Rudy and Babette: or, The Capture of the Eagle's Nest

Lights were still to be seen at the windows of the mill; and the parlor cat came out at an opening in the roof, and met the kitchen cat on the gutter.

"Have you heard the news at the mill?" said the parlor cat. "There's love-making going on in the house! The father doesn't know of it. Rudy and Babette have been treading on each other's paws all the evening under the table. They trod on me more than once, but I kept quiet, lest it should be noticed."

"I would have mewed," replied the kitchen cat.

"Kitchen behavior will not suit the parlor," said the parlor cat; "but I should like to know what the miller will say when he hears of the love-making."

What will the miller say, indeed? Rudy, also, wanted to know that; and he would not wait very long without finding it out. So a few days later, when the omnibus rolled over the Rhone bridge between Vallais and Vaud, Rudy was in it, in his usual high spirits, happy in the expectation of a favorable answer to the question he intended to ask that same evening.

In the evening, when the omnibus was returning Rudy was again inside; but the parlor cat had great news to tell.

"Do you know it, you from the kitchen? The miller knows everything. That was a fine end to the expedition! Rudy came here towards the evening, and he and Babette had much to whisper about; they stood in the passage which leads to the miller's room. I lay at their feet, but they had neither eyes nor thoughts for me. 'I am going straight in to your father!' said Rudy; 'that is the fair thing.' 'Shall I accompany you?' said Babette; 'it will encourage you.' 'I have sufficient courage!' said Rudy, 'but if you go too, he must look kindly on us, whether he will or no!' And they both went in. Rudy trod violently on my tail. Rudy is very clumsy! I mewed, but neither he nor Babette had ears to hear me. They opened the door, and they both went in, I in front; but I sprang up on the back of a chair, for I could not tell how Rudy would kick. But the miller kicked! and it was a good kick! out of the door, and into the mountains to the chamois! Rudy may aim at them, and not at our little Babette."

"But what did they talk about?" asked the kitchen cat.

"Talk? – They talked of everything that people say when they go a-wooing: 'I am fond of her, and she is fond of me! and when there is milk in the pail for one, there is also milk in the pail for two!' 'But she sits too high for you!' said the miller; 'she sits on grits, on golden grits; you can't reach her!' 'Nothing sits so high that a man can't reach it, if he will!' said Rudy; for he was very pert. 'But you can't reach the eaglet – you said so yourself! Babette sits higher!' 'I will take them both!' said Rudy. 'Yes, I will give her to you, when you give me the eaglet alive!' said the miller, and laughed till the tears stood in his eyes; 'but now I thank you for your visits, Rudy; come again in the morning, and you will find no one at home! Farewell, Rudy!' And Babette also said farewell, as miserable as a little kitten that can't see its mother. 'An honest man's word is as good as his bond!' said Rudy. 'Don't cry, Babette; I shall bring the eaglet!' 'You will break your neck, I hope!' said the miller, 'and so put an end to your race!' I call that a kick! Now Rudy is off, and Babette sits and cries, but the miller sings German songs that he has learnt on his journey! I won't grieve over that now; it can't be helped!"

"But yet there is still some hope for him," said the kitchen cat.

CHAPTER VII

THE EAGLE'S NEST

FROM the mountain path sounds the yodeling, merry and strong, telling of good spirits and dauntless courage; it is Rudy – he is going to see his friend Vesinaud.

"You will help me! we will take Ragli with us. I must capture the eaglet up the face of the mountain!"

"Won't you take the spots of the moon first; that is as easy!" said Vesinaud. "You are in good spirits!"

"Yes, for I am thinking of getting married! But now, to be in earnest, I will tell you what I am intending!"

And soon Vesinaud and Ragli knew what Rudy wished.

"You are a daring lad!" said they. "You will not get there! You will break your neck!"

"A man does not fall down when he does not think of it!" said Rudy.

At midnight they set off with poles, ladders, and ropes; the way was through thickets and bushes, and over rolling stones, always up, up in the gloomy night. The water rushed below; the water murmured above, heavy clouds drove through the air. When the hunters reached the precipitous face of the mountain it was still darker, the rocky walls were almost met, and the sky could only be seen high up in a small cleft. Close by, under them, was the deep abyss with its rushing waters. All three sat quite still, waiting for daybreak, when the eagle would fly out; for they must first shoot it before they could think of taking the young one. Rudy sat down, as still as if he were a piece of the stone he sat on. He had his gun in his hand ready to shoot; his eyes were fixed on the topmost cleft, where, under a projecting ledge, the eagle's nest was concealed.

After waiting long, the hunters heard high above them a cracking, rushing sound; and suddenly they saw a great, hovering object. Two gun-barrels were pointed as the great black figure of the eagle flew out of its nest. One shot was heard; for a moment the bird moved its outstretched wings, and then slowly fell, as if with its greatness and the extension of its wings it would fill the whole of the chasm, and carry the hunters with it in its fall. The eagle sank into the depths; and brushing against the branches of trees and bushes, broke them as it fell.

And now the hunters began work. They tied three of the longest ladders together, setting them up from the last secure foothold at the side of the precipice. But the ladders did not quite reach; the nest was higher up, hidden safe below the projecting rock, where it was as smooth as a wall. After some deliberation they decided to tie two ladders together, and lower them into the cleft from above, and join them to the three which had been set up from below. With great trouble they drew up the two ladders and secured the rope; they were then suspended over the projecting rock, and hung swinging over the abyss, and Rudy took his place on the lowest rung. It was an ice-cold morning, and vapors rose from the black chasm. Rudy sat out there as a fly sits on a waving straw which some bird has taken to the top of some high factory-chimney; but the fly can fly away if the straw gets loose, while Rudy can only break his neck. The wind whispered about him, and below, in the abyss, rushed the hurrying water from the melting glacier, the Ice-Maiden's palace.

When Rudy began to climb, the ladders trembled and swung like a spider's web; but when he reached the fourth ladder he found it secure, for the lashing had been well done. The topmost ladder was flattened against the rock, yet it swung ominously with Rudy's weight. And now came the most dangerous part of the climb. But Rudy knew this, for the cat had taught him; he did not think about Giddiness, which hovered in the air behind him, and stretched its octopus-like arms towards him. Now he stood on the highest rung of the ladder, and found that after all it did not reach high enough for him to see into the nest; he could only reach up to it with his hands. He tested the firmness of the thick plaited boughs that supported the lower part of the nest, and when he found a thick and firm bough, he pulled himself up by it till he got his head and chest over the nest. But there poured upon him an overpowering smell of carrion; putrefying lambs, chamois, and birds lay here torn to pieces. Giddiness, which was not able to reach him, puffed the poisonous exhalation into his face, to confuse him, and below, in the black gaping depth, over the hurrying water, sat the Ice-Maiden herself, with her long greenish hair, staring with deathly eyes like two gun-barrels, and saying to herself, "Now I shall capture you!"

In a corner of the nest he saw a large and powerful eaglet, which could not yet fly. Rudy fastened his eyes on it, held himself with all the force of one hand, and cast, with the other hand, a noose over the young bird. Thus, with its legs entangled in the line, it was captured alive. Rudy threw the noose with the bird in it over his shoulder, so that it hung a good way below him, and by the help of a rope he made himself fast till his toes reached the highest rung of the ladder.

"Hold fast! don't believe you will fall, and you won't fall!" this was his old lesson, and he stuck to it; he held fast, he scrambled, he was certain he should not fall, and he did not fall.

And now was heard a yodel, so vigorous and joyful. Rudy stood on the firm rock with his eaglet.

CHAPTER VIII

"I HOLD FAST TO BABETTE."

" HERE is what you demanded!" said Rudy, entering the miller's house at Bex; and, setting on the floor a large basket, he took off the cloth, and there glared from it two yellow, black-rimmed eyes, so sparkling, so wild, that they seemed to burn and devour everything they saw; the short, strong beak gaped, ready to bite, the neck was red and downy.

"The eaglet!" shouted the miller. Babette gave one scream, and sprang aside, but she could not turn her eyes away from Rudy or the eaglet.

"You are not to be frightened!" said the miller.

"And you always keep your word!" said Rudy; "each has his own characteristic!"

"But how is it you did not break your neck?" inquired the miller.

"Because I held fast!" answered Rudy, "and that I do still! I hold fast to Babette!"

"First see that you have her!" said the miller with a laugh; and that was a good sign, Babette knew.

"Let us get the eaglet out of the basket; it looks dangerous. How it stares! How did you catch it?"

And Rudy had to tell them, and the miller stared, opening his eyes wider and wider.

"With your boldness and luck you can maintain three wives!" said the miller.

"Thank you! thank you!" cried Rudy.

"Yes; still you have not got Babette!" said the miller, and jestingly slapped the young hunter on the shoulder.

"Have you heard the news in the mill?" said the parlor cat to the kitchen cat. "Rudy has brought us the eaglet, and will take Babette in exchange. They have kissed each other and let father see it! That is as good as an engagement. The old man didn't kick; he drew in his claws, and took his nap after dinner, and let the two sit and wag their tails. They have so much to say, they won't be finished before Christmas."

Nor had they finished before Christmas. The wind scattered the brown leaves, the snow drifted in the valley and on the high mountains. The Ice-Maiden sat in her noble palace, which grows in the winter; the rocky walls were coated with ice, there were icicles ponderous as elephants where in the summer the mountain-torrent poured its watery deluge; ice-garlands of fantastic ice-crystals glittered on the snow-powdered fir-trees. The Ice-Maiden rode on the whistling wind across the deepest valleys. The snow carpet was spread quite down to Bex, and she could come there and see Rudy within doors, more than he was accustomed to, for he sat with Babette. The marriage was to take place towards the summer; he often had a ringing in his ears, so frequently did his friends talk of it. There was summer, glowing with the most beautiful Alpine roses, the merry, laughing Babette, beautiful as spring, the spring that makes all the birds sing of summer and of weddings.

"How can those two sit and hang over each other?" said the parlor cat. "I am now quite tired of their mewing!"

CHAPTER IX

THE ICE-MAIDEN

THE walnuts and chestnut-trees, all hung with the green garlands of spring, spread from the bridge at St. Maurice to the margin of the Lake of Geneva along the Rhone, which with violent speed rushes from its source under the green glacier – the ice palace, where the Ice-Maiden lives, whence she flies on the wind to the highest snow-field, and there, in the strong sunlight, stretches herself on her drifting bed. And as she sits there she looks with far-seeing glance into the deepest valleys, where men, like ants on a sunlit stone, busily move about.

"Powerful Spirits, as the Children of the Sun call you!" said the Ice-Maiden, "you are creeping things! with a rolling snowball both you and your houses and towns are crushed and effaced!" And she raised her proud head higher, and looked about her and deep down with deathly eyes. But from the valley was heard a rumbling, blasting of the rocks; men were at work; roads and tunnels were being made for railways.

"They play like moles!" said she; "they are digging passages, therefore I hear sounds like musket-shots. When I move my castle the sound is louder than the rolling of thunder."

From the valley arose a smoke, which moved onward like a flickering veil; it was the flying plume from a locomotive, which was drawing a train on the recently opened railway, the winding serpent, whose joints are the carriages.

"They play at masters down below, the Powerful Spirits!" said the Ice-Maiden. "Yet the powers of nature are mightier!" and she laughed and sang, and the valleys resounded.

"Now there is an avalanche rolling!" said the men below.

But the Children of the Sun sang yet higher of human ideas, the powerful means which subdue the sea, remove mountains, fill up valleys; human ideas, they are the lords of the powers of nature. At the same moment there came over the snow-field, where the Ice-Maiden sat, a party of mountain climbers; they had bound themselves to one another with cords for greater security on the smooth plain of ice, near the deep precipices.

"Creeping things!" said she. "You the lords of nature!" and she turned herself away from them and looked mockingly down into the deep valley, where the railway train was rushing past.

"There they sit, these thinkers! they sit in their power! I see them all! One sits proud as a king, alone! there they sit in a cluster! there half of them are asleep! and when the steam dragon stops they get out, and go their way. The thinkers go out into the world!" And she laughed.

"There is an avalanche rolling again!" said those down below in the valley.

"It will not reach us!" said two people behind the steam dragon; "two souls with one thought," as they say. It was Rudy and Babette; the miller also was with them.

"As luggage!" said he. "I am with them as something necessary!"

"There sit those two!" said the Ice-Maiden.

"Many chamois have I crushed, millions of Alpine roses have I snapped and broken, not leaving the roots! I will blot them out! Thinkers! Powerful Spirits!" And she laughed.

"There's an avalanche rolling again!" said those down below in the valley.

CHAPTER X

THE GODMOTHER

AT Montreux, one of the nearest towns which, with Clarens, Vernex, and Glion, form a garland at the northeastern end of the Lake of Geneva, lived Babette's godmother, an English lady of position, with her daughters and a young relative; they had recently arrived, but the miller had already paid them a visit, told them of Babette's engagement, and of Rudy and the eaglet, and of his visit to Interlaken – in short, the whole history – and they had been highly delighted and pleased with Rudy and Babette, and with the miller; and at last made them all three come, and so they came – Babette must see her godmother, the godmother see Babette.

Near the little town of Villeneuve, at the end of the Lake of Geneva, lay the steamboat which in its half-hour's journey to Vernex lies under Montreux. This is a shore which poets have praised; here, under the walnut-trees, on the deep blue-green lake, sat Byron, and wrote his melodious lines on the prisoner in the Castle of Chillon. Yonder, where Clarens is reflected with its weeping willows in the lake, wandered Rousseau, dreaming of Heloïse. The river Rhone glides forth under the high, snow-capped mountains of Savoy; here lies, not far from its outlet in the lake, a little island – indeed, it is so small that from the shore it seems to be a boat out there; it is a rock which, more than a hundred years ago, a lady had surrounded with a stone wall, covered with soil, and planted with three acacia-trees, which now overshadow the whole island. Babette was quite enraptured with the little spot – it was to her the most charming in the whole voyage; she thought they ought to stay there, for it was a most delightful place. But the steamboat passed by it, and stopped, as it always did, at Vernex.

The little company wandered hence between the white, sunlit walls which enclosed the vineyards about the little mountain town of Montreux, where fig-trees cast a shade in front of the peasants' cottages, and laurels and cypresses grow in the gardens. Half-way up stood the boarding-house where the godmother was living.

They were very cordially received. The godmother was a tall, kind lady with a round, smiling face; as a child she must have been like one of Raphael's angel heads, but now she was an old angel head, as her silvery hair was quite curly. The daughters were handsome, delicate-looking, tall and slim. The young cousin, who was with them, was entirely dressed in white from top to toe, with yellow hair and whiskers, of which he had so much that it might have been divided between three gentlemen, and he at once paid great attention to little Babette.

Handsomely bound books, pieces of music, and drawings were spread over the large table, the balcony doors stood open overlooking the beautiful, extensive lake, which was so bright and still that the mountains of Savoy, with the country towns, woods, and snowy tops, were all reflected in it.

Rudy, who was always bold, lively, and confident, felt himself out of his element, as they say; and he moved about as if he were walking on peas on a smooth floor. How slowly the hours passed! as if on the treadmill. And now they went for a walk, and it was just as tedious; Rudy might have taken two steps forward and then one back, and still kept pace with the others. They walked down to Chillon, the old gloomy castle on the rock, to see the instruments of torture, and death-chambers, the rusty chains on the rocky walls, the stony bed for those sentenced to death, the trap-doors through which the unfortunate beings were precipitated downwards and impaled on the iron spikes amidst the surf. They called it delightful to see all this. It was a place of execution, elevated by Byron's song into the world of poetry. Rudy felt it altogether the scene of executions; he leaned against the great stone window-frames and looked into that deep, bluish-green water, and over to the little solitary island with the three acacias; he wished himself there, and away from the whole chattering party; but Babette felt herself particularly cheerful. She said she had been unusually entertained; she found the cousin perfect.

"Yes, a perfect chatterbox!" said Rudy; and it was the first time that Rudy said anything which displeased her. The Englishman had presented her with a little book as a memento of Chillon; it was a French version of Byron's poem, The Prisoner of Chillon, which Babette could read.

"The book may be good enough," said Rudy, "but I don't care for the much-combed fellow who gave it you."

"He seemed to me like a meal-sack without any meal!" said the miller, laughing at his own wit. Rudy also laughed, and said that it was very well put.

CHAPTER XI

THE COUSIN

A few days later, when Rudy came to call at the mill, he found the young Englishman there. Babette was just offering him some boiled trout, which she herself must have garnished with parsley, it looked so dainty. That was quite unnecessary. What business had the Englishman here? What did he come for? To enjoy refreshments from the hands of Babette? Rudy was jealous, and that amused Babette; it gratified her to get a glimpse of all sides of his disposition, both strong and weak. Love was as yet but play to her, and she played with Rudy's whole heart; and though, as one may say, he was her happiness, the chief thought of her life, the best and grandest in the world; yes – but the more gloomy did he look, so much the more did her eyes laugh; she could almost have kissed the blond Englishman with the yellow whiskers, if by that means she could succeed in sending Rudy fuming away, for by that she would know how she was beloved by him. But this was not right or prudent of little Babette, only she was no more than nineteen. She did not think much of it; she thought still less how she could explain her conduct, which was more free and easy with the young Englishman than was suitable for the miller's modest and recently betrothed daughter.

The mill was situated where the highroad from Bex runs under the snow-covered peak which, the country people call the Diablerets, not far from a rapid, grayish-white mountain stream, like foaming soap-suds. This did not drive the mill; it was driven by a lesser stream, which was precipitated from the rock on the other side of the river, and was dammed up by a stone wall so as to increase its force and headway, and carried into a closed wooden basin by a broad channel away over the rapid river. This channel was so abundantly supplied with water that it overflowed, and made a wet, slippery path for those who used it as a short cut to the mill. The idea occurred to the young Englishman to use it, and dressed in white, like a working miller, he clambered over in the evening, guided by the light shining from Babette's room. But he had not learnt to climb, and nearly went head-foremost into the stream, but escaped with wet sleeves and bespattered trousers. Muddy and dirty he came below Babette's windows, clambered up into the old lime-tree and imitated the call of an owl, for he could not sing like any other bird. Babette heard it, and peeped through her thin curtains; but when she saw the white man, and easily guessed who it was, her little heart beat with fright and with resentment. She hastily put out her light, saw that all the window-bolts were fastened, and left him to hoot.

It would be terrible if Rudy were now in the mill, but Rudy was not in the mill; no, what was much worse, he was just below it. There was high talk, angry words; there would be fighting, perhaps murder.

Babette opened her window in alarm, called Rudy's name, and told him to go away.

"You will not let me stay!" he shouted; "then it is an appointment! You are expecting good friends, better than me! Shame on you, Babette!"

"You are detestable!" said Babette; "I hate you!" and now she was crying. "Go! go!"

"I have not deserved this treatment!" said he, and he went; his cheeks were like fire, his heart was like fire.

Babette flung herself on her bed, and wept.

"I love you so much, Rudy! and you can believe that of me!"

And she was angry, very angry, and that did her good, for otherwise she would have been deeply grieved; now she could fall asleep and sleep the invigorating sleep of youth.

CHAPTER XII

THE POWERS OF EVIL

RUDY left Bex, and took the homeward path up the mountains, in the fresh, cooling air, the domain of the Ice-Maiden. The thick foliage of the trees deep below him looked as if they were potato plants; the firs and the bushes appeared even less, the Alpine roses bloomed near the snow, which lay in separate patches as if it were linen put out to bleach. There was a single blue gentian, and he crushed it with the butt-end of his gun.

Higher up he saw two chamois. Rudy's eyes sparkled, his thoughts took a new flight; but he was not near enough to them for him to shoot with confidence; so he climbed higher, where only coarse grass grew among the blocks of stone; the chamois went placidly along the snow-fields. Rudy hurried on eagerly, surrounded by misty clouds, and on a sudden he stood in front of a precipitous rocky wall, and the rain began to fall in torrents.

He felt a parching thirst, his head was hot, but his limbs were cold. He seized his hunting-flask, but it was empty; he had not thought of it when he rushed up the mountain. He had never been ill, but now he had a presentiment of it; he was tired, he felt a desire to throw himself down and go to sleep, but everything was streaming with water. Strange objects vibrated before his eyes, but he saw on a sudden, what he had never seen there before, a newly-built low house, leaning against the rock, and at the door stood a young maiden. He thought it was the schoolmaster's Annette, whom he once had kissed at a dance, but it was not Annette, and yet he had seen her before, perhaps near Grindelwald, that night when he went home from the shooting match at Interlaken.