Debts of Honor | Page 7

behind the hay-wagon.
My brother uncovered his head, and so proceeded on his way
bareheaded; he said he was very warm. We walked silently for a
distance until the old laborer came back to us.
"Not tired, Master Desi?" he asked; "you might take a seat on the cart."
"What are you thinking of, John?" said Lorand; "on this cart?"

"True; true, indeed," said the aged servant. Then he quietly crossed
himself, and went forward to the oxen.
When we came near the village, old John again came toward us.
"It will be better now if the young gentlemen go home through the
gardens; it will be much easier for me to get through the village alone."
"Do you think they are still on guard?" asked Lorand.
"Of course they know already. One cannot take it amiss; the poor
fellows have twice in ten years had their hedges broken down by the
hail."
"Stupidity!" answered my brother.
"May be," sighed the old serving-man. "Still the poor man thinks so."
Lorand nudged the old retainer so that he would not speak before me.
My brain became only more confused thereat.
Lorand told him that we would soon pass through the gardens; however,
after John had advanced a good distance with the cart we followed in
his tracks again, keeping steadily on until we came to the first row of
houses beginning the village. Here my brother began to thread his way
more cautiously, and in the dark I heard distinctly the click of the
trigger as he cocked his gun.
The cart proceeded quietly before us to the end of the long village
street.
Above the workhouse about six men armed with pitchforks met us.
My brother said we must make our way behind a hedge, and bade me
hold our dog's mouth lest he should bark when the others passed.
The pitchforked guards passed near the cart, and advanced before us
too. I heard how the one said to the other:

"Faith, that is the reason this cursed wind is blowing so furiously!"
"That" was the reason! What was the reason?
As they passed, my brother took my hand and said: "Now let us hasten,
that we may be home before the wagon."
Therewith he ran with me across a long cottage-court, lifted me over a
hedge, climbing after me himself; then through two or three more
strange gardens, everywhere stepping over the hedges; and at last we
reached our own garden.
But, in Heaven's name, had we committed some sin, that we ran thus,
skulking from hiding-place to hiding-place?
As we reached the courtyard, the wagon was just entering. Three
retainers waited for it in the yard, and immediately closed the gate after
it.
Grandmother stood outside on the terrace and kissed us when we
arrived.
Again there followed a short whispering between my brother and the
domestics; whereupon the latter seized pitchforks and began to toss
down the hay from the wain.
Could they not do so by daylight?
Grandmother sat down on a bench on the terrace, and drew my head to
her bosom. Lorand leaned his elbows upon the rail of the terrace and
watched the work.
The hay was tossed into a heap and the high wind drove the chaff on to
the terrace, but no one told the servants to be more careful.
This midnight work was, for me, so mysterious.
Only once I saw that Lorand turned round as he stood, and began to
weep; thereupon grandmother rose, and they fell each upon the other's

breast.
I clutched their garments and gazed up at them trembling. Not a single
lamp burned upon the terrace.
"Sh!" whispered grandmother, "don't weep so loudly," she was herself
choking with sobs. "Come, let us go."
With that she took my hand, and, leaning upon my brother's arm, came
down with us into the courtyard, down to the wagon, which stood
before the garden gate. Two or more heaps of straw hid it from the eye;
it was visible only when we reached the bottom of the wagon.
On that wagon lay the coffin of my father.
So this it was that in the dead of night we had stealthily brought into
the village, that we had in so skulking a manner escorted, and had so
concealed; and of which we had spoken in whispers. This it was that
we had wept over in secret--my father's coffin. The four retainers lifted
it from the wagon, then carried it on their shoulders toward the garden.
We went after it, with bared heads and silent tongues.
A tiny rivulet flowed through our garden; near this rivulet was a little
round building, whose gaudy door I had never seen open.
From my earliest days, when I was unable to rise from the ground if