A Night on the Borders of the Black Forest

You have guessed it, perhaps, before I tell you. They were not in the market-place; they were not at the Gasthaus; they were not in the Cathedral.

"The tall young man in a grey and green coat, and the pretty girl with a white rose in her hair?" said a bystander. "Tush, my dear, don't be uneasy. They are gone home; I saw them running towards the station more than half an hour ago."

So we flew to the station, and there one of the porters, who was an Atzwang man and knew us both, confirmed the dreadful truth. They were gone indeed, but they were not gone home. Just in time to catch the Express, they had taken their tickets through to Venice, and were at this moment speeding southwards.

How I got home – not stopping at all at Atzwang, but going straight away on foot in the broiling afternoon sun – never resting till I reached Castelruth, a little after dusk – lying down outside my bed and sobbing all the night – getting up at the first glimmer of grey dawn and going on again before the sun was up – how I did all this, faint for want of food, yet unable to eat; weary for want of rest, yet unable to sleep – I know not. But I did it, and was home again at St. Ulrich, kneeling beside our mother's chair, and comforting her as best I could, by seven.

"How is Ulrich to be told?"

It was her first question. It was the question I had been asking myself all the way home. I knew well, however, that I must be the one to break it to him. It was a terrible task, and I put it from me as long as possible.

When at last I did go, it was past mid-day. The workshop door stood open – the Christ, just showing a vague outline through the folds, was covered with a sheet, and standing up against the wall – and Ulrich was working on the drapery of a St. Francis, the splinters from which were flying off rapidly in every direction.

Seeing me on the threshold, he looked up and smiled.

"So soon back, liebe Johanna?" he said. "We did not expect you till evening."

Then, finding I made no answer, he paused in his work, and said, quickly: —

"What is the matter? Is she ill?"

I shook my head.

"No," I said, "she is not ill."

"Where is she, then?"

"She is not ill," I said, again, "but – she is not here."

And then I told him.

He heard me out in dead silence, never moving so much as a finger, only growing whiter as I went on. Then, when I had done, he went over to the window, and remained standing with his back towards me for some minutes.

"And you?" he said, presently, still without turning his head. "And you – through all these weeks – you never saw or suspected anything?"

"I feared – I was not sure – "

He turned upon me with a terrible pale anger in his face.

"You feared – you were not sure!" he said, slowly. "That is to say, you saw it going on, and let it go on, and would not put out your hand to save us all! False! false! false! – all false together – false love, false brother, false friend!"

"You are not just to me, Ulrich," I said; for to be called false by him was more than I could bear.

"Am I not just? Then I pray that God will be more just to you, and to them, than I can ever be; and that His justice may be the justice of vengeance – swift, and terrible, and without mercy."

And saying this he laid his hand on the veiled Christ, and cursed us all three with a terrible, passionate curse, like the curse of a prophet of old.

For one moment my heart stood still, and I felt as if there was nothing left for me but to die – but it was only for that one moment; for I knew, even before he had done speaking, that no words of his could harm either my poor little erring Katrine or myself. And then, having said so as gently as I could, I formally forgave him in her name and mine, and went away.

That night Ulrich Finazzer shut up his house and disappeared, no one knew whither. When I questioned the old woman who lived with him as servant, she said that he had paid and dismissed her a little before dusk; that she then thought he was looking very ill, and that she had observed how, instead of being as usual hard at work all day in the workshop, he had fetched his gun out of the kitchen about two o'clock, and carried it up to his bedroom, where, she believed, he had spent nearly all the afternoon cleaning it. This was all she had to tell; but it was more than enough to add to the burden of my terrors.

Oh, the weary, weary time that followed – the long, sad, solitary days – the days that became weeks – the weeks that became months – the Autumn that chilled and paled as it wore on towards Winter – the changing wood – the withering leaves – the snow that whitened daily on the great peaks round about! Thus September and October passed away, and the last of the harvest was gathered in, and November came with bitter winds and rain; and save a few hurried lines from Katrine, posted in Perugia, I knew nothing of the fate of all whom I had loved and lost.

"We were married," she wrote, "in Venice, and Alois talks of spending the Winter in Rome. I should be perfectly happy if I knew that you and Ulrich had forgiven us."

This was all. She gave me no address; but I wrote to her at the Poste Restante Perugia, and again to the Poste Restante, Rome; both of which letters, I presume, lay unclaimed till destroyed by the authorities, for she never replied to either.

And now the Winter came on in earnest, as Winter always comes in our high valleys, and Christmas-time drew round again; and on the eve of St. Thomas, Ulrich Finazzer returned to his house as suddenly and silently as he had left it.

Next door neighbours as we were, we should not have known of his return but for the trampled snow upon the path, and the smoke going up from the workshop chimney. No other sign of life or occupation was to be seen. The shutters remained unopened. The doors, both front and back, remained fast locked. If any neighbour knocked, he was left to knock unanswered. Even the old woman who used to be his servant, was turned away by a stern voice from within, bidding her begone and leave him at peace.

That he was at work was certain; for we could hear him in the workshop by night as well as by day. But he could work there as in a tomb, for the room was lighted by a window in the roof.

Thus St. Thomas's Day, and the next day which was the fourth Sunday in Advent, went by; and still he who had ever been so constant at mass showed no sign of coming out amongst us. On Monday our good curé walked down, all through the fresh snow (for there had been a heavy fall in the night), on purpose to ask if we were sure that Ulrich was really in his house; if we had yet seen him; and if we knew what he did for food, being shut in there quite alone. But to these questions we could give no satisfactory reply.

That day when we had dined, I put some bread and meat in a basket and left it at his door; but it lay there untouched all through the day and night, and in the morning I fetched it back again, with the food still in it.

This was the fourth day since his return. It was very dreadful – I cannot tell you how dreadful – to know that he was so near, yet never even to see his shadow on a blind. As the day wore on my suspense became intolerable. To-night, I told myself, would be Christmas Eve; to-morrow Christmas Day. Was it possible that his heart would not soften if he remembered our Happy Christmas of only last year, when he and Katrine were not yet betrothed; how he supped with us, and how we all roasted nuts upon the hearth and sang part-songs after supper? Then, again, it seemed incredible that he should not go to church on Christmas Day.

Thus the day went by, and the evening dusk came on, and the village choir came round singing carols from house to house, and still he made no sign.

Now what with the suspense of knowing him to be so near, and the thought of my little Katrine far away in Rome, and the remembrance of how he – he whom I had honoured and admired above all the world my whole life long – had called down curses on us both the very last time that he and I stood face to face – what with all this, I say, and what with the season and its associations, I had such a great restlessness and anguish upon me that I sat up trying to read my Bible long after mother had gone to bed. But my thoughts wandered continually from the text, and at last the restlessness so gained upon me that I could sit still no longer, and so got up and walked about the room.

And now suddenly, while I was pacing to and fro, I heard, or fancied I heard, a voice in the garden calling to me by name. I stopped – I listened – I trembled. My very heart stood still! Then, hearing no more, I opened the window and outer shutters, and instantly there rushed in a torrent of icy cold air and a flood of brilliant moonlight, and there, on the shining snow below, stood Ulrich Finazzer.

Himself, and yet so changed! Worn, haggard, grey.

I saw him, I tell you, as plainly as I see my own hand at this moment. He was standing close, quite close, under the window, with the moonlight full upon him.

"Ulrich!" I said, and my own voice sounded strange to me, somehow, in the dead waste and silence of the night – "Ulrich, are you come to tell me we are friends again?"

But instead of answering me he pointed to a mark on his forehead – a small dark mark, that looked at this distance and by this light like a bruise – cried aloud with a strange wild cry, less like a human voice than a far-off echo, "The brand of Cain! The brand of Cain!" and so flung up his arms with a despairing gesture, and fled away into the night.

The rest of my story may be told in a few words – the fewer the better. Insane with the desire of vengeance, Ulrich Finazzer had tracked the fugitives from place to place, and slain his brother at mid-day in the streets of Rome. He escaped unmolested, and was well nigh over the Austrian border before the authorities began to inquire into the particulars of the murder. He then, as was proved by a comparison of dates, must have come straight home by way of Mantua, Verona, and Botzen, with no other object, apparently, than to finish the statue that he had designed for an offering to the church. He worked upon it, accordingly, as I have said, for four days and nights incessantly, completed it to the last degree of finish, and then, being in who can tell how terrible a condition of remorse, and horror, and despair, sought to expiate his crime with his blood. They found him shot through the head by his own hand, lying quite dead at the feet of the statue upon which he had been working, probably, up to the last moment; his tools lying close by; the pistol still fast in his clenched hand, and the divine pitying face of the Redeemer whose law he had outraged, bending over him as if in sorrow and forgiveness.

Our mother has now been dead some years; strangers occupy the house in which Ulrich Finazzer came to his dreadful death, and already the double tragedy is almost forgotten. In the sad, faded woman, prematurely grey, who lives with me, ever working silently, steadily, patiently, from morning till night at our hereditary trade, few who had known her in the freshness of her youth would now recognise my beautiful Katrine. Thus from day to day, from year to year, we journey on together, nearing the end.

Did I indeed see Ulrich Finazzer that night of his self-murder? If I did so with my bodily eyes and it was no illusion of the senses, then most surely I saw him not in life, for that dark mark which looked to me in the moonlight like a bruise was the bullet-hole in his brow.

But did I see him? It is a question I ask myself again and again, and have asked myself for years. Ah! who can answer it?

ALL-SAINTS' EVE

A STORY OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

[This story, written some seventeen or eighteen years ago, was founded, to the best of my recollection, on the particulars of a French trial that I read in some old volume of Causes Celèbres, or Causes Judiciaires, the title of which I have now forgotten. I no longer remember how much of it is fact, or how much fiction; or even whether the names and dates are retained unaltered.]

CHAPTER I

The Mountaineers

It was a sultry day in the month of August, a. d. 1710. The place was wild and solitary enough – a narrow ledge of rock jutting out from a precipitous mountain-side in the department of the Haute Auvergne. The mountain was volcanic – bare and blackened towards the west; grassy to the east and south; clothed with thick chestnut-woods about the base. A sea of dusky peaks stretched all around. The deep blue sky burned overhead. All was repose; all was silence – silence in the grass, in the air, on the mountain-side.

Upon this shelf of rock lay three men, sound asleep; with their heads in the shade, their feet in the sun, and the remains of a brown loaf and a big cheese lying beside them on the grass.

The air up here was as still to-day, and as languid, as down in the green valleys below. Towards the south, a faint white mist dulled the distance; but in the direction of Clermont, on the north, every summit rose clear and keen against the sky. Most conspicuous amongst these was the long-toothed ridge of the Mont Dor; and loftiest of all, though apparently farthest, the solitary summit of the Puy de Dome. Here and there a few scattered sheep or cows might be seen as mere moving specks on some green slope of high level pasture. Now and then, the faint bleating of a stray lamb, or the bark of a herdsman's dog, or the piping of some distant shepherd boy "piping as though he should never grow old," just stirred the silence. But for these vague sounds and the low humming of insects in the grass, all was so profoundly still that it seemed as if Nature herself were holding her breath, and as if the very perfumes were asleep in the hearts of the wild flowers.

Suddenly, in the midst of this charmed silence, the prolonged blast of a huntsman's horn, and the deep baying of many hounds, came sweeping up the ravine below. The sleepers sprang to their feet, rubbed their eyes, and peered over the brink of the precipice.

"'Tis Madame la Comtesse out with the hounds!" said the elder of the three – a big, burly, sun-browned mountaineer of some fifty-five or sixty years of age.

"Peste! It is my luck never to be in the way when she rides!" exclaimed one of the two younger herdsmen. "Here is the third time our new mistress has hunted of late, and I have never yet seen her."

The horns rang out again, but this time farther away and more faintly. Once more, and it was but a breath upon the breeze. Then all was silent as before.

"They have gone round by the Gorge des Loups," said the elder of the trio.

Then, looking round the horizon, he added: —

"There is a storm brewing somewhere – and the shadows are lengthening. 'Tis time we went down to the Buron, lads, and saw to the milking."

Now these three constituted the usual triumvirate of the Haute Auvergne – the vacher, or cowkeeper, (sometimes called the buronnier) who makes the cheeses which form the principal revenue of the landowners in this part of France; the boutilier who makes the butter; and the pâtre, or herdsman, who looks after the cows, and keeps the Buron and dairy in order. The distinctions of rank among these three are strictly observed.

The varher is a person of authority, "a wise fellow, and, what is more, an officer" the boutilier comes next in dignity; and the pâtre is under both. The Buron, or little wooden hut, in which they live during the six Summer months, in Switzerland would be called a châlet. It is generally built of wood, and divided into three chambers, the first of which is for living and cooking in, and is provided with a rude fire-place and chimney; the second is for the cheese-making, and contains milk-pails, churns, and other implements; the third serves for a cheese-room, store-room, and sleeping-room. A small kitchen-garden, a stable, a pigsty, and an enclosure in which the cattle take refuge in rough weather, completes the establishment.

The Buron to which the three herdsmen now took their way stood on a green slope surrounded by oaks, about six hundred feet below the spot on which they had been sleeping. As they went along, the cows came to their call and followed them, knowing that milking-time was come. Every cow – and there were fifty in all – was branded on the flank with a coronet and an initial P, thus showing them to be the property of the Countess de Peyrelade, a young and wealthy widow whose estates extended for many miles to the eastward of the Plomb de Cantal. Other herds, other Burons, other dependents, she had scattered about the neighbouring hillsides, all portioned off in the same way – namely, fifty cows and three men to each district.

"Tell us, Père Jacques," said the boutilier when, the milking being done, the men sat outside the Buron door, smoking and chatting, "tell us what our new lady is like."

"Like!" repeated the cowkeeper. "Eh, mon garçon, it would take a more skilful tongue than mine to describe her! She is more beautiful than the Madonna in the Cathedral of St. Flour."

"When did you see her, Père Jacques, and where?" asked the pâtre.

"Mon enfant, I have seen her from near by and from afar off. I have seen her as a child, a demoiselle, a bride, a widow. I have carried her in my arms, and danced her on my knee, many and many a time. Ah! that surprises you; but the snow has fallen for many a Winter on the summit of Mount Cantal since that time."

"Then it was a great many years ago, Father Jacques. How old is Madame la Comtesse?"

"Twenty-five years at the most, come September," replied Jacques. "And she's so fresh and beautiful that she does not yet look above eighteen. We always used to call her the little Queen Marguerite; and sure, if a young girl were to be made a queen for her beauty, Marguerite would have been crowned ten years ago. Ah, when she married the old Comte de Peyrelade and went away to the King's court, there was not a soul in the province but missed her. It was a blessing even to look upon her; she was so fair, so smiling, so gracious! From everybody you heard, 'Well, have you been told the news? The little Queen Marguerite is gone!' And all the men sighed, and the women cried; and it was a sad day for the poor folks. Well, nine years have gone by since then. She has at last come back to us; the old Count is dead; and our little Queen will live with us once more, till the end of her days!"

"Perhaps," said the boutilier, who had hitherto been silent.

"Why perhaps?" said Père Jacques, knitting his grey brows, "why perhaps?"

"Is not Madame young and beautiful?" asked the boutilier. "Is she not rich? Why, then, should she bury herself for life in an old château? What will you bet that she does not go back to court before twelve months are over, and there marry some rich and handsome lord?"

"Hush! Pierre," replied Jacques, in a moody voice; "I tell you she will neither marry nor leave us. She has made a vow to that effect."

"Do ladies keep those vows?" asked the incredulous Pierre.

"She will. Listen, and I will tell you all that passed nine years ago in the Château de Pradines, the home of our little Queen Marguerite before her marriage."

The two lads drew nearer, and the cowkeeper thus began: —

"The handsomest and noblest among all Marguerite's lovers was M. le Chevalier de Fontane. She preferred him; and though he was but a younger son, with a lieutenant's commission, the old Baron de Pradines consented to the marriage for love of his daughter. The wedding day was fixed. Then news came that Monsieur George, the brother of Mademoiselle Marguerite, was to have leave of absence from his regiment; and M. le Baron deferred the marriage till his arrival – and sorely he repented of it afterwards! Monsieur George was as much disliked as his father and sister were beloved in the province; and the day when he had first left it was a day of rejoicing amongst us. It was late one evening when he arrived at the château, bringing with him an old gentleman. This gentleman was the Count de Peyrelade. As soon as supper was over, Monsieur George went to his father's chamber, and there remained with him for a long time in conversation. No one ever knew what passed between them; but the night was far spent when he came out, and the next day M. le Baron, who had been full of life and health before the arrival of his son, was confined to his bed in the extremity of illness. A priest was sent for, and the last sacraments were administered; and then the poor old gentleman summoned all the household to take his farewell.

"'Marguerite,' said he to his daughter, who was crying bitterly – 'Marguerite, I have but a few moments to live, and before I leave thee I have a prayer to address to thee.' And as Mademoiselle kissed his hands without being able to speak a word, he added, 'My daughter, promise me to marry M. de Peyrelade!'

"At these words the poor young lady gave a great cry, and fell on her knees at the foot of her father's bed. Then the Baron turned to the late Count: —

"'Monsieur,' said he, 'I know my daughter; she will obey my commands. Promise me to make her happy.'

"The Count, greatly moved, promised to devote his life to her; and the poor dear master fell back quite dead!

"It was exactly twenty-four hours after his son's arrival that M. le Baron breathed his last. What a terrible night it was, boys! The rain and snow had never ceased falling since that fatal return. M. le Chevalier de Fontane, who knew nothing of what had passed, came riding into the courtyard about an hour after the Baron had died. I ran out to him, for I was a stableman in the château, and I told him all that had happened. As he listened to me, he became as pale as a corpse, and I saw him reel in his saddle. Then he plunged his spurs into his horse's flanks, and fled away like a madman into the storm. From that time he was never seen or heard of again; but, as he took the road to the mountains, it was supposed that he fell, with his horse, into some chasm, and was buried in the snow. Every year, on the anniversary of that day, his family have a mass said for the repose of his soul."

Here the cowkeeper crossed himself devoutly, and his companions followed his example.

After a few minutes' silence, "Well, Pierre," he said, "now do you understand why Madame la Comtesse de Peyrelade has retired at the age of twenty-five to live in a ruinous old Château of Auvergne, and why she should never marry a second time?"

The boutilier was so concerned that he had not the heart to say a word; but the herdsman, who was excessively curious, returned to the charge.

"You have not told us, Père Jacques," said he, "why the Baron desired his daughter to marry the late Count instead of the Chevalier de Fontane."

"I can only tell you the reports," replied Jacques; "for nobody knows the truth of it. They said that M. George owed more money to the Count de Peyrelade than his father could pay, and that he had sold the hand of his sister to defray the debt. Every one knows that the Count was very much in love with her, and that she had refused him several times already."

"Alas!" exclaimed Pierre, "I don't wonder at the poor lady's determination. It is not her old husband that she grieves for, but her father and her lover; is it not, Père Jacques?"

"Ay," replied the cowkeeper, "and it is not only past troubles that the gentle soul has to bear, but present troubles also! 'Tis not much peace, I fear, that she will find in Auvergne."

"Why so, friend?" said a deep voice behind the speakers, and a man of about thirty-eight or forty years of age, with a pale face, a stooping figure, and a melancholy expression of countenance came suddenly into the midst of them. The mountaineer and the ecclesiastic were oddly combined in his attire; for with the cassock and band he wore leathern gaiters, a powder-pouch and a cartridge-box; while across his shoulders was slung a double-barrelled musket. A couteau de chasse was thrust in his leathern belt, and a magnificent mountain-dog walked leisurely at his side.

"Good day, Monsieur le Curé," said the cowkeeper, respectfully. "Welcome to the Buron. Have you had good sport?"

"Not very, my good friend, not very," replied the priest.

"You are tired, Monsieur le Curé; come and rest awhile in the Buron. We can give you fresh milk and bread, and new cheese. Ah dame! you will not find such refreshments here as at the château, but they are heartily at your service."