Clear the Track! A Story of To-day

"I would not willingly hurt you feelings, Victor, certainly not," Maia assured him, and with her old childlike cordiality she held out her hand to him, which he firmly clasped in his own.

"You have given me pain enough by that constantly kept-up cold reserve of yours," said he, reproachfully. "Oh! from the hour when I found that little elf in the cottage in the woods, from the moment when the sweet little face of my former playmate emerged from the gray hood that had concealed it, I knew where centered the happiness of my life. May I speak now, at last? Maia, I love you beyond everything; I cannot live without you!"

These were no glowing, impassioned words of love, such as the young girl had once listened to from the lips of another, but they expressed warm, fervent devotion, and Maia would have been no true woman had she remained indifferent, in presence of this constant, true love.

"You will have it so–then take me?" said she in a low tone. "I have cared for you since we were children."

With an exclamation of joy, Victor clasped her to his heart, to the admiration of Puck, who stared at them both, and evidently could not exactly understand the situation.

The engagement, which, was now announced to her father, as may well be understood, so engrossed the minds of all the inmates of the Manor-house, that they no longer thought of keeping a lookout for the carriage, that could now be espied making its way along the wooded heights. The road led for some distance over this plateau, ere it dipped into the valley. There, in the midst of green, fir-clad hills, was situated that mighty hive of industry, Odensburg. The rolling-mills had long since arisen from their ashes, more capacious in extent than before, and new establishments of a different kind had been associated with them, for there was no standstill in the Dernburg works, and they expanded with every year.

The bride, in a simple, gray traveling-suit, leaned out of the open carriage, eager to catch a glimpse of the Manor-house, now visible behind the trees of the park. Cecilia had always been a beautiful girl, but the woman was, if possible, more beautiful, in the full development of that peculiar charm, which had, at all times, won her affection. There could, indeed, be no greater contrast than was presented by this refined, still rather foreigner-like being and the husband who sat by her side. This was the same old Egbert Runeck, so far as his somewhat rough, forceful personality was concerned, impressing one as ready to defy the whole world and fight the battle through. Only the gray eyes beneath that broad, massive brow had a different expression from what they had had before; they diffused a warm, bright radiance, and it was not hard to guess whence this light emanated.

"There lies our home, Cecilia!" said Runeck, while he pointed down into the valley. "You, indeed, have never liked Odensburg–will you be able, think you, to endure permanent residence there?"

"If I am with you!–How can you ask that question again?" replied his young wife, somewhat reproachfully.

"Yes, with me, your headstrong Egbert, who will not always have time to devote even to you, when he once again becomes immersed in work. On our wedding-trip I have belonged to you alone: then we could dream our fairy-dreams; but now come earnest workdays with their duties and cares, and often enough will they call me from your side. Will you understand how that is, Cecilia? Hitherto you have stood so far aloof from all this."

He looked upon his wife with a certain uneasiness, but the response that he met in her eyes was cheerful and reassuring.

"Well, then, I must learn to take part in your cares and duties. Will you teach me how, Egbert? But what do you know of fairy-dreams, you man of stern reality, that you are? Where did you learn about them?"

Runeck's eye swept over the mountain range until it rested upon the distant, solitary peak, from the summit of which, glittering in sunlight, greeted them a cross–the symbol of the Whitestone.

"Up there," said he, softly, "when the forest made music around us and the voice of the bells came up from below. Oh, that was a trying hour–a horrible one for you, my poor wife. Pitilessly I had to arouse you, acquainting you with the unreality of your future, and crumbling into ruins the gay, glittering world, in which you had hitherto lived–that I might point out to you the precipice on which you stood."

"Find no fault with that hour!" pleaded Cecilia, nestling up to his side. "Then I awoke, there I learned to see and to think. Do you know, Egbert," and a playful smile took the place of the gravity that had rested upon her features, "I never think of it without being reminded of the old legend of the caper-spurge, that cleaves the rock where buried treasures lie? At that time, you indeed, without any compassion at all, called out to me: 'The deep is empty and dead, and there are no longer any such things as hidden treasures!' And now–"

"Now, I have myself turned out to be a digger after buried treasures!" chimed in Egbert, while he stooped down and gazed into the dark, lustrous eyes of his young wife. "You are right, that was the hour in which I won you, in spite of everything.

"'I lifted out of night and gloom
That wondrous golden shrine,
And all its sparkling treasures
And all its gold are mine!'"

It was a few hours later; the reception and welcome to the Manor-house were over, and while Cecilia was still in the parlor chatting with Maia and Count Eckardstein, Dernburg went with Runeck out upon the terrace.

"It was high time for you to come, Egbert," said he. "The director in his present weak state of health is no longer equal to the duties of his office: months ago, he wanted to send in his resignation, and was only induced to remain until you should arrive and undertake the superintendence of the works. I am also very glad to have Cecilia in the house again, for I am not to keep Maia much longer. Victor is already talking of the wedding, being quite carried away with his happiness."

"But Maia herself does not look as happy as I should like to see her, under the circumstances. Did she give her consent gladly?"

"No, but of her own free will. And now that her promise has once been given, it will chase away the dark shadow that Oscar's love and death have cast over her life. Now a duty stands between her and that memory, she will overcome it."

"And Count Victor will make this easy for her," suggested Egbert. "Of that I am convinced; his is no nature on a grand scale like"–Dernburg cast a side-glance at his adopted son–"like another person of my acquaintance, whom I had selected for Maia at one time, but that other one, alas! would always go his own way and follow his own hard head, and thus he has done in love as in all things else."

"Truly you have so far had but little satisfaction in your son," said Egbert, with difficulty controlling his deep emotion–"he even stood in open opposition to you; but, believe me, father, I have been the severest sufferer from this cause, and now all my powers belong to you and your Odensburg."

"We can make good use of them," declared Dernburg. "At times I feel my age and the decline of strength–who knows how long it will last? Meanwhile, you stand by my side, and I think, upon the ground of common work, we shall find the accommodation for all that still divides us the one from the other. We talked over this, you remember, when you returned from America."

Fully and clearly Egbert's eye met that of the speaker. "Yes, and I recognized that I owed it to you to tell the entire truth, when you summoned me to the guidance of your works. I have forever renounced my former party, but not that which is great and true in that movement. This I cleave to still. This I shall stand up for and contend for so long as life shall last."

"I know it," said Dernburg, offering him his hand. "But I too have learned something during these days of trial. I am no longer the old blockhead who supposed that, alone, he could stem the tide of a new era. I cannot, indeed, welcome this new era with open arms; for the period of a whole generation I have stood on different ground and cannot be untrue to myself, but I can summon to my side a young, fresh force that is in sympathy with the present. When, hereafter, I give Odensburg entirely into your hands, then keep it up with the times, Egbert. I shall not oppose it! Until then, though, let there be for us all a clear track!"

THE END

notes

1

Caper-spurge.