At the mouth of the great ravine of Dornauberg the travellers paused and dismounted. Mr. Hahn called the guide, who was following behind with a horse laden with baggage, and with his assistance a choice repast, consisting of all manner of cold curiosities, was served on a large flat rock. The senior Hahn fell to work with a will and made no pretence of being interested in the sombre magnificence of the Dornauberg, while Fritz found time for an occasional exclamation of rapture, flavored with caviar, Rhine wine, and _pate de foie gras_.
"_Ach, Gott_, Fritz, what stuff you can talk!" grumbled his father, sipping his Johannisberger with the air of a connoisseur. "When I was of your age, Fritz, I had--hush, what is that?"
Mr. Hahn put down his glass with such an energy that half of the precious contents was spilled.
"_Ach, du lieber Gott_," he cried a moment later. "_Wie wunderschon_!"
From a mighty cliff overhanging the road, about a hundred feet distant, came a long yodling call, peculiar to the Tyrol, sung in a superb ringing baritone. It soared over the mountain peaks and died away somewhere among the Ingent glaciers. And just as the last faint note was expiring, a girl's voice, fresh and clear as a dew-drop, took it up and swelled it and carolled it until, from sheer excess of delight, it broke into a hundred leaping, rolling, and warbling tones, which floated and gambolled away over the highlands, while soft-winged echoes bore them away into the wide distance.
"Father," said Fritz, who was now lying outstretched on a soft Scotch plaid smoking the most fragrant of weeds; "if you can get those two voices to the 'Haute Noblesse,' for the next season it is ten thousand thalers in your pocket; and I shall only charge you ten per cent. for the suggestion."
"Suggestion, you blockhead! Why, the thought flashed through my head the very moment I heard the first note. But hush--there they are again."
From the cliff, sung to the air of a Tyrolese folk-song, came this stanza:
Tell me, Ilka on the hill-top, While the Alpine breezes blow, Are thy golden locks as golden As they were a year ago? (Yodle) Hohli-ohli-ohli-ho! Hohli-ohli-ohli-ho! Hohlio-oh!
The effect of the yodle, in which both the baritone of the cliff and the Alpine soprano united, was so melodious that Mr. Hahn sprang to his feet and swore an ecstatic oath, while Fritz, from sheer admiring abstraction, almost stuck the lighted end of his cigar into his mouth. The soprano answered: