Part 7

It happened that Babbett's and Caspar's wedding came off just three days before that on which Sepper was obliged to go to the military. So he made up his mind to enjoy himself once for all, and kept his word. In almost every house where Caspar and his friend left the invitations, somebody said, "Well, Sepper, your turn will come next." And he smiled affirmatively.

At the wedding Sepper was as happy as a horse in clover. He enjoyed the foretaste of his coming bliss. When the dance began he climbed up to the musicians and bespoke them for his wedding, with two additional trumpeters: he belonged to the Guard, and therefore thought himself entitled to more trumpets than others.

But in the evening a new apparition crossed his path and changed the color of his thoughts. The gamekeeper came to the dance, and the first one he asked to dance with him was Tony.

"Engaged," answered Sepper for Tony.

"The lassie can speak for herself, I guess," replied the gamekeeper.

"You and I will dance the next hop-waltz together," said Tony, taking Sepper's hand. But she turned around toward the gamekeeper once more before the hop-waltz began. The next waltz Tony danced with the gamekeeper, while Sepper sat down at the table and made up his mind not to stir another foot that evening, and to forbid Tony to dance any more. But Babbett came and asked him to dance. This was the bride's privilege, and Sepper could not refuse. Of course the dance was a cover for a round lecture. "I don't know what to make of you at all," said she: "that gamekeeper seems to have driven every bit of sense out of your head. It'll be your fault and nobody else's if Tony should ever come to like him. She wouldn't have had a thought of him this many a day; but, if you go on teasing her about him this way, what can she do but think of him? And with always thinking about him, and wondering whether he likes her or not, she might get to like him at last, after all, for he does dance a little better than you, that's a fact: you couldn't reverse waltz the way he does, could you?"

Sepper laughed; but in his heart he could not deny that the shrewd little rogue was right, and when he sat at the table with his sweetheart he clinked his glass against the gamekeeper's and beckoned to Tony to do the same. The gamekeeper drank, bowed politely to Tony, and nodded slightly to Sepper. The latter had made up his mind, however, not to be sulky again, and prided himself a little on the good tact of his behavior to the gamekeeper, and then sat, happy as a king, with his arm round Tony's waist. He was called away to the master-joke of the wedding.

According to ancient custom, all the young men had conspired to steal the bride. They formed a ring around her, and Caspar had to bargain for her release amid a plentiful volley of small jokes and lively sallies. Six bottles of wine were at last accepted as a ransom, and the reunited pair marched off arm in arm. The musicians came down from their platform to the yard under their windows, and played the customary march; and many a hurrah followed from the crowd.

Tony stood at the window, in a dreamy mood, long after Babbett was gone and the others had returned to the dance.

It was very late at night, or, rather, early in the morning, when Sepper saw Tony home; yet it was long before they parted. Tony pressed her cheek against his with wild emotion, and held him with all the force of her arms. He too was greatly excited; yet he could not refrain from talking about the gamekeeper. "Let the gamekeeper alone," said Tony: "there's nothing in the world but you."

Sepper lifted her high up in the air; then he embraced her again, and, pressing his lip to her cheek, he whispered, "Do you see? I should just like to bite you."

"Bite," said Tony.

Well done! Sepper had bitten in good earnest. The blood flowed freely and ran down her cheeks into her neck and breast. Her hand rushed to her cheek, and there she felt the open scars of the teeth. She thrust Sepper away with such force that he fell on his back, and shrieked and cried aloud, so that the whole house was alarmed. Sepper got up and tried to comfort her; but with loud wailing she pushed him away again. Hearing a noise in the house, he slipped away quietly. He thought the matter was not so bad, after all, and that if he was out of the way she would hit upon some excuse to quiet them.

Her father and mother came up with lights, and were frightened almost to death at the sight of their child dripping in blood. Old Ursula, who knew so many remedies, was sent for immediately. She had no sooner cast eyes on the wound than she declared, "This may end in a cancer, or else the person who did it must clean the wound with his tongue." But Tony protested vehemently that she would rather die than ever let Sepper touch her again.

Various remedies were applied, and Tony groaned as if she were at the point of death.

The story spread through the village like wildfire; and it was even said that Sepper had taken a piece of flesh out of Tony's cheek. Everybody came to comfort her and to find out all about it. Sepper came too; but Tony screamed like a maniac, and declared he must leave the house at once and never come back. All his prayers and tears availed nothing: Tony seemed to be really beside herself, and Sepper had to go. He went to Babbett and begged her to say a good word for him. Babbett was busy arranging the wedding-gifts: kitchen-furniture, and all sorts of utensils, lay scattered about. She scolded Sepper roundly, but left her work at once and hastened to Tony. The latter fell upon her playmate's neck and cried, "I am spoiled for all the days of my life!" After a great deal of coaxing, she consented to rise from her bed; but, when she stood before the looking-glass and saw the horrible devastation, she exclaimed, "Jesus! Maria! Joseph! why, I am just like Flambeau Mary Ann! Oh God! I'm sure I must have sinned against her: I am punished hard enough!"

On no condition would she hear of seeing Sepper again; so the poor fellow had to trudge off to Stuttgard in a day or two, with a little white linen knapsack on his back, and a heavy, heavy load on his heart.

It was two weeks before Tony left the house, and then she kept her face well tied up. She walked out with a hoe on her shoulder to dig potatoes; and, strange to say, almost the first person she met was the gamekeeper.

"How are you, pretty Tony?" he asked, almost tenderly.

She could have sunk into the earth with shame, it seemed so strange for him to call her by name, and say "pretty" besides; and she felt more keenly than ever how much she was disfigured. As she sighed and said nothing, the gamekeeper went on:--"I have heard of what has happened: won't you let me see it?"

She bashfully pushed the kerchief aside, and the gamekeeper involuntarily raised his hands to his own face and said, "It is horrid, it is inhuman, to act so to a sweet, good girl like you! There's a fair specimen of your farmers' brutality. Don't be offended: I certainly didn't mean you by it: but these people are often worse than wild beasts. But don't be grieved about it."

Of all this Tony only heard the sympathy of the gamekeeper, and said, "I'm dreadfully spoiled and mangled, a'n't I?"

"I shouldn't mind it," said the gamekeeper: "if you had but one cheek you would please me better than all the girls between Nordstetten and Paris."

"It isn't right to tease one so," said Tony, smiling sadly.

"I am not teasing you," said the gamekeeper; and, taking her hand, he continued, "Oh, if you would say the word, how glad I should be to marry you!"

"That is talking sinfully," said Tony.

"I don't see any sin in our getting married," returned the gamekeeper.

"If you want to be good friends with me, don't say another word about it," said Tony, taking her way across the field.

The gamekeeper was content, for the present, to be "good friends," and made the most of it; for he came to Nordstetten almost regularly twice or three times a week. He managed to start some business-negotiations with the Poodlehead, Tony's father, about cordwood; and this always gave him an opportunity of talking with Tony. He said nothing more about marrying, but anybody but a fool could see that he alluded to it all the time. He had much trouble with Babbett, whose influence upon Tony was of the greatest consequence. At first he tried good humor and fun, but Babbett never would understand his jokes: she did nothing but talk about Sepper as long as the gamekeeper was within hearing.

A lucky occurrence gave the latter a great advantage. Tony had a rich cousin in Muehringen, who was to be married shortly: the dance was to last three days; and Tony was invited. The gamekeeper's sister soon made friends with her, and the two girls rambled over the fields together and kept near each other at the dance. Tony now appeared for the first time with an uncovered face; and it might almost be said that the bite had improved her looks. Some wild and superstitious people purposely mangle what is perfectly beautiful, so that the "evil look" may have no power over it, and by way of appeasing the devil, who can suffer nothing perfect to exist. Whether the "beauty-spots" cultivated by the damsels of our day were originally derived from this superstition I cannot tell. At all events, the bite on Tony's cheek was just enough to give the spirit of envy a little "but" to hang on the end of an acknowledgment of her comeliness.

The gamekeeper always kept near Tony while the dance was going on; and in the evening he treated her to something that no peasant-girl of all Nordstetten had ever enjoyed. The old baron, a stout and well-fed personage, though very parsimonious, and unmerciful in hunting down every poor farmer who took an armful of dry sticks out of the wood, was very ambitious for the prosperity of a little private theatre which he maintained at the manor-house, and to which he used to invite the grand folks of the neighborhood. The gamekeeper was permitted to bring Tony to see the theatricals.

She trembled till her teeth chattered as she walked up the hill on which the manor-house, or rather castle, stands, with its drawbridge, moat, and parapet, in the style of the Middle Ages. Without a breath, and on tip-toe, she came into the hall, where the ladies and gentlemen were already assembled. A place was assigned her not far back of the orchestra. The lord-lieutenant's lady levelled her eyeglass at her for a long time; Tony cast down her eyes, almost afraid to breathe. The scar on her cheek tingled as if the eyes of the lady had opened the wound afresh. The rise of the curtain came to her relief, and now she listened with breathless attention. She shed tears over the fate of the poor boy who died in prison, because he was accused of stealing, just to save the credit of his master, to whom he owed a debt of gratitude; and if she had been the master's daughter she certainly would not have put off her disclosure until it came too late. When the curtain fell, a deep sigh escaped her.

On the way home the gamekeeper put his arm around Tony's waist, and she clung closely to him. She was quite overcome with mingled emotions. It seemed as if all she felt, and the feigned events she had seen, were of the gamekeeper's doing, and as if she owed it all to him; and, again, she wished to go back to the old man and his sweet daughter, who were now so happy together. The gamekeeper, too, was happy, for he obtained Tony's promise to walk with him after church on Sunday afternoon.

Thus the gamekeeper's man[oe]uvres were far more successful than those in which poor Sepper was engaged on horseback on the plains of Ludwigsburg; and, before the latter got his honorable discharge from the military, Tony had given him another discharge which he never desired. When he came home, his first visit was to the house of Tony's father. She was spinning in the room, but gave him no look of recognition, only directing a fixed, cold stare at him from time to time. He took his discharge out of his pocket, brushed every mote of dust from the table, and spread the document before their eyes. Tony would not walk to the table to look at it. He wrapped it up in a piece of paper and went, carrying it carefully in his hand, to Babbett's. Here he heard the whole story, and also that the two playmates had quarrelled about the gamekeeper, and were not on speaking terms. He mashed the discharge into a ball with both hands and went away.

At dark Sepper was sitting under the cherry-tree where we first made Tony's acquaintance. It was leafless. The wind whistled over the stubble, and the pine-wood sighed and murmured like a mighty current. The night-bell sounded from the convent, and a belated raven croaked as he flew toward the wood. Sepper saw and heard nothing. His elbows rested on his knees, and his hands covered his eyes. Thus he remained a long time. The bark of a dog and the sound of footsteps approaching aroused him, and he sprang to his feet. The gamekeeper was coming out of the village. Sepper saw the flash of his gun-barrel: he also saw a white apron, and concluded, rightly, that Tony was accompanying the gamekeeper. They stood still a while, and Tony returned toward the village.

When the gamekeeper was near him, Sepper said, in a tone of defiance, "Good-evening."

"How are you?" returned the gamekeeper.

"I've got a crow to pick with you," said the former again.

"Oh, Sepper," said the gamekeeper, "since when have you got back?"

"Too soon for you, you----: we won't be long about it. There! we'll draw straws for which of us must give up Tony, and if I lose I must have the gun."

"I won't draw any straws."

"Then I'll draw your soul out of your body, you rascally green-coat!" roared Sepper, seizing the rifle with one hand and the gamekeeper's throat with the other.

"Seize him, Bruin," cried the gamekeeper, with a smothered voice. A kick from Sepper disabled the hound, but released the gamekeeper a little. They now wrestled furiously for the gun, and held each other by the throat, when suddenly the charge went off, and the gamekeeper fell backward into the ditch. He groaned but slightly, and Sepper bent over him to hear whether he was still breathing. Tony came running up the road: she had heard the report, and was filled with forebodings of evil.

"There, there!" cried Sepper; "there lies your gamekeeper: now marry him!"

Tony stood like a statue, without speech or motion. At last she said, "Sepper, Sepper, you have made yourself and me unhappy."

"What am I to you? I ask nothing more of anybody," cried Sepper, and fled toward the highlands. He was never heard of again.

On the way to Muehringen, in the cherry-copse, is a stone cross, to mark the spot where the gamekeeper of Muehringen was slain.

Tony lived through many years of solitary grief.

GOOD GOVERNMENT.

1.

On May morning a magnificent tree was found before the house of Michael the wagoner. It was a tall fir; the branches had been cut off, and only the crown was left. It towered far over all the houses, and, if the church were not on a hill, it would have looked down on the steeple. There was not another May-pole in all the village; and all the girls envied Eva, the wagoner's oldest daughter, the distinction of having this one set for her.

The children came up the village, a green hut moving along in their midst. A conical roof of twisted withes, covered with leaves, was put on a boy's head, and in this curious disguise he went from house to house, stopping at every door. Two boys walked beside him, carrying a basket filled with eggs and chaff, followed by a crowd with green boughs in their hands. They sang at every house,--

"Bim, bam, bum! The May-man he has come; Give us all the eggs you've got. Or the marten will come to your cot; Give us all the eggs we will, Or we'll strew our chaff on your sill. Bim, bam, bum," &c.

Where they received no eggs they fulfilled their threat, and cast a handful of chaff on the sill, with cheers and laughter. This happened but very rarely, however, though they left not a single house unvisited except the manor-house farmer's. But the "May-man" failed on this occasion to attract the general interest, for all the world had flocked to Michael the wagoner's house to see the May-pole. It could not have been brought there without the aid of at least six men and two horses. How it could have been done so "unbeknown" was the wonder of all, for setting May-poles was rigorously forbidden and punished with three months' confinement in the Ludwigsburg penitentiary. The fear of this punishment had deterred all the boys from putting this monster nosegay before their sweethearts' windows,--all but Wendel's Mat, who went to see Eva. Who had helped him was not to be discovered: some supposed that they were boys from Dettensee, which is only a mile off and belongs to the dominions of his high mightiness the Duke of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.

Many of the farmers, on their way to the field with their ploughs and harrows, stopped to look at the May-pole. Others, with hoes on their shoulders, did the same. Wendel's Mat was there also, and he chuckled in his sleeve continually, tipping the wink to Eva, who sat gayly at the window with her eyes shut. Those closed eyes were very significant. At every arch repetition of the question, "Who could have set the May-pole!" she answered with a roguish shrug of the shoulders.

Just as the May-man and his followers had reached Michael the wagoner's house and began their song, the beadle and the ranger made their appearance, and a solemn "Hush your noise, you----!" from the former, stopped the proceedings. Amid the sudden silence the officer of the law walked up to Mat, took him by the arm, and said, "Come along to the squire."

Mat shook off the broad hand of the functionary, and asked, "What for?"

"You'll hear in good time. Come along, now, or you'll be sorry for it."

Mat looked about him as if he did not exactly know what to do, or as if he was waiting for assistance from some quarter. The May-cabin marched straight up to the beadle and struck his face. The boy probably took it for granted that, as May-man, his person was sacred and secure; but the beadle knew no sacred personage except himself, and pulled the boy's hut to pieces at a blow. Christian, Mat's younger brother, sprang out of it; and there was an end of the Maying.

Meantime Eva had come out of the house and took Mat by the arm, as if to save him. But he shook her off almost as roughly as he had done the beadle; while the latter said to Eva, "You may as well wait till I come for you."

"Come on," said Mat, casting a look of much meaning on Eva; but she, poor thing, saw nothing now, for the tears were in her eyes. Holding her apron to her face, she went back quickly to the house.

The farmers went to their work, and Mat followed the officers to the squire's, the children bringing up the rear. When nearly out of hearing, some of the boldest cried, "Soges! Soges!" This was the beadle's nickname, and always made him furious. He had administered his office while the Black Forest yet formed a part of the possessions of the house of Austria. His devotion to his august master was such that he thought it necessary even to affect the dialect of Vienna; and, instead of pronouncing the German for "I say it," "I sag's" or "I han's g'sa't,"--as a plain Black Forester would have done,--he said, "I sog'es." Soges thereby became his title.

The mysterious brown door of the squire's house removed Mat, Soges, and the ranger from the sight of the multitude. The squire welcomed the prisoner with a round rating for the crime of which he stood accused. Mat remained calm, only beating with one foot the time of a tune he sang in imagination. At last he said, "'You 'most done, squire? All that's nothing to me, for I haven't set any May-pole: go on talking, though, for I've plenty of time to listen."

The squire waxed very wroth, and would have assaulted Mat bodily had not Soges whispered some more sagacious counsels in his ear. He sank his clenched fist, and ordered Soges to take the criminal to the lock-up for twenty-four hours for a flagrant denial.

"I belong to the village; I am to be found at any time, and I'm not likely to run away about such a trumpery as this: you can't lock me up," said Mat, rightly.

"Can't?" cried the squire, reddening with anger: "we'll see if we can't, you----"

"Save your blackguarding," said Mat: "I'm going; but it's an outrage to treat the son of a citizen this way. If my cousin Buchmaier was at home it couldn't be done."

On the way to the lock-up they met Eva; but Mat did not even make an attempt to speak to her. Eva could not understand how this happened. She followed Mat with her eyes until he was no longer in sight, and then, bent with shame and trouble, she entered the squire's dwelling. His wife was Eva's godmother, and Eva would not go until Mat had been released. But her intercession was of no use this time: the president-judge of the district was shortly expected on his tour of visitation, and the squire wished to conciliate him by a specimen of unrelenting severity.

In conjunction with his faithful prime minister Soges, a report was prepared and Mat transported to Horb early next morning. It was well that Eva's house lay at the other end of the village, so that she could not see the wretched plight to which a night's imprisonment had reduced the fine, active fellow who generally appeared so neatly clad. In his anger he tore a bough from every hedge he passed, gnawed it between his teeth, and threw it away again. In the fir-wood he broke a twig and kept it in his mouth. He never spoke a word: the fir-sprig seemed to be the symbol of his silence in regard to the May-pole,--a charm with which he intended to tie his tongue. Arrived at the court-house door, he hastily took it out of his mouth and unconsciously thrust it in his pocket.

No one who has not been in the hands of a German court of justice can form any idea of the misery attending such a perfect loss of the power of self-control: it is as if one's mind had been forcibly deprived of its body. Pushed from hand to hand, the feet move with apparent freedom of will, and yet do only another's bidding. Mat felt all this keenly; for he had never been in trouble like this. He felt as if he was a great criminal, and had killed somebody at the very least: his knees seemed to sink under him as he was taken up the long flights of steps which lead to the top of the hill. He was locked up in the old tower which stands so uncomfortably on the hill, like a great stone finger pointing upward as if to say, "Beware!"