Henry Mayhew

“ Helen Boyne was too weak to be able to move from the carriage, for she felt that if she attempted to rise from it she must stagger like one after a long fever; nor could she even give heed to the crowd that kept shuffling along in their high fur-boots and clumsy felt over-shoes, that made them seem like so many gouty old gentlemen. ”

“ One word of what has passed in this carriage before a month has elapsed, and you shall feel the vengeance of a man driven to desperation by his crimes. Swear secresy again,” he raved on, “ere I leave you, for my time is just up. Swear it with your right hand on your bosom, as is the custom with women in Germany. Thus, girl,” and with the words he forced her palm rudely on her breast.
“I do, I do,” murmured Helen Boyne, ready to comply with any request to be quit of the fellow. ”

“ And when the man had lowered the hand in which he held the weapon, and thrust his grisly chin forward towards her, the girl shuddered from head to foot when she laid hold of the end of the ugly red beard. As she raised the scissors in her hand, her first thought was, “What if I stab the wretch in the throat with them?” But she paused for a moment in the frenzy of the thought, and the cunning ruffian, half guessing what was passing through the girl’s mind, raised the hateful pistol once more,—a movement so significant, that it quickly caused her to cast aside all ideas of vengeance. ”

“ What wonder then that the damsel with eyes as full of fire as those of a blood-horse, should at one moment be levelling a pistol at a ruffian’s head, and threatening to shoot him down if he moved a step towards her—as though she were some Amazonic young lady in a penny romance of thrilling interest—and the next minute be crouching with the acutest fear, like a well-beaten spaniel at the feet of its master. ”

“ So give me your solemn oath that you will not breathe a word nor give so much as a hint to the officials at Cassel as to the description of your fellow-traveller, or whither he was going, or what he had compelled you to do.”
Helen saw by the determined manner of her companion that there was no hope for her but to give the solemn promise he demanded of her, so she murmured, as distinctly as she could, owing to the fright that still possessed her, for she saw the man’s finger was once more on the trigger of the revolver which he held in his hand, “You have nothing to fear from me, sir.” ”

“ Helen Boyne paused for a minute as she almost foresaw the ugly boon the fellow was about to seek of her, and then stammered out:
“I shall be happy to do anything I can to oblige a fellow-traveller; but I must beg of you to remember that I am a young lady and unfortunately an unprotected one also, and therefore I entreat of you, as a gentleman, not to request me to do anything which I cannot consent to do with propriety.”
“Oh, don’t be alarmed, Fraulein,” blurted out the other, “I am harmless enough if you take me the right way. All I want of you is to cut my beard and whiskers clean off.” ”

“ The manner of the stranger was so peculiar, and there was such a restlessness about his eyes that the guard could not help saying before pulling the window up again, “Is this gentleman annoying you, madame?”
Helen Boyne could not answer the question in the affirmative. It is true she objected to the man’s company; then she was too polite-minded a girl to ask for his removal from the carriage on that account, for she felt it would be casting a stigma upon him that he in no way deserved. ”

“ Why should he be bent on removing every bit of hair from his head and face, and that at a time when the snow lay deep upon the ground, and the frost glistened, like ground-glass, upon every window-pane? ”

“ If Helen Boyne had had any doubts of the man’s sanity before, she was now fully convinced that her fellow traveller was nothing less than a confirmed maniac—no decent person of sound understanding would be guilty of such impropriety in the presence of an unprotected young lady. ”

“ Why, too, should he have forced her to cut the locks from him, when in a short while he could have had it done in Cassel by a proper person? Oh, yes, there was no other solution to the riddle but insanity—some wild sudden caprice that the miserable deranged creature had no power to resist.” But the maiden’s reverie was soon put an end to by the man asking her, as he let down the window to toss to the wind the lumps of hair that lay heaped at the bottom of the carriage, saying, the while, “What on earth do you take me for, Fraulein?” ”

“ Then there is the young and sharp-witted Professor H., whose features remind one somewhat of Louis Napoleon, and who, like the French Emperor, has been the architect of his own fortunes, for, though not a man of the schools, he has taught himself to make what he delights to call the finest microscopes in Europe, and is famed all over Germany for his splendid illustrations of the polarisation of light by means of the oxyhydrogen apparatus. ”

“ Some tell me,” she added, “that in the third class a young lady is less liable to meet with insult, because the carriages there are undivided into compartments, and some one is certain to be present to protect her.”
“For myself,” said Professor H——, “I travel some thousands of miles by rail regularly every year, and I never knew an instance of any female having been rudely treated, but then I always take a second-class ticket; and you know, Madame Steindorf, our second-class carriages are as good as your first, and the company one meets in them quite as respectable.” ”

“ For he is “the best of all good company,” and has always a good tale to tell, either of the ghosts he has himself seen up at the Wartburg, or else some pretty Thuringian legend to narrate, or one of his last clever little sketches to show; for the Major paints as tastily as he sings, and his old Thuringian songs, when accompanied by himself on the “zitter,” the national instrument of the country, are things quite unique, as well for the gracefulness of the execution as for the quaintness of the simple ditties. Nor are ladies, at such a time, entirely absent from the company ”

“ She could hardly be called a young widow, though on the other hand she was many years below the middle age of life, and there was a kind of statuesque character about her features which, though it had grown into somewhat of a masculine style as she had advanced in years, was still sufficient to assure the beholder that she must have possessed no slight beauty when the face was rounder and the cheeks plumper and rosier with the charms of youth. ”

“ The reason of this was that the girl had a pair of most remarkable full black eyes—too lustrous and large indeed for anything like regular beauty, but still so full of fire and so penetrating, that they were as fascinating as those of the rattle-snake are said to be; so that a stranger, however well-bred, could hardly help staring at her. ”

“ When the almonds and raisins, the “sand-cake,” the meringues, had been handed round, and the other ladies had taken their bonnets and cloaks from the hat-stand and had slipped on their felt over-shoes to guard against falling in the snow, previous to making their bow before leaving the company at the table, Madame Steindorf drew her chair towards the gentlemen at the upper end of the room, and said, in German, as the waiter deposited the silver spirit-lamp on the table for the smokers to light their cigars. ”

“ Hotel in the little town of Eisenach, which, though no bigger than Hampstead, is one of the principal “Residenz” cities belonging to the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and famous for the neighbouring Castle of the Wartburg, where Martin Luther wrote his translation of the Bible, while secreted within its walls under the disguise of “Younker George,”—the table d’hôte, we say, at the best hotel of this tiny Saxon capital is an agreeable scene at all times of the year. It is agreeable enough in the season when visitors swarm thither like swallows from other climes ”

“ Men in my desperate condition stick at nothing, and I can tell you that in the mood that’s on me I’m ready to sacrifice everything—truth, honesty—ay, and even human life if necessary, to get clear away. ”

“ You had but to meet her and converse with her occasionally to find out ere long that the peculiar characteristic of her mind was worldly prudence; and one could soon see that she was distinguished by all that scrupulous care of young women which is so marked an attribute of the Irish character, and which makes the chastity of the females of that nation famous over all the world. The younger cousin was so unlike the elder one, that it was difficult to imagine any tie of kindred to exist between them. ”

“ How fluently she passes from one language to another! Now she is speaking French, and excellent French, too, with the accomplished Commandant; now she is talking English with the two worthy Scotch ladies next her, and now she converses in German with the Baron von H. concerning the studies and quickness of his little grandchildren. There is also a slight sprinkling of English ladies at the table, for, though the British inhabitants in the town hardly exceed half a dozen, the greater part of these meet regularly at the table d’hôte. ”

“ As usual, the guard made his appearance in a few minutes, to tell the young lady that the train stops for a considerable time at this station, and immediately Helen saw the welcome form of the official she said, in a faint voice, “I have a ticket for Harburg, can I stay here the night, for indeed I am too ill to go on?”
“If the Fraulein will walk with me to the office, I will arrange it for her,” replied the guard.
“Indeed I cannot; I am too weak and ill. ”

“ Her father had been assassinated in Ireland when she was but a mere child, and her mother, who had never recovered the shock of her husband’s death, died but a year or two afterwards, so that she had been left an orphan long before her school-days were over. Her mother’s sister had then received her under her roof, and had the girl educated for a governess, in which capacity her own daughter—before her marriage to Herr Steindorf—was then acting in an English family resident abroad. ”

“ CHAPTER II. IN WHICH THE TRAVELLER MEETS A STRANGE GENTLEMAN.
Almost as soon as it was light the next morning the two cousins were wending their way along the snowy streets of Eisenach towards the railway station, with their German maidservant in advance of them, carrying the young lady’s heavy trunk on the chiffonnier-like basket that was strapped to her back. The bells at the doors of the chandlers’ shops kept tinkling with the demand for “schnapps” by the men on their way to work as the couple passed along. ”

“ But the sight of that little mild persuader there may bring you to your senses;” and then rose to put his carpet-bag up in the netting over his head. As he did so his back was turned towards the girl but for an instant, and in that instant Helen Boyne darted forward, and snatching at the pistol that lay on the cushion, rushed with it in her hand to the opposite corner of the carriage, and there she stood with her back against the door, with her arm outstretched and the muzzle of the revolver directed point blank at her adversary ”

“ True, again, the meat, owing to its having been all boiled for soup before being baked to do duty as a roast joint, has no more flavour left in it than in a mouthful of papermaker’s pulp, so that one really has to inquire whether it be stag or roebuck, or goose, pork, beef, or veal that we are eating ”

“ Do you see, simple one?” and the girl cowered her head as far back as she could, while the fellow patted her under the chin as he said: “Come, Miss Hasty, will you trim my locks for me, now?”
CHAPTER III. A STRANGE ADVENTURE.
Helen Boyne was, as we have before said, a strange, contradictory instance of the combination of the two opposite qualities: an utter want of nerve on certain occasions, and a marvellous strength of nerve upon others; for silly little coward as she was at one time, she could still play the heroine even to the extravagance of melodramatic action at another. ”