Next morning Will woke of himself very early. He jumped out of bed at once, and crossed, as he stood, to the open window. The sun had just risen. Light wisps of white cloud crawled slowly up the mountains; the dewdrops on the grass-blades sparkled in the silent rays like innumerable opals. ’Twas the very time for an early stroll! But the air, though keen, had the rawness and chill of an autumn morning. Will sniffed at it dubiously. He had half a mind to turn in again and take an hour’s more sleep. Should he dress and go out, or let the world have time to get warmed and aired before venturing abroad in it?

As he debated and shivered, however, a sight met his eye which determined him at once on the more heroic course of action. It was Linnet, in her simple little peasant dress, turning up the hill-path that led behind the wirthshaus. Now, a chance of seeing Linnet alone without Florian was not to be despised; she interested him so much, and, besides, he wanted to ask her the whole truth about the Robblers. Without more ado, therefore, he dressed himself hastily, and strolled out of the inn. She hadn’t gone far, he felt sure; he would find her close by, sitting by herself on the open grass-slope beyond the belt of pinewood.

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.

“No; I don’t think I would marry him,” Linnet answered, after a short pause, with a deliberative air, as though weighing well in her own mind all the pros and cons of it. “He’d take me if I chose, no doubt, and so also would Fridolin. Franz says he has left three other girls for me. But I don’t like him, of course, any better for that. He ought to have kept to them.”

“And you like him?” Will went on, drawing circles with his stick on the grass as he spoke, and glancing timidly askance at her.

“Yes; I like him?—?well enough,” Linnet responded, doubtfully. “I liked him better once, perhaps. But of late, I care less for him. I never cared for him much indeed; I was never his MÄdchen. He had no right to say that, no right at all, at all?—?for with us, you know, in Tyrol, that means a great deal. How much, I couldn’t tell you. But I never gave him any cause at all to say so.”

“And of late you like him less?” Will inquired, pressing her hard with this awkward question. Yet he spoke sympathetically. He had no reason for what he said, to be sure?—?no reason on earth. He spoke at random, out of that pure instinctive impulse which leads every man in a pretty girl’s presence, mean he little or much, to make at least the best of every passing advantage. ’Tis pure virility that: the natural Adam within us. I wouldn’t give ten cents for the too virtuous man who by “ethical culture” has educated it out of him.

Linnet looked down at her shoes?—?for she possessed those luxuries. “Yes; of late I like him less,” she answered, somewhat tremulously.

“Why so?” Will insisted. His lips, too, quivered.

Linnet raised her dark eyes and met his for one instant. “I’ve seen other people since; perhaps I like other people better,” she answered, candidly.

“What other people?” Will asked, all on fire.

“Oh, that would be telling,” Linnet answered, with an arch look. “Perhaps my cousin Fridolin?—?or perhaps the young man with the yellow beard?—?or perhaps the gnÄdige Herr’s honoured friend, Herr Florian.”

Will drew figures with his stick on the grass for a minute or two. Then he looked up and spoke again. “But, in any case,” he said, “you don’t mean, whatever comes, to marry Franz Lindner?” It grieved him to think she should so throw herself away upon a village bully.

Linnet plucked a yellow ragwort and pulled out the ray-florets one by one as she answered, “I shan’t have the chance. For, to tell you the truth, I think Andreas Hausberger means himself to marry me.”

At the words, simply spoken, Will drew back, all aghast. The very notion revolted him. As yet, he was not the least little bit in his own soul aware he was in love with Linnet. He only knew he admired her voice very much; for the rest, she was but a simple, beautiful, unlettered peasant girl. It doesn’t occur, of course, to an English gentleman in Will Deverill’s position, to fall in love at first sight with a Tyrolese milkmaid. But Andreas Hausberger! the bare idea distressed him. The man was so cold, so cynical, so austere, so unlovable! and Will more than half-suspected him of avaricious money-grubbing. The girl was so beautiful, so simple-hearted, so young, and Heaven only knew to what point of success that voice might lead her. “Oh no,” he burst out, impetuously; “you can’t really mean that??—?you never could dream?—?don’t tell me you could?—?of accepting that man Andreas Hausberger as a husband!”

“Why not?” the girl said, calmly. “He’s rich and well to do. I could keep my mother in such comfort then, and pay for such masses for my father’s soul?—?far more than if I took Franz Lindner or my cousin Fridolin, who are only jÄgers. Andreas Hausberger’s a wirth, the richest man in St Valentin; he has horses and cows and lands and pastures. And if he says I must, how can I well refuse him?”

She looked up at him with a look of childlike appeal. In a moment, though with an effort, Will realised to himself how the question looked to her. Andreas Hausberger was her master, and had always been her master. She must do as he bid, for he was very masterful. He was her teacher, too, and would help her to make her fortune as a singer in the world, if ever she made it. He was rich, as the folk of the village counted riches, and could manage that things should be pleasant or unpleasant for her, as it suited his fancy. In a community where men still fought with bodily arms for their brides, Andreas Hausberger’s will might well seem law to his sennerin in any such matter.

“Besides,” Linnet went on, plucking another ragwort, and similarly demolishing it, “if I didn’t want to take him, the Herr Vicar would make me. For the Herr Vicar would do, of course, as Andreas Hausberger wished him. And how could I dare disobey the Herr Vicar’s orders?”

To this subtle question of religion and morals Will Deverill, for his part, had no ready-made answer. Church and State, it was clear, were arrayed against him. So, after casting about for a while in his own mind in vain for a reply, he contented himself at last with going off obliquely on a collateral issue. “And you think,” he said, “Andreas Hausberger really wants to marry you?”

“Well, he never quite told me so,” Linnet replied, half-deprecatingly, as who fears to arrogate to herself too great an honour, “and perhaps I’m wrong; but still I think he means it. And I think it’ll perhaps depend in part upon how he finds the foreign Herrschaft like my singing. For that, he says little to me about it at present. But if he sees I do well, and am worth making his wife?—?for he’s the best husband a girl could get in St Valentin?—?in that case, ja wohl, I believe he’ll ask me.”

She said it all naturally, as so much matter of course. But Will’s poetic soul rebelled against the sacrifice. “Surely,” he cried, “you must love some one else; and why not, then, take the man you love, whoever he may be, and leave Andreas Hausberger’s money to perish with him?”

“So!” Linnet said quickly?—?the pretty German “so!” Her fingers trembled as she twitched at the rays of the ragwort. She plucked the florets in haste, and flung them away one by one. First love’s conversation deals largely in pauses. “The man one might love,” she murmured at last with a petulant air, “doesn’t always love one. How should he, indeed? It is not in nature. For, doesn’t the song say, ‘Who loves me, love I not; whom I love, loves me not?’ But what would the Herr Vicar say if he heard me talking like this with the foreign gentlefolk? He’d tell me it was sin. A girl should not speak of her heart to strangers. I have spoken too much. But I couldn’t help it, somehow. The gnÄdige Herr is always so kind to me. You lead me on to confess. You can understand these things, I think, so much better than the others.”

She rose, half-hesitating. Will Deverill, for his part, rose in turn and faced her. For a second each paused; they looked shyly at one another. Will thought her a charming girl?—?for a common milkmaid. Linnet thought him a kind, good friend?—?for one of the great unapproachable foreign Herrschaft. Will held out one frank hand. Linnet gave him the tips of her brown fingers timidly. He clasped them in his own while a man might count ten. “Shall you be here ... to-morrow ... about the same time?” he inquired, before he let them drop, half hesitating.

“Perhaps,” Linnet answered, looking down demurely. Then blushing, she nodded at him, half curtsied, and sprang away. She gave a rapid glance to right and left, to see if she was perceived, darted lightly down the hill, and hurried back to the wirthshaus.

But all that day long, Will was moody and silent. He thought much to himself of this strange idea that Andreas Hausberger, that saturnine man, was to marry this beautiful musical alp-girl.

CHAPTER IX