01 The School at the Chalet (18 page)

Gisela, Gertrud, Bette, and Bernhilda attached themselves to Miss Bettany, and were soon eagerly comparing the differences of Cornish picnics and Tyrolean ones. Miss Maynard and Mademoiselle were discussing Paris, which the former knew very well, since she had been at school there. The little ones, needless to state, chased butterflies and gathered flowers; while Joey, Grizel, and Simone, for once in complete accord, strolled along amiably talking about their climb. Presently they came within sight of the Tiernjoch, even in this day of glorious sunshine dark and gloomy, with a hint of menace in its towering crags. Grizel stopped and tilted back her head, looking at it with a determined gleam in her eyes.

‘I’ll go up there some day,’ she said aloud.

Joey followed her eyes. ‘The Tiernjoch? Oh, Grizel, I wish you wouldn’t!’

‘Don’t be silly! It’s only a little climb! ‘Tisn’t even as if there were any glacier to cross!’ retorted Grizel.

‘Why, there’s no snow or anything!’

‘It’s such a cruel-looking mountain!’ said Jo with a little shiver. ‘It looks as if it didn’t care how many people were killed on it!’

‘Joey! Tosh! That’s only your silly imaginings!’ began Grizel. Then the sudden whiteness of her friend’s face made her sorry she had mentioned it, so she added, ‘Anyway, I’m not going to-day-or this week either, so keep your hair on!’

‘I think you are unkind, Grizel!’ broke in Simone unexpectedly. ‘Always you tease, tease Joey! And she hates the Tiernjoch!’

‘Tisn’t your business! ‘ Grizel was beginning heatedly, when Joey stopped her.

‘Oh, shut up quarrelling, you two! An’ if you mention that beastly Tiernjoch again, Grizel Cochrane, I’ll go away, an’ you can walk with someone else! So there!’ And she marched ahead, leaving Grizel and Simone to follow meekly after her.

Luckily, at that moment, loud screams from Amy Stevens distracted everyone’s attention to her, as she came flying down the slope, yelling at the full pitch of her lungs, ‘Ooh! Ooh! A snake! A snake!’

‘What!’ exclaimed Madge. She started forward, catching up the frightened child. ‘Amy! Are you hurt?

Stop crying, dear, and tell me!’

‘No, she isn’t!’ Margia supplied the information disgustedly. ‘She saw a little greeny snake curled up asleep by that stone, and so she howled! It never came near her!’

‘Thank Heaven!’ Madge set the child on her feet again with a sigh of relief. There were very few snakes found round the Tiern See, and, so far as she knew, the only venomous ones were vipers, which were even more rarely seen than the harmless green variety; but Amy’s shrieks had scared her for the moment. ‘There’s nothing to cry about, Amy,’ she added. ‘If you scream when you only see a snake, you aren’t a very plucky person, are you? Now dry your eyes and stop crying. And, girls, don’t go into the long grass, please.’

‘It will be all right, Madame,’ said Gisela seriously. ‘Snakes prefer the sun, and that grass is in the shadow, and is cold.’

‘Nevertheless, I shall feel safer if you keep more to the path,’ returned her headmistress decidedly. ‘Frieda, I’m sure you’ve carried that basket long enough. Give it to Joey. And Grizel, take Juliet’s for a while.’

They went on again, Madge keeping a rather nervous eye on the Juniors. However, they soon had to leave the track, and strike across the valley to get to the mountain-path.

‘Do we cross here?’ demanded Miss Bettany, eyeing what looked like the stony bed of a dried-up river somewhat doubtfully. ‘Isn’t there a bridge?’

‘Only a log further down,’ said Bernhilda. ‘You see, Madame, when the storms of autumn come, this is a torrent, and already three bridges have been swept away. The water comes suddenly, and there is nothing to break its strength. It is easy to reach, though. See; down here.’ And she pointed to some rough, natural steps which led down to the stony bed.

Already more than half the girls were struggling across, the unfortunate bearers of baskets uttering wild shrieks as the stones slipped under their feet, and they more than once nearly went headlong. At length they were all safely at the other side, and once more on the beaten path which led through grass and wild flowers to the foot of the mountain, where they all paused for a rest.

‘Ouf! Isn’t it hot!’ panted Margia, as she mopped her crimson face.

‘I’m just comfortable,’ said Joey with an exasperatingly superior air, ‘but I’m awfully hungry! What’s the time, anyone?’

‘It is half after eleven,’ said Gisela, glancing at her pretty little watch.

‘You must be slow, Gisela,’ laughed Juliet, showing hers. ‘ I make it ten past twelve.’

‘So do I.’ said Madge, ‘and mine was right this morning. Miss Maynard, what does yours say?’

‘Nearly quarter past,’ replied Miss Maynard, ‘ but I may be a little fast.’

‘Well, anyhow, it’s time for lunch,’ said Joey. ‘Do let’s have it here!’

‘Oh, yes! ‘ agreed several voices at once. ‘I am hungry!’

Madge laughed and gave way. ‘Very well. I’m rather hungry myself; and it would certainly lighten the baskets!’

Accordingly they all sat down, and in a very few minutes the baskets were considerably lighter than they had been.

‘It’s funny how much hungrier one is out of doors than in,’ said Grizel presently, as she tackled her sixth sandwich.

‘It is!’ agreed Joey. ‘But I’m not so hungry as I was,’ she added pensively.

‘After having only five sandwiches and six biscuits and two apples!’ jeered Grizel. ‘There must be something up with you, Joey, old thing!’

‘You can’t talk!’ said Joey contentedly. ‘You’ve had just as much. I say,’ she added in rather changed tones, ‘where’s the lemonade?’

‘Bette has it,’ said Gisela.

‘I haven’t,’ replied Bette. ‘I thought you had it!’

‘No; I was carrying the apples. I was certain you had it!’

‘Oh, no! I never had it!’

Madge began to gurgle with laughter. It was only too plain what had occurred to that lemonade.

‘Sitting in the passage at home,’ she choked.

‘Oh! And I’m dying of thirst!’

‘And I!’ ‘And I!’ rose on all sides. ‘What are we to do?’

‘Wait until we reach the Alpe. We can get plenty of milk from the herdsmen,’ said Miss Bettany somewhat unfeelingly. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s your own faults.’

‘Then,’ said Jo, scrambling to her feet, ‘there’s only one thing to be done-get up to the Alpe as soon as we can. Come on!’

There was common sense in her statement, so with loud groans the girls repacked the baskets and set off.

The climb up the Mondscheinspitze is remarkably easy. There is a well-defined path, which winds in and out among the dark pine trees, every now and then coming out into narrow-very narrow-grassy ledges.

Presently, however, it left the woods, and they climbed up the bare limestone face of the mountain beneath the glare of the July sun. Tufts of grass, with wild scabious and white marguerites, punctuated the way, and gorgeous butterflies, brown and orange and scarlet and yellow, fluttered round them, so little afraid, that often they settled on hat or frock, and little Amy Stevens cried out in delight when one balanced itself on her outstretched fingers, resting there for a moment before it fluttered off.

Madge was thankful for the distraction the dainty creatures afforded the girls; otherwise, the Juniors at any rate would have found the path more difficult than they did. As it was, she was very thankful when a triumphant cry from Joey, Simone, and Frieda Mensch, who had raced on, announced that they had reached the Alpe.

‘Isn’t it a gorgeous view?’ demanded Jo, when they were all standing on the short, sweet grass. ‘ Just look!’

They looked. At their feet lay the valley they had crossed that morning, cool and green, with the empty river-bed stretching like a white ribbon down its length. In the distance they could see Briesau, lying like a toy village some giant child had set out; and beyond it, blue-blue-blue, the Tiern See, a living-sapphire, gleamed beneath the sun.

‘Oh, wonderful!’ breathed Madge softly.

They did not gaze long, however; they were all too thirsty. With one accord, presently, they turned, and made for the herdsmen’s hut-and milk.

Chapter 17.

On The Alpe.

Although both Joey and Grizel had been up the Bärenbad Alpe many times since their arrival at Briesau, and had partaken, in the Châlet, of whipped cream, wild strawberries, and bread-and-butter, they had never been inside a herdsman’s hut, and great was their interest in it. The same applied to Simone and the two little Stevens, but they were younger and less curious about the way the herdsmen lived than the other two.

Only one man was there when they reached the place-a tall, lanky young fellow, in weather-stained green breeches and ragged shirt, open at the throat. His-black hair was rough and long, and his face burnt brown with the weather. He wore the little green Tyrolese hat with its cock-feather, and was sitting contentedly smoking a long china-bowled pipe, such as most men smoke in the Tyrol. On seeing them coming, he rose to his feet with a smile of welcome and a hoarse-voiced ‘ Grüss’ Gott!’

‘Grüss’ Gott!’ replied Madge briskly. ‘Can you sell us some milk and cheese?’

‘Yes, gracious lady. Will the gracious lady and the young ladies come in?’

Only the English girls availed themselves of this offer, so that they might look round at the little bare room, with its huge well in one corner, where a wood fire was burning although the day was so hot. A broad shelf ran round the room, well above their heads, and on this stood enormous earthenware pans for the milk and big cream-coloured cheeses. The one window was about two feet square, and set high up in the wall; a long wooden bench stood at one side, and next to it a huge cheese press; a door opened into another room beyond, where trusses of hay were to be seen. The atmosphere of the place was indescribable-a mixture of cheese, garlic, tobacco, and burning wood. The visitors soon left the hut for the sweeter atmosphere of the Alpe, where the others were gravely taking it in turn to drink out of an enormous bowl, full of rich, creamy milk, while their host stood nearby, still smoking, and gazing vacantly across to the mighty peaks on the other side of the lake.

When Miss Bettany presently brought back the empty bowl, together with the tobacco she had brought, and some
Kröner
notes to pay for the milk, he smiled again, and answered her questions in his curiously hoarse tones.

Yes, he and four others were there for the summer. They had come up early in May, and would stay there till the end of September if the weather was good. Then the cattle must be brought down to the valley before the autumn storms began.

‘But aren’t you ever lonely?’ queried Joey, who had accompanied her sister to the hut. ‘Don’t you ever want to go down to Briesau?’

He turned indifferent dark eyes on her. ‘No, gnädige Fräulein. There are the cows and the mountains. We are five, and I have my pipe.’

‘What do the cows do in the winter?’ asked Madge, a fine instinct preventing her from asking what he did, though she felt curious about it.

‘They live in the sheds in the winter,’ he replied, ‘ and I go to my home in Scholastika. They do not need us in the winter, so we all go to our homes, and pray to
der lieber Gott
and the blessed Saints for an early spring. Last winter it did not come, and some of us went hungry for a time.’

‘How dreadful!’ said Joey with wholehearted sympathy. ‘I hope it’s a good autumn.’

‘It will be as
der lieber Gott
wills,’ he replied, with the curious fatalism of his race.

‘Is it very terrible up here in the winter? ‘asked Madge.

‘I do not know. I have never been,’ he replied.

Seeing that his interest in the conversation seemed to be dying, Madge made arrangements for milk and cheese for the tea, and then went back to her flock, She found them all lying about in exhausted attitudes, and promptly proposed that they should have a rest before exploring the Alpe any further.

‘It will be easier going down than coming up,’ she said. ‘We climbed in the noon-day heat, but by then it will be cool, so we shall go twice as quickly. Lie down, everyone, for half an hour or so, and then we shall all be fresh, and ready for anything.’

‘Good scheme!’ said Joey approvingly. ‘I’m awfully sleepy-I s’pose it’s the heat. Hai-yah!’ She ended with a yawn.

‘It’s being up so early, too,’ said Juliet.

‘Yes, that too,’ agreed her headmistress. ‘Half an hour, or even an hour’s sleep won’t do any of you any harm. I’ve got a book in my pocket, so I’ll read and keep an eye on the time.’

They promptly curled up in various attitudes, Mademoiselle and Miss Maynard among them. At first there were sundry murmurs, but by degrees they all dropped off, and Madge was soon the only one awake. She glanced at her watch with a smile.

‘A quarter past three,’ she thought. ‘I’ll let them sleep for another half-hour, and then we must have tea.’

She turned back to her book. It was terribly hot-almost oppressively so, although the sun was not shining so brilliantly as it had done earlier in the day. The German print looked all funny and jumbled up; the page wasn’t there any more. Madge was asleep.

The lonely herd came past them later on, on his way to the spring which bubbled up out of the earth at the other side of the Alpe. He looked at them curiously, but it was no business of his, so he left them.

Meanwhile, the sunlight faded away, hidden by the huge black clouds that began to marshal themselves in terrifying squadrons in the northwest. Even the faint breeze which had stirred the Alpine flowers in the short grass had died away. There was a waiting stillness, broken only by the occasional cry of a wild bird, frightened at what it felt was coming.

Joey was the first to feel it. She woke up with a sensation that something was wrong. The next minute she knew what it was. The electricity in the air was tingling through and through her. She sprang to her feet with a little cry, gazing wildly round her. The sunshine was gone; the whole place was wrapped in gloom. At the other side of the valley the mountains reared ghastly white heads against the blackness of the sky, and every now and then the lightning flashed across the awful inkiness, seeming to rip it open for a moment. There was no thunder yet, which made it all the more terrifying. For a moment Joey nearly lost her head. Dashing to her sister’s side, she shook her vigorously.