In Midsummer Days, and Other Tales Part 13

It was a great moment; it was in 1880, the year in which Stanley's work in Africa was done, and Nordenskold had accomplished his task.

When they had sung the "Te Deum" a German workman stepped forward and handed to the Italians a beautifully got-up parchment. It was a record and an appreciation of the services of the engineer-in-chief, Louis Favre.

He was to be the first man to pa.s.s through the tunnel, and Andrea was appointed to carry the memorial and his name by the little workmen's train to Airolo.

And Andrea accomplished his mission faithfully, sitting before the locomotive on a barrow.

Yes, it was a great day, and the night was no less great.

They drank wine in Airolo, Italian wine, and let off fireworks. They made speeches on Louis Favre, Stanley, and Nordenskold; they made a speech on the St. Gotthard, which, for thousands of years had been a barrier between Germany and Italy, between the North and the South. A barrier it had been, and at the same time a uniter, honestly dividing its waters between the German Rhine, the French Rhone, the North Sea and the Mediterranean....

"And the Adriatic," interrupted a man from Tessin. "Don't forget the Ticino, which is a tributary to the largest river of Italy, the mighty Po...."

"Bravo! That's better still! Three cheers for the St. Gotthard, the great Germany, the free Italy, and the new France!"

It was a great night, following a great day.

On the following morning Andrea called at the Engineering Offices. He wore his Italian shooting-dress; an eagle's feather ornamented his hat, and a gun and a knapsack were slung across his shoulder. His face and his hands were white.

"So you have done with the tunnel," said the cashier, or the "moneyman,"

as they called him. "Well, n.o.body can blame you for it, for what remains to be done is mason's work. To your account, then!"

The moneyman opened a book, wrote something on a piece of paper, and handed Andrea ten thousand lire in gold.

Andrea signed his name, put the gold into his knapsack and went.

He jumped into a workman's train, and in ten minutes he had arrived at the fallen barrier. There were fires burning in the mountain, the workmen cheered when they saw him and waved their caps. It was splendid!

Ten more minutes and he was at the Swiss side. When he saw the daylight shining through the entrance to the tunnel, the train stopped and he got out.

He walked towards the green light, and came to the village and the green world, bathed in sunlight; the village had been rebuilt and looked prettier than before. And when the workmen saw him they saluted their first man.

He went straight up to a little house, and there, under a walnut tree, by the side of the bee-hives, stood Gertrude, calm, and a hundred times more beautiful and gentle. It looked as if she had stood there for eight years, waiting for him.

"Now I have come," he said, "as I intended to come! Will you follow me to my country?"

"I will follow you wherever you go!"

"I gave you a ring long ago; have you still got it?"

"I have it still!"

"Then let us go at once! No, don't turn back! Don't take anything with you!"

And they went away, hand in hand, but not through the tunnel.

"On to the mountain!" said Andrea, turning in the direction of the old pa.s.s; "through darkness I came to you, but in light I will live with you and for you!"

THE STORY OF JUBAL WHO HAD NO "I"

Once upon a time there was a king whose name was John Lackland, and it is not difficult to imagine the reason why.

But another time there lived a great singer who was called "Jubal, who had no I," and I am now going to tell you the reason.

The name which he had inherited from his father, a soldier, was Peal, and undeniably there was music in the name. But nature had also given him a strong will, which stiffened his back like an iron bar, and that is a splendid gift, quite invaluable in the struggle for an existence.

When he was still a baby, only just able to stammer a few words, he would never refer to his own little person as "he," as other babies do, but from the very first he spoke of himself as "I." You have no "I,"

said his parents. When he grew older, he expressed every little want or desire by "I will." But then his father said to him, "You have no will,"

and "Your will grows in the wood."

It was very foolish of the soldier, but he knew no better; he had learned to will only what he was ordered to do.

Young Peal thought it strange that he should be supposed to have no will when he had such a very strong one, but he let it pa.s.s.

When he had grown into a fine, strong youth, his father said to him one day, "What trade will you learn?"

The boy did not know; he had ceased to will anything, because he was forbidden to do so. It is true, he had a leaning towards music, but he did not dare to say so, for he was convinced that his parents would not allow him to become a musician. Therefore, being an obedient son, he replied, "I don't will anything."

"Then you shall be a tapster," said the father.

Whether it was because the father knew a tapster, or because wine had a peculiar attraction for him, is a matter of indifference. It is quite enough to know that young Peal was sent to the wine vaults, and he might have fared a good deal worse.

There was a lovely smell of sealing-wax and French wine in the cellars, and they were large and had vaulted roofs, like churches. When he sat at the casks and tapped the red wine, his heart was filled with gladness, and he sang, in an undertone at first, all sorts of tunes which he had picked up.

His master, to whom wine spelt life, loved song and gaiety, and never dreamed of stopping his singing; it sounded so well in the vaults, and, moreover, it attracted customers, which was a splendid thing from the master's point of view.

One day a commercial traveller dropped in; he had started life as an opera-singer, and when he heard Peal, he was so delighted with him that he invited him to dinner.

They played nine-pins, ate crabs with dill, drank punch, and, above everything, sang songs. Between two songs, and after they had sworn eternal friendship, the commercial traveller said:

"Why don't you go on the stage?"

"I?" answered Peal, "how could I do that?"

"All you have to do is to say 'I will.'"

This was a new doctrine, for since his third year young Peal had not used the words "I" and "will." He had trained himself to neither wish nor will, and he begged his friend not to lead him into temptation.

But the commercial traveller came again; he came many times, and once he was accompanied by a famous singer; and one evening Peal, after much applause from a professor of singing, took his fate into his own hands.

He said good-bye to his master, and over a gla.s.s of wine heartily thanked his friend, the commercial traveller, for having given him self-confidence and will,--"will, that iron bar, which keeps a man's back erect and prevents him from grovelling on all fours." And he swore a solemn oath never to forget his friend, who had taught him to have faith in himself.

Then he went to say good-bye to his parents.