Debit and Credit Part 28

Her hands convulsively grasped the back of the chair next to her, and, supporting herself by it, she stood with bloodless cheeks, looking at her suitor through her tears with eyes so full of grief and tenderness that the wild-hearted man before her was thoroughly overcome, and lost all self-confidence--nay, forgot his own cause in his distress at her emotion, and his anxiety to soothe it.

"I grieve that I should thus have shocked you," said he; "forgive me, Sabine."

"Go! go!" implored Sabine, still standing as before.

"Let me not part from you without some comfort; give me an answer; the most painful were better than this silence."

"Then hear me," said Sabine, with unnatural calmness, while her breast heaved and her hands trembled; "I loved you from the first day of your arrival; like a childish girl, I listened with rapture to the tone of your voice, and was fascinated by all your lips uttered; but I have conquered the feeling. I have conquered it," she repeated. "I dare not be yours, for I should be miserable."

"But why--why?" inquired Fink, in genuine despair.

"Do not ask me," said Sabine, scarce audibly.

"I must hear my sentence from your own lips," cried Fink.

"You have played with your own life and with the life of others; you would always be unsparing in carrying out your plans; you would undertake what was great and n.o.ble--that I believe--but you would not shrink from the sacrifice of individuals. I can not bear such a spirit.

You would be kind to me--that, too, I believe; you would make as many allowances for me as you could, but you would always have to make them: that would become burdensome to you, and I should be alone--alone in a foreign land. I am weak, spoiled, bound by a hundred ties to the customs of this house, to the little domestic duties of every day, and to my brother's life."

Fink looked down darkly. "You are punis.h.i.+ng severely in this hour all that you have disapproved in me hitherto."

"No," cried Sabine, holding out her hand, "not so, my friend. If there have been hours in which you have pained me, there have been others in which I have looked up to you in admiration; and this is the very reason that keeps us apart forever. I can never be at rest near you; I am constantly tossed from one extreme of feeling to another; I am not sure of you, nor ever should be. I should have to conceal this inward conflict in a relation where my whole nature ought to be open to you, and you would find that out, and would be angry with me."

She gave him her hand. Fink bent low over the little hand, and pressed a kiss upon it.

"Blessings on your future!" said Sabine, trembling all over. "If ever you have spent a happy hour among us, oh! think of it when far away. If ever in the German merchant's house, in the career of my brother, you have found any thing to respect, think, oh! think of it in that far country. In the different life that awaits you, in the great enterprises, the wild struggles that you will engage in, never think slightly of us and of our quiet ways;" and she held her left hand over his head, like an anxious mother blessing her parting darling.

Fink pressed her right hand firmly in his own; both looked long into each other's eyes, and both faces were pale. At last Fink said, in his deep, melodious voice, "Fare you well!"

"Fare you well!" replied she, so low that he hardly caught the words. He walked slowly away, while she looked after him motionless, as one who watches the vanis.h.i.+ng of an apparition.

When the merchant, after the close of his day's work, went into his sister's room, Sabine flew to meet him, and, clasping him in her arms, laid her head on his breast.

"What is it, my child?" inquired he, anxiously stroking back her hair from her damp brow.

"Fink has been with me; I have been speaking with him."

"About what? Has he been disagreeable? Has he made you an offer?" asked the merchant, in jest.

"He has made me an offer," said Sabine.

Her brother started: "And you, my sister?"

"I have done what you might expect me to do--I shall not see him again."

Tears started at the words; she took her brother's hand and kissed it.

"Do not be angry with me for weeping. I am still a little shaken: it will soon pa.s.s."

"My precious sister--dear, dear Sabine!" cried the merchant; "I can not but fear that you thought of me when you refused."

"I thought of you and of your self-sacrificing, duty-loving life, and his bright form lost the fair colors in which I had once seen it clothed."

"Sabine, you have made a sacrifice for my sake," cried her brother.

"No, Traugott; if this has been a sacrifice, I have made it to the home where I have grown up under your care, and to the memory of our good parents, whose blessing rests on our quiet life."

It was late when Fink re-entered Anton's room; he looked heated, threw his hat on the table, himself on the sofa, and said to his friend,

"Before any thing else, give me a cigar."

Anton shook his head as he reached him a bundle, and asked, "How have you fared?"

"No wedding to be," coolly returned Fink. "She plainly showed me that I was a good for nothing sort of fellow, and no match for a sensible girl.

She took the matter rather too seriously, a.s.sured me of her regard, gave me a sketch of my character, and dismissed me. But, hang me!" cried he, springing up, and throwing away his cigar, "if she be not the best soul that ever preached virtue in a petticoat. She has only one fault, that of not choosing to marry me; and even there she is right."

Fink's strange bearing made Anton feel anxious.

"Why have you been so long away, and where have you been?" said he.

"Not to the wine-shop, as your wisdom seems to surmise. If a man be refused, he has surely a good right to be melancholy for a couple of hours or so. I have done what any one would in such desperate circ.u.mstances. I have walked about and philosophized. I have quarreled with the world--that is to say, with the black-haired and myself--and then ended by standing still before a lamp-lit stall, and buying three oranges." So saying, he drew them out of his pocket. "And now, my son, the past is over and gone; let us speak of the future: this is the last evening that we shall spend together; let no cloud hang over our spirits. Make me a gla.s.s of punch, and squeeze these fat fellows in.

Orange-punch-making is one of the accomplishments you owe to me. I taught it you, and now the rogue makes it better than I do. Come and sit down beside me."

The next morning old Sturm himself came to carry off the luggage. Fink took Anton's hand, and said, "Before I go through my leave-taking of all the others, I repeat to you what I said in our early days. Go on with your English, that you may come after me. And be I where I may, in log hut or cabin, I shall always have a room ready for you. As soon as you are tired of this Old World, come to me. Meanwhile, I make you my heir; you will take possession of my rooms. For the rest, be perfectly sure that I have done with all bad ways. And now--no emotion, my boy!--there are no great distances nowadays on our little earth." He tore himself away, hurried into the counting-house, returned, bowed to the ladies at the window, clasped his friend once more to his heart, leaped into the carriage, and away--away to the New World.

Meanwhile Anton mournfully returned to the office, and wrote a letter to Herr Stephan in Wolfsburg, inclosing that worthy man a new price current and several samples of sugar.

CHAPTER XIX.

A bad year came upon the country. A sudden rumor of war alarmed the German borderers in the east, and our province among the rest. The fearful consequences of a national panic were soon perceptible. Trade stood still; the price of goods fell. Every one was anxious to realize and withdraw from business, and large sums embarked in mercantile speculations became endangered. No one had heart for new ventures.

Hundreds of ties, woven out of mutual interest, and having endured for years, were snapped at once. Each individual existence became more insecure, isolated, and poor. On all sides were anxious faces and furrowed brows. The country was out of health; money, the vital blood of business, circulated slowly from one part of the great body to the other--the rich fearing to lose, the poor becoming unable to win. The future was overcast all at once, like the summer sky by a heavy storm.

That word of terror, "Revolution in Poland!" was not without serious effects in Germany. The people on the other side of the frontier, excited by old memories and by their landed proprietors, rose, and, led by fanatical preachers, marched up and down the frontier, falling upon travelers and merchandise, plundering and burning small towns and n.o.blemen's seats, and aiming at a military organization under the command of their favorite leaders. Arms were forged, old fowling-pieces produced from many a hiding-place; and, finally, the insurgents took and occupied a large Polish town not far from the frontier, and proclaimed their independent national existence. Troops were then a.s.sembled in all haste by government, and sent to invest the frontier. Trains filled with soldiers were incessantly running up and down the newly-constructed railway. The streets of the capital were filled with uniforms, and the drum every where heard. The army, of course, was all at once in the ascendant. The officers ran here and there, full of business, buying maps, and drinking toasts in all sorts of wines. The soldiers wrote home to get money if possible, and to send more or less loving greetings to their sweethearts. Numberless young clerks grew pale; numberless mothers knit strong stockings through their tears, and providently made lint for their poor sons; numberless fathers spoke with an unsteady voice of the duty of fighting for king and country, and braced themselves up by remembering the damage they had in their day done to that wicked Napoleon.

It was on a sunny autumn morning that the first positive intelligence of the Polish insurrection reached the capital. Dark rumors had indeed excited the inhabitants on the previous evening, and crowds of anxious men of business and scared idlers were crowding the railway terminus. No sooner was the office of T. O. Schroter open, than in rushed Mr. Braun, the agent, and breathlessly related (not without a certain inward complacency, such as the possessor of the least agreeable news invariably betrays) that the whole of Poland and Galicia, as well as several border provinces, were in open insurrection, numerous quiet commercial travelers and peaceable officials surprised and murdered, and numerous towns set fire to.

This intelligence threw Anton into the greatest consternation, and with good cause. A short time before, an enterprising Galician merchant had undertaken to dispatch an unusually large order to the firm; and, as is the custom of the country, he had already received the largest part of the sum due to him for it (nearly twenty thousand dollars) in other goods. The wagons that were to bring the merchandise must now, Anton reckoned, be just in the heart of the disturbed district. Moreover, another caravan, laden with colonial produce, and on its way to Galicia, must be on the very confines of the enemy's land. And, what was still worse, a large portion of the business of the house, and of the credit granted it, was carried on in, and depended upon, this very part of the country. Much--nay, every thing, he apprehended, would be endangered by this war. So he rushed up to his princ.i.p.al, met him coming down, and hastily related the news just heard; while Mr. Braun hurried to deliver a second edition in the office, with as many further particulars as were compatible with his love of truth.

The princ.i.p.al remained for a moment silent where he stood, and Anton, who was watching him anxiously, fancied that he looked a shade paler than usual; but that must have been a mistake, for the next moment, directing his attention to the porters beyond, he called out, in the cool, business-like tone which had so often impressed Anton with respect, "Sturm, be good enough to remove that barrel: it's in the very middle of the way; and bestir yourselves, all of you; the carrier will set out in an hour." To which Sturm, with a sorrowful look upon his broad face, replied, "The drums are beating, and our men marching off.

My Karl is there as a hussar, with gay lace on his little coat. It is unlucky, indeed. Alas for our wares, Mr. Schroter!"

"Make the more haste on that account," replied the princ.i.p.al, smiling.

"Our wagons are going to the frontier too, laden with sugar and rum; our soldiers will be glad of a gla.s.s of punch in the cold weather." Then turning to Anton, he said, "These tidings are not satisfactory, but we must not believe all we hear." And then, going into his office, he spoke rather more cheerfully than usual to Mr. Braun; and, having quietly heard his whole story, made a few comforting observations as to the probability of the wagons not having yet reached the frontier.

And so the great subject of interest was laid aside for the day, and office-work went on as usual. Mr. Liebold wrote down large sums in his ledger; Mr. Purzel piled dollar on dollar; and Mr. Pix wielded the black brush and governed the servants with his wonted decision. At dinner the conversation was as calm and cheerful as ever; and after it, the princ.i.p.al went out walking with his sister and a few ladies of his acquaintance, while all business men who met him exclaimed in amazement, "He goes out walking to-day! As usual, he has known it all before the rest of us. He has a good head of his own. The house is a solid house.