The Danes Sketched by Themselves Volume I Part 4

'A child! and on the 12th of November she will be seventeen years old!

No, no, uncle, girls give up thinking themselves children when they arrive at ten years of age.'

'But I tell you, Hanne does not care in the least for him; nor does he for her.'

'Very well, uncle, so much the better, for there is no sort of danger then in his coming here.'

'Danger! Oh! I don't look upon him as at all dangerous; but I can't bear to see him looking so woe-begone.'

'I shall soon enliven him. Only leave him to me, and you will see that he shall become quite gay. I will take him in hand if he can come here every day.'

'Confound the fellow! I must just tell you plainly out then--he is a great admirer of Jette. Do you understand me now?'

'May I ask how you know that, sir?'

'How I know that?... Well ... No matter how. Suffice it to say, I know it. Jette cannot endure him, that I know also; but his sighs might make some impression on her, so it were better that he kept entirely away.

Besides, if he gets no encouragement, his fancy will wear out. Don't you agree with me that he had better not come here?'

'I can't call it a sin to be in love with Jette, for I am so myself; she is a girl that it would be impossible not to admire. If we were to drive away every one who was guilty of admiring her, we should be compelled at last to live as hermits.'

'What the devil, nephew! Do _you_ say all this--you, who are to be her future husband?'

'One must be somewhat liberal, uncle--one must seem not to observe everything. Suspicion does a great deal of harm, and jealousy would only encourage the evil. Jette shall find me as gentle as a lamb.

Besides, you have a.s.sured me that she cannot endure him.'

'Well!... Perhaps she does not exactly hate him ... she has no particular fault to find with him ... but he embarra.s.ses her ... he embarra.s.ses her ... and when a person embarra.s.ses one ...' The good man had got into a dilemma, and he was not able to get out of it; so he stopped short.

'Oh! that will pa.s.s off when she accustoms herself to see him. It is a great misfortune to let oneself be embarra.s.sed by the presence of others; really, after a time this would lead one to become a misanthrope--a hater of one's species.'

The Just.i.tsraad looked at me with astonishment, while he replied:

'I wish you had not gone on your travels; I fear your morality has suffered not a little in consequence. I hardly knew you again, you are so much changed. You are not like the same being who, eleven years ago, was such a quiet, bashful boy. And your father, who constantly wrote that you were not the least altered, he must scarcely recognize you himself.'

'That is very probable, uncle, for I hardly know myself again. But travelling abroad is sure always to make some little change in people.'

'It must have been Berlin that has done the mischief, and made such a transformation in you; for the letters your father sent me, which you had written from Vienna, did not in the slightest degree lead me to imagine that you had become such a hair-brained, thoughtless fellow.'

'True enough it is that I am thoughtless and hair-brained, but, believe me, I have never been guilty of any deliberate wrong. I know I am too often carried away by the impulse of the moment, and too often forget what may be the consequences.'

'One must make some allowance for youth,' replied the old gentleman.

'So it was at Berlin you studied folly in all its branches--Berlin, which I had always believed to be a most correct and exemplary city, whither one might send a young man without the least risk! Well, well!

let us consign to oblivion all the pranks you must have played to have been metamorphosed from a milksop to a madcap. We must all sow our wild oats some time or other, and I hope you have sown yours, and are done with them.'

'No, indeed, I fear not; on the contrary, I feel that I am in the midst of that period; but I promise you that it shall soon be over, and that then nothing shall tempt me to such follies. As to youthful imprudence, if it be not carried too far, I shall rely upon your indulgence. Will you not wink a little at it, and let your kind, generous heart plead for me when your reason might condemn me?'

'You are a queer fellow, nephew, and a wild one, I fear; but it is not possible to be angry with you.'

'Would to Heaven that you may always be inclined to entertain such friendly feelings towards me!' I replied, as I pressed his hand. There was good reason for my bespeaking his indulgence; it would be amply required the very next day.

I skilfully managed to bring the subject back to Gustav Holm, and soon perceived that he had really nothing to say against him. Holm's position was good in all respects, and the old gentleman would have considered him a very good match for one of his daughters, if he had not had another project in his head. But he had set his heart so entirely on the family alliance, that he could not admit the idea of any other. In eleven years there had been time for it to become deeply rooted in his mind.

When we sought the rest of the party, we found them all standing round the swing. Hanne was busy attaching a piece of paper to one of the poles.

'What are you doing there, child?' asked her father.

'It is Carl's name which I am putting on the gallows, as a well-deserved punishment for all the follies of which he has been guilty in word and deed to-day,' she replied, continuing her employment. 'Only think, he disgraced my swing by pretending to mistake it for a gallows. So there stands his name; and there it shall stand, to his eternal shame and reproach, and in ridicule of him when he is gone. We must have something to recall him to our recollection.'

'Nemesis,' thought I, 'already!' I was as much moved inwardly, as the worthy emperor, Charles V., must have been when he witnessed his own funeral. Humph! no one likes jesting about such serious matters. Who knows in what it might end?

We amused ourselves with swinging--we chattered nonsense, or discoursed gravely--we sauntered about, all together or in groups by turns. Hanne was the life of the party, and by degrees everyone seemed to partake of her gaiety. Even Jette talked more. I had seized on the unhappy lover, and held him fast by the arm, in the charitable intention of bringing him near his lady-love, without anyone's remarking his proximity to her; but the overcautious girl avoided us, and Gustav himself had not courage to begin a conversation on different subjects. I was quite distressed about them, poor things! 'We must try what can be done in the wood,' thought I; 'there are paths enough in it, the party will become more scattered, and I shall then be able to manage, perhaps, to get them into some secluded spot.' But our progress was arrested by a servant, who came to announce that some visitors had arrived.

_Visitors!_ At that word my ears tingled as if all the blood in my body had rushed up into them. Visitors! I felt sure they would be betrayers--they would be persons who either knew me, or the real cousin, and then good-by to my _incognito_--good-by to the secret interview! What would become of it when I had to take to flight?

'Visitors! How very tiresome,' exclaimed Hanne. The servant mentioned a name unknown to me; that, as it appeared, of a family in the neighbourhood. I was not acquainted with them--but the cousin, my other self ...

'Visitors!' I exclaimed, in dismay. 'Do I know them? Will anybody have the great kindness to tell me if they are acquainted with me?'

They all laughed, and a.s.sured me that I was not acquainted with them.

It was a family who had only lately settled in the neighbourhood, having exchanged a property in Jutland for one in Zealand, and with whom they were themselves but slightly acquainted. I recovered my spirits, and we turned our steps back towards the house. Gustav seized the opportunity to make his escape, the Just.i.tsraad made no effort to detain him, and I was too much occupied with my own affairs to trouble myself at that moment about those of other people. The poor dear Jutland family had made a most unseasonable visit.

I thanked Heaven that I had never seen them before; and I cannot say that I should feel any regret at never beholding them more. They were a set of tiresome bores, who deprived me of the brightest afternoon of my life, and took the evening also; so that I had reason not to forget them in a hurry. My cousins had to amuse the silly daughters, the elder individuals on both sides discoursed together, and it fell to my share to entertain the son and his tutor. I looked a hundred times at my watch; I foretold that we were going to have thunder and lightning and rain in torrents--in short, I left no stone unturned to get rid of them early--but to no avail; I only reaped jeers and bantering from Hanne for my pains; and when at length they seemed themselves to think it expedient to go, she pressed them to stay longer, only to annoy me, and was mischievous enough to say, 'You surely will not refuse my cousin his first request to you,' thereby, as it were, making me p.r.o.nounce my own doom. It was enough to put one into a rage.

We went to supper with all due formality, and for the first time I remembered that it was my duty to offer my arm to Jette. She accompanied me like a lamb led to the sacrificial altar, and took the earliest opportunity of informing me that her headache had not yet left her. Headache is an absolute necessity for ladies; I do not know what they would do if no such thing as headache existed.

It was not possible to utter a word which could not be overheard by the tutor, who sat on the other side of her; at length it occurred to me to engage him in a conversation with Hanne, and with some difficulty I managed to do this. But fate had no compa.s.sion on me that evening.

Presently I heard my real name p.r.o.nounced by the father of the family who were visiting us; I felt as much shocked and alarmed as if he had shouted '_Seize that thief!_' I had nearly dropped my fork.

'He is a most respectable man, I can a.s.sure you; I recommend you to send all your corn to him; he is very fair in his dealings. I have known him for a long time.'

It was of my father he was speaking.

'I shall consider about it,' said the Just.i.tsraad; 'I do not know the house myself. And he has a son, you say. Is the son a partner?'

'It was intended that he should be,' said my personal enemy; 'but he is such a sad scamp that I think the father will hardly venture to take him into partners.h.i.+p. He played such foolish, wild pranks at home, that he was sent to Hamburg; but he did not go on a bit better there, as I have heard.'

'I am sorry for the poor father,' said the Just.i.tsraad.

'A good character is valuable,' thought I. 'Here is the second time to-day that my name has been stigmatized. Now, both my person and my name are contraband at ---- Court. Cruel fate!' I became quite silent--willingly would I also have taken refuge in a headache; there was enough to give me one, at any rate; and I took leave in the coldest and most distant manner of the party who had prolonged their visit on my account.

'Pray come and see us soon with your betrothed,' said the old wretch who had made so free with my town character.

It was with difficulty that I kept my temper, and poor Jette seemed also to be on thorns.

'What nice people they are!' exclaimed Hanne; 'the daughters have promised me to come here at least twice a week. But you were quite silent and stupid this evening, cousin.'

'It was what you wished me to be in the morning,' I replied; 'I only conducted myself according to your desire.'

'Let me always find you so obedient. Goodnight! To-morrow I shall command you to be gay again. That becomes you best, after all.' She held out her pretty little hand as a token of reconciliation.