Nonsense Novels Part 14

Otto and I are not to die. We are to live; to live and love one another for ever! We are going away, out into the world together! How happy I am!

Otto and I are to flee together.

When Alexis comes we shall be gone; we shall be far away.

I have said to Otto that I will fly with him, and he has said yes.

I told him that we would go out into the world together; empty-handed we would fare forth together and defy the world. I said that he should be my knight-errant, my paladin!

Otto said he would be it.

He has consented. But he says we must not fare forth empty-handed. I do not know why he thinks this, but he is firm, and I yield to my lord. He is making all our preparations.

Each morning I bring to the meadow a little bundle of my things and give them to my knight-errant and he takes them to the inn where he is staying.

Last week I brought my jewel-case, and yesterday, at his request, I took my money from the bank and brought it to my paladin. It will be so safe with him.

To-day he said that I shall need some little things to remember my father and mother by when we are gone. So I am to take my father's gold watch while he is asleep. My hero! How thoughtful he is of my happiness.

Next Day.

All is ready. To-morrow I am to meet Otto at the meadow with the watch and the rest of the things.

To-morrow night we are to flee together. I am to go down to the little gate at the foot of the garden, and Otto will be there.

To-day I have wandered about the house and garden and have said good-bye. I have said good-bye to my Tchupvskja flower, and to the birds and the bees.

To-morrow it will be all over.

Next Evening.

How can I write what has happened! My soul is shattered to its depths.

All that I dreaded most has happened. How can I live!

Alexis has come back. He and Otto have fought.

Ah G.o.d! it has been terrible.

I stood with Otto in the meadow. I had brought him the watch, and I gave it to him, and all my love and my life with it.

Then, as we stood, I turned and saw Alexis Alexovitch striding towards us through the gra.s.s.

How tall and soldierly he looked! And the thought flashed through my mind that if Otto killed him he would be lying there a dead, inanimate thing.

"Go, Otto," I cried, "go, if you stay you will kill him."

Otto looked and saw Alexis coming. He turned one glance at me: his face was full of infinite meaning.

Then, for my sake, he ran. How n.o.ble he looked as he ran. Brave heart! he dared not stay and risk the outburst of his anger.

But Alexis overtook him.

Then beside the river-bank they fought. Ah! but it was terrible to see them fight. Is it not awful when men fight together?

I could only stand and wring my hands and look on in agony!

First, Alexis seized Otto by the waistband of his trousers and swung him round and round in the air. I could see Otto's face as he went round: the same mute courage was written on it as when he turned to run. Alexis swung Otto round and round until his waistband broke, and he was thrown into the gra.s.s.

That was the first part of the fight.

Then Alexis stood beside Otto and kicked him from behind as he lay in the gra.s.s, and they fought like that for some time. That was the second part of the fight. Then came the third and last part. Alexis picked up the easel and smashed the picture over Otto's head. It fastened itself like a collar about his neck. Then Alexis picked Otto up with the picture round his neck and threw him into the stream.

He floated!

My paladin!

He floated!

I could see his upturned face as he floated onwards down the stream, through the meadow! It was full of deep resignation.

Then Alexis Alexovitch came to me and gathered me up in his arms and carried me thus across the meadow-he is so tall and strong- and whispered that he loved me, and that to-morrow he would shield me from the world. He carried me thus to the house in his arms among the gra.s.s and flowers; and there was my father, Ivan Ivanovitch, and my mother, Katoosha Katooshavitch. And to-morrow I am to marry Alexis. He had brought back from the inn my jewels and my money, and he gave me again the diamond clasp that Otto had taken from my waist.

How can I bear it? Alexis is to take me to Petersburg, and he has bought a beautiful house in the Prospekt, and I am to live in it with him, and we are to be rich, and I am to be presented at the Court of Nicholas Romanoff and his wife. Ah! Is it not dreadful?

And I can only think of Otto floating down the stream with the easel about his neck. From the little river he will float into the Dnieper, and from the Dnieper into the Bug, and from the Bug he will float down the Volga, and from the Volga into the Caspian Sea. And from the Caspian Sea there is no outlet, and Otto will float round and round it for ever.

Is it not dreadful?

VII. - Hannah of the Highlands: or, The Laird of Loch Aucherlocherty

"Sair maun ye greet, but hoot awa!

There's muckle yet, love isna' a'- Nae more ye'll see, howe'er ye whine The bonnie breeks of Auld Lang Syne!"

THE simple words rang out fresh and sweet upon the morning air.

It was Hannah of the Highlands. She was gathering lobsters in the burn that ran through the glen.

The scene about her was typically Highland. Wild hills rose on both sides of the burn to a height of seventy-five feet, covered with a dense Highland forest that stretched a hundred yards in either direction. At the foot of the burn a beautiful Scotch loch lay in the hollow of the hills. Beyond it again, through the gap of the hills, was the sea. Through the Glen, and close beside the burn where Hannah stood, wound the road that rose again to follow the cliffs along the sh.o.r.e.

The tourists in the Highlands will find no more beautiful spot than the Glen of Aucherlocherty.

Nor is there any spot which can more justly claim to be historic ground.

It was here in the glen that Bonnie Prince Charlie had lain and hidden after the defeat of Culloden. Almost in the same spot the great boulder still stands behind which the Bruce had laid hidden after Bannockburn; while behind a number of lesser stones the Covenanters had concealed themselves during the height of the Stuart persecution.