“Ay, sir, you see what it leads to; wild talk today, and wilder doings tomorrow,” said the old man. “For there is one thing certain: that this Gondremark has one foot in the Court backstairs, and the other in the Masons’ lodges. He gives himself out, sir, for what nowadays they call a patriot: a man from East Prussia!”
“Give himself out!” cried Fritz. “He is! He is to lay by his title as soon as the Republic is declared; I heard it in a speech.”
“Lay by Baron to take up President?” returned Killian. “King Log, King Stork. But you’ll live longer than I, and you will see the fruits of it.”
“Father,” whispered Ottilia, pulling at the speaker’s coat, “surely the gentleman is ill.”
“I beg your pardon,” cried the farmer, rewaking to hospitable thoughts; “can I offer you anything?”
“I thank you. I am very weary,” answered Otto. “I have presumed upon my strength. If you would show me to a bed, I should be grateful.”
“Ottilia, a candle!” said the old man. “Indeed, sir, you look paley. A little cordial water? No? Then follow me, I beseech you, and I will bring you to the stranger’s bed. You are not the first by many who has slept well below my roof,” continued the old gentleman, mounting the stairs before his guest; “for good food, honest wine, a grateful conscience, and a little pleasant chat before a man retires, are worth all the possets and apothecary’s drugs. See, sir,” and here he opened a door and ushered Otto into a little whitewashed sleeping-room, “here you are in port. It is small, but it is airy, and the sheets are clean and kept in lavender. The window, too, looks out above the river, and there’s no music like a little river’s. It plays the same tune (and that’s the favourite) over and over again, and yet does not weary of it like men fiddlers. It takes the mind out of doors: and though we should be grateful for good houses, there is, after all, no house like God’s out-of-doors. And lastly, sir, it quiets a man down like saying his prayers. So here, sir, I take my kind leave of you until tomorrow; and it is my prayerful wish that you may slumber like a prince.”
And the old man, with the twentieth courteous inclination, left his guest alone.
III
In Which the Prince Comforts Age and Beauty and Delivers a Lecture on Discretion in Love
The Prince was early abroad: in the time of the first chorus of birds, of the pure and quiet air, of the slanting sunlight and the mile-long shadows. To one who had passed a miserable night, the freshness of that hour was tonic and reviving; to steal a march upon his slumbering fellows, to be the Adam of the coming day, composed and fortified his spirits; and the Prince, breathing deep and pausing as he went, walked in the wet fields beside his shadow, and was glad.
A trellised path led down into the valley of the brook, and he turned to follow it. The stream was a breakneck, boiling Highland river. Hard by the farm, it leaped a little precipice in a thick grey-mare’s tail of twisted filaments, and then lay and worked and bubbled in a lynn. Into the middle of this quaking pool a rock protruded, shelving to a cape; and thither Otto scrambled and sat down to ponder.
Soon the sun struck through the screen of branches and thin early leaves that made a hanging bower above the fall; and the golden lights and flitting shadows fell upon and marbled the surface of that so seething pot; and rays plunged deep among the turning waters; and a spark, as bright as a diamond, lit upon the swaying eddy. It began to grow warm where Otto lingered, warm and heady; the lights swam, weaving their maze across the shaken pool; on the impending rock, reflections danced like butterflies; and the air was fanned by the waterfall as by a swinging curtain.
Otto, who was weary with tossing and beset with horrid phantoms of remorse and jealousy, instantly fell dead in love with that sun-chequered, echoing corner. Holding his feet, he stared out of a drowsy trance, wondering, admiring, musing, losing his way among uncertain thoughts. There is nothing that so apes the external bearing of free will as that unconscious bustle, obscurely following liquid laws, with which a river contends among obstructions. It seems the very play of man and destiny, and as Otto pored on these recurrent changes, he grew, by equal steps, the sleepier and the more profound. Eddy and Prince were alike jostled in their purpose, alike anchored by intangible influences in one corner of the world. Eddy and Prince were alike useless, starkly useless, in the cosmology of men. Eddy and Prince—Prince and Eddy.
It is probable he had been some while asleep when a voice recalled him from oblivion. “Sir,” it was saying; and looking round, he saw Mr. Killian’s daughter, terrified by her boldness and making bashful signals from the shore. She was a plain, honest lass, healthy and happy and good, and with that sort of beauty that comes of happiness and health. But her confusion lent her for the moment an additional charm.
“Good morning,” said Otto, rising and moving towards her. “I arose early and was in a dream.”
“Oh, sir!” she cried, “I wish to beg of you to spare my father; for I assure your Highness, if he had known who you was, he would have bitten his tongue out sooner. And Fritz, too—how he went on! But I had a notion; and this morning I went straight down into the stable, and there was your Highness’s crown upon the stirrup-irons! But, oh, sir, I made certain you would spare them; for they were as innocent as lambs.”
“My dear,” said
