Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Captain Ludwig, holding me fast by the arm, stopped at the first group of starers we came to. ‘Who are these?’ he asked gruffly.

  The man he addressed turned round, eager to impart his knowledge. ‘Finns!’ he said; ‘from head-quarters — Stalhanske’s Finns. No less, captain.’

  My companion whistled. ‘What are they doing here?’ he asked.

  The other shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Their leader is with the general. What do you think of them, Master Ludwig?’

  But Ludwig only grunted, looking with disparaging eyes at the motionless riders, whose air betrayed a certain consciousness of their fame and the notice which they were exciting. From steel cap to spurred boot, they showed all metal and leather. Nothing gay, nothing gaudy; not a chain or a sash differenced one from another. Grim, stern, and silent, they stared before them. Had no one named the King of Sweden’s great regiment, I had known that I was looking no longer on brigands, but on soldiers — on part of the iron line that at Breitenfeld broke the long repute of years, and swept Pappenheim from the hillside like chaff before the storm.

  After hesitating a moment, Ludwig went forward a few paces, as if to enter the house, taking me with him. Then he paused. At the same instant the man who was leading the two horses turned. His eye lit on me, and I saw an extraordinary change come over the fellow’s face. He stopped short and, pulling up his horses, stared at me. It seemed to me, too, that I had seen him before, and I returned his look; but while I was trying to remember where, the door of the general’s quarters opened. Two or three men who were loitering before it, stepped quickly aside, and a tall, stalwart man came out, followed by General Tzerclas himself.

  I looked at the foremost, and in a twinkling recognized him. It was Von Werder. But an extraordinary change had come over the traveller. He was still plainly dressed, in a buff coat, with untanned boots, a leather sword-belt, and a grey hat with a red feather; and in all of these there was nothing to catch the eye. But his air and manner as he spoke to his companion were no longer those of an inferior, while his stern eye, as it travelled over the crowd in the street, expressed cold and steady contempt.

  As the servant brought up his horse, he spoke to his companion. ‘You are sure that you can do it — with these?’ he said, flicking his riding-whip towards the silent throng.

  ‘You may consider it done,’ the general answered rather grimly.

  ‘Good! I am glad. Well, man, what is it?’

  He spoke the last words to his servant. The man pointed to me and said something. Von Werder looked at me. In a moment every one looked at me. Then Von Werder swung himself into his saddle, and turned to General Tzerclas.

  ‘That is the man, I am told,’ he said, pointing suddenly to me with his whip.

  ‘He is at your service,’ the general answered with a shrug of indifference.’

  In an instant Von Werder’s horse was at my side. ‘A word with you, my man,’ he said sharply. ‘Come with me.’

  Ludwig had hold of my arm still. He had not loosed me, and at this he interposed. ‘My lord,’ he cried to the general, ‘this man — I have something to — —’

  ‘Silence, fool!’ Tzerclas growled. ‘And stand aside, if you value your skin!’

  Ludwig let me go; immediately, as if an angel had descended to speak for me, the crowd parted, and I was free — free and walking away down the street by the side of the stranger, who continued to look at me from time to time, but still kept silence. When we had gone in this fashion a couple of hundred paces or more, and were clear of the crowd, he seemed no longer able to control himself, though he looked like a man apt at self-command. He waved his escort back and reined in his horse.

  ‘You are the man to whom I talked the other night,’ he said, fixing me with his eyes— ‘the Countess of Heritzburg’s steward?’

  I replied that I was. His face as he looked down at me, with his back to his following, betrayed so much agitation that I wondered more and more. Was he going to save us? Could he save us? Who was he? What did it all mean? Then his next question scattered all these thoughts and doubled my surprise.

  ‘You had a chain stolen from you,’ he said harshly, ‘the night I lay in your camp?’

  I stared at him with my mouth open. ‘A chain?’ I stammered.

  ‘Ay, fool, a chain!’ he replied, his eyes glaring, his cheeks swelling with impatience. ‘A gold chain — with links like walnuts.’

  ‘It is true,’ I said stupidly. ‘I had. But — —’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  I looked away. To answer was easy; to refrain from answering, with his eye upon me, hard. But I thought of Marie Wort. I did not know how the chain had come into her hands, and I asked him a question in return.

  ‘Have you the chain?’ I said.

  ‘I have!’ he snarled. And then in a sudden outburst of wrath he cried, ‘Listen, fool! And then perhaps you will answer me more quickly. I am Hugo of Leuchtenstein, Governor of Cassel and Marburg, and President of the Landgrave’s Council. The chain was mine and came back to me. The rogue who stole it from you, and joined himself to my company, blabbed of it, and where he got it. He let my men see it. He would not give it up, and they killed him. Will that satisfy you?’ he continued, his face on fire with impatience. ‘Then tell me all — all, man, or it will be the worse for you! My time is precious, and I cannot stay!’

  I uncovered myself. ‘Your excellency,’ I stammered, ‘the chain was entrusted to me by a — a woman.’

  ‘A woman?’ he exclaimed, his eyes lightening. ‘Man, you are wringing my heart. A woman with a child?’

  I nodded.

  ‘A child three years old?’

  ‘About that, your excellency.’ On which, to my astonishment, he covered his face with both his hands, and I saw the strong man’s frame heave with ill-suppressed emotion. ‘My God, I thank thee!’ I heard him whisper; and if ever words came from the heart, those did. It was a minute or more before he dared to uncover his face, and then his eyes were moist and his features worked with emotion.

  ‘You shall be rewarded!’ he said unsteadily. ‘Do not fear. And now take me to him — to her.’

  I was in a maze of astonishment, but I had sense enough to understand the order. We had halted scarcely more than a hundred yards from my lady’s quarters, and I led the way thither, comprehending little more than that something advantageous had happened to us. At the door he sprang from his horse, and taking me by the arm, as if he were afraid to suffer me out of his reach, he entered, pushing me before him.

  The principal room was empty, and I judged my lady was out. I cried ‘Marie! Marie!’ softly; and then he and I stood listening. The sunshine poured in through the windows; the house was still with the stillness of afternoon. A bird in a cage in the corner pecked at the bars. Outside the bits jingled, and a horse pawed the road impatiently.

  ‘Marie!’ I cried. ‘Marie!’

  She came in at last through a door which led to the back of the house, and I stepped forward to speak to her. But the moment I saw her clearly, the words died on my lips. The pallor of her face, the disorder of her hair struck me dumb. I forgot our business, my companion, all. ‘What is it?’ was all I could say. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘The child!’ she cried, her dark eyes wild with anxiety. ‘The child! It is lost! It is lost and gone. I cannot find it!’

  ‘The child? Gone?’ I answered, my voice rising almost to a shout, in my surprise. ‘It is missing? Now?’

  ‘I cannot find it,’ she answered monotonously. ‘I left it for a moment at the back there. It was playing on the grass. Now it is gone.’

  I looked at. Count Leuchtenstein. He was staring at the girl, listening and watching, his brow contracted, his face pale. But I suppose that this sudden alarm, this momentary disappearance did not affect him, from whom the child had been so long absent, as it affected us; for his first words referred to the past.

  ‘This child, woman?’ he said in his deep voice,
which shook despite all his efforts. ‘When you found it, it had a chain round its neck?’

  But Marie was so wrapped up in her sudden loss that she answered him without thought, listening the while. ‘Yes,’ she said mechanically, ‘it had.’

  ‘Where did you find it, then — the child?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘In the forest by Vach,’ she replied, in the same indifferent tone.

  ‘Was it alone?’

  ‘It was with a dead woman,’ she answered. She was listening still, with a strained face — listening for the pattering of the little feet, the shrill music of the piping voice. Only half of her mind was with us. Her hands opened and closed continually with anxiety; she held her head on one side, her ear to the door. When the Count went to put another question, she turned upon him so fiercely, I hardly knew her. ‘Hush!’ she said, ‘will you? They are here, but they have not found him. They have not found him!’ And she was right; though I, whose ears were not sharpened by love, did not discern this until two men, who had been left at home with her, and who had been out to search, came in empty-handed and with scared looks. They had hunted on all sides and found no trace of the child, and, certain that it could not have strayed far itself, pronounced positively that it had been kidnapped.

  Marie at that burst into weeping so pitiful, that I was glad to send the men out, bidding them make a larger circuit and inquire in the camp. When they were gone, I turned to Count Leuchtenstein to see how he took it. I found him leaning against the wall, his face grave, dark, and thoughtful.

  ‘There seems a fatality in it!’ he muttered, meeting my eyes, but speaking to himself. ‘That it should be lost again — at this moment! Yet, God’s will be done. He who sent the chain to my hands can still take care of the child.’

  He paused a moment in deep thought, and then, advancing to Marie Wort, who had thrown herself into a chair and was sobbing passionately with her face on the table, he touched her on the shoulder.

  ‘Good girl!’ he said kindly. ‘Good girl! But doubtless the child is safe. Before night it will be found.’

  She sprang up and faced him, her cheeks flaming with anger. I suppose the questions he had put to her had made no distinct impression on her mind.

  ‘Oh,’ she cried, in the voice of a shrew, ‘how you prate! By night it will be found, will it? How do you know? But the child is nothing to you — nothing!’

  ‘Girl,’ he said solemnly, yet gently, ‘the child is my child — my only child, and the hope of my house.’

  She looked at him wildly. ‘Who are you, then?’ she said, her voice sinking almost to a whisper.

  ‘I am his father,’ he answered; when I looked to hear him state his name and titles. ‘And as his father, I thank and bless you for all that you have done for him.’

  ‘His mother?’ she whispered, open-eyed with awe.

  ‘His mother is dead. She died three years ago,’ he answered gravely. ‘And now tell me your name, for I must go.’

  ‘You must go!’ she exclaimed. ‘You will go — you can go — and your child lost and wandering?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, with a dignity which silenced her, ‘I can, for I have other and greater interests to guard than those of my house, and I dare not be negligent. He may be found to-morrow, but what I have to do to-day cannot be done to-morrow. See, take that,’ he continued more gently, laying a heavy purse on the table before her. ‘It is for you, for your own use — for your dowry, if you have a lover. And remember always that, in the house of Hugo of Leuchtenstein, at Cassel, or Marburg, or at the Schloss by Leuchtenstein, you will find a home and shelter, and stout friends whenever you need them. Now give me your name.’

  She stared at him dumfounded and was silent. I told him Marie Wort of Munich, at present in attendance on the Countess of Heritzburg; and he set it down in his tablets.

  ‘Good,’ he said. And then in his stern, grave fashion he turned to me. ‘Master Steward,’ he said, in a measured tone which nevertheless stirred my blood, ‘are you an ambitious man? If so, search for my child, and bring him to Cassel or Marburg, or my house, and I will fulfil your ambition. Would you have a command, I will see to it; or a farm, it shall be yours. You can do for me, my friend’ he continued strenuously, laying his hand on my arm, ‘what in this stress of war and statecraft I cannot do for myself. I have a hundred at my call, but they are not here; and by to-night I must be ten leagues hence, by to-morrow night beyond the Main. Yet God, I believe,’ he went on, uncovering himself and speaking with reverent earnestness, ‘who brought me to this place, and permitted me to hear again of my son, will not let His purpose fail because He calls me elsewhere.’

  And he maintained this grave composure to the last. A man more worthy of his high repute, not in Hesse only, but in the Swedish camp, at Dresden, and Vienna, I thought that I had never seen. Yet still under the mask I discerned the workings of a human heart. His eye, as he turned to go, wandered round the room; I knew that it was seeking some trace of his boy’s presence. On the threshold he halted suddenly; I knew that he was listening. But no sound rewarded him. He nodded sternly to me and went out.

  I followed to hold his stirrup. The Finland riders, sitting upright in their saddles, looked as if they had not moved an eyelash in our absence. As I had left them so I found them. He gave a short, sharp word of command; a sudden jingling of bridles followed; the troop walked forward, broke into a trot, and in a twinkling disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust.

  Then, and not till then, I remembered that I had not said a word to him about my lady’s position. His personality and the loss of the child had driven it from my mind. Now it recurred to me; but it was too late, and after stamping up and down in vexation for a while, I turned and went into the house.

  Marie Wort had fallen back into the old position at the table, and was sitting with her face on her arms, sobbing bitterly. I went up to her and saw the purse lying by her side.

  ‘Come,’ I said, trying awkwardly to cheer her, ‘the child will be found, never fear. When my lady returns she will send to the general, and he will have it cried through the camp. It is sure to be found. And you have made a powerful friend.’

  But she took no heed of me. She continued to weep; and her sobs hurt me. She seemed so small and lonely and helpless that I had not the heart to leave her by herself in the house and go out into the sunshine to search. And so — I scarcely know how it came about — in a moment she was sobbing out her grief on my shoulder and I was whispering in her ear.

  Of love? of our love? No, for to have spoken of that while she wept for the child, would have seemed to me no better than sacrilege. And, besides, I think that we took it for granted. For when her sobs presently ceased, and she lay quiet, listening, and I found her soft dark hair on my shoulder, I kissed it a hundred times; and still she lay silent, her cheek against my rough coat. Our eyes had spoken morning and evening, at dawn when we met, and at night when we parted; and now that this matter of the chain was settled, it seemed fitting that she should come to me for comfort — without words.

  At length she drew herself away from me, her cheek dark and her eyes downcast. ‘Not now,’ she said, gently stopping me — for then I think I should have spoken. ‘Will you please to go out and search? No, I will not grieve.’

  ‘But your purse!’ I reminded her. She was leaving it on the table, and it was not safe there. ‘You should put it in a place of safety, Marie.’

  She took it up and very simply placed it in my hands. ‘He said it was for my — dowry,’ she whispered, blushing. And then she fled away shamefaced to her room.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  A SUDDEN EXPEDITION.

  I did not after that suffer the grass to grow under my feet. I went out, and with my own eyes searched the fields at the back, and every ditch and water-hole. I had the loss cried in the camp, my lady on her return offered a reward, we sent even to the nearer villages, we patrolled the roads, we omitted nothing that could by any chance avail us. Yet evening fell,
and night, and found us still searching; and no nearer, as far as we could see, to success. The child was gone mysteriously. Left to play alone for two minutes in the stillness of the afternoon, he had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him.

  Baffled, we began to ask, while Marie sat pale and brooding in a corner, or now and again stole to the door to listen, who could have taken him and with what motive? There were men and women in the camp capable of anything. It seemed probable to some that these had stolen the child for the sake of his clothes. Others suggested witchcraft. But in my own mind, I leaned to neither of these theories. I suspected, though I dared not utter the thought, that the general had done it. Without knowing how much of the story Count Hugo had confided to him, I took it as certain that the father had said enough to apprise him of the boy’s value. And this being so, what more probable than that the general, whom I was prepared to credit with any atrocity, had taken instant steps to possess himself of the child?

  My lady said and did all that was kind on the occasion, and for a few hours it occupied all our thoughts. At the end of that time, however, about sunset, General Tzerclas rode to the door, and with him, to my surprise, the Waldgrave. They would see her, and detained her so long that when she sent for me on their departure, I was sore on Marie’s, account, and inclined to blame her as indifferent to our loss. But a single glance at her face put another colour on the matter. I saw that something had occurred to excite and disturb her.

  ‘Martin,’ she said earnestly, ‘I am going to employ you on an errand of importance. Listen to me and do not interrupt me. General Tzerclas starts to-morrow with the larger part of his forces to intercept one of Wallenstein’s convoys, which is expected to pass twelve leagues to the south of this. There will be sharp fighting, I am told, and my cousin, the Waldgrave Rupert, is going. He is not at present — I mean, I am afraid he may do something rash. He is young,’ my lady continued with dignity and a heightened colour, ‘and I wish he would stay here. But he will not.’