Hugues-le-Loup. English Page 5

  CHAPTER III.

  We ate with the vigorous appetite which ten hours in the snows of theBlack Forest would be sure to provoke.

  Sperver making indiscriminate attacks upon the kid, the fowls, and thefish, murmured with his mouth full--

  "The woods, the lakes and rivers, and the heathery hills are full of goodthings!"

  Then he leaned over the back of his chair, and laying his hand on thefirst bottle that came to hand, he added--

  "And we have hills green in spring, purple in autumn when the grapesripen. Your health, Fritz!"

  "Yours, Gideon!"

  We were a wonder to behold. We reciprocally admired each other.

  The fire crackled, the forks rattled, teeth were in full activity,bottles gurgled, glasses jingled, while outside the wintry blast, thehigh moaning mountain winds, were mournfully chanting the dirge of theyear, that strange wailing hymn with which they accompany the shock ofthe tempest and the swift rush of the grey clouds charged with snow andhail, while the pale moon lights up the grim and ghastly battle scene.

  But we were snug under cover, and our appetite was fading away intohistory. Sperver had filled the "wieder komm," the "come again," with oldwine of Brumberg; the sparkling froth fringed its ample borders; hepresented it to me, saying--

  "Drink the health of Yeri-Hans, lord of Nideck. Drink to the last drop,and show them that you mean it!"

  Which was done.

  Then he filled it again, and repeating with a voice that re-echoed amongthe old walls, "To the recovery of my noble master, the high and mightylord of Nideck," he drained it also.

  Then a feeling of satisfied repletion stole gently over us, and we feltpleased with everything.

  I fell back in my chair, with my face directed to the ceiling, and myarms hanging lazily down. I began dreamily to consider what sort of aplace I had got into.

  It was a low vaulted ceiling cut out of the live rock, almostoven-shaped, and hardly twelve feet high at the highest point. At thefarther end I saw a sort of deep recess where lay my bed on the ground,and consisting, as I thought I could see, of a huge bear-skin above, andI could not tell what below, and within this yet another smaller nichewith a figure of the Virgin Mary carved out of the same granite, andcrowned with a bunch of withered grass.

  "You are looking over your room," said Spencer. "_Parbleu!_ it is none ofthe biggest or grandest, not quite like the rooms in the castle. We arenow in Hugh Lupus's tower, a place as old as the mountain itself, goingas far back as the days of Charlemagne. In those days, as you see, peoplehad not yet learned to build arches high, round, or pointed. They workedright into the rock."

  "Well, for all that, you have put me in strange lodgings."

  "Don't be mistaken, Fritz; it is the place of honour. It is here that thecount put all his most distinguished friends. Mind that: Hugh Lupus'stower is the most honourable accommodation we have."

  "And who was Hugh Lupus?"

  "Why, Hugh the Wolf, to be sure. He was the head of the family of Nideck,a rough-and-ready warrior, I can tell you. He came to settle up here witha score of horsemen and halberdiers of his following. They climbed upthis rock--the highest rock amongst these mountains. You will see thisto-morrow. They constructed this tower, and proclaimed, 'Now we are themasters! Woe befall the miserable wretches who shall pass without payingtoll to us! We will tear the wool off their backs, and their hide too, ifneed be. From this watch-tower we shall command a view of the fardistance all round. The passes of the Rhethal, of Steinbach, Koche Plate,and of the whole line of the Black Forest are under our eye. Let the Jewpedlars and the dealers beware!' And the noble fellows did what theypromised. Hugh the Wolf was at their head. Knapwurst told me all about itsitting up one night."

  "Who is Knapwurst?"

  "That little humpback who opened the gate for us. He is an odd fellow,Fritz, and almost lives in the library."

  "So you have a man of learning at Nideck?"

  "Yes, we have, the rascal! Instead of confining himself to the porter'slodge, his proper place, all the day over he is amongst the dusty booksand parchments belonging to the family. He comes and goes along theshelves of the library just like a big cat. Knapwurst knows our storybetter than we know it ourselves. He would tell you the longest tales,Fritz, if you would only let him. He calls them chronicles--ha, ha!"

  And Sperver, with the wine mounting a little into his head, began tolaugh, he could hardly say why.

  "So then, Gideon, you call this tower, Hugh's tower the Hugh Lupustower?"

  "Haven't I told you so already? What are you so astonished at?"

  "Nothing particular."

  "But you are. I can see it in your face. You are thinking of somethingstrange. What is it?"

  "Oh, never mind! It is not the name of the tower which surprises me. WhatI am wondering at is, how it is that you, an old poacher, who had neverlived anywhere since you were a boy but amongst the fir forests, betweenthe snowy summits of the Wald Horn and the passes of the Rhethal--youwho, during all your prime of life, thought it the finest of fun to laughat the count's gamekeepers, and to scour the mountain paths of theSchwartzwald, and boat the bushes there, and breathe the free air, andbask in the bright sunshine amongst the hills and valleys--here I findyou, at the end of sixteen years of such a life, shut up in this redgranite hole. That is what surprises me and what I cannot understand.Come, Sperver, light your pipe, and tell me all about it."

  The old poacher took out of his leathern jacket a bit of a blackenedpipe; he filled it at his leisure, gathered up in the hollow of his handa live ember, which he placed upon the bowl of his pipe; then with hiseyes dreamily cast up to the ceiling he answered meditatively--

  "Old falcons, gerfalcons, and hawks, when they have long swept theplains, end their lives in a hole in a rock. Sure enough I am fond of thewide expanse of sky and land. I always was fond of it; but instead ofperching by night upon a high branch of a tall tree, rocked by the wind,I now prefer to return to my cavern, to drink a glass, to pick a bone ofvenison, and dry my plumage before a warm fire. The Count of Nideck doesnot disdain Sperver, the old hawk, the true man of the woods. Oneevening, meeting me by moonlight, he frankly said to me, 'Old comrade,you hunt only by night. Come and hunt by day with me. You have a sharpbeak and strong claws. Well, hunt away, if such is your nature; but huntby my licence, for I am the eagle upon these mountains, and my name isNideck!'"

  Sperver was silent a few minutes; then he resumed--

  "That was just what suited me, and now I hunt as I used to do, and Iquietly drink along with a friend my bottle of Affenthal or--"

  At that moment there was a shock that made the door vibrate; Sperverstopped and listened.

  "It is a gust of wind," I said.

  "No, it is something else. Don't you hear the scratching of claws?It is a dog that has escaped. Open, Lieverle, open, Blitzen!" criedthe huntsman, rising; but he had not gone a couple of steps when aformidable-looking hound of the Danish breed broke into the tower, andran to lay his heavy paws on his master's shoulders, licking his beardand his cheeks with his long rose-coloured tongue, uttering all the whileshort barks and yelps expressive of his joy.

  Sperver had passed his arm round the dog's neck, and, turning to me,said--

  "Fritz, what man could love me as this dog does? Do look at this head,these eyes, these teeth!"

  He uncovered the animal's teeth, displaying a set of fangs that wouldhave pulled down and rent a buffalo. Then repelling him with difficulty,for the dog was re-doubling his caresses--

  "Down, Lieverle. I know you love me. If you did not, who would?"

  Never had I seen so tremendous a dog as this Lieverle. His heightattained two feet and a half. He would have been a most formidablecreature in an attack. His forehead was broad, flat, and covered withfine soft hair; his eye was keen, his paws of great length, his sidesand legs a woven mass of muscles and nerves, broad over the back andshoulders, slender and tapering towards the hind legs. But he had noscent. If such monstrous and powerful hou
nds were endowed with the scentof the terrier there would soon be an end of game.

  Sperver had returned to his seat, and was passing his hand overLieverle's massive head with pride, and enumerating to me his excellentqualities.

  Lieverle seemed to understand him.

  "See, Fritz, that dog will throttle a wolf with one snap of his jaws. Forcourage and strength, he is perfection. He is not five years old, but heis in his prime. I need not tell you that he is trained to hunt the boar.Every time we come across a herd of them I tremble for Lieverle; hisattack is too straightforward, he flies on the game as straight as anarrow. That is why I am afraid of the brutes' tusks. Lie down, Lieverle,lie on your back!"

  The dog obeyed, and presented to view his flesh-coloured sides.

  "Look, Fritz, at that long white seam without any hair upon it from underthe thigh right up to the chest. A boar did that. Poor creature! he washolding him fast by the ear and would not let go; we tracked the two bythe blood. I was the first up with them. Seeing my Lieverle I gave ashout, I jumped off my horse, I caught him between my arms, flung himinto my cloak, and brought him home. I was almost beside myself. Happilythe vital parts had not been wounded. I sewed up his belly in spite ofhis howling and yelling, for he suffered fearfully; but in three days hewas already licking his wound, and a dog who licks himself is alreadysaved. You remember that, Lieverle, hey! and aren't we fonder of eachother now than ever?"

  I was quite moved with the affection of the man for that dog, and of thedog for his master; they seemed to look into the very depths of eachother's souls. The dog wagged his tail, and the man had tears in hiseyes.

  Sperver went on--

  "What amazing strength! Do you see, Fritz, he has burst his cord to getto me--a rope of six strands; he found out my track and here he is! Here,Lieverle, catch!"

  And he threw to him the remains of the leg of kid. The jaws opened wideand closed again with a terrible crash, and Sperver, looking at mesignificantly, said--

  "Fritz, if he were to grip you by your breeches you would not get away soeasily!"

  "Nor any one else, I suppose."

  The dog went to stretch himself at his ease full length under themantelshelf with the leg fast between his mighty paws. He began to tearit into pieces. Sperver looked at him out of the corner of his eye withgreat satisfaction. The bone was fast falling into small fragments in thepowerful mill that was crashing it. Lieverle was partial to marrow!

  "Aha! Fritz, if you were requested to fetch that bone away from him, whatwould you say?"

  "I should think it a mission requiring extraordinary delicacy and tact."

  Then we broke out into a hearty laugh, and Sperver, seated in hisleathern easy chair, with his left arm thrown back over his head, one ofhis manly legs over a stool, and the other in front of a huge log, whichwas dripping at its end with the oozing sap, and darted volumes of lightgrey smoke to the roof.

  I was still contemplating the dog, when, suddenly recollecting our brokenconversation, I went on--

  "Now, Sperver, you have not told me everything. When you left the mountainfor the castle was it not on account of the death of Gertrude, your good,excellent wife?"

  Gideon frowned, and a tear dimmed his eye; he drew himself up, andshaking out the ashes of his pipe upon his thumbnail, he said--

  "True, my wife is dead. That drove me from the woods. I could not lookupon the valley of Roche Creuse without pain. I turned my flight in thisdirection: I hunt less in the woods, and I can see it all from higher up,and if by chance the pack tails off in that direction I let them go. Iturn back and try to think of something else."

  Sperver had grown taciturn. With his head drooped upon his breast, hiseyes fixed on the stone floor, he sat silent. I felt sorry to have awokethese melancholy recollections in him. Then, my thoughts once morereturning to the Black Plague grovelling in the snow, I felt a shiveringof horror.

  How strange! just one word had sent us into a train of unhappy thoughts.A whole world of remembrances was called up by a chance.

  I know not how long this silence lasted, when a growl, deep, long, andterrible, like distant thunder, made us start.

  We looked at the dog. The half-gnawed bone was still between hisforepaws, but with head raised high, ears cocked up, and flashing eye,he was listening intently--listening to the silence as it were, and anangry quivering ran down the length of his back.

  Sperver and I fixed on each other anxious eyes; yet there was not asound, not a breath outside, for the wind had gone down; nothing could beheard but the deep protracted growl which came from deep down the chestof the noble hound.

  Suddenly he sprang up and bounded impetuously against the wall with ahoarse, rough bark of fearful loudness. The walls re-echoed just as ifa clap of thunder had rattled the casements.

  Lieverle, with his head low down, seemed to want to see through thegranite, and his lips drawn back from his teeth discovered them to thevery gums, displaying two close rows of fangs white as ivory. Still hegrowled. For a moment he would stop abruptly with his nose snuffing closeto the wall, next the floor, with strong respirations; then he would riseagain in a fresh rage, and with his forepaws seemed as if he would breakthrough the granite.

  We watched in silence without being able to understand what caused hisexcitement.

  Another yell of rage more terrible than the first made us spring from ourseats.

  "Lieverle! what possesses you? Are you going mad?"

  He seized a log and began to sound the wall, which only returned thedead, hard sound of a wall of solid rock. There was no hollow in it; yetthe dog stood in the posture of attack.

  "Decidedly you must have been dreaming bad dreams," said the huntsman."Come, lie down, and don't worry us any more with your nonsense."

  At that moment a noise outside reached our ears. The door opened, and thefat honest countenance of Tobias Offenloch with his lantern in one handand his stick in the other, his three-cornered hat on his head, appeared,smiling and jovial, in the opening.

  "_Salut! l'honorable compagnie!_" he cried as he entered; "what are youdoing here?"

  "It was that rascal Lieverle who made all that row. Just fancy--he sethimself up against that wall as if he smelt a thief. What could he mean?"

  "Why _parbleu_! he heard the dot, dot of my wooden leg, to be sure,stumping up the tower-stairs," answered the jolly fellow, laughing.

  Then setting his lantern on the table--

  "That will teach you, friend Gideon, to tie up your dogs. You arefoolishly weak over your dogs--very foolishly. Those beasts of yourswon't be satisfied till they have put us all out of doors. Just thisminute I met Blitzen in the long gallery: he sprang at my leg--see thereare the marks of his teeth in proof of what I say; and it is quite a newleg--a brute of a hound!"

  "Tie up my dogs! That's rather a new idea," said the huntsman. "Dogs tiedup are good for nothing at all; they grow too wild. Besides, was notLieverle tied up, after all? See his broken cord."

  "What I tell you is not on my own account. When they come near me Ialways hold up my stick and put my wooden leg foremost--that is mydiscipline. I say, dogs in their kennels, cats on the roof, and thepeople in the castle."

  Tobias sat down after thus delivering himself of his sentiments, and withboth elbows on the table, his eyes expanding with delight, he confided tous that just now he was a bachelor.

  "You don't mean that!"

  "Yes, Marie Anne is sitting up with Gertrude in monseigneur's ante-room."

  "Then you are in no hurry to go away?"

  "No, none at all. I should like to stay in your company."

  "How unfortunate that you should have come in so late!" remarked Sperver;"all the bottles are empty."

  The disappointment of the discomfited major-domo excited my compassion.The poor man would so gladly have enjoyed his widowhood. But in spite ofmy endeavours to repress it a long yawn extended wide my mouth.

  "Well, another time," said he, rising. "What is only put off is not givenup."

 
And he took his lantern.

  "Good night, gentlemen."

  "Stop--wait for me," cried Gideon. "I can see Fritz is sleepy; we will godown together."

  "Very gladly, Sperver; on our way we will have a word with Trumpf, thebutler. He is downstairs with the rest, and Knapwurst is telling themtales."

  "All right. Good night, Fritz."

  "Good night, Gideon. Don't forget to send for me if the count is takenworse."

  "I will do as you wish. Lieverle, come."

  They went out, and as they were crossing the platform I could hear theNideck clock strike eleven. I was tired out and soon fell asleep.