The Last Miracle Part 20

"No, certainly, not that: but truth alone is huge, surely; justice by itself is the shout of a host. We shall see how it turns out. One after all can only steer by one's best chart, Arthur, casting one's cause upon the immortal G.o.ds, not without hope. But here is Lossow come to call us to dinner."

In peeped a face trying not to smile, but smiling, and we went down to dinner in the old kitchen, soon after which I began to note the shy arrival of Hans and Klaus, one by one, two by two, who all slunk into the beer-room on the left of the porch, and I heard later on (though not from Langler) that drink was free that day. Meantime Langler was pacing our sitting-room with a strenuous brow, preparing, I think, a speech.

Down below grew a noise of tongues, and soon after three o'clock in looked Lossow busily, giving out the whisper: "they are all in the beer-garden waiting!" this beer-garden being a yard with tables, swings, etc., behind the house, which was L-shaped. Upon this Langler paced yet twice, took up hat and thorn-stick, and said quietly to me: "well, then, let us go."

Below we stood under the verandah, and with us were Lossow, Frau Lossow, their four daughters, and two servants; before us in the garden a mob of some fifty, with a few women and infants, earth-born beings, one of whom bore a broomstick with a rag for flag: this was Herr Somebody!--I think the name was Voss or Huss--a sloven, red rascal like a satyr. Some few gaped silent, "like fishes," but it was evident to me that the mind of the meeting was waggish; and Langler, standing against the verandah-rail, addressed them.

He was palish, but then his brow reddened, and, on the whole, I was surprised how well he spoke, since German was strange to his tongue; he kept putting his palms to the rail and catching them up again, and bowing forward and up again, and I felt how very foreign, very trying and hard, to him all this must be; but he became earnest, speaking feelingly, and I could have cried to see him spending his soul upon that herd, appealing to them as brothers where no brotherhood was, giving them news of justice and of compa.s.sion and of pa.s.sionate intrepidity, where only pigs and mugs were understood. Several times he was stopped by the ribald Herr Voss or Huss waving the broomstick, and whooping some such cry as "on to the burg, you clowns! let's souse old Tschudi in the river-water!"

"Well, now," said Langler, "let us go: all of us together: with the fixed purpose not to leave the castle without bringing back our poor prisoner with us. We will carry no weapon in our hands, no, yet we shall be great in power. Let us go; and I shall go in front, and my friend here, too, will come, to strengthen us."

I think that he was about to say more: but just now, on a sudden, behold Herr Castle-governor Tschudi in his smoking-cap standing with us. I first heard a guffaw behind me, then at once the man was beside Langler at the verandah-rail, and at once he was crying out jokes to this or the other of the crowd, cutting Langler short, asking one how his horrid old swell-foot was, a.s.suring another that his old woman was at that very moment making a cuckold of him, egging on another to go at once to the castle to rescue the _saintly_ and _grateful_ Pater Dees; and the throng was roaring with laughter when, all at once, the man's face took on a look of ire that strongly reminded one of his over-lord, and he ordered them all instantly to be gone to their abodes.

Langler made not one other effort, for he was not one to strive and cry, and the power over the mob of the coa.r.s.e-grained man beside him was so obvious. As the crowd began to flow away my friend turned to me, and smiled.

The last I saw of our army was Voss or Huss marching loudly away, broomstick held aloft, against the burg, in the midst of a crew of some eight or ten.

As these disappeared, Herr Tschudi tapped me on the arm.

"Sirs," said he, "kiss the hand: will you have the goodness to step this way with me?"

We followed him into a room opening upon the verandah.

"Those articles yours, sirs?" said he, pointing to a chair on which lay our rope-ladder together with my jacket, waistcoat, and cap, and Langler's hat, left in the boat.

"Yes," said I, "they are ours."

"Well, I have brought them for you," said he; "but I have now to suggest to you, sirs, that you leave the alp before noon to-morrow."

"Is it a threat?" cried I, starting.

The man made me no answer, but laying his hand upon Langler's arm, said to him: "don't take it as a threat; I suggest it to you in a friendly way: listen to me. You have shot a buck (made a blunder) in coming here, and you will spin no silk by remaining longer. You have been strangely lucky so far, owing to the fact that your intentions are amiable; but you know nothing, you are groping in the dark on the brink of a precipice. You go away now."

"Well, your advice seems to be kindly meant," said Langler, "and we thank you. But there is no chance of its influencing us at all, Herr Tschudi."

"Then I leave it to you," said Tschudi, "G.o.d guard," and he strode away.

We two then went up to our sitting-room, where we spent the evening and most of that night. Little was said between us. Langler was not well, and complained of a pain in the heart. He was, indeed, very deeply hurt, and said to me with a meekness that made my heart ache: "I shall never again act against your judgment, Arthur, in such a matter. Oh, I thought men n.o.bler, and the G.o.ds less n.i.g.g.ard." It was useless to go to bed, for I never heard such a racket, the wind was rough, and the crew of peasants, who had gone away only for a time, were below, since drink already reckoned for was to be had that night. Till quite into the morning their music, quarrelling, and roars of merriment rose up to us through the roaring of the tempest in the forest--hour after hour--so that I pitied Langler, who, I knew, must be feeling that the money which he had laid out with fond hopes of good was working harm. Between the noises he and I deliberated as to what was now to be done by us; but there was nearly nothing to be said, since nothing remained but to address ourselves to the law of the land. I wanted him to come, too, with me to Gratz, but he said, what was true, that it was useless for us both to go; he was weary and disillusioned, and perhaps Herr Tschudi's command to go had something to do with his will to stay, but I was unwilling to leave him, and begged him to go down at least to Speisendorf or Badsogl; but no, he would stay where he was. At last the noises died down, and some time after two we went to bed.

CHAPTER XXI

AT GRATZ

The next morning I came upon our Hanska in Speisendorf street, hands in pockets, whistling (as ever) at the crucifix on the mountain. This knit little chit of a man had a pride in his cylinders and some flea of flight in his brain; he and his car were well ready for me, and we reached Gratz in the early afternoon after a charming ride.

I had no hope that affairs would go flyingly with me in Gratz, and thought to myself, "this will be a matter of some days"; but it was three weeks before I left the town.

Whether those were trying weeks for me will be divined: I was afraid for Dees, afraid for Langler up there alone in the mountains, and afraid to open the letters from Swandale which he forwarded on to me. Miss Emily had, in truth, become awfully eager and anxious! all too eager and anxious, I thought. _Why_ the delay, she wished to know! I had begged Langler to write her fully of everything as it happened, but no, he chose to be general and vague, and this only enlarged, instead of lulling, her fears. She was now back in Swandale, living partly with the Misses Chambers, and was quite well, she said. But something in me boded that she was not so well as she said.

Hence those weeks in Gratz were rather to me like three years. Among Langler's letters of introduction was one to a Herr Muller, a grain-merchant in the Holz Platz, upon whom I first called; he received me heartily, and introduced me to a certain Herr von Dungern, a lawyer, who said to me in his office on the morning after my arrival: "I'm afraid that that letter of yours written from England to Public Safety--_foh! foh!_--unsupported by evidence as it was, will now be against you." He was a fine, soldierly man, but afflicted with something which caused him to mix in all his talk this _foh! foh!_ flung sideways with venom. "But," said I, "that old letter of ours must be forgotten by now." "Oh no," he answered; "there it still lies in the Evidenz-bureau, and you know that interest in a question once dead is not easily revived." "That may be," said I, "but I can now take oath that I have seen the Pater Dees in his dungeon, and here is Mr Langler's written statement, which you will duly formalise for me." "True, true," said he, "very true. Well, it is a matter--_foh! foh!_--for the Blessed Virgin and Herr Oberpolizeirath."

I now know that this Herr von Dungern was a tenant of land under Baron Kolar, but still, I can't accuse him of untrustiness to me, only of slowness--of intentional slowness, I think. It was not till the following morning that I was brought to the bureaux with the affidavits, and then it was from bureau to bureau, each interview somehow filling up the better part of a day, and everyone as it were laying his hand over his mouth at the high scandal which I was so bold as to air. "But," said I to Herr von Dungern as we drove away on the fourth evening, "_some_one must be the final authority! I have now been referred up and up from a common Sicherheits-wache-serjeant to two Polizeiraths, and still no end to it." "Lands, manners," said he, with a shrug--"every country has its usages." "Just so," said I, "but I am still at a loss to know why I have spent my afternoon with Herr Polizeirath of Central Inquiry in a case where there is nothing to inquire into." "Well," said he, hardly very honestly, "one, of course, must see Herr Polizeirath before one can see Herr Oberpolizeirath." "Yes," said I, "Herr Polizeirath of Safety, but why, after all, Herr Polizeirath of Inquiry? the interview seems to have been as needless as it was long!" "You do not--_foh! foh!_--understand,"

said he. "No," said I, "I do not, and it is very trying." "I am grieved from the heart," said he, "for I foresee that your patience is about to be tried; but you must amuse yourself, since everyone in our city is eager to entertain you, and the good Lord, thank G.o.d, does not grudge us any innocent gaieties; my wife and daughters in especial look forward with keenness to seeing you at our birthday-ball." "But that is a week hence!" said I: "do you antic.i.p.ate that I shall still be in Gratz?" "Ah, it may be!" said he, "we shall see: to-morrow at eleven we appear before Herr Oberpolizeirath of Safety himself...."

This Herr Oberpolizeirath, whose name was Tiarks, was a gross old man, all slashed and epauletted, with a nose like a bunch of blackberries in August. I was received by him in a chamber which brought back to my mind the scented answer which he had sent to our letter from Swandale, and from the first I had little hope in this old man. "But what, sir," he asked me, "is your motive in this affair?" "A motive of humanity," I answered: "a bird sent out by the captive with a note bound about its leg came to the house of my friend; we felt bound to investigate the matter; we have done so; and we now place it with confidence in your hands." "But," said he, "in order to see this captive, you must have entered upon Schweinstein Castle by stealth?" "Yes," I answered cuttingly, "but that, I take it, is not a point which will distract your Honour's attention from the proved fact of an outrage committed within the scope of your jurisdiction." "But," said he, his face flus.h.i.+ng purpler, "perhaps you will find, sir, that the Austrian authorities are not inclined to allow themselves to be pleased with chords (pretensions) strung too high." "I have already found it, Herr Oberpolizeirath," said I. "Ach, it is an affair, this!" sighed he faintly to himself, with a waved hand, and eyes cast upward.

In the greater part of the interview I had no share, but sat staring at the apple-green walls, while Tiarks and von Dungern laid their heads together apart. Such shrugs, such spreadings of both palms, and gazings over the rims of spectacles, one never saw! Then came the proposal that I should drop my plaint for a time, till the baron should be given a chance to set free his captive; to which I answered angrily: "But is Baron Kolar to be forewarned by those who should be his judges? He will never of himself set free this captive, and if he be given hints and nudges in the dark I shall consider that both justice and myself have been betrayed." "Eh, eh, we know that the English hold no leaf before the mouth!" cried Herr Oberpolizeirath, with a waved hand: "but do you imagine, sir, that the baron does not already know what is being done?

Poh, he knows; all Gratz knows. And would you not prefer to withdraw the plaint a little, rather than see it referred to the President at Vienna, and then perhaps up to the Provincial Diet itself after several months?

Come, take your lawyer's advice; and meantime, if you stay on in Gratz--why, we know that every young man craves for the society of the opposite s.e.x--saving the claims of religion, mind you, saving the claims of religion; but between us three here, you can't beat Gratz for female loveliness: what, von Dungern? Yes, sir, drop the plaint a little, and on the 7th of the month you have the Statthalterei Ball, on the 8th Count Attem's, on the 9th the Prince-bishop of Seckau comes into residence, with street-processions, church-rites"--and more of this sort. In this way this old fogey thought to stroke my beard with honey, as the Germans say. Of course, I did not drop the plaint, and it was formally heard the next day before a lower commissary: but I might as well have dropped it! From the tenth day I began to despair, for I had by then been put through even the formality of giving the date of my mother's birth, had interviewed at the rathhaus, land-hause, Schlossberg people whose relation with the affair seemed to be as remote and entangled as possible; and I said then to myself: "Max Dees was right: they don't mean to interfere."

Meantime I wrote daily to, and heard from, Langler, and enclosed in his letters came some from Swandale which made the delays of the authorities maddening to me, because of a panting for our return which those letters now appeared to reveal. Alas, at the bottom of her heart Miss Emily did not believe that we should ever return to her, I think; but mixed with this under-despair was that hope which is common to all the living, and I believe that it was this hope battling for breath against this despair which gave rise to this sort of fierce haste that now possessed and hissed in her to see our faces yet once again.

Gratz, meantime, was as lively a town, both in a social and religious way, as it is ever a charming one. I saw the fete of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin, and that of the Precious Blood on the Sunday following, and each time I peeped into St aegidius it was full of people praying, with a priest or two pacing among them, like well-satisfied shepherds, while in the lesser churches also was much the same sight. I had nothing to do at night, and to escape from myself went to two b.a.l.l.s, at the first of which a little German monk, who reminded me of Luther, gave a homily on the lawfulness of innocent amus.e.m.e.nts. But I was sick of Gratz by the eleventh day, and was wrought to throw up everything, when something gave me a new thought.

On that eleventh day I was strolling in an alley of the Stadt Park when I saw coming towards me a girl whom I had long known--a particularly pretty little girl named Rosie, who for some years had been in the service of my sister, Lady Burney, but now was in the service of the d.u.c.h.ess of St Albans. When I expressed my surprise at seeing her, her answer was: "the d.u.c.h.ess is on the way to Vienna, but stopped at Gratz to have an interview with Baron Kolar; she understood in London that the baron is at Schweinstein, but he isn't, as it turns out, and no one seems to know where he is somehow, so I don't know what our next move will be."

We sat under a tree within sound of the band, and had a long talk that afternoon, for this servant-girl seemed to know everybody of any importance in Europe and the secret history of all that was going on, so she not only kept me amused, but posted me anew as to things and men in an astonis.h.i.+ng way. Her mistress was, of course, the great lady in English politics, and had a habit, Rosie said, of making her her messenger, and even of "consulting her opinion"! Speaking of Ambrose Rivers, she said that he had now won a following of over eight hundred, and had opened a church in Kensington, to which she had once gone: "it is a kind of a cross between a theatre and a gymnasium," said she, "but the d.u.c.h.ess regards him more as a crank than as a serious force in religious politics, and he only owes it to Dr Burton's illness that he has not been already brought under the consistory court. Ah!" she added in her bright way, "I saw that fit of Dr Burton's!" "What, you were present?" said I. "I alone," said she: "I was even the cause of it."

"How do you mean--the cause of it?" I asked. "I'll tell you," said she, "but, of course, it is between us, sir. Never was so frightened in my life! It was about nine in the evening, at the palace, the d.u.c.h.ess had sent me with a note, I was to wait for an answer, and was led into a room in that Blore part. The Archbishop, who was at a table covered with papers, laid the note by his side, said 'take a chair' to me, and went on writing. I noticed that he was not looking well: every two minutes he heaved a sigh, twice got up to look for something, but seemed to forget what, and sat down again without, and he would press his hand to his brow, as if he had a headache. Presently he sprang up, and began to pace about: all this time, mind you, he hadn't opened the d.u.c.h.ess's note, nor seemed to be aware that I was anywhere, and I, of course, sat quite mum, taking stock of my archbishop. But, all at once, he saw me, looked at me--didn't say anything, went on pacing, but I noticed that he turned pale, and several times after that he looked at me, growing paler and paler, till at last, making up his mind, he came to me: I never saw anyone so ghastly gaunt! he frightened me! And what do you think his Grace said, sir? 'Well, pretty, do you love me?'"

"Dr Burton? said _that_? 'well, pretty, do you love me?'"

"Yes, he said it--in such a secret voice; and he was pale, pale...."

"But--what did _you_ say?"

"My answer was a scream, sir, for the words had hardly pa.s.sed his lips when he was on the ground in a fit. The doctors say, by the way, that if ever he has another, he will slip his cable."

Some of Rosie's phrases were not utterly pretty, and her anecdotes so numerous that one doubted whether they could be all quite true; but, a.s.suming this of Dr Burton to have at least some truth, I was very shocked, very deeply moved, and I got from her a promise not again to mention it during the doctor's lifetime.

When I asked her what was the big thing at the moment in England, "Oh, still Education," she answered in her off-hand manner: "it is nearly through the Commons now, but the Church isn't going to hear of it. This bill puts an Eton education within the reach of every boy, as in France and elsewhere, and it does seem hard that the Church should stand in the way when anyone can see that England is peris.h.i.+ng for lack of just this thing: but that is the Church all over--the old enemy of light." "Why, Rosie, you are not a good Catholic!" I said. "Oh, well," said she, "one must submit one's reason to G.o.d, of course; but still, one's private thoughts will peep through. However, the Church was defeated over Diseased Persons, and she may be over Education, too: Mr Edwards, I know, means fight, and so does the d.u.c.h.ess." "But Diseased Persons was won through the discovery of that body and cross in Bayeux," said I: "do people, by the way, still discuss that discovery?" "Nothing has ever been made of it that I know of," she answered: "but some queer things were said, as some queer things were said of the disappearance of Dr Todhunter, and it gave a shock to the Church somehow, till two more of the visions were seen, and that turned people's minds away."

On the whole, the girl proved a mine of modernity: but what causes me to mention her here is a criticism of some of her words made by Langler, and a meditation which occurred in my mind in consequence of that criticism, not without definite result.

On the night of our meeting I mentioned her in my usual letter to Langler, and in his next to me were the following words:--"This Rosie, you tell me, says that Baron Kolar is not at Schweinstein: but you and I believe differently! That voice and those two English words which you heard on the night when we were saved from drowning, and that light in (?) the castle laboratory on the night when we saw Max Dees--these, indeed, are hardly proofs; yet we do _have a feeling_ that he is there: and I have asked myself what can be his reason for hiding his presence there, if he is there, even from political people like the d.u.c.h.ess of St Albans. The reason suggested to my mind is that he may really mean to do Max Dees some harm, with the odium of which he does not wish to be afterwards pestered. Dees, it seems, has somehow wronged him, and vengeance is to be taken. But why, then, one might ask, does the man not take his vengeance and be done? It seems to be because Dees is being reserved till something else first happens, till (according to Dees himself) 'the downfall of the Church.' But, in that case, why is the baron _at present_ lurking in Schweinstein? Perhaps it is in order to hurt Dees _prematurely_, before 'the downfall,' in case you and I should make serious headway in the matter of effecting Dees' release. But if this be so, it would seem to show that the baron must have some real fear of our power to release Dees. Indeed, he _has_ such a fear: why else did he hurry hither the moment he saw that we could no longer be kept away from Styria? How sensitive he must be of the least chance of Dees' escaping him! Yet he is not a nervous man; one would imagine that he might securely have left Dees to the care of the watch-dog Tschudi!

But no, he flies to the spot in person. And those two outrages upon the innocent hands--how sensitive, how frightfully in earnest he must have been to keep us from meddling! But that earnestness certainly implies a fear of our power--of our power, which seems to be nil. It must be, then, that the baron perceives that we have some power of which we ourselves are not aware."

There Langler's discernment seems to have stopped short; but his words so struck me, that I could not forget them, and after a sleepless night, which I shall ever remember, towards morning this thought was born in my head: "but Max Dees is a _churchman_! this is the heyday of the Church, so it is through the Church perhaps that his release may be wrought; and the baron, more far-seeing than we, has long seen this, and has feared our power, because it seemed certain to him that we, too, must see it!

Here have I been tossed from Herr to Herr and from pillar to post; but the Prince-bishop of Seckau is in Gratz, and it is to him perhaps that I should have gone."

Thus oddly, one might say awfully, do things come off: if I had not met that girl in the Stadt Park I might never have come at this meditation, and everything, in the end, would have been otherwise than it was.