Black Forest Village Stories

Tony said, "He might have let the bird alone on Sunday."

"Yes," said Babbett; "the gamekeepers are no good Christians anyhow: they can do nothing but get poor folks into the workhouse for trespassing, and kill poor innocent beasts and birds. That green devil's imp there sent poor Blase's Kitty to prison for four weeks just the other day. I wouldn't marry a gamekeeper if he were to promise me I don't know what."

"Old Ursula once told me," said Bridget, the youngest of the three, "that a gamekeeper is bound to kill a living thing every day of his life."

"That he can do easy enough," laughed Babbett, catching a gnat which had settled on her arm.

By this time the gamekeeper came quite near them. As if by a previous arrangement, they all began to sing again: they wished to pretend that they did not see the gamekeeper, but in their constraint they could not raise their voices, and only hummed the last verse of the song: -

"If she plays me false I will play her fair:Three feathers upon my hat I wear;And, as she will not have me stay,I'll travel forth upon my way."

"Girls, how are you?" said the gamekeeper, standing still: "why don't you sing louder?"

The girls began to giggle, and held their aprons to their mouths. Babbett found her tongue first, and said, "Thank you, mister, we are only singing for ourselves, and so we hear it if we sing ever so low: we don't sing for other people."

"Whisht!" said the gamekeeper: "the little tongue cuts like a sickle."

"Sickle or straight, it's as broad as it's long; whoever don't like it may talk to suit himself if he can," replied Babbett. Tony jogged her, saying, half aloud, "You're as rough as a hedgehog, you Babbett."

"Oh, I can stand a joke as well as the next one," said the gamekeeper, making the best of a bad job.

For all that, the girls were a good deal embarrassed, and did just the worst thing to put an end to it: they rose and took each others' arms to go home.

"May I go with you, ladies?" said the gamekeeper again.

"It's a high road and a wide road," said Babbett.

The gamekeeper thought of getting away, but reflected that it would look ridiculous to let these girls bluff him off. He felt that he ought to pay Babbett in her own coin, but he could not: Tony, by whose side he walked, had "smitten" him so hard that he forgot all the jokes he ever knew, although he was not a bashful man by any means. So he left the saucy girl in the enjoyment of her fun and walked on in silence.

Just to mend matters a little, Tony asked, "Where are you going on Sunday?"

"To Horb," said the gamekeeper; "and if the ladies would go with me I wouldn't mind standing treat for a pint or two of the best."

"We're going home," said Tony, blushing up to the eyes.

"We'd rather drink Adam's ale," said Babbett: "we get that for nothing too."

At the first house of the village, Babbett again said, pointing to a footpath, "Mr. Gamekeeper, there's a short cut for you goes round behind the village: that's the nearest way to Horb."

The gamekeeper's patience was running out, and he had a wicked jibe on his lips; but, checking, himself, he only said, "I like to look an honest village and honest people in the face." He could not refrain from turning his back on Babbett as he spoke.

The gamekeeper grew uncivil because he could not crack a joke, – a thing that happens frequently.

As they were entering the village, the gamekeeper asked Tony what her name was. Before she could answer, Babbett interposed, "Like her father's."

And when the gamekeeper retorted upon Babbett, "Why, you are mighty sharp to-day: how old are you?" he received the common answer, "As old as my little finger."

Tony said, half aloud, "My name's Tony. What makes you ask?"

"Because I want to know."

'When they had reached the top of the hill, at "Sour-Water Bat's" house, the three girls stood still and laid their heads together. Suddenly, like frightened pigeons, they ran in different directions, and left the gamekeeper all alone on the road. He whistled to his dog, who had started in pursuit, put his left arm in his gun-strap, and went on his way.

At the stone-quarry the girls met again and stood still.

"You are too rough, you are," said Tony to Babbett.

"Yes, you are so," Bridget chimed in.

"He didn't hurt you," continued Tony, "and you went at him like a bull-dog."

"I didn't hurt him either," answered Babbett; "I only fooled him. Why didn't the jackanapes answer me? And, another thing, I don't like the green-coat, anyhow. What does he mean by running through the whole village with us and making people think we want something of him? And what will Sepper6 and Caspar think of it? I'm not such a good-natured little puss as you are; I don't take things from counts or barons, nor barons' gamekeepers either."

Here the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Sepper and Caspar, who had looked for their sweethearts at the cherry-bush in vain. Babbett now told the whole story so glibly that no one else could get a word in edgewise. As a good many smart things occurred to her while she was speaking, she put them into her own mouth, without being unnecessarily precise. People have a way of embellishing the recital of their own doings and sayings in this manner: it requires so much less readiness and courage to invent these things when the person at whom they are levelled is gone than when he is by.

Sepper expressed his hearty approval of Babbett's proceedings, and said, "These gentry-folk must be stumped short the minute you begin with them."

The gamekeeper certainly did not belong to the "gentry-folk;" but it was convenient to class him so, for the purpose of scolding the more freely about him.

Sepper gave an arm to Tony, his sweetheart, while Bridget hung herself upon the other. Caspar and Barbara walked beside them; and so they passed out through the hollow to take a walk.

Sepper and Tony were a splendid pair, both tall and slender, and both doubly handsome when seen together: among a thousand you would have picked them out and said, "These two belong together." Sepper wore a style of dress half-way between that of a peasant and a soldier: the short flapping jacket set off in fine contrast the display of well-rounded limbs cased in the close-fitting military breeches. He looked like an officer in undress, so fine was the blending of ease and precision in all his movements.

At the top of the hill they saw the gamekeeper in conversation with the woodranger of Nordstetten. Sepper even observed that he was pointing toward them, and cleared his throat as if to prepare a sharp answer for the "gentleman," who was still two hundred yards away. Then he put his arms around Tony's neck and gave her a hearty smack, as a sort of broad hint for him who ran to read. This done, he walked on, whistling a lively tune, with something of a swagger.

His manner would have been still more emphatic if he had heard what the gamekeeper was saying to the woodranger, which was, "See! there she comes now. It is a girl as white as wax, – for all the world like the mother of God in the church: I never saw any thing like it in all my life."

"Yes, I thought you meant her," replied the woodranger "It's the Poodlehead's daughter: they call him Poodlehead because he has white curly hair like a lamb, just as the girl has, too. In the village they call her the maiden-blush, because she has such pretty red cheeks. The old parson knew what's good, and wanted her for a cook; but it was no go. Poodlehead wiped his chops for him with a 'No, thank ye.' Tony will get her ten acres some day in this commune, and they say there's more besides."

The gamekeeper shook hands and took his leave before the party had quite reached him.

Sitting on an unploughed strip of land, between two fields, – such as take the place of fences in that hedgeless country, – our friends spent the afternoon in singing and kissing. Bridget had the worst of the game, for her sweetheart was with the soldiers at Heilbronn: who knows what he was about while his girl sat aside from the others with blushing face, playing with a flower and thinking of him? At dusk she was wanted to "fix up" the others: her own collar was in perfect trim, while the collars and the hair of her friends were all "mussed and fussed," as she said, scolding good-naturedly.

All the girls and boys now met on the highroad, and the sexes walked separately. In the west, or, as they say there, "across the Rhine," the sun went down blood-red and gave promise of a pleasant day. The boys walked into the village in files which spread nearly across the street, singing or whistling tunes set in four parts. About thirty yards behind, the girls walked arm in arm. They sang incessantly. Scarcely was one song at an end before one girl or the other struck up a new one, and the others fell in without consultation or debate.

Tony was on the left flank, and on her right arm hung Blatschle's Mary Ann, called the Flambeau Mary Ann, – a poor unfortunate girl the whole left side of whose face, from the forehead to the chin, was blue, just as if there were clotted blood beneath the skin. At the great fire which happened eighteen years before, and where seven men lost their lives, Mary Ann's mother had hurried up, and on seeing the flames had passed her hand over her face in great fear and fright. When her child was born, one-half of its face was blue. Tony always had a certain horror of Mary Ann; but she did not like to hurt her feelings by going away. So she went on, trembling inwardly, but singing the louder to regain the mastery over herself.

Near the manor-house farmer's house the gamekeeper came up with the party on his return from Horb. On seeing Tony he blushed up to the eyes, and lifted his gun off his shoulder a little, sinking it again immediately, and, turning toward Tony, he said, "Good-evening, girls."

A few returned the salutation, and he said, in a low voice, to Tony, "May I walk with you now?"

"No, no! that will never do," said Tony, no louder than he had spoken: "go and walk with the boys, just to oblige me."

The gamekeeper was delighted, and, with a polite bow, he walked on.

At the Eagle there was, a general halt. The curfew sounded, and the boys, with their heads uncovered, mumbled a paternoster: the girls did the same; and then all crossed themselves.

But as soon as this was done the jokes and laughter were resumed. The gamekeeper said, "Good-night, all," and went on his way. The girls teased Tony about him, and said he had whispered to her. Sepper, who heard this, suddenly grew stark and stiff: the pipe which he was lifting to his mouth remained in the convulsive grasp of his one hand, while his other fist clenched, and his eyes, which stared upon Tony, shot forth fierce and angry thoughts. Then again he swung proudly on his knees, and only once cast his head backward in something of disdain.

When all separated, Sepper went with Tony to her father's house. He was silent a while, and then said, -

"What are you carrying on with the gamekeeper?"

"Nothing."

"What were you saying to him?"

"Just what people are apt to talk."

"But I don't want you ever to speak a word to him."

"And I'm not going to ask you for permission to speak to anybody."

"You're a proud, deceitful thing."

"If you think so I can't help it."

They walked on in silence. At Tony's door she said "goodnight;" but Sepper allowed her to go in without an answer. He stood before the door all the evening, whistling and singing: he thought that Tony must certainly come to him; but she did not come, and he went away in high dudgeon.

That whole week Sepper never spoke a word to Tony, and even went out of his way to avoid meeting her.

On Saturday afternoon he was out in the "Warm Dell" with his team to get clover for Sunday. On his way home he saw Babbett coming up the "Cowslip Dell" with a heavy bundle of clover on her head. He stopped, and made her put her clover and herself on his wagon. Here Babbett told him her mind about his foolish jealousy so very plainly that he went to the well near the town-hall and waited until Tony came to fetch water. He hastened to lift the bucket for her and adjust it on her head, and then walked by her side, saying, "How have you been all the week? I have such lots of work."

"You give yourself lots of trouble, which you might let alone. You are a wild, wilful fellow. Do you see now that you were in the wrong?"

"You must never speak to that gamekeeper again."

"I'll speak to him whenever I please," said Tony: "I am not a child. I understand my own business."

"But you needn't speak to him if you don't choose to."

"No, I needn't; but I am not going to be led about by a halter that way."

Peace was restored, and no disturbance occurred for a long time, for the gamekeeper did not show himself at Nordstetten again.

Tony often sat in the cherry-copse of a Sunday afternoon, with her playmates, and sometimes with Sepper, laughing and singing. The wild cherries-the only ones which ripen in the climate of the Black Forest-had long disappeared; the rape-seed was brought home; the rye and barley were cut, and the peaceful life of our friends had passed through but little change: Sepper's and Tony's love for each other had, if any thing, increased in intensity. That fall Sepper had to go through the last course of drill with the military, and then he would get his discharge, and then-the wedding.

Since that Sunday in the spring Tony had never cast eyes on the gamekeeper. But when she and Sepper were cutting oats in the Molda7 the gamekeeper came by and said, "Does't cut well?" Tony started, and plied her sickle busily without answering. Sepper said, "Thank you," knelt upon a sheaf and twisted down the tie with all his might, – as if he were wringing the gamekeeper's neck. The gamekeeper passed on.

It happened that Babbett's and Caspar's wedding came off just three days before that on which Sepper was obliged to go to the military. So he made up his mind to enjoy himself once for all, and kept his word. In almost every house where Caspar and his friend left the invitations, somebody said, "Well, Sepper, your turn will come next." And he smiled affirmatively.

At the wedding Sepper was as happy as a horse in clover. He enjoyed the foretaste of his coming bliss. When the dance began he climbed up to the musicians and bespoke them for his wedding, with two additional trumpeters: he belonged to the Guard, and therefore thought himself entitled to more trumpets than others.

But in the evening a new apparition crossed his path and changed the color of his thoughts. The gamekeeper came to the dance, and the first one he asked to dance with him was Tony.

"Engaged," answered Sepper for Tony.

"The lassie can speak for herself, I guess," replied the gamekeeper.

"You and I will dance the next hop-waltz together," said Tony, taking Sepper's hand. But she turned around toward the gamekeeper once more before the hop-waltz began. The next waltz Tony danced with the gamekeeper, while Sepper sat down at the table and made up his mind not to stir another foot that evening, and to forbid Tony to dance any more. But Babbett came and asked him to dance. This was the bride's privilege, and Sepper could not refuse. Of course the dance was a cover for a round lecture. "I don't know what to make of you at all," said she: "that gamekeeper seems to have driven every bit of sense out of your head. It'll be your fault and nobody else's if Tony should ever come to like him. She wouldn't have had a thought of him this many a day; but, if you go on teasing her about him this way, what can she do but think of him? And with always thinking about him, and wondering whether he likes her or not, she might get to like him at last, after all, for he does dance a little better than you, that's a fact: you couldn't reverse waltz the way he does, could you?"

Sepper laughed; but in his heart he could not deny that the shrewd little rogue was right, and when he sat at the table with his sweetheart he clinked his glass against the gamekeeper's and beckoned to Tony to do the same. The gamekeeper drank, bowed politely to Tony, and nodded slightly to Sepper. The latter had made up his mind, however, not to be sulky again, and prided himself a little on the good tact of his behavior to the gamekeeper, and then sat, happy as a king, with his arm round Tony's waist. He was called away to the master-joke of the wedding.

According to ancient custom, all the young men had conspired to steal the bride. They formed a ring around her, and Caspar had to bargain for her release amid a plentiful volley of small jokes and lively sallies. Six bottles of wine were at last accepted as a ransom, and the reunited pair marched off arm in arm. The musicians came down from their platform to the yard under their windows, and played the customary march; and many a hurrah followed from the crowd.

Tony stood at the window, in a dreamy mood, long after Babbett was gone and the others had returned to the dance.

It was very late at night, or, rather, early in the morning, when Sepper saw Tony home; yet it was long before they parted. Tony pressed her cheek against his with wild emotion, and held him with all the force of her arms. He too was greatly excited; yet he could not refrain from talking about the gamekeeper. "Let the gamekeeper alone," said Tony: "there's nothing in the world but you."

Sepper lifted her high up in the air; then he embraced her again, and, pressing his lip to her cheek, he whispered, "Do you see? I should just like to bite you."

"Bite," said Tony.

Well done! Sepper had bitten in good earnest. The blood flowed freely and ran down her cheeks into her neck and breast. Her hand rushed to her cheek, and there she felt the open scars of the teeth. She thrust Sepper away with such force that he fell on his back, and shrieked and cried aloud, so that the whole house was alarmed. Sepper got up and tried to comfort her; but with loud wailing she pushed him away again. Hearing a noise in the house, he slipped away quietly. He thought the matter was not so bad, after all, and that if he was out of the way she would hit upon some excuse to quiet them.

Her father and mother came up with lights, and were frightened almost to death at the sight of their child dripping in blood. Old Ursula, who knew so many remedies, was sent for immediately. She had no sooner cast eyes on the wound than she declared, "This may end in a cancer, or else the person who did it must clean the wound with his tongue." But Tony protested vehemently that she would rather die than ever let Sepper touch her again.

Various remedies were applied, and Tony groaned as if she were at the point of death.

The story spread through the village like wildfire; and it was even said that Sepper had taken a piece of flesh out of Tony's cheek. Everybody came to comfort her and to find out all about it. Sepper came too; but Tony screamed like a maniac, and declared he must leave the house at once and never come back. All his prayers and tears availed nothing: Tony seemed to be really beside herself, and Sepper had to go. He went to Babbett and begged her to say a good word for him. Babbett was busy arranging the wedding-gifts: kitchen-furniture, and all sorts of utensils, lay scattered about. She scolded Sepper roundly, but left her work at once and hastened to Tony. The latter fell upon her playmate's neck and cried, "I am spoiled for all the days of my life!" After a great deal of coaxing, she consented to rise from her bed; but, when she stood before the looking-glass and saw the horrible devastation, she exclaimed, "Jesus! Maria! Joseph! why, I am just like Flambeau Mary Ann! Oh God! I'm sure I must have sinned against her: I am punished hard enough!"

On no condition would she hear of seeing Sepper again; so the poor fellow had to trudge off to Stuttgard in a day or two, with a little white linen knapsack on his back, and a heavy, heavy load on his heart.

It was two weeks before Tony left the house, and then she kept her face well tied up. She walked out with a hoe on her shoulder to dig potatoes; and, strange to say, almost the first person she met was the gamekeeper.

"How are you, pretty Tony?" he asked, almost tenderly.

She could have sunk into the earth with shame, it seemed so strange for him to call her by name, and say "pretty" besides; and she felt more keenly than ever how much she was disfigured. As she sighed and said nothing, the gamekeeper went on: – "I have heard of what has happened: won't you let me see it?"

She bashfully pushed the kerchief aside, and the gamekeeper involuntarily raised his hands to his own face and said, "It is horrid, it is inhuman, to act so to a sweet, good girl like you! There's a fair specimen of your farmers' brutality. Don't be offended: I certainly didn't mean you by it: but these people are often worse than wild beasts. But don't be grieved about it."

Of all this Tony only heard the sympathy of the gamekeeper, and said, "I'm dreadfully spoiled and mangled, a'n't I?"

"I shouldn't mind it," said the gamekeeper: "if you had but one cheek you would please me better than all the girls between Nordstetten and Paris."

"It isn't right to tease one so," said Tony, smiling sadly.

"I am not teasing you," said the gamekeeper; and, taking her hand, he continued, "Oh, if you would say the word, how glad I should be to marry you!"

"That is talking sinfully," said Tony.

"I don't see any sin in our getting married," returned the gamekeeper.

"If you want to be good friends with me, don't say another word about it," said Tony, taking her way across the field.

The gamekeeper was content, for the present, to be "good friends," and made the most of it; for he came to Nordstetten almost regularly twice or three times a week. He managed to start some business-negotiations with the Poodlehead, Tony's father, about cordwood; and this always gave him an opportunity of talking with Tony. He said nothing more about marrying, but anybody but a fool could see that he alluded to it all the time. He had much trouble with Babbett, whose influence upon Tony was of the greatest consequence. At first he tried good humor and fun, but Babbett never would understand his jokes: she did nothing but talk about Sepper as long as the gamekeeper was within hearing.

A lucky occurrence gave the latter a great advantage. Tony had a rich cousin in Muehringen, who was to be married shortly: the dance was to last three days; and Tony was invited. The gamekeeper's sister soon made friends with her, and the two girls rambled over the fields together and kept near each other at the dance. Tony now appeared for the first time with an uncovered face; and it might almost be said that the bite had improved her looks. Some wild and superstitious people purposely mangle what is perfectly beautiful, so that the "evil look" may have no power over it, and by way of appeasing the devil, who can suffer nothing perfect to exist. Whether the "beauty-spots" cultivated by the damsels of our day were originally derived from this superstition I cannot tell. At all events, the bite on Tony's cheek was just enough to give the spirit of envy a little "but" to hang on the end of an acknowledgment of her comeliness.

The gamekeeper always kept near Tony while the dance was going on; and in the evening he treated her to something that no peasant-girl of all Nordstetten had ever enjoyed. The old baron, a stout and well-fed personage, though very parsimonious, and unmerciful in hunting down every poor farmer who took an armful of dry sticks out of the wood, was very ambitious for the prosperity of a little private theatre which he maintained at the manor-house, and to which he used to invite the grand folks of the neighborhood. The gamekeeper was permitted to bring Tony to see the theatricals.

She trembled till her teeth chattered as she walked up the hill on which the manor-house, or rather castle, stands, with its drawbridge, moat, and parapet, in the style of the Middle Ages. Without a breath, and on tip-toe, she came into the hall, where the ladies and gentlemen were already assembled. A place was assigned her not far back of the orchestra. The lord-lieutenant's lady levelled her eyeglass at her for a long time; Tony cast down her eyes, almost afraid to breathe. The scar on her cheek tingled as if the eyes of the lady had opened the wound afresh. The rise of the curtain came to her relief, and now she listened with breathless attention. She shed tears over the fate of the poor boy who died in prison, because he was accused of stealing, just to save the credit of his master, to whom he owed a debt of gratitude; and if she had been the master's daughter she certainly would not have put off her disclosure until it came too late. When the curtain fell, a deep sigh escaped her.