CHAPTER VII

WAGER OF BATTLE

That evening at the _Wirthshaus_, as things turned out, Will and Florian

had an excellent opportunity afforded them of observing for themselves

the manners and customs of the Tyrolese Robbler. There was a dance at

the inn—a prodigious dance, of truly national severity. It was the eve

of a wedding, and, as is usual on such occasions, the peasants of the

neighbourhood had assembled in full force to drink good luck to the

forthcoming union. The _Gaststube_ or bar-room was crowded with a gay

throng of bright and merry faces. The young men were there, jaunty,

bold, and defiant; the old men, austere and stern of feature from the

hardships of long life among the grim-faced mountains. Groups of

black-eyed lasses stood about the room and bandied repartee with their

gaily-dressed admirers; matrons, unspoilt by conventional restraint,

instead of checking their mirth, looked on smiling and abetting them.

Through the midst, the Herr Vicar strolled, stout and complaisant, an

easy-going man; not his to stem the tide of their innocent merriment; so

long as they confessed twelve times a year, and subscribed to release

their parents’ souls from purgatory, he sanctified by his presence the

beer and the dances. Andreas Hausberger, too, flitted here and there

through the crowd with an anxious eye; ’twas his task to provide for and

protect the bodies of his guests, as ’twas the Herr Vicar’s to save

their priceless souls from undue temptation.

At one end of the room, on a little raised platform, the music sat

installed;—a trombone, a zither, and a wooden hackbrettle made up the

whole orchestra. Scarcely had the performers struck up an enlivening

tune when the men, selecting as partners the girls of their choice,

began to dance round the hall in the very peculiar and (to say the whole

truth) extremely ungraceful Tyrolean fashion. Will and Florian had heard

from the landlord beforehand of the expected feast, to which they were

not invited; but, “at the sound of the harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all

kinds of music,” as Florian phrased it, their curiosity was so deeply

aroused that they crept from their sitting-room and peeped cautiously in

at the door of the _Tanzboden_. The sight that met their eyes in that

close-packed hall was sufficiently striking. Even Florian allowed this

was utterly Arcadian. For a minute or two, just at first, the young men

and maidens, grasping each other wildly round the neck and waist with

both their arms, in a sort of bear-like death-hug, whirled and eddied in

a maze round and round the room, stamping their heavy boots, till Will

almost trembled for the stability of the rafters. For some time that was

all: they twisted and twirled in closely-coupled pairs, clasped breast

to breast, like so many dancing dervishes. But, of a sudden, at a change

of the music, as if by magic, with one accord, the whole figure altered.

Each man, letting his partner go, began suddenly to perform a series of

strange antics and evolutions around her, the relics of some

pre-historic dance, of which the snapping of fingers and uttering of

_heuchs_ in a Highland fling are but a faint and colourless

reminiscence. As the reel went on, the music grew gradually faster and

faster, and the motions of the men still more savage and fantastic. The

two Englishmen looked on in astonishment and admiration. Such agility

and such verve they had never before seen or even dreamt of. Could these

rustic cavaliers be really made of india-rubber? They twisted and turned

and contorted themselves all the time with such obliviousness of their

bones, and such extraordinary energy! They smacked their lips and

tongues as they went; they jumped high into the air; they bent back till

their heads touched the ground behind; they bounded upright once more to

regain their position like elastic puppets, and, in between whiles, they

slapped their resounding thighs with their horny hands; they crowed like

cocks; they whistled like capercailzie; they stamped on the ground with

their hob-nailed shoes; they shouted and sang, and clicked their tongues

in their cheeks, and made unearthly noises deep down in their throats

for which language has as yet no articulate equivalent. Florian gazed

and glowered. And well he might; ’twas an orgie of strange sound, a

phantasmagoria of whirling and eddying motion.

While all this was going on, the two young Englishmen stood undecided

and observant by the lintel of the door, even Florian half-abashed at so

much unwonted merriment. But after a while, the Herr Vicar, whose

acquaintance they had already made among the stones of the churchyard,

spied them out by the entrance, and, with one hospitable fat forefinger

extended and crooked, beckoned them into the _Tanzboden_. “Come on,” he

cried, “come on; there’s room enough for all; our people are still glad

to entertain the Herr strangers: for some, unawares, have thus

entertained angels.”

So encouraged by the authorised mouthpiece of the parish, Will and

Florian stepped boldly into the crowded room, and watched the little

groups of stalwart young men and nut-brown lasses with all the interest

of unexpected novelty. The scene was indeed a picturesque and curious

one. Every Tyrolese is, or has been, or wishes to be thought, a mountain

hunter. So each man wore his hat, adorned with the trophies of his

prowess in the chase; with some, ’twas a _gamsbart_, or so-called

chamois’ beard—the tuft of coarse hair that grows high like a crest

along the creature’s back in the pairing season; with others, ’twas the

tail-feathers of the glossy blackcock, stuck saucily on one side, with

that perky air of self-satisfied assurance so characteristic of hot

youth in the true-born Tyroler. Glancing around the room, however, Will

saw at a single look that two young men alone among that eager crowd

wore their feathers with a difference—the “hook” being turned round in

the opposite direction from all their neighbours’. One of these two was

a tall and big-built young man of very florid complexion, with a scar on

his forehead; the other was their fiery friend of that morning on the

hills, Franz Lindner. From what Linnet had said, Will guessed at once by

the turn of the feather that both young men went in for being considered

Robblers.

As he turned to impart his conjecture to Florian, Linnet caught his eye

mutely from a corner by the mantelpiece. She wasn’t taking part in the

reel herself, so, undaunted by his experience of Franz Lindner that day,

Will strolled over to her side, followed close at heel by Florian. “You

don’t dance?” he said, bending over her with as marked politeness as he

would have shown to a lady in a London drawing-room.

“No; I may not,” Linnet answered, in her pretty broken English, with a

smile of not unnatural womanly pleasure that the strangers should thus

single her out before all her folk for so much personal attention. “I

have refuse Franz Lindner, so may I not dance this time with any one. It

is our custom so. When a girl shall refuse to dance with a man first,

she may not that turn accept any other. Nor may he, in turn, ask her

again that evening.”

“How delightful!” Florian cried, effusively. “Franz Lindner’s loss is

our gain, Fräulein Linnet. No; don’t frown at me like that; it _must_ be

Fräulein; I’ve too much respect for you to call you otherwise. But,

anyhow, we’ll sit out this dance and talk with you.”

“And I,” Will put in with a quiet smile, “I’ll call you Linnet, because

you prefer it.”

“Thank you,” Linnet said, shyly, with a grateful flash of her eyes, and

a side glance towards Franz Lindner; “it seems less as if you mock at

me.”

As they spoke, the figure changed of a sudden once more to a still

stranger movement. The women, falling apart, massed themselves together

in a central group, in attitudes expressive of studied indifference and

inattention to the men; their partners, on the contrary, placing

themselves full in front of them, began a series of most extraordinary

twists and twirls, accompanied by loud cries or snapping of fingers, and

endeavoured by every means in the power, both of lungs and limbs, to

compel their disdainful coquettes to take notice of their antics. While

they stood there and watched—Linnet with eyes askance on Franz

Lindner’s face—Andreas Hausberger strolled up, and took his place

beside them.

“Why, that’s the blackcock’s call!” Will exclaimed, with a start of

recognition, as the dancers, with one accord, uttered all in a chorus a

shrill and piercing note of challenge and defiance. “I’ve heard it on

the mountains.”

“Yes,” the _wirth_ assented; “that’s the blackcock’s call, and this,

that they’re doing, is the blackcock’s love-dance. In the springtime, on

the mountains, you know, the blackcocks and the grey hens assemble in

their dancing place—their _Tanzboden_ we call it, just the same as we

call this one. There, the hens stand aside, and pretend to be coy, and

take no notice of their mates, like the girls in this dance here; while

the blackcock caper in front of them, and flap their wings, and fluff

their necks, and do all they know to display their strength and beauty.

Whoever dances the most and best, gets most of the hens to join his

harem. So our young men have got up this love-dance to imitate them;

they flap their arms the same way, and give the blackcock’s challenge.

Nature’s pretty much the same above and below, I guess—especially here

in the Tyrol, where we haven’t yet learned to hide our feelings under

smooth silk hats as you do in England. But it’s all good for trade, and

that’s the great thing. It makes them thirsty. You’ll see, after this

bout, the beer will flow like water.”

And, sure enough, the _wirth_ was right. As soon as the dance was ended,

young men and maidens, with equal zest, betook themselves, all alike, to

the consolations of the beer-jug. Their thirst was mighty. And no

wonder, indeed, for this Tyrolese dancing is no drawing-room game, but

hard muscular exercise. Andreas Hausberger looked on with a cynical

smile on those thin, cold lips of his. “It’s good for trade,” he

murmured again, half to himself, once or twice, as the girls at the bar

filled the beer-mugs merrily; “very good for trade. So are all

amusements. That’s the way the foolish get rid of their money—and the

wise get hold of it.”

After the beer came a pause, a long, deep-drawn pause; and then two

young men, standing out from the throng, began to sing alternately at

one another in short Tyrolese stanzas. One of them was Franz Lindner;

the other was the young man with the scar on his forehead, whom Linnet

described as her cousin Fridolin. What they sang, neither Florian nor

Will could make out, for the words of the song were in the roughest form

of the mountain dialect; but it was clear from their manner, and the way

they flung out their words point blank at one another’s heads, that they

improvised as they went, like Virgilian shepherds, and that their

remarks were by no means either polite or complimentary in substance or

character. The rest stood round in a circle and listened, laughing

heartily at times as each in turn scored a point now and then off his

angry rival; while Linnet and the other girls blushed again and again at

some audacious retort, though the bolder among the women only tittered

to themselves or looked up with arch glances at each risky allusion.

Andreas Hausberger too, stood by, all alert to keep the peace; it was

plain from the quick light in his resolute eye, and the rapid upward

movement of his twitching hand, he was ready at a moment’s notice to

intervene between the combatants, and put a stop in the nick of time to

the scoffing contest of defiance and derision.

The song, however, passed off without serious breach of the peace. Then

more dances followed, more beer, and more bucolic contests. As the

evening wore on, the fun grew fast and furious. On the stroke of twelve,

the Herr Vicar withdrew—not one hour too early; his flock were fast

getting beyond control of his counsels. Linnet and a few others of the

more modest-looking girls now sat out from the dance; the rest continued

to whirl round and round the room in still wilder and more fantastic

movements than ever. Andreas Hausberger was now yet more clearly on the

alert. A stray spark would raise a flame in that magazine of gunpowder.

Suddenly, at the end of the first dance after the priest’s departure,

the young man with the scar on his forehead, called Cousin Fridolin,

came forward unexpectedly to where Linnet sat aside between Will

Deverill and Florian. He had danced with her once before in the course

of the evening, and Will observed that through that dance Franz

Lindner’s eyes had never been taken off his rival and Linnet. But now

the tall young man came forward with a dash, and without one word of

warning, placed his conical hat, blackcock’s feather and all, with a

jodel of challenge, on Linnet’s forehead. They had seen the same thing

done before more than once that evening, and Linnet had explained to

them that the custom was equivalent to a declaration of love for the

lady so honoured—’twas as much as to say, “This girl is mine; who

disputes it?” But as the tall young man stood back with a smile of

triumph on his handsome lips, one hand on his hip, staring fixedly at

Linnet, Franz Lindner sprang forth with a face as black as night, and a

brow like thunder. Trembling with rage, he seized the hat from her head,

and tore hastily from its band the offending plume. “Was kost die

Feder?” he cried, in a tone of angry contempt, holding it up in his hand

before the eyes of its owner; “Was kost die Feder?” which is, being

interpreted, “How much for your feather?”

Quick as lightning, the answer rang out, “Fünf Finger und ein

Griff”—“Five fingers and a grip.” It is the customary challenge of the

Tyrolese Robbler, and the customary acceptance.

Before Will had time to understand what was happening next, in the crack

of a finger, in the twinkle of an eye, the two young men had closed,

with hands and arms and bodies, and were grappling with each other in a

deadly struggle. All night long they had been watching and provoking one

another; all night long they had vied in their attentions to Linnet, and

their studious interchange of mutual insults. Sooner or later a fight

seemed inevitable. Now, flown with insolence and beer, and heated from

the dance, they flung themselves together, with one accord, like two

tigers in their fury. Linnet clapped her hands to her ears, and shut her

eyes in horror. For a minute or two, it seemed to every looker-on as

though there would be bloodshed in the inn that evening. Florian

observed this little episode with philosophic interest; ’twas pleasant

to watch these simple dramas of the primary emotions—love, jealousy,

passion—still working themselves out as on the stage of Hellas. He had

never before seen them so untrammelled in their play; he stood here face

to face with Homeric simplicity.

In five minutes, however, to his keen disappointment, the whole scene

was finished. Andreas Hausberger, that cool, calm man of the world,

perceiving at a glance that such contests in his inn were very bad for

trade, and that ’twould be a pity for him to lose by a violent death so

good a singer, or so constant a customer, interposed his heavy hand

between the angry combatants. Your half-tipsy man, be he even a

Tyrolese, though often quarrelsome, is usually placable. A short

explanation soon set everything right again. Constrained by Herr

Andreas, with his imperious will, the two Robblers consented, after

terms interchanged, to drown their differences in more mugs of beer, and

then retire for the evening. The young man with the scar, whom they

called Cousin Fridolin, regretted that he had interfered with Franz

Lindner’s maiden, but excused his act as a mere hasty excess of cousinly

feeling. Franz Lindner in return, not to be outdone in magnanimity,

though still with flashing eyes, and keen side-glance at Linnet,

regretted that he had offered such indignity in his haste to the

dishonoured symbol of his comrade’s championship. Hands were shaken all

round; cuts and bruises were tended; and, almost as soon as said, to

Florian’s infinite disgust, the whole party had settled down by the

tables once more, on an amicable basis, to beer and conversation.

But before they retired from that evening’s revel, Linnet murmured to

Will in a tone of remonstrance very real and aggrieved, “Franz Lindner

had no right to call me his _Mädchen_.”