Saint Michael

"That sounds very heretical," the young Countess said, reproachfully. "Do not let his reverence or my mother hear you. It is easy to see that you were brought up beneath Professor Wehlau's roof. Was he an early friend of your father's?"

Michael bowed his head as if in assent. The Professor had insisted upon this concession from him from the first, as it put a stop to all annoying conjecture, and had quite satisfied even Hans himself.

"You lost your father very early?"

"Yes, very early."

"And your mother too?"

"And my mother too."

There was evident distress in his tone, and Hertha, perceiving that she had unconsciously touched some sore spot, hastened to remove the impression by saying, "I, too, was a mere child when my father died. I have but a dim remembrance of him, and of the love and tenderness which he lavished upon me. Where did you live with your parents?"

The young man's lip quivered, and there was bitterness in his heart as he remembered his childhood, with its lack of love and tenderness. The disgrace and misery which he had but half understood had nevertheless stamped themselves upon the boy's memory, and were still vividly present with the man after the lapse of twenty years. "My childhood was far from happy," he said, evasively. "There was so little in it that could possibly interest you that I should be sorry to annoy you with an account of it."

"But it does interest me," Hertha said, eagerly. "I do not mean, however, to be importunate; and if my sympathy annoys you–"

"Your sympathy! with me?" Michael suddenly broke forth, and then paused as suddenly; but what his lips did not utter his eyes said clearly, as he gazed as if spell-bound at the young Countess, whose beauty was certainly not dependent upon dress. She had been bewitchingly lovely in silk and lace, in the brilliant light of the chandeliers, and to-day, in her simple, close-fitting, dark-blue riding-habit, she was even lovelier. Beneath the little hat, with its blue veil, the golden braids gleamed through the thin tissue, and the eyes beamed brightly. There was something unusual in her air to-day; she seemed released from the petty conventional code of the brilliant circle in which she was wont to move, and as if breathed upon by the mighty mountain world around her, and this lent her a new and dangerous charm.

"Well?" she said, smiling, without noticing Michael's sudden pause. "I am waiting."

"For what?"

"For the account of your childhood, which you have not yet given me."

"Nor can I give it you, for I can relate nothing of home or of parental affection. I have grown up among strangers, I owe everything to strangers, and, kindly and generously as it was bestowed, I still feel it as a debt which would crush me to the earth had I not vowed to myself to pay it by my entire future. At last I have taken the helm into my own hands, and can steer out into the open sea."

"And can you trust that sea, with its winds and waves?"

"Yes. Trust the sea and it will carry you safely. Of one thing I am sure, however: I shall never drift ashore on a half-shattered wreck, thankful to escape with mere life. No, I will either steer my vessel into port or go to the bottom with it."

He stood erect as he uttered the last words with resolute emphasis. Hertha looked at him in surprise, and suddenly said, "Strange,–how like you are at this moment to my uncle Steinrück."

"I? to the general?"

"Extremely like him."

"That must be an illusion," Michael rejoined, coldly. "I regret having to disclaim the honour of a resemblance to his Excellency, but none can possibly exist."

"Certainly not; you have not a feature in common; the likeness lies in the expression, and now it has vanished again. But at that moment you had the general's eyes, his air, even his voice. It really startled me."

Her eyes still rested upon his countenance, as if she were expecting a reply; but Michael turned somewhat aside, and said, changing the conversation, "The prospect is growing more and more veiled; we shall soon be surrounded by clouds."

The weather did, in fact, look more threatening; the sun had begun to set, but his rays were struggling with the mists floating up everywhere, as if some leader of a mighty host had sounded his trumpet-call, heard of the whole vast mountain world, and the cloud-phantoms were rising on all sides to obey the summons, some with slow majesty, some in desperate haste. Up from the deeps and abysses soared the mist unceasingly, like a white veil, noiseless and ghost-like, sweeping up over the forests, leaving a fluttering pennon here and there amidst the tops of the pines, and then soaring aloft again. From each side across the gray Alps single clouds came trooping, followed by huge masses, all rolling towards the Eagle ridge, where they gathered ever darker and more threatening.

The meadows upon which lay Saint Michael soon looked like an island in the midst of a billowy, swelling sea, the waves of which rose higher each minute. There it gleamed white, like the foam of dashing, leaping breakers, and there it lay gray and formless as in shade, while high above on the peaks of the ridge, still lit by the sunlight, golden, shimmering mists were sailing, shot by strange, quivering rays. A gleaming magic veil was woven about the rocky head and the glacier crown; they stood half veiled, half revealed in the golden atmosphere.

But at their feet the storm was gathering thick, and now the first dull thunder rolled, seeming to come from the very depths of the mountains, and dying rumbling in the distance.

The air had hitherto been quiet; now the wind began to rise. The young Countess's veil fluttered aloft and caught in a hanging branch of the wild-rose bush, from which she vainly tried to extricate it. The thorns held their prey fast, and Rodenberg, who came to her aid, must have been rather awkward, for the band of her hat slipped and the hat fell off. Michael, who was stooping to disentangle the delicate tissue, shrank suddenly and dropped his hand, for close before his eyes gleamed uncovered the thick braids, the 'red fairy gold.'

"Have you scratched your hand?" asked Hertha, noticing his start.

"No!" He plunged his hand into the thorny tangle and pulled away both hat and veil; but the thorns revenged themselves: the veil was torn, and a few drops of blood trickled from the young man's hand.

"Thank you," said Hertha, taking her hat from him; "but you are a rash assistant. How wrong to plunge your hand in among the thorns! It is bleeding."

There was real commiseration in her tone, but the reply was all the colder. "It is not worth mentioning; it is the merest scratch."

He took out his handkerchief and pressed it upon the tiny wounds as he glanced impatiently towards the little house, where the priest yet lingered. His visit there seemed to be endless, and the rack here must be tasted to the last.

The young girl perhaps suspected his agony, but she did not feel called upon to abbreviate it. The spoiled, petted beauty felt it as an offence that this man should dare to defy a power which she had so often exerted over others. He had recognized its might, as she had long since perceived; he had not approached her with impunity, and yet here he stood with that impregnable reserve, that haughty brow, which would not bow. He must be punished!

"I should like to ask you a question, Lieutenant Rodenberg," she began again. "My mother reproached you awhile ago–I heard her–with never having accepted her invitation."

"I have already apologized to Madame the Countess. We have been quite absorbed lately by a family matter, which was indeed the cause of the Professor's departure. When I return from Saint Michael–"

"You will find some other excuse," Hertha interposed. "You do not wish to come."

Michael's face flushed, but he avoided meeting the eyes that sought his; he looked across to the Eagle ridge. "You take that for granted with a strange degree of certainty, Countess Steinrück, and, nevertheless, you wish me to come."

"I only wish for an explanation of what keeps you away from us. You have saved my own and my mother's life, and you reject our gratitude in a way that is inexplicable to us if we refuse to consider it insulting. With a stranger we should never waste a word upon the subject. To one to whom we owe so much we may well put the question, 'What is there between us? What have we done to you?'"

The words had a gentle, half-veiled sound, but several seconds passed before the reply came. Michael's gaze was still riveted upon the rocky summits; he knew that storm-clouds were gathering around them, but he saw only the golden mist, the gleaming magic veil; he heard the roll of the thunder that sounded nearer and nearer, but he heeded only that low, reproachful 'What have we done to you?'

"You shame me," he said at last, with a final attempt to preserve a tone of cool courtesy. "The slight service that I did you required no gratitude; you have always overrated it."

"Again you evade me; you are a master of the art," the young girl exclaimed, with an expression of extreme impatience. "But I will not release you from replying; I must know the truth at last."

"And what if I should not comply with your command, for such it certainly seems to be?"

"It rests with you, of course, to refuse to do so; but it was no command, only a request, which I now repeat: 'What have we done to you? Why do you avoid us?'"

A smile played about her lips, the enchanting smile usually so irresistible, but now without effect. Rodenberg looked her full in the face, and said, harshly, "You know why, Countess Steinrück,–you have long known."

"I?"

"Yes, you, Hertha; you know your power only too well; and now you drive me to extremes, and leave me no means of escape. So be it,–I am at your disposal!"

Amazed, almost dismayed, Hertha looked up at him; she was quite unprepared for this turn of affairs; she had pictured her moment of triumph very differently. "I do not understand you, Lieutenant Rodenberg," said she. "What does this strange language mean,–something it would seem allied to hatred?"

"Hatred?" he broke forth. "Would you add sarcasm to your trifling? You have never for an instant been ignorant that I love you."

It sounded strange enough, this confession of love, uttered in a voice in which indignation and passion strove for the mastery, and with eyes in which there was no tenderness, but a menacing gleam: the emotion did, indeed, seem allied to hatred.

"And is this the way in which to woo?–to seek a woman's love?" asked Hertha, indignantly, while a secret dread, hitherto unknown to her, stirred in her heart.

"Woo?" he repeated, with extreme bitterness. "No, it is not; such wooing would hardly be allowed me,–a young, insignificant officer with a bourgeois name, owning nothing save himself and perhaps some hope for the future. It would soon be made clear to me, and that after a ruthless fashion, that I must not dare to lift my eyes to the Countess Steinrück; that her hand has long been promised to another who, like herself, wears a coronet."

Hertha bit her lip; the reproof went home,–such assuredly would have been the conclusion of the affair. It had never occurred to the young Countess Steinrück to do more than trifle with the bourgeois officer, but yet she felt disgraced by the discovery that she had been seen through from the beginning.

"You do not seem to perceive how insulting your words are," she said, haughtily, "nor how offensive is this confession–"

"Which, nevertheless, you insisted upon hearing," he interrupted her. "Listen, then! I will not deny to you what cannot, indeed, be denied. I will confront my fate, for it has come upon me like a fate. Yes, I have loved you, Hertha, from the first moment of seeing you, and if I could have hoped for your love in return the coronet of the Steinrücks would not have deterred me for an instant. If my bliss were as far above me and as unattainable as the Eagle ridge there, I would scale the heights though every step threatened ruin. I would snatch it to my arms in spite of all the world! But I was warned, warned by a child, who once cozened from me my Alpine roses, to play with them for a while and then to pluck them wantonly to pieces. Those are the same golden curls, the same beautiful, evil eyes,–I knew them the first moment that we met,–but never again shall those lips say to me with contempt, 'Go away, I do not like you any more! I am tired of playing.' Those words have rung in my ears through all the bewitching music of your voice. The boy chose to have his flowers perish in the flames rather than leave them in your grasp, and the man will crush and annihilate his love, even though a part of his life dies with it,–it never shall be a plaything in your hands!"

Hertha had grown deadly pale; no one had ever before dared thus to insult her, to hurl the truth so recklessly and unsparingly in her face; but what did this man whom she had driven to extremity care whether she were offended or not? The tempest which she herself had evoked raged about her; she could no longer restrain its fury. She saw this clearly as Michael stood before her all aflame and overwhelmed her with this strange mixture of love and hatred. His every fibre vibrated with intense passion, and yet he struggled against it with a force that would not succumb. He was conquered, not subdued.

"You will please release me, Lieutenant Rodenberg, from listening further to such words as these," the young Countess said at last, summoning up all her self-possession. "I will go and meet his reverence."

"No need to do so. I am going," said Michael; his voice was low but firm. "I am aware that hereafter we can have nothing to say to each other. Farewell, Countess Steinrück."

He bowed and went. Hertha did not see which way he turned, nor did she perceive that the priest was approaching. She stood motionless.

The wind was rising; the sprays of the wild rosebush waved and fluttered above her head, the sea of clouds swelled and rolled nearer and nearer, while the misty breakers seemed ready to descend in floods upon the pastures. The transfiguring glow above the Eagle ridge had faded, the golden phantoms had vanished: heavy gray masses of mist were swimming there now; they sank lower and lower, and joined the dark clouds below that were suddenly torn asunder, and with a quivering, jagged flash it leaped forth,–the flaming sword of Saint Michael!

The storm passed down into the valleys in full force, and there, after the lightning had flashed and the thunder had rolled for an hour, it ended in a pouring rain.

Through the dripping forest strode a young man whom the tempest had overtaken. If Hans Wehlau had followed his friend's advice and pursued the tiresome mountain-road, he would long since have reached Tannberg, but he lost his way in the romantic forest, and struck into a path that led him far away from his goal. A projecting rock afforded him some shelter, but now, when it was growing dark and the rain was still pouring, he had no choice save either to pass the night in the wet forest, or to march on in hopes of finding a charcoal-burner's hut or some other shelter for the night, and he decided upon the latter course.

At last the thick, close forest came to an end, and the young man, as he emerged upon a clearing, saw at some distance a feeble ray of light. The darkness and mist did not allow of his discovering what kind of structure it was that lay before him upon a wooded height and projecting only here and there from among the trees, but there certainly were human beings living there, and thither, accordingly, the young man directed his steps.

The path leading up the height seemed to be in a very neglected condition. Hans stuck fast several times in the swampy soil, and had to cross first a brook that ran directly across the path, and then a ruinous wooden bridge, and at last to pass through a gateway, where only the stone pillars on either side were standing, the gate itself being lacking. An apparently extensive building with walls and towers, but in a ruinous condition, lay before the young man, but it had now become very dark, so that it was with difficulty that, guided by the ray of light he had first seen, he found a little closed door directly beneath the lighted window.

He knocked, at first gently, then louder and more persistently; after the lapse of a few minutes the window above was opened, and a hoarse voice asked who was there.

"A stranger who has lost his way and begs for shelter for the night."

"I have no shelter for vagabonds and tramps. Be off immediately!"

"This is an amiable reception," exclaimed Hans, indignantly. "I am neither a vagabond nor a tramp, but a respectable man, and quite ready to pay for my night's lodging."

"Pay? In the Ebersburg!" came from above just as indignantly. "This is no tavern; go to where you came from."

"That I shall certainly not do, for I came out of a rain-spout, and have utterly lost my way in the forest. How can you leave a man standing outside in such a storm and refuse to let him in? Open the door!"

"No!" said the hoarse voice, evidently provoked. "Stay outside!"

"Deuce take it, my patience is exhausted!" cried the young man, angrily, as a fresh fall of rain wetted him to the skin. "Open the door, or I will break it down and take the old barracks by storm."

And he began to beat at the door with his fists. What he had been unable to procure by courteous means this change of manner effected; his violence evidently impressed the invisible guardian of the place, for after a few seconds his voice spoke in a much gentler tone, "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I am at present a thoroughly drenched individual, and I want only to be dried. Moreover, I am qualified to give the most satisfactory explanations, if desired, with regard to my station, name, age, origin, home, family, and so forth."

"You are a man of family, then?"

"Of course I am. Every man must have a family."

"I mean noble family."

"Of course. Now open the door."

"Wait; I'll come," sounded encouragingly from above, and instantly the window was closed and the ray of light vanished.

"One has to be examined as to his pedigree before he is admitted here, it seems," said Hans to himself, crowding up against the door to escape the rain. "No matter. I should not mind in the least appropriating a coronet if it would procure me a dry lodging for the night. Thank God, they are opening the door at last!"

In fact, a key was turned and a bolt drawn on the inside; the door then opened, and an old man appeared, leaning upon a cane with his right hand, and holding a lamp high in his left.

His figure was lean and bent, but it must once have been tall and well formed. The parchment-coloured skin, with its thousand lines and wrinkles, made the face almost that of a mummy; the eyes were dim, and from beneath a black cap a few straggling white locks stole forth. His short walk seemed to have fatigued the old Herr, for he leaned more heavily upon his cane, and coughed, while he lighted his guest into the house.

"I beg pardon for my rude persistence, but I was really almost drowned," said Hans, with a bow, that sent the drops flying in all directions. "Have I the honour of seeing the master of the house?"

"Udo, Freiherr of Eberstein-Ortenau upon the Ebersburg," was the reply, delivered with great solemnity. "And you, sir?"

"Hans Wehlau Wehlenberg upon the Forschungstein," was the equally solemn rejoinder.

The name seemed to please the old gentleman; he inclined his head and said, with dignity, "You are welcome, Herr Hans Wehlau Wehlenberg. Follow me."

He carefully closed and locked the door again, and then preceded his guest to show him the way. They first passed through a hall, the roof of which seemed to be defective, for the rain had left traces everywhere on the floor. Then they ascended a narrow, steep staircase, the stone steps of which were much worn, then traversed a seemingly endless passage, where their footsteps on the tiles echoed loudly, and in which the lamp carried by the lord of the castle was the only light. At last he opened a door and entered with Hans. "Make use of this apartment," he said, putting the lamp upon a table. "The storm has disarranged your dress, I see. I will leave you while you change it, and shall expect you at supper; until then, farewell, Herr von Wehlau Wehlenberg."

He waved his hand with an air of knightly courtesy and was gone. Hans looked about him: the room was small, dark, and very scantily furnished. The large canopied bed in one corner seemed the sole relic of former grandeur, but its fine carving was shabby and worn, the silken hangings were frayed, and the sheets were of the coarsest linen.

"The best thing to do would be to go to bed as quickly as possible," said Hans to himself, as he made arrangements for drying his clothes near the stove; "but since this Freiherr von Eberstein-Ortenau has invited me to supper, I must put in an appearance. Where shall I get dry clothes? Perhaps I may find here somewhere an old suit of armour or a mediæval mantle that I can don. I think it would produce an impression if I should walk into the ancestral hall clad in mail. Let me see."

He began to search, and soon found a cupboard in the wall, unlocked, which seemed to contain the entire modest wardrobe of the lord of the castle. Hans took possession, without compunction, of the best articles in it, and had scarcely finished dressing when an old woman with a kerchief tied round her head appeared, and in the broadest mountain patois summoned 'the Herr Baron' to supper.

"Only baron! I ought to have made myself a count at least," said Hans to himself, as he obeyed the summons, following the old servant, who conducted him to a room which seemed to be drawing-room and dining-room combined.

At the first glance it presented a stately aspect, but it was a strange mixture of former splendour and present decay. The walls were covered with fine wainscoting, but the ceiling was rudely whitewashed, and the tiled stove was of a very common description. The same contrast appeared in the furniture: high-backed oaken chairs stood around a coarse pine table, articles of the meanest earthenware were ranged upon a richly-carved corner cupboard, and the fine old pointed arched window, the same whence had issued the ray of light seen by the wanderer, was curtained with flowered chintz.

"I must ask forgiveness for my presumption," said Hans, addressing the master of the castle, who was seated in an arm-chair. "My dress was in so disordered a state that, relying upon your kindness, I appropriated this coat."

He certainly did look oddly enough in the old-fashioned garb, but withal so handsome, with his cheeks reddened by the keen mountain air, and his curls still wet with the rain, that a smile hovered upon the old Freiherr's thin lips, and he replied, kindly, "I am glad you found what you wanted in my wardrobe. Sit down; I wish to ask you a question."

"Now comes the examination as to pedigree," thought Hans, and he was not mistaken; his host went straight to the point.

"Hans Wehlau Wehlenberg; that sounds well," he continued. "But the name of your estate is rather uncommon. Where is the Forschungstein situated?"

"In Northern Germany, Herr Baron," replied Hans, without the quiver of an eyelash.

"I thought so, since I do not know it. I am thoroughly acquainted with all the Southern German families of rank and their estates. My own family is one of the most ancient. It dates from the tenth century, according to historic proof, and is probably much older. I suppose there are no families so old as that in Northern Germany?"

He was evidently about to question his guest as to his genealogical tree; but Hans, with great skill, frustrated his intent by asking a question himself. "Pray, whom does this picture represent? It struck me as soon as I entered." And he pointed to a painting upon the opposite wall. It was the half-length portrait of a man of about forty, with dark hair, brilliant dark eyes, and nobly-formed regular features, which did not, however, express any high degree of intelligence. The dress, apparently a uniform, was partly concealed by a cloak, and the portrait was certainly modern. As the lord of the castle turned to look at it he seemed utterly to forget pedigrees and centuries, and asked, eagerly, "Do you like the picture?"