The German Pioneers Part 5

So he sat there full of thankful joy that everything had turned out so well after he had been very despondent and was filled with secret unrest like one who, having with difficulty escaped a great danger, does not venture to yield to the feeling of security and seems to feel the ground shaking under his feet.

But as the meal was now drawing to a close another care began to press upon him with increasing weight. During the journey, in the farm-houses which they entered, which were often very small, it had happened more than once that he had pa.s.sed the night in the same room with the family and his companion. Two or three nights when they could reach no human habitation they had taken their rest in the forest, and he had seen the beloved maiden by the light of the camp-fire sleeping peacefully, while he looked up through the tops of the trees and thanked G.o.d that he was permitted to watch over her slumber. But this occurred on the journey--an unusual condition, which could not and should not last.

There was in the upper story a store-room part.i.tioned off, in which one of the brothers used to sleep, while the other had his simple couch in a small recess in the lower room. The brothers had hit upon this arrangement the preceding year, when the inroads of the French necessitated redoubled watchfulness. Afterwards, though the danger was over, they had kept up the custom until Lambert's departure. Lambert had thought of each room for Catherine, but Conrad had mentioned during the meal that, on his eight-days' excursion, he had learned that the French were stirring again. Consequently renewed watchfulness was necessary, and that since Lambert must be very tired from his journey, he would undertake the watch for that night.

"Then we will in turn both watch above," said Lambert after a pause.

"Catherine will be satisfied for the night here below. To-morrow we will make a better arrangement for her. Is that satisfactory, Catherine?"

"Quite so," replied the young woman. "I saw in the recess sweet-smelling hay, and here is the beautiful white bear-skin; do not trouble yourselves. I shall get along all right. Good night."

She gave Lambert her hand and then Conrad, who looked on with surprise.

He wondered at his brother, and followed him up the narrow stairway after they had bolted and barricaded the door.

Catherine watched them as they ascended, drew a deep breath, pa.s.sed her hand over her forehead, and began to clear away the supper table, and to wash up and put away the dishes, that she might with better courage carry forward the work of reducing things to order which she had before timidly begun. This took a long time. Often she stood benumbed in the midst of her work with her hand pressed against her forehead. Her heart was so full she could have sat down and shed a flood of tears. At the same time a firm, unchecked serenity filled her soul, such as she had experienced when quite a young thing playing at forfeits when the band of children in their colored dresses wildly pursued each other.

Then awakened out of such strange dreams, she again quietly continued her work, and at last looked about the room with a self-satisfied air, since it had now a.s.sumed quite a different appearance. Having carefully put out the fire on the hearth, she sought her modest couch that she had prepared in the recess on the farther side of the large room.

Through the narrow port-holes in the thick plank wall there stole in streaks of the moon's rays, spreading about her a faint twilight. It was easy to breathe in the fresh forest exhalation which blew in at the openings and played about her cheeks. The brook purled uninterruptedly.

From time to time there was a rustle, first gentle, then swelling out, and then again holding back like the tones of an organ. It was the solemn music of the primitive forest. She had already noticed this music on her journey when, sleeping under the trees on gathered moss, she, with dream-veiled, half-open eyes, saw Lambert sitting at the camp-fire. She could now also hear his step as he made the round of the gallery above. Conrad's tread would be heavier. Once he stopped directly over her head. Was he looking in the distance for the blood-thirsty enemies? or was he listening to the mocking-bird's wonderful song which she had for some time noticed coming from the forest in soft, sobbing tones, as the nightingale had warbled, over in her German home, in the linden tree at the gable of the parsonage. Then again it, shrieked like a vexatious parrot, or laughed like a magpie.

This sounded quite ludicrous. Then it was no more the mockingbird's twofold, demon-like singing, but two human voices, and Lambert spoke in excited, suffering tones: "Catherine, can you forgive me?" and Conrad laughed, saying: "Catherine is not at all angry," and she had to smile, and with a smile on her lips she fell asleep.

Meanwhile, as Catherine had correctly supposed, Lambert, walking slowly over the floor of the gallery, kept watch, though Conrad, recurring to what he had reported, a.s.sured him that, for the present, the danger of which he had before spoken did not exist, and that he had only mentioned it that he might have good grounds for leaving. He then became very angry as Lambert replied, "I do not know what you mean,"

threw himself on the bed in the watch-chamber and declared that he was too tired to say another word.

However he did not sleep, for as Lambert, after an hour, softly walked past the open door of the watch-chamber, he thought he heard his name spoken. He stopped and looked in.

"Did you call me, Conrad?"

"Yes," replied Conrad, who had raised himself on his elbow, "I wished to ask you something."

"What?"

"Are you then not married?"

"No; why?"

"Oh! I only asked; so good night."

"Conrad, dear Conrad, I wish with all my heart to tell you everything."

But Conrad had already sunk back on the bear skin and had fallen asleep, or pretended that he had.

Lambert went sadly out. "To-morrow," said he to himself, "before we see Catherine, he shall know it, and he will help me, and all will be well."

CHAPTER V

Lambert, having, in the early morning, lain down by the side of Conrad, awoke late and found his brother gone. He had left the block-house at sunrise. Catherine was up and occupied about the hearth when Conrad lightly descended the stairs. He was in a great hurry, and declined the morning soup which she offered him. He would certainly be back before night. Then he took his rifle, hung about him his game bag, and, with Pluto at his heels, went up the creek with long strides.

"The wild youth," said Lambert.

He was quite displeased with Conrad, but that he had intentionally avoided him did not enter his mind. Conrad had acted strangely enough last evening, but then the older brother was accustomed to the unreliable, crisp and often silly humors of the younger one. "Why should Conrad give up a hunt to-day which perhaps he had prearranged with his companions? He will doubtless return by noon with a fat deer and a woodman's appet.i.te."

So said Lambert while, standing at the hearth, he partook of his morning meal. However he did not say that, on the whole, he was not so much put out by his brother's absence--that he reluctantly gave up the sweet habit of being alone with Catherine that he might talk freely with her.

But this morning the pleasant conversation was wanting. Catherine was still and, as Lambert now saw, was pale, and her beaming, brown eyes were veiled. Now that the end of her journey had been reached she felt how great the strain had been; but soon, smiling, accommodated herself to the situation.

"You need not feel concerned," said she. "In a couple of days--perhaps hours--all will be regained. I will not boast, but I have always been able to accomplish what others could, and often a little more, and, if you are not too strict a master, you shall be satisfied with your maid-servant."

To Lambert it seemed as if the sun had suddenly been overcast. With trembling hand he put down the cup which he had not yet entirely emptied.

"You are not my maid-servant, Catherine," he said gently.

"Yes I am, Lambert, yes I am, though you magnanimously tore up the evidence of my indebtedness," replied the young maiden. "I owe you none the less on that account. The debt is now doubled. You know it well and yet it is proper for me to say it. I desired to be to you a good and faithful maid-servant--to you and yours. I supposed nothing else but that your parents were still alive, and I heartily rejoiced that I could serve them. You said nothing about your parents, I think, because you did not wish to make me feel sad. Now your parents, like mine, are dead, and you live here alone with your brother, so I am your maid-servant and your brother's."

Lambert made a motion as though he wished to reply, but his half-raised arm fell powerless, and his opened lips again closed. He had intended to say: "I love you, Catherine. Do you not see it?" How could he now say it?

Catherine continued:

"I beg you, Lambert, with this understanding, to talk with your brother, if you have not already done so. You are the elder and know me better. He is young and impetuous, as it seems, and now sees me for the first time. And now, Lambert, you surely have something better to do than to stand here and talk with me. I have to clear away a little here yet, and will follow you should you not go far, if you do not object. I should like to see all, and know about every part."

She turned to him and gave him her hand. "Does that please you?" she asked smiling.

"Entirely, entirely," replied Lambert. Tears stood in his eyes, but the dear girl wanted it so, and that was enough.

"I will first go to the barn-yard," said he, "and then into the forest.

This afternoon I intended to go to Uncle Ditmar's. Perhaps you will accompany me."

He went out hastily. Catherine looked at him with sad smiles. "You good, dear, best man," said she, "it is not my fault that I distress you, but I must think of us all. The madcap will probably now be satisfied."

Catherine now felt herself somewhat relieved of the weight that had lain on her heart since the peculiar scene with Conrad in the morning.

Involuntarily she constantly thought about how alarmed Conrad appeared when, as he came down the narrow, steep stairs, he found her already on the hearth; how he had then approached her and stared at her with his large, glistening eyes, and had said: "Are you man and wife, or are you not? If you are, then it will be best for me to send a bullet through my head; but, lie not--for G.o.d's sake, do not lie, otherwise I will indeed shoot myself, but first surely both of you."

Then as Catherine drew back from the violence, he began to laugh. "Now, one does not lightly shoot such a brother dead, who is so good that he could not be better, and a girl who is so handsome, so wonderfully beautiful. So far as I am concerned I need feel no anxiety about being shot dead. This can happen to me any day. Pluto, beast, are you again staring at her? Wait! I will teach you manners." With this he hastened away. Outside Pluto howled grievously, as though she would teach Catherine that her master was not accustomed to indulge in vain threats.

"Now he will be satisfied," said Catherine, yet a couple of times, while she cleared away the breakfast and made some preparations for the simple dinner. To-day she did not, like yesterday, have to gather up laboriously what she needed; everything was at her hand. Everything appeared as if familiar to her--as though she had known it from youth up. She hummed her favorite song, "Were I a wild falcon I would soar aloft," and then interrupted herself and said: "It has been childish for me to be so fearful. He loves him; that one sees clearly. He has called him the best brother, and surely, at the bottom of his heart, he is kind though his eyes have so wild a look. Before glittering eyes which are so handsome one needs not be afraid. But Lambert's eyes are still handsomer."

Catherine stepped to the door. It was a most beautiful spring morning.

Small white clouds pa.s.sed quietly over the light blue sky. Golden stars danced in the creek. Dew-drops sparkled in the luxuriant gra.s.s of the meadow--here in emerald green, in blue and purple shades there. The woods which encircled the hill on which the house stood looked down quietly. Over a rocky height that projected steep out of the forest there hovered a great eagle with extended wings sporting in the balmy air that was breathing through the valley and whose every puff was charged with balsamic aroma.

Catherine folded her hands and her eyes filled with tears. It seemed to her as if she were again standing in the small church of her home village, and that she heard her father's mild voice p.r.o.nounce the benediction over the congregation: "The Lord let the light of His countenance fall upon you and give you peace."

The last remains of unrest had pa.s.sed away from her and, in her present mood, she went to seek Lambert, whom she supposed to be at the buildings which, as she pa.s.sed around the block-house, she saw standing at some distance towards the forest.

She found him working at a hedge which inclosed part of a field in which the lance-shaped, bright leaves of the Indian-corn waved in the morning wind. Young, red-blossomed apple trees, whose trunks had been carefully wound with thorns, had been planted around the fields.

"This the deer did last night," said Lambert, as he approached a damaged place. "Here are the fresh tracks. Conrad knows how to keep them respectful, but during the eight days that he has been away they have again become bold."