"Yes, yes," she cried, "here am I," and fell into her son's arms.
Joseph clasped her tightly. "See, little mother," he said, "I should have been sorry for thy sake not to come back again. Thou dear little mother, thou'd never have known how to get on without me, and I too should have been loth to die without giving thee one more kiss."
Ah, it was beautiful, the way he said it! Wally had quite a strange feeling--a feeling as though she could envy the mother who rested so contentedly in the loving embrace of the son, and clung so tenderly to the powerful man. All eyes rested with delight on the pair, but an unutterable sensation filled Wally's heart.
"But tell us now, tell us how it all happened."
"Yes, yes, I'll tell you," he said laughing, and flung the bearskin on to the ground, so that all might see it. They made a circle round him, and the village landlord had a cask of his best ale brought out and tapped on the green; for one must drink after church, and above all on such an extra occasion as this, and the little inn-parlour could never have held such an unusual concourse of people. The men and women naturally pressed close round the speaker, and the newly-confirmed children climbed on to benches, and up into trees, that they might see over their heads. Wally was foremost of all in a fir-tree, where she could look straight down upon Joseph; but the others wanted her place; there was some noise and struggling because she would not give way, and "Saint George" looked up at them. His sparkling eyes fell upon Wally's face, and remained smilingly fixed on it for a moment. All Wally's blood rushed to her head, and she could hear her heart beating in her very ears with her intense fright. In all her life before she had never been so frightened, and she had not an idea why! She heard only the half of what Joseph was relating, there was such a singing in her ears; all the while she was thinking, "Suppose he were to look up again?" And she could not have told whether she wished it or dreaded it most. And yet, when in the course of his story it did once happen again, she turned away quickly and ashamed, as though she had been found out in something wrong. Was it wrong to have looked at him so? It might be, and yet she could not leave off, though she trembled so incessantly that she was afraid he might notice it. But he noticed nothing; what did he care for the child up there in the tree? He had looked up once or twice as he might have looked at a squirrel--nothing further. She said so to herself, and a strange sorrow stole over her. Never before had she felt as she did to-day; she was only thankful that she had drunk no wine on the road; she might have thought that it had got into her head.
In her confusion she began playing with her rosary. It was a beautiful new one of red coral, with a chased cross of pure silver, that her father had given her for her confirmation. All of a sudden as she turned and twisted it, the string broke and, like drops of blood, the red beads rolled down from the tree. "That is a bad sign," an inner voice whispered to her, "old Luchard doesn't like it--that anything should break when one is thinking of something!" Of something! Of what then had she been thinking? She turned it over in her mind, but she could not discover. Precisely she had been thinking of nothing in particular. Why then should she be so troubled by the string breaking just at that moment? She felt as though the sun had suddenly paled, and a cold wind were blowing over her; but not a leaf was stirring, and the icebound horizon glittered in the radiant sunlight. The shadow of a cloud had passed--within her--or without her? How could she tell?
Joseph meanwhile had finished relating his adventure, and had shown round the purse containing the forty florins paid by the Tyrolese government as the reward for shooting a bear, and there was no end to the handshakings and congratulations. Only Wally's father held sullenly aloof. It angered him that any one should accomplish a great and heroic deed; no one in the world had any right to be strong but himself and his daughter. During thirty years he had been esteemed, without dispute, the strongest man in the whole range of mountains, and he could not bear now to find himself growing old, and obliged to make way for a younger generation. When, however, someone said to Joseph that it was no wonder he should be such a strong fellow--he had it from his father who had been the best shot and the best wrestler in the whole place--then the old man could contain himself no longer, but broke in with a thundering "Oho! no need to bury a man before he's dead!"
Everyone fell back at the threatening voice. "It's Stromminger!" they said, half-frightened.
"Ay, it is Stromminger, who's alive still, and who never knew till this moment that Hagenbach had been the best wrestler in the place. With his tongue, if you like, but with nothing else!"
Joseph turned round like a wounded wild cat, glaring at Stromminger with flaming eyes. "Who says that my father was a boaster?"