Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Still it was not a heartening episode, nor did it stand alone. Though we had now passed out of the immediate sphere of war, these were not the only troops we encountered. We came on bodies of Dutch and Danes, marching northwards — probably they had been ordered down to curb the Brunswick rising; and later on some straggling, black-avised Italians proceeding God knows whither, who whatever they were to their enemies were certainly a terror to the countryside. They gave us, these broken wandering fragments, a singular impression of the vastness of the machine which the great despot wielded, and of the world-wide scope of the resources on which his power drew.

  And French, Dutch, Danes, or Italians, they all marched and swaggered as if the land belonged to them; eyeing the bauern insolently, plundering the shops, flinging coarse jeers at the women at work in the fields. And the peasants, standing at the street comers or plodding in the dust of their marches, eyed them askance and with fear, cringed before their coming, crossed their path on sufferance. The very sky, low and dark, seemed to look down on a beaten land, upon crops raised for the profit of others, upon villages crushed under imposts, upon towns ruled by servile burgomasters. Hardly could I believe that a single day of battle had had power so to enslave a nation. That fatal 14th of October, the day of Jena and Auerstadt, had indeed done its work!

  I could not refrain from putting my sense of this into words. “That poor wretch of a Schill!” I exclaimed, “He must have been mad to think that he would be supported!”

  ‘A beaten people!” said Ellis, his eyes averted.

  “A very easily beaten people! Why, the Spaniards are worth two of them! They at least are making a fight of it. No wonder that the Emperor does not know where to stop in his exactions. Or that the King hesitates to return to Berlin.”

  “The King does not set them much of an example,” Ellis agreed drily.

  “A d — d bad example,” I rejoined. “ Not much of the Great Frederick about him — except the selfishness of his policy. For the sake of filching Hanover from us, his allies, he threw over Austria. Then when he saw that he was not to be allowed to keep his plunder he threw over the French, and is paying for it! But after all, Ellis, it is something to have seen this. Our journey won’t be entirely wasted.”

  He hummed and hawed, and I have no doubt that he was already considering the terms of the report that he would send in. After a pause, “ Yes,” he admitted, grudgingly, “ but we might have known this without seeing it. Had there been a spark of spirit left in Prussia, she must have joined Austria this year, and turned the scale. But she is beaten. Yes, and there’s a pretty deep mark of Davout’s hoof here. He has put his foot down and crushed them body and soul, my good man.”

  Davout, it will be remembered, was at this time in charge of North Germany. The French garrisons in all Prussia’s strong places were under his command, while as Chief of the Military Police of the Empire, he gripped the strings of every intrigue, and overlooked every conspiracy. His was indeed the hand that lay heavy on the nation!

  I have set down this conversation not only because it reflects pretty faithfully our impressions at the time, but because, I must own, it was nearly all that passed between us during a long day’s journey. Perceval was morose and taciturn, and I resented his attitude. At Cosdorf we had to wait a long hour for horses, the carriages surrounded by all the scum and riff-raff of the road, whose scowling curiosity kept us continually on tenterhooks. At Jessen we got relays, but owing to the earlier delay had no time to eat — or Klatz said we had not — if we would be certain of reaching Wittenberg before the gates closed. The heat was stifling, the flies tormented us, and what with one thing and another we were like two cross dogs coupled up and apt to snarl on the least provocation. I could see that Perceval felt that none of these things would have befallen us had we kept to the direct road; while I resented his attitude, I asked myself sorely how he would have behaved if he had been the superseded one, and in my irritation — God forgive me — dubbed him an insufferable, selfish, pedantic prig!

  Then it did not help us that, as the day wore on, it grew hotter. Dark clouds massed themselves in the western sky until in that quarter the whole heavens were black with tempest. The light faded, the plain, rolling monotonously away in flat undulations, took on a livid look, and as we approached Wittenberg the thunder began to rumble in the distance.

  The postboys, glancing over their shoulders, flogged on their sweating horses, the carriage bounded and jolted from one hole to another, the gloom increased. Presently the gates appeared before us, showing grey and phantom-like in the strange light, with a single stork seated with drooping wings on its nest above them. The thunder crashed nearer and louder. We drew up at the barrier.

  “I wish to God we were well through it,” Ellis muttered, as Klatz, descending from the calash, advanced with our papers.

  However, things went better than we feared. The guard had no more mind to be out in the storm than we had. They cast but a perfunctory glance at the papers, counted us, asked whence we had come that day, and waving to us to proceed, dived back into shelter.

  We drove under the echoing gateway, rolled through narrow streets, between bald houses that stared cold and ghastly in the pale light, bumped over the pavement, and turning under an arch, halted with much cracking of whips in the courtyard of the Golden Stag.

  The inn stood on three sides of the court, and round the court ran a gallery. The gloom of the storm darkened the small open space, but three or four candle-lit windows shone out on the twilight, and there issued from the same windows a medley of voices and laughter.

  Beneath the gallery beside which we had pulled up, three or four waiters were bustling about, huddling chairs and tables under cover, and mingled with these a bevy of men — in gaudy uniforms and tipsily noisy — stood holding bottles and glasses, as if they had just been displaced from the tables. Through the windows behind, we had a glimpse of a long table and of a large party seated at it.

  We had time to see this, and with misgiving that the diners were French: then a stout figure detached itself from the group and came towards us. Before the man reached the carriage door, Klatz — the ever nimble Klatz — skipped out and intercepted him.

  The colloquy lasted longer than we expected, while the thunder pealed overhead and at any moment the storm might burst — large drops were already pattering on the ground. Ellis thrust out his head. “Well!” he cried impatiently, “What is it, Klatz? What is the matter?” A sad, fat man, the innkeeper, advanced, bowing, to the door of the carriage. “ I am desolated, Hofgraflichen,” he said, “but what can I do? My house is taken up. A party of officers from Magdeburg are celebrating here. They have engaged—”

  “Not the whole house!” Ellis exclaimed. “Nonsense, man, you can take us in somewhere. We are not going out into this storm.”

  The sad, fat man raised his hands in deprecation. “ I could give you rooms to sleep — it is possible. But to eat, no, Herren. The Speise Saal is taken up and all the first floor. You see?”

  “Then we will eat in our rooms!”

  “So! But I have no servants; it is not practical. I have not the men. But if the Hofgraflichen are willing to eat out—”

  “Man, we will eat out,” Ellis rejoined. “Only let us escape from the rain before we are drenched. Come, Klatz, we will see the rooms.”

  But I had had my eyes on the topers about the doorway. I had noticed that they were observing us, and I touched Perceval’s elbow. “I am not sure,” I muttered, “that it would not be wiser to go on and find another inn.”

  “In this storm? No, Cartwright, no, I am hanged if I do! You have brought us here, very much against my will,” querulously. “And now that we are here—”

  “Very good,” I said. “I am content if you are.” But it did not escape me that the innkeeper when he led Ellis and Klatz into the house avoided the door round which the Frenchmen clustered and took them in by another on the opposite side of the court. The choice told a tale.

>   I thought it well to be as prudent, and I also took shelter under the gallery on that side. Kaspar followed suit, stationing himself a few paces from me. The rain was beginning to pour down, leaping from the ground in a million points of silver, and the postboys, cowering in their saddles and cursing the delay, waited impatiently for a signal. Presently it came from a window above, and hastened by a blinding flash of lightning, they drew on to the stables through an arch at the end of the yard.

  This left me once more in full view of the Frenchmen, but I averted my gaze from them and directed my eyes along the sheltered space on my side. Here things were rougher and wore a more domestic aspect. Across a corner linen hung on a cord to dry, and against the wall a couple of spinning wheels stood flattened: a saddle rested athwart an empty dog kennel, and beside it some children’s toys lay, mingled with pattens and milk pails.

  These things taken in, my eyes passed on to two persons, who, seated on a bench under the gallery, appeared to be either alarmed by the tempest — they were holding one another’s hands — or ill at ease for a different reason. One was an elderly woman, neat and apple-faced, in the garb of an upper servant: the other a young girl, plainly dressed, and apparently of superior position, for her luxuriant hair, parted on the forehead, was piled up in the curling, negligee mode of the day.

  Their eyes, I noticed, roved nervously about them, and between the storm and the noise of the revellers opposite us, the two looked thoroughly out of place as well as uncomfortable.

  Nothing to remark in this: just two travellers, unversed in the road, and astray amid strange surroundings. But the girl’s face attracted me: it caught, it held my eyes. It was an oval face, pure and delicate, and somewhat pale, a face that gained in expression what it lost in colour. The eyes, bright and quick, told of secret disquiet, while the mouth, finely curved, quivered from time to time, as if tears were not far off.

  “What are they doing here?” I wondered. “And what is their trouble?” Before I had time to conceive an answer I found the innkeeper at my elbow. He began, with a stealthy eye on the Frenchmen, to renew his apologies, but seeing the direction of my gaze he broke off.

  “What are those two doing here?” I asked.

  “Ah, there again I am unfortunate!” he said. “ Their room is not ready, and the young lady is of the suite of the Grand Duchess of Zerbst, and commended to my humble services by Her Highness. She is here to find a partner to share a landschute to Berlin — on her way to Altona. But what will you? The times are bad. A share in a landschute to Berlin — nothing more easy two or three years ago. But few women travel nowadays — safer at home, mein Herr — and I cannot hear of one. The young lady is pressed for time, and I fear will be forced to travel by the Eilwagen, which is slow, and — little fitting.”

  “She has the look of an ‘Englanderin?’” I suggested.

  “No, gnadiger Herr, she is Danish. There are no English here: how should there be? Though, craving your pardon,” with a sly glance at me, “I had the same thought of you until you spoke. You are doubtless from the south?”

  “From Moravia,” I answered carelessly, “ but now of Hamburg. The old lady does not accompany her?”

  “No, she returns. They came in at mid-day. I shall do my best — to oblige Her Highness I would do my possible. But—” with open hands he expressed his plight — a very sad, fat man with no love of the French.

  “I am sorry that we have no lady with us. Otherwise I am sure—”

  “The high-born is gracious. But it would not be — practical.”

  Still the girl’s face appealed to me. She looked forlorn. “It is a long way to Altona,” I said.

  “As to Hamburg. But from Berlin she is better-than-well arranged for.”

  He might have said more, but Ellis came down. He had donned his fur cloak, and was fretting and fuming, for he liked going out to supper no better than I did. I pointed the two out to him, and stated the case. “I suppose we could not take her on with us?” I ventured.

  He stared at me. “ Good heavens, man,” he cried testily, “ what room have we? And a young girl? Ridiculous! We have enough to do to get ourselves through this cursed country without taking charge of all the distressed damsels we meet Come, tell Kaspar to get you your cloak. Klatz recommends the Rathskeller. Come, I am famished, man.”

  I saw that my suggestion had heated a temper already simmering, and I said no more. Kaspar brought me my cloak, and not sorry to put a space between ourselves and the Frenchmen, we passed into the town. Since we had entered the inn it had grown dark, but now and again the lightning whitened the house fronts, and its glare enabled us to avoid the abandoned carts, the piles of fire-wood and the projecting cellar-doors that in Germany make every street a peril.

  Fortunately the Market Place was not far off, and a walk of three minutes brought us to the low door and the half-dozen steps that led down to the cheerful, well-lighted Rathskeller. It was of the usual pattern, a narrow vaulted chamber with white-washed walls, divided into six or seven bays, and set with two tables in each bay, one on either side of the middle passage. In a homely way the aspect of the place was bright and cheerful.

  Probably the storm had kept away many of the habitues, for there were not more than a dozen persons present. Two-thirds of these were smoking and drinking beer from earthenware mugs; the other third were supping, plainly but sufficiently. It was not my first nor my twentieth visit to such a place, and we were soon, our orders given, seated comfortably in one of the empty bays.

  Even Ellis’s ill-humour was not proof against the pleasant change from the gloom and rain of the streets.

  ‘Well, we shall not do so badly,” he said, looking about him and stretching his long legs.

  But he turned glum a moment later. A clatter of iron-shod feet arose at the entrance, and five wild-looking youths, long-haired and bare-necked, in loose, strangely-cut coats, trooped in and, talking loudly and raucously, marched down the passage, as if the place belonged to them. Unfortunately they chose the table over against ours, flung their staves and knapsacks into a comer, dragged up the benches, and hammering arrogantly on the table began to bawl their orders.

  “Oh, d — n it,” said Perceval, eyeing them askance; “ this spoils all.”

  “Students,” I said. “From Leipzig or Halle. They must lord it over everyone, or they would not be German Burschen. They will quiet down presently.”

  To some extent they did, but not until they had taken seisin of the place, looked everyone over, and hidden themselves in a cloud of smoke. I would rather have been without them, for they were a noisy, obstreperous crew, and their tobacco was vile. But our supper came and we applied ourselves to it, and presently their meal also arrived, accompanied by stupendous flagons of beer, and took off their attention.

  They were uproarious still, bursting now and again into a chorus which they timed to blows on the table; and occasionally they flung a jest or a derisive word at some distant and inoffensive person. But they did not make us their butts, and though we could not ignore their presence, we were becoming hardened to the nuisance, when without warning they broke into a volley of booing and hooting “Out! out! out!” they roared.

  I looked up, to learn the cause of the outburst, and saw that they were all facing towards the entrance. I glanced that way, but too late to see more than that others nearer the door were also gazing towards it. “ What was it?” I asked Ellis. “I missed it.”

  “A man in a French uniform. I only just saw him. He looked in, but thought better of it. One of those army postilions, I fancy.”

  “On!” said I, remembering the man whom I had seen twice at Grossenhayn.

  “But—” Perceval asked, “ why did they set on him?”

  “Because he was French, I suppose.”

  “But I wonder they are not afraid.”

  “Well, just so. To be sure, it is odd.” And then after a moment’s thought, “ Do you know, I think, if you don’t mind. I’ll look into this? I may le
arn something. There may be more in it than appears.”

  He put his hand on my arm to detain me, but I was on my feet, and when he called after me I was already half way across the passage, my mug in my hand. “Smollis et fiducit,” I said, using the old cant words; and as the five wild-looking figures gazed at me in amazement at my audacity, I raised my mug. “Brother Burschen, I drink to the Burschenschaft!” I said. “ The Past to the Present!”

  For a moment they studied me, scowling; then satisfied, I suppose, with what they saw, they sprang to their feet. “ Fiducit!” they answered, as one man. “ We drink to the Burschenschaft! The Present to the Past!”

  “The Blue of the sky, the Red of the grape, and the White of the Madchen’s breast,” I continued, reading the question in their eye.

  “So! Of Heidelberg.”

  “And you, brother Burschen?”

  “Of Leipzig.”

  I laid my hand on the back of the bench. “Were the President to say, ‘ Ad loca—’”

  “Welcome and honoured!” rejoined the senior, making room for me. As I sat down I caught a glimpse through the haze that surrounded us of Ellis’s disapproving face, but I did not heed his annoyance. I knew better than he where I was, and I was set on following out the idea that had occurred to me. Success might be worth some risk.