“Without my sheep,” repeated Jonel, and sighed.
“Dost see,” laughed Irina, “the only thing which I require of thee, that thou shouldst stay on yonder mountain-top without thy sheep, that thou canst not do! Words, nought but words!”
“And what if I do it?” said Jonel. He grew pale and clenched his teeth as he spoke.
The youths and maidens had gathered about the pair and were listening. “Do it not!” “Do it!” cried one and another.
Then an old shepherd with silver locks and overhanging brows laid his hand on Jonel’s shoulder.
“Let the maidens be,” he said roughly; “they will but break thy heart and then laugh thee to scorn. Dost thou not know that the shepherd who forsakes his sheep must die?” He shook his clenched fist at Irina: “And thou dost think, because thou art fair, that thou canst dare all, and that nothing shall quell thy mischievous spirit? But the evil thou dost work, to thine own self dost thou work it!”
Irina did but laugh again. “He need not go,” said she, “nor do I need him either.” And turning, she ran off to drink from the spring that rises beside the cloister.
Jonel would listen to no one, but with pale cheeks and set mouth took his way toward the mountain. He passed Irina by, and only made a gesture of farewell to her with his hand.
“Do it not!” she called after him, and laughed with the other maidens. And the Pelesch stream, as it rushed by, re-echoed the words, “Do it not! do it not!” But Jonel did not hear it, and went on climbing higher and higher in the noontide sun, over the smooth uplands, beneath the giant pines—whose trunks six men can scarcely span—and through the shady beech-woods, up to the shepherd’s hut round which his flock was lying, and whence his dogs ran forth to meet him, barking for joy. He passed his hand caressingly over their rough coats, and then called his “Mioritza,” or the ewe that led his flock. “Brr, brr, Oitza,”[3] he called; “brr, come hither.” She came trotting up with her little lamb, and suffered him to thrust the carnation that he had stolen from Irina into her fleece. Then he begged the other shepherds to take his flock with them, saying that he would follow later, but must first accomplish a vow that he had taken. They all looked at him in wonder. “And if I return no more,” he ended, “ye shall say that Yearning hath bidden me to the marriage-feast.”
He took his Alp-horn in his hand, and climbed on and on to the very summit of the mountain, whence he could look away across the Danube to the Balkans. There he stood still, and putting his horn to his lips, sent forth a wailing note whose echoes spread far around. But at the call his faithful dog rushed in pursuit, and was soon springing round him, whining for joy; then, seizing his master’s shirt between his teeth, he tried to drag him away toward the valley, so that Jonel scarce knew how to resist, and was obliged at last, with tears in his eyes, to speak roughly to the poor beast and drive him away with stones. And now he had turned away his last friend, and was alone in those desolate mountain wilds. Two eagles circled in the air beneath him; save for this, all was motionless and silent.