Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories - Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (reading well TXT) 📗

"And you," she continued, turning again to Mr. Hahn, "find yourself a seat, until we can see what you look like."

"What a vixen of an old woman!" whispered the proprietor of the "Haute Noblesse" to his son, as they seated themselves on the hard wooden bench near the window.

"Small chance for the 'Haute Noblesse,' I fear," responded Fritz, flinging his travelling cap on the clean-scoured deal table.

Ilka, who in the meanwhile had obeyed her mother's injunction, now came forward with two lighted tallow dips, stuck in shining brass candle-sticks, and placed them on the table before the travellers. She made a neat little courtesy before each of them, to which they responded with patronizing nods.

"_Parbleu! Elle est charmante_!" exclaimed Fritz, fixing a bold stare on the girl's blushing face.

"_Bien charmante_," replied Mr. Hahn, who took a great pride in the little French he had picked up when he carried a napkin over his shoulder.

And indeed, Ilka was _charmante_ as she stood there in the dim candle-light, her great innocent eyes dilated with child-like wonder, her thick blond braids hanging over her shoulders, and the picturesque Tyrolese costume--a black embroidered velvet waist, blue apron, and short black skirt--setting off her fine figure to admirable advantage. She was a tall, fresh-looking girl, of stately build, without being stout, with a healthy blooming countenance and an open, guileless expression. Most people would have pronounced her beautiful, but her beauty was of that rudimentary, unindividualized kind which is found so frequently among the peasantry of all nations. To Fritz Hahn, however who was not a philosophical observer, she seemed the most transcendent phenomenon his eyes had ever beheld.

"To make a long story short, madam," began Mr. Hahn after a pause, during which Mother Uberta had been bristling silently while firing defiant glances at the two strangers, "I am the proprietor of a great establishment in Berlin--the 'Haute Noblesse'--you may have heard of it."

"No, I never heard of it," responded Mother Uberta, emphatically, as if anxious to express her disapproval, on general principles, of whatever statements Mr. Hahn might choose to make.

"Well, well, madam," resumed the latter, a trifle disconcerted, "it makes very little difference whether you have heard of it or not. I see, however, that you are a woman of excellent common sense, and I will therefore be as brief as possible--avoid circumlocutions, so to speak."

"Yes, exactly," said Mother Uberta, nodding impatiently, as if eager to help him on.

"Madame Uberta,--for that, as I understand, is your honored name,--would you like to get one thousand florins?"

"That depends upon how I should get 'em," answered the old woman sharply. "I shouldn't like to get 'em by stealin'."

"I mean, of course, if you had honestly earned them," said Hahn.

"I am afeard honesty with you and with me ain't exactly the same thing."

Mr. Hahn was about to swear, but mindful of his cherished enterprise, he wisely refrained.

"I beg leave to inform you, Madame Uberta," he observed, "that it is gentlemen of honor you have to deal with, and that whatever proposals they may make you will be of an honorable character."

"And I am very glad to hear that, I am sure," responded the undaunted Uberta.

"Three weeks ago, when we were travelling in this region," continued Hahn, determined not to allow his temper to be ruffled, "we heard a most wonderful voice yodling in the mountains. We went away, but have now returned, and having learned that the voice was your daughter's, we have come here to offer her a thousand florins if she will sing her native Tyrolese airs for eight weeks at our Concert Garden, the 'Haute Noblesse.'"

"One thousand florins for eight weeks, mother!" exclaimed Ilka, who had been listening to Hahn's speech with breathless interest. "Then I could pay off the mortgage and we should not have to pay interest any more, and I should have one hundred and fifty florins left for my dowry."

"Hush, child, hush! You don't know what you are talkin' about," said the mother severely. Then turning to Hahn: "I should like to put one question to both of you, and when you have answered that, I'll give my answer, which there is no wrigglin' out of. If the old woman went along, would ye _then_ care so much about the singin' of the daughter?"

"Certainly, by all means," responded Hahn promptly; but Fritz was so absorbed in polishing his finger-nails with a little instrument designed especially for that purpose, that he forgot to answer.

A long consultation now followed, and the end of it was that Ilka agreed to go to Berlin and sing for eight weeks, in her national costume, on condition that her travelling expenses and those of her mother should be defrayed by the manager. Mr. Hahn also agreed to pay for the board and lodgings of the two women during their sojourn in the capital and to pay Ilka the one thousand florins (and this was a point upon which Mother Uberta strenuously insisted) in weekly instalments.

The next day the contract was drawn up in legal form, properly stamped and signed; whereupon Mother Uberta and Ilka started with Hahn and Fritz for Berlin.


III.


The restaurant of the "Haute Noblesse" was a splendid specimen of artistic decoration. The walls were frescoed with all sorts of marvellous hunting scenes, which Fritz had gradually incorporated in his own autobiography. Here stags were fleeing at a furious speed before a stout young gentleman on horseback, who was levelling his deadly aim at them; there the same stout young gentleman, with whiskers and general appearance slightly altered, was standing behind a big tree, firing at a hare who was coming straight toward him, pursued by a pack of terrible hounds; again, on a third wall, the stout young gentleman had undergone a further metamorphosis which almost endangered his identity; he was standing at the edge of a swamp, and a couple of ducks were making somersaults in the air, as they fluttered with bruised wings down to where the dogs stood expecting them; on wall number four, which contained the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the collection, the young Nimrod, who everywhere bore a more or less remote resemblance to Fritz Hahn, was engaged in a mortal combat with a wild boar, and was performing miraculous feats of strength and prowess. The next room,--to which it was, for some unknown reason, deemed a high privilege to be admitted,--was ornamented with a variety of trophies of the chase, which were intended, no doubt, as incontestable proofs of the veracity of the frescoed narrative. There were stuffed stags' heads crowned with enormous antlers (of a species, as a naturalist asserted, which is not found outside of North America), heads of bears, the insides of whose mouths were painted in the bloodiest of colors, and boars, whose upward-pointed tusks gave evidence of incredible blood-thirstiness. Even the old clock in the corner (a piece of furniture which every customer took pains to assure Mr. Hahn that he envied him) had a frame of curiously carved and intertwisted antlers, the ingenious workmanship of which deserved all the admiration which it received. Mr. Hahn had got it for a song at an auction somewhere in the provinces; but the history of the clock which Fritz told omitted mentioning this incident.

In this inner room on the 19th of April, 1864, Mr. Hahn and his son were holding a solemn consultation. The news of the fall of Duppel, and the consequent conquest of all Schleswig, had just been received, and the capital was in a fever of warlike enthusiasm. That two great nations like the Prussians and the Austrians, counting together more than fifty millions, could conquer poor little Denmark, with its two millions, seemed at that time a great and glorious feat, and the conquerors have never ceased to be proud of it. Mr. Hahn, of course, was overflowing with loyalty and patriotism, which, like all his other sentiments, he was anxious to convert into cash. He had therefore made arrangements for a _Siegesfest_, on a magnificent scale, which was to take place on the second of May, when the first regiments of the victorious army were expected in Berlin. It was the details of this festival which he and Fritz had been plotting in the back room at the restaurant, and they were both in a state of agreeable agitation at the thought of the tremendous success which would, no doubt, result from their combined efforts. It was decided that Ilka, whom by various pretexts Mr. Hahn had managed to detain in Berlin through the whole winter, should appear in a highly fantastic costume as Germania, and sing "Die Wacht am Rhein" and "Heil dir im Siegeskranz," as a greeting to the returning warriors. If the weather proved favorable, the garden was to be brilliantly illuminated, and the likenesses of King Wilhelm, Bismarck, and von Moltke were to appear in gas-jets, each surmounting a triumphal arch, which was to be erected in front of the stage and at the two entrances to the garden.

"As regards that Tyrolese wench," said Fritz, as he lighted a fresh cigar, "are you sure we can persuade her to don the Germania costume? She seems to have some pretty crooked notions on some points, and the old woman, you know, is as balky as a stage horse."

"Leave that to me, Fritzchen, leave that to me," replied the father, confidently. "I know how to manage the women. Thirty years' practice, my dear--thirty years' practice goes for more in such matters than a stripling like you can imagine."

This remark, for some reason, seemed to irritate Mr. Fritz exceedingly. He thrust his hands deeply into his pockets, and began to stalk up and down the floor with a sullen, discontented air.

"Aha! you old fox," he muttered to himself, "you have been hunting on my preserves. But I'll catch you in your own trap, as sure as my name is Fritz."

"The sly young rascal!" thought Mr. Hahn; "you have been sniffing in your father's cupboard, have you?"

"Fritz, my dear," he said aloud, stretching himself with a long, hypocritical yawn, "it is ridiculous for two fellows like you and me to wear masks in each other's presence. We don't care a straw for the whole _Sieges_ business, do we, Fritz, except for the dollars and cents of it? I am deucedly sleepy, and I am going to bed."

"And so am I, father dear," responded Fritz, with a sudden outburst of affection. "Yes, yes, father," he continued heartily, "you and I understand each other. I am a chip of the old block, I am--he, he!"

And with the most effusive cordiality this affectionate parent and son separated, with the avowed purpose of seeking oblivion in slumber, in their respective apartments.

"Perhaps I have been doing the old fellow injustice, after all," thought Fritz, as he clasped his father's hand once more at the bottom of the staircase.

"The young gosling hasn't ventured into such deep water as I thought," murmured the happy father, as he stood listening to Fritz's footsteps re-echoing through the empty corridors.


IV.


Mr. Hahn, Sr., having satisfied himself as to his son's sincerity, retired to his private chamber; not for the purpose of going to rest, however, but in order to make an elaborate toilet, having completed which, he hailed a droschke and drove to an obscure little street in the Friedrich-Wilhelm Stadt, where he ordered the coachman to stop. As he was preparing to dismount, he saw to his astonishment another droschke driving away from the door which he was intending to enter.