noises above me, i think, on the edge of the precipice. something coming down, oh, how slowly. something comes, and fumbles about a yard or so away. then i cry out feebly, and the something approaches. m. claude's hearty voice calls out cheerily, "enfin, le voilà!" and i am saved.
they let down ropes and pulled me up to the top of the little crag, clumsily, so as to cause me great pain: and then three men carried me home to the farmhouse on a stretcher. m. claude was one of the three, the others were labourers from the village.
"how did you know i was lost, m. claude?" i asked feebly, as they carried me along on the level.
he did not answer for a moment; then he said, rather gloomily, in german, "the fr?ulein was watching you with a telescope from les pentes." he did not say fr?ulein isaline, and i knew why at once: he did not wish the other carriers to know what he was talking about.
"and she told you?" i said, in german too.
"she sent me. i did not come of my own accord. i came under orders." he spoke sternly, hissing out his gutturals in an angry voice.
"m. claude," i said, "i have done very wrong, and i ask your forgiveness. you have saved my life, and i owe you a debt of gratitude for it. i will leave les pentes and the fr?ulein to-morrow, or at least as soon as i can safely be moved."
he shook his head bitterly. "it is no use now," he answered, with a sigh; "the fr?ulein does not wish for me. i have asked her, and she has refused me. and she has been watching you up and down the aiguille the whole day with a telescope. when she saw you had fallen,[pg 238] she rushed out like one distracted, and came to tell me at the school in the village. it is no use, you have beaten me."
"m. claude," i said, "i will plead for you. i have done you wrong, and i ask your forgiveness."
"i owe you no ill-will," he replied, in his honest, straightforward, swiss manner. "it is not your fault if you too have fallen in love with her. how could any man help it? living in the same house with her, too! allons," he went on in french, resuming his alternative tongue (for he spoke both equally), "we must get on quick and send for the doctor from glion to see you."
by the time we reached the farmhouse, i had satisfied myself that there was nothing very serious the matter with me after all. the soft snow had broken the force of the concussion. i had strained my spine a good deal, and hurt the tendons of the thighs and back, but had not broken any bones, nor injured any vital organ. so when they laid me on the old-fashioned sofa in my little sitting-room, lighted a fire in the wide hearth, and covered me over with a few rugs, i felt comparatively happy and comfortable under the circumstances. the doctor was sent for in hot haste; but on his arrival, he confirmed my own view of the case, and declared i only needed rest and quiet and a little arnica.
i was rather distressed, however, when madame came up to see me an hour later, and assured me that she and monsieur thought i ought to be moved down as soon as possible into more comfortable apartments at lausanne, where i could secure better attendance. i saw in a moment what that meant: they wanted to get me away from isaline. "there are no more comfortable quarters in all switzerland, i am sure, madame," i said: but madame was inflexible. there was an english doctor at lausanne, and to lausanne accordingly i must go. evidently, it had just begun to strike those two good[pg 239] simple people that isaline and i could just conceivably manage to fall in love with one another.
might i ask for mademoiselle isaline to bring me up a cup of tea? yes, isaline would bring it in a minute. and when she came in, those usually laughing black eyes obviously red with crying, i felt my heart sink within me when i thought of my promise to m. claude; while i began to be vaguely conscious that i was really and truly very much in love with pretty little isaline on my own account.
she laid the tray on the small table by the sofa, and was going to leave the room immediately. "mademoiselle isaline," i said, trying to raise myself, and falling back again in pain, "won't you sit with me a little while? i want to talk with you."
"my mamma said i must come away at once," isaline replied demurely. "she is without doubt busy and wants my aid." and she turned to go towards the door.
"oh, do come back, mademoiselle," i cried, raising myself again, and giving myself, oh, such a wrench in the spine: "don't you see how much it hurts me to sit up?"
she turned back, indecisively, and sat down in the big chair just beyond the table, handing me the cup, and helping me to cream and sugar. i plunged at once in medias res.
"you have been crying, mademoiselle," i said, "and i think i can guess the reason. m. claude has told me something about it. he has asked you for your hand, and you have refused him. is it not so?" this was a little bit of hypocrisy on my part, i confess, for i knew what she had been crying about perfectly: but i wished to be loyal to m. claude.
isaline blushed and laughed. "i do not cry for m. claude," she said. "i may have other matters of my own to cry about. but m. claude is very free with his confidences, if he tells such things to a stranger."
"listen to me, mademoiselle isaline," i said. "your[pg 240] father and mother have asked me to leave here to-morrow and go down to lausanne. i shall probably never see you again. but before i go, i want to plead with you for m. claude. he has saved my life, and i owe him much gratitude. he loves you; he is a brave man, a good man, a true and earnest man; why will you not marry him? i feel sure he is a noble fellow, and he will make you a tender husband. will you not think better of your decision? i cannot bear to leave les pentes till i know that you have made him happy."
"truly?"
"truly."
"and you go away to-morrow?"
"yes, to-morrow."
"oh, monsieur!"
there isn't much in those two words; but they may be pronounced with a good deal of difference in the intonation; and isaline's intonation did not leave one in much doubt as to how she used them. her eyes filled again with tears, and she half started up to go. ingrate and wretch that i was, forgetful of my promise to m. claude, my eyes filled responsively, and i jumped to catch her and keep her from going, of course at the expense of another dreadful wrench to my poor back. "isaline," i cried, unconsciously dropping the mademoiselle, and letting her see my brimming eyelids far too obviously, "isaline, do wait awhile, i implore you, i beseech you! i have something to say to you."
she seated herself once more in the big chair. "well, mon pauvre monsieur," she cried, "what is it?"
"isaline," i began, trying it over again; "why won't you marry m. claude?"
"oh, that again. well," answered isaline boldly, "because i do not love him, and i love somebody else. you should not ask a young lady about these matters. in switzerland, we do not think it comme il faut."[pg 241]
"but," i went on, "why do you not love m. claude? he has every good quality, and——"
"every good quality, and—he bores me," answered isaline. "monsieur," she went on archly, "you were asking me the other day what books i had read in english. well, i have read longfellow. do you remember miles standish?"
i saw what she was driving at, and laughed in spite of myself. "yes," i said, "i know what you mean. when john alden is pleading with priscilla on behalf of miles standish, priscilla cuts him short by saying——"
isaline finished the quotation herself in her own pretty clipped english, "why don't you speak for yourself, john?"
i laughed. she laughed. we both looked at one another; and the next thing i remember was that i had drawn down isaline's plump little face close to mine, and was kissing it vigorously, in spite of an acute darting pain at each kiss all along my spine and into my marrow-bones. poor m. claude was utterly forgotten.
in twenty minutes i had explained my whole position to isaline: and in twenty minutes more, i had monsieur and madame up to explain it all to them in their turn. monsieur listened carefully while i told him that i was an english advocate in no practice to speak of; that i had a few hundreds a year of my own, partly dependent upon my mother; that i had thoughts of settling down permanently in switzerland; and that isaline was willing, with her parents' consent, to share my modest competence. monsieur replied with true swiss caution that he would inquire into my statements, and that if they proved to be as represented, and if i obtained in turn my mother's consent, he would be happy to hand me over isaline. "toutefois," he added quietly, "it will be perhaps better to rescind your journey to lausanne. the glion doctor is, after all, a sufficiently skilful one." so i waited on in peace at les pontes.[pg 242]
madame had insisted upon telegraphing the news of my accident to my mother, lest it should reach her first in the papers ("je suis mère moi-même, monsieur," she said, in justification of her conduct). and next morning we got a telegram in reply from my mother, who evidently imagined she must hurry over at once if she wished to see her son alive, or at least must nurse him through a long and dangerous illness. considering the injuries were a matter of about three days' sofa, in all probability, this haste was a little overdone. however, she would arrive by the very first rapide from paris; and on the whole i was not sorry, for i was half afraid she might set her face against my marrying "a foreigner," but i felt quite sure any one who once saw isaline could never resist her.
that afternoon, when school was over, m. claude dropped in to see how i was getting on. i felt more like a thief at that moment than i ever felt in my whole life before or since. i knew i must tell him the simple truth; but i didn't know how to face it. however, as soon as i began, he saved me the trouble by saying, "you need not mind explaining. mademoiselle isaline has told me all. yon did your best for me, i feel sure; but she loves you, and she does not love me. we cannot help these things; they come and go without our being able to govern them. i am sorry, more than sorry; but i thank you for your kind offices. mademoiselle isaline tells me you said all you could on my behalf, and nothing on your own. accept my congratulations on having secured the love of the sweetest girl in all switzerland." and he shook my hand with an honest heartiness that cost me several more twinges both in the spine and the half-guilty conscience. yet, after all, it was not my fault.
"monsieur claude," i said, "you are an honest fellow, and a noble fellow, and i trust you will still let me be your friend."
"naturally," answered m. claude, in his frank way.[pg 243] "i have only done my duty. you have been the lucky one, but i must not bear you a grudge for that; though it has cost my heart a hard struggle;" and, as he spoke, the tears came for a moment in his honest blue eyes, though he tried to brush them away unseen.
"monsieur claude," i said, "you are too generous to me. i can never forgive myself for this."
before many days my mother came to hand duly; and though her social prejudices were just a trifle shocked, at first, by the farmhouse, with its hams and maize, which i had found so picturesque, i judged rightly that isaline would soon make an easy conquest of her. my mother readily admitted that my accent had improved audibly to the naked ear; that isaline's manners were simply perfect; that she was a dear, pretty, captivating little thing; and that on the whole she saw no objections, save one possible one, to my marriage. "of course, charlie," she said, "the clairons are protestants; because, otherwise, i could never think of giving my consent."
this was a poser in its way; for though i knew the village lay just on the borderland, and some of the people were catholics while others were reformed, i had not the remotest notion to which of the two churches isaline belonged. "upon my soul, mother dear," i said, "it has never struck me to inquire into isaline's private abstract opinion on the subject of the pope's infallibility or the geneva confession. you see, after all, it could hardly be regarded as an important or authoritative one. however, i'll go at once and find out."
happily, as it turned out, the clairons were reformed, and so my mother's one objection fell to the ground immediately. m. clairon's inquiries were also satisfactory; and the final result was that isaline and i were to be quietly married before the end of the summer. the good father had a nice little vineyard estate at pic de la baume, which he proposed i should undertake to cultivate; and[pg 244] my mother waited to see us installed in one of the prettiest little toy chalets to be seen anywhere at the villeneuve end of the lovely lake. a happier or sweeter bride than isaline i defy the whole world, now or ever, to produce.
from the day of our wedding, almost, isaline made it the business of her life to discover a fitting wife for good m. claude; and in the end she succeeded in discovering, i will freely admit (since isaline is not jealous), the second prettiest and second nicest girl in the whole pays de vaud. and what is more, she succeeded also in getting m. claude to fall head over ears in love with her at first sight; to propose to her at the end of a week; and to be accepted with effusion by annette herself, and with coldness by her papa, who thought the question of means a trifle unsatisfactory. but isaline and i arranged that claude should come into partnership in our vineyard business on easy terms, and give up schoolmastering for ever; and the consequence is that he and his wife have now got the companion chalet to ours, and between our two local connections, in switzerland and england, we are doing one of the best trades in the new export wine traffic of any firm along the lake. of course we have given up growing yvorne, except for our own use, confining ourselves entirely to a high-priced vintage-wine, with very careful culture, for our english business: and i take this opportunity of recommending our famous phylloxera-proof white pic de la baume, london agents ——. but isaline says that looks too much like an advertisement, so i leave off. still, i can't help saying that a dearer little wife than isaline, or a better partner than claude, never yet fell to any man's lot. they certainly are an excellent people, these vaudois, and i think you would say so too if only you knew them as well as i do.
