Black Forest Village Stories Part 52

He seized her hand and said, quickly, "I promise you most solemnly." It seemed a pity to let the hand go at once, and he retained it, while she went on, looking down,--

"I--I--I hatched the egg in my bosom. The cluck was scared away and left all the eggs; and I held this one egg against the sun, and saw there was a little head in it, and so I took it. You mustn't laugh at me, but when the little chick came out I was so glad I didn't know what to do. I made it a bed of feathers, and chewed bread and fed it; and the very next day it ran about the table. n.o.body knows a word of it except my grandmother. The hen is so fond of me now that when I go into the field I must lock it up to keep it from running after me. You won't laugh at me, will you?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Sha'n't I have a shake of the hand for good-night?"]

"Certainly not," said the teacher. He tried to keep her hand as they walked on, but soon found reason to curse the economy of the old teacher, who had left so little room for the path that it was impossible for two to walk abreast.

His indignation grew still greater when the old teacher came to meet them with a louder laugh than usual, and cried, "Do you know each other already? Ah, Hedwig, didn't I always tell you that you must marry a schoolmaster?"

With a great effort he restrained himself from giving vent to the mortification caused by this rude dallying with the first budding of so delicate a flower. To his astonishment, Hedwig began, as if nothing had been said:--"Cousin, you must cut your summer-barley in the mallet-fields to-morrow: it's dead ripe, and will fall down if you don't take care."

But little was spoken. Hedwig appeared to be fatigued, and seated herself on a bench under a tree. The men conversed, our friend regarding Hedwig all the while with such intensity that she pa.s.sed her ap.r.o.n several times across her face, fearing that she had blackened it in the kitchen while putting the potatoes over the fire. But our friend's attention was directed to very different matters. He perceived for the first time a slight cast in Hedwig's left eye: the effect was by no means unpleasant, but gave the face an interesting air of shyness which suited very well the style of the features. A fine nose of regular form, a very small mouth with cherry lips, round, delicately-glowing cheeks,--all were enough to arrest the delighted gaze of a young man of twenty-five. At last, after having given a number of wry answers, he became aware that it was time to go. He took leave, and Hedwig said, "Good-night, Mr. Teacher."

"Sha'n't I have a shake of the hand for good-night?"

Hedwig quickly put both her hands behind her back.

"In our parts we shake hands without asking: ha, ha!" said the old teacher.

At this hint our friend whisked round the tree to catch Hedwig's hand; but she drew them quickly before her. Not having the courage to pa.s.s his arms round her, he ran forward and backward around the tree, until he stumbled and fell down at Hedwig's feet. His head fell into her lap and on her hand, and he hastily pressed a warm kiss upon it and called her his in spirit. Finding him in no haste to get up, Hedwig raised his head, her hands covering his cheeks, and said, looking around in great confusion, "Get up: you haven't hurt yourself, I hope? See: this comes of such tricks: you mustn't learn them from my cousin here."

As he rose, Hedwig bent down to brush his knees with her ap.r.o.n; but this the teacher would not permit: his heart beat quickly at the sight of this humble modesty. He said "Goodnight" again; and Hedwig looked down, but no longer refused her hand.

He walked homeward without feeling the ground beneath his feet: a feeling of inexpressible power coursed through his veins, and he smiled so triumphantly on all he met that they stared and stood still to look after him.

But the mind of man is changeful; and when the teacher had reached his home he lapsed into cruel self-accusation. "I have suffered myself to be carried away by a sudden pa.s.sion," he said. "Is this my firmness? I have committed myself,--thrown myself away upon a peasant-girl. No, no the majesty of a n.o.ble soul breathes from those lineaments."

Various other thoughts occurred to him. He knew something of the life of the villagers now; and, late in the evening, he wrote into his pocket-hook, "The silver cross upon her bosom is to me a symbol of sanct.i.ty and purity."

At home Hedwig had not eaten a morsel of supper, and her people scolded her for having overworked herself,--probably by having a.s.sisted the old teacher in the garden before supper. She protested the contrary, but made haste to join her grandmother, in whose room she slept.

Long after prayers, hearing her grandmother cough, and seeing that she was still awake, she said, "Grandmother, what does it mean to kiss one's hand?"

"Why, that one likes the hand."

"Nothing else?"

"No."

After some time, Hedwig again said, "Grandmother."

"What is it?"

"I wanted to ask you something; but I forgot what it was."

"Well, then, go to sleep, because you're tired: if it was something good, to-morrow will be time enough: you'll think of it again."

But Hedwig tossed about without sleeping. She persuaded herself that she could not sleep because she had lost her appet.i.te; so she forced herself to eat a piece of bread with which she had provided herself.

Meantime the teacher had also made up his mind. At first he thought of probing himself and his affection, and of not seeing Hedwig for some time; but the more rational alternative prevailed, and he determined to see her often and study her mind and character as closely as possible.

Next day he called upon his old colleague and invited him out for a walk: he saw that, if only on Hedwig's account, he must cultivate this acquaintance. The old man never walked out, as his gardening afforded him all the exercise he needed; but our friend's invitation appeared to him an honor not to be refused.

It was long before a subject of conversation could be presented to the old man's mind which did not hang fire. His interest in every thing invariably went out as soon as his pipe,--for which he struck fire every five minutes. The young man did not wish to begin with Hedwig, but rather to study a little of the niece's character by the uncle's.

"Do you read much now?" he inquired.

"Nothing at all, scarcely. What would I make by it if I did? I've got my pension."

"Yes," replied the young man; "but we don't improve our minds only to make our money with, but to attain a more elevated mental existence,--to study deeper and understand more clearly. Every thing on earth--and intellectual life above all things--must first be its own purpose----"

The old gentleman stopped to light his pipe with great composure, and our friend paused in the midst of an exposition which had but recently presented itself to his own mind. They walked side by side without speaking for a time, until the younger began again:--"But you still practise your music, don't you?"

"I should think so. I sometimes fiddle for half a night at a time. I need no light, I don't damage my eyes, and I don't miss anybody's conversation."

"And you try to perfect yourself in it as far as you can?"

"Why not? Of course."

"And yet you don't make any thing by it."

The old man looked at him in astonishment. Our friend went on:--"Just as your perfection in music gives you pleasure without making you richer, so, methinks, it ought to be the case with reading and study.

But in this respect many people are just like those who neglect their dress and personal appearance the moment they have no special interest in attracting some particular person. The other day I heard a young fellow scold a young married woman for her slatternly attire. 'Oh,'

said she, 'where's the difference now? I'm bought and sold, and my old man must have me for better or for worse.' As if there was merely an external object in dressing ourselves neatly and it was not required for our own sakes, to preserve our self-respect. This is just the view many people take of education: they carry it on to subserve an external purpose, and the moment this incentive fails they neglect it.

"But, if we have a proper respect for our intellectual selves, we should keep them clean and neat, as we do our persons, and seek to bring out all their faculties to the greatest perfection attainable."

The young man suddenly perceived that he had been soliloquizing aloud, instead of keeping up the conversation; but the indifference exhibited by his companion dispelled every fear of having given him offence. With a sigh it occurred to him, for the hundredth time, how wearisome is the effort to give currency to any thoughts of a more general and elevated nature. "If the old teacher is so thick-skinned, what is to be expected of the farmers?" thought he.

After another pause, our friend began once more:--"Don't you think people are much more good and pious nowadays, than they were in the old times?"

"Pious? Devil take it! we weren't so bad in the old times either, only we didn't make such a fuss about it: too little and too much is lame without a crutch: ha, ha!"

Another long silence ensued, at the end of which the young man made a lucky move in asking, "How was it about music in old times?"

A light glistened in the old man's eyes: he held the steel and the tinder in his hand unused, and said, "It's all tooting nowadays. I was sub-organist in the Freiburg Cathedral for two years and a half. That's an organ, let me tell you. I heard the Abbe Vogler: there can't be any thing finer in heaven than his music was.

"I've played at many a harvest-home, too.

"In old times they had stringed instruments princ.i.p.ally, and harps and cymbals. Now it's all wind,--big trumpets, little trumpets, and valve-trumpets, all blowing and noise. And what can a musician make at a harvest-home? Three men used to be plenty: now they want six or seven. It used to be small room, small ba.s.s, and big pay: now it's big room, double-ba.s.s, and half-pay.

"I once travelled through the Schaibach Valley with two comrades; and the thalers seemed to fly into our pockets as if they had wings. Once two villages almost exterminated each other because both wanted me to play at harvest-home the same day."

The old gentleman now pa.s.sed on to one of his favorite stories of how a village had been so enchanted with his performance on the violin that they had made him their schoolmaster: the Government undertook to install another with dragoons, but the village rebelled and he kept his office.

"Didn't it injure your standing as a teacher to play at the harvest-homes?"

"Not a bit. I've done it more than fifty times in this village, and you won't see a man in it but takes off his cap when he meets me in the street."