Debit and Credit Part 66

Next came tidings from Rosmin. The locksmith appeared, after being repeatedly sent for, to strengthen bolts and bars. He brought with him military greetings from the militia, and the fact that a company of infantry had entered the town. "But there are but few of them," said he, "and we militiamen have severe duty."

"And what have you done with your prisoners?" inquired Anton.

The locksmith scratched his ear and twitched his cap as he answered in a crestfallen tone: "So you have not yet heard? The very first night came a message from the enemy to the effect that if we did not give up the n.o.bleman at once, they would march upon us with their whole force and set fire to our barns. I opposed the measure, and so did our captain; but every one who had a barn raised an outcry, and the end of it was that the town had to come to terms with Von Tarow. He gave his word that he and his would undertake nothing further against us, and then we took him over the bridge and let him go."

"So he is free, false man that he is!" cried Anton, in indignation.

"Yes, indeed," said the locksmith; "he is on his estate again, and has a number of young gentlemen about him. They ride with their c.o.c.kades over the fields just as they did before. Tarowski is a cunning man, who can open every castle door with a stroke of a pen, and get on with every one. There's no reaching him."

Of course, farming suffered from these warlike preparations. Anton insisted, indeed, upon what was absolutely necessary being done, but he felt that a time was come when anxiety about individual profit and loss vanished before graver terrors. The rumors, which grew daily more threatening, kept him, and those around him, in ever-increasing excitement; and at last they fell into a habitual state of feverish suspense, in which the future was looked forward to with reckless indifference, and the discomforts of the present endured as matter of course.

But more strongly than on any of the men around did this general fever seize upon Lenore. Since the day that she had waited for the absent Anton, she had seemed to begin a new life. Her mother mourned and despaired, but the daughter's young heart beat high against the storm, and the excitement was to her a wild enjoyment, to which she gave herself up, heart and soul. She was out of doors the whole day long, whatever the weather, and at the tavern door as often as the worst drunkard in the village, for each day the landlord and his wife had something new to tell her. Ever since Karl had mounted his hussar coat, she treated him with the familiarity of a comrade, and when he held a consultation with the forester, her fair head was put together with theirs. The three spent many an hour in council of war in Karl's room or in the farm-yard, the men listening with reverence to her courageous suggestions, and requesting her opinion as to whether Ignatz, Gottlieb, or Blasius from the village deserved to be trusted with a gun. It was in vain that the baroness remonstrated with her martial daughter; in vain that Anton tried to check her ardor; for, the greater his own, the more the mood displeased him in the young lady. Again, she struck him as too vehement and bold; nor did he disguise his views. Upon that she subsided a little, and tried to conceal her warlike tendencies from him, but they did not really abate. She would have dearly liked to go with him to Neudorf and Kunau, to play at soldiers there, but Anton, once made so happy by her company, protested so strongly against the step that the young lady had to turn back at the end of the village.

However, on the day when the first drill of the men belonging to the estate was to take place, Lenore came out with a soldier's cap and a light sword, took her pony out of the stable, and said to Anton, "I shall exercise with you."

"Pray do nothing of the kind," replied he.

"Indeed I will," replied Lenore, saucily. "You want men, and I can do as good service as if I were one."

"But, dear young lady, it is so singular!"

"It is indifferent to me whether people think it singular or not. I am strong; I can go through a good deal; I shall not be tired."

"But before the servants," remonstrated Anton. "You are letting yourself down before the servants and the country people."

"That is my own concern," replied Lenore, doggedly; "do not oppose me; I am determined, and that is enough."

Anton shrugged his shoulders, and was obliged to acquiesce. Lenore rode next to Karl, and went through all the exercises as well as a lady's saddle allowed; but Anton, who was one of the infantry, looked over from his post at the bright face with dissatisfaction. She had never pleased him so little. Yet, as she sprang forward with the rest, wheeled her horse round, waved her sword, her bright hair floating in the wind, her eyes beaming with courage, she was enchantingly beautiful. But what would have charmed him in mere play seemed unfeminine now that this drilling had become a matter of life and death; and as soon as it was over, and Lenore came up to him with glowing cheeks, waiting that he should address her, he was silent, and she had to laugh and say to him, "You look so morose, sir; do you know that the expression is very unbecoming?"

"I am not pleased at your being so willful," replied Anton. Lenore turned away without a word, gave her horse to a servant, and walked back in dudgeon to the castle.

Since that time she took no share in the drilling, indeed, but she was always present when the men a.s.sembled, and looked on longingly from a little distance; and when Anton was away, she would ride off in secret with Karl to the other villages, or walk alone through woods and fields, armed with a pocket pistol, and delighted if she could stop and cross-question any wayfarer.

Anton remonstrated with her on that subject too.

"The district is disturbed," he said. "How easily some rascal or other might do you an injury! If not a stranger, it might be some one from our own village."

"I am not afraid," Lenore would reply, "and the men of our village will do me no harm." And, in fact, she knew how to manage them better than Anton or any one else. She alone was always reverentially saluted, even by the rudest among them; and whenever her tall figure was seen in the village street, the men bowed down to the ground, and the women ran to the windows and looked admiringly after her. And she had the pleasure, too, of hearing them tell her so in Anton's hearing. One Sunday evening, Karl, the forester, and the shepherd sat watching in the farm-yard while the peasants were a.s.sembled drinking in the tavern, Sunday being the most dangerous day for those in the castle. Karl had furnished a room for military purposes in the late bailiff's house. Thither Lenore herself now carried a bottle of rum and some lemons, that the sentinels might brew themselves some punch. The shepherd and the forester grinned from ear to ear at the attention. Karl placed a chair for the young lady, the forester began to tell a tale of terror from the neighboring district, and in a few minutes Lenore was sitting with them, exchanging views on the course of events. Just as the punch was ready, and she poured it into two gla.s.ses and a mug, in came Anton. She did not exactly want him just then, but, however, he found no fault, and merely turned and beckoned to a stranger to come in. A slender youth in a blue coat, with bright woolen epaulettes, a soldier's cap in his hand, and wide linen trowsers pushed into his boots, proudly entered the room. As soon as he saw the lady, he was at her knees, and then he stood before her with downcast eyes, cap in hand. Karl went up to him: "Now then, Blasius, what news from the tavern?"

"Oh, nothing," replied the youth, in the melodious cadence with which the Pole speaks broken German. "Peasant sits, and drinks, and is merry."

"Are there strangers there? Has any one come from Tarow?"

"No one," said Blasius. "No one is there; but the host's niece is come to him, Rebecca, the Jewish maiden." Meanwhile he looked steadfastly at Lenore, as though it were to her that he had to deliver his report.

Lenore stepped to the table, poured out a gla.s.s of punch, and gave it to the youth, who received it with delight, quaffed it, set down the gla.s.s, and bent again at the lady's knee with a grace that a prince might have envied.

"You need never fear," cried he. "No one in the village will harm you; if any one offended you, we would kill him at once."

Lenore blushed and said, looking at Anton the while, "You know I have no fear, at all events of you;" and Karl dismissed the messenger with orders to return in an hour. As he left the room, Lenore said to Anton, "How graceful his bearing is!"

"He was in the Guards," replied Anton, "and is not the worst lad in the village; but I pray you not to rely too much upon the chivalry of the worthy Blasius and his friends. I was uneasy about you again all the afternoon, and sent your maid to meet you on the Rosmin road; for a traveling apprentice came running to the castle, frightened out of his senses, saying that he had been detained by an armed lady, and obliged to produce his pa.s.sport. According to his story, the lady had a monstrous dog, as large as a cow, with her, and he complained that her aspect was awful. The poor man was positively beside himself."

"He was a craven," said Lenore, contemptuously. "As soon as he saw me with the pony he ran off, scared by his own bad conscience. Then I called after him, and threatened him with my pocket pistol."

In this manner the dwellers on the baron's estate daily awaited the outbreak of the insurrection on their own oasis. Meanwhile it spread like a conflagration over the whole province. Wherever the Poles were thickly congregated, the flames leaped up fiercely. On the borders, they flared unsteadily here and there, like fire in green wood. In many places they seemed quenched for a long time, then suddenly broke out again.

One Sunday afternoon there was to be a great drill of the united forces.

The men of Neudorf and Kunau came with their flags--the foot-soldiers first, the mounted behind--the small band of cavalry from the castle riding to meet them, led by Karl, together with some men on foot, at whose head marched the forester, the generalissimo of all the troops.

Even Anton was under his command. When Lenore saw them set out, she ordered her pony to be saddled.

"I will look on," said she to Anton.

"But only look on, dear lady!" said the latter, imploringly.

"Don't tutor me," cried Lenore.

The drilling-ground was at the edge of the wood. The forester had contrived, through ancient recollections, and after manifold consultations with the baron, to bring his men into good order; and Karl led his squadron with an ardor that might well make amends for lack of skill. For a long time they had marched, countermarched, performed various evolutions, and fired at a mark. The mock artillery echoed cheerfully through the forest. Lenore had looked on from a distance, but at last she could not resist the pleasure of taking part in the cavalry exercise, and, trotting on to their head, she whispered to Karl, "Just for a minute or two."

"What if Mr. Wohlfart see you?" whispered Karl, in reply.

"He will not see," was Lenore's laughing answer, as she took her place in the ranks.

The youths looked in amazement at the slender figure which trotted at their side. Owing to the admiration she excited, many performed their parts ill, and Karl had much fault to find.

"The young lady does it best," cried a Neudorf man during a pause, and all took off their hats and cheered her loudly.

Lenore bowed low, and made her pony curvet gayly. But her amus.e.m.e.nt was soon interrupted, for up came Anton. "It is really too bad," whispered he, angry in good earnest. "You expose yourself to familiar observations, which are not ill meant, but which would still offend you.

This is no place for the display of your horsemans.h.i.+p."

"You grudge me every pleasure," replied Lenore, much aggrieved, and rode away.

When she found herself alone, she let her pony prance and caracole under a great pear-tree, and inwardly chafed against Anton. "How rudely he spoke to me!" thought she. "My father is right; he is very prosaic. When I saw him first, I was on this pony too, but then I pleased him better; we were both children then, but his manner was more respectful than now." The thought flashed across her mind how bright, fair, and pleasant her life was then, and how bitter now; and while she dreamed over the contrast, she let the pony cut caper after caper.

"Not bad, but a little more of the curb, Fraulein Lenore," cried a sonorous voice near her. Lenore looked round in amazement. A tall slight figure leaned against the tree, arms crossed, and a satirical smile playing over the fine features. The stranger advanced and took off his hat. "Hard work for the old gentleman," said he, pointing to the pony. "I hope you remember me."

Lenore looked at him as at an apparition, and at last, in her confusion, slipped down from her saddle. A vision out of the past had risen palpably before her; the cool smile, the aristocratic figure, the easy self-possession of this man, belonged to the old days she had just been thinking of.

"Herr von Fink!" she cried, in some embarra.s.sment. "How delighted Wohlfart will be to see you again!"

"I have already been contemplating him from afar," replied Fink, "and did I not know by certain infallible tokens that he it is whom I behold wading in uniform through the sand, I should not have believed it possible."

"Come to him at once," cried Lenore. "Your arrival is the greatest pleasure that he could have."

Accordingly, Fink went with her to the place where the men were engaged in shooting at a mark. Fink stepped behind Anton, and laid his hand on his shoulder. "Good-day, Anton," said he.

Turning round in amazement, Anton threw himself on his friend's breast.

There was a rapid interchange of hasty questions and short answers.