Again years have passed. One warm afternoon in spring a young man,
whose sunburnt face was the picture of health, was walking along a
shady road through the wood leading down to the valley below.
His grave dark eyes looked intently into the distance, as though he
was expecting to find every moment some change in the monotony of the
road, a change however which seemed reluctant to come about. At length
he saw a cart slowly coming up from below.
"Hullo! my friend," shouted the traveller to the farmer, who was
walking by the side of the cart, "is this the right road to Immensee?"
"Yes, straight on," answered the man touching his slouch hat.
"Is it still far off?"
"You are close to the place, sir. In less time than it takes to smoke
half a pipe of tobacco you'll be at the lake side, and the manor is
hard by."
The farmer passed on while the other quickened his pace as he went
along under the trees. After a quarter of an hour's walk the shade to
the left of him suddenly came to an end; the road led along a steep
slope from which the ancient oaks growing below hardly reared their
topmost branches.
Away over their crests opened out a broad, sunny landscape. Far below
lay the peaceful, dark-blue lake, almost entirely surrounded by green
sun-lit woods, save where on one spot they divided and afforded an
extensive view until it closed in the distant blue mountains.
Straight opposite, in the middle of all this forest verdure, there lay
a patch of white, like driven snow. This was an expanse of blossoming
fruit-trees, and out of them, up on the high lake shore, rose the
manor-house, shining white, with tiles of red. A stork flew up from
the chimney, and circled slowly above the waters.
"Immensee!" exclaimed the traveller.
It almost seemed as if he had now reached the end of his journey, for
he stood motionless, looking out over the tops of the trees at his
feet, and gazing at the farther shore, where the reflection of the
manor-house floated, rocking gently, on the bosom of the water. Then
he suddenly started on his way again.
His road now led almost steeply down the mountain-side, so that the
trees that had once stood below him again gave him their shade, but at
the same time cut off from him the view of the lake, which only now
and then peeped out between the gaps in the branches.
Soon the way went gently upwards again, and to left and right the
woods disappeared, yielding place to vine-clad hills stretching along
the pathway; while on either side stood fruit-trees in blossom, filled
with the hum of the bees as they busily pried into the blossoms. A
tall man wearing a brown overcoat advanced to meet the traveller. When
he had almost come up to him, he waved his cap and cried out in a loud
voice:
"Welcome, welcome, brother Reinhard! Welcome to my Immensee estate!"
"God's greeting to you[4], Eric, and thank you for
your welcome," replied the other.
[4] This form of salutation is especially common in the south of
Germany.
By this time they had come up close to one another, and clasped hands.
"And is it really you?" said Eric, when he at last got a near sight of
the grave face of his old school-fellow.
"It is I right enough, Eric, and I recognize you too; only you almost
look cheerier than you ever did before."
At these words a glad smile made Eric's plain features all the more
cheerful.
"Yes, brother Reinhard," he said, as he once more held out his hand to
him, "but since those days, you see, I have won the great prize; but
you know that well enough."
Then he rubbed his hands and cried cheerily: "This _will_ be a
surprise! You are the last person she expects to see."
"A surprise?" asked Reinhard. "For whom, pray?"
"Why, for Elisabeth."
"Elisabeth! You haven't told her a word about my visit?"
"Not a word, brother Reinhard; she has no thought of you, nor her
mother either. I invited you entirely on the quiet, in order that the
pleasure might be all the greater. You know I always had little quiet
schemes of my own."
Reinhard turned thoughtful; he seemed to breathe more heavily the
nearer they approached the house.
On the left side of the road the vineyards came to an end, and gave
place to an extensive kitchen-garden, which reached almost as far as
the lake-shore. The stork had meanwhile come to earth and was striding
solemnly between the vegetable beds.
"Hullo!" cried Eric, clapping his hands together, "if that long-legged
Egyptian isn't stealing my short pea-sticks again!"
The bird slowly rose and flew on to the roof of a new building, which
ran along the end of the kitchen-garden, and whose walls were covered
with the branches of the peach and apricot trees that were trained
over them.
"That's the distillery," said Eric. "I built it only two years ago. My
late father had the farm buildings rebuilt; the dwelling-house was
built as far back as my grandfather's time. So we go ever forward a
little bit at a time."
Talking thus they came to a wide, open space, enclosed at the sides by
farm-buildings, and in the rear by the manor-house, the two wings of
which were connected by a high garden wall. Behind this wall ran dark
hedges of yew trees, while here and there syringa trees trailed their
blossoming branches over into the courtyard.
Men with faces scorched by the sun and heated with toil were walking
over the open space and gave a greeting to the two friends, while Eric
called out to one or another of them some order or question about
their day's work.
By this time they had reached the house. They entered a high, cool
vestibule, at the far end of which they turned to the left into a
somewhat darker passage.
Here Eric opened a door and they passed into a spacious room that
opened into a garden. The heavy mass of leafage that covered the
opposite windows filled this room at either end with a green twilight,
while between the windows two lofty wide-open folding-doors let in the
full glow of spring sunshine, and afforded a view into a garden, laid
out with circular flower-beds and steep hedgerows and divided by a
straight, broad path, along which the eye roamed out on to the lake
and away over the woods growing on the opposite shore.
As the two friends entered, a breath of wind bore in upon them a
perfect stream of fragrance.
On a terrace in front of the door leading to the garden sat a girlish
figure dressed in white. She rose and came to meet the two friends as
they entered, but half-way she stood stock-still as if rooted to the
spot and stared at the stranger. With a smile he held out his hand to
her.
"Reinhard!" she cried. "Reinhard! Oh! is it you? It is such a long
time since we have seen each other."
"Yes, a long time," he said, and not a word more could he utter; for
on hearing her voice he felt a keen, physical pain at his heart, and
as he looked up to her, there she stood before him, the same slight,
graceful figure to whom he had said farewell years ago in the town
where he was born.
Eric had stood back by the door, with joy beaming from his eyes.
"Now, then, Elisabeth," he said, "isn't he really the very last person
in the world you would have expected to see?"
Elisabeth looked at him with the eyes of a sister. "You are so kind,
Eric," she said.
He took her slender hand caressingly in his. "And now that we have
him," he said, "we shall not be in a hurry to let him go. He has been
so long away abroad, we will try to make him feel at home again. Just
see how foreign-looking he has become, and what a distinguished
appearance he has!"
Elisabeth shyly scanned Reinhard's face. "The time that we have been
separated is enough to account for that," she said.
At this moment in at the door came her mother, key-basket on arm.
"Herr Werner!" she cried, when she caught sight of Reinhard; "ah! you
are as dearly welcome as you are unexpected."
And so the conversation went smoothly on with questions and answers.
The ladies sat over their work, and while Reinhard enjoyed the
refreshment that had been prepared for him, Eric had lighted his huge
meerschaum pipe and sat smoking and conversing by his side.
Next day Reinhard had to go out with him to see the fields, the
vineyards, the hop-garden, the distillery. It was all well appointed;
the people who were working on the land or at the vats all had a
healthy and contented look.
For dinner the family assembled in the room that opened into the
garden, and the day was spent more or less in company just according
to the leisure of the host and hostess. Only during the hours
preceding the evening meal, as also during the early hours of the
forenoon, did Reinhard stay working in his own room.
For some years past, whenever he could come across them, he had been
collecting the rhymes and songs that form part of the life of the
people, and now set about arranging his treasure, and wherever
possible increasing it by means of fresh records from the immediate
neighbourhood.
Elisabeth was at all times gentle and kind. Eric's constant attentions
she received with an almost humble gratitude, and Reinhard thought at
whiles that the gay, cheerful child of bygone days had given promise
of a somewhat less sedate womanhood.
Ever since the second day of his visit he had been wont of an evening
to take a walk along the shore of the lake. The road led along close
under the garden. At the end of the latter, on a projecting mound,
there was a bench under some tall birch trees. Elisabeth's mother had
christened it the Evening Bench, because the spot faced westward, and
was mostly used at that time of the day in order to enjoy a view of
the sunset.
One evening Reinhard was returning from his walk along this road when
he was overtaken by the rain. He sought shelter under one of the
linden trees that grew by the water-side, but the heavy drops were
soon pelting through the leaves. Wet through as he was he resigned
himself to his fate and slowly continued his homeward way.
It was almost dark; the rain fell faster and faster. As he drew near
to the Evening Bench he fancied he could make out the figure of a
woman dressed in white standing among the gleaming birch tree trunks.
She stood motionless, and, as far as he could make out on approaching
nearer, with her face turned in his direction, as if she was expecting
some one.
He thought it was Elisabeth. But when he quickened his pace in order
that he might catch up to her and then return together with her
through the garden into the house, she turned slowly away and
disappeared among the dark side-paths.
He could not understand it; he was almost angry with Elisabeth, and yet
he doubted whether it had really been she. He was, however, shy of
questioning her about it--nay, he even avoided going into the
garden-room on his return to the house for fear he should happen to see
Elisabeth enter through the garden-door.
* * * * *