Sepp reddened, and laughed. “Only wait, gracious Fraulein, next week it is my turn on the Red Peak.”
“Ach, ja! Sepp knows the springs where the deer drink,” said Federl.
“And you never took us there!” cried Ruth, reproachfully. “I would give anything to see the deer come and drink at sundown.”
Sepp felt his good breeding under challenge. “If the gracious Frau permits,” with a gentlemanly bow to Mrs Dene, “and the ladies care to come—but the way is hard—”
“You couldn’t go, dearest,” murmured Ruth to her mother, “but when papa comes back—”
“Your father will be delighted to take you wherever there is a probability of breaking both your necks, my dear,” said Mrs Dene.
“Griffin!” said Ruth, giving her hand a loving little squeeze under the table.
Loisl came up with his zither and they all made way before him. Anna placed a small lantern on the table and the light fell on the handsome bearded Jaeger’s face as he leaned lovingly above his instrument.
The incurable “Sehnsucht” of humanity found not its only expression in that great Symphony where “all the mightier strings assembling, fell a trembling.” Ruth heard it as she leaned back in the deep shade and listened to those silvery melodies and chords of wonderful purity, coaxed from the little zither by Loisl’s strong, rough hand, with its tender touch. To all the airs he played her memory supplied the words. Sometimes a Sennerin was watching from the Alm for her lover’s visit in the evening. Sometimes the hunter said farewell as he sprang down the mountainside. Once tears came into Ruth’s eyes as the simple tune recalled how a maiden who died and went to Heaven told her lover at parting:
“When you come after me I shall know you by my ring which you will wear, and me you will know by your rose that rests on my heart.”