony she had to submit to being publicly exhibited there.

The forester, whose sunny humor had altogether disappeared with these trials, said sighing to Dietegen that it was a hard thing for him to go to the town hall and watch there in behalf of his daughter, but somebody surely must be there of her family during these bitter hours.

Then Dietegen said: "I will go in your stead; that is, if I am good enough for it in your opinion."

His patron shook hands with him. "Yes, do it!" he said, "and I will thank you for it."

So Dietegen went where some of the councilmen were seated and a few persons willing to take charge of the prisoner. He had girded his sword around his loins, and had a manly and rugged air about him.

And when Kuengolt was led inside, white as chalk and deeply chagrined, and was to stand in front of the table, he swiftly pulled up a chair and made her sit down in it, he placing himself behind and putting his hand on the back of it. She had looked up at him surprised, and now sent him a glance fraught with a painful smile. But he apparently paid no heed looking straight on over her head, severe of mien.

The first who made a bid for her custody was the town piper, a drunkard, who had been sent by his poor wife in order to help increase their receipts a bit. This, she calculated, was all the more to be expected because Kuengolt would probably receive from her home all sorts of good things to eat, and these, she considered, they would secure wholly or in part.

"Do you want to go to the town piper's house?" Dietegen curtly asked the girl. After attentively regarding the red-nosed and half-drunken fellow, she said: "No." And the piper, with a blissful smile, remarked laughing: "Good, that suits me too," and toddled off on shaking legs.

Next an old furrier and capmaker made a bid, since he thought he could utilize Kuengolt very handily in sewing and making a goodly profit out of her services. But this man had a large sore on his thigh, and this he was greasing and plastering with salve all day long, and also a growth the size of a chicken's egg on the top of his pate, so that Kuengolt had already been afraid of him when she pa.s.sed his shop as a child going to school. When, therefore, Dietegen put the query to her whether she was willing to go to his house, and the girl decidedly negatived that, the man went off loudly venting his spleen. He grumbled and growled like a bear whose honeycomb has been s.n.a.t.c.hed away.

Now a money changer stepped up, one who was notorious both for his greed and usurious avarice and for his lewdness. But scarcely had that one leveled his red eyes upon her, and opened his wry mouth for a bid, when Dietegen motioned him off with a threatening gesture, even without asking the terrified girl herself.

And now there were left but a few more, decent and respectable citizens, people against whom nothing could be urged reasonably, and it was these between whom the final choice and decision lay. The smallest bid was made by the gravedigger of the cemetery next the town cathedral, a quiet and good man, who also possessed an excellent wife and, so he thought, a suitable place where to keep such a prisoner in safe custody, and who certainly had already had charge of several other prisoners before.

To this man, then, Kuengolt was given in charge, and was taken at once to his house which was situated between the cemetery and a side street.

Dietegen went along in order to see how she would be housed. It turned out that her quarters would be an open, small antechamber of the house itself, immediately adjoining the graveyard and only separated from it by an iron fence. There, as it seemed, the s.e.xton was in the habit of keeping his prisoners during the warm season of the year, while for the winter he simply admitted them into his own dwelling room, a slender chain fastening them to the tile stove.

But when Kuengolt found herself in her prison and was separated merely by a fence from the graves of the dead, moreover saw near by the old deadhouse filled with skulls and bones, she began to tremble and begged they would not leave her there all through the night. But the s.e.xton's wife who was just dragging in a straw mattress and a blanket, and also hid the sight of the graves by suspending a curtain, answered that this request could not be listened to, and that her new abode would be wholesome for her moral welfare and as a means of repenting her sins.

And she could not be shaken in this resolve.

But Dietegen replied: "Be quiet, Kuengolt, for I am not afraid of the dead or of any spook, and I will come here every night and keep watch in front of the iron fence until you, too, will no longer fear."

He said this, however, in an aside to her, so that the woman could not overhear it, and then he left for home. There he found the saddened forester who had just reached an understanding with Violande that they would not celebrate their wedding until after Kuengolt's release from prison and after the scandal created by the occurrence should have had time to blow over. During all their discussion of the matter Violande kept still as a mouse, glad that she as the prime author of the whole mischief should have escaped all the consequences, for the magical philtre had been hers, as we know.

When the early hours of evening were over and midnight approaching, Dietegen began to make good his promise. He started un.o.bserved, took his sword and a flask of choice wine along, and climbed from the high slope down into the valley and so to town, and there he swung himself fearlessly over the graveyard wall, strode across the graves themselves, and at last stood in front of Kuengolt's new abode. She sat breathlessly and shaking with fright upon her straw mattress, behind the curtain, and listened with freezing blood to every noise, even the slightest, that struck her ear. For even before this ghostly hour of twelve she had undergone several convulsions of dread and unreasoning fear. In the deadhouse, for instance, a cat had slyly climbed over the bones, and these had clattered somewhat. Then also the night wind had moved the bushes growing over the tombs, so that they made a weird noise, and the iron rooster that served as a weather vane on top of the church roof had creaked mysteriously, making an awful sound never heard in daytime. So that the girl was in a frenzy of terror.

When she therefore heard the steps nearing more and more, Kuengolt had a new fit of fright, and shook like a leaf. But when he stretched his hands through the iron bars of the fence and pushed back the curtain, so that the full moon lit up the whole dark s.p.a.ce around her, and in a low voice called her name, she rose quickly, ran in his direction and stretched out both hands to him.

"Dietegen!" she exclaimed, and burst into tears, the first she had been able to shed since that ominous day; for until that hour she had lived as though smitten with paralysis, dazed and benumbed.

Dietegen, however, did not take her hand, but instead handed her the flask of wine, saying: "Here, take a mouthful! It will do you good."

So she drank, and also ate of the dainty wheaten bread of her father's house that he had brought along. And by and by her courage was restored, and when she clearly perceived that he had no mind to converse any more with her, she retired silently to her couch and cried without a stop, till at last she sank into a quiet sleep.

But he, the young man, in his narrow youthful ideas and in his inexperience of real life had made up his mind that she was a being turned completely to wickedness and evil, and one that was unable to do right. And he served as her sentinel during this and other nights, seating himself upon an ancient gravestone leaning against the wall solely out of regard for her departed mother and because she had saved his own life.

Kuengolt slept until sunrise, and when she awoke and looked about she observed that Dietegen had softly stolen away.

Thus one night after another pa.s.sed, and he faithfully watched and guarded her, for he indeed held the belief that the place was not without danger for anyone without a good conscience and shaken with fear. But each time he brought her something of a relish along, and often he would ask her what she desired for herself, and he would carry out her wishes if at all justifiable.

He also came when it rained or stormed, missing not a single night, and on those nights when, according to the popular superst.i.tions then universally held, the dead walked and which were considered particularly perilous to the living, he came all the more promptly.

Kuengolt on her part by and by managed to arrange things so that during the daytime she had her curtain drawn, in order, as she said, to conceal herself from the curious who went to the cemetery to spy on her, but in reality to sleep, for she preferred to remain awake at night, to keep her faithful sentinel in view all the time, and to ponder the things that had brought her there, and how he had conducted himself towards her these last few years. But Dietegen knew nothing of all this, believing her to be sound asleep.

She felt herself engrossed with a new and unexpected happiness, and while he diligently kept watch over her during the hours of darkness, she enjoyed his mere presence, and all her thinking was of him. She had no slightest suspicion that he judged her so harshly, and was living in hopes that she could reestablish her claim on him, seeing that he proved so faithful to her. Her father, however, did not share her dreams. He visited her at least once every week, and when she on these occasions nearly always shyly mentioned Dietegen's name, and he marked that she indeed had again turned to him in her thoughts, he would sigh and groan in spirit, because while also wis.h.i.+ng for a union of those two, and feeling convinced that his fine foster son alone was able to again rehabilitate his daughter, it appeared highly improbable to him that Dietegen would wish to woo a witch that had been punished for her uncanny doings by his fellow citizens, and as it seemed to him, justly.

In the meantime another caller had put in an appearance with Kuengolt, no less a person than the secretary of the council of Ruechenstein himself.

This highly enterprising and venturesome hunchback was unable to forget the beautiful being on whose account he had committed murder. The blood coursed through his veins more rapidly than in those of a normally shaped fellow, and waking or sleeping her image did not lose its hold on him. His belief was that the image of this witch dwelt in his heart by virtue of her black art, and that it was shooting along within his blood vessels as does a frail boat in a powerful storm, all in a magical way.

The more he reflected the more convinced he became of this, and since he had daring enough and to spare, he finally made up his mind to seek alleviation of his tortures from the primal source, the witch herself.

At the Capuchin monastery, where he had first gone for a ghostly cure, he had failed, and thus one moonless, dark night he started out, across the mountain and as far as the cemetery where he knew her to be kept a captive.

Kuengolt heard his approaching steps. Since it was not yet the hour when Dietegen used to come, and also because these steps did not seem to be his, she took fright and hid behind the curtain. But Schafuerli now lighted a candle he had brought along, and thrust his hand with it through the aperture, searching the dark s.p.a.ce with his eager eyes until he had finally discovered her crouched in a corner.

"Come here, witch maid," he muttered excitedly, "and give me both thine hands and that scarlet mouth of thine. For thou must quench the fire thou hast caused."

The girl was frightened beyond words. By his crooked shape she had recognized him in the dusky half-light, and the recollection of the sufferings this misshapen recreant had occasioned her, together with the repugnant presence of the man himself, drove her almost to madness.

Powerless to utter a sound, she sank down trembling in every limb.

Seeing this, the bold knave began to shake the iron bars of her grate, and since it was by no means very strong but rather intended only for the keeping of less vigorous prisoners, it began to yield, and he was about to tear it out of its staples. But just that instant Dietegen arrived on the scene. To notice the whole proceeding and to seize the madman firmly by the shoulder was the work of a flash. The enraged scribe yelled like one possessed, and was for drawing his poniard. But Dietegen kept an iron hold on him, grasping his hands and wrestling with him until the humpback owned himself beaten. Then Dietegen was uncertain whether to hand the maddened creature over to the authorities or to let him go. Not knowing the circ.u.mstances of the case and unwilling to cause new complications for Kuengolt, he finally allowed the scribe to escape, warning him, however, on pain of death, not to return again to the place. Next Dietegen woke the s.e.xton and induced him, since autumn with its cool nights was approaching, to afford shelter to his prisoner henceforth within his own dwelling, in order to avert repet.i.tion of a scene like the one of that night.

Therefore Kuengolt that very night was taken inside, and secured by a light chain to the foot of the stove. The latter was a trim structure built of green tiling and showing in raised outlines the biblical story of the creation of man and his fall from grace. At the four corners of this stove there stood the four greater prophets upon twisted pillars, and the whole of it formed a somewhat attractive monument. Against it and tied to it by her gyves Kuengolt now lay stretched out on a bench for her couch.

She was glad of having obtained a more sheltered spot, and more still of having been rescued out of the hands of this evil hunchback, and she ascribed the whole of Dietegen's efforts to his devoted feelings for her, and this despite the fact that he had not spoken a syllable to her through it all and had gone away immediately after the new arrangements had been effected.

When, however, Kuengolt had thus been installed in a more convenient place, a new admirer of her charms turned up in the person of a chaplain whose duties obliged him to attend to a number of small matters in the church building close by, and to whose obligations it also belonged to offer ghostly counsel and consolation to the sick or imprisoned. This young priest came, once Kuengolt was an inmate of the gravedigger's household, more and more frequently, not only to exorcise her and to expel from her soul all inclination towards magic, sorcery and witchcraft, but also to enjoy incidentally her rare feminine charms and beauty. He strenuously endeavored to dissuade her from using any more love philtres and similar means forbidden by the canons of the Church, but in doing so became thoroughly imbued with her physical attractions.

For of late, that is, since these trials had overtaken her, the maiden had wonderfully grown in beauty. She had become a more mature, slender and spiritualized being, albeit pallor had succeeded her former healthy complexion, and her eyes now shone with a gentle and lovely fire, encircled with a shadow of sadness.

Save for her being tied to the foot of the warm stove, she was being treated in every respect like a member of the s.e.xton's family, among the members of which there were several children, and when the chaplain came to visit her, he was usually regaled with a tankard of ale or a flask of drinkable wine, these being supplied by the forester, Kuengolt's father. But whenever the reverend divine had sufficiently indulged in his admonishments, had partaken of the refreshment provided for him, and still remained behind, evidently to enjoy the society of the charming penitent, there would be some queer goings-on. For the chaplain would squeeze and caress the pretty hand of his spiritual daughter, would sigh and groan audibly, and then Kuengolt, comparing this sniffling priest in her thoughts with the stately and handsome Dietegen whom she considered in truth her lover, was p.r.o.ne to scoff at the inconspicuous Levite, but in a good-natured and gentle manner.

In this way it came about that Kuengolt, after displaying all day long her cheerful and somewhat sportive disposition, would be the declared favorite of the s.e.xton's household in the evening, the big family table invariably being pushed over towards her where she perforce sat tied to the stove. So also it was on New Year's Eve, and the young priest was one of the company, so that the s.e.xton, his wife and children, together with the chaplain, were seated near the prisoned girl, all of them munching walnuts and sweet honey cakes, and Kuengolt having just laughed at something the priest had said, the latter meanwhile holding her hand, when Dietegen entered the room. He brought for his patron's daughter and his own whilom playmate some dainties from home. In coming he had yielded to the instinctive promptings of his heart, a mingling of pity, sympathy and affection, an unconscious longing for her company, and the desire had been strong within him to spend at least an hour that evening with her, this being the first time in her young life she had to pa.s.s away from home on a night like that.

But when he saw the merry scene and caught sight of the chaplain's caressing hand, his blood seemed to freeze within him, and he left her after just a couple of words in explanation of his mission, without any more ado. In going, perhaps unconsciously, Dietegen muttered as though to himself: "Forgotten is forgotten!"

Only now Kuengolt suddenly felt the full force and meaning of these words and of his previous devotion, and her heart seemed to stand still. Pale and faint she sank down on her bench at the stove, and the jolly gathering broke up. Even before the midnight bells tolled out the new year the light in the s.e.xton's window was gone, and the girl was weeping bitter tears of sorrow.

From that night on she remained almost forgotten by the forester and his household. Great days were on the way. The Swiss federation was humming like a beehive with war's alarum. Those events were in the making which in history are known as the Burgundian War.

When spring had come and the great day of Grandison approached, the town of Seldwyla, too, like Ruechenstein and many others, sent her embattled citizens into the field, and it was for the forester as well as for Dietegen a happy release to be able to leave the disturbed harmony and comfort of the house and to step into the clear, rugged atmosphere of war.

With firm tread they both went along with their banner, though perhaps more silent than most, and joined with the other hurrying detachments the mighty battle array of the federated Swiss allies, coming most opportunely to the armed aid of the latter.

Like unto an iron garden stood the long square of the fighting men, and in its midst waved the standards and pennons of the cantons and towns there represented. In serried ranks they stood, many thousands of them, each in his independence and reliability again a world in himself; in fearlessness and will each could depend on his neighbor, and yet all of them together, after all, but a throng of fallible human beings.

There was the spendthrift and the light-hearted side by side with the curmudgeon and the cautious, each awaiting the hour of supreme sacrifice. The quarrelsome and the peaceable had to stay on with equal patience. He whose heart was heavy within his bosom was no more taciturn than the talkative and the braggart. The poor and indigent stood in equal pride next to the wealthy and domineering. Whole squares made up of neighbors ordinarily disagreeing were here one single unit.

And envy or jealousy held spear or halberd as manfully and firmly as did generosity or reconciliation, and unjust as just aimed for the nonce both of them to fulfil the duty immediately urgent. Whoever had done with life and meant to sacrifice without regrets the mean remnant of it, was no more or less than the reckless red-cheeked youth upon whom his mother had built all her hope and in whom rested the future.

The morose submitted without protest to the silly sallies of the jester or buffoon, and the latter on his part saw without ridicule the prosaic conceits of the small-souled philistine.