The Daltons Volume I Part 4

"Do not say so, my dearest brother," cried she, pa.s.sing her arm around him; "a deception, a mere illusion, is unworthy of that name. Look above the gratification of mere vanity, and you will become steeled against the many wounds self-love is sure to receive in intercourse with the world. I cannot tell how, or with what a.s.sociates, you are about to live, but I feel certain that in every station a man of truth and honor will make himself respected. Be such, dearest Frank. If family pride if the name of Dalton have value in your eyes, remember that upon you it rests to a.s.sert its right to distinction. If, as I would fondly hope, your heart dwells here with us, bethink ye what joy what holy grat.i.tude you will diffuse around our humble hearth to know that our brother is a good man."

It was some moments ere either could speak again. Emotions, very different ones, perhaps, filled their hearts, and each was too deeply moved for words. Frank's eyes were full of tears, and his cheek quivering, as he threw his knapsack on his shoulder.

"You will write from Innspruck, Frank; but how many days will it take ere you reach that city?"

"Twelve or fourteen at least, if I go on foot. There, Nelly, do not help me, dearest; I shall not have you tomorrow to fasten these straps."

"This is not to be forgotten, Frank; it's Kate's present. How sorry she will be not to have given it with her own hands!" And so saying, she gave him the purse her sister had worked.

"But there is gold in it," said the boy, growing pale with emotion.

"Very little, Frank dearest," replied she, smiling. "A cadet must always have gold in his purse, so little Hans tells us; and you know how wise he is in all these matters."

"And is it from a home like this that I am to take gold away!" cried he, pa.s.sionately.

"Nay, Frank, you must not persuade us that we are so very poor. I will not consent to any sense of martyrdom, I promise you." It was not without difficulty she could overcome his scruples; nor, perhaps, had she succeeded at all, if his thoughts had not been diverted into another channel by a light tapping at the door. It was Hans Roeckle come to awake him.

Again and again the brother and sister embraced; and in a very agony of tears Frank tore himself away, and hastened down the stairs. The next moment the heavy house door banged loudly, and he was gone.

Oh, the loneliness of mind in which he threaded his way through the dark and narrow streets, where the snow already lay deeply! With what sinking of the heart he turned to look for the last time at the window where the light the only one to be seen still glimmered. How little could all the promptings of hope suffice against the sad and dark reality that he was leaving all he loved, and all who loved him, to adventure upon a world where all was bleak and friendless!

But not all his dark forebodings could equal hers from whom he had just parted. Loving her brother with an affection more like that of mother than sister, she had often thought over the traits of his character, where, with many a n.o.ble gift, the evil seeds of wrong teaching had left, like tall weeds among flowers, the baneful errors of inordinate self-esteem and pride. Ignorant of the career on which he was about to enter, Ellen could but speculate vaguely how such a character would be esteemed, and whether his native frankness and generosity would cover over, or make appear as foibles, these graver faults. Their own narrow fortunes, the very straits and privations of poverty, with all their cruel wounds to honest pride, and all their sore trials of temper, she could bear up against with an undaunted courage. She had learned her lesson in the only school wherein it is taught, and daily habit had instilled its own powers of endurance; but, for Frank, her ambition hoped a higher and brighter destiny, and now, in her solitude, and with a swelling heart, she knelt down and prayed for him. And, oh! if the utter ings of such devotion never rise to Heaven or meet acceptance there, they at least bring balm to the spirit of him who syllables them, building up a hope whose foundations are above the casualties of humanity, and giving a courage that mere self-reliance never gave.

Little Hans not only came to awaken Frank, but to give him companions.h.i.+p for some miles of his way, a thoughtful kindness, for which the youth's deep preoccupation seemed to offer but a poor return. Indeed, Frank scarcely knew that he was not travelling in utter solitude, and all the skilful devices of the worthy dwarf to turn the channel of his thoughts were fruitless. Had there been sufficient light to have surveyed the equipment of his companion, it is more than probable that the sight would have done more to produce this diversion of gloom than any arguments which could have been used. Master Roeckle, whose mind was a perfect storehouse of German horrors, earthly and unearthly, and who imagined that a great majority of the human population of the globe were either bandits or witches, had surrounded himself with a whole museum of amulets and charms of various kinds. In his cap he wore the tail of a black squirrel, as a safeguard against the "Forest Imp;" a large dried toad hung around his neck, like an order, to protect him from the evil eye; a duck's foot was fastened to the ta.s.sel of his boot, as a talisman against drowning; while strings of medals, coins, precious stones, blessed beads, and dried insects, hung round and about him in every direction. Of all the portions of his equipment, however, what seemed the most absurd was a huge pole-axe of the fifteenth century, and which he carried as a defence against mere mortal foes, but which, from its weight and size, appeared far more likely to lay its bearer low than inflict injury upon others. It had been originally stored up in the Rust Kammer, at Prague, and was said to be the identical weapon with which Conrad slew the giant at Leutmeritz, a fact which warranted Hans in expending two hundred florins in purchasing it; as, to use his own emphatic words, "it was not every day one knew where to find the weapon to bring down a giant."

As Hans, enc.u.mbered by his various adjuncts, trotted along beside his stalwart companion, he soon discovered that all his conversational ability to exert which cost him so dearly was utterly unattended to; he fell into a moody silence, and thus they journeyed for miles of way without interchanging a word. At last they came in sight of the little village of Hernitz Kretschen, whence by a by road Frank was to reach the regular line that leads through the Hohlen Thai to the Lake of Constance, and where they were to part.

"I feel as though I could almost go all the way with you," said Hans, as they stopped to gaze upon the little valley where lay the village, and beyond which stretched a deep forest of dark pine-trees, traversed by a single road.

"Nay, Hans," said Frank, smiling, as for the first time he beheld the strange figure beside him; "you must go back to your pleasant little village and live happily, to do many a kindness to others, as you have done to me to-day!"

"I would like to take service with the Empress myself," said Hans, "if it were for some good and great cause, like the defence of the Church against the Turks, or the extermination of the race of dragons that infest the Lower Danube."

"But you forget, Hans, it is an Emperor, rules over Austria now," said Frank, preferring to offer a correction to the less startling of his hallucinations.

"No, no, Master Frank, they have not deposed the good Maria Teresa, they would never do that. I saw her picture over the doorway of the Burgermeister the last time I went to visit my mother in the Bregertzer Wald, and by the same token her crown and sceptre were just newly gilt, a thing they would not have done if she were not on the throne."

"What if she were dead, and her son too?" said Frank; but his words were scarce uttered when he regretted to have said them, so striking was the change that came over the dwarf's features.

"If that were indeed true, Heaven have mercy on us!" exclaimed he, piously. "Old Frederick will have but little pity for good Catholics!

But no, Master Frank, this cannot be. The last time I received soldiers from Nuremberg they wore the same uniforms as ever, and the 'Moriamur pro Rege nostro, M. T.' was in gold letters on every banner as before."

Frank was in no humor to disturb so innocent and so pleasing a delusion, and he gave no further opposition; and now they both descended the path which led to the little inn of the village. Here Hans insisted on performing the part of host, and soon the table was covered with brown bread and hard eggs, and those great ma.s.sive sausages which Germans love, together with various flasks of Margrafler and other "Badisch"

wines.

"Who knows," said Hans, as he pledged his guest by ringing his wine-gla.s.s against the other's, "if, when we meet again, thou wouldst sit down at the table with such as me?"

"How so, Hanserl?" asked the boy, in astonishment.

"I mean, Master Franz, that you may become a colonel, or perhaps a general, with, mayhap, the 'St. Joseph' at your b.u.t.ton-hole, or the 'Maria Teresa' around your neck; and if so, how could you take your place at the board with the poor toy-maker?"

"I am not ashamed to do so now," said Frank, haughtily; "and the Emperor cannot make me more a gentleman than my birth has done. Were I to be ashamed of those who befriended me, I should both disgrace my rank and name together."

"These are good words, albeit too proud ones," said Hans, thoughtfully.

"As a guide through life, pride will do well enough when the roads are good and your equipage costly; but when you come upon mountain-paths and stony tracts, with many a wild torrent to cross, and many a dark glen to traverse, humility even a child's humility will give better teaching."

"I have no right to be other than humble!" said the boy; but the flas.h.i.+ng brightness of his eyes, and the heightened color of his cheek, seemed to contradict his words.

For a while the conversation flagged, or was maintained in short and broken sentences, when at length Frank said,

"You will often go to see them, Hanserl, won't you? You'll sit with them, too, of an evening? for they will feel lonely now; and my father will like to tell you his stories about home, as he calls it still."

"That will I," said Hans; "they are the happiest hours of my life when I sit beside that hearth."

Frank drew his hand across his eyes, and his lips quivered as he tried to speak.

"You'll be kind to poor Ellen, too; she is so timid, Hans. You cannot believe how anxious she is, lest her little carvings should be thought unworthy of praise."

"They are gems! they are treasures of art!" cried Hans, enthusiastically.

"And my sweet Kate!" cried the boy, as his eyes ran over, while a throng of emotions seemed to stop his utterance.

"She is so beautiful!" exclaimed Hans, fervently. "Except the Blessed Maria at the Holy Cross, I never beheld such loveliness. There is the Angelus ringing; let us pray a blessing on them;" and they both knelt down in deep devotion. Frank's lips never moved, but with swelling heart and clasped hands he remained fixed as a statue; while Hanserl in some quaint old rhyme uttered his devotions.

"And yonder is the dog-star, bright and splendid," said Hans, as he arose. "There never was a happier omen for the beginning of a journey.

You 'll be lucky, boy; there is the earnest of good fortune. That same star was s.h.i.+ning along the path as I entered Baden, eighteen years ago; and see what a lucky life has mine been!"

Frank could not but smile at the poor dwarf's appreciation of his fortune; but Hanserl's features wore a look that betokened a happy and contented nature.

"And yours has been a lucky life, Hanserl?" said he, half in question.

"Lucky? ay, that has it. I was a poor boy, barefooted and hungry in my native forest deformed, and stunted, too a thing to pity too weak to work, and with none to teach me, and yet even I was not forgotten by Him who made the world so fair and beautiful; but in my heart was planted a desire to be something to do something, that others might benefit by.

The children used to mock me as I pa.s.sed along the road; but a voice whispered within me, 'Be of courage, Hanserl, they will bless thee yet, they will greet thee with many a merry laugh and joyous cry, and call thee their own kind Hanserl:' and so have I lived to see it! My name is far and wide over Germany. Little boys and girls know and speak of me amongst the first words they syllable; and from the palace to the bauer's hut, Hans Roeckle has his friends; and who knows that when this poor clay is mingled with the earth, but that my spirit will hover around the Christmas-tree when glad voices call upon me! I often think it will be so."

Frank's eyes glistened as he gazed upon the dwarf, who spoke with a degree of emotion and feeling very different from his wont.

"So you see, Master Franz," said he, smiling, "there are ambitions of every hue, and this of mine you may deem of the very faintest, but it is enough for me. Had I been a great painter, or a poet, I would have revelled in the thought that my genius adorned the walls of many a n.o.ble palace, and that my verses kindled emotions in many a heart that felt like my own; but as one whom nature has not gifted, poor, ign.o.ble, and unlettered, am I not lucky to have found a little world of joyous hearts and merry voices, who care for me % and speak of me, ay, and who would give me a higher place in their esteem than to Jean Paul, or Goethe himself?"

The friends had but time to pledge each other in a parting gla.s.s, when the stage drove up by which Hans was to return to Baden. A few hurried words, half cheering, half sorrowful, a close embrace, one long and lingering squeeze of the hand,

"Farewell, kind Hanserl!"

"G.o.d guide thee, Franz!" and they parted.

Frank stood in the little "Platz," where the crowd yet lingered, watching the retiring "Post," uncertain which, way to turn him.

He dreaded to find himself all alone, and yet he shrank from new companions.h.i.+p. The newly risen moon and the calm air invited him to pursue his road; so he set out once more, the very exercise being a relief against his sad thoughts.

Few words are more easily spoken than "He went to seek his fortune;"

and what a whole world lies within the narrow compa.s.s! A world of high-hearted hopes and doubting fear, of n.o.ble ambition to be won, and glorious paths to be trod, mingled with tender thoughts of home and those who made it such. What sustaining courage must be his who dares this course and braves that terrible conflict the toughest that ever man fought between his own bright coloring of life and the stern reality of the world! How many hopes has he to abandon, how many illusions to give up! How often is his faith to be falsified and his trustfulness betrayed; and, worst of all, what a fatal change do these trials impress upon himself, how different is he from what he had been!