Part 12

Leo was silent. Suspicion, dim at first, that his coming home had something to do with what had happened, grew clearer and stronger in his mind. Was it fear that, now he was in the neighbourhood, some rumour of the horrible deed might poison the heart of the child, which had prompted the mother to send him away? The poor little creature's peace of mind and innocence might be blasted for ever by the tactless gossip of a servant or an overheard tag of conversation. For this she was parting with him, sending him into banishment, that the well of his pure childhood's days should remain undefiled. He had never suspected her of such powers of renunciation. It seemed almost too great a sacrifice to be wrung from a mother's heart. However frivolous she might be, this atoned for much.

The wonder was that Ulrich saw or suspected nothing of all this. Despite his being the practical philosopher _par excellence_, be always seemed to be more and more hopelessly out of touch with the practical side of life. But to open his eyes would have been cruel--cruel to himself more than to any one else. Why impose a fresh burden on their friendship, already bowed to the earth?

The bell announcing the incoming train sounded outside. Ulrich sprang up.

"Go out that way," he said, pointing to the door that led into the waiting-room, "so that you don't see him again."

"Yes, you are right. I promise that it shall be the last time," replied Leo. He squeezed his friend's hand and went, and behind him he heard a voice calling, "Uncle Leo."

XIII

Hertha was not feeling happy. She had built such high hopes on Leo's return, that it was only natural that she should be disappointed. How she had thought about him, prayed and worked for him! and now she had to retire into the background. His teasing wounded her; his demand that she should obey him seemed almost an insult, and since her stepmother had migrated to the dower-house, Hertha thought seriously of leaving Halewitz altogether. She had written three letters already to her guardian, asking to be taken away, but had torn them up. Then, it would not be easy to separate herself from this spot of green earth, where the sun seemed to shine brighter and hearts to be kindlier than anywhere else in the world.

Nobody, not even grandmamma, suspected anything of these struggles going on in her heart; they came, and then were over as if they had never been. They were a luxury reserved for lonely musing hours; at rosy sunset, or by pale moonlight, in the glorious drowsy solitude of the forest and on dew-glittering meadow paths. They began of themselves, but ceased at the sound of a human voice. She derived from them a painful joy, a defiance that longed to be conquered and cling to some one, a thirst for battle which she only wished to end in a slowly bleeding, prostrate martyrdom.

The reaction was a wild whirl through house and courtyard. As before, she would romp and skip about to her heart's content, fraternizing with all the live stock, and as she no longer might superintend the milking, she slept, from pique, till the sun was high in the heavens.

Elly trotted obediently in her wake as she had always done. Only sometimes, when her friend's pranks were a little too much for her, did she strike and go to grandmamma with complaints, for which Hertha gave her a scolding, and she became her abject slave once more.

For the rest, grandmamma took care that the trees did not grow into the sky. Now that there was nothing more to do in the gardening or the housekeeping line, there was time for reading French in the morning, doing fancy-work, and practising drawing-room pieces on the piano. After that was over, one was free to go for walks, to bathe, or to loaf as much as one pleased.

It was a sultry, steamy evening at the beginning of September. The river lay softly gleaming like a mirror of molten silver. Blue-black clouds rose on the horizon, which now and then opened with a faint flash, unanswered by any echo of thunder. On the wooded rising ground above the river the glossy, fat red pony, half harnessed to his small governess-cart, was standing, flapping with tail and mane at the midges, which to-day seemed more impertinent in their onslaughts than usual. Occasionally he sent forth a pathetic neigh in the direction of the bank, where the white awning of a swimming-bath glimmered above the woolly heads of the bulrushes. From inside came those long-drawn shrieks, half frightened, half joyous, in which young women-folk indulge when disporting themselves in the water.

It was some time before the canvas-covered door opened and Hertha appeared, glowing-red, still steaming from the damp, warm air within. She jumped on to the landing-stage, that oscillated violently, while Elly, always rather pale, but still whiter after bathing, poked her delicate little nose out guardedly, waiting till Hertha should have left the dangerous plank. Not till then did she become fully visible.

Near the swimming-bath a light rowing-boat danced on the dark water. It could not have been used for a long time, and had been left neglected, to its own devices. The seats were missing, the rudder had been torn out, and at the bottom, between its thin ribs, a muddy whirlpool gurgled up at its every motion.

"What a pity the nice boat should not be used!" said Hertha, and sprang into it. The dirty water spurted up and sprinkled her face, but she did not mind that. Laughing, she tucked her skirts up above her knees; her shoes and stockings were still in her hand, and her legs, firm, round, and softly moulded like pilasters of Parian marble, stood out from the black background.

Then she squatted on the steerer's seat--the only one there was--put her footgear in safety, and seemed as if she were quite prepared to stay there.

Elly looked alarmed. "Oh dear I what are you going to do?" she cried, tripping about on the steps of the landing-stage. "Do come back and be good!" The exhortation "be good" she had retained from her childhood.

Hertha clasped her hands behind her head and stared into the distance, dumbly weaving fancies. Out into the current, circling with the eddies, swept ever onwards away to the wide ocean--into the blue immensity, that was what she longed for at this moment.

Then drawing herself erect, she asked, "I say, how does the boat come here?"

"Leo used to keep it years ago, lying on the sandbank, so that he could get over by it quickly to Uhlenfelde and the Isle of Friendship," Elly informed her.

The Isle of Friendship! A double romance cast its halo about the little island, with its hazel-nut bushes, and high-arched coronet of alders and birches above, which, like the curly head of some drowned giant, reared itself from the water and looked fiercely across to the other side. A tiny morsel of white masonry gleamed through the sombre density of the foliage. That must be the temple of which the country-folk with superstitious awe whispered mysterious legends into each other's ears.

In ancient times the island had been the scene of heathen sacrifices. It was said that the terrible stone was still to be seen from which the Druid priest had spurted the blood of the slain victim towards heaven. And when on dark nights you passed the island, you saw, even now, figures swathed in long white robes crouching in the branches of the alders. In more modern times, the two friends had invoked the old spirit, and brought it back to life. And people related, besides, that on either side of the mossy sacrificial stone they had each opened a vein of the other, and drank the warm blood; that they had composed hymns to the white statue, and burnt incense before it, so that red fire was seen rising nightly into the sky. Hertha had heard all this from Elly's lips at school, and it had fired her imagination. The romances of her history-primers, the heroes of which had long ago been cast away as rubbish with her old exercise and composition books, lived again, a decade later, in her soul, glowing and glorious with mystery.

Before she knew Halewitz at all, she had pined to see the Isle of Friendship, and as, thanks to grandmamma's anxious vigilance, she had not been allowed to set foot on it yet, the very thought of it possessed a magic which filled her with the same sweet thrills which had been her delight in twilight hours at school.

She got up, and stretched out her arms longingly. If only she might get across!

At that instant her eye caught sight of an oar lying horizontally along the edge of the boat and wedged into it, but the twin oar was missing. An audacious plan began to take shape in her mind. She remembered to have seen an old key hanging up inside the bathing-house, which apparently belonged to the boat. She would make Elly fetch it.

Elly was horrified. "What _are_ you going to do?"

Hertha banged with her fist on the side of the boat. When she commanded, she expected blind obedience. A few seconds later the little implement, covered with rust, was thrown into her lap.

A sudden furious ardour came over her. With the unfastened lock still in her hand, she tore the oar out of its old resting-place, and dug it with all her strength deep in the morass, from which glittering bubbles came gurgling to the surface. Poor Elly's lamentations died away unheeded. The boat began slowly to break through the reeds and sedges, and to drift up the stream.

Hertha calculated that if she kept to the calm shallows near the bank and worked her way up to a point where she would have left the island a hundred paces behind her, she might hope by skilful steering and even with only one oar to master the current, and reach her goal by a circuitous route.

When she saw that she was really making progress, she uttered a cry of triumph, and worked on with yet hotter zeal.

Meanwhile Elly, like a motherless chicken, ran wildly up and down amongst the reeds and rushes on the bank, getting her shoes stuck in the slime, and falling over willow-stumps. She wrung her hands, and implored Hertha to come back, but for answer was laughed to scorn.

But Hertha's Nemesis soon overtook her. The boat that unintentionally she had launched into a whirling side-current began to turn round of itself. For a few moments it stayed motionless, as if not sure what to do next, then began to glide, at first slowly, and afterwards more and more rapidly towards the valley. It passed the bathing-house and the island, and descended gaily in mid-stream.

Elly saw how Hertha lost her grasp of the oar and threw it away, how she spread out her arms, and called out some words quite unintelligible, so that she did not know whether they meant triumph or despair. She went back to her cart, sat down on the grass beside the pony to await coming events, and wept.

Thus it happened that when supper was ready at Halewitz, neither of the girls put in an appearance. Leo tried to laugh away his mother's uneasiness, but at once ordered the mare to be resaddled, which stood sweating in the stable, put a flask of brandy in his pocket, whistled for his namesake, and started off two minutes later over the dewy meadows to the river.

The thunderstorm, which had been threatening all day, had dispersed. A crescent moon shone serenely in the blue and gold expanse of cloud. He could not deny that he was anxious about the girls. Two such giddy young creatures, it was true, might certainly lose themselves without being in any particular danger. But Hertha had the devil in her, and her escapades were generally serious. The dog, who had bounded on before him, discovered the pony cart with a howl of joy. He was about to give a sigh of relief, when he saw Elly was crouching on the ground alone, bathed in tears. The reins slid from his hand, and the mare and everything else seemed to spin round.

"Where is Hertha?" he burst forth.

His sister with a sob pointed to the stream.

He saw nothing but green and yellow sparks dancing before his eyes.

"Drowned?" he asked hoarsely.

She shook her head, but it was some time before he could get a clear account of what had happened.

"Why did you not instantly make for home and fetch help?" he demanded, his hand tightening on the bridle.

"You really mustn't shout at me like that, I am so awfully afraid of you," was her plaintive reply, accompanied by one of her practised glances from tear-filled eyes which would have melted a heart of stone.

He laughed, half annoyed, half mollified, and gave her orders to drive home at express speed and tell the bailiff to send a conveyance with servants and lanterns immediately to Newferry, the nearest village, three-quarters of a mile away in the valley.

She climbed obediently into the cart, and he lashed his horse and tore over stubble, marsh, and sedge into the dusk; his gaze fixed on the stream, which, glowing and vapouring as if covered with burning petrol, ran beside him on the other side of the reed-wall. Every sandbank and every drifting plank stood out black and sharply defined from the fiery gold channel beneath. Yet night was drawing on apace. In another quarter of an hour even, it would be impossible to discern the little craft, driven on noiselessly through the shadows. And from the side of the reed-hedge a quarter of the stream's breadth was hidden from view already. He drew up, and called her name through the silence. There was no answer, except the barking of his hound, who had taken advantage of the pause to go off on a hunt for birds' nests and nocturnal vermin sneaking amongst the wheat and stubble.

He rested in his stirrups, and surveyed the landscape.

From this point the river could be seen for a quarter of a mile, but there was not a sign of a boat upon it, for during the summer droughts shipping was at a standstill, and what lighter craft might be about sought a haven at nightfall in the little landing-places of the inns, where the shrubs and woodwork protected them from the current.

He rode on.

The surface of the water became darker and darker, and his uneasiness increased. If she spent the night on the mist-enveloped stream, sitting in the little boat half-filled with water, she would probably catch her death.

The bank which, so far, had sloped down to the reeds in slight declivities, became lower here. A dyke made by human hands replaced the natural one of boscage.

Now the prospect was more open, but this availed nothing, for the face of the stream had become a monotonous dark blue. The moon had sunk, and only the reflection of a star here and there trembled, softly gleaming on the waters.

Once more his call rang out into the distance. Croaking frogs held their tongues, and that was the only result. Here the outlying houses of Newferry showed in black outline near the dyke. Two or three mongrels rushed out of the yards, and set up a furious yapping, which Leo the hound received in lofty silence, till they, growing more impertinent, ventured to touch him. Then he seized them one after the other by the back, and administered a sound shaking. There was a faint whine, and all was still again. In the houses every one seemed to have gone to bed. The inn itself lay dark and deserted. Nowhere did a boat cast its shadow on the bank.

Nevertheless, he stopped and called her name across to the house. He listened awhile, but no sound came except the renewed barking of the dogs.

There would be time enough on his way back to wake the people of the inn, if he had not found her before that. He resumed his gallop over the loamy ground of the dyke, the black line of which uncoiled itself like a serpent before him, and was lost in the bluish haze down-stream.

He passed more villages, two, three altogether, and met with the same luck everywhere.

A cloud of steam rose from his horse's haunches, its head was sticky from sweat, and great flecks of foam flew about from its snorting nostrils. The dog's breath came in short, panting gasps, as if he too apparently had begun to come to the end of his powers.

Leo calculated that he had ridden about two miles along the bank of the river. Further than this it would be impossible for her to have reached in the last four hours. Somewhere, then, within this compass she must yet be afloat, if she was not making her way home to Halewitz. He sent the dog into the reeds and began to ride back at a walking pace. The late-summer night slowly spread its white damp veil over the landscape. The crickets chirruped, and now and then there was a swish in the water, as a water-rat shot out from the shore into the mirror-like surface.

By the time he had reached Newferry again, he had given up the search, and resolved to raise the alarm among the inhabitants. The conveyance from Halewitz had not arrived, for the inn still lay in darkness and silence.

He got off his horse, tied the bridle to the sunk fence over which sunflowers poked their round faces, like night-capped women giving a sleepy and sulky greeting. He stretched his limbs with a groan, for they had become damp and stiff from riding through the mist.

He regarded the excitement of the last few hours almost in the light of a blessing, for it had taken his mind off the one eternal thought that had tormented it for weeks. Now, of a sudden, it came back and then was gone again, like an arrow whizzing past the ear as a reminder from a hidden enemy.

"When once I have found her," he thought, "I don't mind what I go through into the bargain."

He would never have thought it possible that the strange young creature, whose stony defiance and noisy, boisterous tricks had alternately annoyed and amused him, could have become so dear to his heart.

He walked with stiff legs in high riding-boots along the dark wooden palings to the front door, on the stone threshold of which the dog, stretched on all fours, was howling and scratching as if he wanted to bore his way inside like a mole. The low door yielded to a push. He stumbled down into a dark vestibule, but through the door beyond a fire flickered brightly on the open hearth, and, lifting his eyes, he beheld the lost girl standing before him illuminated by the flames.

She wore a short red gathered peasant's skirt, from beneath which her naked feet shone forth. She held a coarse woollen crossover with her thin brown arms tightly round her bosom. The short sleeves of a rough, yellowish linen chemise of the kind that peasants spin themselves showed under it. She stared aghast at the intruder, her face deadly pale. The dog sprang up on her with a yelp of pleasure, but she did not touch him.

"My dear, dear child," cried Leo, stretching his hands out to her in unfeigned gladness, "I have found you. Thank God--found you."

The blood came rushing back into her cheeks, and she cast down her eyes, but made no sign of taking the hands held out to her.

Then she said in a low voice, without lifting her eyes from the floor--

"Will you be so kind. Uncle Leo, as to tell the dog to be quiet. The woman here is ill, and her husband is gone to Muensterberg for the doctor."

A motion of his foot sent the dog into a corner.

"But how about you, my child?" he exclaimed, "you don't speak of yourself."

She had been quite prepared for a scolding, and was not sure in what tone she should answer this overwhelming friendliness. A wavering smile, alike defiant and pained, played about the corners of her mouth.

"Well, you see what I am doing," she said, evading his glance. "I am here brewing elder tea for the sick woman."

A kettle stood on the tripod near her on the hearth, licked by the ruddy flames.

"And what have you got on?" he asked.

She stepped quickly out of the circuit of light cast by the fire, and drew the shawl, with her left hand, closer round her throat.

"I had to put on just what I could find," she stammered, "so please don't look at me."

There hung drying above the fire on a clothes' line a wet skirt, which still steamed, and near it a draggled rag, which was the light cotton blouse she had been wearing that day.

"You were upset!" he exclaimed, hardly able to master his horror.

She tried to shrug her shoulders indifferently, but looked rather piteous as she did so.

"Upset?" she said; "well, what of that? I simply swam ashore."

"In those clothes?" he asked. "What woman could ever swim in clothes?"

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, with her eyes still on the floor; "why not? The things I could do without I left in the boat.... To-morrow they will turn up somewhere."

"Now, child, tell me all about it," he urged.

"What am I to tell you?" she replied. "You will only scold me;" and her lips curled saucily.

"I promise I won't," he assured her.

"Then, here goes," she said, and fetched a deep breath as if to gain courage for the task. "When I found, all at once, that I had got into the current, and saw that with one wretched oar I couldn't get out again, I thought to myself, 'God's will, be done. At any rate, you will enjoy the beautiful evening till some one comes to pick you up;' but no one came. But I didn't mind that either. It was really so wonderful to see reeds and banks rushing by. It was like being in the middle of fairyland."

She paused and looked up at him with great scared eyes, as if she suddenly recollected to whom she was speaking. Then she devoted herself to the kettle, raised the lid, and blew the flames.

"Why don't you go on?" he insisted on knowing.

"I can't," she said softly. "You _will_ look at me all the time."

"I'll look the other way," he said.

Then she resigned herself to fate and continued--

"After it had lasted half an hour and more, it began to bore me. I had no place to rest my feet on, for the water splashed about at the bottom of the boat. When the houses of Newferry came in sight I thought to myself, now my troubles will end, and I called out and yelled at the top of my voice, but all in vain. The hole is called Newferry, but not a sign of a ferry-boat was to be seen anywhere. Well, then I simplified matters by jumping into the water."

"Girlie, you must have been possessed by a demon," he cried, half angry, half laughing.

"So the people thought in the village," she replied; "because when I bobbed up at the dyke they all ran away from me. It was a good thing that I happened to know the people at the inn. They used to rent our ... that is to say ... _the_ public-house at Halewitz."

He mentioned the name that occurred to him.

Yes. Buttkus; that was it. And then she told him of the miserable plight she had found the house in. The woman lay in bed delirious from fever; the landlord in desperation had resorted to the brandy bottle.

"I sent the fellow off on the spot to Muensterberg to fetch the doctor," she concluded, "and I shall stay here till he comes back, whether you think that I ought or not."

And she gave him a challenging look as if she saw herself being carried out of the place by force.

But he at once soothed her. Nothing was farther from his thoughts than to disturb her in her noble work of charity.

"One question you must answer, however," he said.

"Well?"

"An hour ago you were here?"

"Certainly I was."

"Didn't you hear your name being called?"

She seemed embarrassed, reflected a little, and then said in a decisive tone--

"Yes."

"And why didn't you answer?"

There was silence.

She took the kettle off the tripod and poured the water, which was boiling, into a stewpan, from which rose the fragrant scent of elder flowers.

"You'll allow me at least to take the woman her tea?" she said. "The poor thing has such shivering fits."

And without waiting for his response she went out at the door, holding the handle of the hot stewpan deftly between two fingers.

Leo devoured with his eyes the slender virginal figure in its rough costume as it disappeared into the darkness.

He seated himself on an oak stump which, chopped up, was used for firewood, and let his fingers idly run along the teeth of the hatchet, turned into an instrument of gold by the flickering firelight.