Chapter XXXVI: The Iron Works

IN a few days, Hildegarde, the children, and Hamilton were established at the Iron Works; her recollections proved tolerably correct, the noise of the hammers was almost incessant, not even ceasing during the night, and as the house adjoined the Iron Works, it shook at times until the windows rattled. Hamilton did not much notice the white curtains, but from pure sympathy with Hildegarde, he regretted the smuts which fell, flake-like, in the garden, and seemed destined to rob the coming flowers of half their beauty. Old Mr. Eisenmann was not a little proud of his garden, and great was his satisfaction when he found Hildegarde willing to assist him in cultivating it. The plants which most interested Hamilton were the numerous cactuses which filled all the windows in front of the house, and whose brilliant flowers already made every passer-by stop to gaze at them. Nothing could equal the old man’s delight on such occasions; if the weather were warm enough, he generally opened the window and related how he had managed his plants during the winter, in order to make them blow so early, and it had been Hamilton’s unaffected admiration of these cactuses, as he had walked up to the house, which had formed the commencement of their acquaintance.

During the fortnight which preceded Madame Rosenberg’s arrival, Hamilton enjoyed the most unrestrained intercourse with Hildegarde; he watched her making the coffee in the morning, sat beside her at the open window looking into the garden, and accompanied her in her walks with her brothers in the oak wood; here there was a small chapel in which she daily prayed, while Hamilton, leaning against the entrance, stared absently at the votive offerings hung around, or endeavoured to decipher the old German prayers, and texts of Scripture, with which their inhuman illustrations were pasted on the walls. The two boys generally scampered about, but joined them when they sat down on one of the numerous benches under the trees. Hamilton usually held a book in his hand, out of which he sometimes read a few lines, especially when any obtrusive wanderers made their appearance, though on week-days, pilgrims to the little chapel, who afterwards came to beg a few _kreutzers_, were the only interrupters of their studies, meditations, or conversation, as the case may have been.

“I wish,” he said, as they loitered through the fields on their way home, the evening before Madame Rosenberg’s arrival, “I wish I were certain of spending the next six months as I have done the last fortnight. I cannot tell you how I have enjoyed myself. Much as I like your step-mother, and notwithstanding all her kindness and indulgence to me, I dread her coming more than I can express. Everything will be changed, and any change must diminish my happiness.”

“You have nothing to apprehend but a removal of the furniture in your room,” replied Hildegarde, with a quiet smile; “but I cannot expect any longer to eat the bread of idleness; I must learn to cook, and wash, and iron!”

“You will never be able to endure such work,” exclaimed Hamilton.

“I shall try it for a few months at all events, and as long as you are here,” she added, frankly, “I think I can bear it, as your society and friendship will be an indemnity for most annoyances.”

Hamilton’s expressions of gratitude she interrupted by continuing, “After all, what shall I do more than girls in my rank of life must always do? Even Crescenz, since her marriage, has learned to iron. Did you not see her ironing Major Stultz’s shirts when we went to take leave of her?”

“Yes, but he is her husband; and it was a mere ostentation of usefulness on her part, for your mother told me she need not do anything of the kind if she did not wish it. Crescenz, however, does not appear misplaced when so employed, but you——”

“Strictly speaking, I am not more misplaced than she is. We have both received an education beyond our station in the world. I have, perhaps, profited more by the instruction bestowed on me than she has; but you must allow that _she_ has shown infinitely more capacity for the necessary duties of life.”

“If it be her duty to iron her husband’s shirts,” answered Hamilton, laughing, “I must say she performs it in the most charming manner possible. Nothing could be more coquettish than the black silk handkerchief twisted round her head to prevent her from feeling the draught of air, or the sleeves tucked up just enough to exhibit the dimples in her white arms! I must say, Crescenz is perfectly aware of all her personal advantages!”

“And who is not aware of them?” said Hildegarde, “or rather who does not overrate them?”

“You do not, most certainly!” cried Hamilton. “I am convinced you do not think——”

“That I am handsome?” said Hildegarde, interrupting him quietly; “I know it perfectly well. You are shocked at my candour,” she added, after a pause, on observing that he continued silent; “it would have been more proper to have disclaimed—but, after all, what worth have regular features, when they are inanimate? And mine are so, I know.”

“You are mistaken,” said Hamilton; “I have never known anyone whose features have expressed so many various emotions as yours have during the few months of our acquaintance.”

“That I have felt more than during the whole of my previous life, is most certain,” she said, thoughtfully. “It seems, then, I have not been able to acquire that composure of mind and feature which Mademoiselle Hortense so often told me would be essentially necessary for my happiness.”

“I am rather inclined to hate that Mademoiselle Hortense without ever having seen her,” cried Hamilton; “I think she wished to make an actress of you!”

“No, she wished to make a good governess of me, as my step-mother desired her, and she saw that my pride and violence of temper would prove serious obstacles. My gratitude to her is unbounded for all her care and attention during so many years. She is my only hope for the future too—on her I depend to find me some respectable situation, should my residence here become uncomfortable.”

“Have you ever seriously thought of taking such a step?”

“I believe I have talked more than thought on the subject. One thing I have resolved upon, and that is, to go as far as possible from home.”

“Should you like to go to a foreign country?”

“Foreign, as you understand the word—no, but I am not likely to have the power of choosing. Mademoiselle Hortense’s connections are all in Alsace, and my destination will probably be Strasburg.”

They walked on in silence, each absorbed in thoughts of no very agreeable description. As they drew near the house, Mr. Eisenmann came to meet them, accompanied by the _Förster_, who had begun to drop in regularly every evening, to drink a glass of beer with the old man. Hamilton greatly approved of the arrangement, as it left him at liberty to talk unreservedly in English to Hildegarde, who, however, would have preferred his absence, from the time that Hamilton had made her observe that his eyes were fixed upon her incessantly, and followed her wherever she went.

“This is the last evening you will be my housekeeper, Hildegarde,” said Mr. Eisenmann, as she pushed his arm-chair to the table, and placed his newspaper, which seemed to contain nothing but advertisements, beside the small brass lamp. “I can give you a good character, girl; you have a way with you that has made the people here obey you at once. She will make a good wife one of these days—eh, Mr. Hamilton? Eh, _Förster_ Weidmann?”

Hildegarde smiled, and continued to perform her different evening duties. She gave her brothers their bread-and-milk, assisted the awkward maid-servant to arrange the supper-table, made the salad, carved the fowl, and presented each his plate with such quiet unobtrusiveness, that her motions were only apparent by the rustling of the large bunch of keys she was to resign to her mother the next day, but which now hung glittering in steel chains at her girdle _à la châtelaine_.

Hamilton had been agreeably surprised at finding Mr. Eisenmann by no means so illiterate as he had expected. On every subject relating to his trade he was perfectly well informed, and in other respects his opinions were those of a shrewd, intelligent man. He spent the greater part of each day at the Iron Works, his hands thrust into his pockets, a short and very brown meerschaum pipe between his teeth, and his eyes following the movements of his workmen; and sometimes, when provoked by their want of skill, or too dilatory movements, after a few impatient ejaculations, throwing aside his coat and working with them. In his house, too, Hamilton had now frequently seen him in his shirt-sleeves, without feeling any of the horror expected by Madame Rosenberg; in the evening he generally mounted a black silk nightcap, and when he had finished smoking his pipe and drinking his tankard of beer, and the _Förster_ had taken leave, overcome by the fatigue of early rising and his daily exertions, he usually fell fast asleep, leaving his two companions to whisper, until the Scharwald clock struck nine, when wakening without any apparent effort, he sent them to bed, and retired for the night himself.

This evening—this last evening, as they choose to call it—the _Förster_ showed no inclination to move, and his eyes now seemed to follow the motions of Hildegarde’s lips, as she murmured an occasional sentence to Hamilton; he tried in vain to join in their conversation, spoke of bringing his zither, proposed teaching them to play it, if they desired, and not finding either of them disposed to appreciate either his conversational or musical talents, he turned to the now drowsy old man, whom he contrived to waken completely by some reference to the eternal “good old times.”

“Pray, Hildegarde, turn away from that man,” said Hamilton, bending down to her, as she sat in one of the children’s low chairs beside him; “as long as he can look at you he finds it impossible to tear himself away—it is absolute cruelty—he is depriving Mr. Eisenmann of his sleep this evening. Unpardonably inconsiderate!” he added, almost angrily.

Hildegarde, without an attempt at deprecation, lit a taper, and retiring to the other end of the room, where there was a thin-legged rickety table, she took from a cupboard the large house account-book, a hideous leaden ink-bottle, and a well-worn pen, and began to add and subtract with a diligence which would have put Hamilton’s temper to the proof, had not the _Förster_ almost directly stood up to take leave; but the old man was now quite roused, and, moreover, disposed to be loquacious; he let his visitor stand before him in the awkward posture of a shy man, wishing to get away, and not knowing how to manage it, while he observed: “When people say the old times were good, and the present times are bad, I always feel obliged to contradict them. No offence, good Mr. Weidmann, but in my youth I have often heard just the same thing said, and in those times as in these, the greater part of mankind had to earn their bread in ‘the sweat of their face.’”

“I suppose so, sir,” said the _Förster_, trying to move, but restrained by the old man’s continuing to address him. “I wish you a good-night.”

“All I know is,” resumed Mr. Eisenmann, addressing Hamilton, “that Bavaria, of all the countries I have seen, appears to me to be the happiest. Of England I know nothing, excepting the manufacturing towns——”

“When were you there?” asked Hamilton.

“Soon after the peace—I went there on business.”

“And what did you think of England? I should like to know what impression was made on you by our great manufacturing districts?”

“I saw much to admire, but nothing to make me think the English a _happier_ people than the Bavarians,” replied Mr. Eisenmann, with a low, satisfied laugh. “I would rather have been born a smith here than there, for, besides the instructions which I received for nothing in my childhood, I had, during my youth, my Sunday and holiday pleasures, my merry dances, and my pot of beer in good company, and with good music, too, of an evening—and a lot of other things of which your English workmen had not an idea when I was amongst them. It may be different now——”

“I am afraid it is not,” said Hamilton; “but surely our manufactories must have astonished you!”

“I should have understood very little of my business if they had not,” replied Mr. Eisenmann. “In this respect England is a giantess, but, like a giantess, ought to be admired at a distance and not examined in detail.”

“I perceive,” said Hamilton, “that the people with whom you associated have made an unpleasant impression on you.”

“Perhaps so, but I am inclined to think it was a correct one. I mixed with people whose habits and mode of life are, and will ever remain, totally unknown to you—it was probably before you were born, too, and may, as I said before, be quite different now—at all events it is too late to talk more about it to-night; I must look after my workmen, and then it will be time to go to bed.” He lit his candle and walked towards an office which communicated with the Iron Works.

“What a different person Mr. Eisenmann is from what I expected!” observed Hildegarde.

“He is different from what I expected, too,” answered Hamilton.

“I am beginning to have quite a respect for him,” she continued, “in short, I think him a remarkably clever man.”

“You are always in extremes, Hildegarde—first you unnecessarily underrated, and now you overrate him!”

“I suspect,” said Hildegarde, laughing, “you are annoyed at his not thinking the English workmen happier than the Bavarian; his remarks, however, appeared to me very intelligent; he is quite willing to allow England her superiority in manufactures, though not in the felicity of her lower orders. For a person in his station of life, you must allow——”

“Yes,” said Hamilton, “for a person in his station in life, I do think him unusually well-informed and rational, but what I find most to admire about him is, that he has not stood still between his thirtieth and fortieth year, as most men who are not actually moving in the world do, and which I verily believe is the cause of those never-ending praises of the good old times.”

“He is the first person,” said Hildegarde, “that I have heard actually give the present times the preference to those of his youth!”

“He has followed the changes of the world,” said Hamilton, “and that is a proof of intellect less often given than people imagine. Everybody’s youth must be, I should think, more agreeable than their old age. The world is full of pleasures for youth, which by degrees, slowly but surely, even under the most fortunate circumstances, cease for the aged. Happy those who, like Mr. Eisenmann, can understand and appreciate the improvement in the world—still more happy those who, when old, can find enjoyment in witnessing pleasures in which they can no longer participate.”

“But there are some fortunate persons who never appear to grow old,” said Hildegarde.

“Oh, don’t call them fortunate,” cried Hamilton; “age must be felt by everybody, though by some it may be borne cheerfully. Nothing is so disgusting as the affectation of youth in an old person. I consider it a positive misfortune to those who retain their youthful manners in old age! To grow old with dignity is not so easy as people imagine—I could write a pamphlet about it——”

“Pray do,” said Hildegarde, smiling, “I should like to learn to grow old—I—who have never really felt what it was to be young!”

“I am waiting to bid you good-night,” said Mr. Eisenmann at the door. “This is the last time I shall go the rounds, for I mean to resign my office to my daughter to-morrow—she locked all the doors, and bolted all the windows, for many a year before she was married!”

“He has just come in time,” said Hamilton, rising, “I believe I was getting very prosy.”

“And I very melancholy,” said Hildegarde.

The old man bade them good-night, and watched them gravely as they ascended the stairs and separated on the lobby.

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