we pleased in the kitchen, and learning from Ursula how to concoct
_pot-au-feu_ in the most approved Swiss fashion. We pottered, as we
women love to potter, half the day long; the other half we spent in
riding our cycles about the eternal hills, and ensnaring the flies whom
Lady Georgina dutifully sent up to us. She was our decoy duck: and, in
virtue of her handle, she decoyed to a marvel. Indeed, I sold so many
Manitous that I began to entertain a deep respect for my own commercial
faculties. As for Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock, he wrote to me from Frankfort:
'The world continues to revolve on its axis, the Manitou, and the
machine is booming. Orders romp in daily. When you ventilated the
suggestion of an agency at Limburg, I concluded at a glance you had the
material of a first-class business woman about you; but I reckon I did
not know what a traveller meant till you started on the road. I am now
enlarging and altering this factory, to meet increased demands. Branch
offices at Berlin, Hamburg, Crefeld, and Duesseldorf. Inspect our stock
before dealing elsewhere. A liberal discount allowed to the trade. Two
hundred agents wanted in all towns of Germany. If they were every one of
them like _you_, miss--well, I guess I would hire the town of Frankfort
for my business premises.'
One morning, after we had spent about a week at the _chalet_ by
ourselves, I was surprised to see a young man with a knapsack on his
back walking up the garden path towards our cottage. 'Quick, quick,
Elsie!' I cried, being in a mischievous mood. 'Come here with the
opera-glass! There's a Man in the offing!'
'A _what_?' Elsie exclaimed, shocked as usual at my levity.
'A Man,' I answered, squeezing her arm. 'A Man! A real live Man! A
specimen of the masculine gender in the human being! Man, ahoy! He has
come at last--the lodestar of our existence!'
Next minute, I was sorry I spoke; for as the man drew nearer, I
perceived that he was endowed with very long legs and a languidly
poetical bearing. That supercilious smile--that enticing moustache!
Could it be?--yes, it was--not a doubt of it--Harold Tillington!
I grew grave at once; Harold Tillington and the situation were serious.
'What can he want here?' I exclaimed, drawing back.
'Who is it?' Elsie asked; for, being a woman, she read at once in my
altered demeanour the fact that the Man was not unknown to me.
'Lady Georgina's nephew,' I answered, with a tell-tale cheek, I fear.
'You remember I mentioned to you that I had met him at Schlangenbad. But
this is really too bad of that wicked old Lady Georgina. She has told
him where we lived and sent him up to see us.'
'Perhaps,' Elsie put in, 'he wants to charter a bicycle.'
I glanced at Elsie sideways. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that she
said it slyly, like one who knew he wanted nothing of the sort. But at
any rate, I brushed the suggestion aside frankly. 'Nonsense,' I
answered. 'He wants _me_, not a bicycle.'
He came up to us, waving his hat. He _did_ look handsome! 'Well, Miss
Cayley,' he cried from afar, 'I have tracked you to your lair! I have
found out where you abide! What a beautiful spot! And how well you're
looking!'
'This is an unexpected----' I paused. He thought I was going to say,
'pleasure,' but I finished it, 'intrusion.' His face fell. 'How did you
know we were at Lungern, Mr. Tillington?'
'My respected relative,' he answered, laughing. 'She
mentioned--casually--' his eyes met mine--'that you were stopping in a
_chalet_. And as I was on my way back to the diplomatic mill, I thought
I might just as well walk over the Grimsel and the Furca, and then on to
the Gotthard. The Court is at Monza. So it occurred to me ... that in
passing ... I might venture to drop in and say how-do-you-do to you.'
'Thank you,' I answered, severely--but my heart spoke otherwise--'I do
very well. And you, Mr. Tillington?'
'Badly,' he echoed. 'Badly, since _you_ went away from Schlangenbad.'
I gazed at his dusty feet. 'You are tramping,' I said, cruelly. 'I
suppose you will get forward for lunch to Meiringen?'
'I-- I did not contemplate it.'
'Indeed?'
He grew bolder. 'No; to say the truth, I half hoped I might stop and
spend the day here with you.'
'Elsie,' I remarked firmly, 'if Mr. Tillington persists in planting
himself upon us like this, one of us must go and investigate the kitchen
department.'
Elsie rose like a lamb. I have an impression that she gathered we wanted
to be left alone.
[Illustration: I MAY STAY, MAYN'T I?]
He turned to me imploringly. 'Lois,' he cried, stretching out his arms,
with an appealing air, 'I _may_ stay, mayn't I?'
I tried to be stern; but I fear 'twas a feeble pretence. 'We are two
girls, alone in a house,' I answered. 'Lady Georgina, as a matron of
experience, ought to have protected us. Merely to give you lunch is
almost irregular. (Good diplomatic word, irregular.) Still, in these
days, I suppose you _may_ stay, if you leave early in the afternoon.
That's the utmost I can do for you.'
'You are not gracious,' he cried, gazing at me with a wistful look.
I did not dare to be gracious. 'Uninvited guests must not quarrel with
their welcome,' I answered severely. Then the woman in me broke forth.
'But indeed, Mr. Tillington, I am glad to see you.'
He leaned forward eagerly. 'So you are not angry with me, Lois? I may
call you _Lois_?'
I trembled and hesitated. 'I am not angry with you. I-- I like you too
much to be ever angry with you. And I am glad you came--just this
once--to see me.... Yes,--when we are alone--you may call me Lois.'
He tried to seize my hand. I withdrew it. 'Then I may perhaps hope,' he
began, 'that some day----'
I shook my head. 'No, no,' I said, regretfully. 'You misunderstand me.
I like you very much; and I like to see you. But as long as you are rich
and have prospects like yours, I could never marry you. My pride
wouldn't let me. Take that as final.'
I looked away. He bent forward again. 'But if I were poor?' he put in,
eagerly.
I hesitated. Then my heart rose, and I gave way. 'If ever you are poor,'
I faltered,--'penniless, hunted, friendless--come to me, Harold, and I
will help and comfort you. But not till then. Not till then, I implore
you.'
He leant back and clasped his hands. 'You have given me something to
live for, dear Lois,' he murmured. 'I will try to be poor--penniless,
hunted, friendless. To win you I will try. And when that day arrives, I
shall come to claim you.'
We sat for an hour and had a delicious talk--about nothing. But we
understood each other. Only that artificial barrier divided us. At the
end of the hour, I heard Elsie coming back by judiciously slow stages
from the kitchen to the living-room, through six feet of passage,
discoursing audibly to Ursula all the way, with a tardiness that did
honour to her heart and her understanding. Dear, kind little Elsie! I
believe she had never a tiny romance of her own; yet her sympathy for
others was sweet to look upon.
We lunched at a small deal table in the veranda. Around us rose the
pinnacles. The scent of pines and moist moss was in the air. Elsie had
arranged the flowers, and got ready the omelette, and cooked the chicken
cutlets, and prepared the junket. 'I never thought I could do it alone
without you, Brownie; but I tried, and it all came right by magic,
somehow.' We laughed and talked incessantly. Harold was in excellent
cue; and Elsie took to him. A livelier or merrier table there wasn't in
the twenty-two Cantons that day than ours, under the sapphire sky,
looking out on the sun-smitten snows of the Jungfrau.
After lunch, Harold begged hard to be allowed to stop for tea. I had
misgivings, but I gave way--he _was_ such good company. One may as well
be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, says the wisdom of our ancestors: and,
after all, Mrs. Grundy was only represented here by Elsie, the gentlest
and least censorious of her daughters. So he stopped and chatted till
four; when I made tea and insisted on dismissing him. He meant to take
the rough mountain path over the screes from Lungern to Meiringen, which
ran right behind the _chalet_. I feared lest he might be belated, and
urged him to hurry.
'Thanks, I'm happier here,' he answered.
I was sternness itself. 'You _promised_ me!' I said, in a reproachful
voice.
He rose instantly, and bowed. 'Your will is law--even when it pronounces
sentence of exile.'
Would we walk a little way with him? No, I faltered; we would not. We
would follow him with the opera-glasses and wave him farewell when he
reached the Kulm. He shook our hands unwillingly, and turned up the
little path, looking handsomer than ever. It led ascending through a
fir-wood to the rock-strewn hillside.
Once, a quarter of an hour later, we caught a glimpse of him near a
sharp turn in the road; after that we waited in vain, with our eyes
fixed on the Kulm; not a sign could we discern of him. At last I grew
anxious. 'He ought to be there,' I cried, fuming.
'He ought,' Elsie answered.
I swept the slopes with the opera-glasses. Anxiety and interest in him
quickened my senses, I suppose. 'Look here, Elsie,' I burst out at last.
'Just take this glass and have a glance at those birds, down the crag
below the Kulm. Don't they seem to be circling and behaving most oddly?'
Elsie gazed where I bid her. 'They're wheeling round and round,' she
answered, after a minute; 'and they certainly _do_ look as if they were
screaming.'
'They seem to be frightened,' I suggested.
'It looks like it, Brownie,'
'Then he's fallen over a precipice!' I cried, rising up; 'and he's lying
there on a ledge by their nest. Elsie, we must go to him!'
She clasped her hands and looked terrified. 'Oh, Brownie, how dreadful!'
she exclaimed. Her face was deadly white. Mine burned like fire.
'Not a moment to lose!' I said, holding my breath. 'Get out the rope and
let us run to him!'
'Don't you think,' Elsie suggested, 'we had better hurry down on our
cycles to Lungern and call some men from the village to help us? We are
two girls, and alone. What can we do to aid him?'
'No,' I answered, promptly, 'that won't do. It would only lose time--and
time may be precious. You and I must go; I'll send Ursula off to bring
up guides from the village.'
Fortunately, we had a good long coil of new rope in the house, which
Mrs. Evelegh had provided in case of accident. I slipped it on my arm,
and set out on foot; for the path was by far too rough for cycles. I was
sorry afterwards that I had not taken Ursula, and sent Elsie to Lungern
to rouse the men; for she found the climbing hard, and I had difficulty
at times in dragging her up the steep and stony pathway, almost a
watercourse. However, we persisted in the direction of the Kulm,
tracking Harold by his footprints; for he wore mountain boots with
sharp-headed nails, which made dints in the moist soil, and scratched
the smooth surface of the rock where he trod on it.
We followed him thus for a mile or two, along the regular path; then of
a sudden, in an open part, the trail failed us. I turned back, a few
yards, and looked close, with my eyes fixed on the spongy soil, as keen
as a hound that sniffs his way after his quarry. 'He went off _here_,
Elsie!' I said at last, pulling up short by a spindle bush on the
hillside.
'How do you know, Brownie?'
'Why, see, there are the marks of his stick; he had a thick one, you
remember, with a square iron spike. These are its dints; I have been
watching them all the way along from the _chalet_!
'But there are so many such marks!'
'Yes, I know; I can tell his from the older ones made by the spikes of
alpenstocks because Harold's are fresher and sharper on the edge. They
look so much newer. See, here, he slipped on the rock; you can know that
scratch is recent by the clean way it's traced, and the little
glistening crystals still left behind in it. Those other marks have been
wind-swept and washed by the rain. There are no broken particles.'
'How on earth did you find that out, Brownie?'
How on earth did I find it out! I wondered myself. But the emergency
seemed somehow to teach me something of the instinctive lore of hunters
and savages. I did not trouble to answer her. 'At this bush, the tracks
fail,' I went on; 'and, look, he must have clutched at that branch and
crushed the broken leaves as the twigs slipped through his fingers. He
left the path here, then, and struck off on a short cut of his own along
the hillside, lower down. Elsie, we must follow him.'
She shrank from it; but I held her hand. It was a more difficult task
to track him now; for we had no longer the path to guide us. However, I
explored the ground on my hands and knees, and soon found marks of
footsteps on the boggy patches, with scratches on the rock where he had
leapt from point to point, or planted his stick to steady himself. I
tried to help Elsie along among the littered boulders and the dwarf
growth of wind-swept daphne: but, poor child, it was too much for her:
she sat down after a few minutes upon the flat juniper scrub and began
to cry. What was I to do? My anxiety was breathless. I couldn't leave
her there alone, and I couldn't forsake Harold. Yet I felt every minute
might now be critical. We were making among wet whortleberry thicket and
torn rock towards the spot where I had seen the birds wheel and circle,
screaming. The only way left was to encourage Elsie and make her feel
the necessity for instant action. 'He is alive still,' I exclaimed,
looking up; 'the birds are crying! If he were dead, they would return to
their nest-- Elsie, we _must_ get to him!'
She rose, bewildered, and followed me. I held her hand tight, and coaxed
her to scramble over the rocks where the scratches showed the way, or to
clamber at times over fallen trunks of huge fir-trees. Yet it was hard
work climbing; even Harold's sure feet had slipped often on the wet and
slimy boulders, though, like most of Queen Margherita's set, he was an
expert mountaineer. Then, at times, I lost the faint track, so that I
had to diverge and look close to find it. These delays fretted me. 'See,
a stone loosed from its bed--he must have passed by here.... That twig
is newly snapped; no doubt he caught at it.... Ha, the moss there has
been crushed; a foot has gone by. And the ants on that ant-hill, with
their eggs in their mouths--a man's tread has frightened them.' So, by
some instinctive sense, as if the spirit of my savage ancestors revived
within me, I managed to recover the spoor again and again by a miracle,
till at last, round a corner by a defiant cliff--with a terrible
foreboding, my heart stood still within me.
We had come to an end. A great projecting buttress of crag rose sheer in
front. Above lay loose boulders. Below was a shrub-hung precipice. The
birds we had seen from home were still circling and screaming.
They were a pair of peregrine hawks. Their nest seemed to lie far below
the broken scar, some sixty or seventy feet beneath us.
'He is not dead!' I cried once more, with my heart in my mouth. 'If he
were, they would have returned. He has fallen, and is lying, alive,
below there!'
[Illustration: I ADVANCED ON MY HANDS AND KNEES TO THE EDGE OF THE
PRECIPICE.]
Elsie shrank back against the wall of rock. I advanced on my hands and
knees to the edge of the precipice. It was not quite sheer, but it
dropped like a sea-cliff, with broken ledges.
I could see where Harold had slipped. He had tried to climb round the
crag that blocked the road, and the ground at the edge of the precipice
had given way with him; it showed a recent founder of a few inches. Then
he clutched at a branch of broom as he fell; but it slipped through his
fingers, cutting them; for there was blood on the wiry stem. I knelt by
the side of the cliff and craned my head over. I scarcely dared to look.
In spite of the birds, my heart misgave me.
There, on a ledge deep below, he lay in a mass, half raised on one arm.
But not dead, I believed. 'Harold!' I cried. 'Harold!'
He turned his face up and saw me; his eyes lighted with joy. He shouted
back something, but I could not hear it.
I turned to Elsie. 'I must go down to him!'
Her tears rose again. 'Oh, Brownie!'
I unwound the coil of rope. The first thing was to fasten it. I could
not trust Elsie to hold it; she was too weak and too frightened to bear
my weight: even if I wound it round her body, I feared my mere mass
might drag her over. I peered about at the surroundings. No tree grew
near; no rock had a pinnacle sufficiently safe to depend upon. But I
found a plan soon. In the crag behind me was a cleft, narrowing
wedge-shape as it descended. I tied the end of the rope round a stone,
a good big water-worn stone, rudely girdled with a groove near the
middle, which prevented it from slipping; then I dropped it down the
fissure till it jammed; after which, I tried it to see if it would bear.
It was firm as the rock itself. I let the rope down by it, and waited a
moment to discover whether Harold could climb. He shook his head, and
took a notebook with evident pain from his pocket. Then he scribbled a
few words, and pinned them to the rope. I hauled it up. 'Can't move.
Either severely bruised and sprained, or else legs broken.'
There was no help for it, then. I must go to him.
My first idea was merely to glide down the rope with my gloved hands,
for I chanced to have my dog-skin bicycling gloves in my pocket.
Fortunately, however, I did not carry out this crude idea too hastily;
for next instant it occurred to me that I could not swarm up again. I
have had no practice in rope-climbing. Here was a problem. But the
moment suggested its own solution. I began making knots, or rather
nooses or loops, in the rope, at intervals of about eighteen inches.
'What are they for?' Elsie asked, looking on in wonder.
'Footholds, to climb up by.'
'But the ones above will pull out with your weight.'
'I don't think so. Still, to make sure, I shall tie them with this
string. I _must_ get down to him.'
I threaded a sufficient number of loops, trying the length over the
edge. Then I said to Elsie, who sat cowering, propped against the crag,
'You must come and look over, and do as I wave to you. Mind, dear, you
_must_! Two lives depend upon it.'
'Brownie, I daren't? I shall turn giddy and fall over!'
I smoothed her golden hair. 'Elsie, dear,' I said gently, gazing into
her blue eyes, 'you are a woman. A woman can always be brave, where
those she loves are concerned; and I believe you love me.' I led her,
coaxingly, to the edge. 'Sit there,' I said, in my quietest voice, so as
not to alarm her. 'You can lie at full length, if you like, and only
just peep over. But when I wave my hand, remember, you must pull the
rope up.'
She obeyed me like a child. I knew she loved me.
[Illustration: I GRIPPED THE ROPE AND LET MYSELF DOWN.]
I gripped the rope and let myself down, not using the loops to descend,
but just sliding with hands and knees, and allowing the knots to slacken
my pace. Half-way down, I will confess, the eerie feeling of physical
suspense was horrible. One hung so in mid-air! The hawks flapped their
wings. But Harold was below; and a woman can always be brave where those
she loves--well, just that moment, catching my breath, I knew I loved
Harold.
I glided down swiftly. The air whizzed. At last, on a narrow shelf of
rock, I leant over him. He seized my hand. 'I knew you would come!' he
cried. 'I felt sure you would find out. Though, _how_ you found out,
Heaven only knows, you clever, brave little woman!'
'Are you terribly hurt?' I asked, bending close. His clothes were torn.
'I hardly know. I can't move. It may only be bruises.'
'Can you climb by these nooses with my help?'
He shook his head. 'Oh, no. I couldn't climb at all. I must be lifted,
somehow. You had better go back to Lungern and bring men to help you.'
'And leave you here alone! Never, Harold; never!'
'Then what can we do?'
I reflected a moment. 'Lend me your pencil,' I said. He pulled it
out--his arms were almost unhurt, fortunately. I scribbled a line to
Elsie. 'Tie my plaid to the rope and let it down.' Then I waved to her
to pull up again.
I was half surprised to find she obeyed the signal, for she crouched
there, white-faced and open-mouthed, watching; but I have often observed
that women are almost always brave in the great emergencies. She pinned
on the plaid and let it down with commendable quickness. I doubled it,
and tied firm knots in the four corners, so as to make it into a sort of
basket; then I fastened it at each corner with a piece of the rope,
crossed in the middle, till it looked like one of the cages they use in
mills for letting down sacks with. As soon as it was finished, I said,
'Now, just try to crawl into it.'
He raised himself on his arms and crawled in with difficulty. His legs
dragged after him. I could see he was in great pain. But still, he
managed it.
I planted my foot in the first noose. 'You must sit still,' I said,
breathless. 'I am going back to haul you up.'
'Are you strong enough, Lois?'
'With Elsie to help me, yes. I often stroked a four at Girton.'
'I can trust you,' he answered. It thrilled me that he said so.
I began my hazardous journey; I mounted the rope by the nooses--one,
two, three, four, counting them as I mounted. I did not dare to look up
or down as I did so, lest I should grow giddy and fall, but kept my eyes
fixed firmly always on the one noose in front of me. My brain swam: the
rope swayed and creaked. Twenty, thirty, forty! Foot after foot, I
slipped them in mechanically, taking up with me the longer coil whose
ends were attached to the cage and Harold. My hands trembled; it was
ghastly, swinging there between earth and heaven. Forty-five, forty-six,
forty-seven-- I knew there were forty-eight of them. At last, after some
weeks, as it seemed, I reached the summit. Tremulous and half dead, I
prised myself over the edge with my hands, and knelt once more on the
hill beside Elsie.
She was white, but attentive. 'What next, Brownie?' Her voice quivered.
I looked about me. I was too faint and shaky after my perilous ascent to
be fit for work, but there was no help for it. What could I use as a
pulley? Not a tree grew near; but the stone jammed in the fissure might
once more serve my purpose. I tried it again. It had borne my weight;
was it strong enough to bear the precious weight of Harold? I tugged at
it, and thought so. I passed the rope round it like a pulley, and then
tied it about my own waist. I had a happy thought: I could use myself as
a windlass. I turned on my feet for a pivot. Elsie helped me to pull.
'Up you go!' I cried, cheerily. We wound slowly, for fear of shaking
him. Bit by bit, I could feel the cage rise gradually from the ground;
its weight, taken so, with living capstan and stone axle, was less than
I should have expected. But the pulley helped us, and Elsie, spurred by
need, put forth more reserve of nervous strength than I could easily
have believed lay in that tiny body. I twisted myself round and round,
close to the edge, so as to look over from time to time, but not at all
quickly, for fear of dizziness. The rope strained and gave. It was a
deadly ten minutes of suspense and anxiety. Twice or thrice as I looked
down I saw a spasm of pain break over Harold's face; but when I paused
and glanced inquiringly, he motioned me to go on with my venturesome
task. There was no turning back now. We had almost got him up when the
rope at the edge began to creak ominously.
It was straining at the point where it grated against the brink of the
precipice. My heart gave a leap. If the rope broke, all was over.
With a sudden dart forward, I seized it with my hands, below the part
that gave; then--one fierce little run back--and I brought him level
with the edge. He clutched at Elsie's hand. I turned thrice round, to
wind the slack about my body. The taut rope cut deep into my flesh; but
nothing mattered now, except to save him. 'Catch the cloak, Elsie!' I
cried; 'catch it: pull him gently in!' Elsie caught it and pulled him
in, with wonderful pluck and calmness. We hauled him over the edge. He
lay safe on the bank. Then we all three broke down and cried like
children together. I took his hand in mine and held it in silence.
When we found words again I drew a deep breath, and said, simply, 'How
did you manage to do it?'
[Illustration: I ROLLED AND SLID DOWN.]