Only a Girl Part 58

He swung his light straw hat hither and thither in his hand, and his fair hair encircled his broad brow with ma.s.ses of curls.

Kathchen stopped crying as soon as she saw him. His graceful figure stood alone among the coa.r.s.e peasant youths, and, truly as she loved and honoured his father, the son was dearer to her childish heart, for he was young, hardly twelve years older than she herself, and youth clings to youth. She arose and walked feebly towards the pair.

"Why, Kathi, brave little girl, that never cried when they cut off her arm, what has happened to you?"

"They tease me," sobbed Kathchen, "because I have such an easy time and was run over by a grand coach. They envy me my good luck, and no one loves me any more. But it shall not be so,--I will not have anything more than the other poor cripples,--I will give them all some of my money. Seppel needs it far more than I do, and he got nothing for the big stone that fell upon him, although he is a grown-up man. I am only a stupid little child, who never earned anything, and yet I get so much, because I have to sit still. But I will not keep it, and my father and mother must not keep it all to themselves,--they are well and strong. I will share it with those who have suffered as I have."

"But, my dear little Kathchen," said Herr Leonhardt, much moved, "you are too generous to the people who tease you so. If you try to share with all the cripples and maimed people in the village, you will have very little left for yourself. If Heaven has decreed that you are to be rich while they remain poor, you may resign yourself gratefully to its inscrutable designs without any qualms of conscience. You can help the needy by giving them work upon your farm that you are to buy with the money that is coming to you. Until then, it would be much better to give them a little money weekly, than to bestow upon such rough men a large sum, that might tempt them to be idle and drink and gamble."

"Yes, it would be better; but mother will not let me have anything. She does not like to have me give away a single kreutzer."

"But what does your father say?" asked Walter, who had been regarding the child with silent admiration.

"Oh, he works all day long in our new field, and does not care for anything. Mother keeps the money, and when she says, 'So it must be,'

he does not say a word."

"But how does that agree with your parents' great liberality to the Church?"

"Yes, I told mother she had better give some of the money to these poor people than to the Reverend Father and the stone-mason for the ma.s.ses and the cross; but then she told me I was too silly,--that she had given the money to the Lord,--and it was far wiser and more profitable to give it to Him than only to men, for He was more powerful than any of them, and could give a great deal better reward for what was done for Him."

Herr Leonhardt turned to his son, and, with a gentle smile, said, "Does not that one sentence show the evil of this false piety? These people turn to the Highest only for the sake of the reward that they expect.

For them the Lord is a venal human being, whose protection they can procure by bribery, and they now think themselves absolved from all humane and Christian duty. Oh, holy,--no, not holy,--unhallowed simplicity!"

"Dear father," said Walter, "it is the same old story of indulgences, only in another shape. Tetzel, to be sure, is here no longer, but there are still Tetzels in plenty to be found, and always will be while there are men in the world who prize money beyond all else on earth and think it no way beneath the dignity of the Almighty actually to drive a bargain with them. The n.o.ble thought of the antique sacrifice is at the bottom of it all. Polykrates threw the ring into the sea to appease the G.o.ds,--the Christian pays his money to erect a crucifix. But the Greek trembled when the G.o.ds rejected his offering and the fish brought back his ring. The conceit of our age regards its offering as an investment of capital, and hopes for large interest upon it."

The young man pa.s.sed his hand through his blonde curls with a light laugh. His father bowed his gray head thoughtfully, and pondered upon what his son had said, and how far mankind still were from a knowledge of the truth. Kathchen looked at both, surprise in her eyes, as if they were speaking some strange tongue. All was quiet around, for the little girl's parents were away in the fields. A couple of doves were picking up the crumbs from Kathchen's supper, and the ducks were diving and whisking their tails in the little brook near the house.

Quick, firm footsteps were heard approaching.

"Here comes our friend Mollner," said the old man, listening. "I know his step from all others."

"Yes, Father Leonhardt, it is I," said Mollner's clear voice. "How are you all?" He drew near the quiet little group. Before him ran three or four geese, greatly terrified and in great anxiety,--but yielding not one jot of their dignity, for they never thought of turning aside; they were left in the middle of the road, when Johannes reached his friends.

"Look, Herr Professor," remarked young Leonhardt gaily, "those stupid birds are priding themselves upon having maintained their place. See with what haughty disdain they are regarding you. They evidently think that they have compelled you to turn aside for them! It is always the way. Wisdom vacates the path shared with stupidity, and the latter swells with the pride of an imagined victory."

Johannes smiled. "What puts these little moral sentiments into your head, my dear Walter? Are you about to compose a new primer for your school?"

"It really would not be a bad idea among such people as these!" said Walter, as he shook hands with Mollner.

Mollner sat down upon the bench before the house and took Kathchen upon his knee. "Would not you like, Kathchen, to have Herr Walter make you a new primer?"

"It might be a capital undertaking, Walter," remarked Herr Leonhardt.

"We must not despise small opportunities, since larger ones are denied us."

"Yes, father," laughed the light-hearted young fellow, "but, if my primer is to succeed here, I must have for the letter H,

"'H stands for Hartwich, good Christians must know, She's a terrible witch, who will work them all woe.'"

Herr Leonhardt made a sign to the thoughtless speaker, who looked in alarm at Mollner, who preserved a gloomy silence.

"You must not laugh at the lady at the castle," said Kathchen, leaning her pale little face against Johannes' throbbing heart. "My mother complained to-day that I had grown as pale and ugly as the Fraulein, and she prayed the Lord to break the spell that the Fraulein had laid upon me. It made me so sorry, for she cannot help my being so pale. She is so good and kind,--how could she bewitch me?"

Johannes silently drew the child closer to him.

"To be sure, she is good and kind, and would not harm any one," said Herr Leonhardt;--but his son interposed, with youthful exaggeration, "She is a saint,--far too holy for these ignorant people to be permitted to kiss her footprints as she pa.s.ses!"

Johannes pressed his bearded lips upon the child's head, but did not speak.

"Herr Professor, where are your thoughts?" asked Leonhardt anxiously, laying his hand gently upon Johannes' shoulder.

"With the subject of your conversation, dear friend. It gives me no rest. It is now four weeks since I have seen her. I would not seek her again until I had collected all the material that was necessary to convict her uncle, for I must be prepared for the most determined opposition on his part to my visits. To-day, through my kind old friend Heim, I have discovered a clue to Gleissert's rascalities, and when I compare the intelligence that I have received with the fact of which you informed me, that all his letters are addressed to Unkenheim, I think I have a terrible weapon against him in my possession. And yet,--yet I do not know whether I ought to warn Ernestine by letter or to go to her myself. Will not,--must not the sight of me be painful to her?"

"As well as I remember, you told me that she begged you not to forsake her," said Herr Leonhardt.

"So she did, old friend. But how do I know how she thinks and feels now, since she never visits you without such anxious inquiries beforehand as to whether I am with you, and never, too, unless accompanied by Gleissert?"

"That is all her uncle's doings," said Walter. "You cannot think, Herr Professor, how he watches and guards her. Since I have been allowed to study in her laboratory, I have never for one moment been alone with her,--that devil is always present. And it was with difficulty that she obtained permission for me to come to the castle. Willmers says that there was a three-days fight about it, but Fraulein Ernestine had made up her mind, and he was at last obliged to give way. It is high time that something were done for the unfortunate lady, for since the completion of her last treatise she has been utterly exhausted, and if she goes on thus much longer she will kill herself."

"I have known that for a long time," said Johannes with a profound sigh, "but what is to be done? I can make no impression either upon her head or heart. My solitary hope now lies in separating her from that villain."

"I think it would be much the best for you to see her yourself," said Walter. "She is really wasting away from day to day."

"Yes, I know that it is so by her hands," added his father; "they grow so thin and small, and are as cold and damp as if she were dying. Ah, Herr Professor, their touch pierces me to the heart! I actually think I can see her suffer, for hands feel so only when they are often wrung in physical or mental anguish."

Johannes put the child from off his knee, and turned away his head, but he could not conceal his emotion from the blind eyes of the schoolmaster.

"Why attempt to suppress a pain that is so natural, dear friend? Go to her quickly. It will do her good."

"Well, then, I will write her a line," said Johannes. "I will ask her whether the sight of me would pain or console her. Good G.o.d! I desire nothing but her happiness! You, Walter, will, I know, contrive to let her have my note without her uncle's knowledge. She will, I hope, answer it in the same way."

"Then let us go directly home," said Herr Leonhardt, "that you may write immediately."

The gentlemen started to go.

Kathchen plucked Johannes by his coat. "But, Herr Professor, if you go to see the Fraulein to-morrow, you will not find her."

"How so, Kathchen?" asked Johannes, who had not thought that the child had been listening to the conversation.

"Oh, yes; I know it is true. Frau Willmers from the castle went by here to-day, and whispered to me to tell the gentlemen secretly, if they came to see me to-day, that the Fraulein was going away to-night forever, but I must not let any one know that she had told me, or she should lose her place. And if the Herr Professor did not come, I must tell it to the master, that he might send a messenger to town to the Herr Professor. Frau Willmers cried a great deal, and said she dared not go to the school-house, because,--because the Evil One, who watches the Fraulein so closely, would know it."

"Kathchen!" cried Johannes, "you little angel, how much you have done for me! The Fraulein would have gone to-night, and I should never have known whither, if it had not been for you! Is this all that you know?"

"Yes, this is all,--you may trust me. I listened to all she said."

Johannes took the child in his arms and kissed her. "Child, tell me how I can reward you. Speak. What would you like? Whatever it is, you shall have it."

"Ah, dear Herr Professor, if you would only persuade my father and mother to let me have some money for the poor people. Oh, do, do beg them. And then they will not laugh at me and call me Silver-arm any more. I will make them happy, too, or else I shall be just like the Fraulein, and no one will like me at all,--and I would not have it so for all the money in the world."