Brigadier Frederick, The Dean's Watch

I

The day before the Christmas of 1832, my friend Wilfrid, his double-bass slung over his shoulder, and I with violin under my arm, were on our way from the Black Forest to Heidelberg. An extraordinary quantity of snow had fallen that season. As far as our eyes could see over the great desert plain before us, not a trace of the route, either of road or path, was to be discovered. The north wind whistled its shrill aria about our ears with a monotonous persistence, and Wilfrid, with wallet flattened against his thin back, his long heron-legs stretched to the utmost, and the visor of his little flat cap pulled down over his nose, strode along before me, humming a gay air from "Ondine." Every now and then he turned his head with a grim smile, and cried:

"Comrade, play me the waltz from 'Robin' – I wish to dance!"

A peal of laughter always followed, and then the brave fellow would push on again with fresh courage. I toiled on behind in his footsteps, with the snow up to my knees, and my spirits sinking lower and lower every moment.

The heights about Heidelberg had begun to appear on the distant horizon, and we were hoping to reach the town before nightfall, when we heard the gallop of a horse behind us. It was about five o'clock, and great flakes of snow were whirling about in the gray light. Soon the rider was within twenty steps. He slackened his pace, examining us out of one corner of his eye. We also examined him.

Imagine a big man with red beard and hair, wrapped in a brown cloak, over which was loosely thrown a pelisse of fox-skins; on his head a superb cocked-hat; his hands buried in fur gloves reaching to the elbows. On the croup of his stout stallion was strapped a well-filled valise. Evidently he was some burly sheriff, or burgomaster.

"Hey, my lads!" he cried, drawing one of his big hands from the muff which hung across his saddle-bow, and clapping his charger's neck, "we are going to Heidelberg, I see, to try a little music."

Wilfrid eyed the traveller askance.

"Is that any affair of yours, sir?" he answered, gruffly.

"Eh? yes; I should have a piece of advice to give you."

"Well, you can keep it till it's asked for," retorted Wilfrid, quickening his pace.

I cast a second glance at our new companion. He looked exactly like a great cat, with ears standing out from his head, his eyelids half closed, and a long, bristling mustache; altogether he had a sort of purring, paternal air.

"My friend," he began again, this time addressing me, "the best thing you can do is to return whence you came."

"Why, sir?"

"The famous maestro Prinenti, from Novare, has announced a grand Christmas concert at Heidelberg. Everybody is going to it; you will not get a single kreutzer."

This was too much for Wilfrid.

"A fig for your maestro, and all the Prinentis in this world!" he cried, snapping his fingers. "This lad here, with his long curls and blue eyes, and not a hair yet on his chin, is worth an army of your Italian charlatans. Though he never played outside the Black Forest, he can handle a bow with the first musician in Europe, and will draw melody from his violin such as was never heard before in Heidelberg."

"Hear, hear!" cried the stranger.

"It is just as I tell you," said Wilfrid, blowing on his fingers, which were red with the cold.

Then he set out to run, and I followed him as best I might, thinking he wished to make game of the traveller, who kept up with us, however, at a little trot.

In this way we went on in silence for more than half a league. Suddenly the stranger cried out, in a harsh voice:

"Whatever your talents may be, go back to the Black Forest. We have vagabonds enough in Heidelberg already without you. It is good advice I give you – you had best profit by it."

Wilfrid was about to make an angry retort, but the rider had started off at a gallop, and already reached the grand avenue of the elector. At the same moment, a great flock of crows rose from the plain, and seemed to follow him, filling the air with their loud cries.

About seven o'clock in the evening we reached Heidelberg. There, in fact, we found posted on all the walls Prinenti's flaming placards, "Grand Concert, Solo, etc., etc." We wandered about among the different ale-houses, in which we met several musicians from the Black Forest, all old comrades of ours, who immediately engaged us to play in their band. There were old Bremer, the violoncellist; his two sons, Ludwig and Carl, capital second violins; Heinrich Siebel, the clarinet-player; and big Berthe with her harp. Wilfrid with his bass-viol, and myself as first violin, made up the troupe.

It was agreed that we should all go together, make one purse, and divide after Christmas. Wilfrid had already engaged a room for himself and me. It was on the sixth story of the little tavern "Pied-du-Mouton," in the middle of the Holdergasse, and was only a garret, though, luckily, it had a sheet-iron stove, in which we lighted a fire to dry ourselves.

While we were sitting quietly over the fire, roasting chestnuts and discussing a pot of wine, who should come tripping up the stairs and knock at the door but little Annette, the maid of the inn, in scarlet petticoat and black-velvet bodice, with cheeks like roses, and lips as red as cherries! Next moment she had thrown herself into my arms with a cry of joy.

We were old friends, the pretty Annette and I, for we were both from the same village, and, to say truth, my heart had long been captive to her bright eyes and coquettish airs.

"I saw you go up just now," she said, drawing a stool to my side, "and here I am, come for a minute's talk with you."

With that she began such a string of questions about this one and that – in fact, about every one in our village – that I declare to you it was as much as I could do to answer the half of them. Every little while she would stop and look at me with such a tender air – we would have been there till this time, had not suddenly Mother Gréder Dick screamed from the bottom of the stairs:

"Annette, Annette, are you ever coming?"

"This minute, madame, this minute," cried the poor child, jumping up in a fright. She gave me a little pat on the cheek, and flew to the door. But, just as she was going out, she stopped.

"Ah!" she cried, turning back, "I forgot to tell you. Have you heard – ?"

"What?"

"The death of our pro-recteur Zahn?"

"Well, what is that to us?"

"Ah, yes; but take care, sir, take care – if your papers are not all right! To-morrow morning, at eight o'clock, they will come to ask for them. They have arrested, oh! so many people during the last two weeks. The pro-recteur was assassinated yesterday evening, in the library, at the Cloister of Saint-Christophe. Last week the old priest, Ulmet Elias, who lived in the Jews' quarter, was killed in the same way. Only a few days before that they murdered the nurse, Christina Haas, and Seligmann, the agate-merchant of the Rue Durlach. So, my poor Kasper," she added, with a tender glance, "take good care of yourself, and be sure that your papers are all right."

All the while she was speaking, the cries below continued.

"Annette, O Annette, will you come? Oh, the miserable creature, to leave me here all alone!"

And now, too, we could hear the shouts of the guests in the saloon calling for wine, beer, ham, sausages. Annette saw that she must go, and ran down the stairs as quickly as she had come up.

"Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" I heard her soft voice answering her mistress, "what can be the matter, madame, that you should make such an outcry? One would think the house were on fire."

Wilfrid closed the door after her, and came back to his seat. We looked at each other with some uneasiness.

"This is strange news," said he at last. "At any rate, your papers are all in order?"

"Certainly," I replied, and showed him my pass.

"Good! There is mine, I had it viséed before we left. But still, all these murders bode no good to us. I am afraid we shall make but a poor business here. Many families must be in mourning, and then, besides all these annoyances, the trouble which the police will give us."

"Bah!" cried I, "you take too dismal a view of everything."

We continued to talk about these strange events until long past midnight. The fire in our little stove lighted up the angles of the roof, the square dormer window with its three cracked panes of glass, the mattress spread upon the bare boards, the blackened beams overhead, the little fir table, which cast an unsteady shadow on the worm-eaten floor. A mouse, attracted by the heat, darted back and forth like an arrow along the wall. We could hear the wind without, whistling and bellowing around the high chimney-stacks, sweeping the snow from the gutters beneath the eaves in misty swirls. I was dreaming of Annette. Silence had fallen upon us. Suddenly Wilfrid, throwing off his coat, cried:

"It is time to sleep; put another stick of wood in the stove, and let us go to bed."

"Yes, that is the best thing we can do," said I, and began to pull off my boots. Two minutes afterward we were stretched on the mattress, the coverings drawn up to our chins, and a great log under our heads for a pillow. Wilfrid was asleep in a moment. The light from the little stove blazed up and died away, the wind redoubled its violence without, and, in the midst of dreams of Annette, I, too, in my turn, slept the sleep of the just.

About two o'clock in the morning I was awakened by a strange noise. At first I thought it was a cat running along the gutters; but, my ear being close to the rafters, I could not remain long in doubt. Some one was walking over the roof. I touched Wilfrid with my elbow to awaken him.

"Hist!" whispered he, pressing my hand.

He also had heard the noise. The fire was just dying out, the last feeble flame flickered on the crumbling walls. I was on the point of springing from the bed, when, at a single blow, the little window, kept closed by a fragment of brick, was pushed open. A pale face, with red hair, eyes gleaming with phosphorescent light, and quivering cheeks appeared in the opening, and looked about the room. Our fright was so great that we could not utter a sound. The man passed first one leg, then the other, through the window, and descended into the garret so carefully that not a board creaked under his footsteps.

This man, with heavy, round shoulders, short and thick-set, his face wrinkled and set like a tiger couched to spring, was none other than the rider who had overtaken us on the road to Heidelberg. But what a change in his appearance since then! In spite of the excessive cold, he was in his shirtsleeves, a pair of breeches belted about his waist, woollen stockings, and shoes with silver buckles. A long knife, flecked with blood, glittered in his hand.

Wilfrid and I gave ourselves up for lost. But he did not seem to see us under the shadow of the sloping roof, although the fire was fanned again into a blaze by the current of cold air from the open window. The intruder seated himself on a stool, cowering and shivering in a strange way. Suddenly his greenish-yellow eyes fixed themselves on me, his nostrils dilated; for more than a minute, which seemed to me an age, he stared at me. The blood stood still in my veins. Then at last, turning towards the fire, he coughed with a husky, hoarse sound, like that which a cat makes, without moving a muscle of his face. Drawing a watch from the fob of his pantaloons, he seemed to look at the hour, and then, whether from absence of mind or some other reason, I know not, laid it upon the table. At length, rising from his seat with an air of uncertainty, he looked towards the window, appeared for a moment to hesitate, and then passed out of the door, leaving it wide open behind him.