Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Illustration: _Her child eyes were still upon him and seemed to ask for
something yet. And, at this, he bent and kissed her gently, as he would
have kissed a child, and did not guess that, at the touch of his lips,
Sidonia's woman's soul was born_. (See page 196.)]
"IF YOUTH BUT KNEW!"
BY
AGNES & EGERTON CASTLE
AUTHORS OF
"ROSE OF THE WORLD," "FRENCH NAN,"
ETC., ETC.
"_Si jeunesse savait..._
_Si vieillesse pouvait!_"
(_Old French Song_)
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LANCELOT SPEED
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1906
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1906,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1906.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER
I. The Vagabond
II. The Forest House
III. Green Adventure
IV. Parting of the Ways
V. The Invitation of the Road
VI. The Burg
VII. Guests of Chance
VIII. Roses of Trianon
IX. Home-Coming
X. The Burgrave's Welcome
XI. Tangled Tales
XII. The Burgrave's Farewell
XIII. The *Oubliette*
XIV. Love among the Ruins
XV. *Furens quid Femina Possit*
XVI. 'Twixt Cup and Lip
XVII. The Skirt of War
XVIII. The Raid
XIX. The Melody in the Violets
XX. The True Reading of a Letter
XXI. At the Mock Versailles
XXII. The *Cabinet Noir*
XXIII. The King's Mail
XXIV. Portents
XXV. The Perverseness of Words
XXVI. The Ways of Little Courts
XXVII. The Song of the Woods
XXVIII. A Treacherous Haven
XXIX. The Homing Bird
XXX. Dawn Music
*LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*
Her child eyes were still upon him and seemed to ask for something yet.
And, at this, he bent and kissed her gently, as he would have kissed a
child . . . _Frontispiece_
"The something that lived on, the miserable carcass, the old man--call
it myself, if you will"
But, as the oncomer drew nearer, the glimmer of hope died in the
discontented gentleman's heart
As she bent, offering him the green goblet of wine, her heavy plait fell
against his shoulder
Wellenshausen
"Look, look, do you see? ... There are two men coming up the road with a
pack-horse!"
"The high-born, my mistress, had not expected you before to-morrow,"
said the butler with a deep bow
Meanwhile, up in his chamber, the Burgrave sat in sodden brooding
Steven almost called aloud, as he heard their heavy plunge into the
ambushed waters
Sidonia stood, shaking and pruning herself like a bird, her hair
glinting in the light
"Spread your dark wings, obscene birds! ... the scent of Death is in the
air. In a little while you may gorge! ... caw--caw!"
"Hurl down the Guard, and the field is ours! ... Hurl down the Guard,
aha!"
"She always loved violets. These have no scent, ... but hers--oh, they
were sweet!"
They spread him beside the Jurist in the moonlight--with a certain
effect of symmetry
... the great bag on his back, undiminished, save for two warrants and
one private missive
What she was saying was sufficiently remarkable: "Your Majesty mistakes"
"Positively, a bird from the tyrant's aviary," he cried. "A foreign,
French bird!"
His child-wife! ... The watchman was chanting the tale of the first
morning hour
The End
TO
"MARIE-LOUISE"
*FOREWORD*
_"Is it not," remarks Fiddler Hans the wanderer, somewhere in these
pages, "instructive to see how the ruler of Westphalia passes his time
while the best manhood of his country is warring for the Empire--burnt
in Spain, frozen in Russia?"_
_Few people have cared, it would seem, to study that little chapter of
history, the rule of Jerome in Westphalia; yet it is curious enough--as
a record of human folly, if for no other reason._
_That incredible Westphalia of Napoleon's making! Harlequin's coat
contrived out of Hesse, Brunswick, and a score of smaller
principalities, hemmed with a shred or two of Prussian province;
incongruous rag torn from the map of the old Germanic Empire and flung
by the conqueror, between two victories, to his "little brother
Jerome"!_
_A strangely pusillanimous character was the amiable Jerome. His annals
include, in the days of his youth, flight from his ship, within sight of
an English blockading squadron (not through cowardice, be it said: there
was pluck enough in the little man, but because of his thirst for the
pleasures of land), and, in more mature years, desertion from the Grand
Army at a crucial moment, upon the mere impulse of wounded vanity. How
so grotesque a potentate was allowed, for seven years, to lord over, to
plunder and demoralize, some three millions of sturdy Germans, to
discredit the name of Bonaparte and weaken the fabric of the new Empire,
remains one of the enigmas of history._
_But, then, the new Emperor must ever be a maker of kings; carve new
kingdoms out of old. For his "Beau Sabreur," Murat, there is Naples and
the Two Sicilies; for his infant son, nothing less than Rome; for his
younger brothers, Holland, Spain, ... Westphalia! What is there to
restrain great Caesar? Hark to his mighty insolence:_
_"The Emperor of the French"_ (_so M. Walckenaer, in his official work,_
La Geographic Moderne, _brings to a conclusion the chapter on_ la France
allemande), "_possesses likewise in Germany the principality of Erfurth
and the county of Katzenellenbogen:_ mais Sa Majeste n'a pas encore
decide sur leur sort."
_His Majesty has not yet decided upon their fate!_
_About the fate of Westphalia there had been no indecision. From one day
to another, "little brother Jerome" acknowledged failure in every other
career, naval, civil, or military, found himself seated upon a German
throne. And thus we have him, inconceivable fop, strutting and ogling,
upon the scene.--A king whose life energies, when the cracking of his
brother's empire may be heard on every side, are divided between the
devising of new costumes, the planning of revels, and the discovery of
fresh favourites. A scamp, fascinating enough, but incapable of a
single strong or noble thought. A cynic and a libertine; withal a gull,
in his way. A man who could repudiate without a pang of regret the fair
young Virginian wife of his youth, to marry without love a "suitable
German princess." A man who flaunted his debauchery and his barefaced
improbity, yet could be scared to distraction by the imaginary threat of
a little haunting tune; the tune which, with its twang of mockery and
warning, was as ill an omen to his superstitious fancy as the shadow of
"the little red man," or the date of Christmas, to his great Imperial
brother._
_And under him, that hasty patchwork of old German lands: his
incongruous kingdom. His people, grave religious dwellers of the
mountain and of the wood, unconvinced subjects of the godless Welsch,
dumbly chafing under his insensate taxation. His new-fangled court,
aping the vanished Versailles of Louis XV., yet combining with the
reckless frivolity of the Old Order all the ill-breeding of
revolutionary_ parvenus. _Over all, a government so incompetent, so
corrupt, as to stupefy or demoralize all that had dealings with
it--friend or foe, high or low, French official or German landowner; the
magistrates, the very students; the old rulers of the soil themselves,
nervously awaiting the inevitable_ debacle, _stretching, the while, both
hands towards the plunder._
_In these topsy-turvy days no man rightly knows whether he belong to
ancient Teutonic duchy or to French_ departement; _whether the accepted
rule be_ code Napoleon _or hoary feudal law. And thus, up in his
ancestral_ Burg, _an old lord of the land (such an one as the Burgrave
of Wellenshausen) may well assume that he still holds the right of "high
and low justice" on his own territory; whereas, down at Cassel, the mock
Versailles, this same out-of-date character would naturally fall in with
the new views of marriage and divorce, or "annulment by decree," brought
so conclusively into fashion by the Bonapartes, royal or Imperial._
_Above all this confusion, the cloud of war, gathering heavier and
heavier. And from the mines of the Harz, from the deeps of the
Thuringian forests, from the lanes of the old town, up into the very
anterooms of the palace, conspiracy busy at work: conspiracy in the
barracks, conspiracy in the universities, exploding on all sides, futile
squibs as yet, but ominous. The King closes his eyes, seals his ears to
all but sights and sounds of pleasure. So dancing, the harlequin kingdom
goes to its death._
_And it is through the mazes of this carnival, unique in the lenten
gravity of nations, that wander the footsteps of the singer of youth,
and of the lovers of this story._
O hear me sing:--If youth but knew
The glory of his April day,
Would he not cast the year away
For one more dawn of dream and dew?
Would he the fevered moons pursue,
Not rather with the spring delay,
Crowned with its leaf? If youth but knew
The glory of his April day!
For what shall unto age accrue,
If youth from joyance turn and stray?
Autumn is but the Spring grown grey,
Its harvest roses mixed with rue....
If youth but knew--if youth but knew!
(_The Singer of Youth_)
ELINOR SWEETMAN
[Illustration: "_The something that lived on, the miserable carcass, the
old man--call it myself, if you will--it took the violets and began to
walk away.... And it has walked ever since!_"]
*IF YOUTH BUT KNEW*
*CHAPTER I*
*THE VAGABOND*
"_Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,_
_Nor a friend to know me;_
_All I seek, the heaven above_
_And the road below me._"
R. L. STEVENSON.
The traveller sat upon the milestone just where the road, skirting the
brow of the hill, branched off into the forest. At his feet lay the
detached wheel; further away, in pathetic attitude, the remainder of the
chaise itself. A stout bay, seemingly unconscious of as handsome a pair
of broken knees as ever horse displayed, was tethered to a stump of
tree, browsing such tender grass or leafage as grew within his reach.
The situation spoke for itself; and the young traveller's face spoke for
the situation as eloquently as Nature (who had bestowed upon him a
markedly disdainful and somewhat impassive set of features) would
permit.
Behind him rose the cool gloom of the forest. Below lay the plain,
gold-powdered by the level rays of a sinking sun. Between the edge of
the road and the forest margin ran a stream. A robin sang to the
glowing west from the topmost branch of a fir tree. But he on the
milestone was blind to the gold of the valley, deaf to the gold of the
song. "Now, here's a pretty kettle of fish!" was the burden of his
thoughts.
To have been stuck a whole hour upon a stone, while a postilion ranged
the country on horseback in one direction, and a valet a-foot in the
other, and no help as yet forthcoming; not to have had himself within
hail, all those weary minutes, one single human being--between intervals
of drowsiness he cursed the peaceful valley land, with its fair fields
and orchards, as the most God-forsaken of countries!
Presently his moody eye quickened. On the road below a moving object
was approaching. Only a pedestrian, alas! Nevertheless, he might prove
of use for succour or advice.
But, as the oncomer drew nearer and began to foot the ascent, the
glimmer of hope died in the discontented gentleman's heart. Here was no
sturdy native, likely guide to smithy or village inn. 'Twas a mere
ambulant musician, as strange, doubtless, to the country as himself: the
sun-rays were even now glinting back, roseate, from the varnish of a
fiddle.--The traveller relapsed into moodiness.
[Illustration: _But, as the oncomer drew nearer, the glimmer of hope
died in the discontented gentleman's heart._]
At the steep curve of the hillside, man and fiddle vanished from view.
Nevertheless, that he was still climbing, the advance (in interrupted
measure) of a singular little tune, half sourdine, half pizzicato, soon
proclaimed. It seemed at first so woven in with the babble of the
brook, the deep choiring of the forest and the song of the robin, that
the youth on the milestone hardly realized its separate existence. But,
as it hovered ever closer, he was forced to listen and even to follow.
It seemed the very song of the rover; of the rover on foot, humble and
yet proud; without a penny, without a bond; glad of the free water to
drink and the hunk of bread by the roadside--a song of the nodding grass
and the bird in the hedge, of the dancing leaf, the darting swallow, the
wide kindly skies. Oh, the road is full of gay things, and tender
things, of sweetness and refreshment, of wholesome fatigue and glorious
sleep, for those that know its secrets!
"Good evening to you, young sir."
The little tune had stopped. A man's figure, exaggeratedly thin, black
against the sunset, had emerged over the knuckle of the hill and, with a
wide sweep of the arm, was saluting.
The gesture of the black silhouette seemed so courtly, the voice that
came from it so refined, that the young gentleman almost rose to return
the salutation: but, in time, he caught sight of the violin curves....
Pooh, it was the fiddling vagabond! Ashamed of his impulse, he drew
forth a florin and flung it.
The musician skipped nimbly on one side; the coin fell, flashing in the
red sun-shafts. He looked from it to the imperious donor, whose face he
scanned keenly for a moment, then smiled; and his teeth shone as white
as a wolf's in the deep tan of his face. Then off went his battered hat
again and out was stretched a sinewy leg in dusty blue stocking, to
accompany a bow such as twenty years ago might have roused the envy of
your finest Versailles marquis.
"I greet you! I salute you, my young lord!" The fiddler rose from his
inclination and burst out laughing. "Oh, cease fondling those pistols
in your pocket, worthy sir," cried he, "for by Calliope, daughter of
Jove and Mnemosyne, 'tis not your money-bags I covet just now, but, oh!
your golden youth!"
"The fellow has a wild eye," thought the gentleman. Now, it is a
question whether even a highway robber were not more agreeable to
encounter on a lonely road than a madman.
"If it be madness to honour in you such a gift of the gods," said the
singular vagrant, reading the thought, "why then, yes, I am mad,
sir--stark, staring."
He fell back on one foot and bent the advanced knee, tucked his
instrument under his chin, where it settled like a bird to its nest, and
drew his bow across the strings with a long plaint.
"O youth!" he intoned between two sighs of the catgut. "O spring! O
wings of the soul! O virginity of the heart, expectation, unknown
mysteries of life! O wealth of strength and yearning!--See, now, how
you sit," he cried, dropping into speech again, "on the fringe of the
forest, in a strange land, with the sunset valley at your feet, and the
stream running you know not where beside you, and the bird over your
head singing the desires of your soul. Why, by Apollo, young man, here
are you in your youth, in the spring of your world, in the very middle
of an adventure, and----"
Again limber fingers moved along the strings; and, with a sense of
wonder, the traveller felt within his being some answering outcry. But
he stiffened himself against it.
"Harkee, my man," said he, trying to frown, "I am in no mood for
fooling. Take up your florin, and begone.--Or, stay, earn another by
telling me, if you can, where I am, and how far lies the nearest
village?"
"Sir," replied the other, urbanely, "fellow-travellers should assist
each other without any sordid consideration. (Ah, had you offered me of
your youth, now!) You are, an it please you, just between the border of
that old, steady-going principality of Schwarzburg and the new-fangled,
patchwork kingdom which appertaineth to his Majesty King Jerome--himself
one of the crowning products of the Great Revolution!"
"Faugh!" said the gentleman.
The fiddler's restless eye lighted.
"My lord is an Englishman? In verity and beyond doubt, none but an
Englishman could wear so lofty a front. I need scarce have asked."
The young man stared haughtily. The other considered him awhile in
silence with a sort of grave mockery, and pursued then reflectively--
"This English aloofness, 'tis an excellent prescription for pride and
disdain and such-like high essences. Only be careful, my
brother-wayfarer, that you be not above your own fair youth, and contemn
not its splendid opportunities.
'Singula de nobis annipraedantur euntes'
O young man! ...
'Eripuere jocos, Venerem, convivia, ludum'
think of it!"
So saying, he shouldered his instrument, and with a valedictory wave of
his bow seemed about to take his departure; but, as if upon a second
thought, stood still, and once again observed the young man.
Now it struck the stranded traveller that there was a dignity in the
vagrant's gaze, a refinement about his person, which scarce accorded
with the gipsy appearance, the shabby clothes; that it was not usual for
beggars to quote Horace with delicate accents of culture; that his
salutation had been a pattern of courtliness; above all, that he was not
the least impressed by a young nobleman's most noble demeanour. And he,
on his milestone, began to feel slightly foolish--an ingenuous blush,
indeed, crept to his cheeks.
The player hitched round his fiddle till it lay across his breast, and
pinched a couple of strings as a man might pinch the cheek of the wench
he loved.
"Pardi," he said, speaking into its curved ear, "that flag of crimson
would proclaim that there's hope for the youth yet.--Sir," proceeded he
then, gaily, "I think I can be of use to you. I place myself at your
service. May I crave to know whom I have the honour of addressing?"
"You address," responded the other, "Steven Lee, Graf zu
Waldorff-Kielmansegg, an Austrian gentleman (if you must know)
travelling towards his estate in the south." He had an irrepressible
satisfaction in the recital.
"Austrian?" echoed the listener, with a cock of one of his expressive
eyebrows. "'Tis a safer nationality to proclaim than the English, for
travellers in great Caesar's dominions nowadays. Oh, you are right,
quite right! 'Twould be the height of rashness to proclaim even a drop
of English blood, these days, where Monsieur Buonaparte rules!"
The taunt struck home. Red mantled again on the gentleman's smooth
cheek.
"Despite an Austrian father, I have by my dead mother enough English
blood in these veins," cried he, hotly, "to hate the usurper and despite
his upstart brothers--if that is what you mean; and I care not who knows
it!"
The fiddler's smile grew broader. "Youth," whispered he to his violin,
"may pretend to abjure itself, but it will out. The stripling has
spirit, though it be but the spirit of scorn.--But the ceremony is not
complete," pursued he. "I have now to return your compliment. Above
all things, let us be polite. Here, then, comrade, you see before you
an individual known all over the country as the crazy musician,
sometimes more tersely as Geiger-Hans--what in your English you might
call Fiddle-John. Some call me the Scholar Vagabond, and some, the
children (bless them), Onkel. Like your own, my nationality is a matter
of indecision. Some say I am French, some German, some from over the
Alps--take your choice; your choice, too, of my title: Geiger-Hans,
Fiddle-John, or Geiger-Onkel. Or you may dub me, if you please, the
Singer of Youth."
But by this time, Steven Lee, Count Kielmansegg, was disgusted with
himself for having betrayed so much of his feelings to a beggar vagrant.
"Doubtless," remarked he, with infinite arrogance, "it may prove more
convenient for you, at times, to hide your name, good fellow. Reassure
yourself, I have no curiosity to learn it."
Whereupon Geiger-Hans gathered his brows into so deep a frown that the
whole hillside seemed to grow black. He struck the strings of his
instrument, and they called out as with anger.
"My name," he said under his breath, "my name, boy, is dead--as dead as
my youth." Then he grew calm as suddenly as he had stormed. "Some
happy ones there are who die and whose names live: I live, and my name
is dead. Let that suffice to you. Why, see," he cried next, with
another swift change of tone, while Count Steven stared at him, his slow
Austrian blood, his deliberate English wits, unable to keep pace with
such vivacity of mood, "it is getting dark ... the sun has dropped
behind the valley line ... the forest is full of night already! Do not
the lights of unknown shelter beckon you--the chimney-corner, the
strange hospitality? Why, Heaven knows what sweet hostess may not greet
your youthship to-night! And if your soul cries not out for fair
adventure in forest depth, there, at least, is a poor dumb thing that
craves stable and corn." As he spoke, he stepped nimbly to the injured
horse and unhitched the reins from the tree. "Might you not have bathed
those cut knees?" he exclaimed, shooting a look of rebuke over the
animal's meek head. "And the kindly brook running charity at your
elbow!"
He led the creature to the stream; and the deed of compassion
accomplished, again turned to his companion with a smile, which seemed
to show knowledge of all the latter's vacillating thoughts of vexation
and shame.
"Lend me a hand with the wheel, comrade, and let us see if we cannot
improvise a linchpin. And then, if you push behind, this forgiving
beast will do his best to draw your goods into safety."
But it was the musician who mended the wheel, while the traveller
watched in wonder the work of the brown hands. And then, in the falling
dusk, they set upon their slow way: Steven Lee, Graf zu
Waldorff-Kielmansegg, pushing behind even as bid, the fiddler marching
ahead with the reins slung over his arm and humming a hunting song under
his breath.
Leaving the stones and dust of the high-road, he led the way along a
wide path that seemed to cut the forest in two and run downhill into the
horizon. Beneath their feet was now an elastic carpet of pine-needles.
On each side of them the serried ranks of trees held the night already
in a thousand arms and murmured to it with a voice as of the sea. Before
them, at the end of the nave, and set like a cathedral window, shone a
span of sky, primrose and green, with one faint star. And presently
Steven saw, to one side far ahead, an orange square of light, and knew
it for the unknown forest shelter beckoning to him.
"But what," cried he, struck by a sudden thought, "of my postilion and
my valet?"
Geiger-Hans looked back at him over his shoulder and grinned. He slid
the reins above his elbow and grasped his violin.
"To the devil," it sang mockingly, through the glade, "to the devil with
postilions and valets! to the devil with prudence and forethought! O
youth, enjoy your youth! O youth, be young!"
*CHAPTER II*
*THE FOREST HOUSE*
"Diesen liebenswuerd'gen Juengling
Kann man nicht genug verehren..."
HEINE.
"Heaven knows," had said the musician, "what sweet hostess may not greet
your youthship to-night."
To their knock the door was opened by a slip of a peasant girl. The
light from within shone on her long yellow plaits of hair and her small
brown face.
Steven was conscious of a distinct shock of disappointment. What folly
had this fantastic chance companion fiddled into his mind that he should
have found himself expecting something meet for his high-born fancy in
this lonely forest house?
"Geiger-Onkel!" cried the girl, in surprise.
And "Geiger-Onkel!" was echoed joyfully indoors. An old peasant woman
came waddling forward, hands outstretched.
"Be kind to my comrade, Forest-mother," said the player, "while I see to
this brother beast."
He led the horse towards the back yard. And Steven stepped into the
great kitchen, glad at least of its prosaic aroma of pot-herbs, since
romance had fallen silent with the fiddle.
It was a long room, panelled with age-polished oak which reflected the
light of the hanging brass lamp and of the ruddy hearth as jonquil
flamelets and poppy glow. A black oaken table, running nearly from end
to end, was covered half-way with a snowy cloth, red-hemmed and
flowered. There were presses, laden with crockery and pewter. There was
a tall clock, with a merry painted face and a solemn tick. There were
stags' horns and grinning boars' heads above the presses. Not that
Steven had any interest to bestow on these things: he was glad that the
place was clean. He thought the oaken chair hard sitting for his noble
person, but it was better than the milestone. The Forest-mother seemed
a decent sort of body; with a due sense, too, of the quality of her
guest. As for the peasant child, he did not notice her at all--not even
the pretty foot in buckled shoe and scarlet stocking, of which the short
peasant skirt gave such a generous display.
Yet it was to her that Geiger-Hans made his courtly bow as he entered in
his turn.
"Mamzell Sidonia!" said he, his old hat clapped over his heart.
She gave him a smile, half tender, half mischievous. And her teeth were
as white as his own in her sunburnt face. There was a whole host of
dimples, too, which a young man might have remarked. But what mattered
the dimples of a peasant girl?
Then the fiddler took the old woman round the neck and kissed her plump,
wholesome cheek with a smack.
"Supper, supper!" cried he. "And if it's good, you shall have such
music that your hearts shall sing."
The girl laughed out loud, and ran to the hearth, where she seized a
pot.
"In Heaven's name," cried the woman, "leave that, child! 'Tis not fit
for you."
"Oh, please," urged Sidonia of the yellow plaits, "please, little
foster-mother!"
Forest-mother to the fiddler, foster-mother to the girl. Steven had
supposed her grandmother. Bah! As if, indeed, it were worth a thought!
"Get the wine, then," said the matron, with a jolly, unctuous chuckle.
And while, swinging long tails of hair and scarlet ankles flashing, the
girl darted round the table, what must this fantastic fellow Geiger-Hans
do but introduce guest and hostess with one of his absurd flourishes.
"Here, dear comrade, is Dame Friedel, mother of the great King Jerome's
own Head Forester. And here, mother, is a most noble Austrian count,
whom the accidents of travel have forced to condescend to the shelter of
your humble roof this evening."
Deep curtsied Dame Friedel. Steven inclined his head; and, feeling the
fiddler mock him behind his back, grew red and angry.
"A glass in welcome, gracious sir!" tittered Sidonia, at his elbow.
She was so close to him that his cheek was fanned by her breath of
clover and the fragrance of a little bunch of violets in her white
kerchief rose to his nostrils. As she bent, offering him the green
goblet of wine, her heavy plait fell against his shoulder. He drew back
haughtily.
[Illustration: _As she bent, offering him the green goblet of wine, her
heavy plait fell against his shoulder. He drew back haughtily._]
"_Peste!_" cried Geiger-Hans, "how my fingers itch for the strings. But
never mind, you shall lose nothing by waiting. _Tarteifel!_ mother, as
I live, venison stew! What feasts you good people make in your forest
house!"
"My son is hungry when he comes home of nights, and so are his lads.--My
little love, will you sit and entertain the gentlemen?"
Sidonia, pouting, drew her chair with great clatter round by that of
Geiger-Hans and turned a shoulder on the count, who thus remained
isolated, as became his rank. The fiddler drank to her and she filled
his glass again. And, as she stretched across him to do so, the violets
at her breast fell upon his hand.
"Violets!" cried he, and sat as if turned to stone. His brown face grew
ashen. Then he pushed his plate away, took up the flowers and pressed
them against his lips, inhaling the scent of them with long deep
breaths. Presently the tears ran down his cheeks; his slow-drawn sighs
were cut short by a kind of sob. The girl started to the old woman's
side and stood, flushed and downcast, while the Forest-mother beat her
omelet with a grave countenance. Neither of them looked at the fiddler.
Steven, who had stared, suddenly dropped his glance, too, ashamed and
uncomfortable. Geiger-Hans got up from his seat.
"I can eat no more to-night," he said, in a broken voice. He walked
over to the bench where he had left his fiddle, and, hugging it, went
out into the forest.
"Have you ever seen him like that before?" whispered Sidonia of mother
Friedel.
"Once," said she, "and it was over the violet-bed in the garden. I
doubt he has seen trouble, poor soul! Who has not?"
Sidonia returned to her seat, propped her chin on her hands and fixed
the young count absently. Her eyes were not black as he had thought:
they were grey and green, green and golden brown, like the waters of the
brook in the shadow of the trees.
"Heavens, sir, how you stare!" she said after a while, pettishly.
The young aristocrat, whose thoughts had been all engrossed by this new
eccentricity of his road acquaintance, raised his disdainful eyebrows.
He stare at a country wench? Then into their sullen silence mother
Friedel exclaimed joyfully.
"Hark!" cried she, "here comes my son!"
From far away stole the faint blast of hunting-horns; a dog bayed answer
from the kennels, then the call of the horns arose again in the
whispering forest depths, closer and louder.
"Yes, yes, it's the 'return home' they're winding," said the old woman,
bending her ear.
Without, there now rose a fine clamour: barking and yelping of hounds,
tramping of horses, blasting of horns, cheerful shouting of men. The
head forester shot half his stalwart figure in at the door and nodded
with some mystery to his mother. What could be seen of his green
uniform was very grand indeed, with vast display of gilt buttons and
royal crowns, frogs and braid. His square, freckled face, made for
jollity, was puckered into anxious lines; his eyes roamed uneasily from
Sidonia to the stranger. He strode to his mother's side and whispered
in her ear.
"Be good to us!" she ejaculated, clapping her hands, all dismay.
"Hush, mother!" warned the forester, finger on lip, and turned towards
the door.
Count Steven had finished his plate of venison stew, and was
condescending to enjoy a crust of bread with a glass of the tart wine.
The sense of expectation about him made him now likewise turn round in
his chair--languidly, for the high-born are never openly curious.
Outside, in the night, against a background of flickering leaves and
under the glare of a couple of torches, he saw a picturesque group of
hounds and huntsmen; two of these last laden each with a murdered
roebuck, whose pretty, innocent head hung trailing on the ground.
Suddenly the scene dissolved. A man came from the midst of the foresters
into the kitchen. The rest disappeared with their booty; hounds and
horses were led away towards the distant kennel premises; the woodland
glade resumed its peace.
As the new-comer passed him, the head forester made a spasmodic
movement, arrested midway, of hand to forehead. His mother swept a
dignified curtsey. The peasant girl, her hands clasped at the back of
her neck, stared with frank curiosity, her mouth open so that all who
cared to look might wonder upon the doubled splendour of her young
teeth.
He stood and glanced round upon them all: a slight young man of somewhat
low stature and dark, fine-cut face, with hair cropped short at back and
side to come down in a curly wave in the middle of his forehead. He had
large eyes under thick, straight eyebrows; and his forester's uniform,
though ostensibly of the same cut as Friedel's, was of finer cloth and
obviously brand new. The collar of the coat rose very high on each side
of his chin, which in the centre rested on folds of delicate cambric.
"Positively," thought Steven Lee, Count Waldorff-Kielmansegg, etc., "a
gentleman like myself!"
But the hunter's first word dispelled the illusion.
"My friend," said the new-comer to the old dame--he spoke German with a
strong foreign accent--"my fellow-forester there, Friedel, has assured
me that you would give his brother woodsman hospitality to-night."
Now, as he smiled, his handsome face assumed a trivial, almost inane,
expression, which destroyed its look of breeding and caused Count Steven
to return to his bread and wine with a mental shrug.
"Any friend of my son is welcome here," said the old lady, smiling
doubtfully.
Friedel himself grew suddenly scarlet, gulped, blinked and looked as
uncomfortable as any fish out of water.
"I see I must introduce myself," cried the little man, laughing heartily
and clapping him on the shoulder. "I am Mr. Forester--ahem!--Meyer, at
your service, madame."
"I wish," said Steven, "that you would shut the door behind my back,
good people."
"Hey la!" said Mr. Forester Meyer, with a sudden imperious note in his
voice, "whom have we here?"
"A guest, sir, like yourself," said the hostess somewhat dryly, hieing
to her pans; while the young nobleman in question turned his heavy chair
round again to supplement her inadequate description.
"An Austrian gentleman, my man, if it imports you to know," said he.
"You are yourself, perhaps," he went on with more friendliness, struck
by an obvious explanation of certain signs about the new-comer that had
puzzled him, "the inspector of these forests on your rounds. I notice
you speak with authority, and your accent is not of the country--a
countryman of this King Jerome?"
Mr. Forester Meyer broke again into loud laughter.
"Hey! what perspicacity has the gentleman!" cried he, jovially.
"(Friend Friedel, shut the door!) Nay, truly, sir, you are perfectly
right. I see it would be quite hopeless to maintain an _incognito_
before you. It is true, sir, I do inspect for this King Jerome
occasionally. Ha, ha!"
"Ha, ha!" echoed Sidonia, catching the infection of mirth, as a child
will, without reason.
"Hey la! And whom have we there?"
Mr. Forest-Inspector repeated the phrase in very different tones. There
came a curious flicker into his eye as he ran it up and down the girl's
figure, from crown of yellow head to scarlet ankle and back again, with
appreciative pauses on the way.
"Eh, eh!" said he, meaningly. He took her chin between his finger and
thumb, and chuckled as he raised the crimsoning face to the light.
"We do not hold with French ways here," said Dame Friedel, rebukingly,
over her pan.
Steven, catching the gesture of warning which her son instantly
addressed to her, felt a vast contempt for the fellow's slavish fear of
his little superior.
The wine, thin and fragrant, must have gone somewhat fantastically to
the young nobleman's brain. He began to feel defiant, in a humorous sort
of way, and to wish the fiddler back with his music. With his violin to
accompany the song of the amber drink, it seemed as if that youthship of
his (on which yonder fantastic rogue laid such stress) might find some
zest in a quarrel with Master Forester Meyer, whose eyes danced so
unpleasantly as they looked at this peasant child; who had so irritating
a French shrug and so mean a smile.
Now, if he had an eye to a pretty girl, the inspector seemed to have
also an ear for a poacher. The distant crack of shots, reverberating
from the forest, now made him start and listen acutely. Yet as Friedel,
with a frowning countenance, made a lurch for his gun in the corner, Mr.
Meyer smiled and restrained him. Then he himself went to the door, set
it ajar and hearkened. His smile widened as he closed it again and
returned to the table.
"Doubtless he has plans of his own for trapping the trespassers,"
thought Steven. It was the obvious explanation. And yet he felt a kind
of mystery brooding around him, almost as if that adventure which the
fiddler's music had boded were about to take place. And, in the long
silence which succeeded, the impression deepened. The Frenchman seemed
overcome by an uncontrollable restlessness. He paced the room from end
to end, compared the merry-faced clock with his watch, stared out of the
window and drummed on the pane. He was evidently keenly on the alert
for something: and, as Steven vainly cudgelled his not very quick wits
to conjecture, behold, it was at hand!
Shouts without, steps ... a tremendous rat-tat at the door!...
"'Tis not possible," cried mother Friedel, with some distress, "that
Heaven has sent us more guests?"
This was, in truth, precisely what Heaven was doing, if, indeed, it were
fair to hold Heaven responsible. Two new visitors walked into the
forest home without so much as a word of parley. A hulking man, also in
forester's uniform ("By Saint Hubert," said Steven Lee to himself, "his
Westphalian Majesty's rangers seem thick as leaves hereabouts!"), and a
lady clinging to his arm.... Yes, a lady, and a fair! Steven rose to
his feet.
The inspector and the burly new-comer interchanged a rapid glance.
Then, cracking the whip he held in his hand, the latter burst into the
most execrable German, interspersed by volleys of French oaths. It was
evident that King Jerome held to servants of his own nationality.
_Morbleu!_ quoth he, it was a mercy to see decent shelter! Devil take
all, he had thought that he and the lady would have had to spend the
night in the forest!
Here the lady, in spite of very pink cheeks and bright eyes, became so
faint that she had to be assisted to a chair by mother Friedel and her
foster-child. Steven darted to present a glass of water, but was
arrogantly forestalled by Mr. Meyer.
"Such a scandal on his Majesty's high-road!" went on he of the whip:
"this lady's coach attacked by ruffians!"
"His Majesty will be exceedingly displeased," said Mr. Meyer, gravely,
sitting down by the side of the distressed one and stripping off her
glove to consult a delicate wrist.
"Her escort shot at---- By all the devils!"
"Monstrous," quoth the inspector, in quiet indignation. "A little wine,
madam?"
"The escort--sacred swine, confound them!--took flight and basely
abandoned their charge."
"Shocking--shocking!" said Mr. Meyer, relinquishing one pretty hand to
receive the empty glass from the other.
"If I had not happened to hear the shots and rush to the spot, what
might not have happened?"
"It makes me shiver to contemplate it," asserted the inspector.
"My brave deliverer," murmured the lady, in a dulcet voice.
"Single-handed, he----"
She suddenly buried her face in her hands and quivered from head to
foot.
The inspector looked up at mother Friedel with an air of grave
compassion.
"Hysterical," said he; "ah, no wonder!"
Dame Friedel began to loosen the lady's handsome claret-coloured
travelling-mantle, whilst Sidonia drew a velvet, white-plumed hat from
the loveliest dark head in all the world.
"Well ... ah!--Schmidt," said Inspector Meyer, "his Majesty will hear of
your conduct."
"Thank you, Mr.--ah!--Meyer," rejoined the burly Schmidt, with an
unaccountably waggish grin.
"Ah, ha, ha!" cried the lady. She flung back her head and flung down
her hands; the tears were streaming upon her uncovered cheeks. It might
be hysterics, but Steven thought it was the most becoming combination of
emotions he had ever beheld.
She wiped her eyes and sprang up as lightly as a bird. Emerging from
the folds of her cloak, she displayed a clinging robe of pale blue,
fastened under the bust by a belt of amethysts set in gold. She had an
exquisite roundness of form; an open, smiling mouth. Her eyes were
innocent and dark and deep. She was (Steven felt) a revelation. And
withal, what a great lady! What an air of breeding! What elegance! An
Austrian gentleman knows the value of jewels. Heavens, what rings on
her fingers! What pearls in her ears!
"_Ah, Dio mio!_" she cried, "but I am hungry!"
Italian, then. There was a strange medley of nationalities in this
German forest corner.
The fixity of the young man's gaze suddenly drew the lady's attention.
She looked at him: surprise, interest, then an adorable smile appeared
on her countenance. It was almost an invitation. Besides, was it not
meet that the only gentleman of the party should entertain the only
lady? With his heart beating in his throat, he took two steps forward.
The three foresters had drawn apart and were whispering together with
furtive glances in his direction; but he was not likely to notice this
when such lovely eyes were upon him. She dropped her handkerchief. He
rushed to pick it up. As she took it from his fingers, he gave them
ever so slight a pressure.
(Oh, Geiger-Hans, Singer of Youth, hadst thou foreseen this rapturous
moment?)
"A thousand graces," murmured she. The graces! they were all her own.
"Permit me to introduce myself," he stammered.
But the inspector cut him short with a strident voice.
"The gentleman must be fatigued," he cried.
Steven started angrily. To one side of him stood Forester Schmidt, to
the other, Forester Friedel.
"I will show the gracious gentleman the way to his repose," said the
latter in his ear, with subdued, yet warning tone.
"And I will give you my help to the door, _tonnerre de Brest!_"
exclaimed the other, and caught the Count's arm under his with a grip of
iron.
Steven wrenched himself free. Yet a man has not sober English blood in
him for nothing. Humiliating as was the position, a moment's reflection
convinced him that resistance and futile struggle would but render him
ridiculous. Ridiculous, in the light of those dark eyes!
"Lead, then, fellow," said he to Friedel; and, after bowing low to the
lady, followed his escort with what dignity he could muster towards the
door opening on the forest.
There was such a seething of rage in his brain, such an itching in his
palm to feel it against yonder insolent Schmidt's full cheek, that it
was not till he found himself on the threshold of a dimly lighted wooden
building, gazing blankly in upon heaps of straw, that he realized that a
barn was considered good enough for the night's lodging of a Count
Waldorff-Kielmansegg.
"May you rest you sweetly, sir," said Friedel, and tramped away.
*CHAPTER III*
*GREEN ADVENTURE*
"_Non ego hoc ferrem, calidus juventa,_
_Consule Planco._"
HORACE.
"Comrades again!"
Turning round with a start, Steven beheld the crazy musician at his
elbow.
"Comrades on the straw--eh! What a bed for his lordship. _Miserables!_
they have no conception of the importance of rank, these benighted
forest folk. Yet give me the clean, yellow straw, smelling in the dark
of sunshine and whispering of the fields, rather than your stuffy German
mountains of feathers."
"Geiger-Onkel! Geiger-Onkel!" came a shrill cry into the night.
The fiddler turned with a bound and ran into the middle of the moonlit
yard, staring up at the house that stood outlined against the pale sky.
From some distant regions, where Friedel's underlings kennelled near
their hounds, rose shouts of boorish laughter and the chorus of a
drinking song.
A yellow tongue of flame appeared in a wooden balcony, hanging under the
roof. Sidonia bent over, shielding her candle from the forest airs.
"Are you there, Geiger-Onkel?"
"Yes, child."
"Oh, I am glad.... Geiger-Onkel"--she leaned over still further; her
tresses hung down, one shone ruddy with the candle-gleam and one silver
in the moonlight; her voice was broken with angry tremors--"he tried to
kiss me!"
"_Mort de ma vie_--who?"
"The big man with the whip. He caught me by the waist. I had nothing
to hit him with but my plaits. I lashed him in the face. They caught
him across the eyes----"
"Caught him across the eyes," cried the fiddler, clapping his hands.
"Ah, brava, little mamzell!"
"They whistled like a rope"--the girl was laughing and crying
together--"I think I have half-blinded him. Mayn't I come down to you,
Onkel? I want to talk ... and I want music."
"Better not," said fiddler Hans, after a moment's reflection; and then
from the shadow Steven stepped out beside him. (It was terrible to
think of the dark-eyed lady in the company of such ruffians!) Sidonia,
with a cry, drew back at sight of the new shadow.
"Nay, never be afraid of him. It is my comrade. As for the others--why,
go in, child; bolt your door," said the fiddler. "Go to bed and sleep
in peace. I shall watch."
"But you will play for me?" she asked over her shoulder.
"Presently, I may," said he; "such a tune, little mamzell, that will
make some people dance! But to you it shall give sweet sleep."
As the girl disappeared, Geiger-Hans turned upon Steven. He laughed as
he addressed the young man, but his eyes were fierce as some wild
beast's in the dim light.
"Did you hear?" said he. "The maid struck him; but you--oh you--you let
yourself be turned out! Oh, to see you trot away like a lamb. Steven
Lee, Graf zu Waldorff-Kielmansegg, turned out of doors by two low-bred
foresters! What, then, runs in your veins? What, turnip-juice instead
of blood? The fellow, Schmidt so-called, laid hands on you, did he not?
And you a youth! By the blood of my fathers, had the creature touched
me, old man as I am, he had felt the weight of his own whip! But the
fellow has muscles. Nay, you were right, sir, right. Let us be
prudent, by all means. Only that mask of yours lies, that smooth cheek,
that crisp curl--all lies. Young, yes. Only your heart is not young.
'Tis like the kernel of a blind nut--dry dust. While I--there is more
of God's youth left in my worn and waning body----"
"Confusion!" interrupted Steven, trembling in every limb, hurt to the
marrow of his pride; "it was before the lady."
"Oh, the lady...!" echoed the other, with a mocking trail of laughter.
During the vehemence of his speech the musician had advanced on the lad,
who had unconsciously drawn back until he stood against the wall of the
house. Now a window close to him was unlatched; and the sound of a
sigh, rather than a voice, was breathed forth into the night.
"_Ah, Dio!_"
"Your cue!" mocked the fiddler into his ear, and melted away into the
darkness.
The window was that of a room on the ground floor; the lady leaned out,
her elbows on the sill; her face caught a slanting ray of moonlight. Was
it possible for anything mortal to be so beautiful?
"Madam!" cried Steven, and that heart of his which was supposed to be
but dry dust began to thump in hitherto unknown fashion.
"Hush, hush!" she whispered, a taper finger on her lip. "Ah, is it you,
sir?"
He advanced into the ray that held her. He was not aware that he also
looked goodly and romantic. Somewhere, in the darkness close by, the
fiddler's bow crept over the strings. It was a sound so attenuated that
it seemed to have no more substance than the light of the moon itself;
it stole upon their ears so gently that it was as if they heard it not.
His hand met her warm fingers--the fragrance from her curls mounted to
his nostrils; she looked up at him and her eyes glistened.
Oh, fiddler, what bewitching music is this? What sweetness does it
insinuate, what mysterious audacity counsel? There were those parted
lips of hers, with white teeth gleaming through, and here was this youth
who had never touched a woman's lips in love. Such a little way between
his bent head and her upturned face...!
A door crashed behind her. She started from his timid hand. The thread
of the music was broken like a floating gossamer.
Steven thought that the fiddler laughed. There was a faint exclamation.
Heavens! did she also laugh? He saw--yes, he saw the inspector's hated
outline over hers. She was drawn from the window by the shoulders, the
shutters were clapped to in his face and bolted noisily. The yard
billowed under his feet. All went red before his eyes. That was her
room, and the man had followed her to it! Had he no youth in him, no
blood in his veins? ... Why, he could taste it on his tongue! He
pivoted round upon himself, made a blind rush for the entrance door, and
dashed headlong against Ranger Schmidt's broad chest.
A French oath rang out. Then broken German: "Can the kerl not see where
he is going?" Then, in the dark, the fiddler laughed again. Or was it
his music? or were there lurking devils taunting, jeering, inciting?
The young man never knew exactly what happened till a crack like a
pistol-shot sprang upon the night, and he realized that his hand had
found the broad, insolent face at last. The sound of that slap cleared
the confusion in his own brain as a puff of wind clears a hanging mist.
Schmidt gave a roar like a furious bull, but Steven met the onslaught of
the uplifted whip with the science learned in London of Gentleman
Jackson and there was a grip on either side which began for him in
glorious defiance and ended in a struggle of life and death.