II.
It was in the autumn of 1863, only a few weeks after Mr. Hahn's visit to Ginzling and Dornauberg. There were war and rumors of war in the air. The Austrians and the Prussians were both mobilizing army-corps after army-corps, and all the Tyrolese youth, liable to service, were ordered to join their regiments. The Schleswig-Holstein question was being violently debated in the German and the English press, the former clamoring for blood, the latter counselling moderation. The Danish press was as loud-mouthed as any, and, if the battles could have been fought with words, would no doubt have come out victorious.
It had been a sad day at the Hill-top. Early in the morning Hänsel, with a dozen other young fellows of the neighborhood, had marched away to the music of fife and drum, and there was no knowing when they would come back again. A dismal whitish fog had been hovering about the fields all day long, but had changed toward evening into a fine drizzling rain,—one of those slow, hopeless rains that seem to have no beginning and no end. Old Mother Uberta, who, although she pretended to be greatly displeased at Ilka's matrimonial choice, persisted in holding her responsible for all her lover's follies, had been going about the house grumbling and scolding since the early dawn.
"Humph," said Mother Uberta, as she lighted a pine-knot and stuck it into a crack in the wall (for it was already dark, and candles were expensive), "it is a great sin and shame—the lad is neither crooked nor misshapen—the Lord has done well enough by him, Heaven knows; and yet never a stroke of work has he done since his poor father went out of the world as naked as he came into it. A shiftless, fiddling, and galavanting set they have always been, and me then as has only this one lass, givin' her away, with my eyes wide open, into misery."
Ilka, who was sitting before the open fire-place mingling her furtive tears with the wool she was carding, here broke into a loud sob, and hid her face in her hands.
"You always say mean things to me, mother, when Hänsel is away," sobbed she, "but when he is here, you let on as if you liked him ever so much."
The mother recognized this as a home-thrust, and wisely kept silent. She wet her finger-tips, twirled the thread, stopped the wheel, inspected some point in its mechanism with a scowl of intense preoccupation, and then spun on again with a severe concentration of interest as if lovers were of small consequence compared to spinning-wheels. Mother Uberta was a tall, stately woman of fifty, with a comely wrinkled face, and large, well-modelled features. You saw at once that life was a serious business to her, and that she gave herself no quarter.
"Humph!" she began after awhile with that indefinable interjection of displeasure which defies all spelling. "You talk like the witless creature that you are. Didn't I tell the lad, two years ago, Michaelmas was, that the day he could pay off the mortgage on the farm, he should have you and the farm too? And eight hundred and fifty florins oughtn't to frighten a man as has got the right spirit in him. And there was Ruodi of Gänzelstein, as has got a big farm of his own, and Casper Thinglen with fifteen hundred a-comin' to him when his grandfather dies; and you sendin' them both off with worse grace than if they had been beggars askin' you for a shillin'. Now, stop your snivellin' there, I tell you. You are like your poor sainted father,—God bless him where he lies,—he too used to cry, likely enough, if a flea bit him."
At this moment Mother Uberta's monologue was interrupted by a loud rapping on the door; she bent down to attach the unfinished thread properly, but before she had completed this delicate operation, the door was opened, and two men entered. Seeing that they were strangers she sent them a startled glance, which presently changed into one of defiance. The fire was low, and the two men stood but dimly defined in the dusky light; but their city attire showed at once that they were not Tyrolese. And Mother Uberta, having heard many awful tales of what city-dressed men were capable of doing, had a natural distrust of the species.
"And pray, sir, what may your errand be?" she asked sternly, taking the burning pine-knot from its crack and holding it close to the face of the tallest stranger.
"My name is Hahn, madam," answered the person whose broad expanse of countenance was thus suddenly illuminated, "and this is my son, Mr. Fritz Hahn. Allow me to assure you, madam, that our errand here is a most peaceful and friendly one, and that we deeply regret it, if our presence incommodes you."
"Ilka, light the candles," said Mother Uberta, sullenly. "And you," she continued, turning again to Mr. Hahn, "find yourself a seat, until we can see what you look like."
"What a vixen of an old woman!" whispered the proprietor of the "Haute Noblesse" to his son, as they seated themselves on the hard wooden bench near the window.
"Small chance for the 'Haute Noblesse,' I fear," responded Fritz, flinging his travelling cap on the clean-scoured deal table.
Ilka, who in the meanwhile had obeyed her mother's injunction, now came forward with two lighted tallow dips, stuck in shining brass candle-sticks, and placed them on the table before the travellers. She made a neat little courtesy before each of them, to which they responded with patronizing nods.
"Parbleu! Elle est charmante!" exclaimed Fritz, fixing a bold stare on the girl's blushing face.
"Bien charmante," replied Mr. Hahn, who took a great pride in the little French he had picked up when he carried a napkin over his shoulder.
And indeed, Ilka was charmante as she stood there in the dim candle-light, her great innocent eyes dilated with child-like wonder, her thick blond braids hanging over her shoulders, and the picturesque Tyrolese costume—a black embroidered velvet waist, blue apron, and short black skirt—setting off her fine figure to admirable advantage. She was a tall, fresh-looking girl, of stately build, without being stout, with a healthy blooming countenance and an open, guileless expression. Most people would have pronounced her beautiful, but her beauty was of that rudimentary, unindividualized kind which is found so frequently among the peasantry of all nations. To Fritz Hahn, however who was not a philosophical observer, she seemed the most transcendent phenomenon his eyes had ever beheld.
"To make a long story short, madam," began Mr. Hahn after a pause, during which Mother Uberta had been bristling silently while firing defiant glances at the two strangers, "I am the proprietor of a great establishment in Berlin—the 'Haute Noblesse'—you may have heard of it."
"No, I never heard of it," responded Mother Uberta, emphatically, as if anxious to express her disapproval, on general principles, of whatever statements Mr. Hahn might choose to make.
"Well, well, madam," resumed the latter, a trifle disconcerted, "it makes very little difference whether you have heard of it or not. I see, however, that you are a woman of excellent common sense, and I will therefore be as brief as possible—avoid circumlocutions, so to speak."
"Yes, exactly," said Mother Uberta, nodding impatiently, as if eager to help him on.
"Madame Uberta,—for that, as I understand, is your honored name,—would you like to get one thousand florins?"
"That depends upon how I should get 'em," answered the old woman sharply. "I shouldn't like to get 'em by stealin'."
"I mean, of course, if you had honestly earned them," said Hahn.
"I am afeard honesty with you and with me ain't exactly the same thing."
Mr. Hahn was about to swear, but mindful of his cherished enterprise, he wisely refrained.
"I beg leave to inform you, Madame Uberta," he observed, "that it is gentlemen of honor you have to deal with, and that whatever proposals they may make you will be of an honorable character."
"And I am very glad to hear that, I am sure," responded the undaunted Uberta.
"Three weeks ago, when we were travelling in this region," continued Hahn, determined not to allow his temper to be ruffled, "we heard a most wonderful voice yodling in the mountains. We went away, but have now returned, and having learned that the voice was your daughter's, we have come here to offer her a thousand florins if she will sing her native Tyrolese airs for eight weeks at our Concert Garden, the 'Haute Noblesse.'"
"One thousand florins for eight weeks, mother!" exclaimed Ilka, who had been listening to Hahn's speech with breathless interest. "Then I could pay off the mortgage and we should not have to pay interest any more, and I should have one hundred and fifty florins left for my dowry."
"Hush, child, hush! You don't know what you are talkin' about," said the mother severely. Then turning to Hahn: "I should like to put one question to both of you, and when you have answered that, I'll give my answer, which there is no wrigglin' out of. If the old woman went along, would ye then care so much about the singin' of the daughter?"
"Certainly, by all means," responded Hahn promptly; but Fritz was so absorbed in polishing his finger-nails with a little instrument designed especially for that purpose, that he forgot to answer.
A long consultation now followed, and the end of it was that Ilka agreed to go to Berlin and sing for eight weeks, in her national costume, on condition that her travelling expenses and those of her mother should be defrayed by the manager. Mr. Hahn also agreed to pay for the board and lodgings of the two women during their sojourn in the capital and to pay Ilka the one thousand florins (and this was a point upon which Mother Uberta strenuously insisted) in weekly instalments.
The next day the contract was drawn up in legal form, properly stamped and signed; whereupon Mother Uberta and Ilka started with Hahn and Fritz for Berlin.