The Undying Past Part 7

"Introduce you, eh? Why the d.i.c.kens shouldn't I introduce you to them?"

"Well, then, I am waiting."

But it pleased the old man to keep silent. He puffed out clouds of smoke and sulked. Leo let him be. Some time elapsed before he elicited any clear information with regard to the name and character of the lads.

"Since when has Halewitz taken pupils?"

"Since I have been agent here, my son."

Leo's eyes flashed; but he checked himself.

"I advise you to write to your respective fathers, young men, and tell them that for the future Halewitz can get on very well without you. Now then, off to bed."

They made their bow and sidled out. The green table had emptied fast, and only the uncle and his two guests still sat on at the upper end.

The brewer pretended to busy himself with his cask in the window-seat.

Leo signed to him, laughing.

"Am I going to get a gla.s.s of beer to welcome me at last, Sigilhofer?"

"If you like, sir," the Bavarian stammered forth in awed delight, and held a tankard under the tap with a trembling hand.

Leo drank, and wiped his moustache. "Not bad, Sigilhof," he said in praise, offering his hand. "That's the first real greeting I have had since I set foot in my home."

The brewer went to the door, beaming with happiness and satisfaction at having got off so easily.

Uncle Kutowski and the Candidate drew closer together, convulsed by every gradation of fury, while the painter stared vacantly on the ground, lost in lugubrious thought.

Suddenly the Candidate started up, took three steps towards Leo, bowed and smiled affectedly, and drawled through his nose--

"I beg pardon, but I must ask you to give me satisfaction."

Leo put his hands in his pockets, and from his six feet of height eyed from head to foot the anaemic youth, who was endeavouring in vain to a.s.sume an air of dignified disdain. Then he laughed and said--

"So you are the son of dear old papa Brenckenberg?"

"My father is Pastor Brenckenberg of Wengern," snarled the pugnacious young man. "But that has nothing to do with it."

"And how is the dear old papa?"

"I have asked you to give me satisfaction, sir."

"Remember me to your father. Congratulate him from me on having reared so promising and sober a sprig for a son."

"What do you mean? Remember, sir, that I am a corps student."

"Then I am afraid, young man, that you'll have to put your nose to the grindstone," answered Leo, "before you become anything better."

The Candidate gave a swaggering bow. "There is nothing to detain me here longer," he said.

"Have you only now discovered that?" Leo asked, turning his back on him. "But wait a moment! One thing more you may tell your good old papa, and that is, I should advise him to put a stop to his gentlemanly son loafing about in Halewitz Park when other people are in bed, with the object of singing pretty songs there, otherwise it is quite possible that the said young gentleman may be brought home to him the next morning suffering from dog-bites."

Young Brenckenberg gave him a look of supreme contempt, and, fuming like a turkey-c.o.c.k, strutted to the door.

"One after the other," thought Leo, and turned to the painter.

When it dawned on him that it was now his turn to be dealt with, he jumped up and fell on the bosom of the returned squire, weeping hysterically.

"Kick me out!" he cried, in a voice of lamentation. "Kick me out like the rest ... I deserve it.... I am a loafer ... a sluggard.... I waste G.o.d's daylight.... My cows all have too long legs.... So the critics say ... but I swear it isn't true.... I take my oath to you, an honourable man, that cows have long legs."

"Of course, dear old fellow; calm yourself."

"Now I have given up painting them with legs at all ... I make them legless, like seals.... Serves those blackguard critics right.... But you are my salvation.... Say you will be on my side--promise."

Leo promised everything as he pushed the drunkard firmly back in his chair.

"You will see to the man, uncle."

He growled out an insolent answer.

Leo felt the blood mount hotly to his temples. But a voice within him said, "Keep quiet. Don't embitter this hour of homecoming." So he forced himself to calmness as he said--

"I beg that you will remember your position, my dear uncle."

The old man spat copiously around. Then with a defiant grin, that was a sort of challenge, he said--

"It seems to me that I know my position better than you do, my boy. At any rate, I must ask you not to take me to task again, before other people, else I shall be bound to jog your memory a little."

A shudder ran through Leo's frame. Again the ghost of his old sin rose before him.

"Sleep off your debauch," he murmured, and strode hastily to the door.

It was quiet and dark in the courtyard. The cool night breezes fanned Leo's burning brow, but he was not conscious of it. Foaming at the mouth, with clenched fists he pa.s.sed the stables, whence now and again the snort of a dreaming animal or the rattle of a chain fell on his ear. The wrath which hitherto it had needed the exercise of all his self-command to suppress, now that he was alone, broke forth the more violently. He had leisure to rave himself out. No one disturbed him, and it was only the iron head of a pole-axe which he nearly ran into in the darkness which brought him to his senses.

Suddenly he laughed out loud. The old Yankee game, "For Life or Death,"

at which he had so often played so audaciously and won on the other side of the world, should serve him in tame old Europe too, to stop the mouth of his refractory conscience. So, folding his arms as content as a schoolboy who has bethought him of some new trick to play off on a comrade, he walked up the incline to the castle, which stood out, a solid black ma.s.s of masonry, against the dark blue of the midnight sky.

Behind him the farm buildings and offices formed a huge semicircle, grouped round the reed-grown pond, whose surface reflected the faint uncertain dawn of midnight A solitary light still shone from one of the castle's upstair windows.

He was seized with jubilant longing. "Hurrah! Now for mother!" he exclaimed, throwing his cap up in the air. It flew over the hedge and fell into the garden. "Shall I present myself at the door of my home without a cap, in true vagabond fas.h.i.+on?" he asked himself, with a laugh.

But he was given no time to reflect on the matter, for his shout had awakened one of the yard-dogs, whose bark was echoed in a distant chorus from one or two other directions. The animals seemed to be fast-chained--no doubt an innovation on the part of Uncle Kutowski, to ensure the calves of his nocturnal boon-companions going uninjured.

Then he thought of his friend Leo. Once in a Caesar-like mood he had taken into his head to have his favourite hound christened by his own name, "So that the fellows should know," he had explained, "that they were to esteem the fine beast as his representative."

"Leo!" he cried, with all the strength of his lungs.

For a moment there was a dead silence.