"No horse, no carriage to be had! How do people ever get away from here
then?" I said.
"They don't get away--that is to say, if they come at all, they go as
they came, in the carriage that brought them; otherwise they neither
come nor go. The lady came on foot: she can go on foot; otherwise she
can stay."
There seemed something sinister in his words. A horrible, ridiculous
feeling came over me that we were caught in a net, as it were, and
doomed to stay at Silberbach for the rest of our lives. But I looked at
the man. He was simply stolid and indifferent. I did not believe then,
nor do I now, that he was anything worse than sulky and uncivilised. He
did not even care to have us as his visitors: he had no wish to retain
us nor to speed us on our way. Had we remained at the "Katze" from that
day to this, I don't believe he would have ever inquired what we stayed
for!
"I _cannot_ walk back to Seeberg," I said half indignantly, "we are too
tired; nor would it be safe through the forest alone with two children."
The landlord knocked some ashes off his pipe.
"There may be an ox-cart going that way next week," he observed.
"Next week!" I repeated. Then a sudden idea struck me. "Is there a
post-office here?" I said.
Of course there was a post-office; where can one go in Germany where
there is not a post and telegraph office?
"The telegraph officials must be sadly overworked here," I said to
myself. But as far as mine host was concerned, I satisfied myself with
obtaining the locality of the post-office, and with something like a
ray of hope I turned to look for the children. They had been amusing
themselves with the piano in the now empty room, but as I called to
them, Reggie ran out with a very red face.
"I wish I were a man, mamma. Fancy! a peasant--one of those men who were
drinking beer--came and put his arm around Nora as she was playing. '_Du
spielst schoen_,' he said, and I _do_ believe he meant to kiss her, if I
hadn't shaken my fist at him."
"Yes, indeed, mamma," said Nora, equally but more calmly indignant. "I
certainly think the sooner we get away the better."