"You've found out what I mean by this time. Now just you write the
letter yourself: that's what the schoolmaster always does."
"I'll tell you what," began Emmerence, rising: "a letter like this
might get into wrong hands, or be lost; and we don't know exactly how
to write it, anyhow. The best way will be for me to go to Ivo and
tell him all about it. To-morrow is Sunday; so I sha'n't miss any
working-time: the feed is cut for the cows; I'll put it into the trough
over-night, and my sister can see to them for one day: the potatoes are
peeled. I'll fix it so that you'll have nothing to do but put the meat
over the fire. It's only seven hours' walk to Tuebingen by the valley,
and I'll travel like a fire-alarm: Sunday is long, and to-morrow night
I'll be back in good time."
"All alone will you go? And at night?"
"Alone? Our Lord God is everywhere, and he will hold his hand over a
poor girl." Almost angrily, she added, "I must go at night, or I
wouldn't be back to-morrow; and then he" (meaning Valentine) "would
scold."
[Illustration: Rosary.]
"I can't say no; I feel as if it must be so. Go, in God's name. Take my
rosary with you: there's a bit of wood in it from Mount Lebanon, which
I inherited from my great grandmother: that'll protect you." Taking her
rosary from the door-post where it hung, she handed it to Emmerence,
and continued, "Don't run too hard. Stay till Monday if you're tired:
there's time enough. I've a six-creutzer piece which I'll give you; and
here, take this bread with you: there's a blessing on bread taken from
the box. But what shall I say when people ask what's become of you? I
couldn't tell a story."
"Just say that I've something very important to do: people needn't know
every thing. I'll make haste, so as to be gone before he comes home."
With astounding readiness, Emmerence tripped up and down stairs and
arranged all things as she had proposed: then she went into her room to
put on her Sunday clothes. Christina helped her. As the girl drew her
prettiest collar out of the chest, something wrapped up in paper fell
upon the floor. "What is that?" asked Ivo's mother.
"A bit of glass Ivo once gave me when we were little bits of children,"
said Emmerence, hastily concealing it.
When the toilet was finished, Christina, untying her apron-strings and
tying them again, said, "I don't know how it is; but you ought not to
go, after all."
"Not go! Ten horses wouldn't hold me now. Don't balk, aunty: you've
agreed to let me go: it would be the first time for you to break your
word."
After going into the front room once more to sprinkle herself with holy
water by the door, she started on her way. At the front door Christina
made another effort to detain her; but she strode off briskly with a
"God bless you!" Christina sent her good wishes after her, as she
watched her till she disappeared at the lower end of the garden.
She had chosen this road to avoid meeting any of the villagers. As she
walked through the target-field, the moon retired behind a large cloud;
so that, when she entered the forest which covered the descent to the
Neckar, it was almost "as dark as the inside of a cow." At first she
shuddered a little, and it seemed as if some one were treading closely
at her heels; but soon, finding that it was her own steps which she
heard, she picked up her courage, and skipped securely over the roots
which crossed the narrow wood-path. Emmerence "had good learning," and
did not believe in spooks or spirits; but in Firnut Pete she had the
most undoubting faith, for she knew how many people had been compelled
to work for him. By shrugging her shoulders from time to time she made
sure that the goblin was not seated upon them. She also believed in
Little Nick, who rolls himself before people's feet like a wild cat or
a log of wood, so that, when you undertake to sit down upon it, you
sink into slime.[14] She held the rosary wound firmly round her hand.
[Illustration: Emmerence knelt down and prayed fervently.]
In the glade where stands the fine old beech on which an image of the
Virgin is fastened, Emmerence knelt down, took the rosary into her
folded hands, and prayed fervently. The moon came forth full-cheeked,
and seemed to smile upon the praying one, who arose with fresh courage
and went on upon her journey.
The road now followed the course of the Neckar, on either bank of which
the black fir woods rose to the tops of the hills; while the valley
was, for the most part, so narrow as scarcely to hold more than the
road, the river, and, at times, a narrow strip of meadow. All was
silent, except that at times a bird chirped in its nest, as if to say,
"Ah, I feel for the poor birds outside." The dogs gave the alarm as she
passed the solitary farm-yards; the numerous mills rattled and thumped,
but the heart of the girl outbeat them all.
Emmerence, who had never been more than two hours' walk from home
before, was tossed by varied emotions. At first she praised her native
village: "it lies upon the hills, and the fields have a soil like
flitches of bacon." She only regretted that the Neckar did not flow
across the mountain, so that the water might not be so scarce.
The stars twinkled brightly: Emmerence looked up to them, and said,
"What a splendid sight it is to see those millions of stars just like a
thousand lights twinkling on a rusty pan,--only much finer and more
holy; and up there sits our Lord God and keeps watch. How much one
loses by sleeping in the course of a year! And if you don't look about
you you don't even see it when your eyes are open. He was right: I look
out for things much more diligently now, and great pleasure it gives
me." A shooting star came down. Raising her hands, Emmerence cried,
"Ivo!" She stood still and looked blushing to the ground: she had
revealed the inmost wish of her heart; for it is well known that what
you wish when a shooting star falls will surely come to pass.
Still walking briskly on her way, Emmerence said again, "Oh, if I only
had such a mill, wouldn't I work like a horse? Oh, my goodness! how
fine it must be to look at one of these little properties and say,
'It's mine!' I should just like to know whom he would marry if he
shouldn't be a minister. God is my witness, I'd run this errand for him
just as willingly if he were to take another. Just as willingly? No,
not quite: but still right willingly. He is right not to be a minister:
to have nobody in the world to yourself, and belong to nobody, is a
sorry piece of business. If it was our Lord God's wish that people
shouldn't get married, he'd have made nothing but men and let them grow
on trees. Well, if these a'n't the most wicked thoughts!" Emmerence
closed her soliloquy, and ran the faster, to escape from her own
reflections. With an effort, she directed her attention to external
things, and, listening to the rush of waters which moved forward
unceasingly like herself, "What a strange thing," thought she, "is such
a stream of water! It runs and it runs. Ah, you'd like to just lumber
along the road without working, wouldn't you? No, you don't, my
darling; you must carry the rafts and drive the mills: every thing in
the world must work, and so it should be. Why, that's Ivo's trouble,
too: he wants to work hard, and not only preach and read mass and pore
over his books. That isn't work at all, nor any thing like it. I'll
tell him all about it; but what I think he shall never, never know."
Daylight came on, and with it all her natural high spirits returned.
She smoothed down her clothes, stepped into the river, washed out her
eyes, and combed her hair. She stood a while dreamily regarding her
image, which the waters were struggling vainly to carry off with them:
her eyes were riveted upon the billows, but she saw them not; she was
in a brown study, for a thought had withdrawn her glance from
surrounding things to objects which hovered before her soul. In passing
on, Emmerence often looked around in a kind of wonder at finding
herself on strange ground at the first dawn of morning, where no one
knew her nor of her. Though her limbs assured her she had been walking,
her eyes seemed to think she had been spirited there by magic.
It was a beautiful morning in August: the larks carolled in the air,
and the robins shrilled in the brakes. All this, however, was so
familiar to Emmerence that she did not stop to contemplate it, but
walked on, singing,--
"The lofty, lofty mountains,
The valley deep and low!
To see my dearest sweetheart
For the last last time I go."
In Rottenburg she rested a while, and then set out with renewed energy.
Not until she saw Tuebingen did she stop to consider how she should set
about getting to see Ivo. She called to mind, however, that Christian's
Betsy was cook at the district attorney's: the cook of a district
attorney, she thought, must surely know what to do, when all the world
is always running to her master for advice. After many inquiries, she
found Betsy; but Betsy had no advice to give, and submitted the case to
the judgment of the groom. The groom, rapidly calculating that a girl
who wanted to confer with a Catholic priest in secret was not likely to
be hard to please, said, "Come along: I'll show you." He tried to put
his arm round her neck; but a blow on the breast which made it ring
again induced him to change his mind. Muttering something about
"hard-grained Black Foresters," he turned on his heel.
"'Tell you what," said Betsy, the astute lawyer's cook: "wait here for
an hour till the bell rings for church, and then go to church and sit
down in front on the left of the altar, and you'll see Ivo up in the
gallery: tip him the wink to come out to you after church."
"In church?" cried Emmerence, raising her hands! "Jesus! Maria! Joseph!
but you've been spoiled in the city! I'd rather go home again without
seeing him."
"Well, then, do your own thinking, you psalm-singer."
"So I will," said Emmerence, going. She took her way straight to the
convent, asked to see the principal, and told him frankly that she
wished to talk to Ivo.
"Are you his sister?" asked the principal.
"No: I'm only the housemaid."
The principal looked steadily into her face: she returned his look so
calmly and naturally that his suspicions, if he had any, were disarmed;
and he directed the famulus to conduct her to Ivo.
She waited for him in the recess of a window on the long vaulted
corridor. He came presently, and started visibly when he saw her.
"Why, Emmerence, what brings you here? All well at home, I hope?" said
he, with a foreboding of evil.
"Yes, all well. Your mother sent me to give you a thousand loves from
her, and to say that Ivo needn't be a clerical man if he doesn't want
to be one with all his heart. Mother can't make her mind easy: she
thinks she has made his heart so heavy, and that he only does so to
please her, and that was what she didn't want, and he was her dear son
for all that, even if he shouldn't be a minister, and----Yes: that's
all."
"Don't look so frightened, Emmerence: talk without fear. Give me your
hand," said Ivo, just as one of his inquisitive comrades had passed.
"We are not strangers: we are good old friends, a'n't we?"
Emmerence now related, with astonishing facility, how she had tried to
write the letter, and had wandered all night to see him: she often
looked to the ground and turned her head as if in quest of something.
Ivo's eyes rested on her with strange intentness, and whenever their
glances met both blushed deeply; yet they had a dread of each other,
and neither confessed the emotions of their hearts. When her story was
all told, Ivo said, "Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I only hope
a time may come when I may requite a little of your kindness."
"That's nothing. If it was for your good, and you were to say, 'Just
run to Stuttgard for me to the king,' I'd go in a minute. I just have a
feeling now as if--as if----"
"As if what?" asked Ivo.
"As if every thing must turn out for the very best after this."
Without speaking a word, the two stood face to face for a while,
holding in their hearts the fondest converse. At last Ivo drew himself
up, with a heavy sigh, and said,--
"Say to my mother that I must think over all these matters again, and
that she must not be uneasy any more. Take good care of her, and don't
let her work too hard with the arm that was broken. Next to my mother,
you and Nat are the dearest persons in the world to me."
Ivo as well as Emmerence looked down at these words, while the former
continued:--"Have you heard nothing of Nat?"
"No."
The time allowed for their interview had passed by before they were
aware of it. "You are going to church, a'n't you?" asked Ivo.
"Yes; but afterward I must make haste to get home."
"If I can arrange it, I'll see you once more after church, down in the
Neckar Bottom, on the road to Hirsau; but, if it can't be, good-bye.
God bless you! Don't walk too fast, and,--be a good girl."
They parted. Although an hour before Emmerence had scolded Betsy so
lustily, she now took her seat in church on the left of the altar, and
was rejoiced at Ivo's nod of recognition.
[Illustration: For an hour she waited in the Neckar Bottom.]
For an hour she waited in the Neckar Bottom; but no one came. She
started on the road home, often stopping to look back: at last she
resolved to do so no longer. "It is better so," she said. "I'm always
afraid I haven't told him the matter just in the right way; but it's
better so." Though she did not stop to look back any more, she soon sat
down to eat her bread upon a hill which commanded a view of the whole
length of the road to the city. Brushing the crumbs from her dress, she
then rose up hastily and pursued her journey.
We cannot accompany her farther than to say that she arrived in good
health and spirits. Our business is with Ivo, who was oppressed with
heavy thoughts. He had in a manner domiciliated himself in the calling
from which it seemed impossible to escape. The message from his mother
had again unsettled the firm foundation of his will, and once more made
him doubtful of himself. The sight of the girl of his heart had aroused
a fresh straggle within him. He might easily have gone to the Neckar
Bottom after church; but fear of himself and of others kept him away.
The pure, fresh action of the will which Ivo had vindicated before his
parents was broken by his voluntary return, and it was not easy to
reunite the fragments: It is very difficult to return to a project once
firmly entertained but afterward abandoned. There is no vital thread to
bind the future and the past: it is like the second crop of grass,
which may be more tender than the first, but gives no nourishment.
15.
RELEASE.
A frightful casualty was required to restore Ivo to his early
resolutions.
On St. Bartholomew's day, Bart had escaped from his keepers in the
hospital. Racked by qualms of conscience, he sprang from a window and
dashed out his brains. To prevent the effect of this deed upon the
reputation of the convent, and in charitable consideration of Bart's
partial derangement, it was resolved to give him a burial in the usual
form. The conventuaries, wearing crape, followed the corpse to the
sound of funeral music. Ivo blew the horn: its tones fluttered in the
air like the shreds of ribbons rudely torn. At the grave Ivo stepped
forward and made a heart-rending speech in memory of his lost comrade.
At first he stumbled a little: all his pulses were trembling. For the
first time in his life Death had really rolled a corpse at his feet,
crying, "Learn, by death, to study life!" As he had fancied Clement
lying dead at his feet, so now in reality the corpse of a companion of
his youth, with whom he had spent so many years, lay before him. First
he spoke in praise of life,--of the free, glad air of heaven,--and
desired to banish death far from the haunts of men; but soon his speech
warmed, and his words flowed as from a living spring; and, with
griefless fervor, he praised the lot of the orphan now happy with his
Father in heaven. Consecration overtook him before the hand of a priest
had touched his head. He soared upward to the throne of the universal
Parent, knelt, and implored grace for his friend. In short and broken
sentences he then prayed for grace to himself, and for his own happy
end and that of all men.
To the sound of a triumphal march the conventuaries returned home.
Though the contemplation of death was one of their chief exercises,
yet, like the standing-armies of earth, they, the standing-army of
heaven, were not left long to the influence of sorrow, but were
required forthwith to renew their strides toward the goal of their
efforts. Ivo's courage also returned. Fate had robbed him of the two
associates who had stood nearest to him,--of the one by spiritual, and
of the other by bodily, suicide. He was alone, and therefore
untrammelled. When the others, who had looked upon life and death with
less of seriousness, went in a body to a tavern to observe an old
custom of drinking a hundred quarts of beer, each at one draught, to
the memory of their comrade, Ivo, with his bugle under his arm, went
alone across the bridge, and walked on and on. The sun was sinking: his
last rays still lingered on the earth: but the moon was high in the
unclouded sky, as if to tell the children of earth, "Be not afraid: I
shall watch over you and shed light upon your silent nightly paths
until the sun returns." Ivo said to himself, "Thus do men cry and
clamor whenever an opinion is wrecked or a doctrine dislodged. A new
light is always at hand, though sometimes unseen to them; but they
dread eternal night, because they do not know that light is
indestructible."
When the darkness had fairly set in, he stood still for a moment, but
immediately resumed his march, saying, "On, on! never turn back." He
turned into another road, to avoid his home. He thought of his mother's
grief; but he would write to her from Strasbourg, whither he had
resolved to go. He meant to support himself by his instrument, or to
hire out as a farm-hand, until he should have laid up money enough to
go to America. His books were forgotten as if he had never seen them.
He thought no more of theological dogmas and systems. He seemed to have
been born again, and the remembrances of the past were like a dream.
Thus he walked on all night without resting; and, when at the first
dawn of morning he found himself in a strange valley, he stood still,
and prayed fervently for God's assistance. He did not kneel; but his
soul lay prostrate before the Lord. As he walked on, he hummed a song
which he had often heard in childhood:--
"Now good-bye, beloved father,
Now good-bye: so fare ye well.
Would you once more seek to find me?
Climb the lofty hills behind me,
Look into this lowly dell,
Now good-bye: so fare ye well.
"Now good-bye, beloved mother,
Now good-bye: so fare ye well.
You who did with anguish bear me,
For the Church you did uprear me:
Let your blessing with me dwell.
Now good-bye: so fare ye well."
Sitting on a stone, Ivo reflected on his fate. He had gone away
recklessly: there was not a copper in his pocket, and nothing which
afforded even a hope of money except his bugle. He could hardly expect
to escape the necessity of asking the assistance of the charitable.
Even in the purest heart, and with the consciousness of perfect
rectitude, begging is a dismal prospect: he blushed scarlet at the
thought. Nor must we forget that he was the son of rich parents, and
could not but think of the plentiful supplies at home. He sang, with a
sad smile, a snatch of the old song,--
"The world's here and there,
But I haven't a share."
A drove of oxen came down the road, two brindles leading the way. Ivo
joined the drovers and asked where they were going. They were on the
way to a rich butcher in Strasbourg, and now on the direct road to
Freiburg. Ivo had gone round many miles, but was still on the right
road. He now asked the men to let him travel with them and help them,
and to pay his expenses: they looked at the strange man in black, with
the bugle under his arm, from head to foot, and whispered something to
each other.
"As for going to Algiers with the foreign legion, there's no use in
that at all," said one.
"Much better sit out your two or three years at home: they can't pull
your head off." The complacent smile with which this was said proved
conclusively that the speaker's personal experience vouched for its
correctness. It was clear that they took Ivo for a criminal,--a notion
which he did not venture to dissipate, as their pity was indispensable
to him. They said they could not make a bargain, but must refer him to
their employer, whom they expected to meet at Neustadt.
Ivo followed humbly in the train of the oxen: the graduate of the
penitentiary committed the sceptre into his hands, and he ruled over
the subject herd with mildness.
"Where did you get those brindles?" he asked.
"Ah," said the enemy of Algiers, "you can see what sort of a stable
they came from, can't you? They were bought from Buchmaier, at the
Hornberg fair."
Ivo ran up to the beasts, and recognised his favorite by the upturned
hair in the middle of the forehead. He almost feared that the fate of
the poor animal would be his own, and that death awaited him also; but
he could not and would not turn back.
But what was his astonishment when, on arriving at Neustadt, the
drovers saluted their employer, who was looking out of the window of
the inn, and he recognised him as Florian! He could not believe his
eyes, until Florian came up and welcomed the odd-looking drover with
shouts of laughter.
Ivo told his story, and Florian, striking the table, cried, "Hurrah for
you! Another bottle, waiter. I'll see you through, take my word for it.
But how do you expect to get to Strasbourg without a passport? Here,"
(slipping out of his blue smock,) "put that on: that will make them all
take you for a Strasbourg butcher. And," added he, laughingly taking up
the heavy belt filled with money which lay before him, "carry that on
your shoulder, and you'll be as good as one of us in earnest."
Ivo was well satisfied, and, after a hearty meal, he travelled on with
Florian in good spirits. Florian was rejoiced to find such an
opportunity of vaunting his prosperous circumstances, and of playing a
trick on the Nordstetters: besides, he was really delighted to be of
use to Ivo.
The day was hot. On the top of the Hell-Scramble they stopped for
dinner. To escape Florian's unceasing invitations to help himself from
the bottle, Ivo went into the adjoining smithy to chat with the
blacksmith, as he had been wont to do at home. Suddenly he called to
mind that this was the place and this the man with whom Nat had once
been concealed: he was on the point of asking about him, when the
blacksmith said to his boy, "There: take these two ploughshares over to
the Beste farmer."
"How far is that?" asked Ivo.
"A good mile."
"I'm going with you," said Ivo. Running into the tavern and telling
Florian that he would soon return and overtake him, he doffed his
butcher's smock and took his bugle under his arm.
As they walked down the wood-path, he heard the torrent roar and the
mills rattle; every tree seemed to stand between him and Nat. "Is the
Beste farmer a fine man?" he asked the boy.
"Oh, yes; a finer man than his brother who is dead."
"What's the Christian name of the one that's on the farm now?"
"I don't know: we always call him the Beste farmer: he's been in many
strange countries, as a serving-man and as a doctor."
Ivo fairly shouted with joy.
"Since when has he been here?" he asked, again.
"These two years. He worked for his brother a year, till he died: they
do say he did it, for he's half a wizard: he wanted to kill him many
years ago, and, as there were no children, the property came to him.
Otherwise, though, he's a very fine man."
It was painful to be told that his dear Nat was under the suspicion of
fratricide after all, as if to punish him for having once in his life
meditated the sin; but Ivo soon reflected that such could only be the
gossip of envious tongues and of old women.
[Illustration: The saw-mill.]
They passed the saw-mill where Nat had spent so large a portion of his
youth. Ivo was particularly pleased to see a fine walnut-tree flourishing
in front of it, under the protection of the overtopping hill-side.
They ascended the hill on the other side. Ivo knew that a mile among
neighboring farmers is of an elastic character; but he had not expected
to find the distance greater than four miles,--as he did. Being very
impatient, he relieved the boy of the heavy ploughshares, to enable the
latter to keep up with him. The pitchy scent of the sun-stricken firs
recalled the memory of home: he saw himself again seated on the harrow
with Nat, in the field in the Violet Valley, singing and rejoicing.
The associations of childhood danced around him. Having reached the
"Wind-Corner," Ivo saw the well-known little cabin, from the window of
which a pale female face was looking. It was Lizzie of the Corner,
returned to her former solitude.
"How strange," thought Ivo, "that the Church should venture to prohibit
what the Bible expressly enjoins! According to the Old Testament, the
brother of a decedent was required to marry the childless widow; and
this the canonical law expressly forbids. Nat and Lizzie could never
marry." With a brush of his hand Ivo banished from his mind all
remembrances of theological difficulties.
In the neighborhood of the great farm-house the roads were in fine
condition. The stately building did not appear until they were almost
at the door. Ivo saw Nat raking hay, while several farm-hands were at
work around him. He did not run toward him, but set his bugle to his
lips and played the tune of the old song,--
"Up yonder, up yonder,
At the heavenly gate,
A poor soul is standing
In sorrowful strait."
Then he cried "Nat," and they were in each other's arms.
* * * * *
After long pathless wanderings, our story has reached a smooth highway
which will bear it rapidly to its close. Ivo remained with Nat, who
treated him like a brother. As one of the richest farmers in the
country, he could do much for him without feeling a sacrifice. He went
to Nordstetten as his proxy, and brought Emmerence, with whom, on a
bright, happy day, Ivo was united.
All the villagers, and even his parents, were reconciled to his change
of pursuits. It is strange how easily people are satisfied with their
friends the moment they pay their own expenses.
Nat presented Ivo with the saw-mill, where he now worked to his heart's
content, in company with his Emmerence. Often of an evening he sits
under the walnut-tree and plays his bugle, which fills the valley with
its melody. Far around, at the isolated farm-houses, the boys and girls
stand in the moonshine listening to the plaintive tones. Emmerence once
drew Ivo's attention to this; and he said, "You see, music is an emblem
of human life as it should be. I play for our own satisfaction; and yet
if I know that the sounds gladden the hearts of other men also, I am
still better pleased, and play with more life and spirit. Let every man
attend to his own business well, and he will help others too, and make
them happy. I am not disinterested enough to be satisfied with playing
tunes for other people to dance by. I like to dance myself."
"Yes," said Emmerence: "you are a learned man, and yet I understand
you. When the boys used to sing while gathering fir-nuts in the Neckar
valley, I always thought, 'Well, they sing for themselves; and yet it
makes me happy to hear them too, and every one who has ears;' and so do
the birds sing for themselves, and yet we are delighted; and if every
one sings his part well in church it all chords well together, and is
beautiful."
Ivo embraced his Emmerence with transport.
"If only winter never came here," she said; "for it is rather
solitary."
"Well, in winter you must come and live with me," said the well-known
voice of Nat.