SILVER TROT.
“Is it true? Is it not a dream? Are we together, and awake, and will
the morning come again, and then the day, and so on forever?” Thus
spoke Barefoot to Lux, who remained by her side while John was in the
stable saddling the horse. He came out, put the sack upon the horse,
and said, “I will sit upon it, and you shall sit before me on the
saddle.”
“Let me rather sit upon my sack.”
“If it please you.”
Having swung himself upon the saddle, he said, “Now put your foot on
mine, stand firmly upon it, and give me both your hands.” She swung
herself lightly up, he raised, and kissing her, said,--“Now you are in
my power, I can do with you what I please.”
“I do not fear you,” said Barefoot, “and you are also in my power.”
Silently they rode out of the village. In the last house a light was
burning; there was the sexton’s wife watching by the dead Mariann.
John suffered Amrie to weep undisturbed. As they rode across the Holden
Meadow, Amrie first spoke.
“Here,” she said, “I once kept the geese, and here I gave your father
water from the spring. God bless thee, thou wild pear-tree, and you
fields and forests! It seems to me all a dream, and forgive me, dear
John, that I do not rejoice. I cannot yet, and dare not, when I think
that my friend is lying there dead. It is a sin to rejoice, and a sin
not to rejoice. Do you know, John, what I say to myself? when a year
is past I shall be so happy--when the year is over, oh! how beautiful
it will be! But no! to-day is beautiful, I will be happy to-day--it
is just. Now, we will ride into Heaven! Ah, what dreams I have had
there upon the Holder Common; that the cuckoo was perhaps an enchanted
prince, and now I sit upon your horse, and have become the salt
duchess. I know they joke about it in Holdenbrunn, but I am glad you
called me salt duchess. Do you know the history of the saying, ‘As dear
as salt’?”
“No, what then is it?”
“There was once a king who asked his daughter one day, ‘How much do you
love me?’ and she answered, ‘I love thee as dear--as dear as salt.’
“The king said, ‘That is a stupid answer,’ and was angry at it. Not a
long time after the king gave a great feast, and the daughter contrived
that all the dishes should come upon the table unsalted. Of course,
nothing tasted well, and the king asked his daughter, ‘How the dinner
came to be so badly cooked?’
“She said, ‘Because the salt failed; there was no salt. You see now
that I was right when I said I loved you as dear as salt!’ The king was
satisfied, and to this day we say as dear as salt.
“This story Mariann told me. Alas! she can never tell me any more.
There she lies dead! Hark! there sings the nightingale. Oh! so happy!
I will think no more of sorrow. I will be thy salt duchess, John.
Yes, I am happy! Mariann said, ‘God rejoices when people are happy,
as parents are happy to see their children dance and sing.’ We have
danced already; come now, we will sing. Turn a little to the left in
the forest; we will ride to my brother. Sing, nightingale, we will sing
with you.”
“Sweet bird of night! I hear thee sing
Till soul from life to part, will spring.
Come nearer, bird! and teach me well
How love and life together dwell!”
Both sang together all their songs, melancholy and lively, without
ceasing, and Barefoot sang the second part as well as the first. But
most often they sang the Landler, the waltz they had danced together
three times at Endringen, and whenever they paused, they told each
other how often, when they were far off, they had thought of each
other.
John said, “It has been impossible for me to get that waltz out of my
head, for with it you have always danced there. But I was not willing
to have a servant for my wife, for I must tell you that I am proud.”
“That is right; I am also proud.”
John now told her how he had struggled with himself to forget her, and
how delightful it was now, that time was all over. Then he told her he
had been twice to his mother’s native village to bring home a wife from
there; but all in vain, for since he met her that day at the entrance
of Endringen, his heart had been wholly hers; but as he heard she was a
servant, he would not make himself known to her.
Barefoot told him how Rose had behaved to her at the wedding in
Endringen, and at that time she was first wounded at hearing her say,
“It is only our servant!”
After much mutual confidence, John cried, “I could go mad when I think
how different it might have been. How could I have taken any but
yourself homewards? How could it have been possible?”
After reflecting some time, Amrie said, in her considerate manner,--
“Do not think too often how it could have been different, or so and so,
otherwise. As it is, it is right, and must be right; be it for joy or
sorrow. God has willed it as it is, and now it depends on us to make it
for the best.”
“Yes,” said John, “if I shut my eyes and listen to you, I think I hear
my mother; she would have said exactly these words. Your voice is also
like hers.”
“She must be now dreaming of us,” said Barefoot; “I am sure of it.”
And after her peculiar manner, in the midst of security, although her
life from her infancy had been filled with the seeds of wonder, she
asked:
“How is your horse called?”
“As he looks.”
“That will not do; we must give him another name. Do you know what?
Silver Trot.”
And now to the tune they had danced together, John sang over and over
again the one word “Silver-trot, silver-trot, silver-trot!” Barefoot
sang it with him, and when they no longer sang words that had any
meaning, their merriment was pure, full, unlimited; they expressed
their inward joy by outward jubilee, by _joddling_ together, for there
are bell-tones in the soul that have no connected melody, but include
in themselves every sound of joy; and hover here and there, over and
above us, and rock together the hearts of the living. Again they found
words. John sang,--
“My treasure is mine,
I hold it as firmly
As the tree holds its branch,
As the apple its kernel.”
Then they sang in low, deep tones, this serious song,--
“After grief comes quickly joy--
And joy takes place of every grief.
I know a dear, brown little maid,
She has two dark brown little eyes,
And to my heart she brings this joy.
My own she will be!
No other she will bless!
Thus we shall live in joy and grief
Till cruel Death divide us both!”
There were pure sounds in the forest, where the moonbeams played upon
the branches and hung upon the stems, and two joyful human children
emulating and contending with the nightingale.
Not far off, by the charcoal-heap, sat Dami in the quiet night,
listening to the charcoal-burner, who related to him wonderful
histories from past times, when the trees stood so closely together
that a squirrel could run from the Neckar to the Bodensee, from tree to
tree, without once touching the ground. Then he told him the history of
a rider upon a white horse, a messenger from the old heathen gods, who
diffused over the earth beauty and splendor, and poured out joy to men.
There are proverbs and fables that influence the soul, as looking long
into an intense fire affects the eye. Varied colors play around, are
extinguished, and again break out; but when we turn from the flame, the
night is darker than before.
Thus listened Dami, and thus he looked around, while Mathew in a
monotonous voice related his stories. He held in, for down the hill
came a white horse with sweet and pleasant music accompanying him. “Has
the world of wonders come to us?” Nearer came the horse, and there sat
upon him a wonderful rider, broad and tall, and apparently with two
heads. It came always nearer, and the music changed to a man’s and a
woman’s voice, crying, “Dami, Dami, Dami!”
Both would have sunk into the ground from fright; they could not stir,
but the horse was there, and now the strange figure alighted.
“Dami! it is I,” cried Barefoot, and related all that had happened to
her.
Dami had nothing to say, but stroked sometimes the horse and sometimes
the dog, and only nodded when John told him he would take him for his
dairyman; that he should have the care of thirty cows, and learn to
make butter and cheese.
“That will be coming out of darkness into the light,” said Barefoot.
“We could make a riddle out of that, Dami.”
At last Dami recovered his speech, “not forgetting a pair of leather
breeches also,” he said. All laughed, and he declared that John’s
mother had promised him a pair of these breeches.
“In the mean time take my pipe,” said John,--“the pipe of a
brother-in-law,”--and he gave him his pipe.
“But you will have none for yourself,” Amrie objected.
“I no longer need one,” said John.
How happy was Dami, as he sprang into the log-hut with his
silver-mounted pipe; but who would have believed that he could have
made so clever a joke. After a moment he came back with the hat and
long coat of Mathew on, and a lighted torch in each hand. With the
utmost gravity of tone and manner, he addressed the betrothed lovers,--
“John, I have brought a couple of torches with which to light you home.
How came you to think you could take my sister from me? I am her adult
brother; you must receive her from me, and until I say yes, all goes
for nothing.”
Amrie laughed gayly, and John made a formal request to Dami for the
hand of his sister. Dami would have carried the joke still further, for
he was proud of the part in which he had succeeded so well; but Amrie
knew that he could not be depended upon, and that he would commit some
folly. She had seen already that he had stretched his hand more than
once towards John’s watch-seals, and had drawn it back again without
touching them. She spoke, therefore, in a severe tone, as to a young
child,--
“That is enough; you have done well; now let it pass.”
Dami assumed again his own character, and said to John, “It is all
right you have a steel-bound wife, and I a silver-bound pipe.” As
nobody laughed, he added,--“Ah, brother-in-law, you did not know that
you had so wise a relation. What say you, brother-in-law? We are both
of one stock, brother.” It seemed in his joy that he could not say
brother-in-law too often.
At length they mounted, and when they had ridden a short distance, Dami
called after them,--
“Brother, don’t forget my leather breeches!” Merry laughter answered
him, and then again the music of their songs, as the lovers rode on in
the moonlight.
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