Linnet: A Romance. Allen Grant

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СКАЧАТЬ a man of light and leading in his own society. He opposes the priest, and heads the liberal party. All the popular leaders in the war of independence in the Tyrol were monks or innkeepers. Andreas Hofer, himself, you know, had an inn of his own in the Passer valley.”

      “Ah, to be sure,” Florian ejaculated, in an acquiescent tone of a peculiar calibre, which showed his friend at once he hadn’t the remotest idea who Andreas Hofer was, or why one should be expected to know anything about him. Now, want of knowledge on such a point is, of course, most natural and pardonable in a stranger; but there was no sufficient reason, Will Deverill thought, for Florian’s pretence at its possession where he really knew nothing. That, however, was poor Florian’s foible. He couldn’t bear to have it thought he was ignorant of anything, from mathematics or music to esoteric Buddhism. If a native of Siberia had addressed him casually in the Ostiak dialect of the Tungusian language, Florian would have nodded and smiled a non-committing assent, as though Ostiak had always been his mother-tongue, and he had drunk in Tungusian at his nurse’s bosom.

      “You know who Andreas Hofer was, of course?” Deverill went on, persistently. He was a devil of a fellow for not letting you off when he caught you out in an innocent little piece of social pretension, was Deverill.

      Florian, thus hard pressed, found himself compelled to do what he hated most in the world – confess his ignorance. “I remember the gentleman’s respected name, of course!” he said, dubiously, with a sickly smile and a little forced pleasantry; “but his precise claims to distinction, as Men of the Time puts it in its cheerful circular, entirely escape my memory for the moment.”

      “He was the leader of the spontaneous Tyrolese peasant movement, you know, for the expulsion of the French and their Bavarian allies in 1808 or thereabouts,” Will went on, still unpacking. “Napoleon caught him at last, and had him shot at Mantua. You’ll see his tomb when you go to Innsbruck, and lots of other mementos of him all over the country everywhere. He pervades the place. He’s the national hero, in fact – the martyr of independence – a sort of later and more historical William Wallace.”

      “Dear me, yes; how stupid of me!” Florian cried, clapping his hand to his head in a sudden burst of pretended recollection. “It comes back to me now, of course. Good old Andreas Hofer! How could I ever forget him? The Tyrolese William Tell! The Hampden of the Alps! The undaunted Caractacus of these snow-clad mountains!”

      Deverill pulled off his coat. “If I were you,” he said, drily, “instead of rhapsodising here, I’d go into my own room, have a jolly good wash, and get ready for dinner. We must have walked about twenty-two miles since we got out at Jenbach, and this bracing air gives one a positively Gargantuan appetite.”

      Florian roused himself with a yawn, for though vigorous enough for his size, he was a lazy creature, and when once he sat down it was with difficulty he could be prevailed upon to put himself in motion again. Ten minutes later they were seated at the white-covered table in the tidy little salon, doing the fullest justice to the delicious broiled trout, the foaming amber ale, the fresh laid eggs, and the excellent home-made bread, provided, according to promise, by Herr Andreas Hausberger.

      CHAPTER III

      WITHIN SIGHT OF A HEROINE

      Next morning early, aroused by the cloister bell, Will Deverill rose, and looked out of his window. Oh, such an exquisite day! In that clear, crisp air the summits of the Floitenspitze, the Löffler, and the Turnerkamp glistened like diamonds in the full morning sunlight. ’Twas a sight to rejoice his poetic soul. For Will Deverill, though too modest to give himself airs, like Florian, was a poet by birth, and a journalist by trade. Nature had designed him for an immortal bard; circumstances had turned him into an occasional leader-writer. He stood there entranced for many minutes together. He had pushed the leaded window open wide when he first rose, and the keen mountain air blew in at it most refreshingly. All, all was beautiful. He looked out on the fresh green pastures, the deep glen below, the white stream in its midst, the still whiter tops of the virgin mountains beyond it. A stanza for his new poem rose spontaneous in his mind as he leaned his arms on the low sill and gazed out upon the great glaciers:

      “I found it not where solemn Alps and grey

      Draw crimson glories from the new-born day,

          Nor where huge sombre pines loom overhanging

      Niagara’s rainbow spray.”

      He was just feeling in his pocket for a pencil to jot down the rough draft of these few lines, when of a sudden, at the window in the next room at the side, what should he see but Florian’s pale face peeping forth most piteously.

      “What’s the matter? Haven’t you slept?” Will inquired of his disconsolate friend with a sympathetic nod.

      The epicurean philosopher shook a sad, slow head with a painfully cheerful air of stoical resignation. “Not a wink since three o’clock,” he answered, gloomily. “Those dreadful creatures have bothered me without ceasing.”

      “Surely,” Will began, somewhat surprised, “not – ”

      Florian shook his head wearily. “No, no; not them,” he murmured with melancholy emphasis. “I don’t mind about them. They, at least, are silent, and, besides, if you like, you can get up and catch them. Bells, bells! my dear fellow; bells, bells, all the morning. They’ve been tinkling in my ear every blessed minute since the clock struck three. It’s unendurable, horrible.”

      “Oh, the cow-bells!” Will answered, laughing. “Why, for my part, I like them. They’re a feature of the place; they sound so countrified. I hardly hear them at all, or if I hear them, they come to me drowsily through the haze of my dreams like the murmur of water or a nurse’s lullaby. I find them, to tell you the truth, positively soothing. Besides,” he added, mischievously, with a malicious little smile, “in such a village as this, who cares where he sleeps, or whether he sleeps at all? He should be able to subsist here on scenery and the affections.”

      At the words, Florian’s head disappeared incontinently. That, surely, was the unkindest cut of all. Thus convicted out of his own mouth, by his familiar friend, he could but retire abashed to complete his toilet. That Deverill should have slept all night long, while he lay awake, and tossed, and turned, and wished ill to the whole ill-omened race of cows, was bad enough in all conscience; but that he should pretend he liked those disgusting bells was nothing short of atrocious.

      He descended a little later to the homely parlour. Will was down there before him, and had succeeded in ferreting out an old violin from a corner cupboard. He was musical, was Will – not, to be sure, in the grand perceptive and critical way, like Florian himself, who played no instrument and understood all perfectly, but, after the inferior fashion of the mere dexterous executant, who possesses a certain physical suppleness and deftness of fingers to elicit from dumb strings the most delicate fancies of a Mendelssohn or a Chopin. In pursuance of this lesser gift of his – “the common faculty of the fiddler,” as Florian called it – Will was just then engaged by the open window in playing over to himself a pretty little song by some unknown composer. He played it very well, too, Florian admitted, condescendingly; Will had a capital ear, indeed, and was not without feeling of a sort, for the finer touches in musical composition – up to a certain point, you know; not quite, of course, to the high and delicate level of Florian’s own cultivated and refined perceptions. It was a charming piece, however – a very charming piece – and, after a while, Will began singing the words to it. Florian listened with pleasure and a forgiving smile to the clever twists and turns of that well-arranged melody.

      As he stood there, listening, a little behind, one impressive forefinger held up in an attitude of discriminative attention, he was aware of two voices in the street outside catching up the tune naturally, and fitting it as if in sport to shapeless СКАЧАТЬ