Three More John Silence Stories Read online

heart.

  "There's the hot, white road we walked along so often with the twoBrueder always at our heels," he thought; "and there, by Jove, is theturn through the forest to '_Die Galgen_,' the stone gallows where theyhanged the witches in olden days!"

  He smiled a little as the train slid past.

  "And there's the copse where the Lilies of the Valley powdered theground in spring; and, I swear,"--he put his head out with a suddenimpulse--"if that's not the very clearing where Calame, the French boy,chased the swallow-tail with me, and Bruder Pagel gave us half-rationsfor leaving the road without permission, and for shouting in our mothertongues!" And he laughed again as the memories came back with a rush,flooding his mind with vivid detail.

  The train stopped, and he stood on the grey gravel platform like a manin a dream. It seemed half a century since he last waited there withcorded wooden boxes, and got into the train for Strassbourg and homeafter the two years' exile. Time dropped from him like an old garmentand he felt a boy again. Only, things looked so much smaller than hismemory of them; shrunk and dwindled they looked, and the distancesseemed on a curiously smaller scale.

  He made his way across the road to the little Gasthaus, and, as he went,faces and figures of former schoolfellows,--German, Swiss, Italian,French, Russian,--slipped out of the shadowy woods and silentlyaccompanied him. They flitted by his side, raising their eyesquestioningly, sadly, to his. But their names he had forgotten. Some ofthe Brothers, too, came with them, and most of these he remembered byname--Bruder Roest, Bruder Pagel, Bruder Schliemann, and the bearded faceof the old preacher who had seen himself in the haunted gallery of thoseabout to die--Bruder Gysin. The dark forest lay all about him like a seathat any moment might rush with velvet waves upon the scene and sweepall the faces away. The air was cool and wonderfully fragrant, but withevery perfumed breath came also a pallid memory....

  Yet, in spite of the underlying sadness inseparable from such anexperience, it was all very interesting, and held a pleasure peculiarlyits own, so that Harris engaged his room and ordered supper feeling wellpleased with himself, and intending to walk up to the old school thatvery evening. It stood in the centre of the community's village, somefour miles distant through the forest, and he now recollected for thefirst time that this little Protestant settlement dwelt isolated in asection of the country that was otherwise Catholic. Crucifixes andshrines surrounded the clearing like the sentries of a beleagueringarmy. Once beyond the square of the village, with its few acres of fieldand orchard, the forest crowded up in solid phalanxes, and beyond therim of trees began the country that was ruled by the priests of anotherfaith. He vaguely remembered, too, that the Catholics had showedsometimes a certain hostility towards the little Protestant oasis thatflourished so quietly and benignly in their midst. He had quiteforgotten this. How trumpery it all seemed now with his wide experienceof life and his knowledge of other countries and the great outsideworld. It was like stepping back, not thirty years, but three hundred.

  There were only two others besides himself at supper. One of them, abearded, middle-aged man in tweeds, sat by himself at the far end, andHarris kept out of his way because he was English. He feared he might bein business, possibly even in the silk business, and that he wouldperhaps talk on the subject. The other traveller, however, was aCatholic priest. He was a little man who ate his salad with a knife, yetso gently that it was almost inoffensive, and it was the sight of "thecloth" that recalled his memory of the old antagonism. Harris mentionedby way of conversation the object of his sentimental journey, and thepriest looked up sharply at him with raised eyebrows and an expressionof surprise and suspicion that somehow piqued him. He ascribed it to hisdifference of belief.

  "Yes," went on the silk merchant, pleased to talk of what his mind wasso full, "and it was a curious experience for an English boy to bedropped down into a school of a hundred foreigners. I well remember theloneliness and intolerable Heimweh of it at first." His German was veryfluent.

  The priest opposite looked up from his cold veal and potato salad andsmiled. It was a nice face. He explained quietly that he did not belonghere, but was making a tour of the parishes of Wurttemberg and Baden.

  "It was a strict life," added Harris. "We English, I remember, used tocall it _Gefaengnisleben_--prison life!"

  The face of the other, for some unaccountable reason, darkened. After aslight pause, and more by way of politeness than because he wished tocontinue the subject, he said quietly--

  "It was a flourishing school in those days, of course. Afterwards, Ihave heard--" He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and the odd look--italmost seemed a look of alarm--came back into his eyes. The sentenceremained unfinished.

  Something in the tone of the man seemed to his listener uncalled for--ina sense reproachful, singular. Harris bridled in spite of himself.

  "It has changed?" he asked. "I can hardly believe--"

  "You have not heard, then?" observed the priest gently, making a gestureas though to cross himself, yet not actually completing it. "You havenot heard what happened there before it was abandoned--?"

  It was very childish, of course, and perhaps he was overtired andoverwrought in some way, but the words and manner of the little priestseemed to him so offensive--so disproportionately offensive--that hehardly noticed the concluding sentence. He recalled the old bitternessand the old antagonism, and for a moment he almost lost his temper.

  "Nonsense," he interrupted with a forced laugh, "_Unsinn_! You mustforgive me, sir, for contradicting you. But I was a pupil there myself.I was at school there. There was no place like it. I cannot believe thatanything serious could have happened to--to take away its character. Thedevotion of the Brothers would be difficult to equal anywhere--"

  He broke off suddenly, realising that his voice had been raised undulyand that the man at the far end of the table might understand German;and at the same moment he looked up and saw that this individual's eyeswere fixed upon his face intently. They were peculiarly bright. Alsothey were rather wonderful eyes, and the way they met his own served insome way he could not understand to convey both a reproach and awarning. The whole face of the stranger, indeed, made a vivid impressionupon him, for it was a face, he now noticed for the first time, in whosepresence one would not willingly have said or done anything unworthy.Harris could not explain to himself how it was he had not becomeconscious sooner of its presence.

  But he could have bitten off his tongue for having so far forgottenhimself. The little priest lapsed into silence. Only once he said,looking up and speaking in a low voice that was not intended to beoverheard, but that evidently _was_ overheard, "You will find itdifferent." Presently he rose and left the table with a polite bow thatincluded both the others.

  And, after him, from the far end rose also the figure in the tweed suit,leaving Harris by himself.

  He sat on for a bit in the darkening room, sipping his coffee andsmoking his fifteen-pfennig cigar, till the girl came in to light theoil lamps. He felt vexed with himself for his lapse from good manners,yet hardly able to account for it. Most likely, he reflected, he hadbeen annoyed because the priest had unintentionally changed the pleasantcharacter of his dream by introducing a jarring note. Later he must seekan opportunity to make amends. At present, however, he was too impatientfor his walk to the school, and he took his stick and hat and passed outinto the open air.

  And, as he crossed before the Gasthaus, he noticed that the priest andthe man in the tweed suit were engaged already in such deep conversationthat they hardly noticed him as he passed and raised his hat.

  He started off briskly, well remembering the way, and hoping to reachthe village in time to have a word with one of the Brueder. They mighteven ask him in for a cup of coffee. He felt sure of his welcome, andthe old memories were in full possession once more. The hour of returnwas a matter of no consequence whatever.

  It was then just after seven o'clock, and the October evening wasdrawing in with chill airs from the recesses of the forest. The roadplunged strai
ght from the railway clearing into its depths, and in avery few minutes the trees engulfed him and the clack of his boots felldead and echoless against the serried stems of a million firs. It wasvery black; one trunk was hardly distinguishable from another. He walkedsmartly, swinging his holly stick. Once or twice he passed a peasant onhis way to bed, and the guttural "Gruss Got," unheard for so long,emphasised the passage of time, while yet making it seem as nothing. Afresh group of pictures crowded his mind. Again the figures of formerschoolfellows flitted out of the forest and kept pace by his side,whispering of the doings of long ago. One reverie stepped hard upon theheels of another. Every turn in the road, every clearing of the forest,he knew, and each in turn brought forgotten associations to life. Heenjoyed himself thoroughly.

  He marched on and on. There was powdered gold in the sky