Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/105

 they raised the stiffened body the insect flew off into the fir wood and was no more seen.

The miserable woman did not survive many hours. Her party lost all heart after her death, the chief ministers of her cruelty fled. General Blossow, instantly released, at once surrendered the town to the Bavarian troops, who, thanks to the Sealed Knots, were in time to garrison Eisenherz and repulse an attempt to surprise the town by the cousin of the duchess. Mohrart and Beatrice were married the moment the Bavarian rule was established and the city grew secure.

This strange story is a true one, and is still preserved as a tradition in the south of Germany. The chapel on the mountain side, now a ruin, still crowns the mountain above Eisenherz, and the road winds on towards Schwarzstein and the Bavarian frontier.  

  .—I have not yet heard from Frankfort, but they tell me here that the merchant is away at his estates. There is no hurry, however—nay, I should wish for a little time to devote myself to this mission, as I may call it. I have watched Grainger all this day, and he has not gone in—at least I have not seen him myself; for I must keep to my fixed rule of not entering that cruel spiders' net, that tigers' den. I asked him this evening. He laughed, and would give me no answer. "Don't expect miracles," he said; "you can't expect a man to reform all at once. That little picture we made out together last night is still going about with me, dancing before my eyes. I wish I could shut it out; I did so for some years. Come in," he added, "and let us at least look at them, as the hungry beggars find some relief in looking into a cook-shop window."

I shook my head. "I have made a sort of resolution," I said, "and must keep to it. It would be sanctioning, in some sort, what I cannot approve."

"What rubbish!" he said, suddenly turning on me, then checked himself. "I beg your pardon; I have not got rid of my old ways as yet. I wish I had had those scruples. Talk to me now about her, about Dora—Mrs. Austen, I mean. It's like Annot Lyle and her harp."

These little allusions and turns of expressions which dotted over all Grainger's conversation, with many others that I cannot recal [sic], show what a cultivated taste he had. I did not give him credit for being so entertaining and amusing. We dined together that day, and again we strayed back to the old subject.

"The night," he said, "when I got that news, is one I cannot dare to look back to. It makes my head unsteady; you know the feeling. Here, kellner, cognac! That's the only thing."

"No," I said, "it is not the only thing; it is as dangerous as the other. Forgive me if I advise you again. I am going to have some sherry, and oblige me by taking some of it instead."

He groaned, laughed a little roughly, as his habit was, and said:

"Well, I suppose so. No cognac, then. What on earth is all this? You are making me do things that no other man could attempt."

"I have no power," I said, looking down. "I am working with another charm."

He paused. "Ah, yes; I suppose that is so."

I had already come to know the clergyman of the place. He had sent me his book, and I suspect some of the gamblers' money figured there to a good amount. I met this gentleman in the evening, and he came up to speak to me. There was something about him I did not like, and he had an authoritative air which I was inclined to resent. (I hear Dora, who believes in clergymen to the very bottom of her gentle heart, and, I suspect, believes that, with their coats, shovel hats, white ties, &c., they have come down straight from Heaven; have a sort of angelic conformation, wings folded up, &c.)

"I see," he said, sitting down next me on one of the green garden chairs—"I see you are intimate with that man here, Mr. Grainger, or Captain Grainger, as he calls himself. May I ask, do you know what his character is?"

I was happy to answer him with both facts and logic.

"The War Office also calls him captain," I said; "and I do know a good deal about him."

"I am afraid nothing good, then; for it is my duty to warn you, as a sort of temporary parishioner, the care of whose soul I have, that his character is very bad indeed, and that he is not a person any one of character should be seen with. He is a most dangerous man. You are young and inexperienced, Mr. Austen, and he has led several, as young and experienced, into mischief already. That is the reason I speak to you." 