CHAPTER V.

_ES IST NUR EIN KINDLEIN--ONLY A CHILD._

What wert thou then? A child most infantine, Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age In all but its sweet looks and mien divine?

Lights were glittering in the hotel at Grindelwald--something more than the paltry allowance of which Arthur had feelingly complained was being displayed, for, late as it was in the season, there had been arrivals, and the landlord's heart was light.

He could not understand this fancy of people for keen winds, frost and snow, but it suited his purpose and he rejoiced. The dull season would be rendered shorter, and his winter expenses proportionately lightened. In the fulness of his heart he made a great display in the way of illumination, lighted the large stove in the small saloon, and did all he could to make his friends forget the dreariness and desolation that reigned outside.

For the evening that had fallen with a certain calm, autumnal beauty had deepened into a blustering, stormy night. The wind whistled among the hills, the loose snow-drifts were driven blindingly hither and thither; it would not have been a pleasant night to face. Decidedly, the fireside, or, as at Grindelwald, the stove-corner, was the most comfortable resting-place. And so the new arrivals, two young Englishmen and a German (the very same, by the bye, who had annoyed Arthur by his vigorous "wunderschoens" and his dutiful "enthousiasmus" in the course of their journey across the St. Gothard), appeared to think.

As the household was principally composed of men, sundry indulgences were permitted, and unchecked they discussed their cigars and drank their "lager bier" in the saloon, gathered together in a close circle by the stove, their feet filling up by turns its narrow opening. But apparently every one in the hotel was not of the same mind. Several times in the course of one short hour the Englishmen were driven to indulge in strong language, and the German to splutter and fume, by the inroad of a blast of chill air.

The hotel had not been constructed in such a way as to exclude draughts, and whenever the outer door was opened the cold air sweeping up the passages made itself felt in the saloon.

"Donner wetter!" said the German at last as the blast of cold air came in a continued stream, "I must find out all about zis. What can, zen, be ze meaning of it?"

"Some one out in the snow," suggested a mild young man with auburn hair and pale whiskers.

"But, my good friend, why not bring him in?" asked the puzzled German.

"Lost, pewhaps," replied the young man, puffing calmly.

"Lost, lost! but what may zat have to do wid ze door?"

"Anxious fwiends," replied the Englishman calmly--"excitable foweigners, I should say."

The German looked at him in a helpless way, scarcely certain whether, as a unit in that generic body known by the English under the name of foreigners, he ought to take notice of the implied slight. His indecision ended in a walk to the door of the room. It was clearly useless to regard the eccentricities of those proud islanders, he said to himself. If they _would_ persist in looking down on other and worthier nationalities, why so they might; they would find out their mistake some day. So absorbed was the German in his mental soliloquy that in passing out from the room he left the unhappy door open, and curses not loud but deep followed him from the proud islander he had left behind. The German found out in the mean time that his sensitive nature had not betrayed him. That the outer door was open became evident to him at once by the blast of keen air which swept up the dimly-lit passage.

Two figures were standing in the doorway, faintly shown by the light of the little oil-lamp that hung over the entrance. One was a fair-haired child, wrapped from head to foot in a scarlet cloak, the other was the landlord of the hotel.

He was stooping over the child, his face very red in the extremity of his effort to make her understand that it was impossible for her to go out in the snow.

"Mademoiselle--not go--snow cold--mademoiselle be wander--lose--nicht finden--" he was saying spasmodically, holding the door shut, while she, with her small strength, was struggling to open it.

"But--we can no permit--" he began more fluently.

The child interrupted him with tears and sobs: "Please let me only see if they are coming. Mon pere said he would come back to-night. He is lost. I thought yesterday he was going to die. Oh, please, I know the way he went. It's not very dark. I can always make him better."

The landlord was in despair. He wanted the assistance of some interpreter, and yet he was afraid to leave the child, lest she should give him the slip and run out into the snow.

The appearance of the German was a great relief, for this young man had not been accustomed to hide his light under a bushel. Wherever he went he exhibited his knowledge of English. Already that day the landlord had been astonished by his fluency in this most intricate and embarrassing tongue.

In a few words he described the situation to the new-comer. The German immediately addressed himself to the weeping child: "Your _papa_ is out in ze snow, my leetle maid."

The child's tears stopped; she raised her dark eyes pleadingly to his face: "Not my papa--mon pere. Oh, please take me to find him."

This was rather embarrassing. The compassionate German looked out into the snowy night: "Wid all my heart I would help you, liebe fraeulein, but you will no doubt perceive I know none of ze paths, and you--" He looked down at the tiny figure.

Almost unconsciously these two men had been answering that strange womanliness in the little face by treating this child as if she had been three times her age.

The German smiled and looked at the landlord: "Es ist nur ein kindlein." Then to Laura, with an assumption of sternness, "Leetle maids are sometimes weelful. Zey should understand zat ze elders know best. Come now wid me to ze fire."

He put out his hand to lead her, but Laura shrank back, her eyes growing large with fear. She did not understand being so treated by a stranger. It made her long all the more for her friend's protecting tenderness. She rejected the hand held out to her with all the dignity of one double her age: then suddenly her child-heart failed. She threw herself on her knees on the cold stones, pressed her forehead against the door and wailed out her childish plaint: "Mon pere! mon pere! come back to Laura."

The landlord shook his head helplessly, but the young German, who had always prided himself on a certain determination of character, looked stern. "Dis ees all folly," he said; "as I said just now, leetle maids must not be weelful. Komme mit, mademoiselle; or, as I should say, come wid me, mees."

He stooped to the little figure, all huddled together on the stones, and tried to raise it in his arms, but with sudden agility the child escaped him. She stopped crying and stood upright against the wall of the passage, facing her tormentor, her eyes and cheeks on flame.

"Go!" she cried, stamping her little foot. "Why do you speak to me? why do you touch me?"

And in spite of his boasted determination the German stood back abashed.

Proceedings were at this stage--the landlord helpless, the German doubtful about the next step that ought to be taken in the task of subduing this child, who partook so early of that proud island-nature which had already called for his reprobation, and Laura looking up at them both with more than a child's determination in her small face--when another actor appeared upon the scene.

Arthur had been sitting during all that afternoon alone in his room, thinking over the occurrences of the past days--now hoping, now despairing, as he reviewed in all its minutest details the interview of that day. He was torturing himself by recalling the eloquent words he had intended to use, but had not--the conclusive reasons he might have brought forward had he only remembered them at the right time--when there came to his ears the sound of a child's cry.

The voice was strangely familiar; at first he could not recall why it was so, for the memory of his humiliating defeat at Moscow had been swamped by the succession of exciting events that had followed it.

Curiosity led him to investigate the matter. He went down stairs, and the first sight of the little flushed face told its tale. This was Margaret's child. The second prize he had been seeking was actually within his grasp, and in his first excitement Arthur felt inclined to seize the child and carry her off whether she would or not. But experience, the two failures that preceded this most unlooked-for meeting, had taught him caution. This time he would not attempt to coerce the strange little being whom Fate had thrown in his way, but it was quite possible that he might win her over to confidence. Acting on this determination, he stood back in the shadow and bided his time.

The German was half ashamed of his irresolution. "Leetle maids must be sensible," Arthur heard him say, and as he spoke he tried once more to raise the child in his arms.

Laura gave a little frightened cry and turned hastily to run up the staircase, but only to find her way blocked by one she looked upon as another enemy. For even by that uncertain light she recognized in Arthur the man who had made an attempt upon her liberty at Moscow. But this time the child was desperate. She stood and faced him like a wild animal at bay.

"Let me pass, let me pass!" she cried.

He did not attempt to touch her, but, standing aside on the staircase, looked at her with kind, gentle eyes. "What is it, dear? is any one hurting you?" he asked.

The child looked up into the frank, boyish face and trusted him. "Perhaps you can help Laura," she said; "but--"

"I was foolish the other day," he said quietly; "I did not quite understand; you must forgive me."

"You wanted to take me away from mon pere, and now"--the child burst into tears--"mon pere is lost. Please, please take me to find him!"

"Come up stairs and tell me all about it, Laura. I will help you if I possibly can."

Then to the German, who was gazing at him open-mouthed, "Sir, this is the child of one of my dearest friends; I take her under my protection."

"As you like," replied he, and shrugged his shoulders. "Ze young man is offended," he muttered, "because I did not treat ze bebe like one great princess."

He returned to the stove, while Arthur drew from Laura all he desired to know. She had come there with "mon pere," as she always called L'Estrange. They were looking for papa. Early that day he had told her that he knew where her father was--that he would go away alone, and return in the evening to let her know if her father had been found. He was not very far away, he had said, and the little Laura had been waiting and watching all the evening. The evening had deepened into night, and still her friend had not come back. He must be lost.

This was the burden of her simple tale. It made Arthur think. What could be the meaning of this? Had a sudden repentance seized this man? Had he really determined to find Maurice Grey and tell him the actual truth about his deserted wife? Or could any other motive have moved him to seek his enemy? No, no; human wickedness could not surely go so far. With this man's child in his grasp, this child, whose pure affection he had undoubtedly won, it was not possible; and yet if the enemies had met alone, face to face, in the great solitude--The young man shuddered.

"Laura," he said, turning to the little one, "I must find them at once."

The child clung about his knees: "Oh, take me with you! Please, please take me! I can make mon pere well when no one else can--he says so."

Arthur did not answer at first. He was thinking. He rang the bell and made inquiries about a guide, for it would have been dangerous on such a night to have made the attempt alone. He ascertained that it would be possible to obtain one with very little delay.

The distance which separated them from the chalet was not great. They would be two men. The child might easily be carried between them, and it was more than probable that her presence would do more than anything else to allay the fever-heat of the two men, one of whom must love her instinctively, while the other evidently loved her deeply already. The only fear--and it shot through Arthur's heart like a pain--was that they might be too late--that already in the fierce anger of that moment, in the awful solitude one of these two might have taken the life of the other.

"If I had only known, if I could only have guessed, I should never have left him," he said to himself.

But Laura was still looking up at him anxiously. He answered her with a smile: "If you will wrap yourself up well, little one, and submit to be carried."

"Yes, yes," answered the child joyfully; "mon pere carries me sometimes; but"--she stopped, and there came a cloud over her face--"I will tire you; I am heavy."

She was answered by a knock at the door. There appeared on the threshold the burly figure of one of the true sons of the soil. He was accustomed to much heavier burdens than the little Laura, wraps and all. The honest Swiss was at a loss to understand why this little maiden should go with them on such a search, but he did not express his feelings in any way. He lifted her as lightly as if she had been a bird, placed her on his shoulder, and in a few moments the hotel, the astonished landlord, the hurt German and the glimmering village-lights were left in the distance.

The little party--the two men and the child--were threading the dark, lonely mountain-path that led to the chalet.

It was a strange experience for a child like Laura, but happily for herself she did not understand its strangeness. All she knew was that her wish was being accomplished--that, guided and befriended, she was hastening through the night to find her two fathers.

Blessed is the faith of earth's little ones!

I wonder if the reason for it is that "in heaven their angels do always behold the face of the Father"?