A NIGHT ASSAULT
And she melted into the night, swiftly as a bird goes. Then I became
aware of flying footsteps. It seemed that I had better not be found
there, lest I should compromise the Countess with her brother, and find
myself with a duel upon my hands in addition to my other embarrassments.
So I set my toes upon the little projections of the stone parapet,
taking advantage of the hooks which confined the creepers, and clutching
desperately with my hands, so that I scrambled to the top just as the
Count and Henry met below.
"Strike a light, Count," I heard Henry say; "I am sure I hit something.
I heard a cry."
A light flamed up. There was the rustling noise of the broad leaves of
the creeper being pushed aside.
"Here is blood!" cried Henry. "I was sure I hit something that time!"
His tone was triumphant.
"I tell you what it is, Monsieur," said the calm voice of the Count: "if
you go through the world banging off shots on the chance of shooting
white owls which you do not see, you are indeed likely to hit
something. But whether you will like it after it is hit, is another
matter."
Then I went indoors, for my arm was paining me. In my own room I eagerly
examined the wound. It was but slight. A pellet or two had grazed my arm
and ploughed their way along the thickness of the skin, but none had
entered deeply. So I wrapped my arm in a little lint and some old linen,
and went to bed.
I did not again see the Countess till noon on the morrow, when her
carriage was at the door and she tripped down the steps to enter.
The Count stood by it, holding the door for her to enter--I midway down
the broad flight of steps.
"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand, from which she deftly drew
the glove. "We shall meet again."
"God grant it! I live for that!" said I, so low that the Count did not
hear, as I bent to kiss her hand. For in these months I had learned many
things.
At this moment Henry came up to say farewell, and he shook her hand with
boyish affectation of the true British indifference, which at that time
it was the correct thing for Englishmen to assume at parting.
"Nice boy!" said the Countess indulgently, looking up at me. The Count
bowed and smiled, and smiled and bowed, till the carriage drove out of
sight.
Then in a moment he turned to me with a fierce and frowning countenance.
"And now, Monsieur, I have the honour to ask you to explain all this!"
I stood silent, amazed, aghast. There was in me no speech, nor reason.
Yet I had the sense to be silent, lest I should say something maladroit.
A confidential servant brought a despatch. The Count impatiently flung
it open, glanced at it, then read it carefully twice. He seemed much
struck with the contents.
"I am summoned to Milan," he said, "and upon the instant. I shall yet
overtake my sister. May I ask Monsieur to have the goodness to await me
here that I may receive his explanations? I shall return immediately."
"You may depend that I shall wait," I said.
The Count bowed, and sprang upon the horse which his servant had saddled
for him.
But the Count did not immediately return, and we waited in vain. No
letter came to me. No communication to the manager of the hostel. The
Count had simply ridden out of sight over the pass through which the
Thal wind brought the fog-spume. He had melted like the mist, and, so
far as we were concerned, there was an end. We waited here till the
second snow fell, hardened, and formed its sleighing crust.
Then we went, for some society to Henry, over to the mountain village of
Bergsdorf, which strings itself along the hillside above the River Inn.
Bergsdorf is no more than a village in itself, but, being the chief
place of its neighbourhood, it supports enough municipal and other
dignitaries to set up an Imperial Court. Never was such wisdom--never
such pompous solemnity. The Burgomeister of Bergsdorf was a great
elephant of a man. He went abroad radiating self-importance. He
perspired wisdom on the coldest day. The other officials imitated the
Burgomeister in so far as their corporeal condition allowed. The _curé_
only was excepted. He was a thin, spare man with an ascetic face and a
great talent for languages. One day during service he asked a mother to
carry out a crying child, making the request in eight languages. Yet the
mother failed to understand till the limping old apparator led her out
by the arm.
There is no doubt that the humours of Bergsdorf lightened our spirits
and cheered our waiting; for it is my experience that a young man is
easily amused with new, bright, and stirring things even when he is in
love.
And what amused us most was that excellent sport--now well known to the
world, but then practised only in the mountain villages--the species of
adventure which has come to be called "tobogganing." I fell heir in a
mysterious fashion to a genuine Canadian toboggan, curled and
buffalo-robed at the front, flat all the way beneath; and upon this,
with Henry on one of the ordinary sleds with runners of steel, we spent
many a merry day.
There was a good run down the road to the post village beneath; another,
excellent, down a neighbouring pass. But the best run of all started
from high up on the hillside, crossed the village street, and undulated
down the hillside pastures to the frozen Inn river below--a splendid
course of two miles in all. But as a matter of precaution it was
strictly forbidden ever to be used--at least in that part of it which
crossed the village street. For such projectiles as laden toboggans,
passing across the trunk line of the village traffic at an average rate
of a mile a minute, were hardly less dangerous than cannon-balls, and of
much more erratic flight.
Nevertheless, there was seldom a night when we did not risk all the
penalties which existed in the city of Bergsdorf, by defying all powers
and regulations whatsoever and running the hill-course in the teeth of
danger.
I remember one clear, starlight night with the snow casting up just
enough pallid light to see by. Half a dozen of us--Henry and myself, a
young Swiss doctor newly diplomaëd, the adventurous advocate of the
place, and several others--went up to make our nightly venture. We gave
half a minute's law to the first starter, and then followed on. I was
placed first, mainly because of the excellence of my Canadian iceship.
As I drew away, the snow sped beneath; the exhilarating madness of the
ride entered into my blood. I whooped with sheer delight.... There was a
curve or two in the road, and at the critical moment, by shifting the
weight of my body and just touching the snow with the point of the short
iron-shod stick I held in my hand, the toboggan span round the curve
with the delicious clean cut of a skate. It seemed only a moment, and
already I was approaching the critical part of my journey. The stray
oil-lights of the village street began to waver irregularly here and
there beneath me. I saw the black gap in the houses through which I must
go. I listened for the creaking runners of the great Valtelline
wine-sledges which constituted the main danger. All was silent and safe.
But just as I drew a long breath, and settled for the delicious rise
over the piled snow of the street and the succeeding plunge down to the
Inn, a vast bulk heaved itself into the seaway, like some lost monster
of a Megatherium retreating to the swamps to couch itself ere morning
light.
It was the Burgomeister of Bergsdorf.
"Acht--u--um--m!" I shouted, as one who, on the Scottish links, should
cry "Fore!" and be ready to commit murder.
But the vision solemnly held up its hand and cried "Halt!"
"Halt yourself!" I cried, "and get out of the way!" For I was
approaching at a speed of nearly a mile a minute. Now, there is but one
way of halting a toboggan. It is to run the nose of your machine into a
snow-bank, where it will stick. On the contrary, you do not stop. You
describe the curve known as a parabola, and skin your own nose on the
icy crust of the snow. Then you "halt," in one piece or several, as the
case may be.
But I, on this occasion, did not halt in this manner. The mind moves
swiftly in emergencies. I reflected that I had a low Canadian toboggan
with a soft buffalo-skin over the front. The Burgomeister also had
naturally well-padded legs. _Eh bien_--a meeting of these two could do
no great harm to either. So I sat low in my seat, and let the toboggan
run.
Down I came flying, checked a little at the rise for the crossing of the
village street. A mountainous bulk towered above me--a bulk that still
and anon cried "Halt!" There was a slight shock and a jar. The stars
were eclipsed above me for a moment; something like a large tea-tray
passed over my head and fell flat on the snow behind me. Then I scudded
down the long descent to the Inn, leaving the village and all its
happenings miles behind.
I did not come up the same way. I did not desire to attract immodest
attention. Unobtrusively, therefore, I proceeded to leave my toboggan in
its accustomed out-house at the back of the Osteria. Then, slipping on
another overcoat, I took an innocent stroll along the village street, in
the company of the landlord.
There was a great crowd on the corner by the Rathhaus. In the centre was
Henry, in the hands of two officers of justice. The Burgomeister,
supported by sympathising friends, limped behind. There is no doubt that
Henry was exercising English privileges. His captors were unhappy. But I
bade him go quietly, and with a look of furious bewilderment he obeyed.
Finally we got the hotel-keeper, a staunch friend of ours and of great
importance in these parts, to bail him out.
On the morrow there was a deliciously humorous trial. The young advocate
was in attendance, and the whole village was called to give evidence.
But, curiously enough, I was not summoned. I had been, it seemed, in
the hotel changing my clothes. However, I was not missed, for everybody
else had something to say. There were excellent plans of the ground,
showing where the miscreant assaulted the magistrate. There, plain to be
seen, was the mark in the snow where Henry, starting half a minute after
me, and observing a vast prostrate bulk on the path, had turned his
toboggan into the snow-bank, duly described his parabola, discuticled
his nose--in fact, fulfilled the programme to the letter. Clearly, then,
he could not have been the aggressor. The villain has remained, up to
the publication of this veracious chronicle, unknown. No matter: I am
not going back to Bergsdorf.
But something had to be done to vindicate the offended majesty of the
law. So they fined Henry seventeen francs for obstructing the police in
the discharge of their duty.
"Never mind," said Henry, "that's just eight francs fifty each. I got in
two, both right-handers."
And I doubt not but the officers concerned considered that he had got
his money's worth.