CHAPTER II.
THE LEGACY.
Discharged soldiers travel on foot. It is the more expeditious way ifthe roads are bad, for a wagon is heavier than a man. The man has onlytwo feet to draw from the mud; while the wagon has four wheels.Besides to travel on foot is cheaper.
When I arrived in Andernach I had, remaining from the money I hadsaved during my year's campaigning, only one thaler; but my heart wasso light, the lightness of my pocket did not trouble me.
How glad I was when I caught sight of the familiar towers of thepalace, and the ruins on the Templeberg. How often, when a lad, I hadclambered among those ruins, in search of hawks' nests, and Romancoins. If I had only broken my neck on one of those innocent quests.Everything was so familiar; the large mill-stone factory; the craneson the quay; the rafts on the river; the long avenues--yes, even theold receivers of customs at the Coblentz gate! I recognized the oldfellows at once; but they did not remember me. I might stray throughthe entire town without hearing a single voice call to me: "Welcome,welcome! Why that is Hugo!" I was so changed in appearance!
But I remembered everybody and everything! I did not need to ask myway through the narrow streets to the tanneries on the banks of theriver. I remembered the names of all the families that lived in thosenarrow streets.
At last I came in sight of the house in which dwelt my parents--thedear, familiar home of my boyhood! There it stood; and beside it, thesame tall mulberry tree with its branches shading the street.
Perched among those branches, I had learned to decline the classicalformula: "_Hic gallus cantans in arbore sedens, kukuriku dicens!_" Atthe moment of my arrival, however, instead of a _gallus cantans_ onthe tree, an auctioneer's assistant was standing under it, andvigorously beating a cracked drum.
"What is going on here?" I asked of the man, in whom I recognized anacquaintance of my boyhood.
"There's going to be an auction, Master Soldier."
"What is to be sold?"
"Everything that belonged to the old tanner. You may take a lookinside if you like," he added, nodding toward the house. "It won'tcost you anything."
"But why are you selling the old man's property?" I asked again.
"To get money, naturally!"
"For whom?"
"For the numerous Jebucees, Sadducees, and publicans, to whom the oldman was indebted. If they sell everything--to the brood of sparrowsunder the eaves!--there will not be enough money, by a good deal, topay all he owes."
"Why," said I, "the old man was a good manager; and his wife anindustrious and thrifty house-wife, when I knew them."
"And so they were! The old man was all right, until he took todrinking."
"Took to drinking? Why did he do that?"
"Well--you see, he had a worthless son, who ran away from home aboutten years ago. The scamp joined a band of robbers; and when he leftthem, he gave out that he was a Polish count; played all manner oftricks; broke out of prison; robbed churches. Every year the newswhich came to the old man about his Hugo grew worse; until at last hewas afraid to venture on the street, for the whole town was talkingabout his worthless son. So he took to drink--had it fetched to thehouse, and drank harder and harder--especially after his wife died--"
"Dead?" I interrupted. "Is the old dame dead?" my heart almost burstbecause I had to keep back the words "my mother."
"Yes, Master Soldier, she is dead, and it is a mercy the good old souldid not live to see this sorrowful day! But, you must excuse me. Ihave got to beat this drum, so that a good lot of people will come tothe sale."
A dozen or more purchasers came in response to the summons. I took upmy station by the open window, and looked into the familiar room,where the buyers were higgling over the various articles to be sold.My mother's Sunday mantle was just then under the hammer--the prettysilk mantle with the silver fastening at the neck. How I wished I wereable to put an end to the disgusting higgling, by shouting in thewindow:
"I'll take the whole lot for a thousand thalers!"
But, alas! there was only a single, miserable thaler in my pocket.
The mantle at last became the property of an old-clothes dealer: heflung it around his shoulders, and made believe to promenade tochurch. It was a revolting sight! The entire higgling crew laugheduproariously, and clapped their hands. I could endure it no longer, myheart was bursting.
I stepped back to the drummer, and asked:
"Is it long since the old dame died?"
"Not so long but you may find her grave if you care to see it. She isburied in the cemetery on the Templeberg."
"And where is her husband?"
"Well"--and he scratched his ear--"that is a question I am unable toanswer: what was immortal about him, is in heaven, or hell, orpurgatory--who can say? Flesh, bones and skin, are about to be buriedin the earth--just where though, I can't tell you."
"Buried now?" I repeated. "Why, there's no bell tolling for thefuneral?"
"No, Master Soldier, the death bell doesn't ring for such corpses. Thepoor old man hung himself--just here, on this limb above us!"
"Hung himself?" I repeated in horror.
"Yes, Master Soldier--he hung himself on that limb! You see hecouldn't stand it when, after he had been told that his property wouldhave to be sold to pay his debts, he heard that the burgomaster hadreceived from Hamburg a warrant to arrest Hugo, his vagabond son, whohad murdered a comrade of his in that city."
You may imagine my feeling when I heard these words! They banishedfrom my mind all thought of making myself known as the long-lost Hugo,and the determination to keep my identity a strict secret wasstrengthened by the drummer who, at every beat he inflicted on thecracked calf-skin, exclaimed: "The rascal!" "The vagabond!" "Thegallows-bird!" and similar titles of honor!
I deemed it wise to join him in execrating the reprobate, whose evilconduct had forced the honest old tanner to end his life on the greenbranch over our heads.
The bloody deed I had committed in Hamburg had driven my poor fatherto a suicide's grave. I could listen no longer to the monotonousdrum-beats, and the call which came from the house: "Who bids higher?"
I stole away from the house to which I had brought disgrace and death.I stole away to that city of the silent multitude, where there is nohiggling, no outbidding, no "who bids higher?"
Here, the wooden cross at the head of the grass-grown mound of earth,serves the same purpose, and serves it as well as the majestic marblemonument. After a long search among many familiar, and some unfamiliarnames, I found, on one of the wooden crosses, the name to which I hada claim.
Underneath that mound, bare of green sod, with no mourning wreath ofnever-fading flowers adorning the cross, rested the woman who had leftbehind her on earth nothing but a drunken husband, who drank to forgethis shame; and a worthless son, whose name was a public disgrace inevery city in the land.
I flung myself beside the mound. I dared not give vent to my sorrow inmoans and tears, for fear a grave-digger, or some passer-by might hearme, and suspect me to be the son of the woman in the grave.
The Hamburg magistrates had offered one hundred thalers for my arrest;consequently it behooved me to be very cautious. I pretended I hadchosen that spot to rest; and lay very still; for, just then, a goodmany people--chattering old women, noisy lads, and all sorts of shabbyfolk--were passing through the cemetery, toward the further wall.
The crowd seemed to be expecting something--an imposing funeral, Isaid to myself. I soon found out why they were so eager to get to theboundary wall of the cemetery: In the strip of earth just outside thewall was the suicide's grave.
He is not to rest among the respectable Christians; but in the stripof unconsecrated ground outside the sacred inclosure. No priest leadshis funeral train; his body comes to its last resting place in theknacker's cart, on a bier made of four rough deals. The coffin isunpainted; there is no name-plate on the lid.
The bell on the neck of the knacker's old steed tolls him to thegrave. Instead of a solemn funeral dirge
, there is the noisy chatterof the curious mob; and in lieu of funeral oration are the knacker'sstupid and offensive jokes, which he cracks while he prepares to lowerthe coffin into the grave. Before he does this, he takes a knife fromhis pocket, and whittles a few chips from the coffin; and over thesethe gaping crowd--especially the old women--quarrel and higgle, gladlygiving their last pence for the relics. And these people never suspectthat the man who leans heavily against the broken cross, hard-by thenew-made grave, might rush suddenly upon them, and with the stump ofthe broken cross crack the skulls of those whom he chanced to strike!
At last the knacker took note of me:
"Well, Master Soldier," he called, "and how goes it with you? Don'tyou want to exchange a few pence for a chip from the coffin of the manwho hung himself? There is great virtue in such a bit of wood! It willpreserve you from lightning, and--"
"I would rather have a nail out of the coffin," I interrupted, "foriron will attract lightning, which is what I most desire."
The fellow was ready enough to comply with my request, but he said thenail would be worth a thaler. I gave him the thaler, the last money Ipossessed in the world! and received the nail--my legacy from myfather!
Later, I had a ring made of the coffin-nail, and I still wear it onthe fore-finger of my right hand.
"Well," enunciated his highness, drawing his handkerchief from hispocket; "you certainly were punished for your misdeeds, my son. Yoursufferings must have been greater than if you had been tortured on thewheel."
The chair's comments were inaudible amid the sounds of emotion, whichcame from behind the prince's handkerchief.
PART VII.