E. Werner - The Alpine Fay

"But they maintain that he is a fellow who would shun no means, so it might promote his advancement," Thurgau said, bluntly. "You, as president of the company, had nothing to do with the appointment,–the engineer-in-chief alone has the right to appoint his staff."

"Officially it is so, and I do not often bring my influence to bear in his department; when I do so I expect due deference to be paid to my wishes. Enough, Elmhorst is superintendent and will remain so. If it does not suit the gentlemen they can resign their posts; their opinion is of very little consequence."

In his words there was all the arrogant self-assertion of a man accustomed to have his own way, regardless of consequences. Thurgau was about to reply, but at the moment the door opened, or rather was flung wide, and a something made up of drenched clothes and floating curls flew past the president and eagerly embraced the Freiherr; a second something, equally wet and very shaggy, followed, and also rushed towards the master of the house, springing upon him with loud and joyful barks of recognition. The noisy and unexpected intrusion was almost an attack, but Thurgau must have been used to such onslaughts, for he showed no impatience at the damp caresses thus bestowed upon him.

"Here I am, papa!" cried a clear girlish voice, "wet as a nixie; we were up on the Wolkenstein all through the storm; just see how we look, Griff and I!"

"Yes, it is plain that you come directly from the clouds," Thurgau said, laughing. "But do you not see, Erna, that we have a visitor? Do you recognize him?"

Erna turned about; she had not perceived the president, who had risen and stepped aside upon her entrance, and for a few seconds she seemed uncertain as to his identity, but she finally exclaimed, delightedly, "Uncle Nordheim!" and hurried towards him. He, however, put out his hands and stood on the defensive.

"Pray, pray, my child; you are dripping at every step. You are a veritable water-witch. For heaven's sake do not let the dog come near me! Would you expose me to a rain-storm here in the room?"

Erna laughed, and, taking the dog by the collar, drew him away. Griff showed a decided desire to cultivate an acquaintance with the visitor, which in his dripping condition would hardly have been agreeable. In fact, his young mistress did not look much better; the mountain-shoes which shod her little feet very clumsily, her skirt of some dark woollen stuff, kilted high, and her little black beaver hat, were all dripping wet. She seemed to care very little about it, however, as she tossed her hat upon a chair and stroked back her damp curls.

The girl resembled her father very slightly; her blue eyes and fair hair she had inherited from him, but otherwise there existed not the smallest likeness between the Freiherr's giant proportions and good-humoured but rather expressionless features and the girl of sixteen, who, lithe and slender as a gazelle, revealed, in spite of her stormy entrance, an unconscious grace in every movement. Her face was rosy with the freshness of youth; it could not be called beautiful, at least not yet: the features were still too childish and undeveloped, and there was an expression bordering on waywardness about the small mouth. Her eyes, it is true, were beautiful, reminding one in their blue depths of the colour of the mountain-lakes. Her hair, confined neither by ribbon nor by net, and dishevelled by the wind, hung about her shoulders in thick masses of curls. She certainly did not look as if she belonged in a drawing-room, she was rather the personification of a fresh spring rain.

"Are you afraid of a few rain-drops, Uncle Nordheim?" she asked. "What would have become of you in the rain-spout to which we were exposed just now? I did not mind it much, but my companion–"

"Why, I should have thought Griff's shaggy hide accustomed to such drenchings," the Freiherr interposed.

"Griff? Oh, I had left him as usual at the sennerin's hut; he cannot climb, and from there one must rival the chamois. I mean the stranger whom I met on the way. He had strayed from the path, and could not find his way down in the mist; if I had not met him, he would be on the Wolkenstein at this moment."

"Yes, these city men," said Thurgau,–"they come up here with huge mountain-staffs, and in brand-new travelling-suits, and behave as if our Alpine peaks were mere child's play; but at the first shower they creep into a rift in the rocks and catch cold. I suppose the fine fellow was in a terrible fright when the storm came up?"

Erna shook her head, but a frown appeared on her forehead.

"No, he was not afraid; he stayed beside me with entire composure while the lightning and rain were at their worst, and in our descent he showed himself courageous, although it was evident he was quite unused to that sort of thing. But he is an odious creature. He laughed when I told him of the mountain-sprite who sends the avalanches down into the valley every winter, and when I grew angry he observed, with much condescension, 'True, this is the atmosphere for superstition; I had forgotten that.' I wished the mountain-sprite would roll an avalanche down upon his head on the spot, and I told him so."

"You said that to a stranger whom you had met for the first time?" asked the president, who had hitherto listened in silence, with an air of surprise.

Erna tossed her head: "Of course I did! We could not endure him, could we, Griff? You growled at him when he reached the sennerin's hut with me, and you were right,–good dog! But now I really must change my wet clothes; Uncle Nordheim will else catch cold from merely having me near him."

She hurried off as quickly as she had come; Griff tried to follow her, but the door was shut in his face, and so he decided upon another course. He shook from his shaggy hide a shower of drops in every direction, and lay down at his master's feet.

Nordheim took out his pocket-handkerchief and ostentatiously brushed with it his black coat, although not a drop had reached it.

"Forgive me, brother-in-law; I must say that the way in which you allow your daughter to grow up is inexcusable."

"What?" asked Thurgau, apparently extremely surprised that any one could possibly find anything to object to in his child. "What is the matter with the girl?"

"Everything, I should say, that could be the matter with a Fräulein von Thurgau. What a scene we have just witnessed! And you allow her to wander about the mountains alone for hours, making acquaintance with any tourist she may chance to meet."

"Pshaw! she is but a child!"

"At sixteen? It was a great misfortune for her to lose her mother so early, and since then you have positively let her run wild. Of course when a young girl grows up under such circumstances, without instruction, without education–"

"You are mistaken," the Freiherr interrupted him. "When I removed to Wolkenstein Court, after the death of my wife, I brought with me a tutor, the old magister, who died last spring. Erna had instruction from him, and I have brought her up. She is just what I wished her to be; we have no use up here for such a delicate hot-house plant as your Alice. My girl is healthy in body and mind; she has grown up free as a bird of the air, and she shall stay so. If you call that running wild, so be it, for aught I care! My child suits me."

"Perhaps so, but you will not always be the sole ruling force in her life. If Erna should marry–"

"Mar–ry?" Thurgau repeated in dismay.

"Certainly, you must expect her to have lovers, sooner or later."

"The fellow who dares to present himself as such shall have a lesson from me that he'll remember!" roared the Freiherr in a rage.

"You bid fair to be an amiable father-in-law," said Nordheim, dryly. "I should suppose it was a girl's destiny to marry. Do you imagine I shall require my Alice to remain unmarried because she is my only daughter?"