Part 5

One day little Pauline came bustling into Otto’s cell, her head full of the news which she carried. “My father says that thy father is out in the woods somewhere yonder, back of the castle, for Fritz, the swineherd, told my father that last night he had seen a fire in the woods, and that he had crept up to it without anyone knowing. There he had seen the Baron Conrad and six of his men, and that they were eating one of the swine that they had killed and roasted. Maybe,” said she, seating herself upon the edge of Otto’s couch; “maybe my father will kill thy father, and they will bring him here and let him lie upon a black bed with bright candles burning around him, as they did my uncle Frederick when he was killed.”

“God forbid!” said Otto, and then lay for a while with his hands clasped. “Dost thou love me, Pauline?” said he, after a while.

“Yes,” said Pauline, “for thou art a good child, though my father says that thy wits are cracked.”

“Mayhap they are,” said Otto, simply, “for I have often been told so before. But thou wouldst not see me die, Pauline; wouldst thou?”

“Nay,” said Pauline, “I would not see thee die, for then thou couldst tell me no more stories; for they told me that uncle Frederick could not speak because he was dead.”

“Then listen, Pauline,” said Otto; “if I go not away from here I shall surely die. Every day I grow more sick and the leech cannot cure me.” Here he broke down and, turning his face upon the couch, began crying, while little Pauline sat looking seriously at him.

“Why dost thou cry, Otto?” said she, after a while.

“Because,” said he, “I am so sick, and I want my father to come and take me away from here.”

“But why dost thou want to go away?” said Pauline. “If thy father takes thee away, thou canst not tell me any more stories.”

“Yes, I can,” said Otto, “for when I grow to be a man I will come again and marry thee, and when thou art my wife I can tell thee all the stories that I know. Dear Pauline, canst thou not tell my father where I am, that he may come here and take me away before I die?”

“Mayhap I could do so,” said Pauline, after a little while, “for sometimes I go with Casper Max to see his mother, who nursed me when I was a baby. She is the wife of Fritz, the swineherd, and she will make him tell thy father; for she will do whatever I ask of her, and Fritz will do whatever she bids him do.”

“And for my sake, wilt thou tell him, Pauline?” said Otto.

“But see, Otto,” said the little girl, “if I tell him, wilt thou promise to come indeed and marry me when thou art grown a man?”

“Yes,” said Otto, very seriously, “I will promise.”

“Then I will tell thy father where thou art,” said she.

“But thou wilt do it without the Baron Henry knowing, wilt thou not, Pauline?”

“Yes,” said she, “for if my father and my mother knew that I did such a thing, they would strike me, mayhap send me to my bed alone in the dark.”

IX. How One-eyed Hans came to Trutz-Drachen.

Fritz, the swineherd, sat eating his late supper of porridge out of a great, coarse, wooden bowl; wife Katherine sat at the other end of the table, and the half-naked little children played upon the earthen floor. A shaggy dog lay curled up in front of the fire, and a grunting pig scratched against a leg of the rude table close beside where the woman sat.

“Yes, yes,” said Katherine, speaking of the matter of which they had already been talking. “It is all very true that the Drachenhausens are a bad lot, and I for one am of no mind to say no to that; all the same it is a sad thing that a simple-witted little child like the young Baron should be so treated as the boy has been; and now that our Lord Baron has served him so that he, at least, will never be able to do us harm, I for one say that he should not be left there to die alone in that black cell.”

Fritz, the swineherd, gave a grunt at this without raising his eyes from the bowl.

“Yes, good,” said Katherine, “I know what thou meanest, Fritz, and that it is none of my business to be thrusting my finger into the Baron’s dish. But to hear the way that dear little child spoke when she was here this morn--it would have moved a heart of stone to hear her tell of all his pretty talk. Thou wilt try to let the red-beard know that that poor boy, his son, is sick to death in the black cell; wilt thou not, Fritz?”

The swineherd dropped his wooden spoon into the bowl with a clatter. “Potstausand!” he cried; “art thou gone out of thy head to let thy wits run upon such things as this of which thou talkest to me? If it should come to our Lord Baron’s ears he would cut the tongue from out thy head and my head from off my shoulders for it. Dost thou think I am going to meddle in such a matter as this? Listen! these proud Baron folk, with their masterful ways, drive our sort hither and thither; they beat us, they drive us, they kill us as they choose. Our lives are not as much to them as one of my black swine. Why should I trouble my head if they choose to lop and trim one another? The fewer there are of them the better for us, say I. We poor folk have a hard enough life of it without thrusting our heads into the noose to help them out of their troubles. What thinkest thou would happen to us if Baron Henry should hear of our betraying his affairs to the Red-beard?”

“Nay,” said Katherine, “thou hast naught to do in the matter but to tell the Red-beard in what part of the castle the little Baron lies.”

“And what good would that do?” said Fritz, the swineherd.

“I know not,” said Katherine, “but I have promised the little one that thou wouldst find the Baron Conrad and tell him that much.”

“Thou hast promised a mare’s egg,” said her husband, angrily. “How shall I find the Baron Conrad to bear a message to him, when our Baron has been looking for him in vain for two days past?”

“Thou has found him once and thou mayst find him again,” said Katherine, “for it is not likely that he will keep far away from here whilst his boy is in such sore need of help.”

“I will have nothing to do with it!” said Fritz, and he got up from the wooden block whereon he was sitting and stumped out of the house. But, then, Katherine had heard him talk in that way before, and knew, in spite of his saying “no,” that, sooner or later, he would do as she wished.

Two days later a very stout little one-eyed man, clad in a leathern jerkin and wearing a round leathern cap upon his head, came toiling up the path to the postern door of Trutz-Drachen, his back bowed under the burthen of a great peddler’s pack. It was our old friend the one-eyed Hans, though even his brother would hardly have known him in his present guise, for, besides having turned peddler, he had grown of a sudden surprisingly fat.

Rap-tap-tap! He knocked at the door with a knotted end of the crooked thorned staff upon which he leaned. He waited for a while and then knocked again--rap-tap-tap!

Presently, with a click, a little square wicket that pierced the door was opened, and a woman’s face peered out through the iron bars.

The one-eyed Hans whipped off his leathern cap.

“Good day, pretty one,” said he, “and hast thou any need of glass beads, ribbons, combs, or trinkets? Here I am come all the way from Gruenstadt, with a pack full of such gay things as thou never laid eyes on before. Here be rings and bracelets and necklaces that might be of pure silver and set with diamonds and rubies, for anything that thy dear one could tell if he saw thee decked in them. And all are so cheap that thou hast only to say, ‘I want them,’ and they are thine.”

The frightened face at the window looked from right to left and from left to right. “Hush,” said the girl, and laid her finger upon her lips. “There! thou hadst best get away from here, poor soul, as fast as thy legs can carry thee, for if the Lord Baron should find thee here talking secretly at the postern door, he would loose the wolf-hounds upon thee.”

“Prut,” said one-eyed Hans, with a grin, “the Baron is too big a fly to see such a little gnat as I; but wolf-hounds or no wolf-hounds, I can never go hence without showing thee the pretty things that I have brought from the town, even though my stay be at the danger of my own hide.”

He flung the pack from off his shoulders as he spoke and fell to unstrapping it, while the round face of the lass (her eyes big with curiosity) peered down at him through the grated iron bars.

Hans held up a necklace of blue and white beads that glistened like jewels in the sun, and from them hung a gorgeous filigree cross. “Didst thou ever see a sweeter thing than this?” said he; “and look, here is a comb that even the silversmith would swear was pure silver all the way through.” Then, in a soft, wheedling voice, “Canst thou not let me in, my little bird? Sure there are other lasses besides thyself who would like to trade with a poor peddler who has travelled all the way from Gruenstadt just to please the pretty ones of Trutz-Drachen.”

“Nay,” said the lass, in a frightened voice, “I cannot let thee in; I know not what the Baron would do to me, even now, if he knew that I was here talking to a stranger at the postern;” and she made as if she would clap to the little window in his face; but the one-eyed Hans thrust his staff betwixt the bars and so kept the shutter open.

“Nay, nay,” said he, eagerly, “do not go away from me too soon. Look, dear one; seest thou this necklace?”

“Aye,” said she, looking hungrily at it.

“Then listen; if thou wilt but let me into the castle, so that I may strike a trade, I will give it to thee for thine own without thy paying a barley corn for it.”

The girl looked and hesitated, and then looked again; the temptation was too great. There was a noise of softly drawn bolts and bars, the door was hesitatingly opened a little way, and, in a twinkling, the one-eyed Hans had slipped inside the castle, pack and all.

“The necklace,” said the girl, in a frightened whisper.

Hans thrust it into her hand. “It’s thine,” said he, “and now wilt thou not help me to a trade?”

“I will tell my sister that thou art here,” said she, and away she ran from the little stone hallway, carefully bolting and locking the further door behind her.

The door that the girl had locked was the only one that connected the postern hail with the castle.

The one-eyed Hans stood looking after her. “Thou fool!” he muttered to himself, “to lock the door behind thee. What shall I do next, I should like to know? Here am I just as badly off as I was when I stood outside the walls. Thou hussy! If thou hadst but let me into the castle for only two little minutes, I would have found somewhere to have hidden myself while thy back was turned. But what shall I do now?” He rested his pack upon the floor and stood looking about him.

Built in the stone wall opposite to him, was a high, narrow fireplace without carving of any sort. As Hans’ one eye wandered around the bare stone space, his glance fell at last upon it, and there it rested. For a while he stood looking intently at it, presently he began rubbing his hand over his bristling chin in a thoughtful, meditative manner. Finally he drew a deep breath, and giving himself a shake as though to arouse himself from his thoughts, and after listening a moment or two to make sure that no one was nigh, he walked softly to the fireplace, and stooping, peered up the chimney. Above him yawned a black cavernous depth, inky with the soot of years. Hans straightened himself, and tilting his leathern cap to one side, began scratching his bullet-head; at last he drew a long breath. “Yes, good,” he muttered to himself; “he who jumps into the river must e’en swim the best he can. It is a vile, dirty place to thrust one’s self; but I am in for it now, and must make the best of a lame horse.”

He settled the cap more firmly upon his head, spat upon his hands, and once more stooping in the fireplace, gave a leap, and up the chimney he went with a rattle of loose mortar and a black trickle of soot.

By and by footsteps sounded outside the door. There was a pause; a hurried whispering of women’s voices; the twitter of a nervous laugh, and then the door was pushed softly opens and the girl to whom the one-eyed Hans had given the necklace of blue and white beads with the filigree cross hanging from it, peeped uncertainly into the room. Behind her broad, heavy face were three others, equally homely and stolid; for a while all four stood there, looking blankly into the room and around it. Nothing was there but the peddler’s knapsack lying in the middle of the floor-the man was gone. The light of expectancy slowly faded Out of the girl’s face, and in its place succeeded first bewilderment and then dull alarm. “But, dear heaven,” she said, “where then has the peddler man gone?”

A moment or two of silence followed her speech. “Perhaps,” said one of the others, in a voice hushed with awe, “perhaps it was the evil one himself to whom thou didst open the door.”

Again there was a hushed and breathless pause; it was the lass who had let Hans in at the postern, who next spoke.

“Yes,” said she, in a voice trembling with fright at what she had done, “yes, it must have been the evil one, for now I remember he had but one eye.” The four girls crossed themselves, and their eyes grew big and round with the fright.

Suddenly a shower of mortar came rattling down the chimney. “Ach!” cried the four, as with one voice. Bang! the door was clapped to and away they scurried like a flock of frightened rabbits.

When Jacob, the watchman, came that way an hour later, upon his evening round of the castle, he found a peddler’s knapsack lying in the middle of the floor. He turned it over with his pike-staff and saw that it was full of beads and trinkets and ribbons.

“How came this here?” said he. And then, without waiting for the answer which he did not expect, he flung it over his shoulder and marched away with it.

X. How Hans Brought Terror to the Kitchen.

Hans found himself in a pretty pickle in the chimney, for the soot got into his one eye and set it to watering, and into his nose and set him to sneezing, and into his mouth and his ears and his hair. But still he struggled on, up and up; “for every chimney has a top,” said Hans to himself “and I am sure to climb out somewhere or other.” Suddenly he came to a place where another chimney joined the one he was climbing, and here he stopped to consider the matter at his leisure. “See now,” he muttered, “if I still go upward I may come out at the top of some tall chimney-stack with no way of getting down outside. Now, below here there must be a fire-place somewhere, for a chimney does not start from nothing at all; yes, good! we will go down a while and see what we make of that.”

It was a crooked, zigzag road that he had to travel, and rough and hard into the bargain. His one eye tingled and smarted, and his knees and elbows were rubbed to the quick; nevertheless One-eyed Hans had been in worse trouble than this in his life.

Down he went and down he went, further than he had climbed upward before. “Sure, I must be near some place or other,” he thought.

As though in instant answer to his thoughts, he heard the sudden sound of a voice so close beneath him that he stopped short in his downward climbing and stood as still as a mouse, with his heart in his mouth. A few inches more and he would have been discovered;--what would have happened then would have been no hard matter to foretell.

Hans braced his back against one side of the chimney, his feet against the other and then, leaning forward, looked down between his knees. The gray light of the coming evening glimmered in a wide stone fireplace just below him. Within the fireplace two people were moving about upon the broad hearth, a great, fat woman and a shock-headed boy. The woman held a spit with two newly trussed fowls upon it, so that One-eyed Hans knew that she must be the cook.

“Thou ugly toad,” said the woman to the boy, “did I not bid thee make a fire an hour ago? and now, here there is not so much as a spark to roast the fowls withall, and they to be basted for the lord Baron’s supper. Where hast thou been for all this time?”

“No matter,” said the boy, sullenly, as he laid the fagots ready for the lighting; “no matter, I was not running after Long Jacob, the bowman, to try to catch him for a sweetheart, as thou hast been doing.”

The reply was instant and ready. The cook raised her hand; “smack!” she struck and a roar from the scullion followed.

“Yes, good,” thought Hans, as he looked down upon them; “I am glad that the boy’s ear was not on my head.”

“Now give me no more of thy talk,” said the woman, “but do the work that thou hast been bidden.” Then--“How came all this black soot here, I should like to know?”

“How should I know?” snuffled the scullion, “mayhap thou wouldst blame that on me also?”

“That is my doing,” whispered Hans to himself; “but if they light the fire, what then becomes of me?”

“See now,” said the cook; “I go to make the cakes ready; if I come back and find that thou hast not built the fire, I will warm thy other ear for thee.”

“So,” thought Hans; “then will be my time to come down the chimney, for there will be but one of them.”

The next moment he heard the door close and knew that the cook had gone to make the cakes ready as she said. And as he looked down he saw that the boy was bending over the bundle of fagots, blowing the spark that he had brought in upon the punk into a flame. The dry fagots began to crackle and blaze. “Now is my time,” said Hans to himself. Bracing his elbows against each side of the chimney, he straightened his legs so that he might fall clear. His motions loosened little shower of soot that fell rattling upon the fagots that were now beginning to blaze brightly, whereupon the boy raised his face and looked up. Hans loosened his hold upon the chimney; crash! he fell, lighting upon his feet in the midst of the burning fagots. The scullion boy tumbled backward upon the floor, where he lay upon the broad of his back with a face as white as dough and eyes and mouth agape, staring speechlessly at the frightful inky-black figure standing in the midst of the flames and smoke. Then his scattered wits came back to him. “It is the evil one,” he roared. And thereupon, turning upon his side, he half rolled, half scrambled to the door. Then out he leaped and, banging it to behind him, flew down the passageway, yelling with fright and never daring once to look behind him.

All the time One-eyed Hans was brushing away the sparks that clung to his clothes. He was as black as ink from head to foot with the soot from the chimney.

“So far all is good,” he muttered to himself, “but if I go wandering about in my sooty shoes I will leave black tracks to follow me, so there is nothing to do but e’en to go barefoot.”

He stooped and drawing the pointed soft leather shoes from his feet, he threw them upon the now blazing fagots, where they writhed and twisted and wrinkled, and at last burst into a flame. Meanwhile Hans lost no time; he must find a hiding-place, and quickly, if he would yet hope to escape. A great bread trough stood in the corner of the kitchen--a hopper-shaped chest with a flat lid. It was the best hiding place that the room afforded. Without further thought Hans ran to it, snatching up from the table as he passed a loaf of black bread and a bottle half full of stale wine, for he had had nothing to eat since that morning. Into the great bread trough he climbed, and drawing the lid down upon him, curled himself up as snugly as a mouse in its nest.

For a while the kitchen lay in silence, but at last the sound of voices was heard at the door, whispering together in low tones. Suddenly the door was flung open and a tall, lean, lantern-jawed fellow, clad in rough frieze, strode into the room and stood there glaring with half frightened boldness around about him; three or four women and the trembling scullion crowded together in a frightened group behind him.

The man was Long Jacob, the bowman; but, after all, his boldness was all wasted, for not a thread or a hair was to be seen, but only the crackling fire throwing its cheerful ruddy glow upon the wall of the room, now rapidly darkening in the falling gray of the twilight without.

The fat cook’s fright began rapidly to turn into anger.

“Thou imp,” she cried, “it is one of thy tricks,” and she made a dive for the scullion, who ducked around the skirts of one of the other women and so escaped for the time; but Long Jacob wrinkled up his nose and sniffed. “Nay,” said he, “me thinks that there lieth some truth in the tale that the boy hath told, for here is a vile smell of burned horn that the black one hath left behind him.”

It was the smell from the soft leather shoes that Hans had burned.