We hurried eagerly to meet him—a tall, square built, heavy-browed peasant, about forty years of age.
‘Who goes there?’ he said, holding the lanthorn high above his head, and shading his eyes with his hand.
‘Travellers,’ replied my companion. ‘Travellers wanting food and shelter for the night.’
The man looked at us for a moment in silence.
‘You travel late,’ he said, at length.
‘Ay—and we must have gone on still later, if we had not come upon your house. We were bound for Rotheskirche. Can you take us in?’
‘Yes,’ he said sullenly. ‘I suppose so. This way.’
And, swinging the lanthorn as he went, he turned on his heel abruptly, and led the way back to the house.
‘A boorish fellow enough!’ said I, as we followed.
‘Nay—a mere peasant!’ replied Bergheim. ‘A mere peasant—rough, but kindly.’
As we drew near the house, two large mastiff pups came rushing out from a yard somewhere at the back, and a huge, tawny dog chained up in an open shed close by, strained at his collar and yelled savagely.
‘Down, Caspar! Down, Schwartz!’ growled our conductor, with an oath.
And immediately the pups slunk back into the yard, and the dog in the shed dropped into a low snarl, eyeing us fiercely as we passed.
The house-door opened straight upon a large, low, raftered kitchen, with a cavernous fireplace at the further end, flanked on each side by a high-backed settle. The settles, the long table in the middle of the room, the stools and chairs ranged round the walls, the heavy beams overhead, from which hung strings of dried herbs, ropes of onions, hams, and the like, were all of old, dark oak. The ceiling was black with the smoke of at least a century. An oak dresser laden with the rough blue and grey ware and rows of metal-lidded drinking mugs; an old blunderbuss and a horn-handled riding-whip over the chimney-piece; a couple of hatchets, a spade, and a fishing-rod behind the door; and a Swiss clock in the corner, completed the furniture of the room. A couple of half-charred logs smouldered on the hearth. An oil-lamp flared upon the middle of the table, at one corner of which sat two men with a stone jug and couple of beer-mugs between them, playing at cards, and a third man looking on. The third man rose as we entered and came forward. He was so like the one who had come out to meet us, that I saw at once they must be brothers.
‘Two travellers,’ said our conductor, setting down his lanthorn, and shutting the door behind us.
The players laid down their greasy cards to stare at us. The second brother, a trifle more civil than the first, asked if we wished for anything before going to bed.
Bergheim unslung his wallet, flung himself wearily into a corner of the settle, and said:
‘Heavens and earth! yes. We are almost starving. We have been on the road all day, and have had no regular dinner. Is this a farmhouse or an inn?’
‘Both.’
‘What have you in the house?’
‘Ham—eggs—voorst—cheese—wine—beer—coffee.’
‘Then bring us the best you have, and plenty of it, and as fast as you can. We’ll begin on the voorst and a bottle of your best wine, while the ham and eggs are frying; and we’ll have the coffee to finish.’
The man nodded; went to a door at the other end of the room—repeated the order to some one out of sight; and came back again, his hands in his pockets. The first brother, meanwhile, was lounging against the table, looking on at the players.
‘It’s a long game,’ he said.
‘Ay—but it’s just ended,’ replied one of the men, putting down his card with an air of triumph.
His adversary pondered, threw down his hand, and, with a round oath, owned himself beaten.
Then they divided the remaining contents of the stone jug, drained their mugs, and rose to go. The loser pulled out a handful of small coin, and paid the reckoning for both.
‘We’ve sat late,’ said he, with a glance at the clock. ‘Goodnight, Karl—goodnight, Friedrich.’
The first brother, whom I judged to be Karl, nodded sulkily. The second muttered a gruff sort of goodnight. The countrymen lit their pipes, took another long stare at Bergheim and myself, touched their hats, and went away.
The first brother, Karl, who was evidently the master, went out with them, shutting the door with a tremendous bang. The younger, Friedrich, cleared the board, opened a cupboard under the dresser, brought out a loaf of black bread, a lump of voorst, and part of a goat’s milk cheese, and then went to fetch the wine. Meanwhile we each drew a chair to the table, and fell to vigorously. When Friedrich returned with the wine, a pleasant smell of broiling ham came in with him through the door.
‘You are hungry,’ he said, looking down at us from under his black brows.
‘Ay, and thirsty,’ replied Gustav, reaching out his hand for the bottle. ‘Is your wine good?’
The man shrugged his shoulders.
‘Drink and judge for yourself,’ he answered. ‘It’s the best we have.’
‘Then drink with us,’ said my companion, good-humouredly, filling a glass and pushing it towards him across the table.
But he shook his head with an ungracious ‘Nein, nein,’ and again left the room. The next moment we heard his heavy footfall going to and fro overhead.
‘He is preparing our beds,’ I said. ‘Are there no women, I wonder, about the place?’
‘Well, yes—this looks like one,’ laughed Bergheim as the door leading to the inner kitchen again opened, and a big stolid-looking peasant girl came in with a smoking dish of ham and eggs, which she set down before us on the table. ‘Stop! stop!’ he exclaimed, as she turned away. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry, my girl. What is your name?’
She stopped with a bewildered look, but said nothing. Bergheim repeated the question.
‘My—my name?’ she stammered. ‘Annchen.’
‘Good. Then, Annchen,’ (filling a bumper and draining it at a draught), ‘I drink to thy health. Wilt thou drink to mine?’ And he pointed to the glass poured out for the landlord’s brother.
But she only looked at him in the same scared, stupid way, and kept edging away towards the door.
‘Let her go,’ I said. ‘She is evidently half an idiot.’
‘She’s no idiot to refuse that wine,’ replied Bergheim, as the door closed after her. ‘It’s the most abominable mixture I ever put inside my lips. Have you tasted it?’
I had not tasted it as yet, and now I would not; so, the elder brother coming back just at that moment, we called for beer.
‘Don’t you like the wine?’ he said, scowling.
‘No,’ replied Bergheim. ‘Do you? If so, you’re welcome to the rest of it.’
The landlord took up the bottle and held it between his eyes and the lamp.
‘Bad as it is,’ he said, ‘you’ve drunk half of it.’
‘Not I—only one glass, thanks be to Bacchus! There stands the other. Let us have a schoppen of your best beer—and I hope it will be better than your best wine.’
The landlord looked from Bergheim to the glass—from the glass to the bottle. He seemed to be measuring with his eye how much had really been drunk. Then he went to the inner door; called to Friedrich to bring a schoppen of the bairisch, and went away, shutting the door after him. From the sound of his footsteps, it seemed to us as if he also was gone upstairs, but into some more distant part of the house. Presently the younger brother re-appeared with the beer, placed it before us in silence, and went away as before.
‘The most forbidding, disagreeable, uncivil pair I ever saw in my life!’ said I.
‘They’re not fascinating, I admit,’ said Bergheim, leaning back in his chair with the air of a man whose appetite is somewhat appeased. ‘I don’t know which is the worst—their wine or their manners.’
And then he yawned tremendously, and pushed out his plate, which I heaped afresh with ham and eggs. When he had swallowed a few mouthfuls, he leaned his head upon his hand, and declared he was
too tired to eat more.
‘And yet,’ he added, ‘I am still hungry.’
‘Nonsense!’ I said; ‘eat enough now you are about it. How is the beer?’
He took a pull of the schoppen.
‘Capital,’ he said. ‘Now I can go on again.’
The next instant he was nodding over his plate.
‘I am ashamed to be so stupid,’ he said, rousing himself presently; ‘but I am overpowered with fatigue. Let us have the coffee; it will wake me up a bit.’
But he had no sooner said this than his chin dropped on his breast, and he was sound asleep.
I did not call for the coffee immediately. I let him sleep, and went on quietly with my supper. Just as I had done, however, the brothers came back together, Friedrich bringing the coffee—two large cups on a tray. The elder, standing by the table, looked down at Bergheim with his unfriendly frown.
‘Your friend is tired,’ he said.
‘Yes, he has walked far today—much further than I have.’
‘Humph! you will be glad to go to bed.’
‘Indeed we shall. Are our rooms ready?’
‘Yes.’
I took one of the cups, and put the other beside Bergheim’s plate.
‘Here, Bergheim,’ I said, ‘wake up; the coffee is waiting.’
But he slept on, and never heard me.
I then lifted my own cup to my lips—paused—set it down untasted. It had an odd, pungent smell that I did not like.
‘What is the matter with it?’ I said, ‘it does not smell like pure coffee.’
The brothers exchanged a rapid glance.
‘It is the Kirschenwasser,’ said Karl. ‘We always put it in our black coffee.’
I tasted it, but the flavour of the coffee was quite drowned in that of the coarse, fiery spirit.
‘Do you not like it?’ asked the younger brother.
‘It is very strong,’ I said.
‘But it is very good,’ replied he; ‘real Black Forest Kirsch—the best thing in the world, if one is tired after a journey. Drink it off, mein Herr; it is of no use to sip it. It will make you sleep.’
This was the longest speech either of them had yet made.
‘Thanks,’ I said, pulling out my cigar-case, ‘but this stuff is too powerful to be drunk at a draught. I shall make it last out a cigar or two.’
‘And your friend?’
‘He is better without the Kirsch, and may sleep till I am ready to go to bed.’
Again they looked at each other.
‘You need not sit up,’ I said impatiently; for it annoyed me, somehow, to have them standing there, one at each side of the table, alternately looking at me and at each other. ‘I will call the Mädchen to show us to our rooms when we are ready.’
‘Good,’ said the elder brother, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Come, Friedrich.’
Friedrich turned at once to follow him, and they both left the room.
I listened. I heard them for awhile moving to and fro in the inner kitchen; then the sound of their double footsteps going up the stairs; then the murmur of their voices somewhere above, yet not exactly overhead; then silence.
I felt more comfortable, now that they were fairly gone, and not likely to return. I breathed more freely. I had disliked the brothers from the first. I had felt uneasy from the moment I crossed their threshold. Nothing, I told myself, should induce me at any time, or under any circumstances, to put up under their roof again.
Pondering thus, I smoked on, and took another sip of the coffee. It was not so hot now, and some of the strength of the spirit had gone off; but under the flavour of the Kirschenswasser I could (or fancied I could) detect another flavour, pungent and bitter—a flavour, in short, just corresponding to the smell that I had at first noticed.
This startled me. I scarcely knew why, but it did startle me, and somewhat unpleasantly. At the same instant I observed that Bergheim, in the heaviness and helplessness of sleep, had swayed over on one side, and was hanging very uncomfortably across one arm of his chair.
‘Come, come,’ I said, ‘wake up, Herr fellow-traveller. This sort of dozing will do you no good. Wake up, and come to bed.’
And with this I took him by the arm, and tried to rouse him. Then for the first time I observed that his face was deadly white—that his teeth were fast clenched—that his breathing was unnatural and laboured.
I sprang to my feet. I dragged him into an upright posture; I tore open his neckcloth; I was on the point of rushing to the door to call for help, when a suspicion—one of those terrible suspicions which are suspicion and conviction in one—flashed suddenly upon me.
The rejected glass of wine was still standing on the table. I smelt it—tasted it. My dread was confirmed. It had the same pungent odour, the same bitter flavour as the coffee.
In a moment I measured all the horror of my position; alone —unarmed—my unconscious fellow-traveller drugged and helpless on my hands—the murderers overhead, biding their time—the silence and darkness of night—the unfrequented road—the solitary house—the improbability of help from without—the imminence of the danger from within. . . . I saw it all! What could I do? Was there any way, any chance, any hope?
I turned cold and dizzy. I leaned against the table for support. Was I also drugged, and was my turn coming? I looked round for water, but there was none upon the table. I did not dare to touch the beer, lest it also should be doctored.
At that instant I heard a faint sound outside, like the creaking of a stair. My presence of mind had not as yet for a moment deserted me, and now my strength came back at the approach of danger. I cast a rapid glance round the room. There was the blunderbuss over the chimney-piece, there were the two hatchets in the corner. I moved a chair loudly, and hummed some snatches of songs.
They should know that I was awake—this might at least keep them off a little longer. The scraps of songs covered the sound of my footsteps as I stole across the room and secured the hatchets. One of these I laid before me on the table; the other I hid among the wood in the wood-basket beside the hearth—singing, as it were to myself, all the time.
Then I listened breathlessly.
All was silent.
Then I clinked my tea-spoon in my cup—feigned a long yawn—under cover of the yawn took down the blunderbuss from its hook—and listened again.
Still all was silent—silent as death—save only the loud ticking of the clock in the corner, and the heavy beating of my heart.
Then, after a few seconds that dragged past like hours, I distinctly heard a muffled tread stealing softly across the floor overhead, and another very faint retreating creak or two upon the stairs.
To examine the blunderbuss, find it loaded with a heavy charge of slugs, test the dryness of the powder, cock it, and place it ready for use beside the hatchet on the table, was but the work of a moment.
And now my course was taken. My spirits rose with the possession of a certain means of defence, and I prepared to sell my own life, and the life of the poor fellow beside me, as dearly as might be.
I must turn the kitchen into a fortress, and defend my fortress as long as defence was possible. If I could hold it till daylight came to my aid, bringing with it the chances of traffic, of passers-by, of farm labourers coming to their daily work—then I felt we should be comparatively safe. If however, I could not keep the enemy out so long, then I had another resource—— But of this there was no time to think at present. First of all, I must barricade my fortress.
The windows were already shuttered-up and barred on the inside. The key of the house-door was in the lock, and only needed turning. The heavy iron bolt, in like manner, had only to be shot into its place. To do this, however, would make too much noise just now. First and most important was the door communicating with the inner kitchen and the stairs. This, above all, I must secure; and this, as I found to my dismay, had no bolts or locks whatever on the inside—nothing but a clumsy wooden latch!
To pile agai
nst it every moveable in the room was my obvious course; but then it was one that, by the mere noise it must make, would at once alarm the enemy. No! I must secure that door—but secure it silently—at all events for the next few minutes.
Inspired by dread necessity, I became fertile in expedients. With a couple of iron forks snatched from the table, I pinned the latch down, forcing the prongs by sheer strength of hand into the woodwork of the door. This done, I tore down one of the old rusty bits from its nail above the mantel-shelf, and, linking it firmly over the thumb-piece of the latch on one side, and over the clumsy catch on the other, I improvised a door-chain that would at least act as a momentary check in case the door was forced from without. Lastly, by means of some half-charred splinters from the hearth, I contrived to wedge up the bottom of the door in such a manner that, the more it was pushed inwards, the more firmly fixed it must become.
So far my work had been noiseless; but now the time was come when it could be so no longer. The house-door must be secured at all costs; and I knew beforehand that I could not move those heavy fastenings unheard. Nor did I. The key, despite all my efforts, grated loudly in the lock, and the bolt resisted the rusty staples. I got it in, however, and the next moment heard rapid footsteps overhead.
I knew now that the crisis was coming, and from this moment prepared for open resistance.
Regardless of noise, I dragged out first one heavy oaken settle, and then the other—placed them against the inner door—piled them with chairs, stools, firewood, every heavy thing I could lay hands upon—raked the slumbering embers, and threw more wood upon the hearth, so as to bar that avenue, if any attempt was made by way of the chimney—and hastily ransacked every drawer in the dresser, in the hope of finding something in the shape of ammunition.
Meanwhile the brothers had taken alarm, and having tried the inner door, had now gone round to the front, where I heard them try first the house-door and then the windows.
‘Open! open, I say!’ shouted the elder (I knew him by his voice). ‘What is the matter within?’
THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories Page 31