CHAPTER III.

SILVER-ARMED KAeTHCHEN.

That was wonderful news for the village of Hochstetten! The oldest people there could remember nothing to match it! The Kellers' terrible accident had turned out the greatest good fortune. The Kellers--poor despised day-labourers that they had always been--had come to be rich people, and were to be richer still. Kaethchen might well do without her arm, and, since that was all the harm that had been done her, it really was hardly worth so much money. Many a one had suffered greater injuries, and not a mouse had stirred in their behalf,--not even when everything had been pawned in the long idleness that followed. And this lucky child got immense wealth in exchange for her useless little arm! Where was the justice of that, pray? It would have been some comfort to think that it was devil's money, and could bring the Kellers no good, and that it would be better to starve than to use it. At first, indeed, the Kellers thought of refusing it, but the Reverend Father had been too much for the devil. He had advised the Kellers to erect a crucifix by the side of the road where the accident had occurred, and to give the church three hundred gulden for masses for their benefactress's soul. Thus the gift was consecrated, and they could accept it with a clear conscience.

Scarcely four weeks had passed, and the cross was already standing by the roadside just, where Kaethchen had been run over. It was finer than any other in all the country round; and the Kellers, husband and wife, tossed their heads, as they passed it, as proudly as if they had placed the Lord Jesus Christ himself there in person. The cross was ten feet high, and stood upon a pedestal five feet high, upon which were inscribed the words, "Erected to the glory of God by Pankratius Keller and Columbane his wife, Anno Domini 18--. 'Let little children come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven!'" And directly beneath was a beautiful painted tablet, whereon all might read, "Wanderer, pause, and mark how wondrously the promise has been kept to our child!" The painting that was to illustrate these words represented Kaethchen with one arm; the other lay upon the ground, and a broad stream of blood was gushing from the maimed shoulder. A carriage was driving furiously away. Above Kaethchen's head the heavens were opened, and the infant Christ was seen in the arms of the Madonna, handing down a silver arm.

This most magnificent and ingenious allegory of the silver blessing that had followed Kaethchen's misfortune had cost the poet of the village, the highly-gifted Reverend Father, many an anxious thought; and, in consequence of it, the little girl went universally by the name of "Silver-armed Kaethchen," although she persistently refused to verify her nickname by making use of an artificial limb. Her father and mother were the objects of great ridicule and envy, but they did not mind it at all, they could laugh in their turn,--they had plenty of money,--and, what was more, they had, by means of it, gained more favour with the Lord than all those who jeered at them. The host of the "Stag" and the burgomaster were the richest people in the village, but neither of them could boast that he had given three hundred gulden to the Church, and the burgomaster had put up a very mean cross over in the meadow, and, for economy's sake, had had only the head and hands and feet of Christ painted upon it, leaving all the rest of the figure to the imagination.

So they could enjoy their wealth without any misgivings. They knew how high in favour they stood with the Lord; and, besides, Frau Keller had sprinkled the package of notes that Moellner had given her with holy water. She had done this entirely of her own mind. It was impossible to be too prudent in such a case. So now that everything had been done to keep off the Evil One, a blessing would be sure to follow. Little Kaethchen, however, thought and felt very differently. She was very unhappy to find that the children stood aloof, staring at her as at some strange animal when she went to sit in the sunshine before the door, and that the big boys called her Silver-arm, and plucked her by the empty sleeve that dangled from her shoulder.

But it was worse than all one day when a cripple came crawling past,--there were many cripples in the country round about, as there always are where human beings are fighting for the mastery with the rude forces of nature. This man stopped before her and muttered, "Oh, yes, you are treated like a princess! Such a poor fellow as myself is worse off than a dog, for when a dog breaks its leg it is shot, but I must hobble about and starve for the sake of Christian charity! Such pious people as you are can always make friends with the Almighty, and therefore a grand coach is sent to drive over you, while only a huge stone in the quarry crushed my hip, and there was no fuss made about it. The grand folks, whose house the stone helped to build, never troubled themselves about the human blood that had sprinkled it. Well, well,--to every one his own!"

And the man went hobbling off upon his crutches, and Kaethchen covered her eyes with the one poor hand that was left, and sobbed bitterly.

"Is that my merry little Kaethchen that I hear crying?" suddenly asked a familiar voice; and, when the child looked up, she saw Herr Leonhardt approaching, supported by his son.

Young Herr Leonhardt was tall and slender, with a gentle, frank expression of countenance,--such a face and form as one might imagine belonged to the favourite son of the patriarch Jacob. There was a certain poetic grace in the devotion with which he guided the uncertain steps of his blind father. His eyes were bent upon the ground, that every obstruction might be removed against which his father's feet might stumble.

He swung his light straw hat hither and thither in his hand, and his fair hair encircled his broad brow with masses of curls.

Kaethchen stopped crying as soon as she saw him. His graceful figure stood alone among the coarse peasant youths, and, truly as she loved and honoured his father, the son was dearer to her childish heart, for he was young, hardly twelve years older than she herself, and youth clings to youth. She arose and walked feebly towards the pair.

"Why, Kaethi, brave little girl, that never cried when they cut off her arm, what has happened to you?"

"They tease me," sobbed Kaethchen, "because I have such an easy time and was run over by a grand coach. They envy me my good luck, and no one loves me any more. But it shall not be so,--I will not have anything more than the other poor cripples,--I will give them all some of my money. Seppel needs it far more than I do, and he got nothing for the big stone that fell upon him, although he is a grown-up man. I am only a stupid little child, who never earned anything, and yet I get so much, because I have to sit still. But I will not keep it, and my father and mother must not keep it all to themselves,--they are well and strong. I will share it with those who have suffered as I have."

"But, my dear little Kaethchen," said Herr Leonhardt, much moved, "you are too generous to the people who tease you so. If you try to share with all the cripples and maimed people in the village, you will have very little left for yourself. If Heaven has decreed that you are to be rich while they remain poor, you may resign yourself gratefully to its inscrutable designs without any qualms of conscience. You can help the needy by giving them work upon your farm that you are to buy with the money that is coming to you. Until then, it would be much better to give them a little money weekly, than to bestow upon such rough men a large sum, that might tempt them to be idle and drink and gamble."

"Yes, it would be better; but mother will not let me have anything. She does not like to have me give away a single kreutzer."

"But what does your father say?" asked Walter, who had been regarding the child with silent admiration.

"Oh, he works all day long in our new field, and does not care for anything. Mother keeps the money, and when she says, 'So it must be,' he does not say a word."

"But how does that agree with your parents' great liberality to the Church?"

"Yes, I told mother she had better give some of the money to these poor people than to the Reverend Father and the stone-mason for the masses and the cross; but then she told me I was too silly,--that she had given the money to the Lord,--and it was far wiser and more profitable to give it to Him than only to men, for He was more powerful than any of them, and could give a great deal better reward for what was done for Him."

Herr Leonhardt turned to his son, and, with a gentle smile, said, "Does not that one sentence show the evil of this false piety? These people turn to the Highest only for the sake of the reward that they expect. For them the Lord is a venal human being, whose protection they can procure by bribery, and they now think themselves absolved from all humane and Christian duty. Oh, holy,--no, not holy,--unhallowed simplicity!"

"Dear father," said Walter, "it is the same old story of indulgences, only in another shape. Tetzel, to be sure, is here no longer, but there are still Tetzels in plenty to be found, and always will be while there are men in the world who prize money beyond all else on earth and think it no way beneath the dignity of the Almighty actually to drive a bargain with them. The noble thought of the antique sacrifice is at the bottom of it all. Polykrates threw the ring into the sea to appease the gods,--the Christian pays his money to erect a crucifix. But the Greek trembled when the gods rejected his offering and the fish brought back his ring. The conceit of our age regards its offering as an investment of capital, and hopes for large interest upon it."

The young man passed his hand through his blonde curls with a light laugh. His father bowed his gray head thoughtfully, and pondered upon what his son had said, and how far mankind still were from a knowledge of the truth. Kaethchen looked at both, surprise in her eyes, as if they were speaking some strange tongue. All was quiet around, for the little girl's parents were away in the fields. A couple of doves were picking up the crumbs from Kaethchen's supper, and the ducks were diving and whisking their tails in the little brook near the house.

Quick, firm footsteps were heard approaching.

"Here comes our friend Moellner," said the old man, listening. "I know his step from all others."

"Yes, Father Leonhardt, it is I," said Moellner's clear voice. "How are you all?" He drew near the quiet little group. Before him ran three or four geese, greatly terrified and in great anxiety,--but yielding not one jot of their dignity, for they never thought of turning aside; they were left in the middle of the road, when Johannes reached his friends.

"Look, Herr Professor," remarked young Leonhardt gaily, "those stupid birds are priding themselves upon having maintained their place. See with what haughty disdain they are regarding you. They evidently think that they have compelled you to turn aside for them! It is always the way. Wisdom vacates the path shared with stupidity, and the latter swells with the pride of an imagined victory."

Johannes smiled. "What puts these little moral sentiments into your head, my dear Walter? Are you about to compose a new primer for your school?"

"It really would not be a bad idea among such people as these!" said Walter, as he shook hands with Moellner.

Moellner sat down upon the bench before the house and took Kaethchen upon his knee. "Would not you like, Kaethchen, to have Herr Walter make you a new primer?"

"It might be a capital undertaking, Walter," remarked Herr Leonhardt. "We must not despise small opportunities, since larger ones are denied us."

"Yes, father," laughed the light-hearted young fellow, "but, if my primer is to succeed here, I must have for the letter H,

"'H stands for Hartwich, good Christians must know, She's a terrible witch, who will work them all woe.'"

Herr Leonhardt made a sign to the thoughtless speaker, who looked in alarm at Moellner, who preserved a gloomy silence.

"You must not laugh at the lady at the castle," said Kaethchen, leaning her pale little face against Johannes' throbbing heart. "My mother complained to-day that I had grown as pale and ugly as the Fraeulein, and she prayed the Lord to break the spell that the Fraeulein had laid upon me. It made me so sorry, for she cannot help my being so pale. She is so good and kind,--how could she bewitch me?"

Johannes silently drew the child closer to him.

"To be sure, she is good and kind, and would not harm any one," said Herr Leonhardt;--but his son interposed, with youthful exaggeration, "She is a saint,--far too holy for these ignorant people to be permitted to kiss her footprints as she passes!"

Johannes pressed his bearded lips upon the child's head, but did not speak.

"Herr Professor, where are your thoughts?" asked Leonhardt anxiously, laying his hand gently upon Johannes' shoulder.

"With the subject of your conversation, dear friend. It gives me no rest. It is now four weeks since I have seen her. I would not seek her again until I had collected all the material that was necessary to convict her uncle, for I must be prepared for the most determined opposition on his part to my visits. To-day, through my kind old friend Heim, I have discovered a clue to Gleissert's rascalities, and when I compare the intelligence that I have received with the fact of which you informed me, that all his letters are addressed to Unkenheim, I think I have a terrible weapon against him in my possession. And yet,--yet I do not know whether I ought to warn Ernestine by letter or to go to her myself. Will not,--must not the sight of me be painful to her?"

"As well as I remember, you told me that she begged you not to forsake her," said Herr Leonhardt.

"So she did, old friend. But how do I know how she thinks and feels now, since she never visits you without such anxious inquiries beforehand as to whether I am with you, and never, too, unless accompanied by Gleissert?"

"That is all her uncle's doings," said Walter. "You cannot think, Herr Professor, how he watches and guards her. Since I have been allowed to study in her laboratory, I have never for one moment been alone with her,--that devil is always present. And it was with difficulty that she obtained permission for me to come to the castle. Willmers says that there was a three-days fight about it, but Fraeulein Ernestine had made up her mind, and he was at last obliged to give way. It is high time that something were done for the unfortunate lady, for since the completion of her last treatise she has been utterly exhausted, and if she goes on thus much longer she will kill herself."

"I have known that for a long time," said Johannes with a profound sigh, "but what is to be done? I can make no impression either upon her head or heart. My solitary hope now lies in separating her from that villain."

"I think it would be much the best for you to see her yourself," said Walter. "She is really wasting away from day to day."

"Yes, I know that it is so by her hands," added his father; "they grow so thin and small, and are as cold and damp as if she were dying. Ah, Herr Professor, their touch pierces me to the heart! I actually think I can see her suffer, for hands feel so only when they are often wrung in physical or mental anguish."

Johannes put the child from off his knee, and turned away his head, but he could not conceal his emotion from the blind eyes of the schoolmaster.

"Why attempt to suppress a pain that is so natural, dear friend? Go to her quickly. It will do her good."

"Well, then, I will write her a line," said Johannes. "I will ask her whether the sight of me would pain or console her. Good God! I desire nothing but her happiness! You, Walter, will, I know, contrive to let her have my note without her uncle's knowledge. She will, I hope, answer it in the same way."

"Then let us go directly home," said Herr Leonhardt, "that you may write immediately."

The gentlemen started to go.

Kaethchen plucked Johannes by his coat. "But, Herr Professor, if you go to see the Fraeulein to-morrow, you will not find her."

"How so, Kaethchen?" asked Johannes, who had not thought that the child had been listening to the conversation.

"Oh, yes; I know it is true. Frau Willmers from the castle went by here to-day, and whispered to me to tell the gentlemen secretly, if they came to see me to-day, that the Fraeulein was going away to-night forever, but I must not let any one know that she had told me, or she should lose her place. And if the Herr Professor did not come, I must tell it to the master, that he might send a messenger to town to the Herr Professor. Frau Willmers cried a great deal, and said she dared not go to the school-house, because,--because the Evil One, who watches the Fraeulein so closely, would know it."

"Kaethchen!" cried Johannes, "you little angel, how much you have done for me! The Fraeulein would have gone to-night, and I should never have known whither, if it had not been for you! Is this all that you know?"

"Yes, this is all,--you may trust me. I listened to all she said."

Johannes took the child in his arms and kissed her. "Child, tell me how I can reward you. Speak. What would you like? Whatever it is, you shall have it."

"Ah, dear Herr Professor, if you would only persuade my father and mother to let me have some money for the poor people. Oh, do, do beg them. And then they will not laugh at me and call me Silver-arm any more. I will make them happy, too, or else I shall be just like the Fraeulein, and no one will like me at all,--and I would not have it so for all the money in the world."

"I know what you mean, you good little thing, and I promise you that when the rest of your property is sent to me I will invest it so that your parents shall have no right to any of it, but that you may do with it just what Herr Leonhardt advises."

"Ah, that will be splendid!" cried Kaethchen, as she kissed the sleeve of Johannes' coat. "Herr Walter!" she called out, "then you will find out all the poor people for me, and tell me how much to give them?"

"Yes, Kaethi dear, indeed we will!" Walter gladly replied.

Johannes gave the child some pieces of silver. "There, my darling, give those to the next beggar you see, if you want to do so. Farewell, all of you. I will not delay a moment, for it is time to proceed to extremities." He pressed Leonhardt's hand, and walked quickly away in the direction of the castle.

"What can have passed up there between the uncle and niece?" said Leonhardt, shaking his head.

"Father Leonhardt," said Kaethchen, "don't you tell, but I know something."

"What is it, my child?"

"That guardian up there is a very bad man."

"That is an old story, Kaethi," said Walter.

"Yes, but you don't know what he does; he empties the letter-box at the school-house when it is dark."

"Is that true?"

"Yes, father saw him do it, but he told me he would shut me up for three days if I told any one."

"How did your father happen to see such a thing?" asked Herr Leonhardt, amazed.

"Oh, he told mother all about it, and I ought not to have heard it, but I did hear. Last week, one night when he was biding to try and catch the thief who steals our grapes, he heard some one going softly towards the school-house, and he hid close, thinking it was the thief. And then he saw it was Herr Gleissert, who busied himself about the place where the letters are slipped into the box. And father crept nearer, and saw plainly how he poked something long and thin into the slit and drew out the letters, and then lighted a match and held his hat before it that no one might see it. Then by the light of the match he read all the writing on the letters, and put them back again into the box,--all but one, which he kept. And then he went home to the castle again. Father said he wanted to seize him and hold him, but he did not know what weapons he might have about him, and that there was no use of accusing him, for father would be sure to get the worst of it."

"What mischief can the scoundrel be brewing?" said Herr Leonhardt, anxiously.

Walter laughed. "Ah, father, we are paid now for always reading the addresses of the letters he sent from the castle."

"That is an entirely different case," said Leonhardt "But our friend ought to know this before he reaches the castle. Run, Walter, you are young and strong; try to overtake him, and tell him."

"Yes, father, I can do it easily. Sit down here, I will soon return," said the young man, hurrying away, fleet-footed as a deer.

Herr Leonhardt felt for Kaethchen. "My child, are you there?"

"Yes, Father Leonhardt."

"Kaethchen, you have repaid me to-day for all the love I have ever given you." He passed his hands over the little, thin face. "I cannot see you; they tell me you are changed,--and I think you must be. But in my mind's eye you will always have the same roguish black eyes and chubby rosy cheeks, with the little berry-stained mouth,--you have never since told what is not true, eh, Kaethi?"

"No, Father Leonhardt, on my word and honour, never, and I never will again. I am now the richest child in all the country round, mother says, and I will try to be the best, and thank the kind God, as you say I should, by kindness to others. And, now that I cannot fold my hands any more when I say my prayers, I must pray very hard indeed,--harder than before,--for then I always felt as if I had the dear God between my hands and could keep Him and make Him listen to me, but now that I cannot do that I must call Him oftener, and beg Him to listen to my prayers."

"My dear little child, God is always near you,--he loves to dwell in a pure, childlike heart. Kaethchen, you are a flower in the blind man's path. Do you know what that means?"

Kaethchen laid her head upon Leonhardt's knee. "I think it means that you love me."

"Yes, my child, and that there are few joys in my life like what you are to me."

"But, father, you have Walter, he is more to you than I can be."

"God bless him! he is my staff and prop in the darkness. He is the best that I have on this earth."

"Father Leonhardt, when I grow up I will marry Walter, and then we will all live together."

"My child, what put that into your little head?"

"Why, my mother says that now I am so rich that I can choose any husband that I please,--and I will choose Walter and no one else--no one."

"But suppose he will not have you?" asked Herr Leonhardt with a smile.

"Oh, but he will have me,--I know he will," said the child confidently.

"Oh, holy, holy simplicity!" whispered the old man, and laid his hand in blessing upon the little girl's head.

And as he sat there, gazing into the night that had closed around him, suddenly to his inner vision all grew light about him. From the vanishing darkness arose the columns of a church, and through the high arched windows the sunlight fell full upon the heads of a youthful pair kneeling at the altar. Around stood a throng of glad relatives and friends, amongst them a hoary blind father, and by his side an old mother, with tears of joy standing in her eyes. The young couple were fair to look upon,--the bridegroom blonde, bearded, manly, the bride blushing in girlish timidity. Her large, frank eyes were swimming in tears of devotion and emotion, but her charming little mouth was slightly stained as if from eating berries.

"What! what!" said the people around her, "picking blackberries upon her wedding-day?"

Then the organ began a well-known hymn, and all present joined in singing it The bride gave her lover her hand,--only her left, to be sure,--but its clasp was as strong as if there were two to give,--for it was for a lifetime. And then the ceremony was ended, and they all went out into the clear Spring sunshine. A crowd of familiar faces pressed around,--poor, deformed, and maimed figures, that still seemed not unhappy, for they were all well clad and fed,--and they waved their caps in the air, with "Long life to the bridal pair! Since you have made this place your home, there will be no starving or freezing poor here. Long life to our Doctor Walter Leonhardt and to Silver-armed Kaethchen!"

Oh, sunny, peaceful picture! how it cheered the blind man's soul! A lovely dream of the future, born of the prattle of a child, hovering around an old man upon the verge of the grave!

"Father Leonhardt, what are you smiling at?" asked the child.

"At something beautiful that I have just seen."

"I thought you could not see any more?"

"I can see, my child, not things that are, but perhaps all the more plainly things that are to be."