Part 2 (2/2)
He pointed to a little stair-case in the corner which, according to the custom in old peasant houses, led from one room through a trap-door into another directly above it.
”But I can't sleep _there_, it would inconvenience the lady,” said the prince. ”Have you no other rooms?”
”Why yes; but they are engaged for to-morrow,” replied Andreas Gross, while the two sisters stood staring helplessly.
”Then give me the rooms and send the other people away.”
”Oh! I can't do that, sir.--They are promised.”
”Good Heavens! Ill pay you twice, ten times as much.”
”Why, sir, if you paid me twenty times the price, I could not do it; I must not break my promise!” said the old man with gentle firmness.
”Ah,” thought the prince, ”he wants to screw me--but I'll manage that, Countess, excuse me a few minutes while I look for another lodging.”
”For Heaven's sake, try to find one for me, too. I would rather spend the night in the carriage than stay here!” replied the countess in French.
”Yes, it is horrible! but it will not be difficult to find something better. Good-bye!” he answered in the same language.
”Don't leave me alone with these people too long. Come back soon; I am afraid,” she added, still using the French tongue.
”Really?” the prince answered, laughing; but a ray of pleasure sparkled in his eyes.
Meanwhile, the little girl who was asleep on the sofa had waked and now came into the room.
The countess requested every one to retire that she might rest, and the peasants modestly withdrew. But when she tried to fasten the door, it had neither lock nor bolt, only a little wire hook which slipped into a loose ring.
”Oh!” she exclaimed, startled. ”I cannot lock it.”
”You need have no anxiety,” replied the old man soothingly, ”we sleep in the next room.” But the vicinity of those strange people, when she could not lock the door, was exactly what the countess feared.
She slipped the miserable wire hook into its fastening and sat down on one of the beds, which had no mattresses--nothing but sacking.
Covering her face with her hands, she gave free course to indignant tears. She still wore her hat and cloak, which she had not ventured to take off, from a vague feeling of being encompa.s.sed by perils whence she might need to fly at any moment. In such a situation, surely it was safer not to lay aside one's wraps. If the worst came, she would remain so all night. To go to bed in a house where the roof might fall and such strange figures were stealing about, was too great a risk. Beside the bed on which the countess sat was a door, which, amid all the terrors, she had not noticed. Now it seemed as though she heard a sc.r.a.ping noise like the filing of iron. Then came hollow blows and a peculiar rattling. Horrible, incomprehensible sounds! Now a blow fell upon the door, whose fastening was little better than the other. And now another.
”The very powers of h.e.l.l are let loose here,” cried the countess, starting up. Her cold, wet feet seemed paralyzed, her senses were on the verge of failing. And she was alone in this terrible strait. Where were the servants? Perhaps they had been led astray, robbed and murdered--and meanwhile the storm outside was raging in all its fury.
There came another attempt to burst the door which, under two cras.h.i.+ng blows, began to yield. The countess, as if in a dream, rushed to the workshop and, almost fainting, called to her aid the uncanny people there--one terror against another. With blanched lips she told them that some one had entered the house, that some madman or fugitive from justice was trying to get in.
”Oh! that is nothing,” said Andreas, with what seemed to the terrified woman a fiendish smile, and walking straight to the door, while the countess shrieked aloud, opened it, and--a head was thrust in. A mild, big, stupid face stared at the light with wondering eyes and snorted from wide pink nostrils at the strange surroundings. A bay horse--a good-natured cart horse occupied the next room to the Countess Wildenau!
”You see the criminal. He is a cribber, that is the cause of the horrible noises you heard.”
The trembling woman stared at the mild, stupid equine face as though it was a heavenly vision--yet spite of her relief and much as she loved horses, she could not have gone to bed comfortably, since as the door was already half broken down by the elephantine hoofs of the worthy brute, there was a chance that during the night, lured by the aromatic odor of the sea-weed, which formed the stuffing of the bed, the bay might mistake the countess' couch for a manger and rouse her somewhat rudely with his snuffing muzzle.
”Oh, we'll make that all right at once,” said Andreas. ”We'll fasten him so that he can't get free again, and the carter comes at four in the morning, then you will not be disturbed any more.”
”After not having closed my eyes all night,” murmured the countess, following the old man to see that he fastened the horse securely. Yes, the room which opened from here by a door with neither lock nor threshold was a stable. Several frightened hens flew from the straw--this, too. ”When the horse has left the stable the c.o.c.ks will begin to crow. What a night after the fatigues of the day!” The old man smiled with irritating superiority, and said:
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