A Night on the Borders of the Black Forest. Edwards Amelia Ann Blanford
for both.
"We've sat late," said he, with a glance at the clock. "Good night, Karl – good night, Friedrich."
The first brother, whom I judged to be Karl, nodded sulkily. The second muttered a gruff sort of good night. The countrymen lit their pipes, took another long stare at Bergheim and myself, touched their hats, and went away.
The first brother, Karl, who was evidently the master, went out with them, shutting the door with a tremendous bang. The younger, Friedrich, cleared the board, opened a cupboard under the dresser, brought out a loaf of black bread, a lump of voorst, and part of a goat's milk cheese, and then went to fetch the wine. Meanwhile we each drew a chair to the table, and fell to vigorously. When Friedrich returned with the wine, a pleasant smell of broiling ham came in with him through the door.
"You are hungry," he said, looking down at us from under his black brows.
"Ay, and thirsty," replied Gustav, reaching out his hand for the bottle. "Is your wine good?"
The man shrugged his shoulders.
"Drink and judge for yourself," he answered. "It's the best we have."
"Then drink with us," said my companion, good-humouredly, filling a glass and pushing it towards him across the table.
But he shook his head with an ungracious "Nein, nein," and again left the room. The next moment we heard his heavy footfall going to and fro overhead.
"He is preparing our beds," I said. "Are there no women, I wonder, about the place?"
"Well, yes – this looks like one," laughed Bergheim, as the door leading to the inner kitchen again opened, and a big stolid-looking peasant girl came in with a smoking dish of ham and eggs, which she set down before us on the table. "Stop! stop!" he exclaimed, as she turned away. "Don't be in such a hurry, my girl. What is your name?"
She stopped with a bewildered look, but said nothing. Bergheim repeated the question.
"My – my name?" she stammered. "Annchen."
"Good. Then, Annchen" (filling a bumper and draining it at a draught), "I drink to thy health. Wilt thou drink to mine?" And he pointed to the glass poured out for the landlord's brother.
But she only looked at him in the same scared, stupid way, and kept edging away towards the door.
"Let her go," I said. "She is evidently half an idiot."
"She's no idiot to refuse that wine," replied Bergheim, as the door closed after her. "It's the most abominable mixture I ever put inside my lips. Have you tasted it?"
I had not tasted it as yet, and now I would not; so, the elder brother coming back just at that moment, we called for beer.
"Don't you like the wine?" he said, scowling.
"No," replied Bergheim. "Do you? If so you're welcome to the rest of it."
The landlord took up the bottle and held it between his eyes and the lamp.
"Bad as it is," he said, "you've drunk half of it."
"Not I – only one glass, thanks be to Bacchus! There stands the other. Let us have a Schoppen of your best beer – and I hope it will be better than your best wine."
The landlord looked from Bergheim to the glass – from the glass to the bottle. He seemed to be measuring with his eye how much had really been drunk. Then he went to the inner door; called to Friedrich to bring a Schoppen of the Bairisch, and went away, shutting the door after him. From the sound of his footsteps, it seemed to us as if he also was gone upstairs, but into some more distant part of the house. Presently the younger brother reappeared with the beer, placed it before us in silence, and went away as before.
"The most forbidding, disagreeable, uncivil pair I ever saw in my life!" said I.
"They're not fascinating, I admit," said Bergheim, leaning back in his chair with the air of a man whose appetite is somewhat appeased. "I don't know which is the worst – their wine or their manners."
And then he yawned tremendously, and pushed out his plate, which I heaped afresh with ham and eggs. When he had swallowed a few mouthfuls, he leaned his head upon his hand, and declared he was too tired to eat more.
"And yet," he added, "I am still hungry."
"Nonsense!" I said; "eat enough now you are about it. How is the beer?"
He took a pull at the Schoppen.
"Capital," he said. "Now I can go on again."
The next instant he was nodding over his plate.
"I am ashamed to be so stupid," he said, rousing himself presently; "but I am overpowered with fatigue. Let us have the coffee; it will wake me up a bit."
But he had no sooner said this than his chin dropped on his breast, and he was sound asleep.
I did not call for the coffee immediately. I let him sleep, and went on quietly with my supper. Just as I had done, however, the brothers came back together, Friedrich bringing the coffee – two large cups on a tray. The elder, standing by the table, looked down at Bergheim with his unfriendly frown.
"Your friend is tired," he said.
"Yes, he has walked far to-day – much farther than I have."
"Humph! you will be glad to go to bed."
"Indeed we shall. Are our rooms ready?"
"Yes."
I took one of the cups, and put the other beside Bergheim's plate.
"Here, Bergheim," I said, "wake up; the coffee is waiting."
But he slept on, and never heard me.
I then lifted my own cup to my lips – paused – set it down untasted. It had an odd, pungent smell that I did not like.
"What is the matter with it?" I said, "it does not smell like pure coffee."
The brothers exchanged a rapid glance.
"It is the Kirschenwasser," said Karl. "We always put it in our black coffee."
I tasted it, but the flavour of the coffee was quite drowned in that of the coarse, fiery spirit.
"Do you not like it?" asked the younger brother.
"It is very strong," I said.
"But it is very good," replied he; "real Black Forest Kirsch – the best thing in the world, if one is tired after a journey. Drink it off, mein Herr; it is of no use to sip it. It will make you sleep."
This was the longest speech either of them had yet made.
"Thanks," I said, pulling out my cigar-case, "but this stuff is too powerful to be drunk at a draught. I shall make it last out a cigar or two."
"And your friend?"
"He is better without the Kirsch, and may sleep till I am ready to go to bed."
Again they looked at each other.
"You need not sit up," I said impatiently; for it annoyed me, somehow, to have them standing there, one at each side of the table, alternately looking at me and at each other. "I will call the Mädchen to show us to our rooms when we are ready."
"Good," said the elder brother, after a moment's hesitation. "Come, Friedrich."
Friedrich turned at once to follow him, and they both left the room.
I listened. I heard them for awhile moving to and fro in the inner kitchen; then the sound of their double footsteps going up the stairs; then the murmur of their voices somewhere above, yet not exactly overhead; then silence.
I felt more comfortable, now that they were fairly gone, and not likely to return. I breathed more freely. I had disliked the brothers from the first. I had felt uneasy from the moment I crossed their threshold. Nothing, I told myself, should induce me at any time, or under any circumstances, to put up under their roof again.
Pondering thus, I smoked on, and took another sip of the coffee. It was not so hot now, and some of the strength of the spirit had gone off; but under the flavour of the Kirschenwasser I could