"I knew it! I felt it must come!" cried Walpurga when Franz brought the
news of Irma's illness. "I knew she'd never come back!" she repeated
again and again, weeping, wringing her hands, and praying by turns.
"That won't help any," said Hansei, laying his hand on her shoulder.
"Get up; you're not like this at other times. Come, may be it isn't so
bad after all; and even if it should be, this is no time to cry and
weep; we must do all that can be done."
"What can I do? What shall I do?" said Walpurga, turning her tearful
face to Hansei.
He helped her up and said:
"Franz says there's a doctor up there, who has a medicine chest with
him. And now let's eat something and then go up to her."
"Oh dear Lord, I can't walk three steps; I feel as if my limbs were
broken."
"Then you'd better stay here and I'll go up."
"Would you leave me here alone? What am I to do, then?"
"I don't know what. Go to bed; perhaps you can sleep."
"I don't want to go to bed; I don't want to sleep; I don't want
anything. I'll go along, too, and, if I die on the way, I can't help
it."
"Don't talk so! you wrong me and the children when you do," Hansei was
about to say, but he made a rapid movement, as if to repress the words.
"There's no need of saying that," thought he; "when women, filled with
pity for themselves, begin to complain of their lot, they don't know
what they say."
Hansei brought his wife her best clothes, for she was so agitated that
she scarcely knew where they were, or how to put them on. Hansei proved
quite a clever valet.
"Now you must put your shoes on yourself," said he, at last.
Walpurga could not help smiling through her tears. It was not until
then that she perceived how kindly and faithfully he had helped her,
and, with a bright voice, she said: "Yes, so I can; you've helped me,
and now I feel that I can walk."
Hansei had the meal brought in and, after placing his mountain staff,
his hunting-bag and his hat in readiness, he sat down to eat. Walpurga
was also obliged to sit down, although she ate but little. One of
Hansei's great virtues was that he could eat heartily at any time. He
did full justice to the meal, and his manner seemed to say that when
one has satisfied his hunger, he is better prepared for any
undertaking.
Before leaving, he cut off a large piece of bread and put it in his
pocket.
The children were consigned to the care of the upper servant, and one
of the laboring women was also charged to remain in the house. Hansei
and his wife started for the meadow.
They had already gone some distance, when Burgei came running after
them, crying: "I want to go along; I want to go to Cousin Irmgard."
There was no help for it. They were obliged to take the child with
them, for they were afraid to let her go back alone and neither of them
cared to take her back.
"You're a naughty child, a very naughty child! And now I've got to
carry you, a big girl like you," said Walpurga, taking the child in her
arms. Hansei nodded, with a pleased air. It was well the child was with
them, for then his wife, who was apt to go off into extremes, would not
become so violent if the worst should happen.
Walpurga, who had at first thought that she could not walk alone, now
carried the child and stepped out bravely.
"Let Burgei walk for a while, and when she gets tired again. I'll carry
her," said Hansei.
As long as the path was wide enough, the child walked between its
parents, and when it grew narrower, they let her run on ahead. When
they found that they could get on but slowly, on account of the child,
Hansei took her up in his arms, where she soon fell asleep.
Walpurga then softly whispered to Hansei:
"I must tell you now who our Irmgard is."
"And I tell you I don't want to know. She must tell me herself, if she
lives; and if she's dead, you can tell me then, just as well."
"Dead!" cried Walpurga, "Do you know more than I do? Did Franz tell you
anything in secret?"
"Franz told me nothing but what you've heard."
"But why do you talk about death in that way?"
"Because one who's very sick can easily die. But do be calm."
"Yes, yes; I hardly know that we are in the woods, and I feel as if I
couldn't see a thing. Stop a moment! There's a doctor up there. He
knows her, and others who know her will come, too. The man who came to
see us the other day is her brother, and now they'll go and take our
Irmgard away with them."
"If she's in her right mind, and wants to go of her own free will, we
can't say anything against it," said Hansei, "but this I do say, and no
one will move me from it. As long as she's so sick that she can't say
what she wants, I won't let them do a thing to her. I'm Hansei, and I'm
her protector; nothing shall happen to her--All I ask of you, is to
stand by me and not interfere. You know when I say a thing, I mean it."
"Yes, yes, you're right!" said Walpurga. Hansei's resolute words seemed
to infuse her with new strength, for she went up the steep mountain
path without the slightest difficulty. It almost seemed as if Hansei
had been carrying her as well as the child. Moved by this thought, she
suddenly said:
"Do you remember when you once wanted to carry me, at home by the lake?
Oh, dear me, it seems as if we must have been very different beings
then, for we knew nothing at all of the world."
"We're none the worse off, for knowing and having some of it!" replied
Hansei, in a loud voice, and awakening the child. "There, now; run
along again," said he to Burgei.
They rested for a little while. Hansei remembered the piece of bread
that he had put in his pocket and, cutting off a bit of it, he said
while pointing toward the valley with his knife: "Our brook runs down
through there, and it's only an hour's distance from here to the little
town where Stasi lives."
"Only an hour from here?" exclaimed Walpurga.
"Then I'll walk over there. She's the best, the only help. You go on
with the child, straight up to the hut. I'll soon follow you by way of
the town, and I'll bring something good with me."
"Wife! Have you gone mad? Don't make me crazy, too. Do you want to run
off, when you're so near the dying one?"
"Then I must tell you. The queen is down there and she alone can help
her. God be with you, Hansei, and with you too, Burgei. I'll soon
follow after you."
Away she ran, through the forest, along the stream, and toward the
town.
"Where's mother? Mother! mother!" cried the child.
"Be quiet!" said Hansei. "Mother has another child down there, and he's
a prince and will send you golden clothes."
"Is it an enchanted prince that mother is going to free from a spell?"
asked the child.
"Yes, he's enchanted," said Hansei, endeavoring to quiet her.
"But what was he changed into?" asked the child.
"Into a cuckoo; but not another word now; be quiet."
Filled with strange thoughts, the father and child went up the
mountain. Hansei could not understand how, at such a moment, his wife
could leave her friend and go to the queen--. Perhaps they were bound
together in some way? He shook his head. Matters that he could not
disentangle, he always put away from him. The only thing was to see
what could be done for the sick one; that was the most important
matter. He squared his shoulders and was ready, if the physician
thought well of it, to carry Irmgard in his arms, all the way down to
the farm.
The child ran along, looking about it with wondering eyes. "He's
calling! he's calling!" whispered she. "My mother will free you."
A cuckoo was really crying in the wood, through which the noonday sun
was gleaming. His cry was sometimes near and then more distant, and at
last, uttering his peculiar note, he flew over the travelers' heads.
Hansei, with the child, at last reached the shepherd's hut, where the
uncle and Gundel, with sorrowful countenances, came forward to meet
him.
"She's still alive, but she can't last long," said the uncle, wiping
away his tears with his sleeve. "The doctor won't let any of us go in
to her. But where's Walpurga?"
"She'll soon be here," replied Hansei. It was all he could do to keep
off the cows, who knew their master and came up to him, as was their
wont, in order to get a handful of salt. But he had forgotten to bring
it with him, and all the salt they had up here was in the room that no
one was permitted to enter.
Hansei ordered the cowboy to drive the cows off for some distance, so
that the sick one might not hear the sound of the bells. That was all
he could do for Irma.
He sat down sadly on the bench before the hut, and taking up a piece of
carved wood which lay on the ground, he looked at it as carefully as if
it were marble and turned it again and again. He sat there for a long
time. Then he put Burgei in Gundel's charge, and, hoping to meet his
wife, went out alone along the road that led toward the little town.
But it was long before she came. He went further into the forest, and
was vexed, as he always was whenever he came up here, to think of
yonder fine trees that were his own property, but which could not be
felled, because no one could get up to the rocks on which they were. A
chattering magpie, sitting on the high branches of a beautiful pine,
seemed to be making sport of him. After he had again and again passed
his hand over his face, Hansei became conscious of the thoughts that
had engaged him in the midst of all this trouble. There was nothing
wrong in it--he was sure of that; but this was not the time to think of
such things, and, as if the trouble were now dawning on him for the
first time, he was overwhelmed with grief.
He turned back and went toward the hut. The doctor was just coming out.
"You are the freehold farmer, I suppose?"
"Yes; and you're the doctor?"
"Yes."
"How is she?"
"I don't think she will die before evening."
Hansei's eyes filled with tears.
The uncle asked Gunther to allow him to fetch out the little kid. He
granted his request. Stepping softly, he brought it out, gave it
something to drink and, carrying it back again, placed it at the sick
girl's feet.
"She opened her eyes and nodded to me, but she didn't say a word; and
then she closed her eyes again," said the uncle.
Hansei begged that he might be permitted to see Irmgard once more. He
was allowed to look through the crevice in the shutter. When Gunther
again returned to the sick-room, Hansei, weeping as if his heart would
break, walked out along the road that led toward the town.
"Uncle's right: she's become like an angel," said he to himself.
The calf that was born on the first day that they had come up to the
shepherd's hut seemed conscious of its special claims on Hansei. In
spite of all he could do it kept running after him for salt. Hansei
succeeded in satisfying it, by giving it the last morsel of bread that
he had about him.
When he reached the woods, he was obliged to sit down; and there he
wept and would, now and then, look about him as if bewildered. How
could it be possible that the sun was still shining, the cuckoo crying,
and the hawk screaming, while she who was up there was breathing her
last--
What could Walpurga want of the queen? "Her place is up there," thought
he to himself, again and again.