"Here!" was echoed back.
"They answered," cried Elisabeth clapping her hands.
"No, that was nothing; it was only the echo."
Elisabeth seized Reinhard's hand. "I'm frightened!" she said.
"Oh! no, you must not be frightened. It is lovely here. Sit down there
in the shade among the long grass. Let us rest awhile: we'll find the
others soon enough."
Elisabeth sat down under the overhanging branch of a beech and
listened intently in every direction. Reinhard sat a few paces off on
a tree stump, and gazed over at her in silence.
The sun was just above their heads, shining with the full glare of
midday heat. Tiny, gold-flecked, steel-blue flies poised in the air
with vibrating wings. Their ears caught a gentle humming and buzzing
all round them, and far away in the wood were heard now and again the
tap-tap of the woodpecker and the screech of other birds.
"Listen," said Elisabeth, "I hear a bell."
"Where?" asked Reinhard.
"Behind us. Do you hear it? It is striking twelve o'clock."
"Then the town lies behind us, and if we go straight through in this
direction we are bound to fall in with the others."
So they started on their homeward way; they had given up looking for
strawberries, for Elisabeth had become tired. And at last there rang
out from among the trees the laughing voices of the picnic party; then
they saw too a white cloth spread gleaming on the ground; it was the
luncheon-table and on it were strawberries enough and to spare.
The old gentleman had a table-napkin tucked in his button-hole and was
continuing his moral sermon to the young folks and vigorously carving
a joint of roast meat.
"Here come the stragglers," cried the young people when they saw
Reinhard and Elisabeth advancing among the trees.
"This way," shouted the old gentleman. "Empty your handkerchiefs,
upside down, with your hats! Now show us what you have found."
"Only hunger and thirst," said Reinhard.
"If that's all," replied the old man, lifting up and showing them the
bowl full of fruit, "you must keep what you've got. You remember the
agreement: nothing here for lazybones to eat."
But in the end he was prevailed on to relent; the banquet proceeded,
and a thrush in a juniper bush provided the music.
So the day passed. But Reinhard had, after all, found something, and
though it was not strawberries yet it was something that had grown in
the wood. When he got home this is what he wrote in his old
parchment-bound volume:
Out on the hill-side yonder
The wind to rest is laid;
Under the drooping branches
There sits the little maid.
She sits among the wild thyme,
She sits in the fragrant air;
The blue flies hum around her,
Bright wings flash everywhere.
And through the silent woodland
She peers with watchful eyen,
While on her hazel ringlets
Sparkles the glad sunshine.
And far, far off the cuckoo
Laughs out his song.
I ween Hers are the bright, the golden
Eyes of the woodland queen.
So she was not only his little sweetheart, but was also the expression
of all that was lovely and wonderful in his opening life.
* * * * *