"They were two old maids, almost thirty!" said Babette; but you must remember that she was only eighteen.
Her little tongue was never still for an instant, and all that Babette had to say was intensely interesting to Rudy; and he told her all about himself that he had frequently been to Bex, and knew the mill well, and that he had often seen her, though he did not suppose she had ever noticed him; and how he had called at the mill, hoping to see
her, and found that her father and she were away from home, a long way from home, indeed, but not so far that he could not get over the barrier which divided them.
He told her a great deal more than this. He told her that he was very fond of her, and that he had come here on purpose to see her, and not for the rifle competition.
Babette was very quiet when he told her this; she thought he set too high a value on her.
While they continued rambling, the sun set behind the mighty wall of rock; the Jungfrau stood out in all its beauty and magnificence, with the green of the tree-clad slopes on either side of it. All stood still to admire the gorgeous spectacle, and both Rudy and Babette were happy in watching it.
"There is no place more lovely than this!" said Babette.
"No, indeed!" exclaimed Rudy, and then he looked at Babette.
"I must go home to-morrow," he said, after a short silence.
"You must come to see us at Bex," Babette whispered to him; "my father will be pleased."
CHAPTER V THE RETURN HOME
OH"Have you a sweetheart?" said Rudy, for that was all he could think of.
"No, I have not," laughingly replied the maiden; but she did not look as if she spoke the truth. "Don't go round all that way," she then said. "You must bear more to the left; that is the shortest way."
"Yes, and tumble down a crevasse!" said Rudy. "You're a fine one to be a guide if you don't know better than that!"
"I know the way," she replied, "and my thoughts have not gone astray. Yours are below, in the valley, but here, on high, you should be thinking of the Ice-Maiden; people say that she does not love men."
"I fear her not!" exclaimed Rudy. "She had to yield me up when I was a baby, and I am not going to yield myself up to her now that I am a man."
It grew darker, and the rain poured down; then came the snow, dazzling and bewildering.
"Take my hand," said the maiden, "I will help you;" and she touched him with her ice-cold fingers.
"You needn't help me!" returned Rudy; "I don't need a girl to teach me to climb!" and he hurried on, leaving her behind. The snow came down all around him, the wind shrieked, and he heard strange sounds of laughing and singing behind him. He believed she was one of the spirits in the Ice-Maiden's train, of whom he had heard tales when he spent the night up in the mountains as a boy.
The snow ceased to fall, and he was now above the clouds. He looked behind him, but saw nobody; yet he heard a strange singing and yodeling that he did not like, as it did not sound human.
When Rudy was quite at the highest ridge, from which the way tended downwards towards the Rhone valley, he saw above Chamonix, in a patch of blue sky, two bright stars shining and twinkling; they reminded him of Babette, and of his own good fortune, and the thought made him feel quite warm.
CHAPTER VI A VISIT TO THE MILL
WHATAnd Rudy submitted to be kissed; but he looked as if he regarded it as a thing which had to be put up with. "What a handsome fellow you are getting, Rudy!" said the old woman.
"Don't talk such nonsense," Rudy replied, laughing; but nevertheless he liked to hear it.
"I say it again," said the old woman. "You are very lucky!"
"Perhaps you may be right," he rejoined, for he was thinking of Babette.
He had never before been
so anxious to go down the valley.
"They must have gone home," he said to himself. "They were to have been back two days ago. I must go to Bex."
So Rudy went to Bex, and found his friends at home at the mill. They received him kindly, and had brought a message for him from the family at Interlaken. Babette did not speak much; she was very quiet, but her eyes spoke volumes, and that satisfied Rudy. Even the miller, who had always led the conversation, and who had always had his remarks and jokes laughed at on account of his wealth, seemed to delight in hearing of all Rudy's adventures in his hunting; and Rudy described the difficulties and perils which the chamois-hunters have to face among the mountains how they must cling to, or creep over, the narrow ledges of snow which are frozen on to the mountain sides, and make their way over the snow bridges which span deep chasms in the rocks. And Rudy's eyes sparkled as he was relating these hunting adventures, the intelligence and activity of the chamois, and the dangers of the tempest and the avalanche. He perceived as he went on that the miller grew increasingly interested in his wild life, and that the old man paid especial attention to his account of the bearded vulture and the royal eagle.
Among other things, he happened to mention that, at no great distance, in the canton of Vallais, an eagle had built its nest most ingeniously under a steep projecting rock, and that the nest contained a young one which nobody could capture. Rudy said that an Englishman had offered him a handful of gold the other day if he could take him the eaglet alive; "but there is a limit to everything," said he. "That eaglet cannot be taken; it would be foolhardy to try."