Black Forest Village Stories Part 33

Emmerence did so.

"That's right. Now write again, 'I am not quite easy about your having changed your mind so quickly'--Stop! don't write that: that's not a good way to begin."

Emmerence rested her chin on her hand and waited. But Christina said,--

"You've found out what I mean by this time. Now just you write the letter yourself: that's what the schoolmaster always does."

"I'll tell you what," began Emmerence, rising: "a letter like this might get into wrong hands, or be lost; and we don't know exactly how to write it, anyhow. The best way will be for me to go to Ivo and tell him all about it. To-morrow is Sunday; so I sha'n't miss any working-time: the feed is cut for the cows; I'll put it into the trough over-night, and my sister can see to them for one day: the potatoes are peeled. I'll fix it so that you'll have nothing to do but put the meat over the fire. It's only seven hours' walk to Tuebingen by the valley, and I'll travel like a fire-alarm: Sunday is long, and to-morrow night I'll be back in good time."

"All alone will you go? And at night?"

"Alone? Our Lord G.o.d is everywhere, and he will hold his hand over a poor girl." Almost angrily, she added, "I must go at night, or I wouldn't be back to-morrow; and then he" (meaning Valentine) "would scold."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rosary.]

"I can't say no; I feel as if it must be so. Go, in G.o.d's name. Take my rosary with you: there's a bit of wood in it from Mount Lebanon, which I inherited from my great grandmother: that'll protect you." Taking her rosary from the door-post where it hung, she handed it to Emmerence, and continued, "Don't run too hard. Stay till Monday if you're tired: there's time enough. I've a six-creutzer piece which I'll give you; and here, take this bread with you: there's a blessing on bread taken from the box. But what shall I say when people ask what's become of you? I couldn't tell a story."

"Just say that I've something very important to do: people needn't know every thing. I'll make haste, so as to be gone before he comes home."

With astounding readiness, Emmerence tripped up and down stairs and arranged all things as she had proposed: then she went into her room to put on her Sunday clothes. Christina helped her. As the girl drew her prettiest collar out of the chest, something wrapped up in paper fell upon the floor. "What is that?" asked Ivo's mother.

"A bit of gla.s.s Ivo once gave me when we were little bits of children,"

said Emmerence, hastily concealing it.

When the toilet was finished, Christina, untying her ap.r.o.n-strings and tying them again, said, "I don't know how it is; but you ought not to go, after all."

"Not go! Ten horses wouldn't hold me now. Don't balk, aunty: you've agreed to let me go: it would be the first time for you to break your word."

After going into the front room once more to sprinkle herself with holy water by the door, she started on her way. At the front door Christina made another effort to detain her; but she strode off briskly with a "G.o.d bless you!" Christina sent her good wishes after her, as she watched her till she disappeared at the lower end of the garden.

She had chosen this road to avoid meeting any of the villagers. As she walked through the target-field, the moon retired behind a large cloud; so that, when she entered the forest which covered the descent to the Neckar, it was almost "as dark as the inside of a cow." At first she shuddered a little, and it seemed as if some one were treading closely at her heels; but soon, finding that it was her own steps which she heard, she picked up her courage, and skipped securely over the roots which crossed the narrow wood-path. Emmerence "had good learning," and did not believe in spooks or spirits; but in Firnut Pete she had the most undoubting faith, for she knew how many people had been compelled to work for him. By shrugging her shoulders from time to time she made sure that the goblin was not seated upon them. She also believed in Little Nick, who rolls himself before people's feet like a wild cat or a log of wood, so that, when you undertake to sit down upon it, you sink into slime.[14] She held the rosary wound firmly round her hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Emmerence knelt down and prayed fervently.]

In the glade where stands the fine old beech on which an image of the Virgin is fastened, Emmerence knelt down, took the rosary into her folded hands, and prayed fervently. The moon came forth full-cheeked, and seemed to smile upon the praying one, who arose with fresh courage and went on upon her journey.

The road now followed the course of the Neckar, on either bank of which the black fir woods rose to the tops of the hills; while the valley was, for the most part, so narrow as scarcely to hold more than the road, the river, and, at times, a narrow strip of meadow. All was silent, except that at times a bird chirped in its nest, as if to say, "Ah, I feel for the poor birds outside." The dogs gave the alarm as she pa.s.sed the solitary farm-yards; the numerous mills rattled and thumped, but the heart of the girl outbeat them all.

Emmerence, who had never been more than two hours' walk from home before, was tossed by varied emotions. At first she praised her native village: "it lies upon the hills, and the fields have a soil like flitches of bacon." She only regretted that the Neckar did not flow across the mountain, so that the water might not be so scarce.

The stars twinkled brightly: Emmerence looked up to them, and said, "What a splendid sight it is to see those millions of stars just like a thousand lights twinkling on a rusty pan,--only much finer and more holy; and up there sits our Lord G.o.d and keeps watch. How much one loses by sleeping in the course of a year! And if you don't look about you you don't even see it when your eyes are open. He was right: I look out for things much more diligently now, and great pleasure it gives me." A shooting star came down. Raising her hands, Emmerence cried, "Ivo!" She stood still and looked blus.h.i.+ng to the ground: she had revealed the inmost wish of her heart; for it is well known that what you wish when a shooting star falls will surely come to pa.s.s.

Still walking briskly on her way, Emmerence said again, "Oh, if I only had such a mill, wouldn't I work like a horse? Oh, my goodness! how fine it must be to look at one of these little properties and say, 'It's mine!' I should just like to know whom he would marry if he shouldn't be a minister. G.o.d is my witness, I'd run this errand for him just as willingly if he were to take another. Just as willingly? No, not quite: but still right willingly. He is right not to be a minister: to have n.o.body in the world to yourself, and belong to n.o.body, is a sorry piece of business. If it was our Lord G.o.d's wish that people shouldn't get married, he'd have made nothing but men and let them grow on trees. Well, if these a'n't the most wicked thoughts!" Emmerence closed her soliloquy, and ran the faster, to escape from her own reflections. With an effort, she directed her attention to external things, and, listening to the rush of waters which moved forward unceasingly like herself, "What a strange thing," thought she, "is such a stream of water! It runs and it runs. Ah, you'd like to just lumber along the road without working, wouldn't you? No, you don't, my darling; you must carry the rafts and drive the mills: every thing in the world must work, and so it should be. Why, that's Ivo's trouble, too: he wants to work hard, and not only preach and read ma.s.s and pore over his books. That isn't work at all, nor any thing like it. I'll tell him all about it; but what I think he shall never, never know."

Daylight came on, and with it all her natural high spirits returned.

She smoothed down her clothes, stepped into the river, washed out her eyes, and combed her hair. She stood a while dreamily regarding her image, which the waters were struggling vainly to carry off with them: her eyes were riveted upon the billows, but she saw them not; she was in a brown study, for a thought had withdrawn her glance from surrounding things to objects which hovered before her soul. In pa.s.sing on, Emmerence often looked around in a kind of wonder at finding herself on strange ground at the first dawn of morning, where no one knew her nor of her. Though her limbs a.s.sured her she had been walking, her eyes seemed to think she had been spirited there by magic.

It was a beautiful morning in August: the larks carolled in the air, and the robins shrilled in the brakes. All this, however, was so familiar to Emmerence that she did not stop to contemplate it, but walked on, singing,--

"The lofty, lofty mountains, The valley deep and low!

To see my dearest sweetheart For the last last time I go."

In Rottenburg she rested a while, and then set out with renewed energy.

Not until she saw Tuebingen did she stop to consider how she should set about getting to see Ivo. She called to mind, however, that Christian's Betsy was cook at the district attorney's: the cook of a district attorney, she thought, must surely know what to do, when all the world is always running to her master for advice. After many inquiries, she found Betsy; but Betsy had no advice to give, and submitted the case to the judgment of the groom. The groom, rapidly calculating that a girl who wanted to confer with a Catholic priest in secret was not likely to be hard to please, said, "Come along: I'll show you." He tried to put his arm round her neck; but a blow on the breast which made it ring again induced him to change his mind. Muttering something about "hard-grained Black Foresters," he turned on his heel.

"'Tell you what," said Betsy, the astute lawyer's cook: "wait here for an hour till the bell rings for church, and then go to church and sit down in front on the left of the altar, and you'll see Ivo up in the gallery: tip him the wink to come out to you after church."

"In church?" cried Emmerence, raising her hands! "Jesus! Maria! Joseph!

but you've been spoiled in the city! I'd rather go home again without seeing him."

"Well, then, do your own thinking, you psalm-singer."

"So I will," said Emmerence, going. She took her way straight to the convent, asked to see the princ.i.p.al, and told him frankly that she wished to talk to Ivo.

"Are you his sister?" asked the princ.i.p.al.

"No: I'm only the housemaid."

The princ.i.p.al looked steadily into her face: she returned his look so calmly and naturally that his suspicions, if he had any, were disarmed; and he directed the famulus to conduct her to Ivo.

She waited for him in the recess of a window on the long vaulted corridor. He came presently, and started visibly when he saw her.

"Why, Emmerence, what brings you here? All well at home, I hope?" said he, with a foreboding of evil.

"Yes, all well. Your mother sent me to give you a thousand loves from her, and to say that Ivo needn't be a clerical man if he doesn't want to be one with all his heart. Mother can't make her mind easy: she thinks she has made his heart so heavy, and that he only does so to please her, and that was what she didn't want, and he was her dear son for all that, even if he shouldn't be a minister, and----Yes: that's all."

"Don't look so frightened, Emmerence: talk without fear. Give me your hand," said Ivo, just as one of his inquisitive comrades had pa.s.sed.

"We are not strangers: we are good old friends, a'n't we?"

Emmerence now related, with astonis.h.i.+ng facility, how she had tried to write the letter, and had wandered all night to see him: she often looked to the ground and turned her head as if in quest of something.

Ivo's eyes rested on her with strange intentness, and whenever their glances met both blushed deeply; yet they had a dread of each other, and neither confessed the emotions of their hearts. When her story was all told, Ivo said, "Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I only hope a time may come when I may requite a little of your kindness."

"That's nothing. If it was for your good, and you were to say, 'Just run to Stuttgard for me to the king,' I'd go in a minute. I just have a feeling now as if--as if----"

"As if what?" asked Ivo.

"As if every thing must turn out for the very best after this."

Without speaking a word, the two stood face to face for a while, holding in their hearts the fondest converse. At last Ivo drew himself up, with a heavy sigh, and said,--

"Say to my mother that I must think over all these matters again, and that she must not be uneasy any more. Take good care of her, and don't let her work too hard with the arm that was broken. Next to my mother, you and Nat are the dearest persons in the world to me."

Ivo as well as Emmerence looked down at these words, while the former continued:--"Have you heard nothing of Nat?"

"No."

The time allowed for their interview had pa.s.sed by before they were aware of it. "You are going to church, a'n't you?" asked Ivo.