A Noble Name; or, Dönninghausen. Claire von Glümer

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "Certainly," Hildegard replied. "Magelone and Johann Leopold can go in the small sleigh, and Eduard can drive, and the large sleigh will easily hold Aunt Thekla, us two, and Otto, with Karl to drive us."

      "I will resign my place to Johanna," said Aunt Thekla.

      Johanna was about to declare that she would rather stay at home, but Hildegard gave her no time. "Johanna at Klausenburg?" she exclaimed. "That will never do. I, at least, have not the courage to take her there."

      "Make your mind easy; that is my affair," the Freiherr interposed, and his eyes flashed at the speaker. "On New Year's day we give our customary dinner, at which I shall present my grand-daughter to the neighbourhood, and I promise you that she will meet with the reception I desire her to have. Christian, take me to my room."

      The servant wheeled the old man away, and every one rose from table. Johann Leopold began to converse with Johanna upon indifferent subjects, and involuntarily she became interested. Hedwig whispered to her discomfited sister, "Rather awkward of you, my dear." Otto asked his brother-in-law, Karl, how he could allow Hildegard to display such want of tact, and was answered by a shrug of the shoulders, whilst Aunt Thekla tried to dispel every one's embarrassment by reminding them that it was time to make ready for church.

      "Come, let us go together!" said Magelone, putting her arm through Johanna's and leaving the room with her. "Let me entreat you not to look so grieved," she went on. "Don't let that stupid woman vex you; you know how the others love you."

      Johanna pressed Magelone's arm, and went up-stairs with her in silence. At the door of her room she said, "You must go to church without me to-day; I cannot feel devotional after what has happened."

      "Oh, Johanna, we ought not to bear malice! Be kind, and come," Magelone entreated; but with a decided "I cannot!" Johanna left her and shut herself up in her own room. She could not say to Magelone that she was far less annoyed by Hildegard's hostility than by the prospect of being thrust into a society where she was not welcome.

      "If I could but get away!" she thought, as she looked from the window out over the wintry landscape. "Yes, away, away, if but for an hour!" she said, aloud. And putting on her wraps, and accompanied by Leo, barking joyously, she hurried out into the park, and thence to the path that led up the mountain from the village into the forest.

      Her heart grew lighter in the fresh winter air. She walked on quickly, upwards beneath the snow-laden boughs, upon which the sunlight played in thousands of prisms, and from which the glittering dust came powdering down upon her. At length the sight of the forester's lodge, its windows sparkling in the sunshine, warned her to return.

      Since she had come thus far, she would inquire after Johann Leopold's protégé. Greeted and accompanied by the barking dogs, she was going towards the door, when close by the house a girl, very poorly clad, with a shawl about her head and shoulders, came out of the thicket. The slender figure stooped low as it passed the windows, softly lifted the latch of the house-door, and went in.

      Johanna followed her. She turned to the door of the room opposite the sitting-room, and laid a little, blue, half-frozen hand upon the latch. "Jakob!" she whispered, as she tried to open it gently. But on the instant the door of the sitting room opened, and the forester's wife in a black gown and a cap with white ribbons made her appearance, the hymn-book in which she had been reading in her hand.

      "Christine!" she exclaimed, angrily, in an undertone, and without noticing Johanna she rushed at the girl. "Christine, how dare you? Go away this moment!" And she tried to push the girl away from the door, but her hand held fast the latch. "For God's sake," a poor little pleading voice cried, "let me only say one word to Jakob!"

      "Not one," Frau Kruger interposed. "Go this instant, I tell you!" And she raised the book as if to strike the girl.

      "Frau Kruger!" Johanna exclaimed, approaching the pair. They turned. The girl's shawl had fallen back from her head, and a pale youthful face, the large dark eyes swollen with weeping, met Johanna's look, while the violence of the forester's wife was instantly replaced by extreme courtesy.

      "Oh, Fräulein!" she said, with a curtsey, "do not take it amiss. I never like to harm a living creature, but Christine is a shameless girl, who will persist in worrying Jakob."

      "I worry him?" the girl said, quickly. "Why, since his accident I have never even been allowed to see him. Have pity; let me bid him good-by. I am going to Oberroda to-day, but I cannot go so." And she burst into tears.

      "Frau Kruger, be persuaded," Johanna entreated. "The poor girl – "

      "Oh, Fräulein, do not waste your compassion," the forester's wife interrupted her, with an angry glance at the girl. "Christine has always been a bad, wilful creature. She has had a child, and wants to force Jakob to marry her, but he will have nothing to do with her."

      "Jakob have nothing to do with me? That is not true," cried the girl. "He will not forsake me, and I will not forsake him. And he loved the little child dearly, and now he does not even know that it is dead. I must tell him." She hid her face and sobbed aloud.

      "How can you be so hard-hearted?" said Johanna. "You must let the girl speak with the sick man."

      "That she may make him worse with her whining," said Frau Kruger. "If she loves him as much as she says she does, she might spare him her blubbering. And what of it? It is lucky that the Lord took the brat from her."

      "Frau Kruger!" Johanna exclaimed, indignantly; and Christine, who had grown deadly pale, drew the shawl over her head and silently left the house.

      "Oh, Fräulein, if you but knew! Have the kindness to come in here and let me tell you," the forester's wife begged, all smiles and servility again; but Johanna left her and followed Christine.

      The girl ran down the forest-path like a hunted creature. Suddenly her strength seemed to fail her, and she leaned against a tree.

      Johanna hurried to her. "Where is your home? I will take you there," she said kindly.

      "Home? I have none!" the girl replied, with a wild look. "My brother has turned me out of doors, and they will not let me go to Jakob. His sister says I am too bad for Jakob; my brother says Jakob is too bad for me. Ah, good heavens! if we are both such wretches, we are well suited to each other."

      The depth of bitterness in her words contrasted so oddly with her gentle child-like face that Johanna's sympathy was still more strongly enlisted. She put her arm round her to support the slender, trembling figure, and walked with her slowly down the mountain. After a while Christine said, "You are so kind, Fräulein. Herr Forester Kruger told me about you. He is far kinder to me than his wife."

      "What is Frau Kruger's grudge against you?" asked Johanna.

      "At first it could only have been that I am poor and low-born," the girl replied. "My father was only a cowherd, it is true, and Jakob is a farmer's son. But for all that, he wanted to marry me, and if the others had consented all would have been different with me now."

      "Who are the others?" Johanna asked again.

      "The forester's wife opposed it most. She worked upon my guardian and my brother, and they forbade me to go with Jakob. So we had to see each other in secret, for he would not give me up, nor would I him. And then that happened that ought not to have been."

      She was silent. For a while they walked along without speaking, and then Christine said, timidly, "Please, kind Fräulein, do not think hardly of us. Ah, how hard Jakob tried to have us married! and when the child came he loved it so dearly, – so dearly! And now it has been СКАЧАТЬ