The Last Miracle. M. P. Shiel

the middle over the broadest brow, a brow parcelled up into lax fields by the furrows of "much learning." He wore no hair on the face, save side-whiskers down the longish hollow of his cheeks, cheeks which looked no wider than the breadth of his broad chin: a massive countryman's-face, yet with something wistful and ill-fated about the eyes and the thick lips, which ever bore a sad smile. His "bone-in-the-throat" drew the eye by its prominence! He always impressed one as being better groomed than other men, I never could tell why, since he was ever quite plainly dressed, but in the very pink of correctness somehow.

      However, in a certain—shall I say cynicalness?—of look there was resemblance between the two—or, say, criticalness, scepticism: both had a trick of screwing up at the cheek-bones a little and piercing into anything new or curious that was in question.

      It is commonly known now that both were beings of uncommon endowment, and so kin and kind were they, that they appeared to live, as it were, a twin life.

      When we went into the cottage I found waiting to welcome me several men and women servants—a small crowd of much more than ordinary comeliness. Langler said then to me: "have you heard about my poor friend?"

      It was nothing new for him to speak so of his servant, so I knew that he referred to Robinson, and replied: "I have heard something. Can't you form any idea what has become of him?"

      "No idea so far," he answered; "I am giving my mind to it."

      "He should be found, then," I said; at which Langler smiled.

      Miss Emily was rather behind us in the passage, and at that moment I heard her say: "Aubrey, here is John running after us with something."

      I turned, and saw this John pelting up the boards embedded in the soil which served as steps from the bridge to the cottage. He held a spade in the left hand and some object on the right palm; Langler turned to him; and at once I saw that the thing on the man's palm lived, fluttered a wing, was a bird.

      "What!" said Langler, "a wren?"

      "Why, it is ill," said Miss Emily.

      "I found it caught in the vine tendrils, miss," said John.

      Everybody bent over it.

      "I have never seen it before," said Langler.

      "No, it is certainly a stranger," said Miss Emily, "and what can that be round its leg?"

      She was rather palish.

      The thing round the leg was a piece of paper, wound with worsted.

      And Langler, peering at it, said: "stay, I will undertake the cure of this wanderer."

CHAPTER III

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THE STYRIAN

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      Swandale cottage is very large, covering more than half of the island, but mostly one-storeyed, the roofs being of thatch made heavy with rocks, and the walls of marble kept snow-white by means of snakestone; but not much of the walls is visible, for the eaves of the roof droop so low that parts of them have had to be removed over the doors; and as most of the timber about the cottage is huge, the twilight within broods at noon. At the time of which I write candles burned in most of the rooms throughout the day in an atmosphere smoky with incense; for all within was a feeling of the ecclesiastical, everywhere the Church, monasticism, the vestment, the ritual, the Middle Ages, the mood of the altar.

      I spent most of the day after my arrival—a Sunday—with Langler in his study, which was in a corner of the cottage, and looked like a great garret or barn with its black beams, its floor of black and red stone, its arras and bookshelves; the ottoman, fixed into a nook under a Christ in hone-stone, was covered with embroideries of the Armenian Church; three diamond-paned windows looked out upon some flower-beds and lawn and upon a slip of the lake seen through oak and poplar; on the desk stood a pyx-and-cross, with two candelabra of plain old gold, whose six candles more or less cancelled the gloom.

      At breakfast I had asked him how the wren was faring, his answer had been evasive, but in the study he referred himself to it, saying, "you asked about the wren at breakfast, by which I understood you to ask about the paper round its leg. Now, I have been examining this paper, it bears some written words, and as they are unpleasant I didn't wish to speak of it before Emily. However, I will show it now to you."

      He opened the pyx, took out a little curl of paper, and spread it on the desk. It was uneven at the edges, had been much begrimed, but with a magnifying-glass I contrived to read these words in the tiniest writing:

      "Ich, der Pater Max Dees, bin ein … ner im Sc … des Barons Gregor … Um Gottes Willen"; or: "I, Father Max Dees, am a … 'ner' in the 'Sc' … of Baron Gregor. … For God's sake."

      "Notice the material of writing," said Langler.

      "Not red ink?"

      "No, blood. And the instrument of writing——"

      "Not a pen?"

      "No, a pin, as you see from the downstrokes."

      "But have you been able to fill in the blanks in the sentence?"

      "In two at least of the three instances: for if a man writes with a pin and with blood he is certainly somehow a prisoner, and that seems to suggest the word ending in 'ner', namely, Gefangener. And, having that, we know the word beginning with 'Sc': for he could hardly be a prisoner in anything beginning with 'Sc' except a Schloss. So that we get that Father Max Dees is a prisoner in the castle of Baron Gregor Something; and he begs us for God's sake to do something: very likely he was interrupted in the act of writing it."

      "But how on earth, I wonder, did he trap the wren in his prison?" I said.

      "People in such situations do become ingenious," Langler answered.

      "But will you take any steps in the matter?"

      "Well, I suppose one must, for mercy's sake," he answered: "but what steps?"

      "The first thing," I said, "is to locate our priest: that is, to find out the full name of our Baron Gregor; but that is precisely what may be difficult."

      "No; I think not," he answered; "you haven't looked at the thread with which the paper was tied round the wren's leg: just look now, though I doubt if it will give you any information, but Emily or John would know at once."

      After examining the thread under the glass I said No.

      "Well," he said, "over yonder among my flock are three goats, half-domesticated Styrian hill-goats, whose greyish undergrowth of mohair is woven undyed for underclothing in Upper Styrian villages, and, in spite of its long exposure, I feel sure that the fibre you are looking at is Styrian hill-goat wool, and a thread ravelled from some garment or other woven in Styria."

      "So that Father Max Dees probably is in some Styrian castle?"

      "So it would seem, and we shall know which Styrian castle as soon as we run our eyes down some list of Styrian barons—unless there are two or more Gregors among them. At any rate, we shall have some information, and can then take some step to rid our backs of the burden of the matter. But where to find a list of Styrian barons?"

      I answered that I didn't know, but that there would be no difficulty about that. "But a Styrian wren!" I said. "How comes it in England in August—or at any time?"

      "We shall have to get Emily to coach you in some of the more glaring facts of country-life," Langler said, with a nod. "Don't you know, really, that many wrens are winter birds? And as to the migratory ones, surely you know that hardly any kind of bird is reliable in its migrations. I once knew a cuckoo—but I won't talk Greek