"I"ll come along the lane and show you a short cut," he said and went off. "What are you two after?"
"Grub," exclaimed Nessa promptly. "Ain"t had a bite since yesterday forenoon, "cept some berries I picked to give my belly something to do." It was very naturally said, but a blunder, of course.
"Funny. You must have been off the track a lot," he said. "There"s plenty of places everywhere. Which way did you come?"
"It"s which way we"ve got to go, that matters now, farmer," said I.
"That"s true, and here"s the footpath. You strike me as the sort of man one could work with. Come and see me when you get to Lingen;" and he told me how to find the farm and offered his hand.
He let us get a few yards and then called me back. "It"s no concern of mine, but that"s a delicate youngster of yours; any one would more likely take him for a wench than a lad, when he"s off guard. Anyhow, come and see me at Lingen;" and without waiting for my reply, he walked off.
"What did he want?" asked Nessa.
"Spotted you for a girl."
"Jack! He couldn"t!" she protested indignantly.
"He did;" and I used the fact as a text to urge the change I had in my thoughts. She did kick at it, as was to be expected; but a little later we had a powerful practical proof of its necessity.
We turned into the first inn we came to for some breakfast, and I was talking to the woman of the house, a very kindly-looking motherly person, about it when there was a commotion outside. I ran out to find Nessa being rough-handled by a man who was trying to s.n.a.t.c.h her cap off. A word or two stopped any mischief, but it also drew the woman"s attention very pointedly to Nessa.
"You can have your breakfast in my room, if you like," she said, and, when I thanked her, led the way to it, and closed the door and stood with her back to it. "You"ve taken your cap off, can"t the lad do the same?" she asked very meaningly.
"Got a sore place on it, mum; "fraid of a chill," said Nessa.
"I"m good at curing places of that sort, let me have a look at it."
"No, thank you, all the same, I don"t take kindly to coddling," replied Nessa, colouring.
The woman smiled. "You do it very well, my girl, but I"m a woman myself and know my own s.e.x," she replied drily. Then to me: "You"re an honest man, I"ll wager, by your looks. Hadn"t you better tell me what it means?"
"She"s my wife," I said. "She"s English and----"
"Glory be to G.o.d!" she interposed excitedly, in English, with a strong brogue. "If I didn"t guess it the instant I clapped eyes on the both of ye!" and the tears welled in her eyes as she rushed to Nessa, took off the cap and kissed her. "Ah, ye poor Mavourneen, ye! And, saints alive, look at the lovely hair it is. And to think ye"re from England, only I wish it was dear old Oireland, that I do! Whisht now, or Oi"ll be making an ould fool of mysilf. We"d best just shpake in German. That I should live to see the day! And out in this divil of a hole of a place!
It"s making for the frontier ye are, of course! And it"s glad that I am I can help ye, so I can. And it"s breakfast ye want, is it? Sure I"ll see to it; but I must dry my eyes first and get sober."
She kissed Nessa again and almost kissed me also in her joy, wiped her eyes, looked in the gla.s.s to see that all was right and bustled out to see about the breakfast.
"Something like a stroke of luck, this," I said; but Nessa was too cast down at her failure in the part to answer, so I looked out of the window to give her time to get over it.
She rose presently and I felt her hand on my shoulder. "I"m a failure, Jack," she said wistfully, struggling to smile at it.
"And thank Heaven for it, sweetheart."
"But even that brute of a farmer found me out. I wouldn"t care so much if it had only been this good soul."
"She spotted me as English too," I reminded her.
"I know. You"re trying to make it easier for me; but that man didn"t spot you, the beast!" She smiled then at her own vehemence. "Well, it"s good-bye, Hans, I suppose," she said with a sigh.
"And good riddance, too."
"And yet you said I was doing it so well."
"And so you were, child, for the stage, but this is different."
"It"s taken all the fun out of the picnic for me."
"What? To be my wife?"
She laughed and shook her head. "Well, there"s one thing, you won"t be the boss any longer."
"We"ll see about that, young "un."
"Don"t, Jack. Don"t ever dare to refer to this again or I"ll--I"ll--I don"t know what I"ll do!" she cried with a stamp of the foot. Then she caught sight of Han"s cap. "It"s that horrid thing that"s the cause of it all;" and she picked it up and flung it from her.
That was the overt act of renunciation of the part; and as she turned to me I put my arm round her and kissed her.
"I thought there was to be no more "anything else,"" she laughed.
"Mustn"t a man kiss his own wife?" I cried.
"That hopes to be, Jack," she whispered.
And that was Hans" funeral ceremony.
CHAPTER XXV
A FRIEND IN NEED
When the woman returned to us she had quite thrown off her emotional outburst at our meeting, and her first words were a warning not to speak another word of English.
"I couldn"t help it at first, I was so excited; but it would ruin me if it was known that I"m British," she declared, and over the breakfast she told us her story.
She was from Cork, where she had married a German baker named Fischer, had come to Germany a few years later, had been a widow for five years, and had continued to carry on the business of the inn. She was very curious to learn the truth about the war; and when I had satisfied her, we settled down to the consideration of her own affairs.
We returned confidence for confidence: that Nessa and I were engaged to be married; how I had come from England to find her; the plight she had been in owing to von Erstein"s persecution; that we had been in the train smash, and had escaped with our lives, but had lost the pa.s.sports.
She knew the von Erstein type of German well enough to sympathize deeply with Nessa and listened in tears to that part of the story.
"I can help you both, and I will; but you"ll have to be as cautious as a pair of wild birds. They"re just grabbing the men into the army with both hands, for one thing, and they"ll take you at sight, and then what would she do, poor thing?"
"But aren"t a lot of mechanics exempted?"
"Do you know anything about such things really?"