On the Heights Part 166

"Franz told me nothing but what you've heard."

"But why do you talk about death in that way?"

"Because one who's very sick can easily die. But do be calm."

"Yes, yes; I hardly know that we are in the woods, and I feel as if I couldn't see a thing. Stop a moment! There's a doctor up there. He knows her, and others who know her will come, too. The man who came to see us the other day is her brother, and now they'll go and take our Irmgard away with them."

"If she's in her right mind, and wants to go of her own free will, we can't say anything against it," said Hansei, "but this I do say, and no one will move me from it. As long as she's so sick that she can't say what she wants, I won't let them do a thing to her. I'm Hansei, and I'm her protector; nothing shall happen to her--All I ask of you, is to stand by me and not interfere. You know when I say a thing, I mean it."

"Yes, yes, you're right!" said Walpurga. Hansei's resolute words seemed to infuse her with new strength, for she went up the steep mountain path without the slightest difficulty. It almost seemed as if Hansei had been carrying her as well as the child. Moved by this thought, she suddenly said:

"Do you remember when you once wanted to carry me, at home by the lake?

Oh, dear me, it seems as if we must have been very different beings then, for we knew nothing at all of the world."

"We're none the worse off, for knowing and having some of it!" replied Hansei, in a loud voice, and awakening the child. "There, now; run along again," said he to Burgei.

They rested for a little while. Hansei remembered the piece of bread that he had put in his pocket and, cutting off a bit of it, he said while pointing toward the valley with his knife: "Our brook runs down through there, and it's only an hour's distance from here to the little town where Stasi lives."

"Only an hour from here?" exclaimed Walpurga.

"Then I'll walk over there. She's the best, the only help. You go on with the child, straight up to the hut. I'll soon follow you by way of the town, and I'll bring something good with me."

"Wife! Have you gone mad? Don't make me crazy, too. Do you want to run off, when you're so near the dying one?"

"Then I must tell you. The queen is down there and she alone can help her. G.o.d be with you, Hansei, and with you too, Burgei. I'll soon follow after you."

Away she ran, through the forest, along the stream, and toward the town.

"Where's mother? Mother! mother!" cried the child.

"Be quiet!" said Hansei. "Mother has another child down there, and he's a prince and will send you golden clothes."

"Is it an enchanted prince that mother is going to free from a spell?"

asked the child.

"Yes, he's enchanted," said Hansei, endeavoring to quiet her.

"But what was he changed into?" asked the child.

"Into a cuckoo; but not another word now; be quiet."

Filled with strange thoughts, the father and child went up the mountain. Hansei could not understand how, at such a moment, his wife could leave her friend and go to the queen--. Perhaps they were bound together in some way? He shook his head. Matters that he could not disentangle, he always put away from him. The only thing was to see what could be done for the sick one; that was the most important matter. He squared his shoulders and was ready, if the physician thought well of it, to carry Irmgard in his arms, all the way down to the farm.

The child ran along, looking about it with wondering eyes. "He's calling! he's calling!" whispered she. "My mother will free you."

A cuckoo was really crying in the wood, through which the noonday sun was gleaming. His cry was sometimes near and then more distant, and at last, uttering his peculiar note, he flew over the travelers' heads.

Hansei, with the child, at last reached the shepherd's hut, where the uncle and Gundel, with sorrowful countenances, came forward to meet him.

"She's still alive, but she can't last long," said the uncle, wiping away his tears with his sleeve. "The doctor won't let any of us go in to her. But where's Walpurga?"

"She'll soon be here," replied Hansei. It was all he could do to keep off the cows, who knew their master and came up to him, as was their wont, in order to get a handful of salt. But he had forgotten to bring it with him, and all the salt they had up here was in the room that no one was permitted to enter.

Hansei ordered the cowboy to drive the cows off for some distance, so that the sick one might not hear the sound of the bells. That was all he could do for Irma.

He sat down sadly on the bench before the hut, and taking up a piece of carved wood which lay on the ground, he looked at it as carefully as if it were marble and turned it again and again. He sat there for a long time. Then he put Burgei in Gundel's charge, and, hoping to meet his wife, went out alone along the road that led toward the little town.

But it was long before she came. He went further into the forest, and was vexed, as he always was whenever he came up here, to think of yonder fine trees that were his own property, but which could not be felled, because no one could get up to the rocks on which they were. A chattering magpie, sitting on the high branches of a beautiful pine, seemed to be making sport of him. After he had again and again pa.s.sed his hand over his face, Hansei became conscious of the thoughts that had engaged him in the midst of all this trouble. There was nothing wrong in it--he was sure of that; but this was not the time to think of such things, and, as if the trouble were now dawning on him for the first time, he was overwhelmed with grief.

He turned back and went toward the hut. The doctor was just coming out.

"You are the freehold farmer, I suppose?"

"Yes; and you're the doctor?"

"Yes."

"How is she?"

"I don't think she will die before evening."

Hansei's eyes filled with tears.

The uncle asked Gunther to allow him to fetch out the little kid. He granted his request. Stepping softly, he brought it out, gave it something to drink and, carrying it back again, placed it at the sick girl's feet.

"She opened her eyes and nodded to me, but she didn't say a word; and then she closed her eyes again," said the uncle.

Hansei begged that he might be permitted to see Irmgard once more. He was allowed to look through the crevice in the shutter. When Gunther again returned to the sick-room, Hansei, weeping as if his heart would break, walked out along the road that led toward the town.

"Uncle's right: she's become like an angel," said he to himself.

The calf that was born on the first day that they had come up to the shepherd's hut seemed conscious of its special claims on Hansei. In spite of all he could do it kept running after him for salt. Hansei succeeded in satisfying it, by giving it the last morsel of bread that he had about him.

When he reached the woods, he was obliged to sit down; and there he wept and would, now and then, look about him as if bewildered. How could it be possible that the sun was still s.h.i.+ning, the cuckoo crying, and the hawk screaming, while she who was up there was breathing her last--

What could Walpurga want of the queen? "Her place is up there," thought he to himself, again and again.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Following the course of the brook, Walpurga had hurried down the mountain-side. She soon saw the little town and the farmhouse, on the roof of which a bright flag was fluttering.

Walpurga sat down on a rock by the stream, to recover her breath and rest for a few moments. A cuckoo flew over her head and up the mountain.

"That's a bad beginning," said she to herself.

She walked on toward the dairy-farm. Looking through the iron railing, she saw a boy playing about the garden. His hair fell over his shoulders, in long, fair curls.