And so, sure enough, he did. He came upon her unseen. She was seated with her back to him on a round boulder of grey stone, pouring her full throat in spontaneous music. For a minute or two, Will stood still, and listened and looked at her. He could see from his point of vantage, a little on one side behind the boulder, the rise and fall of her swelling bosom, the delicate trills under her rich brown chin. And then—oh, what melody! Will drank it in greedily. He was loth to disturb her, so delicious was this outpouring of her soul in song. For, like her namesake of the woods, Linnet sang best when she sang of her own accord, delivering her full heart of pure internal impulse.
At last she ceased, and turned. Her eye fell upon Will She started and blushed; she had expected no such audience. The young man raised his hat. “You’re alone,” he said, “Linnet?”
The girl looked up all crimson. “Yes; I came out that I should be alone,” she answered, shyly, “I did not wish to see anyone. I wished for time to think many things over.”
“Then you don’t want me to stop?” Will broke in, somewhat crestfallen, yet drawing a step nearer.
“Oh, no; I do not mean that,” Linnet answered in haste, laying her hand on her bosom. Then she burst into German, which came so much easier to her. “I wanted to get away from all the others,” she said, looking up at him pleadingly—and, as she looked, Will saw for the first time that big tears stood brimming in her lustrous eyes; “I knew they would tease me about—about what happened last evening, and I didn’t wish to hear it till I had thought over with myself what way I should answer them.”
“Then you’re not afraid of me?” Will asked, with a little thrill. She was only an alp-girl, but she sang like a goddess; and it’s always pleasant, you know, to find a woman trusts one.
“I want you to stop,” Linnet answered, simply.
She motioned him with one hand to a seat on a little heap of dry stones hard by. Will threw himself down on the heap in instant obedience to her mute command, and leaned eagerly forward. “Well, so this Robbler man wants to have you, Linnet,” he said, with some earnestness; “and you don’t want to have him. And he would have fought for you last night, against the man with the scar; and the girls in the inn will tease you about it this morning.”
“Yes; the girls will tease me,” Linnet answered, “and will say cruel things, for some of them are not fond of me, because, you see, Franz Lindner and the other man, my cousin Fridolin, are both of them Robblers, and would both of them fight for me. Now, a village that has a Robbler is always very proud of him; he’s its champion and head; and if a Robbler pays attention to a girl, it’s a very great honour. So some of the other girls don’t like it at all, that the Robblers of two villages should quarrel about me. Though Gott in Himmel knows I’ve not encouraged either of them.”
“And would you marry Franz Lindner?” Will asked, with genuine interest. It seemed to him a pity—nay, almost a desecration—that this beautiful girl, with her splendid voice, and all the possibilities it might enclose for the future, should throw herself away upon a Tyrolese hunter, whom the self-confidence engendered by mere muscular strength had turned for local eyes into a petty hero.