Miss Grantley's Girls, and the Stories She Told Them

by Thomas Archer

"I both love her and do well, my brother," replied Hofer. "I love her because I love thee, and in mine eyes she is thy wife. See thou then," and he held up his long right hand, "I am no brawler; but he who would do her ill or move his tongue against her would have to reckon with me as much as with thee, for she is thine and I am thine too, as thou art mine, or what means the dagger scar in our arms that we both know of?" Then taking me by the hand he leads me to Franz and kisses me gently on the forehead, and even while I am putting the face of Franz from mine I see that Hofer has stooped to kiss the poor child Bertha also, whose hand is in his, but whose face is bowed down and red as the wild berry. If I am a child, as my dear mistress says, then is Bertha but an infant, and cannot know of love that should turn her cheek to flame and bring bright tears into her eyes.

Ah me!—that evening—how we stood and watched the sun go down till the night came, and with a dark blue shutter left only a long crevice where the fire shone through; how we wandered back hand in hand, and parted with a hasty "good-night" when we heard the church clock chime; and that is not long ago, though it seems to have gone so far back; for next day came the tidings of a levy for the army—men were wanted. Not one by one, but altogether, the young and then the middle-aged were called out to fight in France or to guard the frontier, and we—we were left (the dear mistress said "we")—to wait and weep, and with only the Herr postmaster, the father of Franz, to bring us news, and read to us the stories of the battles, and bring to the dear mistress her letters. For I had one letter and no more; and that told me that Franz and Hofer had met in the same army of the Red Prince and were comrades, but not in the same corps; but that once they came near together on the field, and in the thick of the fight Franz had struck down a man's arm uplifted to kill his brother.

It is easy to see how I came to learn so much of the war, and of the places where it raged, for old Schwartz was proud of his knowledge, and read to us and drew maps, and we had nothing else to talk about. The village was very still, and people from the nearest town talked only of the war and of those who had left them. Ours is a quiet place with romantic scenes around it, and but just beyond the shadow of the giant mountain Riesengebirge. We can see the blue profile of the Schneekoppe; and there are those—the old ones—who still talk of the legends of Rubezahl, the counter of turnips (the mountain spirit), who took all kinds of disguises to punish avarice and cruelty, and to reward honesty and help the poor. Among the poor went our dear mistress now, or they came to her for sympathy; she who, like themselves, like all of us, except brotherless young ones such as Bertha, grieved for a lover, or a husband, or a brother, gone to the war. It was not likely to be a merry Christmastide in Germanland, except that the news of victory, or of fortresses taken, came and stirred the slow blood of the people who were left. But we longed and prayed for peace—we women did at all events—and with some there was scarcely heart to trim and deck the Christmas-tree; to tell the children to prepare for the visit of the Christ Kindlein on Christmas Eve, who would bring good gifts to the good, but would leave the naughty to Pelsnichol to come and whip them with his great birch. In some villages like ours an old man disguised with a long beard and gown, and a great bag, would go about at Christmastide to the houses where the people had expected him, and would carry the gifts to the children, and would show others who were naughty the birch, and give them nothing. But we had no Pelsnichol at our house, only sweet talk about the child Christ, and the gifts of the wise men, and of the love that should be among little ones—the love and the heart-giving.

So the tree was decked, and placed in the window ready to light on Christmas Eve, in the hope that it might be a sign of love and welcome. And we were on the watch all day, and every night Bertha would go out and sit upon the wall, looking out towards the road to the town, until the light was no more seen in the belfry of the church, and the clock chimed supper-time. I told not our dear mistress of this, for was it not for Franz and the dear master that the child kept watch?—but I went not myself to that outlook, though my heart stood still every time Bertha returned, with her head bent down, and had seen no one coming. She had a presentiment or fancy, she said, that the wanderer would return after nightfall. I knew not,—I began to tell lies to myself that I cared not,—and for this reason; I had long feared that the Herr postmaster liked not me to be loved by his son; for behold he was postmaster, and had been a builder of organs, and the dear master was godfather to Franz, while I—well, I had nothing, but the dear mistress was my godmother, and my father had been pastor of a village, and had taught me some things before he died.

We are now but a few days to Christmas, when one night the old man comes in with a letter for the dear mistress, at which she first sobs and turns white, and then laughs and turns red. The dear master is wounded, but is at the frontier, whither he had been sent, staying till he is strong enough to come home; "but there," he writes, "I have had the luck to fall into the hands of a good nurse, an old acquaintance, who will bring me home."

"Ah! ha! that he could already come home," sighs the mistress. "Loisl—Heinrich, thy dear father may yet be here before the tree is lighted; and brings with him a nurse—who can she be, think'st thou, Lisba?"

"I know not, unless it be one of the deaconesses who go to the hospitals; but is it not possible, dear lady, that it is a comrade, a surgeon of the army, an ambulance officer?"

"It is Hofer," cried Bertha, who was standing at the door of the big kitchen, where we were listening to such parts of the letter as the mistress pleased to read to us.

"Hofer! the lass has gone silly!" cries the Herr postmaster. "Hofer and Franz are fighting with the army of the Loire, as the French call it, and are who knows where. I have a letter here that reached me yesterday, written some days ago, where Franz says—let me read it:"

(Here the old man pulls on his horn spectacles and opens a thin sheet of paper.)