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In the Quarter

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




Ruth kept out of sight, but Mrs Dene nodded, good-naturedly.

"Ja! soh! and haf you auch dose leetle deer mit der mamma seen? I haf
myself such leetle deer myself many times shoot, me and my neffe. But
not here. It is not permitted." No one answered. Ruth asked Anna for
the salt.

"My neffe, he eats such lots of salt -- " began Mr Blumenthal.

"Herr Förster," interrupted Mrs Dene -- "Is the room ready for our
friend who is coming this evening?"

"Your vriendt, he is from New York?"

"Ja, ja, Gnädige Frau!" said the Forester, hastily.

"I haf a broader in New York. Blumenthal and Cohen, you know dem,
yes?"

Mrs Dene and her daughter rose and went quietly out into the porch,
while the Frau Förster, with cold, round gray eyes and a tight mouth,
was whispering to her frowning spouse that it was none of his
business, and why get himself into trouble? Besides, Mrs Dene's Herr
Gemahl, meaning the absent colonel, would come back in a day or two;
let him attend to Mr Blumenthal.

Outside, under the windows, were long benches set against the house
with tables before them. One was crowded with students who had come
from everywhere on the foot-tours dear to Germans.

Their long sticks, great bundles, tin botanizing boxes, and sketching
tools lay in untidy heaps; their stone krugs were foaming with beer,
and their mouths were full of black bread and cheese.

Underneath the other window was the Jaeger's table. There they sat,
gossiping as usual with the Forester's helpers, a herdsman or two,
some woodcutters on their way into or out from the forest, and a pair
of smart revenue officers from the Tyrol border, close by.

Ruth said to the nearest Jaeger in passing:

"Herr Loisl, will you play for us?"

"But certainly, gracious Fraulein! Shall I bring my zither to the
table under the beech tree?"

"Please do!"

Miss Dene was a great favorite with the big blond Jaegers.

"Ja freili! will I play for the gracious Fraulein!" said Loisl, and
cut slices with his hunting knife from a large white radish and ate
them with black bread, shining good-humor from the tip of the
black-cock feather on his old green felt hat to his bare, bronzed
knees and his hobnailed shoes.

At the table under the beech trees were two more great fellows in gray
and green. They rose promptly and were moving away; Mrs Dene begged
them to remain, and they sat down again, diffidently, but with
dignity.

"Herr Sepp," said Ruth, smiling a little mischievously, "how is
this? Herr Federl shot a stag of eight this morning, and I hear that
yesterday you missed a Reh-bock!"

Sepp reddened, and laughed. "Only wait, gracious Fraulein, next week
it is my turn on the Red Peak."

"Ach, ja! Sepp knows the springs where the deer drink," said Federl.

"And you never took us there!" cried Ruth, reproachfully. "I would
give anything to see the deer come and drink at sundown."

Sepp felt his good breeding under challenge. "If the gracious Frau
permits," with a gentlemanly bow to Mrs Dene, "and the ladies care
to come -- but the way is hard -- "

"You couldn't go, dearest," murmured Ruth to her mother, "but when
papa comes back -- "

"Your father will be delighted to take you wherever there is a
probability of breaking both your necks, my dear," said Mrs Dene.

"Griffin!" said Ruth, giving her hand a loving little squeeze under
the table.

Loisl came up with his zither and they all made way before him. Anna
placed a small lantern on the table and the light fell on the handsome
bearded Jaeger's face as he leaned lovingly above his instrument.

The incurable "Sehnsucht" of humanity found not its only expression
in that great Symphony where "all the mightier strings assembling,
fell a trembling." Ruth heard it as she leaned back in the deep shade
and listened to those silvery melodies and chords of wonderful purity,
coaxed from the little zither by Loisl's strong, rough hand, with its
tender touch. To all the airs he played her memory supplied the words.
Sometimes a Sennerin was watching from the Alm for her lover's visit
in the evening. Sometimes the hunter said farewell as he sprang down
the mountainside. Once tears came into Ruth's eyes as the simple tune
recalled how a maiden who died and went to Heaven told her lover at
parting:

"When you come after me I shall know you by my ring which you will
wear, and me you will know by your rose that rests on my heart."

Loisl had stopped playing and was tuning a little, idly sounding
chords of penetrating sweetness. There came a noise of jolting and
jingling from the road below.

Mrs Dene spoke softly to Ruth. "That is the Mail; it is time he was
here." Ruth assented absently. She cared at that moment more for
hearing a new folk-song than for the coming of her old playmate.

Rapid wheels approaching from the same direction overtook and passed
the "Post" and stopped below. Mrs Dene rose, drawing Ruth with her.
The three tall Jaegers rose too, touching their hats. Thanking them
all, with a special compliment to Loisl, the ladies went and stood by
some stone steps which lead from the road to the Först-haus, just as a
young fellow, proceeding up them two at a time, arrived at the top,
and taking Mrs Dene's hand began to kiss it affectionately.

"At last!" she cried, "and the very same boy! after four years!
Ruth!" Ruth gave one hand and Reginald Gethryn took two, releasing
one the next moment to put his arm around the little old lady, and so
he led them both into the house, more at home already than they were.

"Shall we begin to talk about how we are not one bit changed, only a
little older, first, or about your supper?" said Mrs Dene.

"Oh! supper, please!" said Rex, of the sun-browned face and laughing
eyes. Smiling Anna, standing by, understood, aided by a hint from Ruth
of "Schmarn und Reh-braten" -- and clattered away to fetch the
never-changing venison and fried batter, with which, and Schicksalsee
beer, the Frau Förster sustained her guests the year round, from
"Georgi" to "Michaeli" and from "Michaeli" to "Georgi,"
reasoning that what she liked was good enough for them. The shapeless
cook was ladling out dumplings, which she called "Nudel," into some
soup for a Munich opera singer, who had just arrived by the stage.
Anna confided to her that this was a "feiner Herr," and must be
served accordingly. The kind Herr Förster came up to greet his guest.
Mrs Dene introduced him as Mr Gethryn, of New York. At this Mr
Blumenthal bounced forward from a corner where he had been spying and
shook hands hilariously. "Vell! and how it goes!" he cried. Rex saw
Ruth's face as she turned away, and stepping to her side, he
whispered, "Friend of yours?" The teasing tone woke a thousand
memories of their boy and girl days, and Ruth's young lady reserve had
changed to the frank camaraderie of former times when she shook her
head at him, laughing, as he looked back at them from the stairs, up
which he was following Grethi and his portmanteau to the room prepared
for him.

Half an hour later Mrs Dene and her daughter were looking with
approval at Rex and his hearty enjoyment of the Frau Förster's fare.
The cook, on learning that this was a "feiner Herr," had added trout
to the regulation dishes; and although she was convinced that the only
proper way to cook them was "blau gesotten" -- meaning boiled to a
livid bluish white -- she had learned American tastes from the Denes
and sent them in to Gethryn beautifully brown and crisp.

Rex turned one over critically. "Good little fish. Who is the
angler?"

"Oh! angler! They were caught with bait," said Ruth, wrinkling her
nose.

Rex gave her a quick look. "I suppose you have forgotten how to cast
a fly."

"No, I think not," she answered quietly.

Mrs Dene opened her mouth to speak, and then discreetly closed it
again in silence, reflecting that whatever there was to come on that
point would get itself said without any assistance from her.

"I had a look at the water as I came along," continued Rex. "It
seemed good casting."

"I never see it but I think how nice it would be to whip," said
Ruth.

"No! really? Not outgrown the rod and fly since you grew into ball
dresses?"

"Try me and see."

"Now, my dearest child! -- "

"Yes, my dearest mother! -- "

"Yes, dearest Mrs Dene! -- "

"Oh! nonsense! listen to me, you children. Ruth danced herself ill at
Cannes; and she lost her color, and she had a little cough, and she
has it still, and she is very easily tired -- "

"Only of not fishing and hunting, dearest, most perfect of mothers!
You won't put up papa to forbid my going with him and Rex!"

"Your mother is incapable of such an action. How little you know her
worth! She is only waiting to be assured that you are to have my
greenheart, with a reel that spins fifty yards of silk. She shall have
it, Mrs Dene."

"Is it as good as the hornbeam?" asked Ruth, smiling.

"The old hornbeam! do you remember that? I say, Ruth, you spoke of
shooting. Really, can you still shoot?"

"Could I ever forget after such teaching?"

"Well, now, I call that a girl!" cried Rex, enthusiastically.

"Let us hope some people won't call it a hoyden!" said Mrs Dene,
with the tender pride that made her faultfinding like a caress. "The
idea of a girl carrying an absurd little breech-loading rifle all over
Europe!"

"What! the one I had built for her?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs Dene, with a shade more of reserve.

"Miss Dene, you shall kill the first chamois that I see!"

"I fear, Mr Gethryn, the Duke Alfons Adalbert Maximilian in Baiern
will have something to say about that!"

"Oh--h--h! Preserved?"

"Yes, indeed, preserved!"

"But they told me I might shoot on the Sonnewendjoch."

"Ah! But that's in Tyrol, just across the line. You can see it from
here. Austrian game laws aren't Bavarian game laws, sir!"

"How much of this country does your duke own?"

"Just half a dozen mountains, and half a dozen lakes, and half a
hundred trout streams, with all the splendid forests belonging to
them."

"Lucky duke! And is the game preserved in the whole region? Can't one
get a shot?"

"One cannot even carry a gun without a permit."

Rex groaned. "And the trout -- I suppose they are preserved, too?"

"Yes, but the Herr Förster has the right to fish and so have his
guests. There are, however, conditions. The fish you take are not
yours. You must buy as many of them as you want to keep, afterward.
And they must be brought home alive -- or as nearly alive as is
consistent with being shut up in a close, round, green tin box, full
of water which becomes tepid as it is carried along by a peasant boy
in the heat. They usually die of suffocation. But to the German mind
that is all right. It is only not right when one kills them instantly
and lays them in a cool creel, on fresh wet ferns and moss."

"Nevertheless, I think we will dispense with the boy and the green
box, in favor of the ferns and moss, assisted by a five franc piece or
two."

"It isn't francs any more; you're not in France. It's marks here, you
know."

"Well, I have the same faith in the corrupting power of marks as of
francs, or lire, or shillings, or dollars."

"And I think you will find your confidence justified," said Mrs
Dene, smiling.

"Mamma trying to be cynical!" said Ruth, teasingly. "Isn't she
funny, Rex!"

A thoughtful look stole over her mother's face. "I can be terrible,
too, sometimes -- " she said in her little, clear, high soprano
voice; and she gazed musingly at the edge of a letter, which just
appeared above the table, and then sank out of sight in her lap.

"A letter from papa! It came with the stage! What does he say?"

"He says -- several things; for one, he is coming back tomorrow
instead of the next day."

"Delightful! But there is more?"

Mrs Dene's face became a cheerful blank. "Yes, there is more," she
said. A pause.

"Mamma," began Ruth, "do you think Griffins desirable as mothers?"

"Very, for bad children!" Mrs Dene relapsed into a pleasant reverie.
Ruth looked at her mother as a kitten does in a game of tag when the
old cat has retired somewhere out of reach and sits up smiling through
the barrier.

"You find her sadly changed!" she said to Gethryn, in that silvery,
mocking tone which she had inherited from her mother.

"On the contrary, I find her the same adorable gossip she always was.
Whatever is in that letter, she is simply dying to tell us all about
it."

"Suppose we try not speaking, and see how long she can stand that?"

Rex laid his repeater on the table. Two pairs of laughing eyes watched
the dear little old lady. At the end of three minutes she raised her
own; blue, sweet, running over with fun and kindness.

"The colonel has a polite invitation from the duke for himself, and
his party, to shoot on the Red Peak."

Thirteen

In July the sun is still an early riser, but long before he was up
next day a succession of raps on the door woke Gethryn, and a voice
outside inquired, "Are you going fishing with me today, you lazy
beggar?"

"Colonel!" cried Rex, and springing up and throwing open the door,
he threatened to mingle his pajamas with the natty tweeds waiting
there in a loving embrace. The colonel backed away, twisting his white
mustache. "How do, Reggy! Same boy, eh? Yes. I drove from
Schicksalsee this morning."

"This morning? Wasn't it last night?" said Rex, looking at the
shadows on the opposite mountain.

"And I am going to get some trout," continued the colonel, ignoring
the interruption. "So's Daisy. See my new waterproof rig?"

"Beautiful! but -- is it quite the thing to wear a flower in one's
fishing coat?"

"I'm not aware -- " began the other stiffly, but broke down, shook
his seal ring at Rex, and walking over to the glass, rearranged the
bit of wild hyacinth in his buttonhole with care.

"And now," he said, "Daisy and I will give you just three quarters
of an hour." Rex sent a shower from the water basin across the room.

"Look out for those new waterproof clothes, Colonel."

"I'll take them out of harm's way," said the colonel, and
disappeared.

Before the time had expired Rex stood under the beech tree with his
rod case and his creel. The colonel sat reading a novel. Mrs Dene was
pouring out coffee. Ruth was coming down a path which led from a low
shed, the door of which stood wide open, suffering the early sunshine
to fall on something that lay stretched along the floor. It was a
stag, whose noble head and branching antlers would never toss in the
sunshine again.

"Only think!" cried Ruth breathlessly, "Federl shot a stag of ten
this morning at daybreak on the Red Peak, and he's frightened out of
his wits, for only the duke has a right to do that. Federl mistook it
for a stag of eight. And they're in the velvet, besides!" she added
rather incoherently. " What luck! Poor Federl! I asked him if that
meant strafen, and he said he guessed not, only zanken."

"What's `strafen' and what's `zanken,' Daisy?" asked the Colonel,
pronouncing the latter like "z" in buzz.

Ruth went up to her father and took his face between her hands,
dropping a light kiss on his eyebrow.

" Strafen is when one whips bad boys and t--s-- zanken is when one
only scolds them. Which shall we do to you, dear? Both?"

"We'll take coffee first, and then we'll see which there's time for
before we leave you hemming a pocket handkerchief while Rex and I go
trout fishing."

"Such parents!" sighed Ruth, nestling down beside her father and
looking over her cup at Rex, who gravely nodded sympathy.

After breakfast, as Ruth stood waiting by the table where the fishing
tackle lay, perfectly composed in manner, but unable to keep the color
from her cheek and the sparkle of impatience from her eye, Gethryn
thought he had seldom seen anything more charming.

A soft gray Tam crowned her pretty hair. A caped coat, fastened to the
throat, hung over the short kilt skirt, and rough gaiters buttoned
down over a wonderful little pair of hobnailed boots.

"I say! Ruth! what a stunner you are!" cried he with enthusiasm. She
turned to the rod case and began lifting and arranging the rods.

"Rex," she said, looking up brightly, "I feel about sixteen
today."

"Or less, judging from your costume," said her mother.
"Schicksalsee isn't Rangely, you know. I only hope the good people in
the little ducal court won't call you theatrical."

"A theatrical stunner!" mused Ruth, in her clearest tones. "It is
good to know how one strikes one's friends."

"The disciplining of this young person is to be left to me," said
the colonel. "Daisy, everything else about you is all wrong, but your
frock is all right."

"That is simple and comprehensive and reassuring," murmured Ruth
absently, as she bent over the fly-book with Gethryn.

After much consultation and many thoughtful glances at the bit of
water which glittered and dashed through the narrow meadow in front of
the house, they arranged the various colored lures and leaders, and
standing up, looked at Colonel Dene, reading his novel.

"What? Oh! Come along, then!" said he, on being made aware that he
was waited for, and standing up also, he dropped the volume into his
creel and lighted a cigar.

"Are you going to take that trash along, dear?" asked his daughter.

"What trash? The work of fiction? That's literature, as the gentleman
said about Dante."

"Rex," said Mrs Dene, buttoning the colonel's coat over his snowy
collar, "I put this expedition into your hands. Take care of these
two children."

She stood and watched them until they passed the turn beyond the
bridge. Mr Blumenthal watched them too, from behind the curtains in
his room. His leer went from one to the other, but always returned and
rested on Rex. Then, as there was a mountain chill in the morning air,
he crawled back into bed, hauling his night cap over his generous ears
and rolling himself in a cocoon of featherbeds, until he should emerge
about noon, like some sleek, fat moth.

The anglers walked briskly up the wooded road, chatting and laughing,
with now and then a sage and critical glance at the water, of which
they caught many glimpses through the trees. Gethryn and Ruth were
soon far ahead. The colonel sauntered along, switching leaves with his
rod and indulging in bursts of Parisian melody.

"Papa," called Ruth, looking back, "does your hip trouble you
today, or are you only lazy?"

"Trot along, little girl; I'll be there before you are," said the
colonel airily, and stopped to replace the wild hyacinth in his coat
by a prim little pink and white daisy. Then he lighted a fresh cigar
and started on, but their voices were already growing faint in the
distance. Observing this, he stopped and looked up and down the road.
No one was in sight. He sat down on the bank with his hand on his hip.
His face changed from a frown to an expression of sharp pain. In five
minutes he had grown from a fresh elderly man into an old man, his
face drawn and gray, but he only muttered "the devil!" and sat
still. A big bronze-winged beetle whizzed past him, z--z--ip! "like a
bullet," he thought, and pressed both hands now on his hip.
"Twenty-five years ago -- pshaw! I'm not so old as that!" But it was
twenty-five years ago when the blue-capped troopers, bursting in to
the rescue, found the dandy "---th," scorched and rent and
blackened, still reeling beneath a rag crowned with a gilt eagle. The
exquisite befeathered and gold laced "---th." But the shells have
rained for hours among the "Dandies" -- and some are dead, and some
are wishing for death, like that youngster lying there with the
shattered hip.

Colonel Dene rose up presently and relighted his cigar; then he
flicked some dust from the new tweeds, picked a stem of wild hyacinth,
and began to whistle. "Pshaw! I'm not so old as all that!" he
murmured, sauntering along the pleasant wood-road. Before long he came
in sight of Ruth and Gethryn, who were waiting. But he only waved them
on, laughing.

"Papa always says that old wound of his does not hurt him, but it
does. I know it does," said Ruth.

Rex noted what tones of tenderness there were in her cool, clear
voice. He did not answer, for he could only agree with her, and what
could be the use of that?

They strolled on in silence, up the fragrant forest road. Great
glittering dragonflies drifted along the river bank, or hung quivering
above pools. Clouds of lazy sulphur butterflies swarmed and floated,
eddying up from the road in front of them and settling down again in
their wake like golden dust. A fox stole across the path, but Gethryn
did not see him. The mesh of his landing net was caught just then in a
little gold clasp that he wore on his breast.

"How quaint!" cried Ruth; "let me help you; there! One would think
you were a French legitimist, with your fleur-de-lis."

"Thank you" -- was all he answered, and turned away, as he felt the
blood burn his face. But Ruth was walking lightly on and had not
noticed. The fleur-de-lis, however, reminded her of something she had
to say, and she began again, presently --

"You left Paris rather suddenly, did you not, Rex?"

This time he colored furiously, and Ruth, turning to him, saw it. She
flushed too, fearing to have made she knew not what blunder, but she
went on seriously, not pausing for his answer:

"The year before, that is three years ago now, we waited in Italy, as
we had promised to do, for you to join us. But you never even wrote to
say why you did not come. And you haven't explained it yet, Rex."

Gethryn grew pale. This was what he had been expecting. He knew it
would have to come; in fact he had wished for nothing more than an
opportunity for making all the amends that were possible under the
circumstances. But the possible amends were very, very inadequate at
best, and now that the opportunity was here, his courage failed, and
he would have shirked it if he could. Besides, for the last five
minutes, Ruth had been innocently stirring memories that made his
heart beat heavily.

And now she was waiting for her answer. He glanced at the clear
profile as she walked beside him. Her eyes were raised a little; they
seemed to be idly following the windings of a path that went up the
opposite mountainside; her lips rested one upon the other in quiet
curves. He thought he had never seen such a pure, proud looking girl.
All the chivalry of a generous and imaginative man brought him to her
feet.

"I cannot explain. But I ask your forgiveness. Will you grant it? I
won't forgive myself!"

She turned instantly and gave him her hand, not smiling, but her eyes
were very gentle. They walked on a while in silence, then Rex said:

"Ever since I came, I have been trying to find courage to ask pardon
for that unpardonable conduct, but when I looked in your dear mother's
face, I felt myself such a brute that I was only fit to hold my
tongue. And I believed," he added, after a pause, "that she would
forgive me too. She was always better to me than I deserved."

"Yes," said Ruth.

"And you also are too good to me," he continued, "in giving me this
chance to ask your pardon." His voice took on the old caressing tone
in which he used to make peace after their boy and girl tiffs. "I
knew very well that with you I should have a stricter account to
settle than with your mother," he said, smiling.

"Yes," said Ruth again. And then with a little effort and a slight
flush she added:

"I don't think it is good for men when too many excuses are made for
them. Do you?"

"No, I do not," answered Rex, and thought, if all women were like
this one, how much easier it would be for men to lead a good life! His
heart stopped its heavy beating. The memories which he had been
fighting for two years faded away once more; his spirits rose, and he
felt like a boy as he kept step with Ruth along the path which had now
turned and ran close beside the stream.

"Now tell me something of your travels," said Ruth. "You have been
in the East."

"Yes, in Japan. But first I stopped a while in India with some
British officers, nice fellows. There was some pheasant shooting."

"Pheasants! No tigers?"

"One tiger."

"You shot him! Oh! tell me about it!"

"No, I only saw him."

"Where?"

"In a jungle."

"Did you fire?"

"No, for he was already dead, and the odor which pervaded his resting
place made me hurry away as fast as if he had been alive."

"You are a provoking boy!"

Rex laughed. "I did shoot a cheetah in China."

"A dead one?"

"No, he was snarling over a dead buck."

"Then you do deserve some respect."

"If you like. But it was very easy. One bullet settled him. I was
fined afterward."

"Fined! for what?"

"For shooting the Emperor's trained cheetah. After that I always
looked to see if the game wore a silver collar before I fired."

Ruth would not look as if she heard.

Rex went on teasingly: "I assure you it was embarrassing, when the
pheasants were bursting cover, to be under the necessity of inquiring
at the nearest house if those were really pheasants or only Chinese
hens."

"Rex," exclaimed Ruth, indignantly, "I hope you don't think I
believe a word you are saying."

They had stopped to rest beside the stream, and now the colonel
sauntered into view, his hands full of wild flowers, his single
eyeglass gleaming beside his delicate straight nose.

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