received no response, for the reason that Zacharias was trying to light the lamp.
“Where are you, Charlotte?”
“Here I am,” cried the old man turning with a livid face and gazing fiercely at his rival.
The young man who stood before him was tall and slender, with large, frank, black eyes, brown cheeks, rosy lips, just covered with a little moustache, and a large brown, felt hat, tilted a little to one side.
The apparition of Zacharias stunned him to immovability. But as the Judge was about to cry out, he exclaimed:
“In the name of Heaven, do not call. I am no robber—I love Charlotte!”
“And—she—she?” stammered Zacharias.
“She loves me also! Oh, you need have no fear if you are one of her relations. We were betrothed at the Kusnacht feast. The fiancés of the Grinderwald and the Entilbach have the right to visit in the night. It is a custom of Unterwald. All the Swiss know that.”
“Yeri Foerster—Yeri, Charlotte’s father, never told me.”
“No, he does not know of our betrothal yet,” said the other, in a lower tone of voice; “when I asked his permission last year he told me to wait—that his daughter was too young yet—we were betrothed secretly. Only as I had not the Forester’s consent, I did not come in the night-time. This is the first time. I saw Charlotte in the town; but the time seemed so long to us both that I ended by confessing all to my father, and he has promised to see Yeri tomorrow. Ah, Monsieur, I knew it would give such pleasure to Charlotte that I could not help coming to announce my good news.”
The poor old man fell back in his chair and covered his face with his hands. Oh, how he suffered! What bitter thoughts passed through his brain; what a sad awakening after so many sweet and joyous dreams.
And the young mountaineer was not a whit more comfortable, as he stood leaning against a corner of the wall, his arms crossed over his breast, and the following thoughts running through his head:
“If old Foerster, who does not know of our betrothal, finds me here, he will kill me without listening to one word of explanation. That is certain.”
And he gazed anxiously at the door, his ear on the alert for the least sound.
A few moments afterward, Zacharias lifting his head, as though awakening from a dream, asked him:
“What is your name?”
“Karl Imnant, Monsieur.”
“What is your business?”
“My father hopes to obtain the position of a forester in the Grinderwald for me.”
There was a long silence and Zacharias looked at the young man with an envious eye.
“And she loves you?” he asked in a broken voice.
“Oh, yes, Monsieur; we love each other devotedly.”
And Zacharias, letting his eyes fall on his thin legs and his hands wrinkled and veined, murmured:
“Yes, she ought to love him; he is young and handsome.”
And his head fell on his breast again. All at once he arose, trembling in every limb, and opened the window.
“Young man, you have done very wrong; you will never know how much wrong you have really done. You must obtain Mr. Foerster’s consent—but go—go—you will hear from me soon.”
The young mountaineer did not wait for a second invitation; with one bound he jumped to the path below and disappeared behind the grand old trees.
“Poor, poor Zacharias,” the old Judge murmured, “all your illusions are fled.”
At seven o’clock, having regained his usual calmness of demeanor, he descended to the room below, where Charlotte, Dame Christine and Yeri were already waiting breakfast for him. The old man, turning his eyes from the young girl, advanced to the Head Forester, saying:
“My friend, I have a favor to ask of you. You know the son of the forester of the Grinderwald, do you not?”
“Karl Imnant, why yes, sir!”
“He is a worthy young man, and well behaved, I believe.”
“I think so, Monsieur.”
“Is he capable of succeeding his father?”
“Yes, he is twenty-one years old; he knows all about tree-clipping, which is the most necessary thing of all—he knows how to read and how to write; but that is not all; he must have influence.”
“Well, Master Yeri, I still have some influence in the Department of Forests and Rivers. This day fortnight, or three weeks at the latest, Karl Imnant shall be Assistant Forester of the Grinderwald, and I ask the hand of your daughter Charlotte for this brave young man.”
At this request, Charlotte, who had blushed and trembled with fear, uttered a cry and fell back into her mother’s arms.
Her father looking at her severely, said: “What is the matter, Charlotte? Do you refuse?”
“Oh, no, no, father—no!”
“That is as it should be! As for myself, I should never have refused any request of Mr. Zacharias Seiler’s! Come here and embrace your benefactor.”
Charlotte ran toward him and the old man pressed her to his heart, gazing long and earnestly at her, with eyes filled with tears. Then pleading business he started home, with only a crust of bread in his basket for breakfast.
Fifteen days afterward, Karl Imnant received the appointment of forester, taking his father’s place. Eight days later, he and Charlotte were married.
The guests drank the rich Rikevir wine, so highly esteemed by Yeri Foerster, and which seemed to him to have arrived so opportunely for the feast.
Mr. Zacharias Seiler was not present that day at the wedding, being ill at home. Since then he rarely goes fishing—and then, always to the Brünnen—toward the lake—on the other side of the mountain.
THE DEAN’S WATCH
Translated by Ralph Browning Fiske
CHAPTER I
On the day before Christmas of the year 1832, my friend Wilfred, with his double-bass slung over his back, and I, with my violin under my arm, started to walk from the Black Forest to Heidelberg. It was unusually snowy weather; as far as we could see across the great, deserted plain, there was no trace of road nor path. The wind kept up its harsh aria with monotonous persistency, and Wilfred, with his flattened wallet at his belt, and the vizor of his cap drawn over his eyes, moved on before me, straddling the drifts with his long, heron legs, and whistling a gay tune to keep up his spirits. Now and then, he would turn around with a waggish smile, and cry: “Comrade, let’s have the waltz from ‘Robin,’ I feel like dancing.” A burst of laughter followed these words, and then the good fellow would resume his march courageously. I followed on as well as I could, up to my knees
