Part 39 (1/2)

”How did it happen?” she asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of women. They were in the act of discussing her, and started and looked foolish.

”No one knows,” said the eldest, when Anna repeated her question. ”They say it was done on purpose.”

”Done on purpose!” echoed Anna, staring at the speaker. ”Why, who would set fire to a place on purpose?”

But to this question no reply at all was forthcoming. They fidgeted and looked at each other, and one of the younger ones t.i.ttered and then put her hand before her mouth.

In the potato field across the road, two storks, whose nest for many springs had been on one of the roofs now burning, had placed their young ones in safety and were watching over them. The young storks were only a few days old, and had been thrown out of the nest by the parents, and then dragged away out of danger into the field, the parents mounting guard over their bruised and dislocated offspring, and the whole group transformed in the glow into a beautiful, rosy, dazzling white, into a family of spiritualised, glorified storks, as they huddled ruefully together in their place of refuge. Anna saw them without knowing that she saw them; there were three little ones, and one was dead. The princess and Letty found her standing beside them, watching the roaring furnace of the stableyard with parted lips and wide-open, horror-stricken eyes.

”Most of the horses were got out in time,” said the princess, taking Anna's arm, determined that she should not again slip away, ”and they say the buildings are fully insured, and he will be able to have much better ones.”

”But the time lost--they can't be built in a day----”

”The man I spoke to said they were such old buildings and in such a bad state that Axel can congratulate himself that they have been burned. But of course there will always be the time lost. Have you seen him? Let us go on a little--we shall be scorched to cinders here.”

Both Axel and Dellwig were superintending the working of the hose. ”I do not want my trees destroyed,” he said to Dellwig, with whom in the stress of the moment he had resumed his earlier manner; ”they are not insured.” He had watched the stables go with an impa.s.siveness that struck several of the bystanders as odd. Dellwig and many others of the dwellers in that district were used to making a great noise on all occasions great and small, and they could by no means believe that it was natural to Axel to remain so calm at such a moment. ”It is a great nuisance,” Axel said more than once; but that also was hardly an adequate expression of feelings.

”They are well insured, I believe?” said Dellwig.

”Oh yes. I shall be able to have nice tight buildings in their place.”

”They were certainly rather--rather dilapidated,” said Dellwig, eyeing him.

”They were very dilapidated,” said Axel.

Anna and the princess stood a little way from the engines watching the efforts to check the spread of the fire for some time before Axel noticed them. Manske, who had been the first to volunteer as a link in the human chain to the pump, bowed and smiled from his place at them, and was stared at in return by both women, who wondered who the begrimed and friendly individual could be. ”It is the pastor,” then said the princess, smiling back at him; on which Manske's smiles and bows redoubled, and he spilt half the contents of the bucket pa.s.sing through his hands.

”So it is,” said Anna.

”Take care there, No. 3!” roared Dellwig, affecting not to know who No.

3 was, and glad of an opportunity of calling the parson to order.

Dellwig was making so much noise flinging orders and reprimands about, that a stranger would certainly have taken him for the frantic owner of the burning property.

”You see the pastor looks anything but alarmed,” said the princess. ”If Axel were losing much by this, Manske would be weeping into his bucket instead of smiling so kindly at us.”

”So he would,” said Anna, a little rea.s.sured by that cheerful and grimy countenance. Her eyes wandered to Axel, so cool and so vigilant, giving the necessary orders so quietly, losing no precious moments in trying to save what was past saving, and without any noise or any abuse getting what he wanted done. ”It _can't_ be a good thing, a fire like this,” she said to herself. ”Whatever they say, it _can't_ be a good thing.”

A huge pine-tree was dragged down at that moment, dragged in a direction away from its fellows, against a beech, whose branches it tore down in its fall, ruining the beech for ever, but smothering a few of its own twigs that had begun to burn among the fresh young leaves. Anna watched the havoc going on among poor Axel's trees in silence. ”He _can't_ not care,” she said to herself. He turned round quickly at that moment, as though he heard her thinking of him, and looked straight into her eyes.

”You here!” he exclaimed, striding across the road to her at once.

”Yes, we are here,” replied the princess. ”We cannot let our neighbour burn without coming to see if we can do anything. But seriously, I hear that it is a good thing for you.”

”I prefer the less good thing that I had before, just now. But it is gone. I shall not waste time fretting over it.”

He ran back again to stop something that was being done wrong, but returned immediately to tell them to go into his house and not stand there in the heat. ”You look so tired--and anxious,” he said, his eyes searching Anna's face. ”Why are you anxious? The fire has frightened you? It is all insured, I a.s.sure you, and there is only the bother of having to build just now.”

He could not stay, and hurried back to his men.

”We can go indoors a moment,” said the princess, ”and see what is going on in his house. It will be standing empty and open, and it is not necessary that he should suffer losses from thieves as well as from fire. His Mamsell is like all bachelors' Mamsells--losing, I am sure, no opportunity of feathering her nest at his expense.”