Black Forest Village Stories Part 9

It happened that Babbett's and Caspar's wedding came off just three days before that on which Sepper was obliged to go to the military. So he made up his mind to enjoy himself once for all, and kept his word.

In almost every house where Caspar and his friend left the invitations, somebody said, "Well, Sepper, your turn will come next." And he smiled affirmatively.

At the wedding Sepper was as happy as a horse in clover. He enjoyed the foretaste of his coming bliss. When the dance began he climbed up to the musicians and bespoke them for his wedding, with two additional trumpeters: he belonged to the Guard, and therefore thought himself ent.i.tled to more trumpets than others.

But in the evening a new apparition crossed his path and changed the color of his thoughts. The gamekeeper came to the dance, and the first one he asked to dance with him was Tony.

"Engaged," answered Sepper for Tony.

"The la.s.sie can speak for herself, I guess," replied the gamekeeper.

"You and I will dance the next hop-waltz together," said Tony, taking Sepper's hand. But she turned around toward the gamekeeper once more before the hop-waltz began. The next waltz Tony danced with the gamekeeper, while Sepper sat down at the table and made up his mind not to stir another foot that evening, and to forbid Tony to dance any more. But Babbett came and asked him to dance. This was the bride's privilege, and Sepper could not refuse. Of course the dance was a cover for a round lecture. "I don't know what to make of you at all," said she: "that gamekeeper seems to have driven every bit of sense out of your head. It'll be your fault and n.o.body else's if Tony should ever come to like him. She wouldn't have had a thought of him this many a day; but, if you go on teasing her about him this way, what can she do but think of him? And with always thinking about him, and wondering whether he likes her or not, she might get to like him at last, after all, for he does dance a little better than you, that's a fact: you couldn't reverse waltz the way he does, could you?"

Sepper laughed; but in his heart he could not deny that the shrewd little rogue was right, and when he sat at the table with his sweetheart he clinked his gla.s.s against the gamekeeper's and beckoned to Tony to do the same. The gamekeeper drank, bowed politely to Tony, and nodded slightly to Sepper. The latter had made up his mind, however, not to be sulky again, and prided himself a little on the good tact of his behavior to the gamekeeper, and then sat, happy as a king, with his arm round Tony's waist. He was called away to the master-joke of the wedding.

According to ancient custom, all the young men had conspired to steal the bride. They formed a ring around her, and Caspar had to bargain for her release amid a plentiful volley of small jokes and lively sallies.

Six bottles of wine were at last accepted as a ransom, and the reunited pair marched off arm in arm. The musicians came down from their platform to the yard under their windows, and played the customary march; and many a hurrah followed from the crowd.

Tony stood at the window, in a dreamy mood, long after Babbett was gone and the others had returned to the dance.

It was very late at night, or, rather, early in the morning, when Sepper saw Tony home; yet it was long before they parted. Tony pressed her cheek against his with wild emotion, and held him with all the force of her arms. He too was greatly excited; yet he could not refrain from talking about the gamekeeper. "Let the gamekeeper alone," said Tony: "there's nothing in the world but you."

Sepper lifted her high up in the air; then he embraced her again, and, pressing his lip to her cheek, he whispered, "Do you see? I should just like to bite you."

"Bite," said Tony.

Well done! Sepper had bitten in good earnest. The blood flowed freely and ran down her cheeks into her neck and breast. Her hand rushed to her cheek, and there she felt the open scars of the teeth. She thrust Sepper away with such force that he fell on his back, and shrieked and cried aloud, so that the whole house was alarmed. Sepper got up and tried to comfort her; but with loud wailing she pushed him away again.

Hearing a noise in the house, he slipped away quietly. He thought the matter was not so bad, after all, and that if he was out of the way she would hit upon some excuse to quiet them.

Her father and mother came up with lights, and were frightened almost to death at the sight of their child dripping in blood. Old Ursula, who knew so many remedies, was sent for immediately. She had no sooner cast eyes on the wound than she declared, "This may end in a cancer, or else the person who did it must clean the wound with his tongue." But Tony protested vehemently that she would rather die than ever let Sepper touch her again.

Various remedies were applied, and Tony groaned as if she were at the point of death.

The story spread through the village like wildfire; and it was even said that Sepper had taken a piece of flesh out of Tony's cheek.

Everybody came to comfort her and to find out all about it. Sepper came too; but Tony screamed like a maniac, and declared he must leave the house at once and never come back. All his prayers and tears availed nothing: Tony seemed to be really beside herself, and Sepper had to go.

He went to Babbett and begged her to say a good word for him. Babbett was busy arranging the wedding-gifts: kitchen-furniture, and all sorts of utensils, lay scattered about. She scolded Sepper roundly, but left her work at once and hastened to Tony. The latter fell upon her playmate's neck and cried, "I am spoiled for all the days of my life!"

After a great deal of coaxing, she consented to rise from her bed; but, when she stood before the looking-gla.s.s and saw the horrible devastation, she exclaimed, "Jesus! Maria! Joseph! why, I am just like Flambeau Mary Ann! Oh G.o.d! I'm sure I must have sinned against her: I am punished hard enough!"

On no condition would she hear of seeing Sepper again; so the poor fellow had to trudge off to Stuttgard in a day or two, with a little white linen knapsack on his back, and a heavy, heavy load on his heart.

It was two weeks before Tony left the house, and then she kept her face well tied up. She walked out with a hoe on her shoulder to dig potatoes; and, strange to say, almost the first person she met was the gamekeeper.

"How are you, pretty Tony?" he asked, almost tenderly.

She could have sunk into the earth with shame, it seemed so strange for him to call her by name, and say "pretty" besides; and she felt more keenly than ever how much she was disfigured. As she sighed and said nothing, the gamekeeper went on:--"I have heard of what has happened: won't you let me see it?"

She bashfully pushed the kerchief aside, and the gamekeeper involuntarily raised his hands to his own face and said, "It is horrid, it is inhuman, to act so to a sweet, good girl like you! There's a fair specimen of your farmers' brutality. Don't be offended: I certainly didn't mean you by it: but these people are often worse than wild beasts. But don't be grieved about it."

Of all this Tony only heard the sympathy of the gamekeeper, and said, "I'm dreadfully spoiled and mangled, a'n't I?"

"I shouldn't mind it," said the gamekeeper: "if you had but one cheek you would please me better than all the girls between Nordstetten and Paris."

"It isn't right to tease one so," said Tony, smiling sadly.

"I am not teasing you," said the gamekeeper; and, taking her hand, he continued, "Oh, if you would say the word, how glad I should be to marry you!"

"That is talking sinfully," said Tony.

"I don't see any sin in our getting married," returned the gamekeeper.

"If you want to be good friends with me, don't say another word about it," said Tony, taking her way across the field.

The gamekeeper was content, for the present, to be "good friends," and made the most of it; for he came to Nordstetten almost regularly twice or three times a week. He managed to start some business-negotiations with the Poodlehead, Tony's father, about cordwood; and this always gave him an opportunity of talking with Tony. He said nothing more about marrying, but anybody but a fool could see that he alluded to it all the time. He had much trouble with Babbett, whose influence upon Tony was of the greatest consequence. At first he tried good humor and fun, but Babbett never would understand his jokes: she did nothing but talk about Sepper as long as the gamekeeper was within hearing.

A lucky occurrence gave the latter a great advantage. Tony had a rich cousin in Muehringen, who was to be married shortly: the dance was to last three days; and Tony was invited. The gamekeeper's sister soon made friends with her, and the two girls rambled over the fields together and kept near each other at the dance. Tony now appeared for the first time with an uncovered face; and it might almost be said that the bite had improved her looks. Some wild and superst.i.tious people purposely mangle what is perfectly beautiful, so that the "evil look"

may have no power over it, and by way of appeasing the devil, who can suffer nothing perfect to exist. Whether the "beauty-spots" cultivated by the damsels of our day were originally derived from this superst.i.tion I cannot tell. At all events, the bite on Tony's cheek was just enough to give the spirit of envy a little "but" to hang on the end of an acknowledgment of her comeliness.

The gamekeeper always kept near Tony while the dance was going on; and in the evening he treated her to something that no peasant-girl of all Nordstetten had ever enjoyed. The old baron, a stout and well-fed personage, though very parsimonious, and unmerciful in hunting down every poor farmer who took an armful of dry sticks out of the wood, was very ambitious for the prosperity of a little private theatre which he maintained at the manor-house, and to which he used to invite the grand folks of the neighborhood. The gamekeeper was permitted to bring Tony to see the theatricals.

She trembled till her teeth chattered as she walked up the hill on which the manor-house, or rather castle, stands, with its drawbridge, moat, and parapet, in the style of the Middle Ages. Without a breath, and on tip-toe, she came into the hall, where the ladies and gentlemen were already a.s.sembled. A place was a.s.signed her not far back of the orchestra. The lord-lieutenant's lady levelled her eyegla.s.s at her for a long time; Tony cast down her eyes, almost afraid to breathe. The scar on her cheek tingled as if the eyes of the lady had opened the wound afresh. The rise of the curtain came to her relief, and now she listened with breathless attention. She shed tears over the fate of the poor boy who died in prison, because he was accused of stealing, just to save the credit of his master, to whom he owed a debt of grat.i.tude; and if she had been the master's daughter she certainly would not have put off her disclosure until it came too late. When the curtain fell, a deep sigh escaped her.

On the way home the gamekeeper put his arm around Tony's waist, and she clung closely to him. She was quite overcome with mingled emotions. It seemed as if all she felt, and the feigned events she had seen, were of the gamekeeper's doing, and as if she owed it all to him; and, again, she wished to go back to the old man and his sweet daughter, who were now so happy together. The gamekeeper, too, was happy, for he obtained Tony's promise to walk with him after church on Sunday afternoon.

Thus the gamekeeper's man[oe]uvres were far more successful than those in which poor Sepper was engaged on horseback on the plains of Ludwigsburg; and, before the latter got his honorable discharge from the military, Tony had given him another discharge which he never desired. When he came home, his first visit was to the house of Tony's father. She was spinning in the room, but gave him no look of recognition, only directing a fixed, cold stare at him from time to time. He took his discharge out of his pocket, brushed every mote of dust from the table, and spread the doc.u.ment before their eyes. Tony would not walk to the table to look at it. He wrapped it up in a piece of paper and went, carrying it carefully in his hand, to Babbett's.

Here he heard the whole story, and also that the two playmates had quarrelled about the gamekeeper, and were not on speaking terms. He mashed the discharge into a ball with both hands and went away.

At dark Sepper was sitting under the cherry-tree where we first made Tony's acquaintance. It was leafless. The wind whistled over the stubble, and the pine-wood sighed and murmured like a mighty current.

The night-bell sounded from the convent, and a belated raven croaked as he flew toward the wood. Sepper saw and heard nothing. His elbows rested on his knees, and his hands covered his eyes. Thus he remained a long time. The bark of a dog and the sound of footsteps approaching aroused him, and he sprang to his feet. The gamekeeper was coming out of the village. Sepper saw the flash of his gun-barrel: he also saw a white ap.r.o.n, and concluded, rightly, that Tony was accompanying the gamekeeper. They stood still a while, and Tony returned toward the village.

When the gamekeeper was near him, Sepper said, in a tone of defiance, "Good-evening."

"How are you?" returned the gamekeeper.

"I've got a crow to pick with you," said the former again.

"Oh, Sepper," said the gamekeeper, "since when have you got back?"

"Too soon for you, you----: we won't be long about it. There! we'll draw straws for which of us must give up Tony, and if I lose I must have the gun."

"I won't draw any straws."

"Then I'll draw your soul out of your body, you rascally green-coat!"

roared Sepper, seizing the rifle with one hand and the gamekeeper's throat with the other.

"Seize him, Bruin," cried the gamekeeper, with a smothered voice. A kick from Sepper disabled the hound, but released the gamekeeper a little. They now wrestled furiously for the gun, and held each other by the throat, when suddenly the charge went off, and the gamekeeper fell backward into the ditch. He groaned but slightly, and Sepper bent over him to hear whether he was still breathing. Tony came running up the road: she had heard the report, and was filled with forebodings of evil.

[Ill.u.s.tration: There lies your gamekeeper: now marry him!]

"There, there!" cried Sepper; "there lies your gamekeeper: now marry him!"