The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 Part 4

What was it? Anna stood asking herself; the flowers fell out of her hand on to the gra.s.s among their unplucked companions; she stood for some minutes absorbed in thought.

Andreas had pa.s.sed out of sight, and she could not venture to follow him, for she did not know what she wanted him to tell her.

A raindrop fell on her hand, and she looked up. Yes, the rain had begun again. Anna gave a sudden start; she left the flowers and set off running towards the point at which she was accustomed to meet her father.

With the raindrop the clue she had been seeking had come to her. Andreas had said there might very likely be landslips, and who could say that there might not have been one on the hillside above Malans? Anna had often heard her father say that, though he could climb the steep ascent with his burden, he should be sorry to have to go down with it. If the track had been partly carried away, he might begin to climb without any warning of the danger that lay before him. . . .

Anna trembled and s.h.i.+vered as she thought of the danger. It would be growing dusk before her father began to climb, and who could say what might happen?

She hurried on to the place at which she always met her father. When she had crossed the brook that parted the field with the gap from the field preceding it, Anna stood still in dismay. The hedge was gone, and so was a good strip of the field it had bordered.

[Sidenote: A Landslip]

There had already been a landslip.

Anna had learned wisdom by her mischance yesterday, and she went on slowly and cautiously till she drew near the edge; then she knelt down on the gra.s.s, and, creeping along on her hands and knees, she peered over the broken, slippery edge. The landslip seemed to have reached midway down the cliff, but the rain had washed the earth and rubbish to one side.

So far as Anna could make out, the way up, half-way, was as firm as ever; then there came a heap of debris from the fall of earth, and then the bare rock rose to the top, upright and dreadful.

Anna's head turned dizzy as she looked down the precipice, and she forced herself to crawl backward from the crumbling edge only just in time, for it seemed to her that some mysterious power was beckoning her from below.

When she got on her feet she stood and wondered what was to be done. How was she to warn her father of this danger?

She looked at the sun; it was still high up in the sky, so she had some hours before her. There was no other way to Malans but this one, unless by going back half-way to Seewis, to where a path led down to Pardisla, and thence into the Landquart valley, where the high-road went on to Malans, past the corner where the Landquart falls into the Rhine. Anna had learned all this as a child from the big map which hung in the dining-room at the inn. But on the map it looked a long, long way to the Rhine valley, and she had heard her father tell her Aunt Christina that she must take the diligence at Pardisla; it would be too far, he said, to walk to Landquart, and Anna knew that Malans was farther still. She stood wondering what could be done.

In these last four years she had become by degrees penetrated with a sense of her own utter uselessness, and she had gradually sunk into a melancholy condition. She did only what she was told to do, and she always expected to be told how to do it.

Her first thought now was, how could she get help or advice? she knew only two people who could help her--Gretchen and Andreas. The last, she reflected, must be already at some distance. When she saw him, he was carrying a basket, and he had, no doubt, gone to Seewis, for it was market-day in that busy village. As to Gretchen, Anna felt puzzled.

Gretchen never went from home; what could she know about time and the distance from the Rhine valley?

Besides, while the girl stood thinking her sense of responsibility unfolded, the sense that comes to every rational creature in a moment that threatens danger to others; and she saw that by going back even to consult with Gretchen she must lose many precious minutes. There was no near road to the valley, but it would save a little to keep well behind the inn on her downward way to Pardisla.

As Anna went along the day cleared again. The phantom-like mists drifted aside and showed on the opposite mountain's side brilliant green Alps in the fir-wood that reached almost to the top. The lark overhead sang louder, and the gra.s.shopper's metallic chirp was incessant under foot.

[Sidenote: Father must be Warned]

Anna's heart became lighter as she hurried on; surely, she thought, she must reach Malans before her father had begun to climb the mountain. She knew that he would have left his knapsack at Mayenfeld, and that he must call there for it on his way home. Unless the landslip was quite recent it seemed to her possible that some one might be aware of what had happened, and might give her father warning; but Anna had seen that for a good way above Malans the upward path looked all right, and it was so perpendicular that she fancied the destruction of its upper portion might not have been at once discovered, especially if it had occurred at night. No, she was obliged to see that it was extremely doubtful whether her father would receive any warning unless she reached the foot of the descent before he did.

So she went at her utmost speed down the steep stony track to Pardisla.

New powers seemed to have come to her with the intensity of her suspense.

George Fasch had every reason to be content with the way in which he had managed his business at Zurich; and yet, as he travelled back to Mayenfeld, he was in a desponding mood. All the way to Zurich his sister had talked about Anna. She said she had tried her utmost with the girl, and that she grew worse and worse.

"She is reckless and thoroughly unreliable," she said, "and she gets more stupid every day. If you were wise you would put her into a reformatory."

George Fasch shrugged his shoulders.

"She is affectionate," he said bluntly, "and she is very unselfish. I should be sorry to send her from home."

Christina held up her hands.

"I call a girl selfish who gives so much trouble. Gretchen has to wash out three skirts a week for Anna. She is always spoiling her clothes. I, on the contrary, call her very selfish, brother."

George Fasch shrugged his shoulders again; he remembered the red and green ap.r.o.n, and he supposed that Christina must be right; and now, as he travelled back alone, he asked himself what he must do. Certainly he saw no reason why he should place Anna in a reformatory--that would be, he thought, a sure way of making her unhappy, and perhaps even desperate; but Christina's words had shown him her unwillingness to be plagued with his daughter's ways, and he shrank from the idea of losing his useful housekeeper. He had been accustomed to depend on his sister for the management of the inn, and he felt that no paid housekeeper would be able to fill Christina's place. Besides, it would cost more money to pay a stranger.

Yes, he must send Anna away, but he shrank from the idea. There was a timid, pathetic look in the girl's dark eyes that warned him against parting her from those she loved. After all, was she not very like her mother? and his sweet lost wife had often told George Fasch how dreamy and heedless and stupid she had been in childhood. He was sure that Anna would mend in time, if only he could hit on some middle course at present.

The weather had been fine at Zurich; and he was surprised, when he quitted the train, to see the long wreaths of white vapour that floated along the valley and up the sides of the hill. It was clearer when he had crossed the river; but before he reached Malans evening was drawing in, and everything grew misty.

He had made his purchases at Mayenfeld so as to avoid another stoppage; and, with his heavy load strapped on his back, he took a by-path that skirted Malans, and led him straight to the bottom of the descent without going through the village. There was a group of trees just at the foot of the path, which increased the gathering gloom.

"My poor child will be tired of waiting," he thought, and he began to climb the steep ascent more rapidly than usual.

All at once a faint cry reached him; he stopped and listened, but it did not come again.

The way was very slippery, he thought; his feet seemed to be clogged with soft earth, and he stopped at last to breathe. Then he heard another cry, and the sound of footsteps behind him.

Some one was following him up the dangerous ascent. And as his ears took in the sound he heard Anna's voice some way below.

[Sidenote: "You cannot climb To-night!"]

"Father! father! stop! stop!" she cried; "there is a landslip above; you cannot climb to-night."

George Fasch stopped. He shut his eyes and opened them again. It seemed to him that he was dreaming. How came Anna to be at the foot of the pa.s.s if it was not possible to climb to the top of it?

"What is it, Anna? Do you mean that I must come down again?" he said wonderingly.

"Yes, yes; the path above is destroyed."

And once more he wondered if all this could be real.

"Father, can you come down with the pack, or will you unfasten it and leave it behind?"

George Fasch thought a moment.

"You must go down first," he said, "and keep on one side; the distance is short, and I think I can do it; but I may slip by the way."

There were minutes of breathless suspense while Anna stood in the gathering darkness, and then the heavy footsteps ceased to descend, and she found herself suddenly hugged close in her father's arms.

"My good girl," he said, "my good Anna, how did you come here?"

Anna could not speak. She trembled like a leaf, and then she began to sob. The poor girl was completely exhausted by the terrible anxiety she had gone through, and by fatigue.

"I thought I was too late," she sobbed; "it looked so dark. I feared you could not see; I cried out, but you did not answer. Oh, father!"--she caught at his arms--"if I had been really too late!"

Her head sank on his shoulder.