Part 3 (2/2)

He was old, but he was not deaf, and she could easily make him hear a cry for help; but she was afraid of Andreas. He kept the hotel garden in order, and if he found footmarks on the vegetable plots, or if anything went wrong with the plants, he always laid the blame on Anna; he was as neat as he was captious, and the girl shrank from letting him see the plight she was in.

She stooped down and felt for her shoe, and as she recovered it she nearly fell full length into the bog; the struggle to keep her balance was fatal; her other foot sank several inches; it seemed to her that she must soon be sucked down by the horrible black water that spurted up from the marsh with her struggles.

Without stopping to think, she cried out as loud as she could, ”Help me, Andreas! Help! I am drowning!”

At the cry the top of a straw hat appeared in sight, and its owner came up-hill--a small man, with twisted legs, in pale clay-coloured trousers, a black waistcoat, and brown linen s.h.i.+rtsleeves. His wrinkled face looked hot, and his hat was pushed to the back of his head. He took it off and wiped his face with his handkerchief while he looked round him.

”Pouf!” He gave a grunt of displeasure. ”So you are once more in mischief, are you? Ah, ah, ah! What, then, will the aunt, that ever to be respected Fraulein, say, when she hears of this?”

He called this out as he came leisurely across the strip of meadow that separated him from Anna.

She was in an agony of fear lest she should sink still farther in before he reached her; but she knew Andreas far too well to urge him even by a word to greater haste. So she stood s.h.i.+vering and pale with fear while she clasped her bog-stained shoe close to her.

Andreas had brought a stake with him, and he held this out to Anna, but when she tried to draw out her sinking foot she shook her head, it seemed to be stuck too fast in the bog.

Andreas gave a growl of discontent, and then went slowly up to the plank bridge. With some effort he raised the smaller of the two planks and carried it to where Anna stood fixed like a statue among the flowering water-plants. Then he pushed the plank out till it rested on a hillock of rushes, while the other end remained on the meadow.

”Ah!”--he drew a long breath--”see the trouble you give by your carelessness.”

He spoke vindictively, as if he would have liked to give her a good shaking; but Anna smiled at him, she was so thankful at the prospect of release.

[Sidenote: Rescued]

The mischievous little man kept her waiting some minutes. He pretended to test the safety of the plank by walking up and down it and trying it with his foot. At last, when the girl's heart had become sick with suspense, he suddenly stretched out both hands and pulled her on to the plank, then he pushed her along before him till she was on dry ground once more.

”Oh, thank you, Andreas,” she began, but he cut her thanks very short.

”Go home at once and dry yourself,” he said. ”You are the plague of my life, and if I had been a wise man I should have left you in the marsh.

Could not your senses tell you that all that rain meant danger in boggy places? There'll be mischief somewhere besides this; a landslip or two, more than likely. There, run home, child, or you'll get cold.”

He turned angrily away and went back to his work.

Anna hurried to the narrowest part of the brook and jumped across it.

She could not make herself in a worse plight than she was already; her skirts were dripping with the black and filthy water of the marsh.

Heavy rain fell again during the night, and continued throughout the morning, but in the afternoon there was a glimpse of suns.h.i.+ne overhead.

This soon drew the vapour up again from the valley, and white steam-clouds sailed slowly across the landscape.

Gretchen had been very kind and compa.s.sionate about Anna's disaster; she made the girl go to bed for an hour or two, and gave her some hot broth, and Anna would have forgotten her trouble but for the certainty she felt that old Andreas would make as bad a story of it as he could to her Aunt Christina. But this morning the girl was looking forward to her father's home-coming, and she was in good spirits; she had tried to make herself extra neat, and to imitate as closely as she could her Aunt Christina's way of tidying the rooms; but one improvement suggested itself to Anna which would certainly not have occurred to her tidy aunt; if she had thought of it, she would have scouted the idea as useless, and a frivolous waste of time.

Directly after the midday meal Anna went out to gather a wild-flower nosegay, to place in the sitting-room in honour of her father's return.

It seemed to her the only means she had of showing him how glad she was to see him again.

While she was busy gathering Andreas crossed the meadow; he did not see Anna stooping over the flowers, and she kept herself hidden; but the sight of him brought back a haunting fear. What was it? What had Andreas said that she had forgotten? He had said something which had startled her at the time, and which now came pressing urgently on her for remembrance, although she could not distinctly recall it.

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