The Initials. Baroness Jemima Montgomery Tautphoeus
assented with a nod.
“I have heard it said at the Golden Lion in the town, that there is no end to the riches of the English!”
“Some are very rich, and some are very poor,” answered Hamilton. “I believe the means of living—the necessaries of life—are more equally divided among the inhabitants of Germany.”
“Well, that I have heard too,” said the man: “and now that you tell me there are no mountains——”
“Stay,” cried Hamilton, laughing. “I did not say there were no mountains; I only said that I had never seen them.”
“But all the Englishmen I have ever spoken to——”
“Are not very many,” said Hamilton, interrupting him.
“More than you think, perhaps. Before my father gave up the house and ground to me, I was for many years with a relation in Berchtesgaden, and used to row most of the strangers across the lake. Queer people they were, too, sometimes! One gentleman used to sit for hours under a tree near the back lake, and went there regularly every day for several summers. The last time I saw him, he said when he died his spirit would hover around that tree—or something of that sort. I made inquiries about him lately, and as he has not been seen for a long time, I suppose he is dead, and should not at all like to go to that part of the lake alone of an evening; for though I don’t mind taking my chance against living men, I am mortally afraid of the dead—and that Englishman always looked half dead, with his pale face and sunken cheeks. It was dreadful to hear him cough; and the people at the inn said he never was quiet at night, but wandered incessantly up and down his room. They said he must have been crossed in love——”
“Most probably he was dying of consumption,” said Hamilton.
“Very likely; that was what the doctor called it. He said it was a very common complaint in England—like the rheumatism here, I suppose. What my poor grandfather suffered from rheumatism the last forty years of his life is incredible; but he walked about and lived all the same to be past ninety years of age—and celebrated his golden wedding too!”
“His golden what?”
“Wedding. Perhaps you have no golden or silver wedding in England?”
“I confess I never heard of anything of the kind,” said Hamilton.
“Oh, the silver wedding is only on the twenty-fifth anniversary, and most people can celebrate that; but to be fifty years married, and to have a golden wedding, is a sort of event in a family. Though but a boy at the time, I shall never forget that day. This house was quite covered with garlands, and all the neighbours from far and near were assembled; and my grandfather and grandmother, dressed in their wedding dresses, walked in procession with music to the church, and the priest married them over again, and preached such a sermon that everyone had tears in their eyes. We had a dinner, too, at the Lion, and such dancing and singing; and in the evening there was no end to the noise and shouting when they drove off together for the second time as bride and bridegroom!”
“How I should like to see such a wedding! Is there no chance of one now in the neighbourhood?”
“Not that I know of. It is a rare thing, for generally a year or two before the fifty years are at an end one or the other dies. The very wish to live it out, carries the old people off, I believe.”
“Do people marry early here?”
“Not often, for they must get the consent of the parish, and prove that they can support a family. I was past forty before my father resigned the house and land to me.”
“So he gave it to you during his lifetime? Is that often done?”
“Very often. I was to pay him a pension, and he intended to remove to the town; but he could not leave the place, and so we all lived together until his death. My mother is still alive. You may have seen her on the alp: she is always wandering about there.”
“Was your father obliged to ask the consent of your landlord when he resigned?”
“He was obliged to get the consent of government, and I had to pay the usual fine of five per cent. of the value of my house and ground.”
“Then you have no lease?”
“Lease? No, we have no lease.”
“And your land is hereditary in your family?”
“Yes; we have the usual taxes to pay, and we have fines in cases of death, succession, or exchange of land.”
“Could you sell your property if you wished it?”
“No doubt—if I obtained the consent of government; but who would sell their land and be without house or home?”
“I suppose it is always the eldest son who inherits?”
“No; we can make whichever child we please our heir; but we generally choose the eldest son, who pays the other children what is left them by will.”
The peasant’s wife drew near, and afterwards the children gathered round them; their mother, in the pride of her heart, telling them to fetch their copy-books, and show the gentleman how well they could write. He had not finished the inspection or praised them half as much as they deserved when the Z—s and their companions advanced from the wood, when joyful recognition and long explanations completely changed the current of his thoughts.
CHAPTER VI.
SECULARISED CLOISTERS.
When Hamilton returned to Seon he found there an addition to the guests he had left, in the person of Count Zedwitz’s son, a young officer who had come to spend part of his leave of absence with his family. His appearance was prepossessing, notwithstanding his very decided ugliness; for his yellow hair, impertinently degenerating into red in his bushy mustachios, nearly concealed a mouth of enormous proportions, and heightened the whiteness of his teeth of faultless purity, but unusually large and of irregular form. The almost flaxen eyebrows protruded far beyond eyes which were small and light-coloured, but full of intelligence; the nose thick, of indefinite form, and a forehead which would have delighted Gall, Spurzheim, or Combe, but from which a painter’s eye would have turned away to seek some more pleasing object. His figure was tall and well-proportioned, but, notwithstanding his youth, already denoted an inclination to stoutness.
Hamilton found him an agreeable companion; indeed, everyone seemed to like him, especially Mademoiselle Hildegarde, who, Hamilton imagined, received his unobtrusive attentions with undisguised satisfaction; nor was it long before he discovered a sort of avoidance of his society on the part of both sisters. Crescenz, indeed, looked at him sometimes, but the moment her eye caught his it was averted, and a blush was sure to follow. Hildegarde never looked at him at all. They whispered together continually, took long walks alone, and became every day more melancholy. In short, there was something mysterious in their manner which excited Hamilton’s curiosity, and he determined to see Crescenz, if possible, alone for half an hour, and question her on the subject; but this was not easily managed, for Hildegarde seldom left her side, and were she present there was no chance of hearing anything. He commenced a system of watching, which Crescenz unfortunately misinterpreted, while Hildegarde remained perfectly unconscious of it; he did not apparently interest her sufficiently to make her observe his movements; but Crescenz’s blushes increased daily, and even her sister’s presence could not prevent her from sometimes entering into conversation with him. He asked her once if Seon had disappointed her—if she were tired of it; and then, in a low voice, why she looked so sorrowful. A blush, a reproachful look, and eyes suddenly full of tears was the only reply he received. Hildegarde, who had partly heard the questions, drew her sister’s arm within hers and left him alone to think over all possible causes, but in vain; he then turned his observations towards her step-mother, but there he was completely at fault. She was very kind in her manner to Crescenz, while