Dame Care Part 34

"No; I will lie down under a juniper-bush and starve myself to death.

You must come to my funeral. Oh, that will be beautiful! Now just pay attention; I know a beautiful verse:

"'What my love for you is, have you known?

There is on the heath a grave all alone; In it a poor dead poet is sleeping, To whom his love has brought much weeping; He sleeps and sleeps in his sombre grave, But sleeps not away the grief love gave.

At midnight go to the grave on the heath, And wait till he again shall breathe; He knows the singing and kissing well, And he can tell--'

"Isn't that pretty?"

"Very pretty! Who taught you that, Kitty?"

"I once found it in a book of songs which belonged to mother. I almost think she made it herself."

During this conversation Paul had stood there stupefied with horror; but when he heard his mother's name his anger overpowered him, and he cracked his whip over the heads of the couple, so that the withered leaves of the arbor flew rustling about.

With a loud cry they all sprang up. No sooner had the brothers recognized him than they attempted to make off; but the girls clung to them whimpering. They sought protection against their own brother.

"Come here!" he called out to them. Then they left their lovers and flew to one another for mutual protection.

The two Erdmanns receded farther still.

"You stay here!" he cried.

"What do you want with us?" said the elder one, who was the first to recover his impudence.

"You shall answer to me for your conduct."

"You know where we are to be found," said the younger one, and pulled his brother by the coat-tail as a hint to escape with him. But at this moment Paul seized him by the throat.

"Leave go!" he screamed.

"You come into the house with me."

"Oh no; _rather_ not," said the elder one.

"I don't know at all what you want with us," said the younger one, who, under the iron grasp of Paul's fist, was not a little frightened. "We love your sisters; we have nothing to do with you."

"And if you love them, don't you know where the door is, through which you might have come to woo them? Robbers that you are!"

At this moment Ulrich had torn his brother from Paul's grasp; and before he could collect his senses they both flew in hot haste through the garden, leaped the fence, and disappeared in the darkness of the heath.

Completely stunned, he turned round and saw his sisters crouching behind the trunk of a tree.

"Come!" he said, pointing towards the house, and, sobbing, they followed him.

When they wanted to slip away to their own room, he said, opening the door of the parlor, "In here." Trembling, they crouched down in a corner, for they did not know what punishment he would inflict upon them.

He lit the candle himself, took up the family alb.u.m and took out a picture.

"Now come to your room." Like two returning penitents they crept slowly behind him.

"Who is that?" he asked, in his severest voice, pointing to the picture.

It was a portrait of their mother, taken in early youth, almost effaced by the lapse of time. But they recognized it very well, and, wringing their hands, fell on their knees before the bed and sobbed pitifully on the pillow.

And then they confessed everything to him. It was worse than he had ever imagined.

A dreadful silence ensued. Paul stepped to the window and looked out into the night.

"Thank G.o.d you are dead, mother!" he said, folding his hands.

Then they wept aloud, crept up to him on their knees, and wanted to kiss his hands. He stroked their hair. He loved them far too well.

"Children, children!" he said, sinking down in a chair, almost as helpless as they were.

"Scold us, Paul," sobbed Kate.

"No, rather beat us," urged Greta; "we have deserved it."

He pa.s.sed his hand across his brow. It all still seemed to him like a bad dream.

"How could this have happened?" he murmured. "Have I watched over you so badly?"

"They said they--wanted to--marry us!" Kate gasped out.

"When the year of mourning was over, the wedding was to be," added Greta.

"And if they said that, they shall keep their word," he said, endeavoring to console himself. "Do not kneel to me, children, kneel down before G.o.d--you need it. This portrait henceforth shall stand on your little table every night. Will you then still have courage to pursue the path of shame? Good-night."

They rushed after him and entreated him to stay with them, "they were so frightened!" but he disengaged himself gently from them and went up to his garret, where he sat and brooded in the dark. He was so deeply ashamed that he thought he should never more be able to bear the light of day.

The next morning he sent for the foreman and paid him off.

The good man looked up into his face quite aghast. "But now, Mr.

Meyerhofer, when all is going on so well?" he said.

"Yes, going on so well," he murmured, thoughtfully. "Shame added to misfortune!--the man is right."

"Something has upset me," he then said, "which has given me a disgust for work. Let us leave it for the moment, and when the time comes I will send for you again."

His father bitterly complained over the disturbance in the night. "What were you storming about in the garden?" he asked. "I heard your voice!"

"Thieves were after the apples," replied Paul.

The twins had red, swollen eyes, and did not dare to raise them from the ground.

"So that's how fallen girls look," thought Paul, and promised to be as strict with them as a jailer. But when he spoke harshly to them for the first time, and they looked up at him with a pained, humble glance, like two penitent Magdalenes, he was so much overcome by pity that he folded them weeping in his arms, and said, "Compose yourselves, children; all will yet be well."

He was under the firm conviction that the two Erdmanns would not let the day pa.s.s without coming to the Haidehof. "Their consciences will bring them," he said to himself. He felt so sure of it that after dinner he strongly urged his father, who in his laziness had become very slovenly, to put on his new coat, as visitors of importance were expected. His father yielded, grumbling, and was doubly angry afterwards when he found that the immense exertion had been quite useless.

"They will come to-morrow," said Paul to himself when he went to bed; "they have not had the courage to-day."