Part 8

In the afternoon the pastor, with his two younger guests, sauntered through the village. The Countess, who felt fatigued, remained in the parsonage, and Michael had been compelled to walk with the priest and the Countess Hertha, since the young lady, accustomed to rule those about her with sovereign sway, had required him to do so in a tone that was not to be gainsaid. It was in the middle of September, but the day had been unusually warm. The heat made itself felt even at this altitude: the temperature was sultry and oppressive. The pasture-lands around Saint Michael were bathed in the sunlight, and the skies were still clear, but mists hovered restlessly about the mountain-ranges, and dark clouds began to gather above their summits, now darkly veiled, and anon gleaming clear and distinct.

"I fear we are going to have a storm this evening," said Valentin. "This has been like a day in midsummer."

"Yes, we felt it so as we were coming up the mountain," said Hertha. "Do you think that we ought to be arranging for our return?"

"No," replied Michael, scanning the mountains, "when the clouds gather, as now, over there above the Eagle ridge, they will hang for hours about the rocks before the storm comes, and then it is apt to take its course down the valley and leave us untouched. But there will be a storm. Saint Michael's flaming sword is flashing there."

He pointed to the Eagle ridge, where in fact it was lightening, faintly and in the distance, but still unmistakably.

"Saint Michael's flaming sword?" Hertha repeated, inquiringly.

"Certainly; do you not know the popular superstition so wide-spread in these mountains?"

"No; I have never been here except for a few weeks at a time, and know nothing of the people."

"Their belief is that the lightning is the sword of the avenging archangel flashing from the skies, and that the storms, which often enough do mischief in the valleys, are punishments wrought by him."

"Saint Michael loves storm and flame," said Hertha, smiling. "I have always felt very proud that the leader of the heavenly host, the mighty angel of war and battle, is the patron saint of our family. You bear his name, too; it is my uncle Steinrueck's."

Valentin cast an anxious glance at his former pupil, but Michael looked quite unmoved, and replied, composedly, "Yes--by chance."

"The saint's day is close at hand," the young Countess observed to the priest. "The church will be thronged then, will it not, your reverence?"

"The inhabitants of all the surrounding villages visit the church on that day; but our chief church festival comes in May, upon the day when the saint's appearance took place. Then the entire population of these mountains flocks hither from the most distant heights and the most secluded valleys, so that church and village can scarcely contain the crowds. The legend is that on that day Saint Michael, although invisible, descends from the Eagle ridge and ploughs the earth with his flaming sword as he did visibly centuries ago, when his shrine was founded here."

As he uttered the last words they paused before a wayside crucifix rising solitary from the green meadow and facing towards the Eagle ridge. A wild rosebush wreathed about the base of the cross, almost concealing the wood-work, and its thick, luxuriant shoots were woven about the sacred image like a living frame; its time for blooming had long since passed, but the warm, sunny autumn days had lured forth a few late buds, not fragrant and rich in colour like their sisters of the plain, but pale, wild mountain-roses, which, blooming to-day, are torn by the wind to-morrow, and yet they gleamed pink amid the dark green like a last greeting from departing summer.

A peasant lad approached, hat in hand and rather timidly; he had a message for his reverence, whom he had been seeking in the village. His mother was very sick, and was fain to see his reverence; the house was very near, hardly two hundred paces distant, and if his reverence could spare a few minutes the sick woman would be very grateful and much comforted.

"I must go with Hies," said Valentin. "I leave the Countess in your charge, Michael; if she wishes to return to the parsonage----"

"No, your reverence, we will await you here," Hertha interrupted him. "This view of the Eagle ridge is so magnificent!"

"I shall be back again shortly," the priest rejoined, inclining his head courteously, as he turned away with Hies, and walked to a small house near by, within the door of which he vanished.

The unexpected _tete-a--tete_--the first they had ever had since they had known each other--seemed to embarrass the pair thus left alone, for their animated conversation was suddenly arrested.

Saint Michael, as it lay before Hertha and her companion, looked like the most secluded of highland valleys, so embedded was it in the green Alps that surrounded it. There was but one distant view, and it might well vie with all others,--that of the Eagle ridge. The mighty range of rocks rising there in gloomy majesty commanded the landscape, and towered above all the surrounding summits; dark pine forests clothed its sides, and its depths hid savage abysses, down which mountain-torrents tumbled with a roar faintly audible in the clear air. The summit of the ridge indeed, with its naked, jagged peaks and its sheer precipices, seemed inaccessible for mortal man; those peaks soared to dizzy heights, and the highest of them all, the Eagle's head, wore a crown of glaciers that glittered in icy splendour, its giant wings, on each side, seeming to shelter the little hamlet of Saint Michael lying at its feet. The ridge was rightly named; it did, indeed, bear a resemblance to an eagle with outstretched wings.

The silence lasted some time, and was at last broken by Hertha. "According to the legend, then, the archangel descends from that peak."

"With the first ray of the morning sun," replied Michael. "The sun rises there above the ridge. The people cling with unswerving fidelity to their time-hallowed beliefs, and will not relinquish their spring festivals and their worship of the sun. He is the ancient god of light, who either blesses or curses mankind; who mutters in the thunder, and then again ploughs the earth with his flaming sword that the spring may bring forth fresh life and beauty; the Church has clothed him in the shining mail of the archangel."

"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 Steinrueck."

"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 Steinrueck, 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 Steinrueck,--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 Steinrueck; 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 Steinrueck 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 Steinruecks 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 Steinrueck."

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."