"Pardi," he said, speaking into its curved ear, "that flag of crimson would proclaim that there's hope for the youth yet.—Sir," proceeded he then, gaily, "I think I can be of use to you. I place myself at your service. May I crave to know whom I have the honour of addressing?"
"You address," responded the other, "Steven Lee, Graf zu Waldorff-Kielmansegg, an Austrian gentleman (if you must know) travelling towards his estate in the south." He had an irrepressible satisfaction in the recital.
"Austrian?" echoed the listener, with a cock of one of his expressive eyebrows. "'Tis a safer nationality to proclaim than the English, for travellers in great Cæsar's dominions nowadays. Oh, you are right, quite right! 'Twould be the height of rashness to proclaim even a drop of English blood, these days, where Monsieur Buonaparte rules!"
The taunt struck home. Red mantled again on the gentleman's smooth cheek.
"Despite an Austrian father, I have by my dead mother enough English blood in these veins," cried he, hotly, "to hate the usurper and despite his upstart brothers—if that is what you mean; and I care not who knows it!"
The fiddler's smile grew broader. "Youth," whispered he to his violin, "may pretend to abjure itself, but it will out. The stripling has spirit, though it be but the spirit of scorn.—But the ceremony is not complete," pursued he. "I have now to return your compliment. Above all things, let us be polite. Here, then, comrade, you see before you an individual known all over the country as the crazy musician, sometimes more tersely as Geiger-Hans—what in your English you might call Fiddle-John. Some call me the Scholar Vagabond, and some, the children (bless them), Onkel. Like your own, my nationality is a matter of indecision. Some say I am French, some German, some from over the Alps—take your choice; your choice, too, of my title: Geiger-Hans, Fiddle-John, or Geiger-Onkel. Or you may dub me, if you please, the Singer of Youth."
But by this time, Steven Lee, Count Kielmansegg, was disgusted with himself for having betrayed so much of his feelings to a beggar vagrant.
"Doubtless," remarked he, with infinite arrogance, "it may prove more convenient for you, at times, to hide your name, good fellow. Reassure yourself, I have no curiosity to learn it."
Whereupon Geiger-Hans gathered his brows into so deep a frown that the whole hillside seemed to grow black. He struck the strings of his instrument, and they called out as with anger.
"My name," he said under his breath, "my name, boy, is dead—as dead as my youth." Then he grew calm as suddenly as he had stormed. "Some happy ones there are who die and whose names live: I live, and my name is dead. Let that suffice to you. Why, see," he cried next, with another swift change of tone, while Count Steven stared at him, his slow Austrian blood, his deliberate English wits, unable to keep pace with such vivacity of mood, "it is getting dark ... the sun has dropped behind the valley line ... the forest is full of night already! Do not the lights of unknown shelter beckon you—the chimney-corner, the strange hospitality? Why, Heaven knows what sweet hostess may not greet your youthship to-night! And if your soul cries not out for fair adventure in forest depth, there, at least, is a poor dumb thing that craves stable and corn." As he spoke, he stepped nimbly to the injured horse and unhitched the reins from the tree. "Might you not have bathed those cut knees?" he exclaimed, shooting a look of rebuke over the animal's meek head. "And the kindly brook running charity at your elbow!"