CHAPTER XIX

The threshing machine had been singing its autumn song for many a day.

Its monotonous whirr could be heard far beyond the castle court. It carried no message of golden blessings or glowing crystallised sunlight.

From morning till late at night it moaned and howled like an aeolian harp in stormbeaten branches; and sometimes soft, long-drawn cries burst from its entrails, as if the sheaves it was torturing and tearing had been endowed with speech.

So much dreamy bliss dwelt again in Lilly's soul that she got nothing but allurement and yearning from this music, which entirely obsessed her in her morning slumber and kept her lying in bed a long time in a drowsy half-sleep the better to listen to its even, unvarying singsong.

All the while she thought of him.

A comrade, a playmate, that was what she had needed all along, some one in whose company to make merry and complain, some one who would confess all his follies, his most secret sins, and then receive laughing absolution. For whatever his crime, he was not the guilty one; his youth was the sinner, the same sweet, mischievous youth which filled her soul with melancholy and her body with shuddering, which dominated them both like a beneficent yet tormenting divinity, who favoured the one and ruined the other.

He had to be saved--saved from his own frivolity, from that fatal condition of his soul which threatened to entangle and choke him in a net of vulgar escapades. Rumours of the low life he was leading kept cropping up not to be silenced, and she needed but to step inside the servants' hall for a stream of gossip to come gushing over her like a jet of dirty water.

Her first intervention was to be only the beginning of the great mission she had to perform in his life. She would be his good genius, walking before him and holding up her hands against every evil temptation, until he had become as pure, as undesirous as herself.

Thus she dreamed to the accompaniment of the threshing machine.

The first ride beyond the castle gates, though taken without permission, had been approved, even commended; and others were to follow. But Lilly hesitated. She wanted to learn a decent canter, she said, before venturing upon new roads. As a matter of fact, she was burning with eagerness for another such hour in Von Prell's company, and merely lacked the courage to bring it about.

The morning after that first ride he was the same cringing riding master as before, outdoing himself in respectfulness and over-polite while rigorous in imparting instruction. Lilly had fully expected he would whisper a familiar word hinting at the day before, a soft "Lilly." There was plenty of opportunity, but nothing of the sort took place.

The next few lessons went in the same fashion. Neither Lilly nor Von Prell thought of leaving the courtyard. But one day the decree went forth from the colonel himself.

"Enough of this hopping about on the gravel. Get out of here and air yourselves in the wind of the fields."

"At your command, Colonel," said Von Prell, touching his cap. He rode his horse up to Lilly's and gently steered both of them out of the gate.

Her heart stood still. She forgot to say good-by to the colonel, she was so preoccupied with antic.i.p.ation of the pleasure in store for her.

They went the same road that had brought her the great experience of the week before.

The willows dripped with dew and at the slightest touch showered down a rain of drops. Lilly laughed and shook herself. Instead of joining in, he guided his horse to the edge of the road, leaving the middle to her.

"But I _want_ to get wet," she said.

"As my lady says," he replied, stiff as a poker in his stupid, artificial respect.

Then they rode on in silence.

When they reached the spot where the great event had occurred which gave the lie to his present behaviour, she ventured to send him a furtive sidelong glance. But he did not respond, seeming not to have noticed her look. His jockey cap pulled close over his head down to the back of his neck, his thin, tightly-drawn face, sprinkled with dewdrops, his boyish body, all muscle and bone, he sat on his saddle as if he and his horse were one.

"How I love him, in spite of everything, the dear little fellow," she thought, and pictured to herself how horribly abandoned she would feel if ever he were to leave the place. And it became clear as day to her that the gay excitement in her soul, the sense of abundance in her life here where she dwelt, had arisen from nothing else than his always, always being near by.

They rode along at an even gait. The brown ridges bordering the opposite bank of the stream drew nearer and nearer. Von Prell seemed to be making for them, but this did not serve her purpose, because the hour for a frank talk had struck.

To-day or never!

She made a great effort to go over in her mind what she would say to him. But her thoughts were incoherent. She had to keep her attention fixed on the horse; and so long as she remained in the saddle she felt herself too much under Von Prell's control.

Summoning all her courage she asked:

"Can't we dismount?"

He paused to consider, but she had jumped from her horse already, and he had just time enough to grasp the mare's snaffle. He reprimanded her, though in the end he had to yield.

They walked side by side, Von Prell leading both horses.

The path led through a stone pit spa.r.s.ely grown with oak trees and alders. Golden marigold b.u.t.tons dotted the marshy spots, and the bur-reed stretched out its bristly fruit on crinkled arms. Reddish dock raised its aging stalk and the floating gra.s.s was drawing in its blades in expectation of approaching autumn.

A mountain-ash, felled by a storm, stretched diagonally from the side of the road across the ditch. Its purplish red cl.u.s.ters of berries glowed like flames which by right should have been extinguished long ago, but which a mysterious life-force kept feeding.

"I'd like to sit here," said Lilly

He bowed.

"If you please."

"But you must sit down, too."

"I must hold the horses, my lady."

"You can tie them to a tree."

He considered a while.

"I can," he said, and tied the reins about the stump of the fallen tree.

When he was about to sit down next to her, she moved nearer to the middle of the trunk to make room for him, and she sat with her feet dangling over the ditch water.

He shoved himself after her, swinging his upper body between his arms, which held him like props.

"No further," she said. She did not want him too close to her.

"At my lady's service," he answered, and kicked his heels.

The grotesque stiffness of his speech annoyed her.

"Don't you know a better way of addressing me when we are alone?" she asked, looking him full in the face.

"I do, but I mustn't"

"And last time--how about then?"

"It happened to be my birthday," he replied, "and I wanted a pretty gift, so I presented that to myself."

"And to-day's my birthday," she laughed. "What will you present me with?"