Langler

“ I tracked his tread through thicket towards the back of the old manse, till we began to catch sight of a glow of light emanating from a casement behind, and a moment later Langler whispered me: "There, you see, is the growth of vetch."
Five feet farther, and from an angle of a lean-to, we could peer through ivy and rose-bush into a lighted room: in it were Baron Kolár and Dr Burton, standing. Langler laid hold of my arm, and we stood breathless, looking. ”

“ Langler, of course, was quite out of tune with us all at the moment, and he could not perhaps observe the look of our faces, for the night was dark.
As I touched his arm he spun round, saying: "ah, Arthur," and I remember how his tone of the world, his cigar, shocked me: he seemed to me a grosser being than we. I wished to say to him: "Hush! the earth is holy ground." ”

“ But do not trouble your head about any such questions at all: just sign me that paper now."
"I regret that I do not quite see with you, Baron Kolár," answered Langler stiffly, with downcast eyes, while I, wooing at his ear, whispered, "ah, but Emily, Aubrey, you forget!"
"But will he not sign?" asked the baron.
"No, sir," said Langler.
Baron Kolár groaned.
"It seems a pity, Mr Langler," he said, "that you are quite so gallant a man. Nature, after all, is a cannibal tigress that devours her fairest offspring...." ”

“ Well, what happened that day is tedious to me to tell, and shall be told shortly: first, I saw Langler in head-to-head talk with Lossow, our host, who, though very friendly with us, had never yet let one word of Dees' history escape his lips; then after all the talk, the head-noddings, the finger-countings, I saw Langler giving money—a good mass of it, too—and I thought to myself: "what, has it become a question already of bribing the 'good people'? the disillusionment will grow!" ”

“ Early the following morning Langler and I had pretty sharp difference of opinion at my bedside. I said to him: "Dees' own view of what is good for himself is naturally worth more than yours or mine: a file is what he says that he wants, and I believe that we can still get it to him if we act now before the boat is found."
"The boat may have already been found," said Langler.
"Possibly," said I; "but no doubt the rumour will take some time to get into the castle, so that if we act boldly at once, taking the ladder here, we may get the file to Dees." ”

“ It came toward me along the cliff-edge, and I had a thought of shooting, for a weapon was in my trousers pocket, when I became aware of Langler!—a surprising thing, seeing that he had arranged not to climb. He stooped to my ear, panting, "is he there?" "Yes," I whispered, "but to what have you made fast the boat?" "Gott, speak low," came in agony from the window-bars. "I made her fast to the ladder," whispered Langler, "have you seen him?" "One can't now, go back," I whispered. "We should see him," he whispered, "so as to be able——" "It is all right; go back," I whispered, "no! no! ”

“ I heard Langler ask; and I heard Baron Kolár answer: "one is a poison, the other is harmless; choose one, sir, and I will have the other."
"But if I chance to choose the harmless one," Langler next said, "I become the cause of the death of a most magnanimous man, Baron Kolár."
"Of a most rash and foolhardy man, sir," was Baron Kolár's answer; "but choose quickly, I charge you, sir."
"But, baron——" I heard Langler say.
"Do not delay! or I dash the cursed pills to the ground!" I now heard Baron Kolár cry out: "your chance to serve your sister and madman Church vanishes in two ticks of my watch!" ”

“ But stay; I have to ask you a question, baron."
He had stood still; we all stood still, and Langler and the baron faced each other.
"Well, then," said the baron gravely, eyeing Langler up and down.
Langler, I must say, was paler than usual. He said: "I have lately had reason to run my eyes down a list of the Styrian nobility, baron, and find that three several Styrian barons have the name of 'Gregor'—you being one. Are you acquainted with the other two?"
"Well, yes," was the answer: "one is a Strass, the other a Dirnbach; easy, good fellows they are. ”

“ Langler was not well, and complained of a pain in the heart. He was, indeed, very deeply hurt, and said to me with a meekness that made my heart ache: "I shall never again act against your judgment, Arthur, in such a matter. Oh, I thought men nobler, and the gods less niggard." It was useless to go to bed, for I never heard such a racket, the wind was rough, and the crew of peasants, who had gone away only for a time, were below, since drink already reckoned for was to be had that night. ”

“ Langler's gash proved grave, for he could not put on his boot, so after our good sennerin had bandaged it up there we sat for hours before the longish shed which was the sennhaus, drinking goat's milk, smoking porcelain pipes, and looking toward the summer snow on the top of high Hochgolling.
"Pity we ever went into the water," said Langler as we sat there disabled and the afternoon sun sank low: "we have lost a day, and through me, I'm afraid."
"Bad luck," said I, "not your fault."
"We are such tools of Nature!" ”

“ It was Miss Langler whom I saw; but she, for her part, did not see, or at least heed, me at all, nor make any attempt to escape, but continued to trot round, panting towards some bourn in a heavy haste, made heavier by the large hat that she wore, and by the velvet of a violet hue that voluminously clothed her, some of which she carried over her arm that she might the handier hurry. That print of Gainsborough's "Duchess" in her large gown over the pyx, if it had stepped down from its frame to run and run, could hardly have more resembled her. ”

“ How do you dare to say now that Miss Langler's frailty is any fault of mine, when it is wholly your own? I was devoting myself to the welfare of men, seeing clearly, knowing clearly, what I did, for as the heavens are high above the earth, just so, I suppose, are my thoughts larger than your thoughts, and you dared to meddle with me. I ought to see you shot now like two dogs, I assure you. Why should I take my useful life down into the darkness of death in order to save pedants like you, or to spare a woman's feelings? ”

“ We accordingly returned to Swandale from Goodford on the Thursday morning. But something of the old Sabbath was soon known now to have departed from our habit of life in the cottage, for the roar of the age reached even into our cloister, hampering the mood of that old world which we wished to inhabit. The very servants had new looks of unrest. Langler smiled doggedly, but was as one who ruminates bitterish herbage. He was much alone, questioning the oracles in the dells or in his study; and Miss Emily and I were much with each other. ”

“ Langler, let me repeat here, was a man of some luck in prophecy; and though those bells of Ritching, which he said that we then listened to for about "the last time," were about to clash over Europe carillons of summons, shaking the hearts of men, yet even here, it will be said, he was not quite at fault: for death more often than not is forerun by this very kind of flickering: slow decay, then a rage and show of life, then the end and darkness—that appears to be the way. ”

“ I asked Langler if he had been able to do anything for the captive, Father Max Dees; he puffed at his pipe several times before replying, and then said: "Father Max Dees is becoming too interesting, Arthur—so much so that he threatens to overwhelm my interest in all life outside himself. How if I tell you that this man, so remote from me and mine, speaking with me from afar by a bird, now seems connected in some way with the disappearance of Robinson?" ”

“ I could not help saying: "modern Christianity in the modern village does not thrive"; but at once I was sorry for having said anything, for neither the one nor the other answered me.
Only after some time Langler said: "still, the martyrs, dying for it, lifted up their eyes, and saw heaven open. But now, you see, it has come to this." I heard him murmur to himself: "And now I am happy all the day...."
Miss Emily, who had hurried on a little ahead, now vanished into a cottage into which Langler and I presently followed her. ”

“ I said, "nobody any longer cares, Emily."
"Unhappily," sighed Langler.
And, like an echo, there came from Miss Emily, who had not heard him: "unhappily!"
"But observe," I said, "that this whole Canterbury gaudery remains illegal, for I have yet to hear that the Act of Uniformity has been repealed. Wouldn't the civil power be competent, if it chose, to take action against someone?"
"I think so," replied Langler, "if the civil power were not far too deeply indifferent to what takes place in Canterbury to rake up against it old laws which have become academic. ”

“ Langler said: "thank you, baron, I will think over what you have said." And he walked away to the house.
It was only after two or three minutes of silence that the baron said to me: "your friend is one of the brightest minds in the world, really as extraordinary a fellow as I ever met, I assure you. No one with any respect for intellect could avoid liking him. But he is a man of books, he is of the scholar type, he is not a man of action—oh no. A scholar should never jog himself into antagonism with a man of action. ”

“ I whispered, edging nearer to Langler, but he stood white, inflexible. "There is no occasion for anyone to die," he said, with lowered lids: "let Baron Kolár be silent as to the miracles being none, and I, too, will be silent; but if they be bruited abroad as the work of churchmen, then, I shall not fail, if I have life and liberty, to declare that, on the contrary, they are the work of Baron Kolár." ”

“ Several times he was stopped by the ribald Herr Voss or Huss waving the broomstick, and whooping some such cry as "on to the burg, you clowns! let's souse old Tschudi in the river-water!"
"Well, now," said Langler, "let us go: all of us together: with the fixed purpose not to leave the castle without bringing back our poor prisoner with us. We will carry no weapon in our hands, no, yet we shall be great in power. Let us go; and I shall go in front, and my friend here, too, will come, to strengthen us." ”

“ Langler said then to me in a low voice: "Arthur, to me it is very touching, such a scene; that Goodford church always reminds me of Bemerton, where George Herbert walked and talked with his Lord, and on the whole, what a language do they speak, those spires, those bells, how noble an expression of men's noblest thoughts of this world through twenty ages! One knows that for the new phasis of the world the old expression will not do ”

“ What exactly was the matter I can't quite tell; we had always endeavoured to be brave men, and no particular peril now menaced; but that night our spirits caught affrights one from the other; we both seem to have had the boding that we were about to taste of death; the grave, being, the mountains, grew too hugely gruesome for us, the womb of gloom brought forth awe—somehow we were unhinged. It was Langler perhaps who openly began it. ”

“ We wound the north way out of Swandale by a path where we had to walk in single file through aftermath, Langler going first, Miss Emily behind, and as I in the middle reached my hand backward to relieve her of the basket my fingers happened to meet her palm, Langler then talking about Robinson, though at the time I hardly heeded him; he said, however: "if ever midnight darkened with sudden disaster upon the life of any man, surely it was upon this poor fellow. He was an easy, good chap, this Robinson. You knew him, Arthur. What a beauty of mild, large eye was his, and dark-curling beard! ”

“ Once when Miss Emily left the room, Langler seemed only to have waited for this in order to say to the Misses Chambers: "I am on the very verge of a voyage to Styria."
"Styria!" they said together.
"What, is Styria so remote?" asked Langler, leaning forward with a quizzing look. "I didn't say China, I said Styria—a two days' journey by the new rail-trains, with 'every luxury' en route! ”

“ Now, piety was "the rage" in France, and one day in France was quite long enough to turn Langler qualmish against the words "male and female Christian," ever chattered everywhere. At Charleville, when we returned to our hotel from our stroll, a lively little maid with flaxen curls would have us look at her first-communion veil, her paroissien, and suchlike pious gems, remarking meanwhile: "is it not soft and nice, sir, to be a female Christian—n'est-ce pas, monsieur, que c'est doux et bon d'être crétienne?" To which Langler replied: "I only hope so: moi je suis crétien." ”

“ It was at that moment that a thing new, I think, to Swandale took place—a spark of anger, a flush of the cheek: for Miss Emily, tossing the telegram aside even as she read it, let the heated words escape her: "oh, I am like Baron Kolár: I don't believe in miracles"; and then for the first time I saw Langler look with reproof at his sister. ”

“ I murmured; "we can't escape them."
"True," he answered; "life is a sterner dreaming than dreams, but surely a diviner; and in His plan be our good."
"Well, then," said I, "this being so, what I, for myself, propose to do now is to write a letter to the Styrian authorities, stating what I know of Father Max Dees, and giving hints as to the place of his imprisonment, without breaking any law of libel. Dees may thus be liberated; whereupon, if he knows anything of a plot, he will divulge it."
"Well, we might think that over," said Langler, "and see if we find it to be our duty." ”