Fritz and Eric Part 7

"Who ever thought, dear doggie," she continued, speaking the thoughts that surged up in her mind while addressing the dumb animal, who looked as if he would like to understand her if he only could,--"who ever would have thought that things would turn out as they have when I last patted your dear old head at Bingen, 'Fair Bingen on the Rhine,' eh?" and she murmured to herself the refrain of that beautiful ballad.

The retriever gave a long sniff here to express his thorough sympathy with her, and the girl proceeded, musingly, thinking aloud.

"Yes, I mean, doggie, when Armand and I parted for the last time. Poor mamma was alive then, and we never dreamt that this terrible war would come to pa.s.s, severing us so completely! Poor Armand, he said he would be true and return to me again when he was old enough to be able to decide for himself without the consent of that stern father of his, who thought that the daughter of a poor German pastor was not good enough mate for his handsome son--although he was only a merchant, while my mother was a French countess in her own right. Still, parents have the right to settle these things, and I quite agreed with dear mamma that I would never consent to enter a family against their will, especially, too, when they despised our humble position!"

The girl drew herself up proudly as she said this.

"Never mind," she went on again presently, "it is all over and done for.

But, still, I believe Armand loved me. How handsome he looked that last time I saw him when he came to our little cottage to say good-bye, before he went to join his regiment in Algeria, where his father had got him ordered off on purpose to separate us. However, perhaps it was only a boy and girl affection at the best, and would never have lasted; my heart has not broken, I know, although I thought it would break then; for, alas! I have since seen sorrow enough to crush me down, even much more than parting with Armand de la Tour. Fancy, poor darling mamma gone to her grave, and I, her cherished child, forced to earn my bread as companion to this haughty old baroness, who thinks me like the dust under her feet! Ah, it is sad, is it not, doggie?"

The retriever sniffed again, while the blue eyes continued to look down upon him through a haze of tears; and then, the girl was silent for a time.

"Heigho, doggie," she exclaimed, after a short pause of reflection, brushing away the tear drops from her cheeks and shaking her dainty little head as if she would fain banish all her painful imaginings with the action, "I must not repine at my lot, for the good Father above has taken care of me through all my adversity, giving me a comfortable home when I, an orphan, had none to look after me. And, the good baroness, too--she may be haughty, but then she is of a very n.o.ble family, and has been brought up like most German ladies of rank to look down upon her inferiors in position; besides, she is kind to me in her way. I am pleased that she took it into her head to come off here to seek for her son, and bring him presents from home in person. Nothing else would suit her, if you please, on his birthday, although the young baron, I think, was not over-delighted at his mother coming to hunt for him in war time, as if he were a little boy--he on the staff of the general! I fancy he got no little chaff from his brother officers in consequence.

However, 'it is an ill wind that blows n.o.body good,' for the good baroness being here has been seized with a freak for looking after the wounded, because the Princess of Alten-Schlossen goes in for that sort of thing; and thus it is, doggie, that I'm now attending to this poor fellow here. Though, how on earth Armand parted with you, and you became attached to this new master, whom you seem to love with such affection, I'm sure I cannot tell!"

Fritz at this moment turned in the little pallet bed on which he was lying, and in an instant the girl was up from her seat and bending over him.

"Restless?" she said, smoothing the pillows and laying her cool hand on the hot brow of her patient, who gave vent to a sigh of satisfaction in his sleep. "Ah! you'll be better bye-and-bye. Then, you will wake up refreshed and have some nourishment; and then, too, you'll be able to tell me all about yourself and master doggie here, eh?"

But, it was many days before poor Fritz was in a condition to offer any explanation about the dog--many days, when the possibility was trembling in the balance of fate as to whether he would ever speak again, or be silent for aye in this world!

When he woke up, he was delirious; and the doctor, a grave German surgeon of middle age, on coming into the room to examine him, when making the rounds of the house--a villa in the suburbs of Mezieres, which had been transformed into a sort of field hospital for the most dangerous cases in the vicinity--declared Fritz to be in a very critical state. His life, he said, was in serious peril, a change having taken place for the worse.

He had been struck by a cha.s.sepot conical rifle bullet in the chest; and the ball, after breaking two of his ribs and slightly grazing the lungs, had lodged near the spine, where it yet remained, the wounded man being too prostrate for an operation to be performed for its extraction, although all the while it was intensifying the pain and adding to the feverish symptoms of the patient.

"You've not been allowing him to talk, have you?" asked the surgeon, scanning the girl's face with a stern professional glance.

"No," she replied, blushing slightly under his gaze; "that is, he wanted to, an hour ago, when he became conscious, but I gave him the sleeping draught you ordered at once."

"Donnerwetter!" exclaimed the other. "The potion then has done him harm instead of good. I thought it would have composed him and made him comfortable for the operation, as, until that bullet is taken out he can't possibly get well. However, he must now be kept as quiet as possible. Put a bandage on his head and make it constantly cool with cold water. I will return bye-and-bye, and then we'll see about cutting out the ball."

The surgeon then went out softly from the room, leaving the girl to attend to his directions, which she proceeded to do at once; shuddering the while at what she knew her poor patient would have to undergo, when the disciple of Aesculapius came back anon, with his myrmidons and their murderous-looking surgical knives and forceps, to hack and hew away at Fritz in their search for the bullet buried in his chest--he utterly oblivious either of his surroundings or what was in store for him, tossing in the bed under her eyes and rambling in his mind. He fancied himself still on the battlefield in the thick of the fight:-- "Vorwarts, my children!" he muttered. "One more charge and the battery is won.

Pouf! that sh.e.l.l had a narrow squeak of spoiling my new helmet. The gunner will have to take better aim next time!" Then he would shudder all over, and cry out in piteous tones, "Take it away, take it away--the blood is all over my face; and his body, oh, it is pressing me down into that yawning open grave! Will no one save me? It is terrible, terrible to be buried alive, and the pale stars twinkling down on my agony!"

Presently, however, the cold applications to his head had their effect, and he sank down into a torpid sleep, only to start up again in the ravings of delirium a few moments afterwards.

Fritz continued in this state for hours, with intervals of quiet, during which his nurse, by the doctor's orders, administered beef tea and other nourishment which sustained the struggle going on in his sinking frame; until, at last, the ball was extracted, after an operation which was so prolonged that the girl, who felt almost as if she were undergoing it herself, thought it would never end.

Then came the worst stage for the sufferer. Fever supervened; and, although the wound began to heal up, his physical condition grew weaker every day under the tearing strain his const.i.tution was subjected to.

Even the doctor gave him up; but the girl, who had attended to him with the most unwearying a.s.siduity had hopes to the last.

Fritz had been unconscious from the time that he first recognised the dog, on the evening after he was wounded and found himself in the villa, until the fever left him, when he was so weak that he was unable to lift a finger and seemed at the very gates of death.

Now, however, his senses returned to him, and a glad look came into his eyes on seeing, like as he did before and now remembered, the face of the beautiful girl bending over him again; but he noticed that she did not look so bright as when he first beheld her.

"Ah!" he exclaimed feebly, "it was not a dream! How long have I been ill?"

"More than a fortnight," said the girl promptly.

"Oh, my poor mother!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Fritz with a sob, "she will have thought me dead, and broken her heart!"

"Don't fear that," said she kindly. "I wrote to her, telling her you were badly hurt, but that you were in good hands."

"You! Why, how did you know her name, or where she lived?"

"I found the address in your pocket," answered the girl with a laugh.

"Don't you recollect putting a slip of paper there, telling any one, in case you were wounded or killed, to write and break the news gently to your mother, 'madame Dort, Gulden Stra.s.se, Lubeck'? I never heard before of such a thoughtful son!"

"Ah, I remember now," said Fritz; "and you wrote, then, to her?"

"Yes, last week, when we despaired of your recovery; but, I have written again since, telling her that the bullet has been removed from your wound, and that if you get over the fever you will recover all right."

"Thank you, and thank G.o.d!" exclaimed Fritz fervently, and he shut his eyes and remained quiet for a minute or two, although his lips moved as if in prayer.

"And where is Gelert, my dog?" he asked presently.

"'Fritz,' you mean," said the girl, smiling.

"No, that is my name, the dog's is Gelert."

"That is what I want explained," said the other.

"But, please pardon my rudeness, Fraulein," interrupted Fritz, "may I ask to whom I am indebted for watching over me, and adding to it the thoughtful kindness of relieving my mother's misery?"

"My name is Madaleine Vogelstein," said the girl softly. "Do you like it?"

"I do; it is a very pretty one," he replied. "The surname is German, but the given name is French--Madaleine? It sounds sweeter than would be thought possible in our guttural Teuton tongue!"

"My mother was a Frenchwoman, and I take the name from her," explained the girl. "But now, before I stop you from talking any more, for the good doctor would blame me much if he came in, you must tell me how you came to possess that dog; or, rather, why he so faithfully attached himself to you, as it was entirely through him that I found you, and got you picked up by the ambulance corps and brought here. You must first take this soup, however, to strengthen you. It has been kept nice and warm on that little lamp there, and it will do you good. I won't hear a word more until you have swallowed it!"

"A soldier should always obey the orders of his commanding officer,"

said Fritz with a smile, as he slowly gulped down the broth, spoonful by spoonful, as Madaleine placed it in his mouth, for he could not feed himself.

"That will do," she remarked, when he had taken what she thought sufficient. "And now you can tell me about the dog. Here he is," she continued, as the retriever came into the room; and, going up to the side of the bed where Fritz was lying, put up his paws on the counterpane and licked his master's face, in the wildest joy, apparently, at his recovery and notice of him. "He must have heard his name spoken, as I only just sent him out for a run with one of the men, for all the time you were so ill we could not get him to leave the room.

Now, doggie, lie down like a good fellow, and let us hear all about you."

The retriever at once obeyed the girl, stretching himself on the floor at her feet, although close beside his master all the while.

Fritz then narrated the sad little episode of the battle of Gravelotte, and how he had found the dead body of the French officer with the dog keeping guard over it.

The girl wept silently as he went on.

"It must have been poor Armand," she said presently through her tears.

"Did you find nothing about him to tell who he was?"

"There was a little bag I saw round his neck," said Fritz; "I took it off the poor fellow before we buried him, and suspended it on my own breast afterwards for security, thinking that I might restore it some day to his friends, if I ever came across them."

"Ah, that must be the little packet which got driven into your wound, and, stopping the flow of blood, saved your life, the doctor says. I have kept it carefully for you, and here it is," cried the girl, hastily jumping up from her seat and bringing the article in question to Fritz.