Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/81

 talks French as they do in canton Vallais. But he also speaks German very well,” others replied.

“They say he was brought up near Grindelwald,” one of the competitors remarked.

There was life in the fellow, his eyes shone, his arm was steady, and for that reason he never failed in hitting the mark. Courage comes with success, but Rudy had a store of natural courage. Admiring friends soon gathered around him, and complimented him on his success; he altogether forgot Babette. Then some one laid his hand on his shoulder, and spoke to him in French.

“You belong to the canton of Vallais?”

Rudy turned, and saw a burly individual with a rosy, good-humoured face. It was the wealthy miller from Bex; his stout form almost concealed the pretty, slim Babette, but she looked at Rudy with her sparkling, dark eyes. The miller was glad that a rifleman from his own canton should prove the best shot, and should have won universal applause. Rudy was certainly in luck, for although he had forgotten his principal object in coming, she had now come forward to him.

When neighbours meet one another at a distance from home they generally get talking, and make each other’s acquaintance. Because Rudy was a good shot he had become a leader at the rifle competition, just as much as the miller was at Bex, because of his wealth and his good business; so they clasped each other by the hand for the first time; Babette also offered her hand to Rudy who squeezed it, and looked at her so earnestly that she quite blushed.

The miller spoke of their long journey, and how many large towns they had come through; and it certainly seemed to have been a very long journey, as they had travelled by the steamboat, and also by rail and by post-chaise.

“I came the nearest way,” said Rudy. “I walked over the mountains; no road is too high for a man to come over it.”

“And break your neck,” said the miller. “You look just the man to break his neck one day, you look so headstrong.”

“A man doesn’t fall if he doesn’t think about it,” replied Rudy.

The miller’s relatives in Interlaken, with whom he and Babette were staying, asked Rudy to visit them, he was from the same canton. This was a chance for Rudy; fortune favoured him, as she always does favour those who endeavour to succeed by their own energy, and remember that “Providence gives us nuts, but we have to crack them for ourselves.”

Rudy was welcomed by the miller’s relatives as if he had belonged to the family, and they drank to the health of the best shot, and Babette clinked her glass with the others, and Rudy thanked them for the toast.

In the evening they went for a stroll on the road by the big hotels beneath the old walnut-trees, and there was such a throng, and the people pushed so that Rudy was able to offer his arm to Babette. He said he was glad to have met the people from Vaud. The cantons of Vaud and Vallais were very good neighbours. He scemed so thoroughly pleased that Babette could not resist the inclination to press his hand. They walked together just like old acquaintances, and she was very amusing. Rudy was delighted with her naive remarks on the peculiarities in the dress and behaviour of the foreign ladies; and yet she did not wish to make fun of them, for she knew that many of them were amiable and worthy people—indced, her own godmother was an English lady. She had been living in Bex eighteen years ago, when Babette was christened, and she had