Kitabı oku: «The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II», sayfa 4

“I have just heard old Auersberg is to have a command again. I ‘m heartily sorry for it. So much for family influence!”

If the reader’s patience has lasted through this long letter of Frank’s, it was more than Peter Dalton’s did. For what between his ecstasy at Kate’s good fortune, his own rambling speculations on all that should follow from it, and, above all, what from the slurring monotonous tone in which Nelly passed over such portions as she did not wish him to hear, he grew gradually more abstracted and dreamy, and at last fell off into a deep and most happy slumber. Not a syllable did he hear of the old Feld’s reception of Frank; nor did he even awake as little Hans stumped into the room, with a staff in either hand, – aids that, since his accident, he could never dispense with.

“I heard that you had letters, Fräulein,” said he. “Do they bring good tidings?”

“Some would call them so, Hanserl,” said she, with a sigh. “Kate is about to be married.”

Hanserl made no reply, but sat slowly down, and crossed his arms before him.

“The great Russian Prince Midchekoff, of whom you may have heard.”

“I have seen him, Fräulein; he was here in Baden, three years ago.”

“Oh, then, tell me, Hanserl, what is he like? Is he young and frank-looking? Seems he one that should have won a maiden’s heart so suddenly, that – that – ”

“No, not that she could n’t have written to her sister and asked for counsel, Fräulein,” said Hans, continuing her sentence. “The Prince is a cold, austere man, proud to his equals, I believe, but familiar enough to such as me. I remember how he asked me of my life, where I came from, and how I lived. He seemed curious to hear about the train of thoughts suggested by living amid objects of such childish interest, and asked me, ‘If I did not often fancy that this mock world around me was the real one?’ ‘You are right, Herr Prints,’ said I; ‘but, after all, here, at least, we are equals.’ ‘How so?’ said he. ‘That your real world is as great a mockery as mine.’ ‘Thou are right, dwarf,’ said he, thoughtfully, and fell a-musing. He should not have called me dwarf, for men know me as Hans Roëckle, – and this is your sister’s husband!”

“Is he mild and gentle-mannered?” asked Nelly, eagerly.

“The great are always so, so far as I have seen; none but base metal rings loudly, maiden. It is part of their pride to counterfeit humility.”

“And his features, Hans?”

“Like one of those portraits in the gallery at Wurtzburg. One who had passions and a temper for a feudal age, and was condemned to the slavery of our civilization.”

“He is much older than Kate?” asked she again.

“I have seen too few like him even to guess at his age; besides, men of his stamp begin life with old temperaments, and time wears them but little.”

“Oh, Hanserl, this seems not to promise well. Kate’s own nature is frank, generous, and impulsive; how will it consort with the cold traits of his?”

“She marries not for happiness, but for ambition, maiden. They who ascend the mountain-top to look down upon the scene below them, must not expect the sheltering softness of the valley at their feet. The Fräulein Kate is beautiful, and she would have the homage that is paid to beauty. She has chosen her road in life; let us at least hope she knows how to tread it!”

There was a tone of almost sternness in Hanserl’s manner that Nelly well knew boded deep and intense feeling, and she forebore to question him further for some time.

“You will leave this, then, Fräulein?” said he at last “You will quit the humble valley for the great world?”

“I know not, Hanserl, what my father may decide. Kate speaks of our joining her in Russia; but the long Journey in his infirm state, not to speak of other reasons, may prevent this. Shall I tell you of Frank? Here is a long letter from him.” And, almost without waiting for his reply, she read out the greater portion of the epistle.

“I like the old Feld!” cried Hans, enthusiastically. “He would teach the boy submission, and self-reliance, too, – lessons that, however wide apart they seem, go ever hand in hand; an old warrior that has trained his bold nature to habits of obedience in many a year of trial and injustice, unfriended and alone, with nothing but his stout heart and good sword to sustain him. I like that Feld, and would gladly pledge him in a glass of Steinberger!”

“And you shall, my little man,” said Dalton, waking up, and catching the last words of Hanserl’s speech. “The old Count was kind to Frank, and I ‘ll drink his health this night, with all the honors. Read him the letter, Nelly. Show him how old Stephen received the boy. That’s blood for you! – a true Dalton!”

Hanserl stared from father to daughter, and back again, without speaking; while Nelly, blushing deeply, held down her head, without a word.

“His letter to us was dry enough. But what matter for that? He never wrote a line, – maybe, did n’t speak a word of English for upwards of forty years. You can’t expect a man to have the ‘elegant correspondent’ at his fingers’ ends after that space of time. But the heart! – that’s the main point, Hans. The heart is in the right place. Read that bit over again, Nelly; I forget the words he said.”

“Oh, no, papa. Hans has Just beard it all, from beginning to end; and you know we have so much to do. Here’s Lady Hester’s note, and here’s one from the Prince, still unopened.”

“Ay, to be sure. I ‘m certain you ‘ll excuse me, Hans,” said Dalton, putting on his spectacles, while he assumed a manner of condescending urbanity very puzzling to the poor dwarf. “Why, Nelly dear, this is French. Give me that note of Lady Hester’s, and do you take this. Oh, by my conscience, I ‘m no better off now! The devil such writing as this ever I seen! It’s all ‘m’s’ and ‘w’s’ every bit of it You’ll keep them both for the evening, my dear. Hans will dine with us, and I ‘ll go out to look for a bit of fish, and see if I can find another pleasant fellow to round off the table with us. God be with old Kilmurray M’Mahon, where I could have had twenty as easy as two, and each of them a good warrant for four bottles, besides! Is n’t it a droll world?” muttered he, as he took down his hat and descended the stairs. “A good dinner, and only a cripple for company! Faix! I ‘m like the chap in the Bible, that had to ask the beggars and the blaguards when he could n’t get better.” And with this very wise reflection, Peter Dalton hummed a Jig to himself as he took his way to the fish-market.

CHAPTER V. A HAPPY DAY FOR PETER DALTON

A youthful heir never experienced a more glorious burst of delight on the morning of his twenty-first birthday, than did Peter Dalton feel as he sauntered down the principal street of Baden. It was with a step almost elastic, and his head high, that he went along; not humbly returning the “Good-day” of the bowing shopkeeper, but condescendingly calling his worthy creditors – for such nearly all of them were – by their Christian names, he gave them to believe that he was still, as ever, their kind and generous patron.

There was scarcely a shop or a stall he did not linger beside for a minute or two. Everywhere there was something not only which he liked, but actually needed. Never did wants accumulate so rapidly! With a comprehensive grasp they extended to every branch of trade and merchandise, – ranging from jewelry to gin, and taking in all, from fur slippers to sausages.

His first visit was to Abel Kraus, the banker and moneylender, – a little den, which often before he had entered with a craven heart and a sinking spirit; for Abel was a shrewd old Israelite, and seemed to read the very schedule of a man’s debts, in the wrinkles around his mouth. Dalton now unbarred the half door and stalked in, as if he would carry the place by storm.

The man of money was munching his breakfast of hard eggs and black bread, – the regulation full diet of misers in all Germany, – when Peter cavalierly touched his hat and sat down. Not a word did Abel speak. No courtesies about the season or the weather, the funds or the money-market, were worth bestowing on so poor a client; and so he ate on, scarcely deigning even a glance towards him.

“When you ‘ve done with the garlic, old boy, I ‘ve some work for you,” said Dalton, crossing his arms pretentiously.

“But what if I do not accept your work? What if I tell you that we shall have no more dealings together? The two last bills – ”

“They’ll be paid, Abel, – they’ll be paid. Don’t put yourself in a passion. Times is improving, – Ireland ‘s looking up, man.”

“I think she is,” muttered the Jew, insolently; “she is looking up like the beggar that asks for alms yonder.”

“Tear and ages!” cried Dalton, with a stroke of his fist upon the table that made every wooden bowl of gold and silver coin jump and ring again, – “tear and ages! take care what you say! By the soul in my body, if you say a syllable against the old country, I ‘ll smash every stick in the place, and your own bones, besides! Ye miserable ould heathen! that has n’t a thought above sweating a guinea, – how dare you do it?”

“Why do you come into my counting-house to insult me, saar? Why you come where no one ask you?”

“Is it waiting for an invitation I’d be, Abel? Is it expecting a card with ould Kraus’s compliments?” said Dalton, laughing. “Sure, isn’t the place open like the fish-market, or the ball-room, or the chapel, or any place of diversion? There, now; keep your temper, old boy. I tell ye, there’s luck before ye! What d’ye think of that?” And, as he spoke, he drew forth one of the bills, and handed it across the counter; and then, after gloating, as it were, over the changed expression of the Jew’s features, he handed a second, and a third.

“These are good papers, Herr von Dalton; no better! The exchange, too, is in your favor; we are giving – let me see – ten and three-eighths ‘Convenzions-Gelt’.”

“To the devil I fling your three-eighths!” cried Dalton. “I never forgot the old song at school that says, ‘Fractions drives me mad.’”

“Ah, always droll, – always merry!” cackled out Abel. “How will you have these moneys?”

“In a bag, – a good strong canvas-bag!”

“Yes, to be sure, in a bag; but I was asking how you ‘d have them. I mean, in what coin, – in what for ‘Gelt.’”

“Oh, that’s it!” cried Dalton. “Well, give me a little of everything. Let me have ‘Louis’ to spend, and ‘Gros-chen’ to give the beggars. Bank-notes, too, I like; one feels no regretting parting with the dirty paper that neither jingles nor shines: and a few crown pieces, Abel; the ring of them on a table is like a brass band!”

“So you shall, – so you shall, Herr von Dalton. Ha, ha, ha! you are the only man ever make me laugh!”

“By my conscience, then, it’s more than you deserve, Abel; for you’ve very often nearly made me cry,” said Dalton, with a little sigh over the past, as he recalled it to his memory.

The Jew did not either heed or hear the remark; for, having put away the remnant of his frugal breakfast, he now began a very intricate series of calculations respecting interest and exchange and commission, at which poor Dalton gazed in a most complete mystification.

“Fourteen hundred and sixty-three, at ten three-eighths, – less cost of commission; I will not charge you the one per cent – ”

“Charge all that’s fair, and no favor, old boy.”

“I mean that I will not treat the Herr von Dalton like a stranger – ”

“I was going to say, treat me like a Christian,” said Dalton, laughing; “but maybe that’s the most expensive thing going.”

“Always droll, – always have his jest,” cackled Abel. “Now there’s an agio on gold, you pay five kreutzers for every Louis.”

“By George! I ‘ll take a ship-load of them at the same price.”

“Ha! U mean you pay that over the value,” said the Jew.

“Faix! I often promised to pay more,” said Dalton, sighing; “and what’s worse, on stamped paper too!”

As the Jew grew deeper in his figures, Dalton rambled on about Ireland and her prospects, for he wished it to be supposed that his present affluence was the long-expected remittance from his estates. “We ‘ll get right yet,” muttered he, “if they ‘ll only give us time; but ye see, this is the way it is: we’re like an overloaded beast that can’t pull his cart through the mud, and then the English comes up, and thrashes us. By course, we get weaker and weaker – licking and abusing never made any one strong yet. At last down we come on our knees with a smash. Well, ye ‘d think, then, that anybody with a grain of sense would say, ‘Take some of the load off the poor devil’s back – ease him a bit tell he gets strength.’ Nothing of the kind. All they do is to tell us that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for falling – that every other people was doing well but ourselves – that it’s a way we have of lying down, just to get somebody to pick us up, and such like. And the blaguard newspapers raises the cry against us, and devil a thief or a housebreaker or a highway robber they take, that they don’t put him down in the police reports as a ‘hulking Irishman,’ or a ‘native of the Emerald Isle.’ ‘Paddy Fitzsimons, or Peter O’Shea, was brought up this mornin’ for cutting off his wife’s head with a trowel.’ ‘Molly Maguire was indicted for scraping her baby to death with an oyster-shell.’ That’s the best word they have for us! ‘Ain’t ye the plague of our lives?’ they’re always saying. ‘Do ye ever give us a moment’s peace?’ And why the blazes don’t ye send us adrift, then? Why don’t ye let us take our own road? We don’t want your company – faix! we never found it too agreeable. It’s come to that now, that it would better be a Hottentot or a Chinese than an Irishman! Oh dear, oh dear, but we ‘re hardly treated!”

“Will you run your eye over that paper, Herr von Dalton, and see if it be all correct?” said Abel, handing him a very complex-looking array of figures.

“‘T is little the wiser I ‘ll be when I do,” muttered Dalton to himself, as he put on his spectacles and affected to consider the statement. “Fourteen hundred and sixty-three – I wish they were pounds, but they ‘re only florins – and two thousand eight hundred and twenty-one – five and two is seven and nine is fifteen. No, seven and nine is – I wish Nelly was here. Bad luck to the multiplication-table. I used to be licked for it every day when I was a boy, and it’s been a curse to me since I was a man. Seven and nine is fourteen, or thereabouts – a figure would n’t signify much, one way or f other. Interest at three-quarters for twenty-one days – there I ‘m done complete! Out of the four first rules in Gough I’m a child, and indeed, to tell the truth, I ‘m no great things after subtraction.”

“You will perceive that I make the charges for postage, commission, and other expenses in one sum. This little claim of fifty-eight florins covers all.”

“Well, and reasonable it is, that I must say,” cried Dalton, who, looking at the whole as a lucky windfall, was by no means indisposed to see others share in the good fortune. “How much is coming to me, Abel?”

“Your total balance is four thousand two hundred and twenty-seven florins eight kreutzers, Müntze,” said Abel, giving the sum a resonance of voice highly imposing and impressive.

“How many pounds is that now?” asked Peter.

“Something over three hundred and fifty pounds sterling, sir.”

“Is it? Faith! a neat little sum. Not but I often got rid of as much of an evening at blind-hookey, with old Carters, of the ‘Queen’s Bays.’ Ye don’t know Carters? Faix! and ye ‘d be the very man he would know, if ye were in the same neighborhood. I wish he was here to-day; and that reminds me that I must go over to the market and see what’s to be had. Ye don’t happen to know if there’s any fish to-day?”

Abel could not answer this important question, but offered to send his servant to inquire; but Dalton, declining the attention, strolled out into the street, jingling his Napoleons in his pocket as he went, and feeling all the importance and self-respect that a well-filled purse confers on him who has long known the penniless straits of poverty. He owed something on every side of him; but he could bear to face his creditors now; he was neither obliged to be occupied with a letter, nor sunk in a fit of abstraction as he passed them; nay, he was even jocular and familiar, and ventured to criticise the wares for which, once, he was almost grateful.

“Send your boy down to the house for some money – ye need n’t mind the bill; but I ‘ll give you fifty florins. There’s a trifle on account. Put them ten Naps, to my credit; that will wipe off some of our scores; it’s good for forty crowns.” Such were the brief sentences that he addressed to the amazed shopkeepers as he passed along; for Peter, like Louis Philippe, couldn’t bear the sight of an account, and always paid something in liquidation. It was with great reluctance that he abstained from inviting each of them to dinner; nothing but his fear of displeasing Nelly could have restrained him. He would have asked the whole village if he dared, ay, and made them drunk, too, if they ‘d have let him. “She’s so high in her notions,” he kept muttering to himself: “that confounded pride about family, and the like! Well, thank God! I never had that failing. If I knew we were better than other people, it never made me unneighborly; I was always free and affable; my worst enemy could n’t say other of me. I ‘d like to have these poor devils to dinner, and give them a skinful for once in their lives, just to drink Kate’s health, and Frank’s; they ‘d think of the Daltons for many a long year to come – the good old Dalton blood, that never mixed with the puddle! What a heavenly day it is! and an elegant fine market. There’s a bit of roasting beef would feed a dozen; and maybe that isn’t a fine trout! Well, well, but them’s cauliflowers!. Chickens and ducks – chickens and ducks – a whole street of them! And there’s a wild turkey – mighty good eating, too! and venison! – ah! but it has n’t the flavor, nor the fat! Faix! and not bad either, a neck of mutton with onions, if one had a tumbler of whiskey-punch afterwards.”

Thus communing with himself, he passed along, totally inattentive to the solicitations of those who usually supplied the humble wants of his household, and who now sought to tempt him by morsels whose merits lay rather in frugality than good cheer.

As Dalton drew near his own door, he heard the sounds of a stranger’s voice from within. Many a time a similar warning had apprised him that some troublesome dun had gained admittance, and was torturing poor Nelly with his importunities; and on these occasions Peter was wont, with more cunning than kindness, to steal noiselessly downstairs again, and wait till the enemy had evacuated the fortress. Now, however, a change had come over his fortunes, and with his hat set jauntily on one side, and his hands stuck carelessly in his pockets, he kicked open the door with his foot, and entered.

Nelly was seated near the stove, in conversation with a man who, in evident respect, had taken his place near the door, and from which he rose to salute Dalton as he came in. The traveller – for such his “blouse” or travelling-frock showed him to be, as well as the knapsack and stick at his feet – was a hale, fresh-looking man of about thirty; his appearance denoting an humble walk in life, but with nothing that bordered on poverty.

“Herr Brawer, papa, – Adolf Brawer,” said Nelly, whispering the last words, to remind him more quickly of the name.

“Servant, sir,” said Dalton, condescendingly; for the profound deference of the stranger’s manner at once suggested to him their relative conditions.

“I kiss your hand,” said Adolf, with the respectful salutation of a thorough Austrian, while he bowed again with even deeper humility.

“The worthy man who was so kind to Frank, papa,” said Nelly, in deep confusion, as she saw the scrutinizing and almost depreciating look with which Dalton regarded him.

“Oh, the pedler!” said Dalton, at last, as the remembrance flashed on him. “This is the pedler, then?”

“Yes, papa. He came out of his way, from Durlach, Just to tell us about Frank; to say how tall he had grown – taller than himself, he says – and so good-looking, too. It was so kind in him.”

“Oh, very kind, no doubt of it, – very kind indeed!” said Dalton, with a laugh of most dubious expression. “Did he say nothing of Frank’s debt to him? Has n’t that ‘I O U’ You were talking to me about anything to say to this visit?”

“He never spoke of it, never alluded to it,” cried she, eagerly.

“Maybe he won’t be so delicate with me,” said Dalton. “Sit down, Mr. Brawer; make no ceremony here. We ‘re stopping in this little place till our house is got ready for us. So you saw Frank, and he’s looking well?”

“The finest youth in the regiment. They know him through all Vienna as the ‘Handsome Cadet.’”

“And so gentle-mannered and unaffected,” cried Nelly.

“Kind and civil to his inferiors?” said Dalton; “I hope he’s that?”

“He condescended to know me,” said Brawer, “and call me his friend.”

“Well, and maybe ye were,” said Peter, with a majestic wave of the hand. “A real born gentleman, as Frank is, may take a beggar off the streets and be intimate with him. Them’s my sentiments. Mark what I say, Mr. Brawer, and you ‘ll find, as you go through life, if it is n’t true; good blood may mix with the puddle every day of the year, and not be the worse of it!”

“Frank is so grateful to you,” broke in Nelly, eagerly; “and we are so grateful for all your kindness to him!”

“What an honor to me! that he should so speak of me!” said the pedler, feelingly, – “I, who had no claim upon his memory.”

“There was a trifle of money between you, I think,” said Dalton, ostentatiously; “have you any notion of what it is?”

“I came not here to collect a debt, Herr von Dalton,” said Adolf, rising, and assuming a look of almost fierceness in his pride.

“Very well, very well; just as you please,” said Dalton, carelessly; “it will come with his other accounts in the half-year; for, no matter how liberal a man is to his boys, he’ll be pestered with bills after all! There’s blaguards will be lending them money, and teachin’ them extravagance, just out of devilment, I believe. I know well how it used to be with myself when I was in old ‘Trinity,’ long ago. There was a little chap of the name of Foley, and, by the same token, a pedler, too – ”

“Oh, papa, he’s going away, and you have n’t thanked him yet!” cried Nelly, feelingly.

“What a hurry he’s in!” said Dalton, as he watched the eager haste with which the pedler was now arranging the straps of his knapsack.

“Would you not ask him to stay – to dine with us?” faltered Nelly, in a low, faint whisper.

“The pedler – to dine?” asked Dalton, with a look of astonishment

“Frank’s only friend!” sighed she, mournfully.

“By my conscience, sometimes I don’t know if I ‘m standing on my head or my heels,” cried Dalton, as he wiped his brows, with a look of utter bewilderment. “A pedler to dinner! There now – that’s it – more haste worse speed: he’s broke that strap in his hurry!”

“Shall I sew it for you?” said Nelly, stooping down and taking out her needle as she spoke.

“Oh, Fräulein, how good of you!” cried Adolf; and his whole face beamed with an expression of delight. “How dearly shall I value this old pack hereafter!”

These last words, scarcely muttered above his breath, were overheard by Nelly, and a deep blush covered her cheeks as she bent over the work.

“Where’s your own maid? Couldn’t one of the women do it as well?” cried Dalton, impatiently. “Ye’d not believe, Mr. Brawer, that we have the house full of servants this minute; a set of devils feasting and fattening at one’s expense.”

“Thanks, Fräulein,” said the pedler, as she finished; “You little know how I shall treasure this hereafter.”

“Ask him to stay, papa,” whispered Nelly once more.

“Sure he’s a pedler!” muttered Dalton, indignantly.

“At least thank him. Tell him you are grateful to him.”

“He ‘d rather I ‘d buy ten yards of damaged calico, – that’s the flattery he ‘d understand best,” said Dalton, with a grin.

“Farewell, Herr von Dalton. Farewell, Fräulein!” said Adolf. And with a bow of deep respect he slowly retired from the room, while Nelly turned to the window to conceal her shame and sorrow together.

“It was this very morning,” muttered Dalton, angrily, “when I spoke of giving a little dinner-party, you did nothing but turn up your nose at this, that, and t’ other. There was nobody good enough, forsooth! There was Monsieur Ratteau, the ‘croupier’ of the tables there, a very nice man, with elegant manners and the finest shirt-studs ever I seen, and you would n’t hear of him.”’

Nelly heard little of this reproachful speech, for, sunk in the recess of the window, she was following with her eyes the retiring figure of Adolf Brawer. He had just crossed the “Plate,” and ere he turned into a side street he stopped, wheeled round, and made a gesture of farewell towards the spot where, unseen by him, Nelly was still standing.

“He is gone!” muttered she, half aloud.

“Well, God speed him!” rejoined Dalton, testily. “I never could abide a pedler.”