An Old Heart Goes A-Journeying (24 page)

Unsadel village was dark and still as the Schlieker cart clattered down the street, and the Tamm house was also dark and still. But Paul stopped.

“Here, take the reins,” he said to Mali, and put them in her hands.

These were the first words he had spoken to her since their quarrel. Stiffly he clambered out of the cart, stiffly he mounted the steps to the door, and hammered on it with his fist.

“Hi! August, open the door!”

This made a little dog inside the house yap frantically; another and a larger dog in the yard burst into a volley of barks. Then Schlieker heard yet a third dog. In the attic, rather indistinct, but—

He turned to his wife with a quick movement of surprise: “Did you hear that?”

Again he listened, began a fresh assault on the door and shouted, but the savage yapping of the little dog on the ground floor drowned the barking of the other two. Yet he could have sworn—

“Who’s there?” asked a grim and angry voice from near his left shoulder. “Is there a house on fire?”

“No,” laughed Paul. “You can go right to sleep again, August. I only wanted to bring you something from Kriwitz.”

“Oh, it’s Schlieker,” said the thick voice through the half-opened window. “Why didn’t you wait till tomorrow? Is it something from the grocer? Well, give it here—I’ll catch a cold at the open window.”

“I don’t see how I can put it through the window, August,” snapped Schlieker. “It’s your bicycle. I found it in a street in Kriwitz.”

“Bicycle? What bicycle? Are you trying to pick a fight with me, Paul?”

“A fight? I’m not a man for fights unless I’m provoked. And you’re a good fellow, I know that, August. You wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless it settled on your dinner.”

“I want to go to sleep,” said Tamm peevishly. “Stop beating about the bush and tell me what you really want.”

“I’ve told you, August. I found your bicycle in the street in Kriwitz; your bicycle—do you hear?”

“I haven’t got a bicycle, Paul, as you very well know. Do you suppose I’d risk my three hundred pounds on a bicycle?”

“Well, then, Hütefritz’ bicycle!” shouted Schlieker, whose patience was also giving way.

“Hütefritz? He’s up in the attic asleep. How could his bicycle have been in Kriwitz?”

“That’s just what I’d like to know, August. What does Hütefritz do at night, August?”

“Go to bed!” came a high voice from the attic window and, at the same moment, a dog barked.

“There you are . . .” began August Tamm peevishly.

But Schlieker cried out in high excitement: “There! There he is again! What’s my Bello doing in his room? I know the bark of my own dog. What’s my dog doing in your house, Tamm?”

“Look here, I’m sick of this,” growled Tamm. “You start a row wherever you go—and in the middle of the night too. What do I care for your lousy hound? As for the bicycle—go jump up and down. You can get away with this sort of thing in Biestow, where they’re used to you, but here in Unsadel . . .”

“But it
is
your bicycle! . . .”

Too late; the window came down with a crash, and though he hammered on the panes and shouted, nothing stirred within the house. He had to give it up. As he stalked down the steps again, a clear boyish voice called after him from the attic window: “Good night, Paul! Sleep well, Paul!”

And then, as though the dog’s muzzle had been suddenly removed, his own Bello, the silly brute, barked savagely at him as if he were a burglar or a tramp.

What was the matter? Why had they lost their fear of him? There he stood, a match for them all, and tomorrow the house of his archenemy Gau would be searched by the police: he had laid his charge of assault. Marie would be returned, there was nothing against him, and yet his power had passed. Why?

He had stabled the horse. Long since his wife had called to him from her bed: “Come along, Paul, you’re doing yourself no good.” But he still strode up and down, brooding. Sometimes flames of fury shot up within him, and he burned to dash forth and destroy his enemies.
Then the flames died down, and a voice whispered: “Gently does it, Paul, that’s how you’ve made your way in the world.”

Thus he brooded, pacing up and down. His wife was silent, she seemed to have quieted down. Was she asleep? Yes, she had closed her eyes—“Gently does it, Paul, not another word, not even to her!”

“An excellent bit of work, my dear colleague,” said old Dr. Faulmann. “It was truly a pleasure to assist you. Oh, youth—youth! We oldsters think that there’s never any progress; there is, only we don’t see it.”

Young Dr. Kimmknirsch smiled at his older colleague and then looked down with a satisfied air at the boy lying on the sofa. He was still unconscious, but neatly bandaged; his wound was stitched and all the splinters of bone removed.

“Yes,” he said, “I think it will be all right. There won’t be any aftereffects. He won’t be lame—he’s got enough to contend with without that, poor devil!”

“True enough,” said the other heartily; and after a pause he asked tentatively, “What are you going to do now? You don’t propose to turn your lodgings into a hospital? From what I know of Postmistress Bimm, she won’t be likely to fall in with that very kindly.”

And he coughed rather quizzically.

“I propose to take him along to Frau Stillfritz tomorrow morning,” said the young doctor. “She’s got plenty of vacant beds.”

“But the expense—” said the old gentleman dubiously, “who is going to pay?”

“That can be managed somehow,” said the young doctor curtly.

“I imagine,” said the other with a smile, “that means you will pay out of your own pocket in the end, my dear young friend.”

Kimmknirsch shrugged his shoulders.

“Ah, well,” said the older man hastily, “I dare say that won’t worry you. But the main point is—what will our good magistrate Schulz say? I have promised to hold my tongue, but you better not suppose you can keep all this dark in the village of Kriwitz.”

“I shall of course report it the first thing tomorrow,” said the young doctor decisively. “Whatever the circumstances, it’s a disgraceful thing to set traps for children.”

“Certainly, certainly,” nodded the doctor, “you are perfectly right. But the place had been entered and robbed, I am told.”

“I have only seen this young lady for a few minutes,” said Doctor Kimmknirsch, “but having seen her, I don’t believe a word of that story.”

“I have no doubt you are right,” exclaimed the old gentleman. “No doubt it’s all nonsense. Mere gossip! But this old fellow who appeared so mysteriously and has now entirely vanished. . . . I should be disposed,” he went on in a whisper, with a glance at the door, “to get rid of the young lady as soon as possible.”

“I shall of course have a talk with her the first thing tomorrow morning,” said the young doctor with more determination than he felt—for at that moment he saw before him the image of the girl, her hands crossed on her breast, her pale face and anguished eyes. “Either she goes back to her foster parents of her own free will, or she goes with me to Herr Schulz.”

“Excellent!” said Dr. Faulmann heartily. “That will clear you of all responsibility. A most commendable course of action— And now you must excuse me, my dear colleague, or my wife will think I am spending a little too much time over my evening glass. A thousand thanks and good night. No, please don’t trouble. I know my way perfectly. I have known the house since it was built. Well, good-by, thank you, yes.”

The young doctor was once more alone in his room. His face wore an anxious look, as though he were dissatisfied with himself.

He drew a chair up to the patient, mechanically felt his pulse, took a book from the shelf, and prepared himself to sit up through the night.

But he did not open the book, he listened—and not to his patient. The look of anxiety deepened.

At last he got up, softly opened the door into the bedroom and went in. As he stood listening in the darkness, the girl breathed quietly and regularly. He stepped across the room and switched on the reading lamp by the bedside. She lay fast asleep, huddled beneath the blanket like a child and looked very pale and small and pitiful.

He could hear the old gentleman saying: “That will clear you of all responsibility.” No doubt it was meant in commendation, but he was far from taking it that way.

He bent lower over the sleeper’s face, as though to trace the marks of the misdeeds of which she had been accused.

But sleep had closed her shining eyes, those mirrors of the soul, and what he saw was merely a pale, undernourished, probably anemic child. And he found himself thinking that she might be better for a diet of cod-liver oil.

In which Professor Kittguss sets out in search of his godchild and what he encountered on the way

I
T WAS ALREADY DAYLIGHT
in the old stable when Professor Kittguss awoke. Still befuddled with sleep, he looked about him and up at the gray windows through which the morning sunshine was now streaming. “Rosemarie!” he called softly and again, “Rosemarie!” Then: “Philip!” And then “Hi—dog!” (He could not bring himself to call animals by their names, even such a harmless beast as Bello.) But all was still.

The night was past, but the children had not returned and he was still alone.

The Professor stood up, went to the door and opened it; outside there was nothing but the stretch of dew-drenched sward, and the twittering of many birds.

As he turned back out of the sunlight, the old shed seemed more gray and cold than ever without the children or the fire and only a few hours ago it had been so warm and comfortable and cheerful.

Why not make a fire? There was plenty of wood, and
he discovered some matches too—and while he was busy at the fireplace, he actually thought of coffee—surely it was not beyond his powers to make coffee? How pleased the children would be to find a warm drink when they got back.

But the rough logs, which he tried to kindle from a match without the aid of chips or pine cones, proved recalcitrant, and when his fingers had warned him more than once that though matches could not set fire to logs, they could burn human flesh, he abandoned his efforts and sat looking vacantly round the room.

He did not notice that there was quite enough bread and butter and sausage on the little table for a simple breakfast, much more than enough to satisfy the inner qualms of which he was now acutely conscious. But as he had failed over the fire, and could make no coffee, he decided to abandon the idea of breakfast and fell into the very common human error of rejecting half a loaf in favor of no bread.

The Professor then decided to meet the children, even if he had to walk as far as Unsadel. It was not merely the fire and his breakfast that he missed. Had he been warm and fed, he would still have found it difficult to settle down to work. The place was too quiet without the children, he would have gone to meet them anyhow.

So the Professor made a careful toilet, put on his large soft clerical hat, slipped on his loose black cloak, and glanced doubtfully at his bag—however, he was only going a little way to meet the children. But he slipped his Bible into a pocket, from that he would in no circumstances be parted. A last look round the room—and he walked out into the sunshine.

The sun shone more brightly and the birds sang louder as the Professor appeared. The great bronzed beeches looked down on him benevolently as he passed, and since he knew the way to Unsadel, he set out at a brisk pace.