TITA'S WAGER. [William Black, born in Glasgow, November, 1841. Novelist and journalist. His chief works are: Love or Marriage; In Silk Attire: Kilmeny; The Monarch of Mincing Lane; A Daughter of Heth; The Strange Adven tures of a Phaeton; A Princess of Thule; Three Feathers; Madcap Violet: Macleod of Dare, &c. The Spectator says that in his work "there is a mingling of humour of the raciest with pathos most truly simple and dignified." Another critic says: "He contrives by delicate, subtile, but sure touches to win the interest of his readers, and to retain it till the last volume is laid down with reluctance." On the Coutinent and in America, as well as in England, Mr. Black has obtained general recognition as one of our best and most distinguished writers of fiction. He was sometime editor of the London Review, subsequently of the Examiner, and has been for several years on the editorial staff of the London Daily News. The following sketch is quoted from the Christmas number (1873) of the Illustrated London News.] CHAPTER I. FRANZISKA. It is a Christmas morning-cold, still, and gray, with a frail glimmer of sunshine coming through the bare trees to melt the hoar-frost on the lawn. The postman has just gone out, swinging the gate behind him. A fire burns brightly in the breakfast-room; and there is silence about the house, for the children have gone off to climb Box-hill before being marched to church. The small and gentle lady who presides over this household walks sedately in, and lifts the solitary letter that is lying on her plate. About three seconds suffice to let her run through its contents, and then she suddenly cries "I knew it! I said it! I told you two months ago she was only flirting with him; and now she has rejected him. And oh! I am so glad of it! The poor boy!" The other person in the room, who has been meekly waiting for his breakfast for half an hour, ventures to point out that there is nothing to rejoice over in the fact of a young man having been rejected by a young woman. "If it were final, yes! If these two young folks were not certain to go and marry somebody else, you might congratulate them both. But you know they will. The poor boy will go courting again in three months' time, and be vastly pleased with his condition." Charlie! Now I hope he will get on with his profession, and leave such things out of his head. And as for that creature' "I will do you the justice to say," observes her husband, who is still regarding the table with a longing eye, "that you did oppose this match, because you hadn't the making of it. If you had brought these two together they would have been married ere this. Never mind; you can marry him to somebody of your own choosing, now." "No; he must not think of marriage. He cannot think of it. It will take the poor lad a long time to get over this blow." "He will marry within a year." "I will bet you whatever you like that he doesn't," she says, triumphantly. "Whatever I like! That is a big wager. If you lose, do you think you could pay? I should like, for example, to have my own way in my own house." "If I lose you shall," says the generous creature; and the bargain is concluded. Nothing further is said about this matter for the moment. The children return from Box-hill, and are rigged out for church. Two young people, friends of ours, and recently married, having no domestic circle of their own, and, having promised to spend the whole of Christmas-day with us, arrive. Then we set out, trying as much as possible to think that Christmas-day is different from any other day, and pleased to observe that the younger folk, at least, preserve the delusion. But just before we reach the church, I say to the small lady who got the letter in the morning, and whom we generally call Tita— "When do you expect to see Charlie?" "I don't know,' "she answers. "After this cruel affair he won't like to go about much." "You remember that he promised to ge with us to the Black Forest?" “Yes; and I am sure it will be a pleasant trip for him." "Shall we go to Hüferschingen?" "I suppose so." Franziska is a pretty girl." Now, you would not think that any great mischief could be done by the mere remark that Franziska was a pretty girl. Anybody who had seen Franziska Fahler, niece of the proprietor of the "Goldenen Bock" in Hüferschingen would admit that in a moment. But this is nevertheless true, that Tita was very thoughtful during the rest of our walk to this little church; and in church, too, she was thinking so deeply that she almost forgot to look at the effect of the decorations she had | relieved. But by-and-by he began to make acquaintances in the hotels; and, as he was a handsome, English-looking lad, who bore a certificate of honesty in his clear gray eyes and easy gait, he was rather made much of. Nor could any fault be decently found with his appetite. So we passed on from Königswinter to Coblentz, and from Coblentz to Heidelberg, and from Heidelberg south to Freiburg, where we bade adieu to the last of the towns, and laid hold of a trap with a pair of ancient and angular horses, and plunged into the Höllenthal, the first great gorge of the Black Forest mountains. From one point to another we slowly urged our devious course, walking the most of the day indeed, and putting the trap and ourselves up for the night at some quaint roadside hostelry, where we ate of roe-deer and drank of Affenthaler, and endeavoured to speak German with a pure Waldshut accent. And then one evening, when there was a clear green At dinner, in the evening, we had our two guests and a few young fellows from London who did not happen to have their families or homes there. Curiously enough, there was a vast deal of talk about travelling, and also about Baden, and more particularly about the southern districts of Baden. Tita said the Black Forest was the most charming place in the world; and as it was Christmas-day, and as we had been listening to a sermon all about charity, and kindness, and consideration for others, nobody was rude enough to contradict | her. But our forbearance was put to a severe test when, after dinner, she produced a photographic album and handed it round, and challenged everybody to say whether the young lady in the corner was not absolutely lovely. Most of them said that she was certainly very nice-looking; and Tita seemed a little dis-and-gold sky overhead, and when the last rays appointed. I perceived that it would no longer do to say that Franziska was a pretty girl. We should henceforth have to swear by everything we held dear, that she was absolutely lovely. CHAPTER II. ZUM GOLDENEN BOCK. of the sun were shining along the hills and touching the stems of the tall pines, we drove into a narrow valley and caught sight of a strange building of wood, with projecting eaves and quaint windows that stood close by the forest. "Here is my dear inn," cried Tita, with a great glow of delight and affection in her face." "Here is mein gutes Thal! Ich grüss' dich ein tausend Mal! And here is old Peter come out to see us; and there is Franziska!" We felt some pity for the lad when we took him abroad with us; but it must be confessed that at first he was not a very desirable travelling "Oh! this is Franziska, is it?" said Charlie. companion. There was a gloom about him. Yes, this was Franziska. She was a wellDespite the eight months that had elapsed, he built, handsome girl of nineteen or twenty, professed that his old wound was still open. with a healthy sun-burnt complexion, and Tita treated him with the kindest maternal dark hair plaited into two long tails, which were solicitude, which was a great mistake: tonics, taken up and twisted into a knot behind. That not sweets, are required in such cases. Yet you could see from a distance. But on nearer he was very grateful; and he said, with a blush, approach you found that Franziska had really that, in any case, he would not rail against fine and intelligent features, and a pair of all women because of the badness of one. In- frank, clear, big brown eyes that had a very deed, you would not have fancied he had any straight look about them. They were somegreat grudge against womankind. There were thing of the eyes of a deer, indeed; wide apart, a great many English abroad that autumn, soft, and apprehensive, yet looking with a and we met whole batches of pretty girls at certain directness and unconsciousness that every station and every table d'hôte on our overcame her natural girlish timidity. Tita route. Did he avoid them, or glare at them simply flew at her and kissed her heartily, savagely, or say hard things of them? Oh, no! and asked her twenty questions at once. -quite the reverse. He was a little shy at Franziska answered in very fair English, a first; and when he saw a party of distressed little slow and formal, but quite grammatical. damsels in a station, with their bewildered Then she was introduced to Charlie, and she father in vain attempting to make himself shook hands with him in a simple and unemunderstood to a porter, he would assist them barrassed way, and then she turned to one of in a brief and business-like manner, as if it the servants and gave some directions about were a duty, lift his cap, and then march off, the luggage. Finally, she begged Tita to go TITA'S WAGER. indoors and get off her travelling attire, which was done, leaving us two outside. "She's a very pretty girl," Charlie said, carelessly. "I suppose she's sort of head cook and kitchen-maid here." The impudence of these young men is something extraordinary. 66 "If you wish to have your head in your 'just you repeat hands," I remarked to him, that remark at dinner. Why, Franziska is no end of a swell. She has two thousand pounds and the half of a mill. She has a sister married to the Geheimer-Ober-Hof baurath of HesseCassel. She has visited both Paris and Munich; and she has her dresses made in Fribourg. "But why does such an illustrious creature bury herself in this valley, and in an old inn, and go about bareheaded?" "Because there are folks in the world without ambition, who like to live a quiet, decent, homely life. Every girl can't marry a Geheimer-Ober-Hofbaurath. Ziska, now, is much more likely to marry the young doctor here." "Oh, indeed! and live here all her days. She couldn't do better. Happy Franziska!" We went indoors. It was a low, large, rambling place, with one immense room all hung round with roe-deers' horns, and with one lesser room fitted up with a billiard-table. The inn lay a couple of hundred yards back from Hüferschingen, but it had been made the head-quarters of the keepers, and just outside this room were a number of pegs for them to sling their guns and bags on when they came in of an evening to have a pipe and a chopin of white wine. Ziska's uncle and aunt were both large, stout, and somnolent people, very good-natured and kind, but a trifle dull. Ziska really had the management of the place, and she was not slow to lend a hand if the servants were remiss in waiting on us. But that, it was understood, was done out of compliment to Tita. 99 By-and-by we sat down to dinner, and Franziska came to see that everything was going on straight. It was a dinner "with scenery." You forgot to be particular about the soup, the venison, and the Affenthaler, when from the window at your elbow you could look across the narrow valley and behold a long stretch of the Black Forest shining in the red glow of the sunset. The lower the sun sank the more intense became the crimson light on the tall stems of the pines; and then you could see the line of shadow slowly rising up the side of the opposite hill until only the topmost Then these, trees were touched with the fire. | too, lost it, and all the forest around us seemed to have a pale blue mist stealing over it as the night fell and the twilight faded out of the sky overhead. Presently the long undulations of fir would grow black, and the stars would come out, and the sound of the stream be heard distantly in the hollow; and then, as Tita knew, we should go off for a last stroll in among the soft moss and under the darkness of the pines, perhaps to startle some great capercailzie and send it flying and whirring down the glades. When we returned from that prowl into the forest we found the inn dark. Such people as may have called in had gone home; but we suspected that Franziska had given the neighbours a hint not to overwhelm us on our first arrival. When we entered the big room Franziska came in with candles; then she brought some matches, and also put on the table an odd little pack of cards, and went out. Her uncle and aunt had, even before we went out, come and bade us good-night formally and shaken hands all round. They are early folk in the Black Forest. "Where has that girl gone now?" said "Into that lonely billiard-room? Charlie. Couldn't you ask her to come in here? Or shall we go and play billiards?" Tita stares, and then demurely smiles; but it is with an assumed severity that she rebukes him for such a wicked proposal, and reminda Then she takes her leave. him that he must start early next morning. He groans assent. The big young man sits silent for a moment or two, with his hands in his pockets and his I begin to think I am in legs stretched out. for it-the old story of blighted hopes, and angry denunciation, and hypocritical joy, and But suddenly Charlie looks all the rest of it. up with a business-like air, and says, "Who is that doctor fellow you were speaking about? Shall we see him to-morrow?" "You saw him to-night. It was he who passed us on the road with the two beagles." "What, that little fellow with the bandy legs and the spectacles?" he cries, with a great laugh. "That little fellow," I observe to him, "is a person of some importance, I can tell you. He" "I suppose his sister married a GeheimerOber-under- what the dickens is it?" says this disrespectful young man. er. "Dr. Krumm has got the Iron Cross." "He was at Weissemburg." "I suppose he got that cast in the eye | He thought Krumm a plain person. And there." "He can play the zither in a way that would astonish you. He has got a little money. Franziska and he would be able to live very comfortably together." "Franziska and that fellow?" says Charlie; and then he rises with a sulky air, and proposes we should take our candles with us. But he is not sulky very long; for Ziska, hearing our footsteps, comes to the passage and bids us a friendly good-night. "Good-night, Miss Fahler!" he says, in rather a shamefaced way; "and I am so awfully sorry we have kept you up so late. We shan't do it again." You would have thought by his manner that it was two o'clock; whereas it was only halfpast eleven! CHAPTER III. DR. KRUMM. There was no particular reason why Dr. Krumm should marry Franziska Fahler, except that he was the most important young man in Hüferschingen, and she was the most important young woman. People therefore thought they would make a good match; although Franziska certainly had the most to give in the way of good looks. Dr. Krumm was a short bandy-legged, sturdy young man, with long fair hair, a tanned complexion, light blue eyes, not quite looking the same way, spectacles, and a general air of industrious commonsense about him, if one may use such a phrase. There was certainly little of the lover in his manner towards Ziska, and as little in hers towards him. They were very good friends, though, and he called her Ziska, while she gave him his nickname of Fidelio, his real name being Fidele. Now on this, the first morning of our stay in Hüferschingen, all the population had turned out at an early hour to see us set out for the forest; and as the Ober-Förster had gone away to visit his parents in Bavaria, Dr. Krumm was appointed to superintend the operations of the day. And when everybody was busy renewing acquaintance with us, gathering in the straying dogs, examining guns and cartridge-belts, and generally aiding in the profound commotion of our setting out, Dr. Krumm was found to be talking in a very friendly and familiar manner with our pretty Franziska. Charlie eyed them askance. He began to say disrespectful things of Krumm. then, when the bandy-legged doctor had got all the dogs, keepers, and beaters together, we set off along the road, and presently plunged into the cool shade of the forest, where the thick moss suddenly silenced our footsteps, and where there was a moist and resinous smell in the air. Well, the incidents of the forenoon's shooting, picturesque as they were, and full of novelty to Tita's protégé, need not be described. At the end of the fourth drive, when we had got on nearly to luncheon-time, it appeared that Charlie had killed a handsome buck, and he was so pleased with this performance that he grew friendly with Dr. Krumm, who had, indeed, given him the haupt-stelle. But when, as we sat down to our sausages and bread and red wine, Charlie incidentally informed our commander-in-chief that, during one of the drives, a splendid yellow fox had come out of the underwood and stood and stared at him for three or four seconds, the doctor uttered a cry of despair. "I should have told you that," he said in English, that was not quite so good as Ziska's, "if I had remembered, yes! The English will not shoot the foxes; but they are very bad for us, they kill the young deer, we are glad to shoot them; and Franziska she told me she wanted a yellow fox for the skin to make something." Charlie got very red in the face. He had missed a chance. If he had known that Franziska wanted a yellow fox, all the instinctive veneration for that animal that was in him would have gone clean out, and the fate of the animal-for Charlie was a capital shot would have been definitely sealed. ily. "Are there many of them?" said he, gloom "No; not many. But where there is one there are generally four or five. In the next drive we may come on them, yes! I will put you in a good place, sir; and you must not think of letting him go away, for Franziska, who has waited two, three weeks, and not one yellow fox not anywhere, and it is for the variety of the skin in a—a—. I do not know what you call it." "A rug, I suppose," said Charlie. I subsequently heard that Charlie went to his post with a fixed determination to shoot anything of yellow colour that came near him. His station was next to that of Dr. Krumm; but of course they were invisible to each other. The horns of the beaters sounded a warning, the gunners cocked their guns and stood on the alert; in the perfect silence each one waited for the first glimmer of a brown hide down the long green glades of young fir. Then, according to Charlie's account, by went two or three deer like lightning-all does. A buck came last, but swerved just as he came in sight, and backed and made straight for the line of beaters. Two more does, and then an absolute blank. One or two shots had been heard at a distance; either some of the more distant stations had been more fortunate, or one or other of the beaters had tried his luck. Suddenly there was a shot fired close to Charlie-he knew it must have been the doctor. In about a minute afterwards he saw some pale yellow object slowly worming its way through the ferns; and here, at length, he made sure he was going to get his yellow fox. But, just as the animal came within fair distance, it turned over, made a struggle or two, and lay still. Charlie rushed along to the spot; it was, indeed, a yellow fox, shot in the head, and now as dead as a doornail. What was he to do? Let Dr. Krumm take home this prize to Franziska, after he had had such a chance in the forenoon? Never! Charlie fired a barrel into the air, and then calmly awaited the coming up of the beaters and the drawing together of the sportsmen. Dr. Krumm, being at the next station, was the first to arrive. He found Charlie standing by the side of the slain fox. "Ha!" he said, his spectacles apparently gleaming delight, "you have shotted him! You have killed him! That is very good! that is excellent! Now, you will present the skin to Miss Franziska, if you do not wish to take it to England." "Oh, no!" said Charlie, with a lordly in difference. "I don't care about it. Franziska may have it." Charlie pulled me aside, and said, with a solemn wink, "Krumm shot that fox. Mind you don't say a word. I must have the skin to present to Franziska." I stared at him; I had never known him guilty of a dishonest action. But when you do get a decent young English fellow condescending to do anything shabby, be sure it is a girl that is the cause. I said nothing, of course; and in the evening a trap came for us, and we drove back to Hüferschingen. Tita clapped her hands with delight; for Charlie was a favourite of hers, and now he was returning like a hero, with a sprig of fir in his cap to show that he had killed a buck. "And here, Miss Franziska," he says, quite I was gaily, "here is a yellow fox for you. told that you wanted the skin of one." Franziska fairly blushed for pleasure; not that the skin of a fox was very valuable to her, but that the compliment was so open and marked. She came forward, in German fashion, and rather shyly shook hands with him, in token of her thanks. When Tita was getting ready for dinner I told her about the yellow fox. A married man must have no secrets. "He is not capable of such a thing," she says, with a grand air. "But he did it," I more, he glories in it. point out. "What is What did he say when I remonstrated with him on the way home? Why,' says he, 'I will put an end to Krumm! I will abolish Krumm! I will extinguish Krumm!' Now, madam, who is responsible for this? Who has been praising Franziska night and day as the sweetest, gentlest, cleverest girl in the world, until this young man determines to have a flirtation with her and astonish you?" "Oh "A flirtation!" says Tita, faintly. no! Oh! I never meant that.' "Ask him just now, and he will tell you that women deserve no better. They have no hearts. They are treacherous. They have beautiful eyes, but no conscience. And so he means to take them as they are, and have his measure of amusement." "Oh! I am sure he never said anything so abominably wicked," cries Tita, laying down the rose that Franziska had given her for her hair. “I know he could not say such things. But if he is so wicked-if he has said themit is not too late to interfere. I will see about it." She drew herself up as if Jupiter had suddenly armed her with his thunderbolts. If Charlie had seen her at this moment he would have quailed. He might, by chance, have told the truth, and confessed that all the wicked things he had been saying about women's affection was only a sort of rhetoric; and that he had no sort of intention to flirt with poor Franziska, nor yet to extinguish and annihilate Dr. Krumm. The heart-broken boy was in very good spirits at dinner. He was inclined to wink. Tita, on the contrary, maintained an impressive dignity of demeanour; and when Franziska's name happened to be mentioned, she spoke of the young girl as her very particular friend, as though she would dare Charlie to attempt a flirtation with one who held that honour. But the young man was either blind or reck |