"What is it?"
"I wanted to ask you something; but I forgot what it was."
"Well, then, go to sleep, because you're tired: if it was something
good, to-morrow will be time enough: you'll think of it again."
But Hedwig tossed about without sleeping. She persuaded herself that
she could not sleep because she had lost her appetite; so she forced
herself to eat a piece of bread with which she had provided herself.
Meantime the teacher had also made up his mind. At first he thought of
probing himself and his affection, and of not seeing Hedwig for some
time; but the more rational alternative prevailed, and he determined to
see her often and study her mind and character as closely as possible.
Next day he called upon his old colleague and invited him out for a
walk: he saw that, if only on Hedwig's account, he must cultivate this
acquaintance. The old man never walked out, as his gardening afforded
him all the exercise he needed; but our friend's invitation appeared to
him an honor not to be refused.
It was long before a subject of conversation could be presented to the
old man's mind which did not hang fire. His interest in every thing
invariably went out as soon as his pipe,--for which he struck fire
every five minutes. The young man did not wish to begin with Hedwig,
but rather to study a little of the niece's character by the uncle's.
"Do you read much now?" he inquired.
"Nothing at all, scarcely. What would I make by it if I did? I've got
my pension."
"Yes," replied the young man; "but we don't improve our minds only
to make our money with, but to attain a more elevated mental
existence,--to study deeper and understand more clearly. Every thing on
earth--and intellectual life above all things--must first be its own
purpose----"
The old gentleman stopped to light his pipe with great composure, and
our friend paused in the midst of an exposition which had but recently
presented itself to his own mind. They walked side by side without
speaking for a time, until the younger began again:--"But you still
practise your music, don't you?"
"I should think so. I sometimes fiddle for half a night at a time. I
need no light, I don't damage my eyes, and I don't miss anybody's
conversation."
"And you try to perfect yourself in it as far as you can?"
"Why not? Of course."
"And yet you don't make any thing by it."
The old man looked at him in astonishment. Our friend went on:--"Just
as your perfection in music gives you pleasure without making you
richer, so, methinks, it ought to be the case with reading and study.
But in this respect many people are just like those who neglect their
dress and personal appearance the moment they have no special interest
in attracting some particular person. The other day I heard a young
fellow scold a young married woman for her slatternly attire. 'Oh,'
said she, 'where's the difference now? I'm bought and sold, and my old
man must have me for better or for worse.' As if there was merely an
external object in dressing ourselves neatly and it was not required
for our own sakes, to preserve our self-respect. This is just the view
many people take of education: they carry it on to subserve an external
purpose, and the moment this incentive fails they neglect it.
"But, if we have a proper respect for our intellectual selves, we
should keep them clean and neat, as we do our persons, and seek to
bring out all their faculties to the greatest perfection attainable."
The young man suddenly perceived that he had been soliloquizing aloud,
instead of keeping up the conversation; but the indifference exhibited
by his companion dispelled every fear of having given him offence. With
a sigh it occurred to him, for the hundredth time, how wearisome is the
effort to give currency to any thoughts of a more general and elevated
nature. "If the old teacher is so thick-skinned, what is to be expected
of the farmers?" thought he.
After another pause, our friend began once more:--"Don't you think
people are much more good and pious nowadays, than they were in the old
times?"
"Pious? Devil take it! we weren't so bad in the old times either, only
we didn't make such a fuss about it: too little and too much is lame
without a crutch: ha, ha!"
Another long silence ensued, at the end of which the young man made a
lucky move in asking, "How was it about music in old times?"
A light glistened in the old man's eyes: he held the steel and the
tinder in his hand unused, and said, "It's all tooting nowadays. I was
sub-organist in the Freiburg Cathedral for two years and a half. That's
an organ, let me tell you. I heard the Abbe Vogler: there can't be any
thing finer in heaven than his music was.
"I've played at many a harvest-home, too.
"In old times they had stringed instruments principally, and harps
and cymbals. Now it's all wind,--big trumpets, little trumpets, and
valve-trumpets, all blowing and noise. And what can a musician make at
a harvest-home? Three men used to be plenty: now they want six or
seven. It used to be small room, small bass, and big pay: now it's big
room, double-bass, and half-pay.
"I once travelled through the Schaibach Valley with two comrades; and
the thalers seemed to fly into our pockets as if they had wings. Once
two villages almost exterminated each other because both wanted me to
play at harvest-home the same day."
The old gentleman now passed on to one of his favorite stories of how a
village had been so enchanted with his performance on the violin that
they had made him their schoolmaster: the Government undertook to
install another with dragoons, but the village rebelled and he kept his
office.
"Didn't it injure your standing as a teacher to play at the
harvest-homes?"
"Not a bit. I've done it more than fifty times in this village, and you
won't see a man in it but takes off his cap when he meets me in the
street."
The old man's eloquence continued to flow until they had returned to
the garden. Our friend waited a long time, in the hope of seeing
Hedwig, but in vain. Thus his first design was accomplished in spite of
himself: he did not see Hedwig for a long, long time,--to wit, for full
forty-eight hours.
Next day, as he strode alone through the fields, he saw Buchmaier
driving a horse, which drew a sort of roller.
"Busy, squire?" asked the teacher: he had learned some of the customary
phrases by this time.
"A little," answered Buchmaier, and drove his horse to the end of the
field, where he halted.
[Illustration: He drove his horse to the end of the field, where he
halted.]
"Is that the sorrel you were breaking in the day I came here?"
"Yes, that's him. I'm glad to see that you remember it: I thought you
had nothing in your head but your books.
"You see, I've had a queer time with this here horse. My ploughman
wanted to break him into double harness right-away, and I gave in to
him; but it wouldn't do, nohow. These colts, the first time they get
harness on 'em, work themselves to death, and pull, and pull, and don't
do any good after all: if they pull hard and get their side of the
swingle-tree forward, the other horse don't know what to make of it and
just lumbers along anyhow. But if you have 'em in single harness you
can make 'em steady and not worry themselves to death for nothing. When
they can work each by himself, they soon learn to work in a team, and
you can tell much better how strong you want the other horse to be."
The teacher derived a number of morals from this speech; but all he
said aloud was, "It's just the same thing with men: they must learn to
work alone first, and then they are able to help each other."
"That's what I never thought of; but I guess you're right."
"Is that the new sowing-machine? What are you sowing?"
"Rapeseed."
"Do you find the machine better than the old way of sowing?"
"Yes, it's more even; but it won't do for any but large fields. Small
patches are better sown with the hand."
"I must confess, I find something particularly attractive in the act of
sowing with the hand: it is significant that the seed should first rest
immediately in the hand of man and then fly through the air to sink
into the earth. Don't you think so too?"
"Maybe so; but it just comes to my mind that you can't say the sower's
rhyme very well with the machine. Well, you must think it."
"What rhyme?"
"Farmers' boys used to be taught to say, whenever they threw out a
handful of seed,--
"'I sow the seed:
God give it speed
For me and those in need!'"
"Such a rhyme ought never to go out of use."
"Yes; as I was saying, you can think it, or even say it, with the
machine: it's a useful invention, anyhow."
"Is it easy to introduce these new inventions?"
"No. The first time I put my oxen each into his own yoke the whole
village ran after me. And when I brought this contrivance from the
agricultural fair and went out into the field with it, the people all
thought I'd gone crazy."
"What a pity it is that the common people are so slow to understand the
value of these improvements!"
"Whoa, Tom! whoa!" cried Buchmaier, as his horse began to paw the
ground impatiently: then, holding the bridle more firmly, he went
on:--"That isn't a pity at all, Mr. Teacher: on the contrary, that's a
very good thing. Believe me, if the farmers weren't so headstrong, and
were to go to work every year to try all the machines that learned men
invent for them, we'd have to starve many a year. Whoa, Tom! You must
study agricultural matters a little: I can lend you a book or two."
"I'll come to see you about it; I see your horse won't stand still any
more. Good luck to your labor."
"Good-bye, sir," said Buchmaier, smiling at the parting salutation.
The teacher turned to go, and Buchmaier went on with his work. But
hardly had the latter walked a few yards, before he started on hearing
Buchmaier whistle the "Lauterbacher." He was inclined to suspect an
insult, but checked himself, saying, "The man certainly means no harm."
And he was quite right, for not only did the man mean no harm, but he
meant nothing whatever: he whistled without knowing what.
In a ravine, after ascertaining that he was unperceived, the teacher
wrote in his pocket-book,--"The steady and almost immovable power of
the people's character and spirit is a sacred power of nature: it forms
the centre of gravity of human life,--I might say, the _vis inertiae_ of
all institutions.
"What a hapless vacillation would befall us if every movement in
politics, religion, or social economy were to seize at a moment's
warning upon the whole community! Only that which has ceased to
vibrate, and attained a calm, steady course of progress, is fitted to
enter here: this is the great ocean in which the force of rivers is
lost.
"I will respect the way of thinking of these people, even when I differ
from them; but I will endeavor----"
What he meant to endeavor remained unwritten. But he had been fortunate
in detecting features of interest in the affairs of village life.
It was some days before he again found an opportunity to converse with
Hedwig. He saw her from her grandmother's seat; but she appeared to be
very busy, and hurried by with very brief words of recognition. Indeed,
she almost seemed to avoid him.
Love of the peasant-girl was strong within him, but at the same time
the people's life, which had broken in upon his vision, occupied much
of his thoughts and feelings. He often walked about as if in a dream;
and yet he had never understood the realities of life so well as now.
The College Chap also gave him much trouble and vexation. The latter
was curious to know what his grandmother and the teacher could have
found to converse about. He joined them more than once, and always came
down with a rude joke whenever a vein of deeper sentiment was touched.
When the teacher inquired, "Grandmother, do you never go to church
now?" the College Chap quickly interposed, "Perhaps you remember who
built the church, grandmother: the teacher would like to know; but he
says he isn't going to run away with it."
"Be quiet, you!" replied his grandmother: "if you were good for any
thing you'd be master in the church now, and parson." Turning to the
teacher, she went on:--"It's five years since I was in church last: but
on Sunday I can hear by the bells when the host is being shown, and
when they carry it around; and then I say the litany by myself. Twice a
year the parson comes and gives me the sacrament: he's a dear, good
man, our pastor, and often comes to see me besides."
"Don't you think, Mr. Teacher," began the College Chap, "that my
grandmother would make an abbess _comme il faut_?"
On hearing herself the subject of conversation in a foreign language,
the poor old lady looked from one of the speakers to the other in
astonishment not unmingled with fear.
"Certainly," said the teacher; "but, even so, I think she can be just
as pious and just as happy as if she were an abbess."
"Do you see, grandmother?" exclaimed the College Chap, in triumph: "the
teacher says, too, that parsons are not a whit better than other
folks."
"Is that true?" said the old woman, sadly.
"What I mean is," replied the teacher, "that all men can go to heaven;
but a clerical man who is as he should be, and labors diligently for
the welfare of souls, occupies a higher grade."
"I think so too," assented the old woman. The perspiration was
gathering on the poor teacher's forehead; but the relentless student
began again:--"Isn't it your opinion, Mr. Teacher, that clergymen ought
to marry?"
"It is the canon of the Church that they must remain single; and any
one who takes orders with a perfect understanding of his own actions
must obey the law."
"I think so too," said the old lady, with great vehemence: "those that
want to get married are devils of the flesh, and clergymen must be
spiritual and not carnal. I'll tell you what: don't speak to him any
more at all; don't let him spoil your good heart. He has his wicked
day, and he isn't as bad neither as he makes himself out to be."
Finding his grandmother proof against all assaults, the College Chap
went away in an ill humor. The teacher also took his leave: again had a
fine and tender relationship been rudely jarred. Not till he reached
his dwelling did he succeed in conquering his depression and steeling
himself against these unavoidable accidents.
On Sunday he at last found another opportunity to converse with Hedwig.
He found her sitting with the old schoolmaster in his garden. They did
not appear to have spoken much together.
After a few customary salutations, the teacher began:--"How fine and
elevated a thing it is that the seventh day is hallowed by religion and
kept clear of labor! If things were otherwise, people would die of
over-work. If, for instance, in the heat of midsummer harvesters were
to work day by day without intermission until all was gathered in, no
one could endure it."
At first Hedwig and the old man listened in surprise; but soon Hedwig
said, "Were you here already when the parson allowed us to turn the hay
on Sunday in haying-time, because it rained so long and the hay might
have been spoiled? I was out in the field too, but it seemed as if
every pitchforkful was as heavy again as it ought to be. I felt as if
somebody was holding my arm; and all next day, and all next week, the
world was like upside-down, and it was as if there hadn't been a Sunday
for a whole year."
The teacher looked at Hedwig with beaming eyes. There was her
grandmother to the life. Turning to the old man, he said, "You must
remember the time when they introduced the decades into France?"
"Ducats, do you mean? why, they come from Italy."
"I mean decades. They ordained that people should rest every tenth day,
instead of every seventh. Then everybody fell sick also. The number
seven is repeated in a mysterious manner throughout the whole course of
nature, and must not be arbitrarily removed."
"Why, they must have been crazy! A Sunday every ten days! ha, ha!" said
the old man.
"Do you know the story of the lord who is hewn in stone in our church
here, with the dog?" asked Hedwig.
"No: tell it."
"He was one of those fellows, too, that didn't keep holy the Sunday. He
was a lord----"
"Lord of Isenburg and Nordstetten," explained her grand-uncle.
[Illustration: The dog wouldn't go to church with him.]
"Yes," continued Hedwig: "at Isenburg you can just see a wall or two of
his castle. He never cared for Sundays or holidays, and loved nothing
in the world but his dog, that was as big and as savage as a wolf. On
Sundays and holidays he forced people to labor; and, if they didn't
work willingly, the dog would fly at them of his own accord and almost
tear them to pieces; and then the lord would laugh: and he called the
dog Sunday. He never went to church but once,--when his daughter was
married. He wanted to take his dog Sunday to church with him, but the
dog wouldn't go: he laid himself down on the steps till his lord came
out again. As he came out, he stumbled over the dog and fell down
stone-dead; and his daughter died too: and so now they're both
chiselled in stone in the church, and the dog beside them. They say the
dog was the devil, and the lord had sold him his soul."
The teacher undertook to show that this myth was probably suggested by
the sight of the monument, the origin of which had been forgotten; that
the feudal proprietors were fond of being pictured with crests and
symbols, and so on: but he found little favor with his hearers.
No one was disposed to continue the conversation. Hedwig made a little
hole in the sand with her foot, and the teacher discovered for the
first time how small it was.
"Do you read on Sunday, sometimes?" he said, looking straight before
him. No one answering, he looked at Hedwig, who then replied, "No: we
make the time pass without it."
"How?"
"Why, how can you ask? We talk, and we sing, and we take a walk."
"What do you talk about?"
"Well," she cried, laughing gayly, "to the end of my days I wouldn't
have expected to be asked such a question! We haven't much trouble
about that: have we, uncle? My playmate, Buchmaier's Agnes, will be
here directly, and then you'll stop asking what we talk about: she
knows enough for a cow."
"But haven't you ever read any thing?"
"Oh, yes,--the hymn-book and the Bible-stories."
"Nothing else?"
"And the Flower-Basket, and Rosa of Tannenburg."
"And what else?"
"And Rinaldo Rinaldini. Now you know all," said the girl, brushing off
her apron with her hands, as if she had poured out her entire stock of
erudition at the teacher's feet.
"What did you like best?"
"Rinaldo Rinaldini. What a pity it is he was a robber!"
"I will bring you some books with much prettier stories in them."
"I'd rather you'd tell us one; but it must be grizzly and awful. Wait
till Agnes comes: she does like to hear them so much."
At this moment a boy came to tell the old teacher that Beck's Conrad
had just received a new waltz, and that he must come with his violin to
play it. He rose quickly, wished the visitors "pleasant conversation,"
and went away.
The teacher's heart trembled on finding himself alone with Hedwig: he
had not the courage to look up. At last he said, almost to himself,
"What a good old man he is!"
"Yes," said Hedwig; "and you must learn to know him. You must not be
touchy with him: he's a little short and cross to all teachers, because
he was put out of office, and so he seems to think every teacher that
comes here after him is to blame for it; and yet how can they help it,
when the consistory sends them? He is old, you see; and we must be
patient with old folks."
The teacher grasped her hand and looked tenderly into her eyes: this
loving appreciation of another's feelings won his heart. Suddenly a
dead bird fell at their feet. They started. Hedwig soon bent down and
picked up the bird.
"He is quite warm yet," said she. "The poor little thing was sick, and
nobody could help it: it's only a lark; but still it's a living thing."
"One is tempted to think," said the teacher, "that a bird that always
mounts heavenward, singing, must fall straight into heaven when it
dies, it soars so freely over the earth; and yet, at death's approach,
every thing that rose out of the earth must sink into it again."
Hedwig opened her eyes at this speech, which pleased her greatly,
though she did not quite understand it. After a pause, she said, "Isn't
it too bad that his wife or his children don't seem to care a bit about
him, but just let him fall down and die? but maybe they don't know he's
dead."
"Animals, like children," said the teacher, "do not understand death,
because they never reflect upon life: they see them both without
knowing what they see."
"Are you sure of that?" asked Hedwig.
"I think so," replied the teacher. Hedwig did not continue the subject,
as it was not her custom to follow up any idea to its source. But the
teacher said to himself, "Here is a mind eminently fitted for
cultivation and the germ of fresh and vigorous thought." Taking the
bird out of her hand, he said, "This denizen of the free air should not
be buried in the gloomy soil. I would fasten him to this tree, so that
in death he may return to his native element."
"No, that won't do: there's an owl nailed against Buchmaier's barn, and
I feel like taking it down every time I look at it."
So they buried the bird together. The teacher, having been so fortunate
in his discoveries, desired to see how far Hedwig would be accessible
to a more refined culture.
"You talk so sensibly," he began, "that it is a pity you should speak
this harsh and unpleasant farmers' German, You could surely talk like
me if you chose; and it would become you so much better."
"I'd be ashamed of myself to talk any other way; and, besides,
everybody understands me."
"Oh, yes: but, if good is good, better is better. In what language do
you pray?"
"Oh, that's quite another thing! I pray just as it's in the book."
"But you ought to talk with men in the same language in which you talk
with God."
"I can't do that, and I won't do it. Why, I wouldn't have any thing to
say if I had to be thinking all the time how it ought to be said. I'd
be ashamed of myself. No, Mr. Teacher: I'll lay your words on silken
cushions, but this won't do."
"Don't always say Mr. Teacher: call me by my name."
"That can't be, again; that won't do, you see."
"Why won't it?"
"Because it won't."
"But there must be some reason for it."
"Why, I don't know what your name is."
"Adolphe Lederer."
"Well, then, Mr. Lederer."
"No; I want you to call me Adolphe."
"Oh, now, don't. What would the folks say?"
"That we love each other," said the teacher, pressing her hand to his
heart. "Don't you love me?"
Hedwig bent down and plucked a pink from its stem. The garden-gate
opened, and Buchmaier's Agnes came in.
"Good gracious! I'm so glad I'm out!" cried she. "Good-day, Mr.
Teacher. Hedwig, just be glad you needn't go into Bible-class any more.
Mr. Teacher, you ought to manage so that big girls like us needn't go
any more. It wouldn't do me much good, to-be-sure, for I'm coming out
in fall."
"Give me the pink," said the teacher to Hedwig, in a tone of gentle
entreaty. Blushing, she complied, and he pressed the symbol of requited
affection to his lips.
"You'll catch it," said Agnes, "when old Ha ha sees that you've plucked
one of his flowers: well, for good luck, he's sitting with Beck and
playing the new waltz. Won't we dance it at harvest-home? You dance, I
hope, Mr. Teacher?"
"A little, but I'm very much out of practice."
"Practice makes perfect:--loldeloleroldelol!" chirped Agnes as she
skipped about the garden. "What are you making faces at, Hedwig? Come."
She dragged Hedwig away irresistibly, but with so much awkwardness that
they trod into a bed. Agnes loosened the earth, singing, and then said,
"Come, let's get out of this garden, where there isn't room to swing a
cat; the other girls are all out in the Cherry Copse, and he's been
waiting for us this long time, I'll warrant."
"Who?" asked the teacher.
"Why, he," replied Agnes: "if you come along you may see him for
nothing: we're good enough for you to go with us, a'n't we?"
The teacher took the hand of Agnes, and, holding it as if it had
been Hedwig's, he went out into the fields with the two girls. At the
cross-roads, where you turn up to the "Daberwarren," on a hemp-crate,
they found a man of powerful frame, tall and straight as a fir, in whom
the teacher recognised Buchmaier's ploughman. On seeing them approach,
he sprang to his feet and stood rooted to the ground by some strange
misgiving; but when Agnes walked up to him his brow relaxed, and he
looked bright and cheerful. The teacher saluted Thaddie--such was his
name--with great warmth, and the two couples walked on cosily together.
To inspire Thaddie with confidence, the teacher asked a host of
questions about the sorrel, and how he took to double harness.
Thus had come to pass what, a little while before, the teacher would
never have dreamed of: his beloved was a peasant-girl, and his comrade
a ploughman.
Thaddie and Agnes went before, and the teacher, hand-in-hand with
Hedwig, followed, chatting gayly. The teacher was now firmly convinced
that there is such a thing as conversing a great deal even without
having read books.
Near the "Cat's Well," from which the nurses are said to fetch little
children when they are born, the party seated themselves upon a bank
and sang. Hedwig had a beautiful contralto voice, and Thaddie sang a
good accompaniment. The teacher greatly regretted his limited knowledge
of the songs of the people: his musical education, however, enabled him
readily to catch the simple melodies and to improvise a tolerable bass.
With beaming eyes, Hedwig nodded her approbation. Often he was brought
to a sudden pause by an unexpected turn in the air, introduced for the
purpose of bridging a gap in the story or of smoothing the ruggedness
of the rhythm. At such times Hedwig's encouraging look would say, "Sing
on, if it does go wrong a little."
[Illustration: He united his voice to those of the villagers.]
Thus he united his voice to those of the villagers. He had come so far
that, where he furnished nothing but the tune, the peasants supplied
the words and the meaning:--
"I mow by the Neckar,
I mow by the Rhine;
My sweetheart is peevish,
My sweetheart is mine.
"What use is my mowing?
My sickle's not free;
What use is my sweetheart?
She won't stay with me.
"And mowing by Neckar,
And mowing by Rhine,
I'll throw in the ring that
She gave me for mine.
"The ring in the water
Is nabb'd by the fish;
The fish shall be brought to
The king in a dish.
"The king he shall wonder
Whose ring it might be;
Then out speaks my sweetheart:--
'It belongeth to me.'
"Up hill and down valley
My sweetheart shall spring;
And find me a-mowing
And give me the ring.
"You may mow by the Neckar,
Or mow by the Rhine,
If you throw in the ring that
I gave you of mine."