第58章 CHAPTER XII(4)

"I suppose we are still a bit too far north for pineapples," said George. "I feel I could just enjoy a fresh pineapple. This commonplace fruit palls upon one after a while."

"Too much bush fruit and not enough tree, is the fault I find," said Harris. "Myself, I should have liked a few more greengages."

"Here is a man coming up the hill," I observed, "who looks like a native. Maybe, he will know where we can find some more greengages."

"He walks well for an old chap," remarked Harris.

He certainly was climbing the hill at a remarkable pace. Also, so far as we were able to judge at that distance, he appeared to be in a remarkably cheerful mood, singing and shouting at the top of his voice, gesticulating, and waving his arms.

"What a merry old soul it is," said Harris; "it does one good to watch him. But why does he carry his stick over his shoulder? Why doesn't he use it to help him up the hill?"

"Do you know, I don't think it is a stick," said George.

"What can it be, then?" asked Harris.

"Well, it looks to me," said George, "more like a gun."

"You don't think we can have made a mistake?" suggested Harris.

"You don't think this can be anything in the nature of a private orchard?"

I said: "Do you remember the sad thing that happened in the South of France some two years ago? A soldier picked some cherries as he passed a house, and the French peasant to whom the cherries belonged came out, and without a word of warning shot him dead."

"But surely you are not allowed to shoot a man dead for picking fruit, even in France?" said George.

"Of course not," I answered. "It was quite illegal. The only excuse offered by his counsel was that he was of a highly excitable disposition, and especially keen about these particular cherries."

"I recollect something about the case," said Harris, "now you mention it. I believe the district in which it happened--the 'Commune,' as I think it is called--had to pay heavy compensation to the relatives of the deceased soldier; which was only fair."

George said: "I am tired of this place. Besides, it's getting late."

Harris said: "If he goes at that rate he will fall and hurt himself. Besides, I don't believe he knows the way."

I felt lonesome up there all by myself, with nobody to speak to.

Besides, not since I was a boy, I reflected, had I enjoyed a run down a really steep hill. I thought I would see if I could revive the sensation. It is a jerky exercise, but good, I should say, for the liver.

We slept that night at Barr, a pleasant little town on the way to St. Ottilienberg, an interesting old convent among the mountains, where you are waited upon by real nuns, and your bill made out by a priest. At Barr, just before supper a tourist entered. He looked English, but spoke a language the like of which I have never heard before. Yet it was an elegant and fine-sounding language. The landlord stared at him blankly; the landlady shook her head. He sighed, and tried another, which somehow recalled to me forgotten memories, though, at the time, I could not fix it. But again nobody understood him.

"This is damnable," he said aloud to himself.

"Ah, you are English!" exclaimed the landlord, brightening up.

"And Monsieur looks tired," added the bright little landlady.

"Monsieur will have supper."

They both spoke English excellently, nearly as well as they spoke French and German; and they bustled about and made him comfortable.

At supper he sat next to me, and I talked to him.

"Tell me," I said--I was curious on the subject--"what language was it you spoke when you first came in?"

"German," he explained.

"Oh," I replied, "I beg your pardon."

"You did not understand it?" he continued.

"It must have been my fault," I answered; "my knowledge is extremely limited. One picks up a little here and there as one goes about, but of course that is a different thing."

"But THEY did not understand it," he replied, "the landlord and his wife; and it is their own language."

"I do not think so," I said. "The children hereabout speak German, it is true, and our landlord and landlady know German to a certain point. But throughout Alsace and Lorraine the old people still talk French."