Linnet: A Romance. Allen Grant

– the tuft of coarse hair that grows high like a crest along the creature’s back in the pairing season; with others, ’twas the tail-feathers of the glossy blackcock, stuck saucily on one side, with that perky air of self-satisfied assurance so characteristic of hot youth in the true-born Tyroler. Glancing around the room, however, Will saw at a single look that two young men alone among that eager crowd wore their feathers with a difference – the “hook” being turned round in the opposite direction from all their neighbours’. One of these two was a tall and big-built young man of very florid complexion, with a scar on his forehead; the other was their fiery friend of that morning on the hills, Franz Lindner. From what Linnet had said, Will guessed at once by the turn of the feather that both young men went in for being considered Robblers.

      As he turned to impart his conjecture to Florian, Linnet caught his eye mutely from a corner by the mantelpiece. She wasn’t taking part in the reel herself, so, undaunted by his experience of Franz Lindner that day, Will strolled over to her side, followed close at heel by Florian. “You don’t dance?” he said, bending over her with as marked politeness as he would have shown to a lady in a London drawing-room.

      “No; I may not,” Linnet answered, in her pretty broken English, with a smile of not unnatural womanly pleasure that the strangers should thus single her out before all her folk for so much personal attention. “I have refuse Franz Lindner, so may I not dance this time with any one. It is our custom so. When a girl shall refuse to dance with a man first, she may not that turn accept any other. Nor may he, in turn, ask her again that evening.”

      “How delightful!” Florian cried, effusively. “Franz Lindner’s loss is our gain, Fräulein Linnet. No; don’t frown at me like that; it must be Fräulein; I’ve too much respect for you to call you otherwise. But, anyhow, we’ll sit out this dance and talk with you.”

      “And I,” Will put in with a quiet smile, “I’ll call you Linnet, because you prefer it.”

      “Thank you,” Linnet said, shyly, with a grateful flash of her eyes, and a side glance towards Franz Lindner; “it seems less as if you mock at me.”

      As they spoke, the figure changed of a sudden once more to a still stranger movement. The women, falling apart, massed themselves together in a central group, in attitudes expressive of studied indifference and inattention to the men; their partners, on the contrary, placing themselves full in front of them, began a series of most extraordinary twists and twirls, accompanied by loud cries or snapping of fingers, and endeavoured by every means in the power, both of lungs and limbs, to compel their disdainful coquettes to take notice of their antics. While they stood there and watched – Linnet with eyes askance on Franz Lindner’s face – Andreas Hausberger strolled up, and took his place beside them.

      “Why, that’s the blackcock’s call!” Will exclaimed, with a start of recognition, as the dancers, with one accord, uttered all in a chorus a shrill and piercing note of challenge and defiance. “I’ve heard it on the mountains.”

      “Yes,” the wirth assented; “that’s the blackcock’s call, and this, that they’re doing, is the blackcock’s love-dance. In the springtime, on the mountains, you know, the blackcocks and the grey hens assemble in their dancing place – their Tanzboden we call it, just the same as we call this one. There, the hens stand aside, and pretend to be coy, and take no notice of their mates, like the girls in this dance here; while the blackcock caper in front of them, and flap their wings, and fluff their necks, and do all they know to display their strength and beauty. Whoever dances the most and best, gets most of the hens to join his harem. So our young men have got up this love-dance to imitate them; they flap their arms the same way, and give the blackcock’s challenge. Nature’s pretty much the same above and below, I guess – especially here in the Tyrol, where we haven’t yet learned to hide our feelings under smooth silk hats as you do in England. But it’s all good for trade, and that’s the great thing. It makes them thirsty. You’ll see, after this bout, the beer will flow like water.”

      And, sure enough, the wirth was right. As soon as the dance was ended, young men and maidens, with equal zest, betook themselves, all alike, to the consolations of the beer-jug. Their thirst was mighty. And no wonder, indeed, for this Tyrolese dancing is no drawing-room game, but hard muscular exercise. Andreas Hausberger looked on with a cynical smile on those thin, cold lips of his. “It’s good for trade,” he murmured again, half to himself, once or twice, as the girls at the bar filled the beer-mugs merrily; “very good for trade. So are all amusements. That’s the way the foolish get rid of their money – and the wise get hold of it.”

      After the beer came a pause, a long, deep-drawn pause; and then two young men, standing out from the throng, began to sing alternately at one another in short Tyrolese stanzas. One of them was Franz Lindner; the other was the young man with the scar on his forehead, whom Linnet described as her cousin Fridolin. What they sang, neither Florian nor Will could make out, for the words of the song were in the roughest form of the mountain dialect; but it was clear from their manner, and the way they flung out their words point blank at one another’s heads, that they improvised as they went, like Virgilian shepherds, and that their remarks were by no means either polite or complimentary in substance or character. The rest stood round in a circle and listened, laughing heartily at times as each in turn scored a point now and then off his angry rival; while Linnet and the other girls blushed again and again at some audacious retort, though the bolder among the women only tittered to themselves or looked up with arch glances at each risky allusion. Andreas Hausberger too, stood by, all alert to keep the peace; it was plain from the quick light in his resolute eye, and the rapid upward movement of his twitching hand, he was ready at a moment’s notice to intervene between the combatants, and put a stop in the nick of time to the scoffing contest of defiance and derision.

      The song, however, passed off without serious breach of the peace. Then more dances followed, more beer, and more bucolic contests. As the evening wore on, the fun grew fast and furious. On the stroke of twelve, the Herr Vicar withdrew – not one hour too early; his flock were fast getting beyond control of his counsels. Linnet and a few others of the more modest-looking girls now sat out from the dance; the rest continued to whirl round and round the room in still wilder and more fantastic movements than ever. Andreas Hausberger was now yet more clearly on the alert. A stray spark would raise a flame in that magazine of gunpowder. Suddenly, at the end of the first dance after the priest’s departure, the young man with the scar on his forehead, called Cousin Fridolin, came forward unexpectedly to where Linnet sat aside between Will Deverill and Florian. He had danced with her once before in the course of the evening, and Will observed that through that dance Franz Lindner’s eyes had never been taken off his rival and Linnet. But now the tall young man came forward with a dash, and without one word of warning, placed his conical hat, blackcock’s feather and all, with a jodel of challenge, on Linnet’s forehead. They had seen the same thing done before more than once that evening, and Linnet had explained to them that the custom was equivalent to a declaration of love for the lady so honoured – ’twas as much as to say, “This girl is mine; who disputes it?” But as the tall young man stood back with a smile of triumph on his handsome lips, one hand on his hip, staring fixedly at Linnet, Franz Lindner sprang forth with a face as black as night, and a brow like thunder. Trembling with rage, he seized the hat from her head, and tore hastily from its band the offending plume. “Was kost die Feder?” he cried, in a tone of angry contempt, holding it up in his hand before the eyes of its owner; “Was kost die Feder?” which is, being interpreted, “How much for your feather?”

      Quick as lightning, the answer rang out, “Fünf Finger und ein Griff” – “Five fingers and a grip.” It is the customary challenge of the Tyrolese Robbler, and the customary acceptance.

      Before Will had time to understand what was happening next, in the crack of a finger, in the twinkle of an eye, the two young men had closed, with hands and arms and bodies, and were grappling with each other in a deadly struggle. All night long they had been watching and provoking one another; all night long they had vied in their attentions to Linnet, and their studious interchange of mutual insults. Sooner or later a fight seemed inevitable. Now, flown with insolence and beer, and heated from the dance, they flung themselves together, with one accord, like two tigers in their fury. Linnet clapped her hands