Black Forest Village Stories

15.

RELEASE

A frightful casualty was required to restore Ivo to his early resolutions.

On St. Bartholomew's day, Bart had escaped from his keepers in the hospital. Racked by qualms of conscience, he sprang from a window and dashed out his brains. To prevent the effect of this deed upon the reputation of the convent, and in charitable consideration of Bart's partial derangement, it was resolved to give him a burial in the usual form. The conventuaries, wearing crape, followed the corpse to the sound of funeral music. Ivo blew the horn: its tones fluttered in the air like the shreds of ribbons rudely torn. At the grave Ivo stepped forward and made a heart-rending speech in memory of his lost comrade. At first he stumbled a little: all his pulses were trembling. For the first time in his life Death had really rolled a corpse at his feet, crying, "Learn, by death, to study life!" As he had fancied Clement lying dead at his feet, so now in reality the corpse of a companion of his youth, with whom he had spent so many years, lay before him. First he spoke in praise of life, – of the free, glad air of heaven, – and desired to banish death far from the haunts of men; but soon his speech warmed, and his words flowed as from a living spring; and, with griefless fervor, he praised the lot of the orphan now happy with his Father in heaven. Consecration overtook him before the hand of a priest had touched his head. He soared upward to the throne of the universal Parent, knelt, and implored grace for his friend. In short and broken sentences he then prayed for grace to himself, and for his own happy end and that of all men.

To the sound of a triumphal march the conventuaries returned home. Though the contemplation of death was one of their chief exercises, yet, like the standing-armies of earth, they, the standing-army of heaven, were not left long to the influence of sorrow, but were required forthwith to renew their strides toward the goal of their efforts. Ivo's courage also returned. Fate had robbed him of the two associates who had stood nearest to him, – of the one by spiritual, and of the other by bodily, suicide. He was alone, and therefore untrammelled. When the others, who had looked upon life and death with less of seriousness, went in a body to a tavern to observe an old custom of drinking a hundred quarts of beer, each at one draught, to the memory of their comrade, Ivo, with his bugle under his arm, went alone across the bridge, and walked on and on. The sun was sinking: his last rays still lingered on the earth: but the moon was high in the unclouded sky, as if to tell the children of earth, "Be not afraid: I shall watch over you and shed light upon your silent nightly paths until the sun returns." Ivo said to himself, "Thus do men cry and clamor whenever an opinion is wrecked or a doctrine dislodged. A new light is always at hand, though sometimes unseen to them; but they dread eternal night, because they do not know that light is indestructible."

When the darkness had fairly set in, he stood still for a moment, but immediately resumed his march, saying, "On, on! never turn back." He turned into another road, to avoid his home. He thought of his mother's grief; but he would write to her from Strasbourg, whither he had resolved to go. He meant to support himself by his instrument, or to hire out as a farm-hand, until he should have laid up money enough to go to America. His books were forgotten as if he had never seen them. He thought no more of theological dogmas and systems. He seemed to have been born again, and the remembrances of the past were like a dream. Thus he walked on all night without resting; and, when at the first dawn of morning he found himself in a strange valley, he stood still, and prayed fervently for God's assistance. He did not kneel; but his soul lay prostrate before the Lord. As he walked on, he hummed a song which he had often heard in childhood: -

Sitting on a stone, Ivo reflected on his fate. He had gone away recklessly: there was not a copper in his pocket, and nothing which afforded even a hope of money except his bugle. He could hardly expect to escape the necessity of asking the assistance of the charitable. Even in the purest heart, and with the consciousness of perfect rectitude, begging is a dismal prospect: he blushed scarlet at the thought. Nor must we forget that he was the son of rich parents, and could not but think of the plentiful supplies at home. He sang, with a sad smile, a snatch of the old song, -

A drove of oxen came down the road, two brindles leading the way. Ivo joined the drovers and asked where they were going. They were on the way to a rich butcher in Strasbourg, and now on the direct road to Freiburg. Ivo had gone round many miles, but was still on the right road. He now asked the men to let him travel with them and help them, and to pay his expenses: they looked at the strange man in black, with the bugle under his arm, from head to foot, and whispered something to each other.

"As for going to Algiers with the foreign legion, there's no use in that at all," said one.

"Much better sit out your two or three years at home: they can't pull your head off." The complacent smile with which this was said proved conclusively that the speaker's personal experience vouched for its correctness. It was clear that they took Ivo for a criminal, – a notion which he did not venture to dissipate, as their pity was indispensable to him. They said they could not make a bargain, but must refer him to their employer, whom they expected to meet at Neustadt.

Ivo followed humbly in the train of the oxen: the graduate of the penitentiary committed the sceptre into his hands, and he ruled over the subject herd with mildness.

"Where did you get those brindles?" he asked.

"Ah," said the enemy of Algiers, "you can see what sort of a stable they came from, can't you? They were bought from Buchmaier, at the Hornberg fair."

Ivo ran up to the beasts, and recognised his favorite by the upturned hair in the middle of the forehead. He almost feared that the fate of the poor animal would be his own, and that death awaited him also; but he could not and would not turn back.

But what was his astonishment when, on arriving at Neustadt, the drovers saluted their employer, who was looking out of the window of the inn, and he recognised him as Florian! He could not believe his eyes, until Florian came up and welcomed the odd-looking drover with shouts of laughter.

Ivo told his story, and Florian, striking the table, cried, "Hurrah for you! Another bottle, waiter. I'll see you through, take my word for it. But how do you expect to get to Strasbourg without a passport? Here," (slipping out of his blue smock,) "put that on: that will make them all take you for a Strasbourg butcher. And," added he, laughingly taking up the heavy belt filled with money which lay before him, "carry that on your shoulder, and you'll be as good as one of us in earnest."

Ivo was well satisfied, and, after a hearty meal, he travelled on with Florian in good spirits. Florian was rejoiced to find such an opportunity of vaunting his prosperous circumstances, and of playing a trick on the Nordstetters: besides, he was really delighted to be of use to Ivo.

The day was hot. On the top of the Hell-Scramble they stopped for dinner. To escape Florian's unceasing invitations to help himself from the bottle, Ivo went into the adjoining smithy to chat with the blacksmith, as he had been wont to do at home. Suddenly he called to mind that this was the place and this the man with whom Nat had once been concealed: he was on the point of asking about him, when the blacksmith said to his boy, "There: take these two ploughshares over to the Beste farmer."

"How far is that?" asked Ivo.

"A good mile."

"I'm going with you," said Ivo. Running into the tavern and telling Florian that he would soon return and overtake him, he doffed his butcher's smock and took his bugle under his arm.

As they walked down the wood-path, he heard the torrent roar and the mills rattle; every tree seemed to stand between him and Nat. "Is the Beste farmer a fine man?" he asked the boy.

"Oh, yes; a finer man than his brother who is dead."

"What's the Christian name of the one that's on the farm now?"

"I don't know: we always call him the Beste farmer: he's been in many strange countries, as a serving-man and as a doctor."

Ivo fairly shouted with joy.

"Since when has he been here?" he asked, again.

"These two years. He worked for his brother a year, till he died: they do say he did it, for he's half a wizard: he wanted to kill him many years ago, and, as there were no children, the property came to him. Otherwise, though, he's a very fine man."

It was painful to be told that his dear Nat was under the suspicion of fratricide after all, as if to punish him for having once in his life meditated the sin; but Ivo soon reflected that such could only be the gossip of envious tongues and of old women.

They passed the saw-mill where Nat had spent so large a portion of his youth. Ivo was particularly pleased to see a fine walnut-tree flourishing in front of it, under the protection of the overtopping hill-side.

They ascended the hill on the other side. Ivo knew that a mile among neighboring farmers is of an elastic character; but he had not expected to find the distance greater than four miles, – as he did. Being very impatient, he relieved the boy of the heavy ploughshares, to enable the latter to keep up with him. The pitchy scent of the sun-stricken firs recalled the memory of home: he saw himself again seated on the harrow with Nat, in the field in the Violet Valley, singing and rejoicing. The associations of childhood danced around him. Having reached the "Wind-Corner," Ivo saw the well-known little cabin, from the window of which a pale female face was looking. It was Lizzie of the Corner, returned to her former solitude.

"How strange," thought Ivo, "that the Church should venture to prohibit what the Bible expressly enjoins! According to the Old Testament, the brother of a decedent was required to marry the childless widow; and this the canonical law expressly forbids. Nat and Lizzie could never marry." With a brush of his hand Ivo banished from his mind all remembrances of theological difficulties.

In the neighborhood of the great farm-house the roads were in fine condition. The stately building did not appear until they were almost at the door. Ivo saw Nat raking hay, while several farm-hands were at work around him. He did not run toward him, but set his bugle to his lips and played the tune of the old song, -

Then he cried "Nat," and they were in each other's arms.

After long pathless wanderings, our story has reached a smooth highway which will bear it rapidly to its close. Ivo remained with Nat, who treated him like a brother. As one of the richest farmers in the country, he could do much for him without feeling a sacrifice. He went to Nordstetten as his proxy, and brought Emmerence, with whom, on a bright, happy day, Ivo was united.

All the villagers, and even his parents, were reconciled to his change of pursuits. It is strange how easily people are satisfied with their friends the moment they pay their own expenses.

Nat presented Ivo with the saw-mill, where he now worked to his heart's content, in company with his Emmerence. Often of an evening he sits under the walnut-tree and plays his bugle, which fills the valley with its melody. Far around, at the isolated farm-houses, the boys and girls stand in the moonshine listening to the plaintive tones. Emmerence once drew Ivo's attention to this; and he said, "You see, music is an emblem of human life as it should be. I play for our own satisfaction; and yet if I know that the sounds gladden the hearts of other men also, I am still better pleased, and play with more life and spirit. Let every man attend to his own business well, and he will help others too, and make them happy. I am not disinterested enough to be satisfied with playing tunes for other people to dance by. I like to dance myself."

"Yes," said Emmerence: "you are a learned man, and yet I understand you. When the boys used to sing while gathering fir-nuts in the Neckar valley, I always thought, 'Well, they sing for themselves; and yet it makes me happy to hear them too, and every one who has ears;' and so do the birds sing for themselves, and yet we are delighted; and if every one sings his part well in church it all chords well together, and is beautiful."

Ivo embraced his Emmerence with transport.

"If only winter never came here," she said; "for it is rather solitary."

"Well, in winter you must come and live with me," said the well-known voice of Nat.

FLORIAN AND CRESCENCE