A WEDDING JOURNEY
“What befell Christine and Ugo upon their wedding journey will best
be told as a plain tale, excellency,” said the admirable Barbarossa,
taking up the thread of his narrative as we set sail for Spalato two
days after I had seen the last of his famous island. “I played small
part in her life then, or for years afterwards. Though I had opened
the spring whence flowed the stream of her misfortunes, I was not to
witness them, or to be friend to her as I had wished. The blow which
fell was not to drive her back to the home she had left or the man
who waited for her. It carried her rather out upon the flood of life;
opened her eyes to the visions she had enjoyed in her dreams, yet
shewed them to her through a veil of tears.
“I say that it carried her out upon the flood of life, for that is
common knowledge, excellency. You yourself have heard the tale in
Vienna as the gossips love to tell it. That which you have not heard
is the word of Christine herself, as I had it in the capital a year
ago; the simple tale of a woman who could stoop from triumph to the
old friends who had wished well to her, could look down over from the
heights where fortune had carried her upon the difficult path she had
trodden. She told me her story without ornament or emphasis--the story
of a dreamer’s life. As she spoke, so may I speak, for she opened her
heart to me; she laid bare her soul as a child before its father.
“In this attempt to follow the fortunes of a boy and girl lover cast
loose suddenly upon the world, I would take your mind back with mine to
the day when my word spoken at the bureau of the police sent mounted
men into the hills in pursuit of the fugitives. Christine had indeed
been married upon the island which is named Incoronata. She told me
that my coming to Zlarin had decided her on the step. The boy had long
pressed her to go to the mainland with him that they might seek their
fortunes together. Until I came to put before her my proposals for
a decent life in my own city she had turned a deaf ear to all such
suggestions.
“‘Some day, Ugo--some day, I will go with thee,’ she would cry to the
passionate boy, who carried her image before his eyes day and night,
and never slept but that in fancy he had his arms about her; ‘some day
we will see the great city together--and thou shalt have thy wish.’
“Thus she answered him, suffering him rarely to cool his burning lips
upon her own, to hold her in his arms as he had wished to do. He, in
his turn, knowing something of the nature of the girl, gave in to her,
and would have waited many a day had not I come to the island and
proposed to take the little one with me to Pola. The very thought that
she must be immured in a town, and for a season in a convent--for thus
I had proposed--broke down the resolution she had formed. No sooner was
my back turned upon her hut than she prepared to leave it; and the man
himself chancing to come to her with the dawn, they set out for the
neighbouring island and were married when Mass was done. And let this
be no surprise to you, excellency. We are a primitive people, and the
forms and ceremonies of towns are nothing to us. Set a couple before a
priest, and say to him: ‘Give these the Sacrament, for they wish it,’
and he will ask no other reason. Rather, he will thank God for the day,
and hasten to the work.
“They were married at Incoronata, the boy and the girl, and meeting
there with a fisherman who knew them, they crossed in his ship to
Sebenico. Few words had until this time passed between them, for the
boy was content to feed his eyes upon her whom he now called wife; and
she in turn was too full of the sights and sounds around to think of
aught but the world she was entering. Four years had she lived a child
of the woods and the lonely seashore. Do you wonder that the voices in
the city drummed upon her ears, that her eyes were dimmed by the things
she saw, that she forgot all else but the multitudes that passed before
her? Nay, I have heard that fear so prevailed with her when she came
into the great street of the city that she begged her lover to take her
to her home again, and was held back by him with difficulty when she
would have run down to the sea.
“‘Ugo,’ she cried, ‘my eyes are blinded with the things I see. Take me
back to Zlarin!’
“He turned to her, and saw that she was trembling and very pale.
“‘Courage, little wife,’ he answered; ‘another hour and we shall be out
on the hills. Have you not my hand to hold, _carissima_? Oh, it will be
nothing when a day has passed, and we are on the road to Vienna. They
will laugh at you, sweetheart, and you will laugh at yourself.’
“Thus he spoke to her, and shielding her with his arm, he took her
straight to the northern gate, beyond which is the house of his
kinsman. He knew well enough that there was danger to him so long as he
remained in Sebenico, and it was his plan to set off to the mountains
at once, hoping if ever he reached Vienna to be secure from the pursuit
of the soldiers.
“‘Not that they will look for me here, little Christine,’ said he, ‘for
who will tell them that I have been drawn at Jajce? But a friend might
come--and then they would take me. _Madonna mia_--and on my wedding
day! What would become of you, _carissima_?’
“He said this to her when they had passed the city walls in safety;
but she heard him calmly, answering him with none of those loving
protestations he had looked for. The man had yet to learn that her
flight had been the outcome of her impulse; that his marriage was on
her part little more than the expression of a great gratitude. All else
had been brushed aside that she might flee the convent I had chosen
for her. Her only desire was to see the things she had pictured in
her sleep. She was child still, and the meaning of marriage to her
was that she should walk through life holding her lover’s hand. How
many, excellency, have not, in their childhood, cherished so pretty
a delusion? Thus it was that she was dumb before his questions, and
followed him silently; and when they had passed safely through the
town together, he took her to the house of his kinsman, leaving there
the waggon with the few things she had brought from the hut. He had
determined, so soon as he had given her meat, to set out on horseback
for Verlika; and though she was quite unaccustomed to such a mode of
travel, she rode well enough on the pack saddle he had put upon her
pony.
“‘We must take to the hills, little wife,’ said he, as they set out; ‘I
know the path well, and I will lead where no soldier can follow. You
do not fear, Christine?’
“‘I fear nothing, Ugo,’ she answered; ‘I have no time to think. Surely,
they will not follow to the mountains!’
“‘Who can tell?’ cried he; ‘if they had known in the city yonder
when I passed through, we had never heard the gate close behind us,
sweetheart. They are devils, those Austrians, and hunt men like swine.
Some day we shall have our hands upon their throats. God send it soon.’
“He dug spurs into his horse with the words, and leading the pony by
the rein, he turned towards the mountains as one who in their shelter
would find liberty. A true son of the hills was this woodlander,
excellency; hardy as the beasts he hunted, brown-burnt as the leaves in
autumn, fearless, dogged, surpassing other men in cleverness with his
gun, the subject for hussy tongues and wishes. Dressed up in his coat
of green, with boots above his knees, and breeches white as the snow
upon the peaks, he might well have been the object of something deeper
than friendship in the heart of the little one he had taken to wife.
Had it been so, much of that which she suffered in the months to come
might have passed her by. But it was not so decreed; love was yet to be
born in her heart. And that love was not for Ugo Klun.
“It was growing late in the afternoon when these pretty fugitives
struck the mountains which lay between them and their freedom. The road
had carried them over the stony plain which borders the seashore; but,
turning as the sun began to set, they came upon a narrow bridle-track
winding about one of the sandy hills which here stand up boldly to the
gates of the Adriatic. At that time the wonder and the fear had passed
from little Christine’s face, and she had become silent and brooding.
The loneliness of the barren mountains weighed heavily upon her. She
saw on all sides nothing but the sullen purple heights, sentinelled by
the white boulders of the rock which arose as so many tombstones in
her path. All the home she had ever known was now but a haze upon the
distant waters. Though no man there had bidden her Godspeed when she
began her journey to that phantom world she had pictured, though no
woman’s lips had pressed upon her own in sickness or in sorrow, she
could yet hunger for the green woods and shady glens she had left for
ever. There, at least, she had a roof above her and a warm bed to help
her dreams. But here--here in the valley of the stony hills, rising
up one above the other until they mingled with the clouds upon the
far horizon, what haven had she save the friendship of the man, what
shelter but that of the caverns in the heights?
“This from the first was the source of her foreboding; these the
thoughts which stilled her tongue. But with the man it was otherwise.
Every mile that he could put between the city and himself was a fetter
struck off his natural gaiety. The crisp air blowing cool upon the
hills exhilarated him and steeled his nerves to new courage. He foresaw
happy days of freedom and of love. He looked down upon the wife at his
side, and the sweetness of her face filled him with a tenderness he had
never known.
“‘Christine, my little Christine!’ he exclaimed as the spires and domes
of Sebenico were shut from his view by the gathering of the evening
clouds, ‘are you not happy now? Look yonder--we can see the city no
more. In another hour we shall laugh at the Austrian, _carissima_. Let
us say good-bye to the sea, for we may never come back to it again.’
“They were standing well up on the hills then, and the waves below them
rolled blood-red as the sun’s glory pencilled them with rays of burning
light. Here and there upon the horizon the islands stood up to their
view, eyots of wood and rock in mists of golden haze. The western sky
gave birth to a mighty range of phantom shapes--the shapes of mountains
and of cities, of peaks and domes and jagged rocks, cut upon the clouds
with chisels of fire. The waters themselves danced with a glittering
radiance fair to see. The wind was soft and sweet as a wind blowing
from the gardens of spring. Christine herself, standing to observe
these things, felt them press a new sense of loneliness upon her.
“‘Ugo,’ she cried for the second time, ‘take me back to Zlarin.’
“His answer to her was a kiss upon her forehead; and bending down from
his saddle he put his arm about her and pressed her to him.
“‘To Zlarin, pretty one? What should we do in Zlarin? Say rather that I
shall take thee to the hut of Duka, and there get supper. Oh, we will
have a merry supper, Christine! There is wine in the pack, and the meat
which Dame Vitali cooked, and confections from the shop, and a lamp
to light us and sheets for the bed. _Madonna mia_, I had thought of
the hut often. It lies in the mountains like a kernel in a nut. It is
the hut of Orio, the shepherd, and I have his word to take thee there.
To-night we rest there; but to-morrow we go on, as I have promised
thee, sweetheart.’
“‘And to-morrow you will bring me to the great city, Ugo?’
“‘To-morrow to the great city? Nay, little one, we had need of wings
for that. It is many days’ journey beyond the mountains. _Diamine_,
that thou shouldest be so simple!’
“His wondering word had no meaning for her. Accustomed to the narrow
boundaries of the island, which were her only standards of distance,
she had not conceived the possibility that she must ride for days and
nights before she might enter the city of her hopes. His explanations
added to her gloom. The silence of the valleys began to terrify her.
Her limbs ached with the pressure of the saddle. The chill of evening
struck her bones.
“‘When shall we come to the hut of Orio?’ she asked wearily, after many
minutes had passed, and the silence between them had remained unbroken.
“‘Look,’ he answered her, ‘it is in yonder wood. Ten minutes more and
we are safe, Christine.’
“Excellency, even as he spoke, there were soldiers in the valley below
him.”