When dinner was over, Mina whose turn it was to help her mother to
clear away the dishes, tidy the room, and prepare the coffee, asked her
sister: "Where are you going, Lina?"--"I'll get my sewing and go to the
arbour," answered Lina.--"Very well," said Mina, "I'll join you there
as soon as I'm ready."--"And I'll go too," said Godfrey, "for I've got
a book I want to finish."--"That's right," said Bräsig, "It'll be a
deuced good entertainment for Lina."--Godfrey felt inclined to take the
old man to task for using such a word as "deuced," but on second
thoughts refrained from doing so, for he knew that it was hopeless to
try to bring Bräsig round to his opinion, so he followed the girls from
the room.--"Bless me!" cried Mrs. Nüssler. "What can have happened to
my girls? They were as quiet as mice and never said a word to each
other till this afternoon, and now they are once more one heart and one
soul."--"Hush, Mrs. Nüssler," said Bräsig, "I'll find out all about
it for you to-day. Joseph, come with me; but mind you're not to
talk."--Joseph followed him to the garden, and when they got there
Bräsig took his arm: "Now hold your tongue, Joseph," he said, "don't
look round, you must appear to be taking a walk after dinner." Joseph
did as he was told with much success. When they reached the cherry-tree
beside the arbour, Bräsig stood still and said; "Now then, Joseph, give
me a back--but put your head close to the stem of the tree." Joseph was
about to speak, but Bräsig pressed down his head, saying: "Hold your
tongue, Joseph--put your head nearer the tree." He then stepped
on his back, and when standing there firmly, said; "Now straighten
yourself--It does exactly!" Then seizing the lower branch with both
hands, Bräsig pulled himself up into the tree.--Joseph had never spoken
all this time but now he ventured to remark: "But, Bräsig, they're not
nearly ripe yet."--"What a duffer you are, Joseph," said Bräsig,
thrusting his red face through the green leaves which surrounded him.
"Do you really think that I expect to eat Rhenish cherries at
midsummer. But go away now as quickly as you can and don't stand there
looking like a dog when a cat has taken refuge in a tree."--"Ah well,
what shall I do?" said Joseph, going away and leaving Bräsig to his
fate.
Bräsig had not been long in his hiding-place, when he heard a light
step on the gravel walk, and, peering down, saw Lina going into the
arbour with such a large bundle of work in her arms that if she had
finished it in one day it would have been difficult to keep her in
sewing. She laid her work on the table and, resting her head on her
hand, sat gazing thoughtfully at the blue sky beyond Bräsig's
cherry-tree.--"Ah, how happy I am," she said to herself in the fulness
of her grateful heart. "How happy I am. Mina is so kind to me; and so
is Godfrey, or why did he press my foot under the table at dinner. What
made Bräsig stare at us so sharply, I wonder? I think I must have
blushed. What a good man Godfrey is. How seriously and learnedly he can
talk. How decided he is, and I think he has the marks of his spiritual
calling written in his face. He isn't the least bit handsome it is
true; Rudolph is much better looking, but then Godfrey has an air with
him that seems to say: 'don't disturb me by telling me of any of your
foolish worldly little vanities, for I have high thoughts and
aspirations, I am going to be a clergyman.' I'll cut his hair short
though as soon as I have the power."--It is a great blessing that every
girl does not set her heart on having a handsome husband, for otherwise
we ugly men would all have to remain bachelors; and pleasant looking
objects we should be in that case, as I know of nothing uglier than an
ugly old bachelor.--Lina's last thought, that of cutting Godfrey's
hair, had shown so much certainty of what was going to happen, that she
blushed deeply, and as at the same moment she heard a slow dignified
step approaching, she snatched up her work and began to sew busily.
Godfrey seated himself at a little distance from his cousin, opened his
book and began to read, but every now and then he peeped over the edge
of it, either because he had read it before, or because he was thinking
of something else.--That is always the way with Methodistical divinity
students even when they firmly believe what they teach. Before the
examination they think of nothing but their spiritual calling, but
after the examination is well over human nature regains its sway, and
they look out for a fitting wife, before they begin to think of a
parsonage.--Godfrey was like all the rest of his kind, and as no other
girls except Mina and Lina had come in his way, and as Lina attended to
his admonitions far more docilely than her sister, he determined to
make her his help-meet. He was ignorant as to how such matters ought to
be conducted, and felt a little shy and awkward. He had got no further
in his wooing than pressing his lady-love's foot under the table, and
whenever he had done so he was always much more confused than Lina,
whose foot had received the pressure.
However he had determined that the whole matter should be settled
that day, so he began: "I brought this book out entirely for your
sake, Lina. Will you listen to a bit of it just now?"--"Yes," said
Lina.---"What a slow affair it's going to be," thought Bräsig, who
could hardly be said to be lying on a bed of roses, his position in the
cherry-tree was so cramped and uncomfortable.--Godfrey proceeded to
read a sermon on Christian marriage, describing how it should be
entered into, and what was the proper way of looking upon it. When he
had finished he drew a little nearer his cousin and asked: "What do you
think of it, Lina?"--"It's very nice," said Lina.--"Do you mean
marriage?" asked Godfrey.--"O-oh, Godfrey," said Lina, her head
drooping lower over her work.--"No, Lina," Godfrey went on drawing a
little closer to her, "it isn't at all nice. I am thankful to see that
you don't regard the gravest step possible in human life with
unbecoming levity. Marriage is a very hard thing, that is to say, in
the Christian sense of the word."--He then described the duties, cares
and troubles of married life as if he wished to prepare Lina for taking
up her abode in some penal settlement, and Bräsig, as he listened,
congratulated himself on having escaped such a terrible fate. "Yes,"
Godfrey continued, "marriage is part of the curse that was laid on our
first parents when they were thrust out of paradise." So saying he
opened his Bible and read the third chapter of Genesis aloud. Poor Lina
did not know what to do, or where to look, and Bräsig muttered: "The
infamous Jesuit, to read all that to the child." He nearly jumped down
from the tree in his rage, and as for Lina, she would have run away if
it had not been the Bible her cousin was reading to her, so she hid her
face in her hands and wept bitterly. Godfrey was now quite carried away
by zeal for his holy calling; he put his arm round her waist, and said:
"I could not spare you this at a time when I purpose making a solemn
appeal to you. Caroline Nüssler, will you, knowing the gravity of the
step you take, enter the holy estate of matrimony with me, and become
my Christian help-meet?"--Lina was so frightened and distressed at his
whole conduct that she could neither speak nor think; she could only
cry.
At the same moment a merry song was heard at a little distance:
"One bright afternoon I stood to look
Into the depths of a silver brook,
And there I saw little fishes swim,
One of them was grey, I look'd at him.
He was swimming, swimming and swimming
And with delight seemed overbrimming;
I never saw such a thing in my life
As the little grey fish seeking a wife."
Lina struggled hard to regain her composure, and then, in spite of the
Bible and the Christian requirements demanded of her, she started up
and rushed out of the arbour. On her way to the house she passed Mina
who was coming out to join her with her sewing. Godfrey followed Lina
with long slow steps, and looked as much put out as the clergyman who
was interrupted in a very long sermon by the beadle placing the church
key on the reading desk and saying that he might lock up the church
himself when he had done, for he, the beadle, must go home to dinner.
Indeed he was in much the same position as that clergyman. Like him he
had wished to preach a very fine sermon, and now he was left alone in
his empty church.
Mina was an inexperienced little thing, for she was the youngest of the
family, but still she was quick-witted enough to guess something of
what had taken place. She asked herself whether she would cry if the
same thing were to happen to her, and what it would be advisable for
her to do under the circumstances. She seated herself quietly in the
arbour, and began to unroll her work, sighing a little as she did so at
the thought of the uncertainty of her own fate, and the impossibility
of doing anything but wait patiently.--"Bless me!" said Bräsig to
himself as he lay hidden in the tree. "This little round-head has come
now, and I've lost all feeling in my body. It's a horribly slow
affair!"--But the situation was soon to become more interesting, for
shortly after Mina had taken her seat a handsome young man came round
the corner of the arbour with an fishing rod over his shoulder and a
fish basket on his back.--"I'm so glad to find you here, Mina," he
exclaimed, "of course you've all finished dinner."--"You need hardly
ask, Rudolph. It has just struck two."--"Ah well," he said, "I suppose
that my aunt is very angry with me again."--"You may be certain of
that, and she was displeased with you already, you know, even without
your being late for dinner. I'm afraid, however, that your own stomach
will punish you more severely than my mother's anger could do, you've
neglected it so much to-day."--"All the better for you to-night. I
really couldn't come sooner, the fish were biting so splendidly. I went
to the black pool to-day, though Bräsig always advised me not to go
there, and now I know why. It's his larder. When he can't catch
anything elsewhere he's sure of a bite in the black pool. It's cram
full of tench. Just look, did you ever see such beauties?" and he
opened the lid of his basket as he spoke, and showed his spoil, adding:
"I've done old Bräsig this time at any rate!"--"The young rascal!"
groaned Bräsig as he poked his nose through the cherry-leaves, making
it appear like a huge pickled capsicum such as Mrs. Nüssler was in the
habit of preserving in cherry-leaves for winter use. "The young rascal
to go and catch my tench! Bless me! what monsters the rogue has
caught!"--"Give them to me, Rudolph," said Mina. "I will take them into
the house, and will bring you something to eat out here."--"Oh no,
never mind."--"But you mustn't starve," she said.--"Very well
then--anything will do. A bit of bread and butter will be quite
enough, Mina."--The girl went away, and Rudolph seated himself in the
arbour.--"The devil take it!" muttered Bräsig, stretching his legs
softly, and twisting and turning, in the vain endeavour to find a part
of his body which was not aching from his cramped position. "The wretch
is sitting there now! I never saw such goings on!"
Rudolph sat buried in thought, a very unusual circumstance with him. He
was easy-going by nature, and never troubled himself beforehand about
vexations that might come to him. He was not in the habit of brooding
over his worries, but on the contrary always tried to forget them. He
was tall and strongly made, and his mischievous brown eyes had
sometimes a look of imperious audacity which was in perfect keeping
with the scar on his sunburnt cheek that bore witness that he had not
devoted his whole time and energy to the study of dogmatic Theology.
"Yes," he said to himself as he sat there waiting for his cousin, "I
must get myself out of this difficulty! I could bear it as long as it
was far off, for there was always plenty of time to come to a decision,
but two things must be settled to-day beyond recall. My father is
coming this afternoon. I only hope that my mother won't take it into
her head to come too, or I should never have courage to do it. I'm as
well suited to be a clergyman as a donkey is to play the guitar, or as
Godfrey is to be colonel of a cavalry-regiment. If Bräsig were only
here, he'd stand by me I know--And then Mina--I wish it were all
settled with her."--At this moment Mina appeared carrying a plate of
bread and butter--Rudolph sprang up, exclaiming: "What a dear good
little girl you are, Mina!" and he threw his arm round her waist as he
spoke.--Mina freed herself from him, saying: "Don't do that. Ah, how
could you have been so wicked? My mother is very angry with you."--"You
mean about the sermon," he answered, "well yes, it was a stupid
trick."--"No," said Mina quickly, "it was a wicked trick. You made game
of holy things."--"Not a bit of it," he replied. "These trial sermons
are not holy things, even when they are preached by our pious cousin
Godfrey."--"But, Rudolph, it was in _church_!"--"Ah, Mina, I confess
that it was a silly joke. I didn't think sufficiently of what I was
doing. I only thought of the sheepish look of amazement Godfrey's face
would wear, and that tickled me so much that I was mad enough to play
the trick. Now don't let us talk any more about it, Mina," he said
coaxingly, as he slipped his arm round her waist again.--"No, I won't
allow that," said Mina. "And," she went on, "the parson said that
if he were to make the story known, you'd never get a living all your
life."--"Then I hope that he'll tell everyone what I did and it'll end
all the bother."--"What do you mean?" asked Mina, pushing him from her
and staring at him in perplexity. "Are you in earnest?"--"Never
more so in my life. I've entered the pulpit for the first and last
time."--"Rudolph!" cried Mina in astonishment.--"What's the use of
trying to make me a clergyman," said Rudolph quickly. "Look at Godfrey
and then look at me. Do you think I should make a good parson. And
then, there's another thing, even if I were so well up in theology that
I could puzzle the learned professors themselves, they would never pass
me in the examination. All that they care about is having men who can
adopt all their cant phrases. If I were the apostle Paul himself they'd
refuse to pass me, if they caught sight of this little scar upon my
cheek."--"What are you going to do then?" asked Mina anxiously,
and laying her hand upon his arm, she added: "Oh, _don't_ be a
soldier!"--"I should think not! No, I want to be a farmer."--"The
confounded young rascal!" muttered Bräsig.--"Yes, my own dear little
Mina," continued Rudolph, drawing her to his side on the bench, "I
intend to be a farmer; a real good hard-working farmer, and you, dear
Mina, must help me to become one."--"What!" said Bräsig to himself,
"is she to teach him to plough and harrow?"--"I, Rudolph?" asked
Mina.--"Yes, my sweet child," he answered, stroking her smooth hair and
soft cheeks; then taking her chin in his hand, he raised her face
towards him, and looking into her blue eyes, went on: "If I could only
be certain that you'd consent to be my little wife as soon as I'd a
home to offer you, it would make everything easy to me, and I should be
sure of learning to be a good farmer. Will you, Mina, will you?"--Mina
began to cry softly, and Rudolph kissed away the tears as they rolled
down her cheeks, and then she laid her little round-head on his
shoulder. Rudolph gave her time to recover her composure, and after a
few minutes she told him in a low whisper that she would do as he
asked, so he kissed her again and again.--Bräsig seeing this exclaimed
half aloud: "The devil take him! Stop that!"--Rudolph found time to
tell her in the midst of his kissing that he intended to speak to his
father that afternoon, and said amongst other things that it was a
pity, Bräsig was not there, as he was sure he would have helped him to
make his explanation to his father, who, he knew, thought a great deal
of Bräsig's advice.--"The young rascal to catch my fish!" muttered
Bräsig.--Then Mina said: "Bräsig was here this morning and dined with
us. I daresay he is enjoying an after dinner sleep now."--"Just listen
to little round-head," said Bräsig to himself. "An after dinner sleep
indeed! But everything is settled now, and I needn't cramp my bones up
here any longer."--And while Rudolph was saying that he would like to
see the old man before he went into the house, Bräsig slipped out of
his hiding-place in the cherry-tree, and clinging with both hands to
the lowest branch, let his legs dangle in the air, and shouted: "Here
he is!"--Bump! He came down on the ground, and stood before the lovers
with an expression on his red face which seemed to say that he
considered himself a competent judge on even the most delicate points
of feeling.
The two young people were not a little startled. Mina hid her face in
her hands as Lina had done, but she did not cry; and she would have run
away like Lina if she and uncle Bräsig had not always been on the most
confidential terms with each other. She threw herself into uncle
Bräsig's arms, and in her desire to hide her blushing face, she tried
to burrow her little round-head into his waistcoat-pocket, exclaiming:
"Uncle Bräsig, uncle Bräsig, you're a very naughty old man!"--"Oh!"
said Bräsig, "you think so, do you?"--"Yes," answered Rudolph, who had
mounted his high horse, "you ought to be ashamed of listening to what
you were not intended to hear."--"Moshoo Rudolph," said the old bailiff
stiffly, "I may as well tell you once for all, that shame is a thing
that must never be mentioned in connection with me, and if you think
that your grand airs will have any effect upon me, you're very much
mistaken."--Rudolph saw clearly that such was the case, and as he did
not want to quarrel with the old man for Mina's sake, he relented a
little, and said more gently that he would think nothing more of what
had occurred, if Bräsig could assure him that he had got into the tree
by accident, but still he considered that Bräsig ought to have coughed,
or done something to make his presence known, instead of sitting still
and listening to the whole story from A to Z.--"Oh," said Bräsig, "I
ought to have _coughed_, you say, but I _groaned_ loud enough, I can
tell you, and you couldn't have helped hearing me if you hadn't been so
much taken up with what you yourself were about. But _you_ ought to be
ashamed of yourself for having fallen in love with Mina without Mrs.
Nüssler's leave."--Rudolph replied that that was his own affair, that
no one had a right to meddle, and that Bräsig understood nothing about
such things.--"What!" said Bräsig. "Have you ever been engaged to three
girls at once? _I_ have, Sir, and quite openly too, and yet you say
that I know nothing about such things! But sneaks are all alike. First
of all you catch my fish secretly in the black pool, and then you catch
little Mina in the arbour before my very eyes. No, no, let him be,
Mina. He shall not hurt you."--"Ah, uncle Bräsig!" entreated Mina, "do
help us, we love each other so dearly."--"Yes, let him be, Mina, you're
my little god-child; you'll soon get over it."--"No, Mr. Bräsig," cried
Rudolph, laying his hand on the old man's shoulder, "no, dear good
uncle Bräsig, we'll never get over it; it'll last as long as we live. I
want to be a farmer, and if I have the hope before me of gaining Mina
for my wife some day, and if," he added slyly, "you will help me with
your advice, I can't help becoming a good one."--"What a young rascal!"
said Bräsig to himself, then aloud: "Ah, yes, I know you! You'd be a
latin farmer like Pistorius, and Prætorius, and Trebonius. You'd sit on
the edge of a ditch and read the book written by the fellow with the
long string of titles of honour, I mean the book about oxygen, nitrogen
and organisms, whilst the farm-boys spread the manure over your
rye-field in lumps as big as your hat. Oh, I know you! I've only known
one man who took to farming after going through all the classes at the
High-school, who turned out well. I mean young Mr. von Rambow,
Hawermann's pupil."--"Oh, uncle Bräsig," said Mina, raising her head
slowly and stroking the old man's cheek, "Rudolph can do as well as
Frank."--"No, Mina, he _can't_. And shall I tell you why? Because he's
only a grey-hound, while the other is a man"--"Uncle Bräsig," said
Rudolph, "I suppose you are referring to that silly trick that I played
about the sermon, but you don't know how Godfrey plagued me in his zeal
for converting me. I really couldn't resist playing him a trick."--"Ha,
ha, ha!" laughed Bräsig. "No, I didn't mean that, I was very much
amused at that. So he wanted to convert you, and perhaps induce you to
give up fishing? He tried his hand at converting again this afternoon,
but Lina ran away from him; however that doesn't matter, it's all
right."--"With Lina and Godfrey?" asked Mina anxiously. "And did you
hear all that passed on that occasion too?"--"Of course I did. It was
for her sake entirely that I hid myself in that confounded cherry-tree.
But now come here, Moshoo Rudolph. Do you promise never to enter a
pulpit again, or to preach another sermon?"--"Never again."--"Do you
promise to get up at three o'clock in the morning in summer, and give
out the feeds for the horses?"--"Punctually."--"Do you promise to
learn how to plough, harrow, mow and bind properly? I mean to bind
with a wisp, there's no art in doing it with a rope."--"Yes," said
Rudolph,--"Do you promise when coming home from market never to sit in
an inn over a punch-bowl while your carts go on before, so that you are
obliged to reel after them?"--"I promise never to do so," said
Rudolph.--"Do you promise--Mina, do you see that pretty flower over
there, the blue one I mean, will you bring it to me, I want to smell
it--do you promise," he repeated as soon as Mina was out of hearing,
"never to flirt with any of those confounded farm-girls?"--"Oh, Mr.
Bräsig, do you take me for a scoundrel?" asked Rudolph, turning away
angrily.--"No, no," answered Bräsig, "but I want you to understand
clearly from the very beginning that I will strangle you if ever you
cause my little god-child to shed a tear." And as he spoke he looked so
determined, that one might have thought he was going to begin the
operation at once. "Thank you, Mina," he said, taking the flower from
her, and after smelling it putting it in his button-hole. "And now come
here, Mina, and I will give you my blessing. Nay, you needn't go down
on your knees, for I'm not one of your parents, I'm only your
god-father. And, Moshoo Rudolph, I promise to take your part this
afternoon when your father comes, and to help you to free yourself from
being bound to a profession you don't like. Come away both of you, we
must go in now. But, Rudolph, remember you mustn't sit on the grass and
read, but must see to the proper manuring of your fields yourself. Look
this is the way the farm-lads ought to hold their pitch-forks, not like
that. Bang! and tumble off all that is on it; no, they must shake the
fork gently three or four times, breaking and spreading the manure as
they do so. When a bit of ground is properly spread it ought to look as
smooth and clean as a velvet table-cover."--He then went into the house
accompanied by the two young people.