Saint Michael

The words were uttered with iron determination, and Valentin was silent for a moment, probably feeling that no priestly admonition could affect such a nature. "The Countess Louise has found rest in the grave," he said at last, and his voice trembled slightly as he uttered the name, "and with her also the man to whom she was wedded. Her son is alone and unprotected, and I come to ask for the boy what you would not refuse to any orphaned stranger commended to your care,–an education which will enable him in future to confront life and the world. If he remains in Wolfram's charge he is entirely excluded from anything of the kind, and will be condemned to a half-savage existence in some lonely mountain forest lodge, a life no higher in aim than that of the merest peasant. If you, Herr Count, can answer to yourself for this–"

"Enough!" the Count angrily interrupted him, rising from his chair. "I will take the matter into consideration and decide definitively with regard to your protégé. Upon this your reverence may rely."

The pastor arose on the instant; he perceived that the interview was at an end, and he had no desire to prolong it. "My protégé?" he repeated; "may he be yours also, Herr Count,–he surely has a right to be so." And with a brief, grave inclination of his head to each of the gentlemen, he left the room.

"A most extraordinary visit!" said Albrecht, who had hitherto been silent. "What right has this priest to meddle in our family affairs?"

Steinrück shrugged his shoulders. "He was formerly our cousin's father confessor, and now occupies a confidential position with his family, although he lives high up in a lonely Alpine village. He and no other must attend Steinrück's body to the grave. I shall make him understand, however, that I am inaccessible to priestly influence. I could not quite deny myself to him, since it was he who some time ago asked my aid for the orphan boy, any more than I could refuse the aid he asked."

"Yes, the boy had to be cared for, and it has been done," Albrecht coolly assented. "You attended to the matter yourself, sir. This Wolfram–I have an indistinct remembrance of the name–was once a gamekeeper of yours, was he not?"

"Yes; my recommendation procured him his position as forester with my cousin. He is taciturn and trustworthy, troubling himself little concerning matters beyond his ken. He never asked what my relations with the boy intrusted to him were, but did as he was bidden, and took him home."

"Where he belongs, of course. You do not contemplate making any change?"

"That remains to be decided. I must see him."

Albrecht started, and his features betrayed surprise and annoyance. "Wherefore? Why have any personal contact with him? One keeps as far as possible out of the way of such disagreeable matters."

"That is your fashion," the Count said, sharply. "Mine is to confront such evils, and contend with them, if necessary, face to face." He stamped his foot in a sudden outburst of anger. "'Intentionally degraded and intellectually starved as a punishment for his parent's fault!' That this priest should say it to my face!"

"Yes, it only remained for him to undertake the defence of the parents," Albrecht interposed, disdainfully. "And they called their boy Michael. They presumed to give him your name,–the ancient traditional name of our family. The insult is apparent."

"It may have been the result of repentance," Steinrück said, gloomily. "Your son is called Raoul."

"Not at all; he was christened by your name, which he bears."

"In the church register! He is called Raoul; your wife has seen to that."

"It is the name of Hortense's father, and she clings to it with filial devotion. You know this, and you have never found any fault with it."

"If it were the name alone! But it is not the only thing foreign to me in my grandson. There is no trace of the Steinrück in Raoul, either in face or in character; he resembles his mother."

"I should not reckon that against him. Hortense has always been considered a beauty. You have no idea how many conquests she still makes."

The words were uttered in seeming jest, but they met with no response in the manner of the old Count, who remained grave and cold. "That probably accounts for her attachment to the scene of such triumphs. You spend more time in France with her relatives than you do at home. Your visits there are more frequent and more prolonged as time goes on, and there is some talk now, I hear, of your being attached to our embassy in Paris. Then Hortense will have attained her desire."

"I must go wherever I am sent," Albrecht said in self-exculpation, "and if they select me–"

"What? playing your diplomatic game with me?" his father interrupted him harshly. "I know well enough what secret wires are pulled, and the position is but an insignificant one. I expected better things of your career, Albrecht. There were paths enough open to you whereby to attain eminence, but to do so needed ambition and energy, neither of which qualities have you ever possessed. Now you are applying for a position which you will owe entirely to your name, and which you may occupy for a decade without advancing a step,–and all in obedience to the wishes of your wife."

Albrecht bit his lip at this reproof, uttered as it was with almost brutal frankness.

"In this respect, papa, you have always been unjust; you never regarded my marriage with any favour. I thought myself secure of your approval of my choice, and you have all but reproached me for bringing home to you a beautiful, talented daughter from one of the most distinguished–"

"Who has never been other than a stranger to us," Steinrück interrupted his son. "She has never yet perceived that she belongs to us, not you to her. I could wish you had brought home to me the daughter of the simplest country nobleman instead of this Hortense de Montigny. It is not good, the mixture of hot French blood in our ancient German race, and Raoul shows far too much of it. Stern military discipline will be of use to him."

"Yes,–you insist that he shall enter the army," said Albrecht, with hesitation. "Hortense is afraid–and I fear also–that our child is not equal to much hardship. He is a delicate boy; he will not be able to endure such iron discipline."

"He must learn to endure it. Your delicate health has always excluded you from the service; but Raoul is healthy, and it is high time to withdraw him from the effeminating effect of pampering and petting. The army is the best school for him. My grandson must not be a weakling; he must do honour to our name; I'll take care of that."

Albrecht was silent; he knew his father's inflexible will. It still gave him the law, husband and father though he were, and Count Michael Steinrück was the man to see that his laws were obeyed.

"I can't help it, your reverence; the fellow is a trial. He knows nothing, he understands nothing; he wanders about the mountains from morning to night, and grows stupider every day. He'll never make a decent forester; 'tis all trouble lost."

The words were spoken by a man whose appearance betrayed his forester's calling. He was provided with gun and hunting-pouch, and was sturdy and powerful of frame, with broad shoulders and coarse features. His hair and beard were neglected, his dress–a mixture of hunting and peasant's costume–was careless in the extreme, and his speech was as rude as his exterior; thus he confronted the priest. The pair were in the parsonage of Saint Michael, a small hamlet high up among the mountains, and a place of pilgrimage. The priest, seated at his writing-table, shook his gray head disapprovingly.

"As I have often told you, Wolfram, you do not understand how to treat Michael. You can never do anything with him by threats and abuse; you only make him shyer, and he is already shy enough in his intercourse with human kind."

"That all comes from his stupidity," the forester explained. "The boy does not see daylight clearly; he has to be shaken hard to rouse him, since I made your reverence a promise not to beat him again."

"And I hope you have kept your word. The child has been much sinned against; you and your wife maltreated him daily before I came here."

"It did him good. All boys need the stick, and Michael always needed a double portion. Well, he got it. When I stopped, my wife began; but it never did any good,–it never made him any the cleverer."

"No; but he would have been ruined by your rough treatment if I had not interfered."

Wolfram laughed aloud. "Ruined? Michael? Not a bit of it. He could have borne ten times as much; he's as strong as a bear. It's a perfect shame; the fellow could tear up trees by the roots, and he lets himself be teased by the village children without ever stirring a finger. I know right well why he wouldn't come along with me to-day, but chose to follow me. He won't come through the village; he chooses to come the longer way, through the forest, as he always does when he comes to you, the cowardly fellow!"

"Michael is no coward," said the pastor, gravely. "You ought to know that, Wolfram; you have told me yourself that there is no controlling him when he once gets angry."

"Yes, he's right crazy then, and must be let alone. If I didn't know that he's not all right here"–he touched his forehead–"I'd take him in hand, but it's a terrible cross. It's strange, too, that he shoots so well, when he sees the game, though that's not often. He stares up into the trees and the sky, and a stag will run away right under his nose. I'm not curious, but, indeed, I'd like to know where the moon-calf comes from."

Valentin looked pained at these words, but he replied, calmly, "That can hardly interest you. Do not put such ideas into Michael's head, or he might ask you questions which you cannot answer."

"He's too stupid for that," asserted the forester, with whom his foster-son's stupidity seemed to be an indisputable article of faith. "I don't believe he knows that he was ever even born. But Tyras is barking,–he must see Michael."

In fact, the dog was barking joyously, the sound of approaching footsteps was heard, and in the next instant Michael entered the room.

The new-comer was a lad of about eighteen, but his tall, powerful figure, with its awkward movements, showed nothing of the grace and freshness of youth. The face, plain and irregular in all its lines, had a half-shy, half-dreamy expression that was hardly attractive. The thick, fair curls were matted around the temples and brow, below which looked out a pair of eyes deep blue in colour, but as vacant as if no soul enlightened their depths. His dress was as sordid and neglected as the forester's, and in his entire appearance there was absolutely nothing to attract.

"Well, have you come at last?" was his foster-father's gruff reception of him. "You must have gone to sleep on the way, or you would have been here long ago."

"I came through the forest," replied Michael, going up to the priest, who kindly held out his hand to him.

Wolfram laughed scornfully. "Didn't I tell your reverence? He didn't dare to go through the village,–I knew it."

Michael paid not the slightest heed to the apparently well-grounded accusation, being well used to such treatment from his foster-father, who now took his hat and made ready to go.

"I must go up to the fenced forest," he said; "it looks badly there: more than a dozen of the tallest trees are torn down; the Wild Huntsman has made terrible work there lately."

"You mean the storms of the last week, Wolfram?"

"No, it was the Wild Huntsman, your reverence. He is abroad every night this spring. The day before yesterday, as we came through the wood at dusk, the whole mad crew swept by not a hundred yards away. They raged and howled and stormed as though all hell had broken loose, and I suppose a bit of it had done so. Michael, stupid fool, would have rushed into the thick of it, but I caught his arm in time and held him fast."

"I wanted to see the demon at close quarters," said Michael, quietly.

The forester shrugged his shoulders. "There, your reverence, you see what the fellow is! He runs away from human creatures and such like, but he wants to be right in the midst of things which make every Christian shudder, and cross himself! I really believe he would have joined the phantoms if I had not held him back, and then he would now have been lying dead in the forest, for he who joins the Wild Huntsman's chase is lost."