Bog-Myrtle and Peat Part 15

His tone was triumphant.

"I tell you what it is, Monsieur," said the calm voice of the Count: "if you go through the world banging off shots on the chance of shooting white owls which you do not see, you are indeed likely to hit something. But whether you will like it after it is. .h.i.t, is another matter."

Then I went indoors, for my arm was paining me. In my own room I eagerly examined the wound. It was but slight. A pellet or two had grazed my arm and ploughed their way along the thickness of the skin, but none had entered deeply. So I wrapped my arm in a little lint and some old linen, and went to bed.

I did not again see the Countess till noon on the morrow, when her carriage was at the door and she tripped down the steps to enter.

The Count stood by it, holding the door for her to enter--I midway down the broad flight of steps.

"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand, from which she deftly drew the glove. "We shall meet again."

"G.o.d grant it! I live for that!" said I, so low that the Count did not hear, as I bent to kiss her hand. For in these months I had learned many things.

At this moment Henry came up to say farewell, and he shook her hand with boyish affectation of the true British indifference, which at that time it was the correct thing for Englishmen to a.s.sume at parting.

"Nice boy!" said the Countess indulgently, looking up at me. The Count bowed and smiled, and smiled and bowed, till the carriage drove out of sight.

Then in a moment he turned to me with a fierce and frowning countenance.

"And now, Monsieur, I have the honour to ask you to explain all this!"

I stood silent, amazed, aghast. There was in me no speech, nor reason.

Yet I had the sense to be silent, lest I should say something maladroit.

A confidential servant brought a despatch. The Count impatiently flung it open, glanced at it, then read it carefully twice. He seemed much struck with the contents.

"I am summoned to Milan," he said, "and upon the instant. I shall yet overtake my sister. May I ask Monsieur to have the goodness to await me here that I may receive his explanations? I shall return immediately."

"You may depend that I shall wait," I said.

The Count bowed, and sprang upon the horse which his servant had saddled for him.

But the Count did not immediately return, and we waited in vain. No letter came to me. No communication to the manager of the hostel. The Count had simply ridden out of sight over the pa.s.s through which the Thal wind brought the fog-spume. He had melted like the mist, and, so far as we were concerned, there was an end. We waited here till the second snow fell, hardened, and formed its sleighing crust.

Then we went, for some society to Henry, over to the mountain village of Bergsdorf, which strings itself along the hillside above the River Inn.

Bergsdorf is no more than a village in itself, but, being the chief place of its neighbourhood, it supports enough munic.i.p.al and other dignitaries to set up an Imperial Court. Never was such wisdom--never such pompous solemnity. The Burgomeister of Bergsdorf was a great elephant of a man. He went abroad radiating self-importance. He perspired wisdom on the coldest day. The other officials imitated the Burgomeister in so far as their corporeal condition allowed. The _cure_ only was excepted. He was a thin, spare man with an ascetic face and a great talent for languages. One day during service he asked a mother to carry out a crying child, making the request in eight languages. Yet the mother failed to understand till the limping old apparator led her out by the arm.

There is no doubt that the humours of Bergsdorf lightened our spirits and cheered our waiting; for it is my experience that a young man is easily amused with new, bright, and stirring things even when he is in love.

And what amused us most was that excellent sport--now well known to the world, but then practised only in the mountain villages--the species of adventure which has come to be called "tobogganing." I fell heir in a mysterious fas.h.i.+on to a genuine Canadian toboggan, curled and buffalo-robed at the front, flat all the way beneath; and upon this, with Henry on one of the ordinary sleds with runners of steel, we spent many a merry day.

There was a good run down the road to the post village beneath; another, excellent, down a neighbouring pa.s.s. But the best run of all started from high up on the hillside, crossed the village street, and undulated down the hillside pastures to the frozen Inn river below--a splendid course of two miles in all. But as a matter of precaution it was strictly forbidden ever to be used--at least in that part of it which crossed the village street. For such projectiles as laden toboggans, pa.s.sing across the trunk line of the village traffic at an average rate of a mile a minute, were hardly less dangerous than cannon-b.a.l.l.s, and of much more erratic flight.

Nevertheless, there was seldom a night when we did not risk all the penalties which existed in the city of Bergsdorf, by defying all powers and regulations whatsoever and running the hill-course in the teeth of danger.

I remember one clear, starlight night with the snow casting up just enough pallid light to see by. Half a dozen of us--Henry and myself, a young Swiss doctor newly diplomaed, the adventurous advocate of the place, and several others--went up to make our nightly venture. We gave half a minute's law to the first starter, and then followed on. I was placed first, mainly because of the excellence of my Canadian ices.h.i.+p.

As I drew away, the snow sped beneath; the exhilarating madness of the ride entered into my blood. I whooped with sheer delight.... There was a curve or two in the road, and at the critical moment, by s.h.i.+fting the weight of my body and just touching the snow with the point of the short iron-shod stick I held in my hand, the toboggan span round the curve with the delicious clean cut of a skate. It seemed only a moment, and already I was approaching the critical part of my journey. The stray oil-lights of the village street began to waver irregularly here and there beneath me. I saw the black gap in the houses through which I must go. I listened for the creaking runners of the great Valtelline wine-sledges which const.i.tuted the main danger. All was silent and safe.

But just as I drew a long breath, and settled for the delicious rise over the piled snow of the street and the succeeding plunge down to the Inn, a vast bulk heaved itself into the seaway, like some lost monster of a Megatherium retreating to the swamps to couch itself ere morning light.

It was the Burgomeister of Bergsdorf.

"Acht--u--um--m!" I shouted, as one who, on the Scottish links, should cry "Fore!" and be ready to commit murder.

But the vision solemnly held up its hand and cried "Halt!"

"Halt yourself!" I cried, "and get out of the way!" For I was approaching at a speed of nearly a mile a minute. Now, there is but one way of halting a toboggan. It is to run the nose of your machine into a snow-bank, where it will stick. On the contrary, you do not stop. You describe the curve known as a parabola, and skin your own nose on the icy crust of the snow. Then you "halt," in one piece or several, as the case may be.

But I, on this occasion, did not halt in this manner. The mind moves swiftly in emergencies. I reflected that I had a low Canadian toboggan with a soft buffalo-skin over the front. The Burgomeister also had naturally well-padded legs. _Eh bien_--a meeting of these two could do no great harm to either. So I sat low in my seat, and let the toboggan run.

Down I came flying, checked a little at the rise for the crossing of the village street. A mountainous bulk towered above me--a bulk that still and anon cried "Halt!" There was a slight shock and a jar. The stars were eclipsed above me for a moment; something like a large tea-tray pa.s.sed over my head and fell flat on the snow behind me. Then I scudded down the long descent to the Inn, leaving the village and all its happenings miles behind.

I did not come up the same way. I did not desire to attract immodest attention. Un.o.btrusively, therefore, I proceeded to leave my toboggan in its accustomed out-house at the back of the Osteria. Then, slipping on another overcoat, I took an innocent stroll along the village street, in the company of the landlord.

There was a great crowd on the corner by the Rathhaus. In the centre was Henry, in the hands of two officers of justice. The Burgomeister, supported by sympathising friends, limped behind. There is no doubt that Henry was exercising English privileges. His captors were unhappy. But I bade him go quietly, and with a look of furious bewilderment he obeyed.

Finally we got the hotel-keeper, a staunch friend of ours and of great importance in these parts, to bail him out.

On the morrow there was a deliciously humorous trial. The young advocate was in attendance, and the whole village was called to give evidence.

But, curiously enough, I was not summoned. I had been, it seemed, in the hotel changing my clothes. However, I was not missed, for everybody else had something to say. There were excellent plans of the ground, showing where the miscreant a.s.saulted the magistrate. There, plain to be seen, was the mark in the snow where Henry, starting half a minute after me, and observing a vast prostrate bulk on the path, had turned his toboggan into the snow-bank, duly described his parabola, discuticled his nose--in fact, fulfilled the programme to the letter. Clearly, then, he could not have been the aggressor. The villain has remained, up to the publication of this veracious chronicle, unknown. No matter: I am not going back to Bergsdorf.

But something had to be done to vindicate the offended majesty of the law. So they fined Henry seventeen francs for obstructing the police in the discharge of their duty.

"Never mind," said Henry, "that's just eight francs fifty each. I got in two, both right-handers."

And I doubt not but the officers concerned considered that he had got his money's worth.

CHAPTER XIII

CASTEL DEL MONTE

It was March before we found ourselves in the Capital of the South. The Countess was still there, but the Count, her brother, had not appeared, and the explanation to which he referred remained unspoken. Here Lucia was our kind friend and excellent entertainer; but of the tenderness of the Hotel Promontonio it was hard for me to find a trace. The great lady indeed outshone her peers, and took my moorland eyes as well as the regards of others. But I had rather walked by the lake with the scarlet cloak, or stood with her and been shot at for a white owl in the niche of the terrace.

In the last days of the month there came from Henry's uncle and guardian, Wilfred Fenwick, an urgent summons. He was ill, he might be dying, and Henry was to return at once; while I, in antic.i.p.ation of his return, was to continue in Italy. There was indeed nothing to call me home.

Therefore--and for other reasons--I abode in Italy; and after Henry's departure I made evident progress in the graces of the Countess. Once or twice she allowed me to remain behind for half an hour. On these occasions she would come and throw herself down in a chair by the fire, and permit me to take her hand. But she was weary and silent, full of gloomy thoughts, which in vain I tried to draw from her. Still, I think it comforted her to have me thus sit by her.

One morning, while I was idly leaning upon the bridge, and looking towards the hills with their white marble palaces set amid the beauty of the Italian spring, one touched me on the shoulder. I turned, and lo--Lucia! Not any more the Countess, but Lucia, radiant with brightness, colour in her cheek for the first time since I had seen her in the Court of the South, animation sparkling in her eye.

"So I have found you, faithless one," she said. "I have been seeking for you everywhere."

"And I, have I not been seeking for you all these weeks--and never have found you till now, Lucia!"

I thought she would not notice the name.

"Why, Sir Heather Jock," she returned, "did you not part with me last night at eleven of the clock?"