Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories Part 3

"Here's to her health," said Fritz, lifting his gla.s.s and touching it to that of his companion.

"With all my heart," responded the latter, and drained the beer mug at one draught.

They sat for a while in silence, Fritz trying to estimate the pecuniary value of the audience, the soldier gazing, with a half-sad and dreamy expression, into the dark sky.

"Curious lot, the women," broke out the junior Hahn chuckling to himself, as if absorbed in some particularly delightful retrospect.

"There is the girl, now, who is to sing as Germania to-night,--and, between you and me, I don't mind telling you that she is rather smitten with me. She is as fine a specimen of a woman as ever trod in two shoes; splendid arms, a neck like alabaster with the tiniest tinge of red in it, and--well, I might expatiate further, but I wont. Now, you wouldn't think it of a girl like that; but the fact is, she is as arch and coquettish as a kitten. It was only the other night I went to see her--the old woman was in the room--"

A tremendous burst of applause completely drowned Fritz's voice, as Germania walked out upon the stage. She was dressed in white, flowing robes, with a golden zone about her waist and a glittering diadem in her hair. A mantle of the finest white cashmere, fastened with a Roman clasp on her left shoulder and drawn through the zone on the right side, showed the fierce Prussian eagle, embroidered in black and gold.

A miniature copy of the same glorious bird, also in gilt embroidery, shone on her breast. She had been, elaborately trained by her _maestro_ as to how she was to step the stage, what att.i.tudes she was to a.s.sume, etc., and the first part of the programme she performed very creditably, and with sole reference to her instructions.

The orchestra began to rumble something by way of an introduction. The soldier in the Austrian uniform at Fritz's table turned pale, and sat staring fixedly upon the stage. Ilka stood for a moment gazing out upon the surging ma.s.s of humanity at her feet; she heard the clanking of the scabbards and swords, and saw the white and the blue uniforms commingled in friendly confusion. Where was. Hansel now--the dear, gay, faithful Hansel? She struck out boldly, and her strong, sonorous voice soared easily above the orchestral accompaniments. "Heil dir im Siegeskranz!"--she was hailing the returning warriors with a song of triumph, while Hansel, perhaps, lay on some b.l.o.o.d.y battle-field, with sightless eyes staring against the awful sky. Ilka's voice began to tremble, and the tears flooded her beautiful eyes. The soldier in the Austrian uniform trembled, too, and never removed his gaze from the countenance of the singer. There was joy and triumph in her song; but there was sorrow, too--sorrow for the many brave ones that remained behind, sorrow for the maidens that loved them and the mothers that wept for them. As Ilka withdrew, after having finished the last stanza, the audience grew almost frantic with enthusiasm; the men jumped up on benches and tables, shouted, and swung their hats, and even the women cheered at the tops of their voices. A repet.i.tion was loudly called for, and Ilka, although herself overcome with emotion, was obliged to yield. She walked up to the footlights and began to yodle softly. It sounded strangely airy and far away. She put her hand to her ear and listened for a moment, as if she expected a reply; but there was a breathless silence in the audience. Only a heavy sigh came from the table where Fritz sat with the Austrian soldier. The yodle grew louder; then suddenly some one sprang up, not a dozen rods from the stage, and sang, in a deep, magnificent baritone:

Tell me, Ilka on the hill-top, While the rivers seaward flow, Is thy heart as true and loving As it was a year ago?

Hohli-ohli-ohli-ho!

Hohli-ohli-ohli-ho! Hohli-oh!

Ilka stood for a while as if stunned; her eyes peered in the direction whence the voice had come; her face lighted up with a sweet, serene happiness; but the tears streamed down her cheeks as she answered:

Dearest Hansel in the valley, I will tell you, tell you true, Yes, my heart is ever loving, True and loving unto you!

Hohli-ohli-ohli-ho!

Hohli-ohli-ohli-ho! Hohli-oh!

Suddenly she made a leap over the edge of the stage, and in the next moment the gorgeous Germania lay sobbing on the soldier's bosom. It made a very touching tableau, and some of the male sceptics among the audience were inclined to view it in that light. Fritz Hahn, as soon as the idea was suggested to him, eagerly adopted it, and admitted in confidence to half a dozen friends, whom he had allowed to suspect the fair singer's devotion to him, that it was all a pre-arranged effect, and that he was himself the author of it.

"Germania weeping on the breast of her returning son," he said. "What could be more appropriate on a day like this?"

The maidens and matrons, however, would listen to no such theory; they wept openly at the sight of the reunited lovers, and have until this day maintained that the scene was too spontaneous and genuine to be a product of Mr. Hahn's inventive genius.

The singing of "Die Wacht am Rhein," although advertised on the programme, had to be indefinitely postponed, for Germania had suddenly disappeared, and was nowhere to be found. The Austrian soldier, however, was seen later in the evening, and some one heard him inquiring in a fierce tone for the junior Hahn; but the junior Hahn, probably antic.i.p.ating some unpleasantness, had retired from the public gaze.

VI.

Six weeks after this occurrence--it was St. John's day--there was a merry festival in the village of Mayrhofen. Ilka and Hansel were bride and groom, and as they returned from church the maidens of the village walked in the wedding procession and strewed flowers before them. And in the evening, when the singing and fiddling and dancing were at an end, and the guests had departed, Mother Uberta beckoned Hansel aside, and with a mysterious air handed him something heavy tied up in the corner of a handkerchief.

"There," she said, "is eight hundred and fifty florins. It is Ilka's own money which she earned in Berlin. Now you may pay off the mortgage, and the farm is yours."

"Mother Uberta," answered Hansel laughing, and pulling out a skin purse from his bosom. "Here is what I have been saving these many years. It is eight hundred and fifty florins."

"Hansel, Hansel," cried Mother Uberta in great glee, "it is what I have always said of you. You are a jewel of a lad."

ANNUNCIATA.

I.

In the gallery of one of the famous Roman villas which commands a splendid view of the city, Mr. Henry Vincent, a young American, was lounging. Judging by his appearance he was a college graduate, or, to speak more definitely, a graduate of Harvard; for he had that jaunty walk and general trimness of attire which are the traditional attributes of the academical denizens of Cambridge. He swung his arms rather more than was needed to a.s.sist locomotion, and betrayed in an un.o.btrusive manner a consciousness of being well dressed. His face, which was not without fine possibilities, had an air of well-bred neutrality; you could see that he a.s.sumed a defensive att.i.tude against aesthetic impressions,--that even the Sistine Madonna or the Venus of Milo would not have surprised him into anything like enthusiasm or abject approval. It was evident, too, that he was a little bit ashamed of his Baedeker, which he consulted only in a semi-surrept.i.tious way, and plunged into the pocket of his overcoat whenever he believed himself to be observed. Such a contingency, however, seemed remote; for the silence that reigned about him was as heavy and profound as if it had been unbroken since creation's day. The large marble halls had a grave and inhospitable air, and their severe magnificence compelled even from our apathetic traveller a shy and reluctant veneration. He tried to fix his attention upon a certain famous Guido which was attached by hinges to the wall, and which, as he had just learned from Baedeker, was a marvel of color and fine characterization; he stood for a few moments staring with a blank and helpless air, as if, for the first time in his life, he was beginning to question the finality of his own judgment. Then his eyes wandered off to the cornice of the wall, whose florid rococo upholstery won his sincere approval.

"Hang it!" he murmured impatiently, pulling a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. "That loon Jack--he never does keep an engagement."

At this moment, distant footsteps were heard, which, as they approached, resounded with a sepulchral distinctness on the marble pavement. Presently a young man entered breathlessly, holding his hat in one hand and a white handkerchief in the other.

"Harry," he cried, excitedly, "I have found the G.o.ddess of the place.

Come quick, before she vanishes. It is a rare chance, I tell you."

He seized his companion's arm and, ignoring his remonstrances, almost dragged him through the door by which he had entered.

"What sort of lunacy is it you are up to now, Jack?" the other was heard to grumble. "I'll bet ten to one you have been making an a.s.s of yourself."

"I dare say I have," retorted Jack, good-naturedly; "a man who has not the faculty of making a fool of himself occasionally is only half a man. You would be a better fellow, too, Harry, if you were not so deucedly respectable; a slight admixture of folly would give tone and color to your demure and rigid propriety. For a man so splendidly equipped by fortune, you have made a poor job of existence, Harry.

When I see you bestowing your sullen patronage upon the great masterpieces of the past, I am ashamed of you--yes, by Jove, I am."

"Don't you bother about me," was the ungracious response of his comrade. "I cut my eye-teeth a good while before you did, even though you may be a few years older. I'll take care of myself, you may depend upon it, and of you, too, if you get yourself into a sc.r.a.pe, which you seem bent upon doing."

"Now, do be amiable, Harry," urged the other with gentle persuasiveness. "I can't take it upon my conscience to introduce you to a lady, and far less to a G.o.ddess, unless you promise to put on your best behavior. You know from your mythology that G.o.ddesses are capable of taking a terrible vengeance upon mortals who unwittingly offend them."

Mr. John Cranbrook--for that was the name of the demonstrative tourist--was a small, neat-looking man, with an eager face and a pair of dark, vivid eyes. His features, though not in themselves handsome, were finely, almost tenderly, modelled. His nose was not of the cla.s.sical type, but nevertheless of a clear and delicate cut, and his nostrils of extreme sensitiveness. On the whole, it was a pleasant, open, and enthusiastic face,--a face in which there was no guile. By the side of his robust and stalwart friend, Cranbrook looked almost frail, and it was evident that Vincent, who felt the advantages of his superior avoirdupois, was in the habit of patronizing him. They had been together in college and had struck up an accidental friendship, which, to their mutual surprise, had survived a number of misunderstandings, and even extended beyond graduation. Cranbrook, who was of a restless and impetuous temperament, found Vincent's quiet self-confidence very refreshing; there was a ma.s.sive repose about him, an unquestioning acceptance of the world as it was and an utter absence of intellectual effort, which afforded his friend a refuge from his own self-consuming ambition. Cranbrook had always prophesied that Harry would some day wake up and commit a grand and monumental piece of folly, but he hoped that that day was yet remote; at present it was his rich commonplaceness and his grave and comfortable dulness which made him the charming fellow he was, and it would be a pity to forfeit such rare qualities.

Cranbrook's own accomplishments were not of the kind which is highly appreciated among undergraduates. His verses, which appeared anonymously in the weekly college paper, enjoyed much popularity in certain young ladies' clubs, but were by the professor of rhetoric p.r.o.nounced unsound in sentiment, though undeniably clever in expression. Vincent, on the other hand, had virtues which paved him an easy road to popularity; he could discuss base-ball and rowing matters with a gravity as if the fate of the republic depended upon them; he was moreover himself an excellent "catcher," and subscribed liberally for the promotion of athletic sports. He did not, like his friend, care for "honors," nor had he the slightest desire to excel in Greek; he always reflected the average undergraduate opinion on all college affairs, and was not above playing an occasional trick on a freshman or a professor. As for Cranbrook, he rather prided himself on being a little exceptional, and cherished with special fondness those of his tastes and proclivities which distinguished him from the average humanity. He had therefore no serious scruples in accepting Vincent's offer to pay his expenses for a year's trip abroad. Vincent, he reasoned, would hardly benefit much by his foreign experiences, if he went alone. His glance would never penetrate beneath the surface of things, and he therefore needed a companion, whose aesthetic culture was superior to his own. Cranbrook flattered himself that he was such a companion, and vowed in his heart to give Harry full returns in intellectual capital for what he expended on him in sordid metals.

Moreover, Harry had a clear income of fifteen to twenty thousand a year, while he, Cranbrook, had scarcely anything which he could call his own. I dare say that if Vincent had known all the benevolent plans which his friend had formed for his mental improvement, he would have thought twice before engaging him as his travelling companion; but fortunately he was so well satisfied with his own mental condition, and so utterly unconscious of his short-comings in point of intellect, that he could not have treated an educational scheme of which he was himself to be the subject as anything but an amiable lunacy on Jack's part, or at the worst, as a practical joke. Jack was good company; that was with him the chief consideration; his madness was harmless and had the advantage of being entertaining; he was moreover at heart a good fellow, and the stanchest and most loyal of friends. Harry was often heard to express the most cheerful confidence in Jack's future; he would be sure to come out right in the end, as soon as he had cut his eye-teeth, and very likely Europe might be just the thing for a complaint like his.

II.

After having marched over nearly half a mile of marble flag-stones, interrupted here and there by strips of precious mosaic, the two young men paused at the entrance to a long, vaulted corridor. White, silent G.o.ds stood gazing gravely from their niches in the wall, and the pale November sun was struggling feebly to penetrate through the dusty windows. It did not dispel the dusk, but gave it just the tenderest suffusion of sunshine.

"Stop," whispered Cranbrook. "I want you to take in the total impression of this scene before you examine the details. Only listen to this primeval stillness; feel, if you can, the stately monotony of this corridor, the divine repose and dignity of these marble forms, the chill immobility of this light. It seems to me that, if a full, majestic organ-tone could be architecturally expressed, it must of necessity a.s.sume a shape resembling the broad, cold ma.s.ses of this aisle. I should call this an architectonic fugue,--a pure and lofty meditation--"

"Now, do give us a rest, Jack," interrupted Vincent mercilessly. "I thought you said something about a nymph or a G.o.ddess. Trot her out, if you please, and let me have a look at her."

Cranbrook turned sharply about and gave his comrade a look of undisguised disgust.

"Harry," he said gravely, "really you don't deserve the good fortune of being in Italy. I thought I knew you well; but I am afraid I shall have to revise my judgment of you. You are hopelessly and incorrigibly frivolous. I know, it is ungracious in me to tell you so,--I, who have accepted your bounty; but, by Jove, Harry, I don't want to buy my pleasure at the price you seem to demand. I have enough to get home, at all events, and I shall repay you what I owe you."

Vincent colored to the edge of his hair; he bit his lip, and was about to yield to the first impulse of his wrath. A moment's reflection, however, sobered him; he gave his leg two energetic cuts with his slender cane, then turned slowly on his heel and sauntered away.

Cranbrook stood long gazing sadly after him; he would have liked to call him back, but the aimless, leisurely gait irritated him, and the word died on his lips. Every step seemed to hint a vague defiance.

"What does it matter to me," it seemed to say, "what you think of me?

You are of too little account to have the power to ruffle my temper."

As the last echo of the retiring footsteps was lost in the great marble silence, Cranbrook heaved a sigh, and, suddenly remembering his errand, walked rapidly down the corridor. He paused before a round-arched, doorless portal, which led into a large sunny room. In the embrazure of one of the windows, a young girl was sitting, with a drawing-board in her lap, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of a marble relief which was suspended upon the wall. From where Cranbrook stood, he could see her n.o.ble profile clearly outlined against the white wall; a thick coil of black hair was wound about the back of her head, and a dark, tight-fitting dress fell in simple folds about her magnificent form. There was a simplicity and an unstudied grace in her att.i.tude which appealed directly to Cranbrook's aesthetic nature. Ever since he entered Italy he had been on the alert for romantic impressions, and his eager fancy instinctively lifted every commonplace incident that appeared to have poetic possibilities in it into the region of romance. He remembered having seen somewhere a statue of Clio whose features bore a remote resemblance to those of the young girl before him--the same ma.s.sive, boldly sculptured chin, the same splendid, columnar throat, the same grave immobility of vision. It seemed sacrilege to approach such a divine creature with a trivial remark about the weather or the sights of Rome, and yet some commonplace was evidently required to pave the way to further acquaintance. Cranbrook pondered for a moment, and then advanced boldly toward the window where the G.o.ddess was sitting. She turned her head and flashed a pair of brilliant black eyes upon him.

"Pardon me, signorina," he said, with an apologetic cough. "I see you are drawing. Perhaps you could kindly tell me where one can obtain permission to copy in this gallery."