"I invited our young friend to come up, because I really did not know how the question which is the matter of immediate dispute could be better or more promptly decided; for no one can give us surer information on this point than he. We want to know, George, what there was in the house at Zehrendorf: the furniture, the plate, and so forth; and we should like some account of the condition of the farm buildings, and as correct an inventory as possible of the live stock and other property, if you can inform us on this point. Do you think you can do so?"

"I will try," I said, and gave them as full an account as I could.

While I spoke, the little gray eyes of the commerzienrath were fixed immovably upon me, and I remarked that as I proceeded with the description, his puckered face cleared up more and more, while the steuerrath's grew longer and more confused in the same proportion.

"You see, brother-in-law, that I was right," cried the commerzienrath, "that----"

"You agreed to leave the management of the matter to me," said the superintendent; and then turning to the steuerrath: "It appears, Arthur, that George's account agrees with the inventory which the commerzienrath had taken three years before, except such trifling differences as the lapse of time amply explains----"

"And so," cried the commerzienrath, "the money which I lent your deceased brother upon it, could scarcely have been too little. As my brother-in-law has not yet given us the proof that the sum which the deceased paid him, in the year 1818, through my hands, was not an indemnification for his interest in the estate, he must consent to admit that even during the life of his brother, I was the legal proprietor of Zehrendorf, and that his pretensions are illusory, entirely illusory----"

And the commerzienrath threw himself back in his chair, puckered up his eyes, and rubbed his hands as if with satisfaction.

"I should have thought," began the steuerrath, with an appearance of annoyance, "that these things were not precisely suitable to be discussed in the presence of a third person----"

I arose, with a look at the superintendent.

"Excuse me, my dear Arthur," said the latter, "you not only were willing but even desirous that we should call in our young friend here; of course it was to be expected that in his presence many things----"

"----would be spoken of, which would not be particularly agreeable to the Herr Steuerrath," said the commerzienrath, turning over his papers with a malicious smile.

"I must entreat you, brother-in-law--" said the superintendent.

"And I must further request," cried the steuerrath, "that these matters be handled in a more becoming tone. If I pledge my word as a n.o.bleman that my deceased brother more than once a.s.sured me that he had parted with only a small, the very smallest part of the Zehrendorf forest----"

"So!" cried the commerzienrath; "is that your scheme? First it was the house, then the inventory, now it is the forest--here is the bill of sale."

"I beg you," said the steuerrath, pushing away with the back of his hand the paper which the commerzienrath extended to him across the table; "I have already taken note of it. This bill, moreover, is not indisputable."

"It is the handwriting of our brother," said the superintendent, in a reproachful tone.

"But expressed in such general terms," replied the steuerrath, shrugging his shoulders.

"Was I to have every tree separately described?" cried the commerzienrath. "It is unheard of, the way I am treated here. I do not speak of you, Herr Superintendent. You are a man of honor, every inch of you; but when I am told here every moment that I must respect the word of a n.o.bleman, and a paper like this is not of more validity, which is a n.o.bleman's word too, and written with his own hand----"

The commerzienrath had fallen into a querulous tone.

"Perhaps our young friend here can give us information on this point too," said the superintendent. "Do you remember, George, to have heard anything from the mouth of our deceased brother bearing upon the point at issue?"

The steuerrath cast a quick, anxious look first at me; the commerzienrath stealthily watched me, and then the steuerrath, as if to detect the signs of any secret collusion between us; the superintendent fixed his large, clear blue eyes upon me with a look of inquiry.

"Certainly I can," I answered.

"Well then?" cried the commerzienrath.

I told the gentlemen the expression which the Wild Zehren had used when he came to my room the morning before his death, that of the whole majestic forest no part belonged to him, not even enough to make him a coffin.

My voice faltered as I told this. That morning when I beheld for the last time the lovely park glittering in the glorious sunshine, the portrait of the strange man who knew himself utterly ruined, and gave so pa.s.sionate an expression to his knowledge--his att.i.tude, his words, the tone of his voice--all came back to me with irresistible force; I had to turn away to hide the tears which sprang to my eyes.

"The question is decided for me now, if it were not so before," said the superintendent, rising and coming to me.

"And for me too," cried the commerzienrath, with a triumphant look at his adversary.

"But not for me," said the steuerrath. "However disposed I am to place the fullest confidence in the veracity, or, more accurately, in the good memory of our young friend here, his recollections differ too widely from what I have heard from my brother's lips for me to abandon the ground I have taken. I am sorry to have to be so obstinate, but I cannot help it. I owe it to myself and to my family. The last eighteen years of my life are a series of sacrifices made to our eldest brother.

But a few days before his tragical end he appealed to me in the most moving terms to advance him a considerable sum of money; I ran about the whole town to get it for him; I came to you also, brother-in-law, as you doubtless remember. You refused me--and, by the way, not in the most delicate manner. I wrote to my unfortunate brother that I would a.s.sist him, but he must wait. I adjured him to take no desperate resolution. He did not regard my entreaties. Had that letter only not been lost!"

"You have no further occasion for me, Herr Superintendent?" I said, and, without awaiting his answer, left the room, and hastened to the office in a state of agitation, at which now I can but smile. What had happened of so much consequence? A man, speaking of matters of importance, had been guilty of an audacious lie. Later I discovered that this is not of such rare occurrence, and in matters of business lying has a sort of charter; but I was then very young, very inexperienced, and, I may add, innocent, or my emotion at this moment could not have been so violent. I stood in the presence of a thing to me at once horrible and incomprehensible. I could not grasp it. I felt as if the world was being lifted from its pivots. Once before something like this had happened to me--when I heard of Constance's flight, and learned that she had deceived me and lied to me; but there was then still a kind of palliation for her in my eyes; the pa.s.sion of love, which I could understand. But this I did not understand. I could not conceive how, for a few wretched hundred or thousand dollars, one could calumniate the dead, defraud the living, and roll one's self in the mire. But one thing became clear to me at that moment, and all my life since I have held to the conviction that truth is not a mere form, by the side of which another might have place, but that it is like nature, the foundation and the essential condition of human existence; and that every lie shakes and upheaves this foundation, as far as its influence reaches.

Since then I have discovered that this influence is not so extremely wide; that as water naturally seeks its level, so the moral world continually strives to keep truth erect, and to cancel the injurious effect of falsehood.

But on this morning this consolatory thought did not present itself to calm the agitation in my heart. "Liar, hateful, disgusting liar!" I murmured over and over to myself, "you deserve that I should have you placed in the pillory; that I should reveal the real contents of the last letter you wrote to your brother."

I think that if this state of things had continued, I should not have been able to resist the impulse to revenge Truth on her betrayer, however foreign to my nature was the part of informer. But I now heard the gentlemen coming down the stairs, and the next moment the superintendent entered the office. His cheeks were now as pale as they had before been flushed; his eyes were gla.s.sy, as those of one who has just undergone an agonizing operation; he tottered to a chair, and sank into it as I hastened to support him.

After a minute he pressed my hand, a.s.sumed an erect position, and said, smiling:

"Thank you; it is over now. Excuse this weakness, but it has affected me more powerfully than I had thought. Such a dispute about _yours_ and _mine_ is always the most disagreeable thing in the world, even when one looks upon it as a mere spectator; how much more then when the dust raised is thrown directly into one's face! Well, the matter is ended. I had proposed a compromise before, and they have agreed to sign it. My brother, for a very moderate indemnification, gives up all his claims, which your last words deprived, with me, of all remains of credit. He calls himself a beggar; but alas! he is not one of those beggars who might take their place by kings."

The pale man smiled bitterly, and continued in a low tone, as if talking to himself:

"Thus the last remnant of the inheritance of our ancestors pa.s.ses out of our hands. The old time is past--it has lasted too long! I regret the forest; one does not like to see the trees fall through whose foliage the earliest morning-ray greeted our childish eyes, and under whose branches we played our childish sports. And now they will fall; to their new possessor they are but wood, which he will convert into money. Money! True, it rules the world, and he knows it; he knows that the turn has come for him and those like him, and they are now the knights of the hammer. It is the old game in a somewhat different form.

How long will they play it? Not long, I trust. Then----"

He raised his eyes to me with a long loving look----"then will come our turn, ours, who have comprehended that there is such a thing as justice, that this justice cannot be trifled with, and that we must cleave to and desire with all our souls this justice, which is equity.

Is it not so, George?"

CHAPTER XIII.

Doctor Willibrod and I had hoped that, now that their business was at an end, the burdensome guests who had so long made the superintendent's house their home, would take their leave; but our hope was to be only partially fulfilled.

"I do not wish to travel in the company of a man who has made me a beggar," said the steuerrath.

"Fudge!" said the commerzienrath, coming into the office that afternoon, in travelling dress, to bid me good-by; "he has been a beggar all his life. Would you believe it? five minutes ago he was begging from me again; he has not the money to take him home, I must advance him a hundred _thalers_. I gave them to him; I shall never see them again. By the way, I must see _you_ again. Really I like you better every time I see you; you are a capital fellow."

"You will make but little capital out of me, Herr Commerzienrath."

"Make capital? Very good!" said the jovial old fellow, and poked me in the ribs. "We shall see, we shall see. Your very first movement when you leave this place must be to my house. Will soon find something for you; am planning all sorts of improvements on the estate--here the commerzienrath shut his eyes--distillery, brick-yard, turf-cutting, saw-mill--will find a place for you at once. How long have you still to be here?"

"Six years longer."

The commerzienrath puffed out his cheeks. "Whew! that is an awful time.

Can I do nothing for you? Could I help you up there? A little cash in hand, eh?"

"I am greatly obliged to you, but cannot expect any advantage from your exertions."