第6章

The next day, we saw the lady and her maid driving in the direction of the railway-station, WITHOUT THE BOYS.The parting had taken place, then.That night they would sleep among strangers.The little beds at home were vacant, and poor mother might go and look at them.Well, tears flow, and friends part, and mothers pray every night all over the world.I dare say we went to see Heidelberg Castle, and admired the vast shattered walls and quaint gables; and the Neckar running its bright course through that charming scene of peace and beauty; and ate our dinner, and drank our wine with relish.The poor mother would eat but little Abendessen that night;and, as for the children--that first night at school--hard bed, hard words, strange boys bullying, and laughing, and jarring you with their hateful merriment--as for the first night at a strange school, we most of us remember what THAT is.And the first is not the WORST, my boys, there's the rub.But each man has his share of troubles, and, I suppose, you must have yours.

From Heidelberg we went to Baden-Baden: and, I dare say, saw Madame de Schlangenbad and Madame de la Cruchecassee, and Count Punter, and honest Captain Blackball.And whom should we see in the evening, but our two little boys, walking on each side of a fierce, yellow-faced, bearded man! We wanted to renew our acquaintance with them, and they were coming forward quite pleased to greet us.But the father pulled back one of the little men by his paletot, gave a grim scowl, and walked away.I can see the children now looking rather frightened away from us and up into the father's face, or the cruel uncle's--which was he? I think he was the father.So this was the end of them.Not school, as I at first had imagined.The mother was gone, who had given them the heaps of pretty books, and the pretty studs in the shirts, and the pretty silken clothes, and the tender--tender cares; and they were handed to this scowling practitioner of Trente et Quarante.Ah! this is worse than school.

Poor little men! poor mother sitting by the vacant little beds! We saw the children once or twice after, always in Scowler's company;but we did not dare to give each other any marks of recognition.

From Baden we went to Basle, and thence to Lucerne, and so over the St.Gothard into Italy.From Milan we went to Venice; and now comes the singular part of my story.In Venice there is a little court of which I forget the name: but in it is an apothecary's shop, whither I went to buy some remedy for the bites of certain animals which abound in Venice.Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying animals; all three will have at you at once; and one night nearly drove me into a strait-waistcoat.Well, as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the bottle of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does do the bites a great deal of good), whom should I light upon but one of my little Heidelberg-Baden boys!

I have said how handsomely they were dressed as long as they were with their mother.When I saw the boy at Venice, who perfectly recognized me, his only garb was a wretched yellow cotton gown.His little feet, on which I had admired the little shiny boots, were WITHOUT SHOE OR STOCKING.He looked at me, ran to an old hag of a woman, who seized his hand; and with her he disappeared down one of the thronged lanes of the city.

From Venice we went to Trieste (the Vienna railway at that time was only opened as far as Laybach, and the magnificent Semmering Pass was not quite completed).At a station between Laybach and Graetz, one of my companions alighted for refreshment, and came back to the carriage saying:--"There's that horrible man from Baden, with the two little boys."Of course, we had talked about the appearance of the little boy at Venice, and his strange altered garb.My companion said they were pale, wretched-looking and DRESSED QUITE SHABBILY.

I got out at several stations, and looked at all the carriages.Icould not see my little men.From that day to this I have never set eyes on them.That is all my story.Who were they? What could they be? How can you explain that mystery of the mother giving them up; of the remarkable splendor and elegance of their appearance while under her care; of their barefooted squalor in Venice, a month afterwards; of their shabby habiliments at Laybach? Had the father gambled away his money, and sold their clothes? How came they to have passed out of the hands of a refined lady (as she evidently was, with whom I first saw them) into the charge of quite a common woman like her with whom I saw one of the boys at Venice? Here is but one chapter of the story.Can any man write the next, or that preceding the strange one on which I happened to light? Who knows?

the mystery may have some quite simple solution.I saw two children, attired like little princes, taken from their mother and consigned to other care; and a fortnight afterwards, one of them barefooted and like a beggar.Who will read this riddle of The Two Children in Black?