her hand.

The play began. It depicted the rising in the Tyrol of 1809: the village
life, dances and yodelling; murmurings and exhortations, the warning beat
of drums; then the gathering, with flintlocks, pitchforks, knives; the
battle and victory; the homecoming, and festival. Then the second
gathering, the roar of cannon; betrayal, capture, death. The impassive
figure of the patriot Andreas Hofer always in front, black-bearded,
leathern-girdled, under the blue sky, against a screen of mountains.

Harz and Christian sat behind the others. He seemed so intent on the
play that she did not speak, but watched his face, rigid with a kind of
cold excitement; he seemed to be transported by the life passing before
them. Something of his feeling seized on her; when the play was over she
too was trembling. In pushing their way out they became separated from
the others.

"There's a short cut to the station here," said Christian; "let's go this
way."

The path rose a little; a narrow stream crept alongside the meadow, and
the hedge was spangled with wild roses. Christian kept glancing shyly at
the painter. Since their meeting on the river wall her thoughts had
never been at rest. This stranger, with his keen face, insistent eyes,
and ceaseless energy, had roused a strange feeling in her; his words had
put shape to something in her not yet expressed. She stood aside at a
stile to make way for some peasant boys, dusty and rough-haired, who sang
and whistled as they went by.

"I was like those boys once," said Harz.

Christian turned to him quickly. "Ah! that was why you felt the play, so
much."

"It's my country up there. I was born amongst the mountains. I looked
after the cows, and slept in hay-cocks, and cut the trees in winter. They
used to call me a 'black sheep,' a 'loafer' in my village."

"Why?"

"Ah! why? I worked as hard as any of them. But I wanted to get away. Do
you think I could have stayed there all my life?"

Christian's eyes grew eager.

"If people don't understand what it is you want to do, they always call
you a loafer!" muttered Harz.

"But you did what you meant to do in spite of them," Christian said.

For herself it was so hard to finish or decide. When in the old days she
told Greta stories, the latter, whose instinct was always for the
definite, would say: "And what came at the end, Chris? Do finish it this
morning!" but Christian never could. Her thoughts were deep, vague,