Adela Cathcart Volume Iii Part 14

"d.a.m.ned if I do! Good luck to you! There's my hand. I believe you're a good fellow after all. I wish I had seen you ride to hounds. They tell me it's a sight."

"Thank you heartily. But what are you going to do?"

"Go back to the sweet-flowing Thames, and the dreams of the desk."

"Well--be a man as well as a gentleman. Don't be a fool."

"Hang it all! I believe it was her money, after all, I was in love with. Good-bye!"

But the poor fellow looked grave enough as he went away. And I trust that, before long, he, too, began to reap some of the good corn that grows on the wintry fields of disappointment.--I have my eye upon him; but it is little an _old fogie_ like me can do with a fellow like Percy.

CHAPTER VI

THE CRUEL PAINTER.

Now to return to the Story-Club.

On the night appointed, we met. And to the delight of all the rest of us, Harry arrived with a look that satisfied us that he was to be no defaulter this time. The look was one of almost nervous uneasiness. Of course this sprung from anxiety to please Adela--at least, so I interpreted it. She occupied her old place on the couch; we all arranged ourselves nearly as before; and the fire was burning very bright. Before he began, however, Harry, turning to our host, said:

"May I arrange the scene as I please, for the right effect of my story?"

"Certainly," answered the colonel.

Harry rose, and extinguished the lamp.

"But, my dear sir," said the colonel, "how can you read now?"

"Perfectly, by the firelight," answered Harry.

He then went to the windows, and drawing aside the curtains, drew up the blinds.

It was full high moon, and the light so clear that, notwithstanding the brightness of the fire, each window seemed to lie in ghostly s.h.i.+mmer on the floor. Not a breath of wind was abroad. The whole country being covered with snow, the air was filled with a snowy light. On one side rose the high roof of another part of the house, on which the snow was lying thick and smooth, undisturbed save by the footprints, visible in the moon, of a large black cat, which had now paused in the middle of it, and was looking round suspiciously towards the source of the light which had surprised him in his midnight walk.

"Now," said Harry, returning to his seat, and putting on an air of confidence to conceal the lack of it, "let any one who has nerves retire at once, both for his own sake and that of the company! This is just such a night as I wanted to read my story in--snow--stillness--moonlight outside, and nothing but firelight inside. Mind, Ralph, you keep up the fire, for the room will be more ready to get cold now the coverings are off the windows.--You will say at once if you feel it cold, Miss Cathcart?"

Adela promised; and Harry, who had his ma.n.u.script gummed together in a continuous roll, so that he might not have to turn over any leaves, began at once:

"THE CRUEL PAINTER.

"Among the young men a.s.sembled at the University of Prague, in the year 159--, was one called Karl von Wolkenlicht. A somewhat careless student, he yet held a fair position in the estimation of both professors and men, because he could hardly look at a proposition without understanding it. Where such proposition, however, had to do with anything relating to the deeper insights of the nature, he was quite content that, for him, it should remain a proposition; which, however, he laid up in one of his mental cabinets, and was ready to reproduce at a moment's notice. This mental agility was more than matched by the corresponding corporeal excellence, and both aided in producing results in which his remarkable strength was equally apparent. In all games depending upon the combination of muscle and skill, he had scarce rivalry enough to keep him in practice. His strength, however, was embodied in such a softness of muscular outline, such a rare Greek-like style of beauty, and a.s.sociated with such a gentleness of manner and behaviour, that, partly from the truth of the resemblance, partly from the absurdity of the contrast, he was known throughout the university by the diminutive of the feminine form of his name, and was always called Lottchen.

"'I say, Lottchen,' said one of his fellow-students, called Richter, across the table in a wine-cellar they were in the habit of frequenting, 'do you know, Heinrich Hoellenrachen here says that he saw this morning, with mortal eyes, whom do you think?--Lilith.'

"'Adam's first wife?' asked Lottchen, with an attempt at carelessness, while his face flushed like a maiden's.

"'None of your chaff!'said Richter. 'Your face is honester than your tongue, and confesses what you cannot deny, that you would give your chance of salvation--a small one to be sure, but all you've got--for one peep at Lilith. Wouldn't you now, Lottchen?'

"'Go to the devil!' was all Lottchen's answer to his tormentor; but he turned to Heinrich, to whom the students had given the surname above mentioned, because of the enormous width of his jaws, and said with eagerness and envy, disguising them as well as he could, under the appearance of curiosity:

"'You don't mean it, Heinrich? You've been taking the beggar in!

Confess now.'

"'Not I. I saw her with my two eyes.'

"'Notwithstanding the different planes of their orbits,' suggested Richter.

"'Yes, notwithstanding the fact that I can get a parallax to any of the fixed stars in a moment, with only the breadth of my nose for the base,' answered Heinrich, responding at once to the fun, and careless of the personal defect insinuated. 'She was near enough for even me to see her perfectly.'

"'When? Where? How?' asked Lottchen.

"'Two hours ago. In the churchyard of St. Stephen's. By a lucky chance.

Any more little questions, my child?' answered Hoellenrachen.

"'What could have taken her there, who is seen nowhere?' said Richter.

"She was seated on a grave. After she left, I went to the place; but it was a new-made grave. There was no stone up. I asked the s.e.xton about her. He said he supposed she was the daughter of the woman buried there last Thursday week. I knew it was Lilith.'

"'Her mother dead!' said Lottchen, musingly. Then he thought with himself--'She will be going there again, then!' But he took care that this ghost-thought should wander unembodied. 'But how did you know her, Heinrich? You never saw her before.'

"'How do you come to be over head and ears in love with her, Lottchen, and you haven't seen her at all?' interposed Richter.

"'Will you or will you not go to the devil?' rejoined Lottchen, with a comic crescendo; to which the other replied with a laugh.

"'No one could miss knowing her,' said Heinrich.

"'Is she so very like, then?'

"'It is always herself, her very self.'

"A fresh flask of wine, turning out to be not up to the mark, brought the current of conversation against itself; not much to the dissatisfaction of Lottchen, who had already resolved to be in the churchyard of St. Stephen's at sun-down the following day, in the hope that he too might be favoured with a vision of Lilith.

"This resolution he carried out. Seated in a porch of the church, not knowing in what direction to look for the apparition he hoped to see, and desirous as well of not seeming to be on the watch for one, he was gazing at the fallen rose-leaves of the sunset, withering away upon the sky; when, glancing aside by an involuntary movement, he saw a woman seated upon a new-made grave, not many yards from where he sat, with her face buried in her hands, and apparently weeping bitterly. Karl was in the shadow of the porch, and could see her perfectly, without much danger of being discovered by her; so he sat and watched her. She raised her head for a moment, and the rose-flush of the west fell over it, s.h.i.+ning on the tears with which it was wet, and giving the whole a bloom which did not belong to it, for it was always pale, and now pale as death. It was indeed the face of Lilith, the most celebrated beauty of Prague.

"Again she buried her face in her hands; and Karl sat with a strange feeling of helplessness, which grew as he sat; and the longing to help her whom he could not help, drew his heart towards her with a trembling reverence which was quite new to him. She wept on. The western roses withered slowly away, and the clouds blended with the sky, and the stars gathered like drops of glory sinking through the vault of night, and the trees about the churchyard grew black, and Lilith almost vanished in the wide darkness. At length she lifted her head, and seeing the night around her, gave a little broken cry of dismay. The minutes had swept over her head, not through her mind, and she did not know that the dark had come.

"Hearing her cry, Karl rose and approached her. She heard his footsteps, and started to her feet. Karl spoke--

"'Do not be frightened,' he said. 'Let me see you home. I will walk behind you.'

"'Who are you?' she rejoined.

"'Karl Wolkenlicht.'

"'I have heard of you. Thank you. I can go home alone.'

"Yet, as if in a half-dreamy, half-unconscious mood, she accepted his offered hand to lead her through the graves, and allowed him to walk beside her, till, reaching the corner of a narrow street, she suddenly bade him good-night and vanished. He thought it better not to follow her, so he returned her good-night and went home.