THE FIRST FIRE UPON THE HEARTH.
Amrie in the mean time went on, lost in dreamy thoughts. She looked
inquiringly up at the trees that stood so calmly upon the place, and
that will stand, she thought, and look down upon thee for years; many
years, perhaps thy whole life, and be thy life’s companions! Meanwhile,
what will be thy life’s experience?
Amrie was too old to look for support in the outward world, and it was
long since she had asked the service-tree for advice. She now tried
to turn her thoughts from all surrounding objects; and yet she must
look at the fields that would soon be her own, and she could not help
thinking of what was to come; of her entrance and reception, question
and answer; the confusion of a thousand possibilities whirled around,
and the Silver-trot waltz played itself in her head. She said at last,
half aloud, “What is the use of all this thinking? When the music plays
I must dance, be it hop or waltz. I know not how I shall move my feet;
they must go of themselves. I cannot think--I will not think, that
perhaps in an hour I may be coming this way again, the heart broken
in my body! And yet I must move on, step after step! Enough! Now let
whatever will, come; I am prepared.”
There was more within than this out-spoken resolution; she had not, in
vain, from her childhood, solved riddles, and from day to day had to
wrestle with life; the whole power of that, which through effort she
had become, rested quiet and secure within her mind. Without further
question, as one goes to meet a necessity, calm in her self-possession
she went on with courageous and firm steps.
She had not gone far when she saw an old man sitting with a red-thorn
stick between his feet, and his hands and chin resting upon it.
“God bless you,” said Amrie. “Do you enjoy your rest?”
“Yes. Where are you bound?”
“Up to the farm. Will you go with me? You can lean on me.”
“Ah! So it is,” laughed the old man. “Thirty years ago I should have
been delighted. Then, if a pretty girl had said that, I had sprung like
a colt.”
“But I should not have said it to one who could spring like a colt,”
laughed Amrie.
“You are rich,” said the old man, to whom an idle conversation, on a
warm day, appeared agreeable; and he took with satisfaction a pinch
from his box.
“Why do you say I am rich?”
“Your teeth are worth ten thousand gulden. I know many who would give
ten thousand gulden to have them in their mouths.”
“Farewell, I have no time for joking.”
“Wait, I will go with you; but you must not run off so fast.”
Amrie helped the old man carefully to rise, when he said, “You are
strong.” He had made himself heavier and more helpless than he really
was. On the way he asked her, “To whom was her errand at the farm?”
“To the farmer and his wife.”
“And what would you have of them?”
“That I will tell themselves.”
“If you would ask a present, turn immediately back; the wife would
willingly give, but she is mistress of nothing. The farmer is tough. He
has a ramrod in his neck, and a stiff thumb to that.”
“I do not want any thing of them, but on the contrary, I take them
something,” said Amrie.
They met an old man with a scythe on his shoulder, going to the field,
and Amrie’s companion asked him, at the same time winking cunningly,
“Whether the old miser, Farmer Landfried, was at home?”
[Illustration: AMRIE HELPED THE OLD MAN CAREFULLY TO RISE.--PAGE 250.]
“I believe so, but I am not certain,” said the old man with the
scythe; and as he went on, Amrie saw a certain twinkling in his eyes.
She looked steadily in the face of her companion, and suddenly she
recognized through the fallen features the man to whom she had once
given water to drink upon the Holder Meadow. “Wait,” she said softly to
herself, “I have caught you,” and aloud, “It is wrong of you to speak
thus of the farmer to a stranger like myself, that you do not know, and
that may perhaps be a relation of his. What you say of him may be only
slander; and should he appear close, he certainly has a good heart,
and does not choose to ring the great bell to tell the good he does.
Beside, one who has such good, honorable children, must be honorable
himself. It may be also, that before the world he makes himself worse
than he is, because it is not worth the trouble to try to please
others; and I am of the same opinion.”
“You have a good tongue of your own. Where do you come from?”
“Not from this neighborhood. From about the Black Forest.”
“What is the place called?”
“Holdenbrunn.”
“Ah! and you came on foot?”
“No, part of the way with the son of your farmer. He took me up. He is
a thoroughly brave, honest young man.”
“At his age, I also would have brought you on.”
They had now entered the farm-yard, when the old man went with Amrie
into the house, and called, “Mother, where are you?”
The mother came out of her chamber. Amrie trembled, and would gladly
have fallen on her neck; but she could not, she durst not, and the old
man said, with a smothered laugh, “Only think, wife, here is a girl
from Holdenbrunn, and she has something to say to Farmer Landfried and
his wife, but she will not tell me a word of it. Now you tell her what
my name is.”
“Why, that is the farmer himself,” said his wife; and, as a sign of
welcome, she took his hat and hung it on the stove-handle.
“Do you see?” said the old man to Amrie.--“Now you may say all you
please.”
“Sit down,” said the mother, and gave Amrie a chair. Breathing with
difficulty she began:
“You may believe me, that no child could think more of you than I
have, both in times past, and for the last few days. Do you remember
Josenhans, at the fish-pond, where the road turns towards Endringen?”
“Certainly, certainly,” said both the old people.
“I am Josenhans’ daughter.”
“Well, if it did not seem to me as though I knew you,” said the
farmer’s wife. “Bless you, my child.” She reached her her hand. “You
have grown up a strong, fine girl. But tell me what has brought you so
far?”
“She came part of the way with our John,” said the old man. “He will
soon follow.”
His wife was startled. She seemed to anticipate something, and reminded
her husband that she had thought of the Josenhans children at the
moment John rode away.
“I have a remembrance from both of you,” said Amrie, and took the
necklace and a carefully folded gold piece from her pocket. “That
necklace you gave me the last time you were in the place.”
“Ah, you told me you had lost it,” interrupted the farmer to his wife.
“And there,” continued Amrie, giving him the gilded groschen, “is the
gold piece you presented me when I kept the geese upon Holder Common,
and gave you water from the spring.”
“Yes, yes, that is all right,” said the old man. “But what is all this?
What is given you, you may keep.”
Amrie stood up and said, “I have a request to make. Suffer me for two
minutes to speak freely. May I?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“Look! Your son John would have brought me to you as a servant.
Formerly I would rather have served you than another, rather here than
elsewhere; but now, it would have been dishonorable in me towards
those to whom I wish to be open and honorable during my whole life
long. I could not come with a lie in my mouth, when all should be as
clear as sunlight. In one word, John and I have taken each other with
our whole hearts’ choice, and he wishes me to be his wife!”
“Ah, ha!” cried the old man, and jumped from his chair, so that one
could see his former helplessness was put on. “Ah, ha,” he cried again,
as though a twinge of gout seized him. But his wife held him firmly by
the hand and said, “Let her go on.”
And Amrie continued, “Believe me, I have sense enough to know that no
one can accept a daughter-in-law from compassion. You might make me a
present; but to make one a daughter-in-law out of pity! that, no one
could do. Neither would I have it so. I have no money. Yes, I have that
groschen that you gave me on the Holder Common. I have it yet, because
no one would take it for a groschen,” she said, turning to the farmer
who smiled furtively. “I have absolutely nothing! And yet more, I have
a brother, for whom, though he is strong and healthy, I must provide. I
have also kept the geese, and have been less considered than any girl
in the village. That is all! No one can say the smallest thing against
my character. That is again all! In what men receive from God alone,
I would say to any princess, that I placed myself no hair’s-breadth
behind her; ah, if she had seven golden crowns upon her head--I should
rather another spoke for me. I speak not willingly for myself; but my
whole life long, I have had to be the only protector of my character,
and I do it to-day for the last time, when the decision must be made
between my life or death!
“Do not misunderstand me. If you reject me, I shall go calmly away. I
shall do no harm to myself; neither spring into the water, nor hang
myself on a tree. I shall seek another service, and thank God that a
good man would have had me for his wife--and will believe that it is
God’s will that it shall not be.” Amrie’s voice trembled, and her form
seemed taller than before. But as she now sank down she cried, “Examine
yourselves. Ask your deepest consciousness if it be God’s will, however
you decide.”
For a moment neither spoke. At length the old man said, “You can preach
like any parson.” The mother dried her eyes with her apron and said,
“Why not? Pastors have but one brain and one heart.”
“As for you,” said the old man contemptuously, “you are something of a
parson yourself. With a couple of soft speeches they can do what they
please with you.”
“And with you, they will never be able to do any thing till you die,”
said his wife, with spirit.
“See!” stormed the old man. “Do you see, you saint from the Unterland,
you bring fine peace into our house. You have already made my wife
take your part against myself; now, you may both wait till I am
dead--then you may do as you please.”
“No!” cried Amrie, “that I will never do. John shall never have me
for his wife without your blessing; much less will I have the sin in
both our hearts, of waiting for your death. I have scarcely known my
parents; I cannot remember them, but I love them as we love God, whom
we have never seen. And I know what death is. Last night I closed the
eyes of Brown Mariann, for whom, during my whole life, I have done what
I could; what she would have me do; but now that she is dead, I often
think how reluctantly I sometimes did it, and how much more I might
have done for her. It is all over now; she lies there in her dark bed;
I can do nothing more for her, nor ask her forgiveness. Yes, I know
what death is, and I will not”--
“But I will!” shrieked the old man, and clinched his fists and ground
his teeth. “But I will!” he cried again. “You shall remain and belong
to us! And now let what will come. Let them say what they will; you,
and you alone, shall have my John.”
The wife threw her arms about his neck and embraced him. The old man,
unaccustomed to such demonstration, cried out, “What are you doing?”
“Giving you a kiss, for you deserve one. You are better than you would
make us believe.”
The old man, who, during the whole time, held a pinch of snuff between
his fingers, which he would not waste, now took it hastily, and said,
“Just as you like; but there is one younger, and from her it will taste
better. Come here, you disguised parson.”
“I will come willingly, but call me first by my name.”
“Yes, but what is your name?”
“That you need not know. You can give me one of your own choosing; you
know which.”
“You are deep! Well, then, my name; come here, my daughter.”
In answer, Amrie flew to his arms. “And I, am not I to be consulted?”
said the mother in pure joy, almost beside herself.
The old man took Amrie by the hand, and said, in a gay sportive tone,
“Worthy Catharina, now named Landfried, will you accept--what is your
real name,” he whispered, “your baptismal name?”
“Amrie.”
“Will you accept,” he continued, addressing his wife, “Amrie Josenhans,
of Holdenbrunn, for your daughter, and treat her as you do your
husband; never let her say a word, feed her badly, scold and oppress
her--and in short, treat her as one of the family.”
A total change had come over the old man; he seemed to have lost his
senses; and while Amrie remained in the arms of her mother, and could
not tear herself away, he struck his thorn-staff upon the table, and
cried, “Where is that good-for-nothing boy, John? He hangs his bride
about our necks, while he is roving about the country.”
Amrie, then, loosing herself from her mother, said, “that the
stable-boy should be sent to the mill, where John was waiting.”
The old man said, “He must at least be left three hours to gape away
the time there as a punishment for sheltering himself like a coward
behind her apron. When he did come, they would put a woman’s cap on his
head; and, indeed, he was not wanted, for he felt much inclined to keep
the bride for himself.”
The mother, however, had slipped out, and sent the swift-footed
stable-boy to the mill.
They now thought that Amrie must be hungry. The mother proposed an
omelet, and Amrie begged that she might be permitted to kindle the
first fire in the house, that was to prepare any thing for herself, and
also cook something for her parents.
They consented, and both the old people went into the kitchen with her,
where she set about every thing so handily; saw with a glance where
every thing was kept, and had indeed so few questions to ask, and did
her work so quickly and gracefully, that the old man nudged his wife
and said, “She has it all by heart, and at her fingers’ ends, like the
new schoolmaster.”
All three stood before the clear blazing fire, when John came in.
Brighter than the flame upon the hearth, shone their heart-felt
happiness from the eyes of all. The hearth with its bright flame was a
sacred altar, around which stood four grateful and happy people.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]