So the children lived together. She was often too quiet for him, and
he was often too head-strong for her, but for all that they stuck to
one another. They spent nearly all their leisure hours together: in
winter in their mothers' tiny rooms, during the summer in wood and
field.
Once when Elisabeth was scolded by the teacher in Reinhard's hearing,
he angrily banged his slate upon the table in order to turn upon
himself the master's wrath. This failed to attract attention.
But Reinhard paid no further attention to the geography lessons, and
instead he composed a long poem, in which he compared himself to a
young eagle, the schoolmaster to a grey crow, and Elisabeth to a white
dove; the eagle vowed vengeance on the grey crow, as soon as his wings
had grown.
Tears stood in the young poet's eyes: he felt very proud of himself.
When he reached home he contrived to get hold of a little
parchment-bound volume with a lot of blank pages in it; and on the first
pages he elaborately wrote out his first poem.
Soon after this he went to another school. Here he made many new
friendships among boys of his own age, but this did not interrupt his
comings and goings with Elisabeth. Of the stories which he had
formerly told her over and over again he now began to write down the
ones which she had liked best, and in doing so the fancy often took
him to weave in something of his own thoughts; yet, for some reason he
could not understand, he could never manage it.
So he wrote them down exactly as he had heard them himself. Then he
handed them over to Elisabeth, who kept them carefully in a drawer of
her writing-desk, and now and again of an evening when he was present
it afforded him agreeable satisfaction to hear her reading aloud to
her mother these little tales out of the notebooks in which he had
written them.
Seven years had gone by. Reinhard was to leave the town in order to
proceed to his higher education. Elisabeth could not bring herself to
think that there would now be a time to be passed entirely without
Reinhard. She was delighted when he told her one day that he would
continue to write out stories for her as before; he would send them to
her in the letters to his mother, and then she would have to write
back to him and tell him how she liked them.
The day of departure was approaching, but ere it came a good deal more
poetry found its way into the parchment-bound volume. This was the one
secret he kept from Elisabeth, although she herself had inspired the
whole book and most of the songs, which gradually had filled up almost
half of the blank pages.
It was the month of June, and Reinhard was to start on the following
day. It was proposed to spend one more festive day together and
therefore a picnic was arranged for a rather large party of friends in
an adjacent forest.
It was an hour's drive along the road to the edge of the wood, and
there the company took down the provision baskets from the carriages
and walked the rest of the way. The road lay first of all through a
pine grove, where it was cool and darksome, and the ground was all
strewed with pine needles.
After half an hour's walk they passed out of the gloom of the pine
trees into a bright fresh beech wood. Here everything was light and
green; every here and there a sunbeam burst through the leafy
branches, and high above their heads a squirrel was leaping from
branch to branch.
The party came to a halt at a certain spot, over which the topmost
branches of ancient beech trees interwove a transparent canopy of
leaves. Elisabeth's mother opened one of the baskets, and an old
gentleman constituted himself quartermaster.
"Round me, all of you young people," he cried, "and attend carefully
to what I have to say to you. For lunch each one of you will now get
two dry rolls; the butter has been left behind at home. The extras
every one must find for himself. There are plenty of strawberries in
the wood--that is, for anyone who knows where to find them. Unless you
are sharp, you'll have to eat dry bread; that's the way of the world
all over. Do you understand what I say?"
"Yes, yes," cried the young folks.
"Yes, but look here," said the old gentleman, "I have not done yet. We
old folks have done enough roaming about in our time, and therefore we
will stay at home now, here, I mean, under these wide-spreading trees,
and we'll peel the potatoes and make a fire and lay the table, and by
twelve o'clock the eggs shall be boiled.
"In return for all this you will be owing us half of your
strawberries, so that we may also be able to serve some dessert. So
off you go now, east and west, and mind be honest."
The young folks cast many a roguish glance at one another.
"Wait," cried the old gentleman once again. "I suppose I need not tell
you this, that whoever finds none need not produce any; but take
particular note of this, that he will get nothing out of us old folks
either. Now you have had enough good advice for to-day; and if you
gather strawberries to match you will get on very well for the present
at any rate."
The young people were of the same opinion, and pairing off in couples
set out on their quest.
"Come along, Elisabeth," said Reinhard, "I know where there is a clump
of strawberry bushes; you shan't eat dry bread."
Elisabeth tied the green ribbons of her straw hat together and hung it
on her arm. "Come on, then," she said, "the basket is ready."
Off into the wood they went, on and on; on through moist shady glens,
where everything was so peaceful, except for the cry of the falcon
flying unseen in the heavens far above their heads; on again through
the thick brushwood, so thick that Reinhard must needs go on ahead to
make a track, here snapping off a branch, there bending aside a
trailing vine. But ere long he heard Elisabeth behind him calling out
his name. He turned round.
"Reinhard!" she called, "do wait for me! Reinhard!"
He could not see her, but at length he caught sight of her some way
off struggling with the undergrowth, her dainty head just peeping out
over the tops of the ferns. So back he went once more and brought her
out from the tangled mass of briar and brake into an open space where
blue butterflies fluttered among the solitary wood blossoms.
Reinhard brushed the damp hair away from her heated face, and would
have tied the straw hat upon her head, but she refused; yet at his
earnest request she consented after all.
"But where are your strawberries?" she asked at length, standing still
and drawing a deep breath.
"They were here," he said, "but the toads have got here before us, or
the martens, or perhaps the fairies."
"Yes," said Elisabeth, "the leaves are still here; but not a word
about fairies in this place. Come along, I'm not a bit tired yet; let
us look farther on."
In front of them ran a little brook, and on the far side the wood
began again. Reinhard raised Elisabeth in his arms and carried her
over. After a while they emerged from the shady foliage and stood in a
wide clearing.
"There must be strawberries here," said the girl, "it all smells so
sweet."
They searched about the sunny spot, but they found none. "No," said
Reinhard, "it is only the smell of the heather."
Everywhere was a confusion of raspberry-bushes and holly, and the air
was filled with a strong smell of heather, patches of which alternated
with the short grass over these open spaces.
"How lonely it is here!" said Elisabeth "I wonder where the others
are?"
Reinhard had never thought of getting back.
"Wait a bit," he said, holding his hand aloft; "where is the wind
coming from?" But wind there was none.
"Listen!" said Elisabeth, "I think I heard them talking. Just give a
call in that direction."