The Goose Girl | Page 8

colonel, who bowed, excused himself to Carmichael, and
made off after her.
"I believe I stepped on his toe that time," said Carmichael to himself.
Then he looked round for Gretchen. She was still at the side of the
policeman. She had watched the scene between the two men, but was
quite unconscious that it had been set for her benefit. She came back.
Carmichael stepped confidently to her side and raised his hat.
"Did you get your geese together without mishap?" he asked.
The instinct of the child always remains with the woman. Gretchen
smiled. This young man would be different, she knew.
"They were only frightened. But his highness"--eagerly--"was he very
angry?"
"Angry? Not the least. He was amused. But he was nearly knocked off
his horse. If you lived in America now, you might reap a goodly profit
from that goose."
"America? How?"

"You could put him in a museum and exhibit him as an intimate friend
of the grand duke of Ehrenstein."
But Gretchen did not laugh. It was a serious thing to talk lightly of so
grand a person as the duke. Still, the magic word America, where the
gold came from, flamed her curiosity.
"You are from America?"
"Yes."
"Are you rich?"
"In fancy, in dreams"--humorously.
"Oh! I thought they were all rich."
"Only one or two of us."
"Is it very large, this America?"
"France, Spain, Prussia would be lonesome if set down in America.
Only Russia has anything to boast of."
"Did you fight in the war?"
"Yes. Do you like music?"
"Were you ever wounded?"
"A scratch or two, nothing to speak of. But do you like music?"
"Very, very much. When they play Beethoven, Bach, or Meyerbeer,
ach, I seem to live in another country. I hear music in everything, in the
leaves, the rain, the wind, the stream."
It seemed strange to him that he had not noticed it at first, the almost
Hanoverian purity of her speech and the freedom with which she spoke.
The average peasant is diffident, with a vocabulary of few words,

ignorant of art or music or where the world lay.
"What is your name?"
"Gretchen."
"It is a good name; it is famous, too."
"Goethe used it."
"So he did." Carmichael ably concealed his surprise: "You have some
one who reads to you?"
"No, Herr. I can read and write and do sums in addition."
He was willing to swear that she was making fun of him. Was she a
simple goose-girl? Was she not something more, something deeper?
War-clouds were forming in the skies; they might gather and strike at
any time. And who but the French could produce such a woman spy?
Ehrenstein was not Prussia, it was true; but the duchy with its twenty
thousand troops was one of the many pulses that beat in unison with
this man Bismarck's plans. Carmichael addressed her quickly in French,
aiming to catch her off her guard.
"I do not speak French, Herr,"--honestly.
He was certainly puzzled, but a glance at her hands dissolved his
doubts. These hands were used to toil, they were in no way disguised.
No Frenchwoman would sacrifice her hands for her country; at least,
not to this extent. Yet the two things in his mind would not readily
cohese: a goose-girl who was familiar with the poets and composers.
"You have been to school?"
"After a manner. My teacher was a kind priest. But he never knew that,
with knowledge, he was to open the gates of discontent."
"Then you are not happy with your lot?"

"Is any one, Herr?"--quietly. "And who might you be, and what might
you be doing here in Dreiberg, riding with the grand duke?"
"I am the American consul."
Gretchen took a step back.
"Oh, it is nothing that will bite you," he added.
"But perhaps I have been disrespectful!"
"Pray, how?"
Gretchen found that she had no definite explanation to offer.
"What did Colonel Wallenstein say to you?"
"Nothing of importance. I am used to it. I am perfectly able to take care
of myself," she answered.
"But he annoyed you."
"That is true," she admitted.
"What did the policeman say?"
"What would he say to a goose-girl?"
"Shall I speak to him?"
"Would it really do any good?"--skeptically.
"It might. The duke is friendly toward me, and I am certain he would
not tolerate such conduct in his police."
"You would only make enemies for me; insolence would become
persecution. I know. Yet, I thank you, Herr--"
"Carmichael. Now, listen, Gretchen; if at any time you are in trouble,

you will find me at the Grand Hotel or at the consulate next door to the
Black Eagle."
"I shall remember. Sometimes I work in the Black Eagle." And
recollection rose in her mind of the