by Grant Allen
So encouraged by the authorised mouthpiece of the parish, Will and Florian stepped boldly into the crowded room, and watched the little groups of stalwart young men and nut-brown lasses with all the interest of unexpected novelty. The scene was indeed a picturesque and curious one. Every Tyrolese is, or has been, or wishes to be thought, a mountain hunter. So each man wore his hat, adorned with the trophies of his prowess in the chase; with some, ’twas a gamsbart, or so-called chamois’ beard — the tuft of coarse hair that grows high like a crest along the creature’s back in the pairing season; with others, ’twas the tail-feathers of the glossy blackcock, stuck saucily on one side, with that perky air of self-satisfied assurance so characteristic of hot youth in the true-born Tyroler. Glancing around the room, however, Will saw at a single look that two young men alone among that eager crowd wore their feathers with a difference — the “hook” being turned round in the opposite direction from all their neighbours’. One of these two was a tall and big-built young man of very florid complexion, with a scar on his forehead; the other was their fiery friend of that morning on the hills, Franz Lindner. From what Linnet had said, Will guessed at once by the turn of the feather that both young men went in for being considered Robblers.
As he turned to impart his conjecture to Florian, Linnet caught his eye mutely from a corner by the mantelpiece. She wasn’t taking part in the reel herself, so, undaunted by his experience of Franz Lindner that day, Will strolled over to her side, followed close at heel by Florian. “You don’t dance?” he said, bending over her with as marked politeness as he would have shown to a lady in a London drawing-room.
“No; I may not,” Linnet answered, in her pretty broken English, with a smile of not unnatural womanly pleasure that the strangers should thus single her out before all her folk for so much personal attention. “I have refuse Franz Lindner, so may I not dance this time with any one. It is our custom so. When a girl shall refuse to dance with a man first, she may not that turn accept any other. Nor may he, in turn, ask her again that evening.”
“How delightful!” Florian cried, effusively. “Franz Lindner’s loss is our gain, Fräulein Linnet. No; don’t frown at me like that; it must be Fräulein; I’ve too much respect for you to call you otherwise. But, anyhow, we’ll sit out this dance and talk with you.”
“And I,” Will put in with a quiet smile, “I’ll call you Linnet, because you prefer it.”
“Thank you,” Linnet said, shyly, with a grateful flash of her eyes, and a side glance towards Franz Lindner; “it seems less as if you mock at me.”
As they spoke, the figure changed of a sudden once more to a still stranger movement. The women, falling apart, massed themselves together in a central group, in attitudes expressive of studied indifference and inattention to the men; their partners, on the contrary, placing themselves full in front of them, began a series of most extraordinary twists and twirls, accompanied by loud cries or snapping of fingers, and endeavoured by every means in the power, both of lungs and limbs, to compel their disdainful coquettes to take notice of their antics. While they stood there and watched — Linnet with eyes askance on Franz Lindner’s face — Andreas Hausberger strolled up, and took his place beside them.
“Why, that’s the blackcock’s call!” Will exclaimed, with a start of recognition, as the dancers, with one accord, uttered all in a chorus a shrill and piercing note of challenge and defiance. “I’ve heard it on the mountains.”
“Yes,” the wirth assented; “that’s the blackcock’s call, and this, that they’re doing, is the blackcock’s love-dance. In the springtime, on the mountains, you know, the blackcocks and the grey hens assemble in their dancing place — their Tanzboden we call it, just the same as we call this one. There, the hens stand aside, and pretend to be coy, and take no notice of their mates, like the girls in this dance here; while the blackcock caper in front of them, and flap their wings, and fluff their necks, and do all they know to display their strength and beauty. Whoever dances the most and best, gets most of the hens to join his harem. So our young men have got up this love-dance to imitate them; they flap their arms the same way, and give the blackcock’s challenge. Nature’s pretty much the same above and below, I guess — especially here in the Tyrol, where we haven’t yet learned to hide our feelings under smooth silk hats as you do in England. But it’s all good for trade, and that’s the great thing. It makes them thirsty. You’ll see, after this bout, the beer will flow like water.”
And, sure enough, the wirth was right. As soon as the dance was ended, young men and maidens, with equal zest, betook themselves, all alike, to the consolations of the beer-jug. Their thirst was mighty. And no wonder, indeed, for this Tyrolese dancing is no drawing-room game, but hard muscular exercise. Andreas Hausberger looked on with a cynical smile on those thin, cold lips of his. “It’s good for trade,” he murmured again, half to himself, once or twice, as the girls at the bar filled the beer-mugs merrily; “very good for trade. So are all amusements. That’s the way the foolish get rid of their money — and the wise get hold of it.”
After the beer came a pause, a long, deep-drawn pause; and then two young men, standing out from the throng, began to sing alternately at one another in short Tyrolese stanzas. One of them was Franz Lindner; the other was the young man with the scar on his forehead, whom Linnet described as her cousin Fridolin. What they sang, neither Florian nor Will could make out, for the words of the song were in the roughest form of the mountain dialect; but it was clear from their manner, and the way they flung out their words point blank at one another’s heads, that they improvised as they went, like Virgilian shepherds, and that their remarks were by no means either polite or complimentary in substance or character. The rest stood round in a circle and listened, laughing heartily at times as each in turn scored a point now and then off his angry rival; while Linnet and the other girls blushed again and again at some audacious retort, though the bolder among the women only tittered to themselves or looked up with arch glances at each risky allusion. Andreas Hausberger too, stood by, all alert to keep the peace; it was plain from the quick light in his resolute eye, and the rapid upward movement of his twitching hand, he was ready at a moment’s notice to intervene between the combatants, and put a stop in the nick of time to the scoffing contest of defiance and derision.
The song, however, passed off without serious breach of the peace. Then more dances followed, more beer, and more bucolic contests. As the evening wore on, the fun grew fast and furious. On the stroke of twelve, the Herr Vicar withdrew — not one hour too early; his flock were fast getting beyond control of his counsels. Linnet and a few others of the more modest-looking girls now sat out from the dance; the rest continued to whirl round and round the room in still wilder and more fantastic movements than ever. Andreas Hausberger was now yet more clearly on the alert. A stray spark would raise a flame in that magazine of gunpowder. Suddenly, at the end of the first dance after the priest’s departure, the young man with the scar on his forehead, called Cousin Fridolin, came forward unexpectedly to where Linnet sat aside between Will Deverill and Florian. He had danced with her once before in the course of the evening, and Will observed that through that dance Franz Lindner’s eyes had never been taken off his rival and Linnet. But now the tall young man came forward with a dash, and without one word of warning, placed his conical hat, blackcock’s feather and all, with a jodel of challenge, on Linnet’s forehead. They had seen the same thing done before more than once that evening, and Linnet had explained to them that the custom was equivalent to a declaration of love for the lady so honoured — ’twas as much as to say, “This girl is mine; who disputes it?” But as the tall young man stood back with a smile of triumph on his handsome lips, one hand on his hip, staring fixedly at Linnet, Franz Lindner sprang forth with a face as black as night, and a brow like thunder. Trembling with rage, he seized the hat from her head, and tore hastily from its band the offending plume. “W
as kost die Feder?” he cried, in a tone of angry contempt, holding it up in his hand before the eyes of its owner; “Was kost die Feder?” which is, being interpreted, “How much for your feather?”
Quick as lightning, the answer rang out, “Fünf Finger und ein Griff” — ”Five fingers and a grip.” It is the customary challenge of the Tyrolese Robbler, and the customary acceptance.
Before Will had time to understand what was happening next, in the crack of a finger, in the twinkle of an eye, the two young men had closed, with hands and arms and bodies, and were grappling with each other in a deadly struggle. All night long they had been watching and provoking one another; all night long they had vied in their attentions to Linnet, and their studious interchange of mutual insults. Sooner or later a fight seemed inevitable. Now, flown with insolence and beer, and heated from the dance, they flung themselves together, with one accord, like two tigers in their fury. Linnet clapped her hands to her ears, and shut her eyes in horror. For a minute or two, it seemed to every looker-on as though there would be bloodshed in the inn that evening. Florian observed this little episode with philosophic interest; ’twas pleasant to watch these simple dramas of the primary emotions — love, jealousy, passion — still working themselves out as on the stage of Hellas. He had never before seen them so untrammelled in their play; he stood here face to face with Homeric simplicity.
In five minutes, however, to his keen disappointment, the whole scene was finished. Andreas Hausberger, that cool, calm man of the world, perceiving at a glance that such contests in his inn were very bad for trade, and that ’twould be a pity for him to lose by a violent death so good a singer, or so constant a customer, interposed his heavy hand between the angry combatants. Your half-tipsy man, be he even a Tyrolese, though often quarrelsome, is usually placable. A short explanation soon set everything right again. Constrained by Herr Andreas, with his imperious will, the two Robblers consented, after terms interchanged, to drown their differences in more mugs of beer, and then retire for the evening. The young man with the scar, whom they called Cousin Fridolin, regretted that he had interfered with Franz Lindner’s maiden, but excused his act as a mere hasty excess of cousinly feeling. Franz Lindner in return, not to be outdone in magnanimity, though still with flashing eyes, and keen side-glance at Linnet, regretted that he had offered such indignity in his haste to the dishonoured symbol of his comrade’s championship. Hands were shaken all round; cuts and bruises were tended; and, almost as soon as said, to Florian’s infinite disgust, the whole party had settled down by the tables once more, on an amicable basis, to beer and conversation.
But before they retired from that evening’s revel, Linnet murmured to Will in a tone of remonstrance very real and aggrieved, “Franz Lindner had no right to call me his Mädchen.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE HUMAN HEART
Next morning Will woke of himself very early. He jumped out of bed at once, and crossed, as he stood, to the open window. The sun had just risen. Light wisps of white cloud crawled slowly up the mountains; the dewdrops on the grass-blades sparkled in the silent rays like innumerable opals. ’Twas the very time for an early stroll! But the air, though keen, had the rawness and chill of an autumn morning. Will sniffed at it dubiously. He had half a mind to turn in again and take an hour’s more sleep. Should he dress and go out, or let the world have time to get warmed and aired before venturing abroad in it?
As he debated and shivered, however, a sight met his eye which determined him at once on the more heroic course of action. It was Linnet, in her simple little peasant dress, turning up the hill-path that led behind the wirthshaus. Now, a chance of seeing Linnet alone without Florian was not to be despised; she interested him so much, and, besides, he wanted to ask her the whole truth about the Robblers. Without more ado, therefore, he dressed himself hastily, and strolled out of the inn. She hadn’t gone far, he felt sure; he would find her close by, sitting by herself on the open grass-slope beyond the belt of pinewood.
And so, sure enough, he did. He came upon her unseen. She was seated with her back to him on a round boulder of grey stone, pouring her full throat in spontaneous music. For a minute or two, Will stood still, and listened and looked at her. He could see from his point of vantage, a little on one side behind the boulder, the rise and fall of her swelling bosom, the delicate trills under her rich brown chin. And then — oh, what melody! Will drank it in greedily. He was loth to disturb her, so delicious was this outpouring of her soul in song. For, like her namesake of the woods, Linnet sang best when she sang of her own accord, delivering her full heart of pure internal impulse.
At last she ceased, and turned. Her eye fell upon Will She started and blushed; she had expected no such audience. The young man raised his hat. “You’re alone,” he said, “Linnet?”
The girl looked up all crimson. “Yes; I came out that I should be alone,” she answered, shyly, “I did not wish to see anyone. I wished for time to think many things over.”
“Then you don’t want me to stop?” Will broke in, somewhat crestfallen, yet drawing a step nearer.
“Oh, no; I do not mean that,” Linnet answered in haste, laying her hand on her bosom. Then she burst into German, which came so much easier to her. “I wanted to get away from all the others,” she said, looking up at him pleadingly — and, as she looked, Will saw for the first time that big tears stood brimming in her lustrous eyes; “I knew they would tease me about — about what happened last evening, and I didn’t wish to hear it till I had thought over with myself what way I should answer them.”
“Then you’re not afraid of me?” Will asked, with a little thrill. She was only an alp-girl, but she sang like a goddess; and it’s always pleasant, you know, to find a woman trusts one.
“I want you to stop,” Linnet answered, simply.
She motioned him with one hand to a seat on a little heap of dry stones hard by. Will threw himself down on the heap in instant obedience to her mute command, and leaned eagerly forward. “Well, so this Robbler man wants to have you, Linnet,” he said, with some earnestness; “and you don’t want to have him. And he would have fought for you last night, against the man with the scar; and the girls in the inn will tease you about it this morning.”
“Yes; the girls will tease me,” Linnet answered, “and will say cruel things, for some of them are not fond of me, because, you see, Franz Lindner and the other man, my cousin Fridolin, are both of them Robblers, and would both of them fight for me. Now, a village that has a Robbler is always very proud of him; he’s its champion and head; and if a Robbler pays attention to a girl, it’s a very great honour. So some of the other girls don’t like it at all, that the Robblers of two villages should quarrel about me. Though Gott in Himmel knows I’ve not encouraged either of them.”
“And would you marry Franz Lindner?” Will asked, with genuine interest. It seemed to him a pity — nay, almost a desecration — that this beautiful girl, with her splendid voice, and all the possibilities it might enclose for the future, should throw herself away upon a Tyrolese hunter, whom the self-confidence engendered by mere muscular strength had turned for local eyes into a petty hero.
“No; I don’t think I would marry him,” Linnet answered, after a short pause, with a deliberative air, as though weighing well in her own mind all the pros and cons of it. “He’d take me if I chose, no doubt, and so also would Fridolin. Franz says he has left three other girls for me. But I don’t like him, of course, any better for that. He ought to have kept to them.”
“And you like him?” Will went on, drawing circles with his stick on the grass as he spoke, and glancing timidly askance at her.
“Yes; I like him — well enough,” Linnet responded, doubtfully. “I liked him better once, perhaps. But of late, I care less for him. I never cared for him much indeed; I was never his Mädchen. He had no right to say that, no right at all, at all — for with us, you know, in Tyrol, that means a gr
eat deal. How much, I couldn’t tell you. But I never gave him any cause at all to say so.”
“And of late you like him less?” Will inquired, pressing her hard with this awkward question. Yet he spoke sympathetically. He had no reason for what he said, to be sure — no reason on earth. He spoke at random, out of that pure instinctive impulse which leads every man in a pretty girl’s presence, mean he little or much, to make at least the best of every passing advantage. ’Tis pure virility that: the natural Adam within us. I wouldn’t give ten cents for the too virtuous man who by “ethical culture” has educated it out of him.
Linnet looked down at her shoes — for she possessed those luxuries. “Yes; of late I like him less,” she answered, somewhat tremulously.
“Why so?” Will insisted. His lips, too, quivered.
Linnet raised her dark eyes and met his for one instant. “I’ve seen other people since; perhaps I like other people better,” she answered, candidly.
“What other people?” Will asked, all on fire.
“Oh, that would be telling,” Linnet answered, with an arch look. “Perhaps my cousin Fridolin — or perhaps the young man with the yellow beard — or perhaps the gnädige Herr’s honoured friend, Herr Florian.”
Will drew figures with his stick on the grass for a minute or two. Then he looked up and spoke again. “But, in any case,” he said, “you don’t mean, whatever comes, to marry Franz Lindner?” It grieved him to think she should so throw herself away upon a village bully.
Linnet plucked a yellow ragwort and pulled out the ray-florets one by one as she answered, “I shan’t have the chance. For, to tell you the truth, I think Andreas Hausberger means himself to marry me.”
