The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories
“Don't!” we all said. “Don't go; stay with us. You won't come back.”
“Yes, I will; I give you my word.”
“When? To-night? Say when.”
“It won't be long. You will see.”
“We like you.”
“And I you. And as a proof of it I will show you something fine to see.
Usually when I go I merely vanish; but now I will dissolve myself and
let you see me do it.”
He stood up, and it was quickly finished. He thinned away and thinned
away until he was a soap-bubble, except that he kept his shape. You
could see the bushes through him as clearly as you see things through a
soap-bubble, and all over him played and flashed the delicate iridescent
colors of the bubble, and along with them was that thing shaped like a
window-sash which you always see on the globe of the bubble. You have
seen a bubble strike the carpet and lightly bound along two or
three times before it bursts. He did that. He sprang--touched the
grass--bounded--floated along--touched again--and so on, and presently
exploded--puff! and in his place was vacancy.
It was a strange and beautiful thing to see. We did not say anything,
but sat wondering and dreaming and blinking; and finally Seppi roused up
and said, mournfully sighing:
“I suppose none of it has happened.”
Nikolaus sighed and said about the same.
I was miserable to hear them say it, for it was the same cold fear that
was in my own mind. Then we saw poor old Father Peter wandering along
back, with his head bent down, searching the ground. When he was pretty
close to us he looked up and saw us, and said, “How long have you been
here, boys?”
“A little while, Father.”
“Then it is since I came by, and maybe you can help me. Did you come up
by the path?”
“Yes, Father.”
“That is good. I came the same way. I have lost my wallet. There wasn't
much in it, but a very little is much to me, for it was all I had. I
suppose you haven't seen anything of it?”
“No, Father, but we will help you hunt.”
“It is what I was going to ask you. Why, here it is!”
We hadn't noticed it; yet there it lay, right where Satan stood when
he began to melt--if he did melt and it wasn't a delusion. Father Peter
picked it up and looked very much surprised.
“It is mine,” he said, “but not the contents. This is fat; mine was
flat; mine was light; this is heavy.” He opened it; it was stuffed as
full as it could hold with gold coins. He let us gaze our fill; and
of course we did gaze, for we had never seen so much money at one time
before. All our mouths came open to say “Satan did it!” but nothing
came out. There it was, you see--we couldn't tell what Satan didn't want
told; he had said so himself.
“Boys, did you do this?”
It made us laugh. And it made him laugh, too, as soon as he thought what
a foolish question it was.
“Who has been here?”
Our mouths came open to answer, but stood so for a moment, because
we couldn't say “Nobody,” for it wouldn't be true, and the right word
didn't seem to come; then I thought of the right one, and said it:
“Not a human being.”
“That is so,” said the others, and let their mouths go shut.
“It is not so,” said Father Peter, and looked at us very severely.
“I came by here a while ago, and there was no one here, but that is
nothing; some one has been here since. I don't mean to say that the
person didn't pass here before you came, and I don't mean to say you saw
him, but some one did pass, that I know. On your honor--you saw no one?”
“Not a human being.”
“That is sufficient; I know you are telling me the truth.”
He began to count the money on the path, we on our knees eagerly helping
to stack it in little piles.
“It's eleven hundred ducats odd!” he said. “Oh dear! if it were only
mine--and I need it so!” and his voice broke and his lips quivered.
“It is yours, sir!” we all cried out at once, “every heller!”
“No--it isn't mine. Only four ducats are mine; the rest...!” He fell to
dreaming, poor old soul, and caressing some of the coins in his hands,
and forgot where he was, sitting there on his heels with his old gray
head bare; it was pitiful to see. “No,” he said, waking up, “it isn't
mine. I can't account for it. I think some enemy... it must be a trap.”
Nikolaus said: “Father Peter, with the exception of the astrologer you
haven't a real enemy in the village--nor Marget, either. And not even a
half-enemy that's rich enough to chance eleven hundred ducats to do you
a mean turn. I'll ask you if that's so or not?”
He couldn't get around that argument, and it cheered him up. “But it
isn't mine, you see--it isn't mine, in any case.”
He said it in a wistful way, like a person that wouldn't be sorry, but
glad, if anybody would contradict him.
“It is yours, Father Peter, and we are witness to it. Aren't we, boys?”
“Yes, we are--and we'll stand by it, too.”
“Bless your hearts, you do almost persuade me; you do, indeed. If I
had only a hundred-odd ducats of it! The house is mortgaged for it, and
we've no home for our heads if we don't pay to-morrow. And that four
ducats is all we've got in the--”
“It's yours, every bit of it, and you've got to take it--we are bail
that it's all right. Aren't we, Theodor? Aren't we, Seppi?”
We two said yes, and Nikolaus stuffed the money back into the shabby old
wallet and made the owner take it. So he said he would use two hundred
of it, for his house was good enough security for that, and would put
the rest at interest till the rightful owner came for it; and on our
side we must sign a paper showing how he got the money--a paper to
show to the villagers as proof that he had not got out of his troubles
dishonestly.
Chapter 4
It made immense talk next day, when Father Peter paid Solomon Isaacs in
gold and left the rest of the money with him at interest. Also, there
was a pleasant change; many people called at the house to congratulate
him, and a number of cool old friends became kind and friendly again;
and, to top all, Marget was invited to a party.
And there was no mystery; Father Peter told the whole circumstance just
as it happened, and said he could not account for it, only it was the
plain hand of Providence, so far as he could see.
One or two shook their heads and said privately it looked more like
the hand of Satan; and really that seemed a surprisingly good guess for
ignorant people like that. Some came slyly buzzing around and tried
to coax us boys to come out and “tell the truth;” and promised they
wouldn't ever tell, but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction,
because the whole thing was so curious. They even wanted to buy the
secret, and pay money for it; and if we could have invented something
that would answer--but we couldn't; we hadn't the ingenuity, so we had
to let the chance go by, and it was a pity.
We carried that secret around without any trouble, but the other one,
the big one, the splendid one, burned the very vitals of us, it was so
hot to get out and we so hot to let it out and astonish people with
it. But we had to keep it in; in fact, it kept itself in. Satan said
it would, and it did. We went off every day and got to ourselves in the
woods so that we could talk about Satan, and really that was the only
subject we thought of or cared anything about; and day and night we
watched for him and hoped he would come, and we got more and more
impatient all the time. We hadn't any interest in the other boys any
more, and wouldn't take part in their games and enterprises. They seemed
so tame, after Satan; and their doings so trifling and commonplace after
his adventures in antiquity and the constellations, and his miracles and
meltings and explosions, and all that.
During the first day we were in a state of anxiety on account of one
thing, and we kept going to Father Peter's house on one pretext or
another to keep track of it. That was the gold coin; we were afraid
it would crumble and turn to dust, like fairy money. If it did--But it
didn't. At the end of the day no complaint had been made about it, so
after that we were satisfied that it was real gold, and dropped the
anxiety out of our minds.
There was a question which we wanted to ask Father Peter, and finally
we went there the second evening, a little diffidently, after drawing
straws, and I asked it as casually as I could, though it did not sound
as casual as I wanted, because I didn't know how:
“What is the Moral Sense, sir?”
He looked down, surprised, over his great spectacles, and said, “Why, it
is the faculty which enables us to distinguish good from evil.”
It threw some light, but not a glare, and I was a little disappointed,
also to some degree embarrassed. He was waiting for me to go on, so, in
default of anything else to say, I asked, “Is it valuable?”
“Valuable? Heavens! lad, it is the one thing that lifts man above the
beasts that perish and makes him heir to immortality!”
This did not remind me of anything further to say, so I got out, with
the other boys, and we went away with that indefinite sense you have
often had of being filled but not fatted. They wanted me to explain, but
I was tired.
We passed out through the parlor, and there was Marget at the spinnet
teaching Marie Lueger. So one of the deserting pupils was back; and an
influential one, too; the others would follow. Marget jumped up and
ran and thanked us again, with tears in her eyes--this was the third
time--for saving her and her uncle from being turned into the street,
and we told her again we hadn't done it; but that was her way, she never
could be grateful enough for anything a person did for her; so we let
her have her say. And as we passed through the garden, there was Wilhelm
Meidling sitting there waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of
the evening, and he would be asking Marget to take a walk along the
river with him when she was done with the lesson. He was a young lawyer,
and succeeding fairly well and working his way along, little by little.
He was very fond of Marget, and she of him. He had not deserted along
with the others, but had stood his ground all through. His faithfulness
was not lost on Marget and her uncle. He hadn't so very much talent, but
he was handsome and good, and these are a kind of talents themselves and
help along. He asked us how the lesson was getting along, and we told
him it was about done. And maybe it was so; we didn't know anything
about it, but we judged it would please him, and it did, and didn't cost
us anything.
Chapter 5
On the fourth day comes the astrologer from his crumbling old tower up
the valley, where he had heard the news, I reckon. He had a private talk
with us, and we told him what we could, for we were mightily in dread
of him. He sat there studying and studying awhile to himself; then he
asked:
“How many ducats did you say?”
“Eleven hundred and seven, sir.”
Then he said, as if he were talking to himself: “It is ver-y singular.
Yes... very strange. A curious coincidence.” Then he began to ask
questions, and went over the whole ground from the beginning, we
answering. By and by he said: “Eleven hundred and six ducats. It is a
large sum.”
“Seven,” said Seppi, correcting him.
“Oh, seven, was it? Of course a ducat more or less isn't of consequence,
but you said eleven hundred and six before.”
It would not have been safe for us to say he was mistaken, but we knew
he was. Nikolaus said, “We ask pardon for the mistake, but we meant to
say seven.”
“Oh, it is no matter, lad; it was merely that I noticed the discrepancy.
It is several days, and you cannot be expected to remember precisely.
One is apt to be inexact when there is no particular circumstance to
impress the count upon the memory.”
“But there was one, sir,” said Seppi, eagerly.
“What was it, my son?” asked the astrologer, indifferently.