The Goose Girl

The Goose Girl

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Goose Girl, by Harold MacGrath,
Illustrated by Andre Castaigne
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Goose Girl
Author: Harold MacGrath
Release Date: January 5, 2005 [eBook #14598]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOOSE
GIRL***
E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which
includes the original illustrations. See 14598-h.htm or 14598-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/5/9/14598/14598-h/14598-h.htm) or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/5/9/14598/14598-h.zip)

THE GOOSE GIRL
by
HAROLD MACGRATH
With Illustrations by André Castaigne
Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers
1909

[Illustration: They acclaimed her the queen.]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I
SOME IN RAGS II AN AMERICAN CONSULT III FOR HER
COUNTRY IV THE YOUNG VINTNER V A COMPATRIOT VI AT
THE BLACK EAGLE VII AN ELDER BROTHER VIII THE KING'S
LETTER IX GRETCHEN'S DAY X AFFAIRS OF STATE XI THE
SOCIALISTS XII LOVE'S DOUBTS XIII A DAY DREAM XIV
FIND THE WOMAN XV THE WRONG MAN XVI HER FAN XVII
AFTER THE VINTAGE XVIII A WHITE SCAR XIX
DISCLOSURES XX THE KING XXI TWIN LOCKETS XXII A
LITTLE FINGER XXIII HAPPINESS
CHAPTER I
SOME IN RAGS

An old man, clothed in picturesque patches and tatters, paused and
leaned on his stout oak staff. He was tired. He drew off his rusty felt hat,
swept a sleeve across his forehead, and sighed. He had walked many
miles that day, and even now the journey's end, near as it really was,
seemed far away. Ah, but he would sleep soundly that night, whether
the bed were of earth or of straw. His peasant garb rather enhanced his
fine head. His eyes were blue and clear and far-seeing, the eyes of a
hunter or a woodsman, of a man who watches the shadows in the forest
at night or the dim, wavering lines on the horizon at daytime; things
near or far or roundabout. His brow was high, his nose large and
bridged; a face of more angles than contours, bristling with gray spikes,
like one who has gone unshaven several days. His hands, folded over
the round, polished knuckle of his staff, were tanned and soiled, but
they were long and slender, and the callouses were pink, a certain
indication that they were fresh.
The afternoon glow of the September sun burned along the dusty white
highway. From where he stood the road trailed off miles behind and
wound up five hundred feet or more above him to the ancient city of
Dreiberg. It was not a steep road, but a long and weary one, a steady,
enervating, unbroken climb. To the left the mighty cliff reared its
granite side to the hanging city, broke in a wide plain, and then went on
up several thousand feet to the ledges of dragon-green ice and snow. To
the right sparkled and flashed a wild mountain stream on its way to the
broad, fertile valley, which, mistily green and brown and yellow with
vineyards and hops and corn, spread out and on to the north, stopping
abruptly at the base of the more formidable chain of mountains.
Across this lofty jumble of barren rock and glacial cleft, now purpling
and darkening as the sun mellowed in its decline, lay the kingdom of
Jugendheit; and toward this the wayfarer gazed meditatively, absorbing
little or nothing of the exquisite panorama. By and by his gaze wavered,
and that particular patch in the valley, brown from the beating of many
iron-shod horses, caught and chained his interest for a space. It was the
military field, and it glittered and scintillated as squadron after
squadron of cavalry dashed from side to side or wheeled in bewildering
circles.

"The philosophy of war is to prepare for it," mused the old man, with a
jerk of his shoulders. "France! So the mutter runs. There is a Napoleon
in France, but no Bonaparte. Clatter-clatter! Bang-bang!" He laughed
ironically and cautiously glanced at his watch, an article which must
have cost him many and many a potato-patch. He pulled his hat over
his eyes, scratched the irritating stubble on his chin, and stepped
forward.
He had followed yonder goose-girl ever since the incline began. Oft the
little wooden shoes had lagged, but here they were, still a hundred
yards or more ahead of him. He had never been close enough to
distinguish her features. The galloping of soldiers up and down the road
from time to time disturbed her flock, but she was evidently a patient