The Princess Virginia Part 5

"Did it sound like a compliment? Well, leave it so. I meant, because you are at home in these high alt.i.tudes; and the rare thing I speak of is a plant that grows in high places. It is said to be found only in Rhaetian mountains, though I have never heard of any one who has been able to track it down."

"Is it our pink Rhaetian edelweiss of which we are so proud? Because if it is, and you will trust me, I know exactly where to take you, to find it. With my help, you could climb there from here in a few moments."

She shook her head again, smiling inscrutably. "Thank you, it's not the pink edelweiss. The scientific, the esoteric name, I've promised that I'll tell to no one; but the common people in my native country, who have heard of it, would call the plant _Edelmann_."

"You have already seen it on the mountain, but not growing?"

"Some chamois hunter, like yourself, had dropped it, perhaps, not knowing what its value was. It's a great deal to have had one glimpse--worth running into danger for."

"Perhaps, gna' Fraulein, you don't realize to the full the danger you did run. No chance was worth it, believe me."

"You--a chamois hunter--say that."

"But I'm a man. You are a woman; and women should keep to beaten paths and safety."

The Princess laughed. "I shouldn't wonder," said she, "if that's a Rhaetian theory--a Rhaetian _man's_ theory. I've heard, your Emperor holds it."

"Who told you that, gna' Fraulein?" He gave her a sharp glance, but her gray eyes looked innocent of guile, and were therefore at their most dangerous.

"Oh, many people have told me. Cats may look at kings, and the most insignificant persons may talk of Emperors. I've heard many things of yours."

"Good things or bad?"

"No doubt such things as he truly deserves. Now can you guess which?

But perhaps I would tell you without your guessing, if I were not so very, very hungry." She glanced at the pocket of his coat, from which protruded a generous hunch of black bread and ham--thrust in probably, at the instant when she had called for help. "I can't help seeing that you have your luncheon with you. Do you want it all," (she carefully ignored the contents of her rucksack, which she could not well have forgotten) "or--would you share it?"

The chamois hunter looked surprised, though not displeased. But then, this was his first experience of a feminine explorer, and he quickly rose to the occasion.

"There is more, much more bread and bacon where this came from," he replied. "Will you be graciously pleased to accept something of our best?"

"If _you_ please, then I too shall be pleased," she said. Guiltily, she remembered Miss Portman. But the dear Let.i.tia could not be considered now. If she were alarmed, she should be well consoled later.

"I and some friends of mine have a--a sort of hut round the corner from this plateau, and a short distance on," announced the chamois hunter, with a gesture that gave the direction. "No woman has ever been our guest, but I invite you to visit it and lunch there. Or, if you prefer, remain here and in a few minutes I will bring such food as we can offer. At best it's not much to boast of. We chamois hunters are poor men, living roughly."

The Princess smiled, imprisoning each new thought of mischief which flew into her mind, like a trapped bird. "I've heard you're rich in hospitality," she said. "I'll go with you to your hut, for it will be a chance to prove the saying."

The eyes of the hunter--dark, brilliant and keen as the eagle's to which she compared him--pierced hers. "You have no fear?" he asked.

"You are a young girl, alone, save for me, in a desolate place. For all you know, my mates and I may be a band of brigands."

"Baedeker doesn't mention the existence of brigands in these days, among the Rhaetian Alps," replied Virginia, with quaint dryness. "I've always found him trustworthy. Besides, I've great faith in the chivalry of Rhaetian men; and if you knew how hungry I am, you wouldn't keep me waiting for talk of brigands. Bread and b.u.t.ter are far more to the point."

"Even search for the rare Edelmann may wait?"

"Yes. The Edelmann may wait--on me." The last two words she dared but to whisper.

"You must pardon my going first," said the man with the bare brown knees. "The way is too narrow for politeness."

"Yet I wish that the peasants at home had such courteous manners as yours," Virginia patronized him, prettily. "You Rhaetians need not go to court, I see, for lessons in behavior."

"The mountains teach us something, maybe."

"Something of their greatness, which we should all do well to learn.

But have you never lived in a town?"

"A man of my sort _exists_ in a town. He lives in the mountains." With this diplomatic response, the tall figure swung round a corner formed by a boulder of rock, and Virginia gave a little cry of surprise. The "hut" of which the chamois hunter had spoken was revealed by the turn, and it was of an unexpected and striking description. Instead of the humble erection of stones and wood which she had counted on, the rocky side of the mountain itself had been coaxed to give her sons a shelter.

A doorway, and large square openings for windows, had been cut in the red-veined, purplish-brown porphyry; while a heavy slab of oak, and wooden frames filled full of glittering bottle-gla.s.s, protected such rooms as might have been hollowed out within, from storm or cold.

Even had Virginia been ignorant of her host's ident.i.ty, she would have been wise enough to guess that here was no Sennhutte, or ordinary abode of common peasants, who hunt the chamois for a precarious livelihood. The work of hewing out in the solid rock a habitation such as this must have cost more than most Rhaetian chamois hunters would save in many a year. But her wisdom also counseled her to express no further surprise after her first exclamation.

"My mates are away for the time, though they may come back by and by,"

the man explained, holding the heavy oaken door that she might pa.s.s into the room within; and though she was not invited to further exploration, she was able to see by the several doorways cut in the rock walls, that this was not the sole accommodation the strange house could boast.

On the rock floor, rugs of deer and chamois skin were spread; in a rack of oak, ornamented with splendid antlers and studded with the sharp, pointed horns of the chamois, were suspended guns of modern make, and brightly polished, formidable hunting knives. The table in the center of the room had been carved with admirable skill; and the half-dozen chairs were oddly fashioned of stags' antlers, shaped to hold fur-cushioned, wooden seats. A carved dresser of black oak held a store of the coa.r.s.e blue, red and green china made by peasants in the valley below, through which Virginia had driven yesterday; and these bright colored dishes were eked out with platters and great tankards of old pewter, while in the deep fireplace a gipsy kettle swung over a bed of fragrant pinewood embers.

"This is a delightful place--fit for a king, or even for an Emperor,"

said Virginia, when the bare-kneed chamois hunter had offered her a chair near the fire, and crossed the room to open the closed cupboard under the dresser shelves.

He was stooping as she spoke, but at her last words looked round over his shoulder.

"We mountain men aren't afraid of a little work--when it's for our own comfort," he replied. "And most of the things you see here are home-made, during the long winters."

"Then you are all very clever indeed. But this place is interesting; tell me, has the Emperor ever been your guest here? I've read--let me see, could it have been in a guide-book or in some paper?--that he comes occasionally to this northern range of mountains."

"Oh yes, the Emperor has been at our hut several times. He's good enough to approve it." Her host answered calmly, laying a loaf of black bread, a fine seeded cheese, and a knuckle of ham on the table.

He then glanced at his guest, expecting her to come forward; but she sat still on her throne of antlers, her small feet in their sensible mountain boots, daintily crossed under the short tweed skirt.

"I hear he also is a good chamois hunter," she carelessly went on.

"But that, perhaps, is only the flattery which makes the atmosphere of Royalty. No doubt you, for instance, could really give him many points in chamois hunting?"

The young man smiled. "The Emperor's not a bad shot."

"For an amateur. But you're a professional. I wager now, that you wouldn't for the world change places with the Emperor?"

How the chamois hunter laughed at this, and showed his white teeth!

There were those, in the towns he scorned, who would have been astonished at his light-hearted mirth.

"Change places with the Emperor! Not--unless I were obliged, gna'

Fraulein. Not now, at all events," with a complimentary bow and glance.

"Thank you. You're quite a courtier. And that reminds me of another thing they say of him in my country. The story is, that he dislikes the society of women. But perhaps it is that he doesn't understand them."

"It is possible, lady. But I never heard that they were so difficult of comprehension."

"Ah, that shows how little you chamois hunters have had time to learn.

Why, we can't even understand ourselves, or know what we're most likely to do next. And yet--a very odd thing--we have no difficulty in reading one another, and knowing all each other's weaknesses."

"That would seem to say that a man should get a woman to choose his wife for him."