Florian intended to run away with the money and to send for Crescence to follow him; but his boots would not consent to the plan. So he went to town and bought a pair of new ones. What a comfort it was! For months he had walked with downcast eyes, carefully avoiding every little puddle; and at last he could tread the slippery road without fear or favor. To enjoy the change fully, he even extended his walk a little farther than was necessary.
But soon his walks came to a sudden close. He had accidentally paid out a perforated dollar, of a description exactly answering to that of one designated by the man who had been robbed. That same evening the squire came, with a beadle and agens d'armes, to arrest him.
At his earnest request, Buchmaier consented to have him led through the gardens instead of along the street.
As he walked along he complained bitterly of his misfortune, and protested his innocence. This is usual when persons are arrested, whether guilty or innocent. It is so natural to appeal to the humanity of those who surround the prisoner like moving walls, ere he has reached the heartless stones of the jail. When the Jeremiad is finished, the answer is, invariably, "We shall see that at the proper time: it's none of our business now." Then the unfortunate one comes to understand that he has been asking the stone hurled by a force outside of itself, "Why smitest thou me?"--that he has been begging the net in which he is ensnared to pity him and set him free.
Florian had spoken without any ulterior design at first; but presently it occurred to him that it might be well to talk in the same strain before the judge. He therefore spoke at great length,--for lies are easier when you have practised them than when they appear as first efforts.
Not more than fifty florins had been found in Florian's possession; and these, he said, he had won at play at the Horb fair. Besides the perforated dollar, an important circumstance going to show his guilt was the wedding-cake found in the yard: several of the girls had seen the bride give him the present. Florian denied every thing. He had heard somewhere that "denial was lawful in Wurtemberg;" and this maxim comprised his entire knowledge of jurisprudence.
Many of the villagers, who previously would never have allowed themselves to suspect any evil of Florian, now boasted loudly that they had said ten years ago that Florian would come to no good, and revived the memory of all the forgotten, pranks of his boyhood.
Florian meditated a flight. One night he pulled down the tile stove which stood at the wall of his cell and formed a part of it, and escaped by the hole thus made in the wall. His escape was just like the crime. This brought him to the corridor, but no farther. It was locked; and to jump out of the window was as much as his life was worth. His eye fell on a broom which stood in a corner. Without hesitation, he opened the window, pressed the end of the broom into the corner formed by the junction of the tower with the side-building, balanced himself on the handle, and slid down to the ground.
The watchman had seen him; but he crossed himself three times and ran up the nearest alley,--for he had beheld the devil himself riding through the air on a broomstick.
Thus Florian was free, Running up the street, he crept into a covered sewer, tore up the earth with his hands, found the money, and ran off through the woods.
During his imprisonment, Crescence's mother had died, and the Red Tailor, forced to yield to one of those general bursts of neighborly feeling which are the relieving features of village life, had allowed his daughter to return to his house.
In the night of Florian's escape she awoke from her sleep in terror. She had dreamed that Florian had called her out to dance, and, do what she would, she could not get her stocking on her foot. Weeping, she sat up in her bed and spoke the prayer for the poor souls in purgatory. Hearing the clock strike four, she arose and did all the housework. Before daybreak she went into the wood to get kindling. Indeed, ever since her misfortune her activity was morbid: she seemed anxious to compensate for the idle life of Florian. Though no thanks rewarded her industry, she had scarcely left a nook or corner of the house not garnered with dry sticks and fir-cones.
At the edge of the wood she found a white button, which she recognised as belonging to Florian's jacket and secreted in her bosom. Looking over the landscape, she said to herself, "My cross is great; and if I were to climb to the top of the highest hill I couldn't look beyond it."
She returned without having gathered any thing. On hearing of Florian's flight, she wept and rejoiced: she wept because she could no longer doubt he was a criminal, and rejoiced to know that he was free.
At night Florian built himself a hut of some sheaves in a harvest-field and slept in it.
In a tavern he had stolen a knife, having at the same time concealed twelve creutzers in the salt-cellar: with this implement he now scraped off his mustache.
Nevertheless, he had no sooner crossed the frontier than he was arrested. This time he did not stop to enlist the pity of thegens d'armes, but defended himself with all his might and made desperate efforts to get free: he was thrown down, however, and manacled.
He was now forwarded from circuit to circuit by the hands of thegens d'armes. In silence he walked along, his right hand chained to his right foot: he looked upon himself as upon an animal driven to the slaughter.
But when, coming from Sulz, he issued from the Empfingen copse and found that he was to be dragged in chains through his native village, he fell on his knees before thegens d'armesand begged him with tears to be so merciful as to take him around outside of the village.
But the voice of authority answered "No," and Florian struck his left hand into his eyes to blind himself to his own degradation: his right hand rattled helplessly in the chain. Florian--the cynosure of neighboring eyes, he who had known no keener joy than to be the object of universal attention--was now to be exposed in these shameful trappings and in such disgraceful company. For the first time in his life he could have prayed that people might not have eyes to cast upon him. As he passed the Red Tailor's house, Crescence was chopping wood at the pile. The hatchet dropped from her hand, and for a moment she stood paralyzed: the next instant she rushed upon Florian with open arms and fell upon his neck. Thegens d'armesdisengaged her gently. "I'll go with you through the village," said Crescence, without weeping. "You sha'n't bear your shame alone. Does the iron hurt you? Don't fret too much, for my sake."
Florian, unable to speak, motioned to her with his left hand to turn back; but she walked by his side,She walked by his side.as if riveted to him by an invisible chain. The news spread through the village like wildfire. Caspar and Babbett were standing before the Eagle: the former had a mug of beer in his hand, and brought it to Florian to drink. Thegens d'armeswould not permit it. Florian begged them not to let Crescence go any farther, and Babbett at last persuaded her to remain. All were weeping.
He went alone through the rest of the familiar streets.
George the blacksmith, prevented by the cold from sitting in front of his door, saw him from behind his window and touched his cap from sheer embarrassment. At the manor-house farmer's he met the French simpleton, who pointed to his upper lip, saying, "Mus a loni ringo." In spite of himself, a painful smile passed over Florian's features.
When at last he had left the last hut behind him, he vowed never to return to his old home again.
His incarceration was now more severe than it had been: though in the same tower as formerly, he was kept in the most secure apartment. He often looked through the grating; but when a Nordstetter passed he started back as if he had been shot.
As the anguish of his mind became more subdued, he tried many devices to pass away the time. He walked about with a blade of straw standing on his forehead: when this became easy, he added others, until at last he could build a whole house and take it to pieces again. With much exertion, he learned to stand out horizontally from the iron bars, and even acquired the art of placing his knees behind his head.
One day, in looking through the grating, he saw Crescence coming to town. Hot tears fell on the iron bars: he could not speak to her,--scarcely give her a sign.
At night he heard a cough beneath the window, which was repeated several times. Recognising Crescence, he returned the signal. Crescence unwound the red ribbon which had adorned her hair since the bel-wether dance, tied it round a letter and a stone, and flung it up to Florian, who caught it adroitly. She went briskly away; but in the distance Florian caught the last words of the song,--
"The fire may be extinguish'd,Love cannot be diminish'd;Fire burns to scathe and kill,But love burns hotter still."
"The fire may be extinguish'd,
Love cannot be diminish'd;
Fire burns to scathe and kill,
But love burns hotter still."
Florian never dosed an eye that night: he had a letter from Crescence, and yet he could not read it. At the first ray of morning, he was at the window, and read:--
"I don't know whether this letter will get into your hands or not; and so I won't sign my name. I have been to town to get my certificate of settlement. Betsy has got a place for me in Alsace: I'm going off the day after to-morrow. I have had a long dress made, too. My mother is dead, and my father is going to marry Walpurgia the seamstress. I need not tell you that I can never forget you, even if you had done I don't know what. If you have been bad once, you're not bad now. I know that. Be good and patient, and bear your fate. Our Lord is my witness, I'd gladly take it on myself. I got your father to give me your knife, which you always liked so much; I hope, with God's blessing, to see you work honestly with it, someday. Only don't give up hope; for then you would be quite lost. Don't reproach yourself about what's past and gone: that won't do any good: but be good now. With the first money I earn I'm going to redeem your ring and my garnets. Oh, I have so much to tell you! ten clerks couldn't write it down. I will close, and be yours till death."
The letter was bathed in a flood of happy tears. Never till now did Florian know the treasure he possessed in Crescence. And he had not a little joy left, besides, for the thought that his precious knife was safe.
Florian was sent to the penitentiary for six years. He was almost pleased to lay aside his velvet roundabout and put on in place of it the gray coat of the convict; for his favorite was thus saved for those happy days in which he hoped to see Crescence again. Indeed, the six years seemed a mere week to his imagination. His heart was so full of hope again that he skipped over the interval of time as if it had been but a span.
Monarchical governments have their advantages, and in some respects put those of republics to shame. Here every man is fortunate as long as he is free; but, once immured in the walls of a prison, his rights and his comforts become every man's business, and therefore nobody's, and society neither knows nor cares whether he is properly fed, clothed, and watched, or whether his jailors enrich themselves on the sale of the food he should eat, or make his ordinary comforts contingent upon the alacrity he displays in doing their menial services. In Europe it is otherwise. There the government, and its hirelings the office-holders, consider every individual their natural enemy so long as he lives on his own exertions, and withholds a fragment of his existence from the surveillance of the high and mighty. With unrelenting taxation, and interminable regulations, prohibitions, and prescriptions, they waste his substance and goad him into prison; but, once there, their wishes are accomplished, and they treat him henceforth with paternal kindness. Favors shown to prisoners can never be regarded as concessions to civil liberty, and therefore they are freely extended. Whoever finds his way there may calculate upon friendly treatment. Perhaps, instead of opposing the government, it would be better for the citizens to bring about a general measure of criminal incarceration as the surest road to the good-will of their sovereigns.
Still, the time passed but slowly. He learned the art of making brushes. When at length and at last the day of delivery came, he hastened to Crescence. He was received with open arms. With a little money, which she had saved out of her earnings, they both travelled from village to village as brush-makers. But soon Florian renounced this trade for one more satisfactory to his peculiar desire for admiration. He attended the fairs, markets, and harvest homes as rope-dancer and juggler. His great exploit was the sword-trick, which consisted in throwing three swords around in a circle and always catching them by the handle: he had mastered the principle when engaged in chopping sausage-meat. Crescence clung to him faithfully through all this; and once, when he fell from the rope and broke his leg, she nursed him with the most tender care.
After this he purchased a gambling-table and frequented the markets and harvest-homes of the adjoining countries of Germany,--the game of dice having been, in the mean time, prohibited in Wurtemberg. It is the peculiar good fortune of Germany that every one may cultivate his besetting sin there to his heart's content, if he can only find the proper principality. What would have become of Florian had he not been a son of that favored country? He could not have made a living out of that which had first led to his ruin. Whenever this occurred to him, he raised his voice, as if to encourage himself: his morsel of French stood him in good stead,--for it is the most respectable dress for immorality that was ever fashioned.
"Messieurs, faites votre jeu!" he would say. "Step up, step up: play here, gentlemen.Messieurs, eight creutzers for one creutzer: one creutzer has eight young ones.La fortune,la fortune,la fortune!A creutzer is nothing: out of nothing God made the world: out of no money money will come. Step up,Messieurs: faites votre jeu!"
Often, when his tricks began to pall on the taste of the crowd, and he found time to observe the young fellows dancing and making merry, a two-edged sword would pierce his heart: he had been like them once, and like the finest among them; and now he was a despised joker for the amusement of others. To banish such thoughts, he would grow, more and more extravagant in his sallies, and endeavor to persuade himself that he was doing it all for his own edification.
Of four children, only two survived,--the oldest boy and a little girl. Never would Florian suffer them to look at him when he drove his trade. They were kept in a barn or a farmer's room, with the household goods of the family.
Once only Crescence took courage to suggest that it might be for the advantage of their children if they were to go home and try to support themselves there by their daily labor.
"Don't talk of it," said Florian, gnashing his teeth: "ten horses wouldn't drag me up the Horb steep again. I lost my honor there; and never, never will I look at the Nordstetten steeple again!"
In Braunsbach by the Kocher, opposite Maerxle's house, is a linden-tree, toward which a strolling family might have been seen making their way one Sunday afternoon. The fatherFlorian and his family.--a powerful man, in a blue smock and gray felt hat numerously indented--was drawing a cart which contained a whetstone and some household-utensils. A gaunt, brown dog, of middle size, was his yokefellow. The woman assisted in helping the cart forward by pushing from behind. The two children followed, carrying some dry sticks gathered along the road. Arrived at the tree, the man took off the strap by which he was harnessed, threw his hat on the ground, wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and sat down with his back resting against the tree. Though much altered, we cannot but recognise Florian and his family.
The dog had lain down beside him, resting his head on his fore-paws. The boy caressed him.
"Leave Schlunkel alone now, Freddie," said Florian. "Go and help your mother."
The boy obeyed quickly: he knew that his father was out of humor by his calling the dog "Schlunkel,"--for whenever Florian was ill at ease he tortured himself by giving to the sharer of his burden the name of the man who had first made him unhappy.
Crescence, meantime, had taken the stand and the kettle from the cart, had made a fire and placed the kettle filled with water upon it.
"Go and got us some potatoes," said she to Freddie. He took a pot and went up to a house which looked down upon their resting-place. The beams of the framework in the walls--visible, as is always the case in that part of the country--were painted a bright red. An elderly man was looking out of the window.
"Won't you be so kind," asked Freddie, "as to give us some potatoes? God reward you!"
"Where are you from?" asked the man, who looked as if he had eaten a good dinner.
"My father always says, 'From the place where people are hungry too.'"
"Is that your father down there?"
"Yes: but don't be too long about it if you want to give us any thing, for our wood's all burning away."
The man came down and opened the door: the neighbors wondered how Peter Mike came to open his house to a beggar.
Freddie soon came out again with a potfull of potatoes and a little lard in a bowl. Soon the boiled potatoes became a porridge, and after all the family had dined the dog received permission to lick the plates.
Florian arose, and passed through the village, crying, "Scissor-grinder from Paris!" Freddie went from house to house to get work, promising the best of Parisian edge. And, without doubt, Florian was perfectly master of his new trade.
Peter Mike spent the afternoon in following the scissor-grinder from place to place. It gave him pleasure to follow his agile motions and hear the pretty tunes he whistled. He also chatted a little with the woman and the children. At dark he even tendered them his barn as a night's lodging. All the village cried, "A judgment! a judgment! Stingy Peter Mike is getting kind!" And yet this was but a trifle compared with what followed. Peter Mike sat down with them in the barn, and said, "Let me keep this boy of yours. I'll do well by him. What do you say to it?"
Seeing them look at each other in astonishment, he went on:--"Sleep on it, and tell me what you think of it in the morning."
Florian and Crescence talked for half the night without coming to any conclusion. The mother, much as her inclination protested against it, was ready to give up her child, in order to give it a prospect in life, and the hope, at least, of an ordinary education.
Florian said little, but looked at the boy as he slept in the moonlight, looking very beautiful.
"He'll be a rouser some day," he said at last, turned over on his side, and fell asleep.
It may seem strange that Peter Mike, with such a reputation for avarice, should suddenly offer to adopt the child of a stroller; nor was charity his only motive. He was alone and childless,--had rented out his fields, and lived upon his income. His brother's children--the only kindred he had--had offended him in someway; and he wished to mark his displeasure by the adoption of a stranger's child. Besides, the boy with the clear blue eyes had inspired him with an unaccountable affection.
At daybreak Peter Mike was at the barn-door, and asked whether they were awake. Being answered in the affirmative, he requested Florian and Crescence to come up to his room, in order to discuss the question. They complied.
"Well, how is it? Have you made up your minds?" he asked.
"Why," said Florian, "the plain English of it is, we should like to give up the boy very well, because he would be in good hands with you and could learn something; but it won't do: will it, Crescence?"
"Why won't it do?"
"Because we want the boy in our business; and we must live too, you know,--and our little girl."
"See here," said Peter Mike: "I'll show you that I mean you well. I'll give you a hundred florins,--not for the boy, but so that you can go about some other business,--a trade in dishes, or something of that kind. A hundred florins is something. What do you say?"
The parents looked at each other sorrowfully.
"Crescence, do you talk. I've nothing more to say: whatever you do, I'm satisfied."
"Why, I don't think the boy'll want to stay and leave us. You mean well, I know that; but the child might die of home-sickness."
"I'll ask him," said Peter Mike, leaving the parents more astonished than ever; for habitual poverty deprives people of the power of forming resolutions, and makes them surprised to find this faculty in others. Neither spoke: they dreaded the forthcoming answer, whatever it might be.
Peter Mike returned, leading Freddie by the hand. He nodded significantly, and Freddie cried, "Yes, I'll stay with cousin: he's going to give me a whip and a horse."
Crescence wept; but Florian said, "Well, then, let's go; what must be, the sooner it's done the better."
He went down-stairs, packed the cart, and hitched the dog. Peter Mike brought him the money.
When all was ready, Crescence kissed her son once more, and said, weeping, "Be a good boy, and mind your cousin: go to school and learn your lessons. Perhaps we shall come back in winter."
Florian turned his head away when his son took his hand, and tightened the strap by which he pulled the cart. Freddie put his arms round the dog's head and took leave of him.
Not a word was spoken until they reached Kochersteinfeld: each mentally upbraided the other for having made so little opposition. Here they rested, and Florian called for a pint of wine to cheer their spirits. Taking a long draught,Florian pushed the glass over to Crescence.he pushed the glass over to Crescence, bidding her do the same. She raised the glass to her lips, but set it down again and cried, weeping aloud, "I can't drink: it seems as if I had to drink the blood of my darling Freddie."
"Don't get up such a woman's fuss now: you ought to 've said that before. Let's sleep over it: we shall feel better tomorrow."
As if to escape from their own thoughts, they never stopped till they got to Kuenzelsau. On the way they held counsel as to the best investment of their money, and agreed to act upon the advice of Peter Mike.
Next day they set out for Oehringen; but suddenly Florian stopped and said, "Crescence, what do you say to turning round and going back for Freddie?"
"Yes, yes, yes! come."
In a moment the cart was headed the other way, and the dog leaped up Florian's side, as if he knew what was going on. But suddenly Crescence cried, "Oh, mercy, mercy! He'll never let us have him: there's a whole florin gone,--the night's lodging; and I've bought Lizzie a dress!"
"O women and vanity!" groaned Florian. "Well, we must try it, anyhow. I'm bound to have my Freddie back."
The dog barked assent
It was noonday again when the caravan reached the linden-tree. Freddie ran to meet them, crying, "Is it winter?"
His mother went up to Peter Mike, laid down the money, begged him to overlook the florin which was gone, and demanded her child.
The parson was in Peter Mike's room, and had almost succeeded in persuading him to be reconciled to his brother's children and to give the adopted child but a small portion of his property. At sight of Crescence he rose, without knowing why, and raised his hands. He tried to induce the woman not to give her child away; and, when she answered, the sound of her voice was like a reminiscence of something long unthought of.
Peter Mike had called Florian. When the latter saw the parson, he rushed up to him, seized him by the collar, and cried, "Ha, old fellow! I've caught you again at last." Crescence and Peter Mike interfered. The parson, with a husky voice, begged the latter to retire, as he had important communications to make to the strangers. Peter Mike complied.
"Is your name Crescence?" asked the parson.
"Yes."
"My child! my child!" said the parson, hoarsely, falling on her neck.
For a time all wept in silence. The parson passed his hand over her face, and then made them both swear never to reveal the relation in which they stood to him. He would give them a house and set them up in business. Crescence was to be regarded as his sister's child.
Thus the vagrant family settled in the village. Florian has returned to the active use of his faithful knife.
The wife of the Protestant minister, who is very religious, claims to have discovered beyond a doubt that Crescence is not the parson's niece, but his daughter; but people don't believe it.
The dog, who is also in the butchering-line, has exchanged his name of Schlunkel for the honest one of Bless. The gloomy recollections of the past are buried in oblivion.
The clear tones of the church-bell melted into the bright glow of noonday, and the peasants came homeward from the fields. The men carried their caps in their hands until they reached the highroad: the voice of God had called upon them to lay their farming-utensils aside and to seek refreshment in prayer and in bodily food. A young man of slender form had come up the road leading from the town to the village. He was attired in citizen's dress, and carried a brown "Ziegenhainer" walking-stick, with numerous names engraved upon it, in his hand. On coming in sight of the village, he stood still, listened to the song of the bell, and surveyed the forest of white-blossomed orchards in which the hamlet was imbedded. He saluted the people who came from the fields with a peculiar earnestness, as if they were his friends. They returned the greeting with almost equal cordiality, and often turned round to look at him again. It seemed to them as if he must be some native of the village returning home after long journeys; and yet they could not recall his features.
When the last sound of the bell had died away, when all the fields were hushed and not a human being remained in sight, while the larks alone continued to revel in the skies, the stranger sat down upon a bank, and, after another long look at the village, he drew out his note-book. Having assured himself that he was unobserved, he wrote into it as follows:--
"Greeks and Romans, how your triumphs rent the air and your trumpets brayed! But it was left for Christianity to steal the ore from the dark bowels of the earth, to hang it aloft in mid-air, and pour its tones over the land, summoning mankind to devotion, to joy, to mourning. How glorious must have been the sound of harp and drum at Jerusalem! But now there is no longer but one temple upon earth: Christianity has raised them by thousands, far and near. When I heard the sound just now, it was like a heavenly welcome to my entrance into this place. You looked at me in astonishment, good people. Ye know not what we are to be to each other. Oh for a magic charm to obtain, the entire control over the minds of these beings, so that I might free them from ignorance and superstition and give them a taste of the true pleasures of the mind! They walk the earth even as the cattle which they follow, seeking nothing but food for their mouths.
"This, then, is the spot where my new life is to begin,--there the dingles and the downs on which my eye shall rest when my mind is full of the experiences of labor and exertion! Wherever flowers are seen, the earth is beautiful and gladdening. And, though men do not understand me, thou dost understand me, O deathless Nature, and dost reward my attention to thy revelations with a kindly smile. Here the trees send forth their blossoms, and in the village I hear the merry shouts of the children into whose minds I am to cast the light of education."
He ceased writing, and, looking at his cane, he said to himself, "Ye are scattered to the four winds of heaven, ye friends of my youth, and your names alone are left me; but I lean upon the memory of your names in crossing the threshold of my new existence. I commit my greetings to the spring: may the birds of the air convey it to your ears and refresh your hearts!"
He rose and walked briskly to the village.
It is not necessary to say that it was the new schoolmaster whose acquaintance we have just made. He asked for the squire, and was directed to Buchmaier's house.
Buchmaier and his numerous household were at dinner when the stranger entered. With a hearty welcome, he was invited to take a seat at the table, but politely declined.
"Oh, pshaw!" said Buchmaier, who had resumed his seat and his masticatory operations without delay: "move up a little, you. Quick, Agnes! get a plate. Sit down, Mr. Teacher. We don't do like the Horb folks: they always say, 'If you'd only come sooner.' Whoever comes into our houses at dinnertime must help us. You'll be too late for dinner where you're going; and we're just sitting down. You must take pot-luck, you see. It's a regular Black Forest dinner,--little fried dumplings and dried apples, boiled."
Agnes had brought a plate; and the teacher, to avoid giving offence, took his seat at the table.
"My Agnes here," said Buchmaier, after heaping his plate, "you'll have in Sunday-school."
"Oh, you won't have much more to learn," said the teacher, by way of saying something. The girl's eyes were fixed bashfully on her plate.
"Why, Agnes, why don't you talk? You generally carry your tongue about you. Do you know every thing?"
"Wall, I kin sheow a fist at readin' good enough, but the writin' won't gee no more, noheow, a body gits sich nation hard fingers workin' all the week."
We have attempted to reproduce Agnes' speech in the broadest Yankee brogue; but it is entirely insufficient to give the reader an adequate idea of the effect produced upon our hero's mind by the guttural consonants and parti-colored vowels of the original. All the beauty of the lips disappeared from his view when he heard what issued from them.
After the closing grace, one of the hands, who had been sitting near Buchmaier at the table, placed himself before him and said, pocketing the knife with which he had eaten, "'Guess I'll go out alone with the horses."
"Yes, I'm coming out d'rectly. Take a boy with you to hold the sorrel: he won't fall into the harness well."
"Oh, never you mind: I'll look out for all that," said the ploughman, walking away heavily. The teacher shook his head.
Agnes cleared the table, and hastened to the kitchen to exchange notes with the hired girls about the stranger.
"A good-looking chap enough," said Legata, the oldest, Agnes' special confidant. "He looked at you: I didn't know whether he wanted to give you a kiss or a slap. Wouldn't he do for you? He's a single man."
"I'd rather be single myself till a cow's worth a copper."
"You're right," said another girl: "why, he feeds himself with both hands. Did you mind how he held the knife in his right hand and his fork in his left? Who ever saw an honest man doing the like of that?"
Until a very short time ago not only the peasantry, butallclasses, of Germany, ate with the fork alone, which they held in the right fist and handled like a shovel.
"Yes," said a third: "he never got outside of his father's dunghill before, I bet you. He cut the dumplings with his knife, instead of pulling them to pieces; so they got as tough as tallow. Served him right, for a tallow-head as he is. He gulped at 'em till I thought he'd choke."
While the girls were thus washing the dishes and overhauling the guest, the conversation in the room had taken a turn not calculated to remove the unfavorable impressions already produced on the teacher's mind.
"By your talk," said Buchmaier, "I should judge you were raised in the lowlands."
"Not exactly: I am from the Tauber Valley."
"Oh, we're not so particular about that: we call it all lowlands the other side of Boeblingen. What's the name of your place?"
The teacher hesitated a little, laid his hands upon his breast, and finally answered, with a bend of the head, "Lauterbach."
Buchmaier burst into a shout of laughter, which the teacher received in solemn earnestness. At last the former said, "Don't take it amiss: why, Lauterbach,--every child knows of Lauterbach,--it's in the song, you know. What made you hem and haw about it? There's no shame in't, I'm sure. Now, couldn't you tell me--I always wanted to know--why did they just put Lauterbach into the song?"
"How should I know? I suppose there is no reason for it. These stupid songs are generally made by simpletons who take any town they happen to think of, if it fits the metre: I mean the verse."
"Oh, I don't think the song so stupid as all that, and it has a funny tune: I like to hear people sing it."
"You must permit me to differ with you."
"What about permitting? If I didn't permit it, you'd do it anyhow. Just tell me, straight out, why you don't like it."
"What idea, what common sense, is there in a song like this?--
'At Lauterbach my stocking slipp'd off:Without a stocking I can't go home;So I'm just going back to LauterbachTo buy another stocking to my one.'
'At Lauterbach my stocking slipp'd off:
Without a stocking I can't go home;
So I'm just going back to Lauterbach
To buy another stocking to my one.'
That is sheer nonsense; and that you call funny? How can a song be funny when there isn't a single idea in it? Is nonsense fun?"
"Well, that may be as it will: it's funny, anyhow: it just suits you when you're----" Buchmaier, at a loss for words, snapped his fingers, and went on:--"I mean to say, when you're a little over the traces. We have a fellow here, his name's George: you must hear him sing it once: he thinks just as I do about it. Some joker once told me that it ought to be 'shoe' instead of 'stocking,' and that it was Lauterbach because there are so many old shoes lying about in the streets. But what have we to do with it now? Let's talk of something else. Have you got any friends here?"
"Not a single acquaintance."
"Well, you'll find 'em: the people hereabouts are a little rough sometimes; but it isn't that: it only looks so. They're a little fond of a joke, too, and sometimes it comes out of season; but they don't mean any harm by it; and you must only pay 'em back, and be quick on the trigger; and if you manage 'em right you can twist 'em round your little finger."
"I shall certainly treat them all with gentleness and kindness."
"Oh, I was going to say, don't forget to visit the councilmen and the committee-members; and go to see the old schoolmaster, who's been out of office these twenty-five years: he's a fine man, and 'll be glad to see you. He's one of the old sort, but as good as gold. I went to school with him myself, and I know mighty little,--that's a fact. The last schoolmaster made him mad because he didn't go to see him; and if you want to do him a particular favor, let him play the organ sometimes of a Sunday. Now I'll show you where you're to live: your things came yesterday."
With a discontented air, the teacher walked up the village at Buchmaier's side. The transcendent anticipations with which he had come were writhing under the pitiless blast of rude reality. More than once he heard the persons they passed stop and say to each other, "That's the new schoolmaster, I guess." At the Crown Tavern they encountered our old friend Mat, now a member of the committee of citizens. Buchmaier introduced the new-comer. Some of the villagers overheard this, and now the news spread like wildfire. Mat turned and walked with them.
The instinctive affection of the children, of which the teacher had been dreaming, was so great that they scampered away the moment they saw him in the distance. Here and there only a very courageous boy would remain standing, and acknowledge his presence with a friendly nod, though without taking off his cap,--the latter for the simple reason that he wore none.
Near the schoolhouse they found a fine boy of six or seven years of age. "Come here, Johnnie," cried Mat: "see, Mr. Teacher, this is my boy. Keep a tight rein on him: he can learn well enough, only he don't always want to. Shake hands with the gentleman, Johnnie: he's your teacher now: you must mind him. What do you say to a stranger?"
"God greet you!" said the boy, stretching out his hand without hesitation.
The teacher's face beamed at this welcome from childish lips. He was in his paradise again the moment he divined a kindly inclination of a childish heart toward him. Stooping down to the boy's face, he kissed him.
"Will you be fond of me?" he asked.
The child looked at his father.
"Will you be fond of the gentleman?" asked Mat.
The boy nodded, but could not speak,--for the tears were coming into his eyes.
The three men went on their way, and the little fellow ran home in all haste, without looking behind him.
Buchmaier and Mat installed the teacher in his new dwelling.
"There's a woman wanted here," said Mat: "a schoolmaster ought to have a wife. This is the first time we ever had a single one; and we have smart girls here, I can tell you. You must look about a bit. The best way is to take one that belongs to the place: if you come into a strange place and marry a stranger you'll be a stranger always. Isn't it so, cousin?"
"Perhaps Mr. Teacher has picked one out already," replied Buchmaier; "and, let her come from where she will, she shall be welcome here."
"Yes: we'll ride out to meet her," said Mat, thinking, in his heart, "Buchmaier's a smarter boy than I am, after all." The teacher answered,--
"I am free and single, and have time to think about it for a while." To himself he said, "Before I get into the clutches of one of these peasant-camels, I'll run away with a baboon."
"Well, you must excuse me now," said Buchmaier. "I must go afield: I'm just trading for a horse, and must see how he behaves in harness. See you to-night, I hope. Goodbye, meanwhile. Going up street, Mat?"
"Yes. Good-bye, Mr. Teacher, and if the time is long take it double."
The teacher did not quite understand the last speech of Mat, which was a figure derived from a long thread or string. When the door closed upon the peasants he gave it another push, as if to assure himself that he was now alone. He was oppressed in spirit, though without knowing why. At length the story of the Lauterbacher recurred to him. He regarded it as a piece of coarse vulgarity, sufficient to make him forget all the well-meant attentions otherwise rendered. Such is man. Once irritated, he remembers only what has offended him, and forgets the greatest kindnesses accompanying it.
Rousing himself from his reverie, he proceeded to unpack his trunks. The sight of the familiar objects tended in some degree to soothe his spirits; but his meditative mood would not be dispelled. "I am like a hermit in the wilderness," thought he. "What makes me happy has to the people round me no existence. This squire is nothing but a shrewd peasant a little proud of his coarseness. There may be a spark of mind slumbering in their bodies; but it is smothered in ashes. Let me summon up all my strength to guard against being transformed into a peasant. Every day of my life I will upheave my soul from its inmost fastenings, and not suffer a blur to settle upon it.
"I have seen teachers enter into office filled with the free aspirations of the time, and in a few years they had sunk into the slough of routine and become peasants like the peasants around them. Even their exterior was careless and slouchy." Writing "Memento" upon a bit of paper, he stuck it into the looking-glass.
At last he threw off his languor and walked out into the fields and on the road by which he had come. The farmers working here and there said, "How goes it, Mr. Teacher? 'Getting used to it?" He answered kindly but curtly: their familiarity struck him as odd, and almost offensive. He did not know that these people thought they had a claim upon him because they had first seen him and received his first salutations.
After a long ramble, he found in "The Bottom" a solitary pear-tree of picturesque growth. Having walked round and round it until he found the most fitting spot, he sat down upon a corner-stone and began to sketch. The farmers gathered around and looked on. The rumor went rapidly from mouth to mouth that "the new teacher was copying the trees."
As a background he drew the hill beyond, with the hazel-bush and the blackberry-hedge which wound around a cliff, as well as the little field-house built to keep farming-implements or to protect field-hands against sudden showers: last of all, he added a farmer, with horse and plough.
Late in the day he rose to return, with his spirits much calmed by his occupation. Several peasants joined him and gave evidence of a burning thirst for information. Our friend submitted to it all with the best grace he could assume. But it was unfortunate that, when asked whether "it wasn't a fine country hereabouts," he answered, "Tolerable." He saw but little in it of the picturesque.
Being struck with the clumsiness of the church-steeple, he asked who had built the church. They looked at each other in astonishment; for they could not bring themselves to think that there should ever have been a time when that church was not standing.
At home the teacher sat waiting for Buchmaier, who, he thought, would come to meet him. The dusk of evening brought out a more lively hum of voices: the teacher alone sat silently at his open window. The suggestion of Mat could not but return to his mind; and he thought seriously of seeking a companion who would rescue him from the lot of being
"Among monsters the only heart feeling a throb."
It was Friday evening: the young Jews passed, singing through the streets, according to custom. There was a voice among them once which no longer sings so merrily. Some songs were given from books: just as they passed the schoolhouse they sang the beautiful air,--