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In the Quarter

R >> Robert W. Chambers >> In the Quarter




"Come and have a dip in the spring," laughed Rex.

When they took their dripping heads out of the wooden trough into
which a mountain spring was pouring and running out again, leaving it
always full, and gazed at life -- between rubs of the hard crash towel
-- it had assumed a kinder aspect.

Half an hour later, when they all were starting for the top, Ruth let
the others pass her, and pausing for a moment with her hand on the
lintel, she looked back into the little smoke-blackened hut. The door
of the inner room was open. She had dreamed the sweetest dream of her
life there.

Before the others could miss her she was beside them, and soon was
springing along in advance, swinging her alpenstock. It seemed as if
she had the wings as well as the voice of a bird.

Der Jaeger zieht in grünem Wald
Mit frölichem Halloh!

she sang.

Sepp laughed from the tip of his feather to the tip of his beard.

"Wie's gnädige Fraulein hat G'müth!" he said to Rex.

"What's that?" asked the colonel.

"He says," translated Rex freely, "What a lot of every delightful
quality Ruth possesses!"

But Ruth heard, and turned about and was very severe with him. "Such
shirking! Translate me Gemüth at once, sir, if you please!"

"Old Wiseboy at Yarvard confessed he couldn't, short of a treatise,
and who am I to tackle what beats Wiseboy?"

"Can you, Daisy?" asked her father.

"Not in the least, but that's no reason for letting Rex off." Her
voice took on a little of the pretty bantering tone she used to her
parents. She was beginning to feel such a happy confidence in Rex's
presence.

They were in the forest now, moving lightly over the wet, springy
leaves, probing cautiously for dangerous, loose boulders and
treacherous slides. When they emerged, it was upon a narrow plateau;
the rugged limestone rocks rose on one side, the precipice plunged
down on the other. Against the rocks lay patches of snow, grimy with
dirt and pebbles; from a cleft the long greenish white threads of
"Peter's beard" waved at them; in a hollow bloomed a thicket of pink
Alpen-rosen.

They had just reached a clump of low firs, around the corner of a huge
rock, when a rush of loose stones and a dull sound of galloping made
them stop. Sepp dropped on his face; the others followed his example.
The hound whined and pulled at the leash.

On the opposite slope some twenty Hirsch-cows, with their fawns, were
galloping down into the valley, carrying with them a torrent of earth
and gravel. Presently they slackened and stopped, huddling all
together into a thicket. The Jaeger lifted his head and whispered
"Stück"; that being the complimentary name by which one designates
female deer in German.

"All?" said Rex, under his breath. At the same moment Ruth touched
his shoulder.

On the crest of the second ridge, only a hundred yards distant, stood
a stag, towering in black outline, the sun just coming up behind him.
Then two other pairs of antlers rose from behind the ridge, two more
stags lifted their heads and shoulders and all three stood silhouetted
against the sky. They tossed and stamped and stared straight at the
spot where their enemies lay hidden.

A moment, and the old stag disappeared; the others followed him.

"If they come again, shoot," said Sepp.

Rex passed his rifle to Ruth. They waited a few minutes; then the
colonel jumped up.

"I thought we were after chamois!" he grumbled.

"So we are," said Rex, getting on his feet.

A shot rang out, followed by another. They turned, sharply. Ruth,
looking half frightened, was lowering the smoking rifle from her
shoulder. Across the ravine a large stag was swaying on the edge; then
he fell and rolled to the bottom. The hound, loosed, was off like an
arrow, scrambling and tumbling down the side. The four hunters
followed, somehow. Sepp got down first and sent back a wild Jodel. The
stag lay there, dead, and his splendid antlers bore eight prongs.

When Ruth came up she had her hand on her father's arm. She stood and
leaned on him, looking down at the stag. Pity mingled with a wild
intoxicating sense of achievement confused her. A rich color flushed
her cheek, but the curve of her lips was almost grave.

Sepp solemnly drew forth his flask of Schnapps and, taking off his hat
to her, drank "Waidmann's Heil!" -- a toast only drunk by hunters to
hunters.

Gethryn shook hands with her twenty times and praised her until she
could bear no more.

She took her hand from her father's arm and drew herself up,
determined to preserve her composure. The wind blew the little bright
rings of hair across her crimson cheek and wrapped her kilts about her
slender figure as she stood, her rifle poised across her shoulder, one
hand on the stock and one clasped below the muzzle.

"Are you laughing at me, Rex?"

"You know I am not!"

Never had she been so happy in her whole life.

The game drawn and hung, to be fetched later, they resumed their climb
and hastened upward toward the peak.

Ruth led. She hardly felt the ground beneath her, but sprang from rock
to moss and from boulder to boulder, till a gasp from Gethryn made her
stop and turn about.

"Good Heavens, Ruth! what a climber you are!"

And now the colonel sat down on the nearest stone and flatly refused
to stir.

"Oh! is it the hip, Father?" cried Ruth, hurrying back and kneeling
beside him.

"No, of course it isn't! It's indignation!" said her father, calmly
regarding her anxious face. "If you can't go up mountains like a
human girl, you're not going up any more mountains with me."

"Oh! I'll go like a human snail if you want, dear! I've been too
selfish! It's a shame to tire you so!"

"Indeed, it is a perfect shame!" cried the colonel.

Ruth had to laugh. "As I remarked to Rex, early this morning," her
father continued, adjusting his eyeglass, "hang the Gomps!" Rex
discreetly offered no comment. "Moreover," the colonel went on,
bringing all the severity his eyeglass permitted to bear on them both,
"I decline to go walking any longer with a pair of lunatics. I shall
confide you both to Sepp and will wait for you at the upper Shelter."

"But it's only indignation; it isn't the hip, Father?" said Ruth,
still hanging about him, but trying to laugh, since he would have her
laugh.

He saw her trouble, and changing his tone said seriously, "My little
girl, I'm only tired of this scramble, that's all."

She had to be contented with this, and they separated, her father
taking a path which led to the right, up a steep but well cleared
ascent to a plateau, from which they could see the gable of a roof
rising, and beyond that the tip-top rock with its white cross marking
the highest point. The others passed to the left, around and among
huge rocks, where all the hollows were full of grimy snow. The ground
was destitute of trees and all shrubs taller than the hardy
Alpen-rosen. Masses of rock lay piled about the limestone crags that
formed the summit. The sun had not yet tipped their peak with purple
and orange, but some of the others were lighting up. No insects darted
about them; there was not a living thing among the near rocks except
the bluish black salamanders, which lay here and there, cold and
motionless.

They walked on in silence; the trail grew muddy, the ground was beaten
and hatched up with small, sharp hoof prints. Sepp kneeled down and
examined them.

"Hirsch, Reh, and fawn, and ja! ja! Sehen Sie? Gams!"

After this they went on cautiously. All at once a peculiar shrill
hiss, half whistle, half cry, sounded very near.

A chamois, followed by two kids, flashed across a heap of rocks above
their heads and disappeared. The Jaeger muttered something, deep in
his beard.

"You wouldn't have shot her?" said Ruth, timidly.

"No, but she will clear this place of chamois. It's useless to stay
here now."

It was an hour's hard pull to the next peak. When at last they lay
sheltered under a ledge, grimy snow all about them, the Jaeger handed
his glass to Ruth.

"Hirsch on the Kaiser Alm, three Reh by Nani's Hütterl, and one in
the ravine," he said, looking at Gethryn, who was searching eagerly
with his own glass. Ruth balanced the one she held against her
alpenstock.

"Yes, I see them all -- and -- why, there's a chamois!"

Sepp seized the glass which she held toward him.

"The gracious Fraülein has a hunter's eyesight; a chamois is feeding
just above the Hirsch."

"We are right for the wind, but is this the best place?" said Rex.

"We must make the best of it," said Sepp.

The speck of yellow was almost imperceptibly approaching their knoll,
but so slowly that Ruth almost doubted if it moved at all.

Sepp had the glass, and declining the one Rex offered her, she turned
for a moment to the superb panorama at their feet. East, west, north
and south the mountain world extended. By this time the snow mountains
of Tyrol were all lighted to gold and purple, rose and faintest
violet. Sunshine lay warm now on all the near peaks. But great billowy
oceans of mist rolled below along the courses of the Alp-fed streams,
and, deep under a pall of heavy, pale gray cloud, the Trauerbach was
rushing through its hidden valley down to Schicksalsee and Todtstein.
There was perfect silence, only now and then made audible by the
tinkle of a distant cowbell and the Jodel of a Sennerin. Ruth turned
again toward the chamois. She could see it now without a glass. But
Sepp placed his in her hand.

The chamois was feeding on the edge of a cliff, moving here and there,
leaping lightly across some gully, tossing its head up for a
precautionary sniff. Suddenly it gave a bound and stood still, alert.
Two great clumsy "Hirsch-kühe" had taken fright at some imaginary
danger, and, uttering their peculiar half grunt, half roar, were
galloping across the alm in half real, half assumed panic with their
calves at their heels.

The elderly female Hirsch is like a timorous granny who loves to scare
herself with ghost stories, and adores the sensation of jumping into
bed before the robber under it can catch her by the ankle.

It was such an alarm as this which now sent the two fussy old deer,
with their awkward long legged calves, clattering away with
terror-stricken roars which startled the delicate chamois, and for one
moment petrified him. The next, with a bound, he fairly flew along the
crest, seeming to sail across the ravine like a hawk, and to cover
distances in the flash of an eye. Sepp uttered a sudden exclamation
and forgot everything but what he saw. He threw his rifle forward,
there was a sharp click! -- the cartridge had not exploded. Next
moment he remembered himself and turned ashamed and deprecating to
Gethryn. The latter laid his hand on the Jaeger's arm and pointed. The
chamois' sharp ear had caught the click! -- he swerved aside and
bounded to a point of rock to look for this new danger. Rex tried to
put his rifle in Ruth's hands. She pressed it back, resolutely. "It
is your turn," she motioned with her lips, and drew away out of his
reach. That was no time for argument. The Jaeger nodded, "Quick!" A
shot echoed among the rocks and the chamois disappeared.

"Is he hit? Oh, Rex! did you hit him?"

"Ei! Zimbach!" Sepp slipped the leash, the hound sprang away, and in
a moment his bell-like voice announced Rex's good fortune.

Ruth flew like the wind, not heeding their anxious calls to be
careful, to wait for help. It was not far to go, and her light, sure
foot brought her to the spot first. When Rex and Sepp arrived she was
kneeling beside the dead chamois, stroking the "beard" that waved
along its bushy spine. She sprang up and held out her hand to Gethryn.

"Look at that beard -- Nimrod!" she said. Her voice rang with an
excitement she had not shown at her own success.

"It is a fine beard," said Rex, bending over it. His voice was not
quite steady. "Herrlich!" cried Sepp, and drank the "Waidmann's
Heil!" toast to him in deep and serious draughts. Then he took out a
thong, tied the four slender hoofs together and opened his game sack;
Rex helped him to hoist the chamois in and onto his broad shoulders.

Now for the upper Shelter. They started in great spirits, a happy
trio. Rex was touched by Ruth's deep delight in his success, and by
the pride in him which she showed more than she knew. He looked at her
with eyes full of affection. Sepp was assuring himself, by all the
saints in the Bavarian Calendar, that here was a "Herrschaft" which
a man might be proud of guiding, and so he meant to tell the duke.
Ruth's generous heart beat high.

Their way back to the path where they had separated from Colonel Dene
was long and toilsome. Sepp did his best to beguile it with hunter's
yarns, more or less true, at any rate just as acceptable as if they
had been proved and sworn to.

Like a good South German he hated Prussia and all its works, and his
tales were mostly of Berliners who had wandered thither and been
abused; of the gentleman who had been told, and believed, that the
"gams" slept by hooking its horns into crevices of the rock,
swinging thus at ease, over precipices; of another whom Federl once
deterred from going on the mountains by telling how a chamois, if
enraged, charged and butted; of a third who went home glad to have
learned that the chamois produced their peculiar call by bringing up a
hind leg and whistling through the hoof.

It was about half past two in the afternoon and Ruth began to be very,
very tired, when a Jodel from Sepp greeted the "Hütte" and the white
cross rising behind it. As they toiled up the steep path to the little
alm, Ruth said, "I don't see Papa, but there are people there." A
man in a summer helmet, wound with a green veil, came to the edge of
the wooden platform and looked down at them; he was presently joined
by two ladies, of whom one disappeared almost immediately, but they
could see the other still looking down until a turn in the path
brought them to the bottom of some wooden steps, close under the
platform. On climbing these they were met at the top by the gentleman,
hat in hand, who spoke in French to Gethryn, while the stout, friendly
lady held out both hands to Ruth and cried, in pretty broken English:

"Ah! dear Mademoiselle! ees eet possible zat we meet a--h--gain!"

"Madame Bordier!" exclaimed Ruth, and kissed her cordially on both
cheeks. Then she greeted the husband of Madame, and presented Rex.

"But we know heem!" smiled Madame; and her quiet, gentlemanly
husband added in French that Monsieur the colonel had done them the
honor to leave messages with them for Miss Dene and Mr Gethryn.

"Papa is not here?" said Ruth, quickly.

Monsieur the colonel, finding himself a little fatigued, had gone on
to the Jaeger-hütte, where were better accommodations.

Ruth's face fell, and she lost her bright color.

"But no! my dear!" said Madame. "Zere ees nossing ze mattaire. Your
fazzer ees quite vell," and she hurried her indoors.

Rex and Monsieur Bordier were left together on the platform. The
amiable Frenchman did the honors as if it were a private salon.
Monsieur the colonel was perfectly well. But perfectly! It was really
for Mademoiselle that he had gone on. He had decided that it would be
quite too fatiguing for his daughter to return that day to Trauerbach,
as they had planned, and he had gone on to secure the Jagd-hütte for
the night before any other party should arrive.

"He watched for you until you turned into the path that leads up
here, and we all saw that you were quite safe. It is only half an hour
since he left. He did us the honor to say that Mademoiselle Dene could
need no better chaperon than my wife -- Monsieur the colonel was a
little fatigued, but badly, no."

Monsieur Bordier led the way to the usual spring and wooden trough
behind the house, and, while Rex was enjoying a refreshing dip, he
continued to chat.

Yes, as he had already had the honor to inform Rex, Mademoiselle had
been his wife's pupil in singing, the last two winters, in Paris.
Monsieur Gethryn, perhaps, was not wholly unacquainted with the name
of Madame Bordier?

"Madame's reputation as an artist, and a professor of singing, is
worldwide," said Rex in his best Parisian, adding:

"And you, then, Monsieur, are the celebrated manager of `La
Fauvette'?"

The manager replied with a politely gratified bow.

"The most charming theater in Paris," added Rex.

"Ah! murmured the other, Monsieur is himself an artist, though not of
our sort, and artists know."

"Colonel Dene has told you that I am studying in Paris," said Rex
modestly.

"He has told me that Monsieur exhibited in the salon with a number
one."

Rex scrubbed his brown and rosy cheeks with the big towel.

Monsieur Bordier went on: "But the talent of Mademoiselle! Mon Dieu!
what a talent! What a voice of silver and crystal! And today she will
meet another pupil of Madame -- of ours -- a genius. My word!"

"Today?"

"Yes, she is with us here. She makes her debut at the Fauvette next
autumn."

Rex concealed a frown in the ample folds of the towel. It crossed his
mind that the colonel might better have stayed and taken care of his
own daughter. If he, Rex, had had a sister, would he have liked her to
be on a Bavarian mountaintop in a company composed of a gamekeeper,
the manager of a Paris theater and his wife, and a young person who
was about to make her debut in opera-bouffe, and to have no better
guardian than a roving young art student? Rex felt his unfitness for
the post with a pang of compunction. Meantime he rubbed his head, and
Monsieur Bordier talked tranquilly on. But between vexation and
friction Gethryn lost the thread of Monsieur's remarks for a while.

The first word which recalled his wandering attention was "Chamois?"
and he saw that Monsieur Bordier was pointing to the game bag and
looking amiably at Sepp, who, divided between sulkiness at Monsieur's
native language and goodwill toward anyone who seemed to be accepted
by his "Herrschaften," was in two minds whether to open the bag and
show the game to this smiling Frenchman, or "to say him a Grobheit"
and go away. Sepp's "Grobheit" could be very insulting indeed when
he cared to make it so. Rex hastened to turn the scale.

"Yes, Herr Director, this is Sepp, one of the duke's best gamekeepers
-- Monsieur speaks German?" he interrupted himself to ask in French.

"Parfaitement! Well," he went on in Sepp's native tongue, "Herr
Director, in Sepp you see one of the best woodsmen in Bavaria, one of
the best shots in Germany. Sepp, we must show the Herr Director our
Gems."

And there was nothing for Sepp but to open the bag, sheepish, beaten,
laughing in spite of himself, and before he knew it they all three had
their heads together over the game in perfect amity.

A step sounded along the front platform, and Madame looked round the
corner of the house, saying that lunch was ready. Her husband and Rex
joined her immediately. "Ze young ladees are wizin," she said, and
led the way.

The sun-glare on the limestone rocks outside made the little room seem
almost black at first, and all Rex could distinguish as he followed
the others was Ruth's bright smile as she stood near the door and a
jumble of dark figures farther back.

"Permit me," said Monsieur, "to introduce you to our Belle
Hélène." Rex had already bowed low, seeing nothing. "Mademoiselle
Descartes -- Monsieur Gethryn -- " Rex raised his head and looked
into the white face of Yvonne.

"Ah, yes! as I was saying," gossiped Monsieur while they were taking
their places at table, "I shoot when I can, but merely the partridge
and rabbit of the turnip. Bah! a man may not boast of that!"

Rex kept his eyes fixed on the speaker and forced himself to
understand what was being said.

"But the sanglier?" His voice sounded in his ears like noises one
hears with the head under water.

"Mon Dieu! the sanglier! yes, that is also noble game. I do not deny
it." Monsieur talked on evenly and quietly in his self-possessed,
reasonable voice, about the habits and the hunt of the wild boar.

Ruth, sitting opposite, forcing herself to swallow the food, to answer
Madame gaily and look at her ease, felt her heart settle down like
lead in her breast.

What was this? Oh! what was it? She looked at Mademoiselle Descartes.
This young, gentle stranger with the dark hair and the face like
marble, this girl whom she had never heard of until an hour ago, was
hiding from Rex behind the broad shoulders of Madame Bordier. The
pupils of her blue eyes were so dilated that the sad, frightened eyes
themselves looked black. Ruth turned to Gethryn. He was listening and
answering. About his nostrils and temples the hollows showed; the
flush of sunburn was gone, leaving only a pallid brown over the ashen
grey of his face; his expression varied between a strained smile and a
fixed stare. The cold weight at her heart melted and swelled in a
passion of pity.

"Someone must keep up! Someone must keep up!" she said to herself;
and turned to assure Madame in tones which deserved the name of
"crystal and silver," that, Yes, for her part she had not been able
to see any reason why hearing Parsifal at Bayreuth should make one
forget that Bizet was also a great master.

But the strain became too great, and at the first possible moment she
said brightly to Rex, "I'm going to feed Zimbach. Sepp said I
might." She collected some scraps on a plate and went out. The hound
rose wagging as she approached. Ruth stood a moment looking down at
him. Then she knelt and took his brown head in her arms. Her eyes were
full of tears. Zimbach licked her face, and then wrenching his head
away began to dance about her, barking and running at the platter. She
took a bone and gave it to him; it went with a snap; so bit by bit she
fed him with her own hands, and the tears dried without one falling.

She heard Rex come out and stood up to meet him with clear grey eyes
that seemed to see nothing but a jest.

"Look at this dog, Rex! He hasn't a word to say about the bones he's
eaten already; he merely remarks that there don't seem to be any more
at present!"

Rex was taking down his gun. "Monsieur wants to see this," he said
in a dull, heavy voice. "And Ruth -- when you are ready -- your
father, perhaps -- "

"Yes, I really would like to join him as soon as possible -- " They
went in together.

An hour later they were taking leave. All the usual explanations had
been made; everyone knew where the others were stopping, and why they
were there, and how long they meant to stay, and where they intended
to go afterward.

The Bordiers, with Yvonne, were at a lake on the opposite side of the
mountain, but a visit to the Forester's house at Trauerbach was one of
the excursions they had already planned.

It only remained now, as Ruth said, to fix upon an early day for
coming.

The hour just past had been Ruth's hour.

Without effort, or apparent intention, she had taken and kept the lead
from the moment when she returned with Rex. She it was who had given
the key, who had set and kept the pitch, and it was due to her that
not one discordant note had been struck. Vaguely yet vividly she felt
the emergency. Refusing to ask herself the cause, she recognized a
crisis. Something was dreadfully wrong. She made no attempt to go
beyond that. Of all the deep emotions which she was learning now so
suddenly, for the first time, the dominant one with her at present was
a desire to help and to protect. All her social experience, all her
tact, were needed to shield Rex and this white-faced, silent stranger,
who, without her, must have betrayed themselves, so stunned, so dazed
they were. And the courage of her father's daughter kept her fair head
erect above the dead weight at her heart.

And now, having said "Au revoir" to Monsieur and Madame, and fixed
upon a day for their visit to the Försthaus, she turned to Yvonne and
took her hand.

"Mademoiselle, I regret so much to hear that you are not quite
strong. But when you come to Trauerbach, Mama and I will take such
good care of you that you will not mind the fatigue."

The sad blue eyes looked into the clear grey ones, and once more Ruth
responded with a passion of grief and pity.

How Rex made his adieux Ruth never knew.

When he overtook her, she and Sepp were well started down the path to
the Jagd-hütte. They seemed to be having a duet of silence, which Rex
turned into a trio when he joined them.

For such walkers as they all were the distance they had to go was
nothing. Soft afternoon lights were still lying peacefully beside the
long afternoon shadows as they approached the little hut, and Sepp
answered the colonel's abortive attempt at a Jodel with one so long
and complicated that it seemed as if he were taking that means to
express all he should have liked to say in words. The spell broken, he
turned about and asked:

"Also! what did the French people," -- he wouldn't call them
Herrschaft -- "say to the gracious Fraulein's splendid shot?"

Ruth stopped and looked absently at him, then flushed and recovered
herself quickly. It was the first time she had remembered her stag.

"I fear," said she, "that French people would disapprove a young
lady's shooting. I did not tell them."

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