The Alpine Fay Part 5

They were the most insulting that could be addressed to the girl of sixteen, and they had their effect. Erna stood erect, as angry and determined as if she herself had been threatened with fetters; her eyes flashed as she exclaimed, with all the wayward defiance of a child, "I wish the mountain-sprite would descend upon her wings of storm from the Wolkenstein and show you her face,--you would not ask to see it again!"

With this she turned and flew, rather than ran, across the meadow, with Griff after her. The slender figure, its curls unbound again to-day, vanished in a few minutes within the house. Wolfgang paused and looked after her; the sarcastic smile still hovered upon his lips, but there was a sharp tone in his voice.

"What is Baron Thurgau thinking of, to let his daughter grow up so? She would be quite impossible in civilized surroundings; she is barely tolerable in this mountain wilderness."

"Yes, she has grown up wild and free as an Alpine rose," said Benno, whose eyes were still fixed upon the door behind which Erna had disappeared. Elmhorst turned suddenly and looked keenly at his friend.

"You are actually poetical! Are you touched there?"

"I?" asked Benno, surprised, almost dismayed. "What are you thinking of?"

"I only thought it strange to have you season your speech with imagery,--it is not your way. Moreover, your 'Alpine rose' is an extremely wayward, spoiled child; you will have to educate her first."

The words were not uttered as an innocent jest; they had a harsh, sarcastic flavour, and apparently offended the young physician, who replied, irritably, "No more of this, Wolf! Rather tell me what takes you to Wolkenstein Court. You wish to speak with the Freiherr?"

"Yes; but our interview can hardly be an agreeable one. You know that we need the estate for our line of railway; it was refused us, and we had to fall back upon our right of compulsion. The obstinate old Baron was not content: he protested again and again, and refused to allow a survey to be made upon his soil. The man positively fancies that his 'no' will avail him. Of course his protest was laid upon the table, and since the time of probation granted him has expired and we are in possession, I am to inform him that the preliminary work is about to begin."

Reinsfeld had listened in silence with an extremely grave expression, and his voice showed some anxiety as he said, "Wolf, let me beg you not to go about this business with your usual luck of consideration. The Freiherr is really not responsible on this head. I have taken pains again and again to explain to him that his opposition must be fruitless, but he is thoroughly convinced that no one either can or will take from him his inheritance. He is attached to it with every fibre of his heart, and if he really must relinquish it, I am afraid it will go nigh to kill him."

"Not at all! He will yield like a reasonable man as soon as he sees the unavoidable necessity. I certainly shall be duly considerate, since he is the president's brother-in-law; otherwise I should not have come hither to-day, but have set the engineers to work. Nordheim wishes that everything should be done to spare the old man's feelings, and so I have undertaken the affair myself."

"There will be a scene," said Benno, "Baron Thurgau is the best man in the world, but incredibly pa.s.sionate and violent when he thinks his rights infringed upon. You do not know him yet."

"You mistake; I have the honour of knowing him, and his primitive characteristics. He gave me an opportunity of observing them at Heilborn, and I am prepared to-day to meet with the roughest usage. But you are right; the man is irresponsible in matters of grave importance, and I shall treat him accordingly."

They had now reached the house, which they entered. Thurgau had just come in; his gun still lay on the table, and beside it a couple of moor-fowl, the result of his morning's sport. Erna had probably advised him of the coming visitors, for he showed no surprise at sight of the young superintendent.

"Well, doctor," he called out to Reinsfeld, with a laugh, "you are just in time to see how disobedient I have been. There lie my betrayers!" He pointed to his gun and the trophies of his chase.

"Your looks would have informed me," Reinsfeld replied, with a glance at the Freiherr's crimson, heated face. "Moreover, you were not well this morning, I hear."

He would have felt Thurgau's pulse, but the hand was withdrawn: "Time enough for that after a while; you bring me a guest."

"I have taken the liberty of calling upon you, Herr von Thurgau," said Wolfgang, approaching; "and if I am not unwelcome----"

"As a man you are certainly welcome, as a superintendent-engineer you are not," the Freiherr declared, after his blunt fas.h.i.+on. "I am glad to see you, but not a word of your cursed railway, I entreat, or, in spite of the duties of hospitality, I shall turn you out of doors."

He placed a chair for his guest and took his own accustomed seat.

Elmhorst saw at a glance how difficult his errand would be; he felt as a tiresome burden the consideration he was compelled by circ.u.mstances to pay, but the burden must be shouldered, and so he began at first in a jesting tone.

"I am aware of what a fierce foe you are to our enterprise. My office is the worst of recommendations in your eyes; therefore I did not venture to come alone, but brought my friend with me as a protection."

"Dr. Reinsfeld is a friend of yours?" asked Thurgau, in whose estimation the young official seemed suddenly to rise.

"A friend of my boyhood; we were at the same school, and afterwards studied at the same university, although our professions differed. I hunted up Benno as soon as I came here, and I trust we shall always be good comrades."

"Yes, we all lived here very pleasantly so long as we were by ourselves," the Freiherr said, aggressively. "When you came here with your cursed railway the worry began, and when the shrieking and whistling begin there will be an end of comfort and quiet."

"Now, papa, you are transgressing your own rule and talking of the railway," Erna cried, laughing. "But you must come with me, Herr Doctor. I want to show you what my cousin Alice has sent me from Heilborn; it is charming."

With the eager impatience of a child, who cannot wait to display its treasures, she carried off the young physician into the next room, thus giving the Herr Superintendent fresh occasion to disapprove of her education, or rather of the want of it. On this point he quite agreed with Frau Lasberg. What sort of way was this to behave towards a young man, were he even ten times a physician and the friend of the family!

Benno as he followed her glanced anxiously at the two left behind; he knew what topic would now be discussed, but he relied upon his friend's talent for diplomacy, and, moreover, the door was left open. If the tempest raged too fiercely, he might interfere.

"Yes, yes, the matter cannot be avoided," the Freiherr growled, and Elmhorst, glad to come to business, took up his words.

"You are quite right, Herr Baron, it will not be ignored, and on peril of your fulfilling your threat and really turning me out of doors, I must present myself to you as the agent of the railway company intrusted with imparting to you certain information. The measurements and surveys upon the Wolkenstein estate cannot possibly be delayed any longer, and the engineers will go to work here in the course of a few days."

"They will do no such thing!" Thurgau exclaimed, angrily. "How often must I repeat that I will not allow anything of the kind upon my property!"

"Upon your property? The estate is no longer your property," said Elmhorst, calmly. "The company bought it months ago, and the purchase-money has been lying ready ever since. That business was finished long ago."

"Nothing has been finished!" shouted the Freiherr, his irritation increasing. "Do you imagine I care a b.u.t.ton for judgments that outrage all justice, and which your company procured G.o.d only knows by what rascality? Do you suppose I am going to leave my house and home to make way for your locomotives? Not one step will I stir, and if----"

"Pray do not excite yourself thus, Herr von Thurgau," Wolfgang interrupted him. "At present there is no idea of driving you away,--it is only that the preliminary surveys must be begun; the house itself will remain entirely at your disposal until next spring."

"Very kind of you!" Thurgau laughed, bitterly. "Till next spring! And what then?"

"Then, of course, it must go."

The Freiherr was about to burst forth again, but there was something in the young man's cool composure that forced him to control himself. He made an effort to do so, but his colour deepened and his breath was short and laboured, as he said, roughly,--

"Does that seem to you a matter 'of course'? But what can you know of the devotion a man feels for his inheritance? You belong, like my brother-in-law, to the century of steam. He builds himself three--four palaces, each more gorgeous than its predecessor, and in none of them is he at home. He lives in them one day and sells them the next, as the whim takes him. Wolkenstein Court has been the home of the Thurgaus for two centuries, and shall remain so until the last Thurgau closes his eyes, rely----"

He broke off in the midst of his sentence, and, as if suddenly attacked by vertigo, grasped the table, but it was only for a few seconds; angry, as it were, at the unwonted weakness, he stood erect again and went on with ever-increasing bitterness: "We have lost all else; we did not understand how to bargain and to h.o.a.rd, and gradually all has vanished save the old nest where stood the cradle of our line; to that we have held fast through ruin and disaster. We would sooner have starved than have relinquished it. And now comes your railway, and threatens to raze my house to the ground, to trample upon rights hundreds of years old, and to take from me what is mine by the law of justice and of G.o.d! Only try it! I say no,--and again no. It is my last word."

He did indeed look ready to make good his refusal with his life, and another man might either have been silent or have postponed further discussion. But Wolfgang had no idea of anything of the kind; he had undertaken to bring the matter to a conclusion, and he persisted.

"Those mountains outside," he said, gravely, "have been standing longer than Wolkenstein Court, and the forests are more firmly rooted in the soil than are you in your home, and yet they must yield. I am afraid Herr von Thurgau, that you have no conception of the gigantic nature of our undertaking, of the means at its disposal, and of the obstacles it must overcome. We penetrate rocks and forests, divert rivers from their course, and bridge across abysses. Whatever is in our path must give way. We come off victorious in our battle with the elements. Ask yourself if the will of one man can bar our progress."

A pause of a few seconds ensued. Thurgau made no reply; his furious anger seemed dissipated by the invincible composure of his opponent, who confronted him with perfect respect and an entire adherence to courtesy. But his clear voice had an inexorable tone, and the look which encountered that of the Freiherr with such cold resolve seemed to cast a spell upon Thurgau. He had hitherto shown himself entirely impervious to all persuasion, all explanation; he had, with all the obstinacy of his character, intrenched himself behind his rights, as impregnable, in his estimation, as the mountains themselves. To-day for the first time it occurred to him that his antagonism might be shattered, that he might be forced to succ.u.mb to a power that had laid its iron grasp thus upon the mountains. He leaned heavily upon the table again and struggled for breath, while speech seemed denied him.

"You may rest a.s.sured that we shall proceed with all possible regard for you," Wolfgang began again. "The preliminary work which we are about to undertake will scarcely disturb you, and during the winter you will be entirely unmolested; the construction of the road will not begin until the spring, and then, of course----"

"I must yield, you think," Thurgau interposed, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Yes, you _must_, Herr Baron," said Elmhorst, coldly.

The fateful word, the truth of which instantly sank into his consciousness, robbed the Freiherr of the last remnant of composure; he rebelled against it with a violence that was almost terrifying, and that might well have caused a doubt as to his mental balance.

"But I will not,--will not, I tell you!" he gasped, almost beside himself "Let rocks and mountains make way before you, _I_ will not yield. Have a care of our mountains, lest, when you are so arrogantly interfering with them, they rush down upon you and shatter all your bridges and structures like reeds. I should like to stand by and see the accursed work a heap of ruins; I should like----"

He did not finish his sentence, but convulsively clutched at his breast; his last word died away in a kind of groan, and on the instant the mighty frame fell prostrate as if struck by lightning.

"Good G.o.d!" exclaimed Dr. Reinsfeld, who had appeared at the door of the next room just as the last sentences were being uttered, and who now hurried in. But Erna was before him; she first reached her father, and threw herself down beside him with a cry of terror.

"Do not be distressed, Fraulein Erna," said the young physician, gently pus.h.i.+ng her aside, while with Elmhorst's help he raised the unconscious man and laid him on the sofa. "It is a fainting-fit,--an attack of vertigo such as the Herr Baron had a few weeks ago. He will recover from this too."

The young girl had followed him, and stood beside him with her hands convulsively clasped and her eyes riveted upon the face of the speaker.