THE LAUTERBACHER.
The clear tones of the church-bell melted into the bright glow of noonday, and the peasants came homeward from the fields. The men carried their caps in their hands until they reached the highroad: the voice of God had called upon them to lay their farming-utensils aside and to seek refreshment in prayer and in bodily food. A young man of slender form had come up the road leading from the town to the village. He was attired in citizen's dress, and carried a brown "Ziegenhainer" walking-stick, with numerous names engraved upon it, in his hand. On coming in sight of the village, he stood still, listened to the song of the bell, and surveyed the forest of white-blossomed orchards in which the hamlet was imbedded. He saluted the people who came from the fields with a peculiar earnestness, as if they were his friends. They returned the greeting with almost equal cordiality, and often turned round to look at him again. It seemed to them as if he must be some native of the village returning home after long journeys; and yet they could not recall his features.
When the last sound of the bell had died away, when all the fields were hushed and not a human being remained in sight, while the larks alone continued to revel in the skies, the stranger sat down upon a bank, and, after another long look at the village, he drew out his note-book. Having assured himself that he was unobserved, he wrote into it as follows:--
"Greeks and Romans, how your triumphs rent the air and your trumpets brayed! But it was left for Christianity to steal the ore from the dark bowels of the earth, to hang it aloft in mid-air, and pour its tones over the land, summoning mankind to devotion, to joy, to mourning. How glorious must have been the sound of harp and drum at Jerusalem! But now there is no longer but one temple upon earth: Christianity has raised them by thousands, far and near. When I heard the sound just now, it was like a heavenly welcome to my entrance into this place. You looked at me in astonishment, good people. Ye know not what we are to be to each other. Oh for a magic charm to obtain, the entire control over the minds of these beings, so that I might free them from ignorance and superstition and give them a taste of the true pleasures of the mind! They walk the earth even as the cattle which they follow, seeking nothing but food for their mouths.
"This, then, is the spot where my new life is to begin,--there the dingles and the downs on which my eye shall rest when my mind is full of the experiences of labor and exertion! Wherever flowers are seen, the earth is beautiful and gladdening. And, though men do not understand me, thou dost understand me, O deathless Nature, and dost reward my attention to thy revelations with a kindly smile. Here the trees send forth their blossoms, and in the village I hear the merry shouts of the children into whose minds I am to cast the light of education."
He ceased writing, and, looking at his cane, he said to himself, "Ye are scattered to the four winds of heaven, ye friends of my youth, and your names alone are left me; but I lean upon the memory of your names in crossing the threshold of my new existence. I commit my greetings to the spring: may the birds of the air convey it to your ears and refresh your hearts!"
He rose and walked briskly to the village.
It is not necessary to say that it was the new schoolmaster whose acquaintance we have just made. He asked for the squire, and was directed to Buchmaier's house.
Buchmaier and his numerous household were at dinner when the stranger entered. With a hearty welcome, he was invited to take a seat at the table, but politely declined.
"Oh, pshaw!" said Buchmaier, who had resumed his seat and his masticatory operations without delay: "move up a little, you. Quick, Agnes! get a plate. Sit down, Mr. Teacher. We don't do like the Horb folks: they always say, 'If you'd only come sooner.' Whoever comes into our houses at dinnertime must help us. You'll be too late for dinner where you're going; and we're just sitting down. You must take pot-luck, you see. It's a regular Black Forest dinner,--little fried dumplings and dried apples, boiled."
Agnes had brought a plate; and the teacher, to avoid giving offence, took his seat at the table.
"My Agnes here," said Buchmaier, after heaping his plate, "you'll have in Sunday-school."
"Oh, you won't have much more to learn," said the teacher, by way of saying something. The girl's eyes were fixed bashfully on her plate.
"Why, Agnes, why don't you talk? You generally carry your tongue about you. Do you know every thing?"
"Wall, I kin sheow a fist at readin' good enough, but the writin' won't gee no more, noheow, a body gits sich nation hard fingers workin' all the week."
We have attempted to reproduce Agnes' speech in the broadest Yankee brogue; but it is entirely insufficient to give the reader an adequate idea of the effect produced upon our hero's mind by the guttural consonants and parti-colored vowels of the original. All the beauty of the lips disappeared from his view when he heard what issued from them.
After the closing grace, one of the hands, who had been sitting near Buchmaier at the table, placed himself before him and said, pocketing the knife with which he had eaten, "'Guess I'll go out alone with the horses."
"Yes, I'm coming out d'rectly. Take a boy with you to hold the sorrel: he won't fall into the harness well."
"Oh, never you mind: I'll look out for all that," said the ploughman, walking away heavily. The teacher shook his head.
Agnes cleared the table, and hastened to the kitchen to exchange notes with the hired girls about the stranger.
"A good-looking chap enough," said Legata, the oldest, Agnes' special confidant. "He looked at you: I didn't know whether he wanted to give you a kiss or a slap. Wouldn't he do for you? He's a single man."
"I'd rather be single myself till a cow's worth a copper."
"You're right," said another girl: "why, he feeds himself with both hands. Did you mind how he held the knife in his right hand and his fork in his left? Who ever saw an honest man doing the like of that?"
Until a very short time ago not only the peasantry, but all classes, of Germany, ate with the fork alone, which they held in the right fist and handled like a shovel.
"Yes," said a third: "he never got outside of his father's dunghill before, I bet you. He cut the dumplings with his knife, instead of pulling them to pieces; so they got as tough as tallow. Served him right, for a tallow-head as he is. He gulped at 'em till I thought he'd choke."
While the girls were thus washing the dishes and overhauling the guest, the conversation in the room had taken a turn not calculated to remove the unfavorable impressions already produced on the teacher's mind.
"By your talk," said Buchmaier, "I should judge you were raised in the lowlands."
"Not exactly: I am from the Tauber Valley."
"Oh, we're not so particular about that: we call it all lowlands the other side of Boeblingen. What's the name of your place?"
The teacher hesitated a little, laid his hands upon his breast, and finally answered, with a bend of the head, "Lauterbach."
Buchmaier burst into a shout of laughter, which the teacher received in solemn earnestness. At last the former said, "Don't take it amiss: why, Lauterbach,--every child knows of Lauterbach,--it's in the song, you know. What made you hem and haw about it? There's no shame in't, I'm sure. Now, couldn't you tell me--I always wanted to know--why did they just put Lauterbach into the song?"
"How should I know? I suppose there is no reason for it. These stupid songs are generally made by simpletons who take any town they happen to think of, if it fits the metre: I mean the verse."
"Oh, I don't think the song so stupid as all that, and it has a funny tune: I like to hear people sing it."
"You must permit me to differ with you."
"What about permitting? If I didn't permit it, you'd do it anyhow. Just tell me, straight out, why you don't like it."
"What idea, what common sense, is there in a song like this?--
'At Lauterbach my stocking slipp'd off:
Without a stocking I can't go home;
So I'm just going back to Lauterbach
To buy another stocking to my one.'
That is sheer nonsense; and that you call funny? How can a song be funny when there isn't a single idea in it? Is nonsense fun?"
"Well, that may be as it will: it's funny, anyhow: it just suits you when you're----" Buchmaier, at a loss for words, snapped his fingers, and went on:--"I mean to say, when you're a little over the traces. We have a fellow here, his name's George: you must hear him sing it once: he thinks just as I do about it. Some joker once told me that it ought to be 'shoe' instead of 'stocking,' and that it was Lauterbach because there are so many old shoes lying about in the streets. But what have we to do with it now? Let's talk of something else. Have you got any friends here?"
"Not a single acquaintance."
"Well, you'll find 'em: the people hereabouts are a little rough sometimes; but it isn't that: it only looks so. They're a little fond of a joke, too, and sometimes it comes out of season; but they don't mean any harm by it; and you must only pay 'em back, and be quick on the trigger; and if you manage 'em right you can twist 'em round your little finger."
"I shall certainly treat them all with gentleness and kindness."
"Oh, I was going to say, don't forget to visit the councilmen and the committee-members; and go to see the old schoolmaster, who's been out of office these twenty-five years: he's a fine man, and 'll be glad to see you. He's one of the old sort, but as good as gold. I went to school with him myself, and I know mighty little,--that's a fact. The last schoolmaster made him mad because he didn't go to see him; and if you want to do him a particular favor, let him play the organ sometimes of a Sunday. Now I'll show you where you're to live: your things came yesterday."
With a discontented air, the teacher walked up the village at Buchmaier's side. The transcendent anticipations with which he had come were writhing under the pitiless blast of rude reality. More than once he heard the persons they passed stop and say to each other, "That's the new schoolmaster, I guess." At the Crown Tavern they encountered our old friend Mat, now a member of the committee of citizens. Buchmaier introduced the new-comer. Some of the villagers overheard this, and now the news spread like wildfire. Mat turned and walked with them.
The instinctive affection of the children, of which the teacher had been dreaming, was so great that they scampered away the moment they saw him in the distance. Here and there only a very courageous boy would remain standing, and acknowledge his presence with a friendly nod, though without taking off his cap,--the latter for the simple reason that he wore none.
Near the schoolhouse they found a fine boy of six or seven years of age. "Come here, Johnnie," cried Mat: "see, Mr. Teacher, this is my boy. Keep a tight rein on him: he can learn well enough, only he don't always want to. Shake hands with the gentleman, Johnnie: he's your teacher now: you must mind him. What do you say to a stranger?"
"God greet you!" said the boy, stretching out his hand without hesitation.
The teacher's face beamed at this welcome from childish lips. He was in his paradise again the moment he divined a kindly inclination of a childish heart toward him. Stooping down to the boy's face, he kissed him.
"Will you be fond of me?" he asked.
The child looked at his father.
"Will you be fond of the gentleman?" asked Mat.
The boy nodded, but could not speak,--for the tears were coming into his eyes.
The three men went on their way, and the little fellow ran home in all haste, without looking behind him.
Buchmaier and Mat installed the teacher in his new dwelling.
"There's a woman wanted here," said Mat: "a schoolmaster ought to have a wife. This is the first time we ever had a single one; and we have smart girls here, I can tell you. You must look about a bit. The best way is to take one that belongs to the place: if you come into a strange place and marry a stranger you'll be a stranger always. Isn't it so, cousin?"
"Perhaps Mr. Teacher has picked one out already," replied Buchmaier; "and, let her come from where she will, she shall be welcome here."
"Yes: we'll ride out to meet her," said Mat, thinking, in his heart, "Buchmaier's a smarter boy than I am, after all." The teacher answered,--
"I am free and single, and have time to think about it for a while." To himself he said, "Before I get into the clutches of one of these peasant-camels, I'll run away with a baboon."
"Well, you must excuse me now," said Buchmaier. "I must go afield: I'm just trading for a horse, and must see how he behaves in harness. See you to-night, I hope. Goodbye, meanwhile. Going up street, Mat?"
"Yes. Good-bye, Mr. Teacher, and if the time is long take it double."
The teacher did not quite understand the last speech of Mat, which was a figure derived from a long thread or string. When the door closed upon the peasants he gave it another push, as if to assure himself that he was now alone. He was oppressed in spirit, though without knowing why. At length the story of the Lauterbacher recurred to him. He regarded it as a piece of coarse vulgarity, sufficient to make him forget all the well-meant attentions otherwise rendered. Such is man. Once irritated, he remembers only what has offended him, and forgets the greatest kindnesses accompanying it.
Rousing himself from his reverie, he proceeded to unpack his trunks. The sight of the familiar objects tended in some degree to soothe his spirits; but his meditative mood would not be dispelled. "I am like a hermit in the wilderness," thought he. "What makes me happy has to the people round me no existence. This squire is nothing but a shrewd peasant a little proud of his coarseness. There may be a spark of mind slumbering in their bodies; but it is smothered in ashes. Let me summon up all my strength to guard against being transformed into a peasant. Every day of my life I will upheave my soul from its inmost fastenings, and not suffer a blur to settle upon it.
"I have seen teachers enter into office filled with the free aspirations of the time, and in a few years they had sunk into the slough of routine and become peasants like the peasants around them. Even their exterior was careless and slouchy." Writing "Memento" upon a bit of paper, he stuck it into the looking-glass.
At last he threw off his languor and walked out into the fields and on the road by which he had come. The farmers working here and there said, "How goes it, Mr. Teacher? 'Getting used to it?" He answered kindly but curtly: their familiarity struck him as odd, and almost offensive. He did not know that these people thought they had a claim upon him because they had first seen him and received his first salutations.
After a long ramble, he found in "The Bottom" a solitary pear-tree of picturesque growth. Having walked round and round it until he found the most fitting spot, he sat down upon a corner-stone and began to sketch. The farmers gathered around and looked on. The rumor went rapidly from mouth to mouth that "the new teacher was copying the trees."
As a background he drew the hill beyond, with the hazel-bush and the blackberry-hedge which wound around a cliff, as well as the little field-house built to keep farming-implements or to protect field-hands against sudden showers: last of all, he added a farmer, with horse and plough.
Late in the day he rose to return, with his spirits much calmed by his occupation. Several peasants joined him and gave evidence of a burning thirst for information. Our friend submitted to it all with the best grace he could assume. But it was unfortunate that, when asked whether "it wasn't a fine country hereabouts," he answered, "Tolerable." He saw but little in it of the picturesque.
Being struck with the clumsiness of the church-steeple, he asked who had built the church. They looked at each other in astonishment; for they could not bring themselves to think that there should ever have been a time when that church was not standing.
At home the teacher sat waiting for Buchmaier, who, he thought, would come to meet him. The dusk of evening brought out a more lively hum of voices: the teacher alone sat silently at his open window. The suggestion of Mat could not but return to his mind; and he thought seriously of seeking a companion who would rescue him from the lot of being
"Among monsters the only heart feeling a throb."
It was Friday evening: the young Jews passed, singing through the streets, according to custom. There was a voice among them once which no longer sings so merrily. Some songs were given from books: just as they passed the schoolhouse they sang the beautiful air,--
"Heart, my heart, why weep'st thou sadly?
Why so still, and why so grave?
Sure the stranger's land is lovely:
Heart, my heart, what wouldst thou have?"
As the sound died away, the teacher felt the full force of the music in his soul. He took up his violin
and played that remarkable waltz ascribed to Beethoven,--Le Désir. Nothing of the kind had ever been heard in the village, and a crowd soon assembled at the window. To please them as well as himself, he struck up another waltz, full of life and frolic. The shouts and laughter of the listeners rewarded him.
Tired at last of solitude, he left the house, and, meeting Mat, inquired where Buchmaier might be looked for.
"Come along," was the answer: "he's at the Eagle every Friday night."
The teacher complied, though he thought it very wrong for the squire to be sitting in the tavern like anybody else. He found a large concourse, engaged in animated conversation. The Jews, who are generally out of the village at other times, were now mingling with their Christian fellow-citizens and drinking: they testified their reverence for the Sabbath only by abstaining from the use of tobacco.
After a brief halt consequent upon the new schoolmaster's entrance, Buchmaier, who had made room for him at the table, continued his remarks:--
"As I was saying, Thiers wanted to do France brown with a slice of German lard; but he's found the mess too salt for his fancy, and another time he won't be so greedy. What do you think of it, Mr. Teacher?"
"You're very right; but we ought to have Alsace back again besides."
"So we ought, only the Alsatians won't come back. The last time I was in Strasbourg I was right-down ashamed of myself the way they treated me,--wanting to know whether we wouldn't soon have some more counterfeit money that didn't belong anywhere. A real fine man I met with said that the office-holders over there would like to be German very much, because here they are paid best and cared for to the third and fourth generation, and sure of their places, but in France they can't come it quite so strong. And, if it was to be German again, who should have it? A son of the counterfeit sixer? I believe there's one in circulation yet? Or a sweated Hanoverian ten-guilder piece? I guess they wouldn't give it to any one alone: they'd cut it into snips, just as they chipped up the left bank of the Rhine, so that everybody might see it was German and no mistake."
"While the teacher sat dumb with, astonishment at this audacious utterance, a stout man, whose dress and accent bespoke the Israelite, began:--
"Yes; and the Jews in Alsatia--there's lots of 'em, too--would rather be butchered than made Germans of. Over there they're every whit as good as the Christian citizens, and here they pay the same taxes and serve in the army just like the Christiana, and only have half their rights."
"You're right, Mendle, but you won't be righted," replied Buchmaier.
After a pause, Buchmaier began again:--
"Mr. Teacher, what do you think of the cruelty-to-animals societies? Can anybody tell me not to do as I like with my own? Can anybody punish me for such things?"
In this question again the teacher saw nothing but coarseness and barbarity: with vehemence he advocated the ordinances and regulations prohibiting the practices in question. Buchmaier rejoined:--
"In cities it may be right enough to admonish people not to be hard on their cattle; but punishing is nobody's business. These coachmen and omnibus-drivers and liveried officials--I mean to say, liveried servants--have no feeling for their cattle, because very often they don't even own 'em, and, as for having raised 'em, that's not to be thought of. But in the country I've seen people cry more when one of their cows falls than when their children die."
"The gentlefolks ought to stop being cruel to the peasants first," said Mat. "The old judge always talked to his dog as if it was his baby, and snarled at the farmers as if they were other people's dogs. Let them get up a society first that nobody's to say 'sirrah' to a farmer any more."
"Yes," said Buchmaier: "the point of the joke is that the office-holders would like to have a little government over the cattle. Mark my words: if things go on this way it won't be ten years before a man will receive a command that he's to plant this and not that, and that he's to plough this field and let that lie fallow: there'll be societies about cruelty to the fields, and all that sort of thing."
"If men are not rational enough," said the teacher, "to be moderate in all things, it is the duty of the state to inculcate what is good by the fear of punishment."
"Never, if I live a hundred years," said Buchmaier, fiercely, suddenly checking himself, however, either because he bethought himself of the dignity of his station, or because he really had nothing else to say. He emptied his glass by slow pulls; while a man with curled hair, somewhat grizzled, said, in High German, but still in the singing tone of the Jews, "Men may be punished for doing wrong; but there's no such thing as forcing them to be good: goodness effected by compulsion is not goodness."
"Right," said Buchmaier. The teacher, however, did not heed the remark: it is not to be supposed that, like other learned men, he chose to treat an objection urged by a Jew as if it had not been uttered; but he probably regarded Buchmaier alone as his adversary, for he asked him,--
"Do you believe that the state has a right to compel people under a penalty, to send their children to school?"
"Of course; of course."
"But why?"
"Because that's all right and proper."
"But you say we have no right to compel people to be good."
"Yes; but you can punish people when they do wrong; and a man does wrong who won't send his child to school. Isn't it so?" he concluded, turning to the man who had spoken before.
"Certainly," answered the latter. "The state is the guardian of those who don't know how to take care of themselves. Just as it is its duty to watch over a child that has lost its parents, so it must vindicate its rights when infringed by those who are too mean or too ignorant to do their duty by them."
"Right; just right," said Buchmaier, triumphantly.
Without either addressing or avoiding the speaker, whom he regarded as an interloper, the teacher said, "If the state is the guardian of the unprotected and the defenceless, it is also bound to see to the well-being of the cattle, for they are in like case as children are."
"Apple-cores and pear cider! How came the beets into the potato-sack?" said Buchmaier, laughing. "By your leave, Mr. Teacher, you've got into a snarl there. I've a heifer at home that hasn't a father nor a mother; and I'll have to call the town-meeting to-morrow to appoint a guardian."
Roars of laughter shook the building. The teacher made great efforts to define his position, but could not obtain a hearing. The whole company were but too glad to see the conversation--which had become almost serious--turn into this comical by-way. All he could do was to protest that he had never intended to rank children and cattle alike.
"Oh, of course not!" said Buchmaier. "Why, you kissed Mat's Johnnie to-day, and that's more than anybody does to a beast. But now it seems as if I was three times more certain than ever that these cruelty-to-animals societies are like tying up the hens' tails,--as if they didn't carry them upright, anyhow."
The tide of merriment swelled into a torrent, and what it carried on its bosom was not all of dainty texture. The teacher was not in a mood to be carried away by the current: on the contrary, it harassed and worried him. He soon quitted the inn with that gnawing sensation which befalls us when we have been misunderstood because not heard to the end. He perceived how difficult it is to lead an assemblage of grown persons through the profound and exhaustive analysis of any subject. But, leaving this train of thought, he soon suffered himself to suppose that he had met with that phase of barbarism which consists not in the absence of polish, but in the conceited disdain of culture and refinement. He was much mortified. The resolution to confine himself exclusively to the companionship of docile childhood and of uncorrupted nature was confirmed in his mind.
Next day (Saturday) the teacher called on the councilmen, but found none of them at home. His last errand was to the old schoolmaster, whose house he found at the lower end of a pretty garden which opened on the road. The beds were measured with lead and string, and skirted with box; the hedge of beech which enclosed the whole was smoothly shorn, and, at regular intervals, little stems rose over the hedge, crowned with spherical foliage. In the midst was a rotunda, forming a natural basin, girt with box and garnished with all sorts of buds and flowers. At the foot of the garden, near the arbor, voices were heard in conversation. Advancing in that direction, he said to the two men whom he found there,--
"Can I see Mr. Schoolmaster?"
"Two of 'em: ha, ha!" said the elder, who was without a coat, and had a hoe in his hand.
"I mean the old schoolmaster."
"That's me; and this is the Jew teacher: ha, ha!" answered the man with the hoe, pointing to his companion, who was dressed as befits the Sabbath.
"I am glad to have the pleasure of meeting you also. Have we not seen each other before?"
"Yes,--when you were conversing with the squire."
The old gentleman threw away his hoe, took his pipe out of his mouth, and seized his coat, for the purpose of putting it on,--a design against the execution of which our friend interfered.
"We must not stand upon ceremony," said he: "we are colleagues. I am the new teacher. Is this garden your property?"
"Ha, ha! 'should think it was," replied he. Every word he said was accompanied with a peculiar chuckle, which appeared to come from his inmost soul. "Welcome to Nordstetten," he added, extending his hand, and shaking that of the newcomer with a grip which reminded him of Goetz von Berlichingen.
The Jewish teacher stood rubbing his hands in great embarrassment. He knew not whether to offer his hand or not. He feared to be thought obtrusive, as he was not the object of the visit; and, again, he was disposed to resent this want of attention as a slight, and dreaded lest his dignity should be compromised by an advance on his part.
These mingled feelings--the fear of obtrusiveness and ill-will on the one hand, and of excessive sensitiveness on the other--are the two thieves between which Jew is crucified in the conventional intercourse of European society, and must continue to be so until his social position shall become firm and well defined.
Like all educated Jews of the older generation, the Jewish teacher was conversant with the text of the Bible, and never forgot the maxims, "Love the stranger, for ye were strangers also in the land of Egypt," and, "Offend not the stranger, for ye know his thoughts." He remembered the pleasure he had himself derived, years before, from a smiling welcome. Thus he stood, his lips moving silently, and the muscles of his face twitching. At length he stepped up to the new-comer, extended his hand, and expressed his pleasure in his arrival. The stranger said, "You would certainly do me a great favor, gentlemen, by giving me some advice in reference to my line of conduct. I know no one here."
"I can understand that very well," replied the Jewish teacher. "I also came here for no other reason than that I was sent by the consistory, and did not know a soul. I often longed for a charm to make myself incognito for a while, so as to study closely the character of the parents; for, without the parents to help you, nothing is to be done with the children. What made matters particularly difficult for me was that it became my duty, twenty-five years ago, to organize a regular school,--a matter till then entirely unknown among the Jews. At first it seemed to me that I had been spirited into a strange world by enchantment."
"Yes, you came into an enchantment soon enough, and married the prettiest girl in the village: ha, ha! And so you ought," fell in the old man. Turning to our friend, he continued,--"You must marry a girl from our village, too."
The new teacher recoiled in such haste as to set his foot ruinously into one of the immaculate flower-beds. After stammering out an apology, he said, "I only refer to my relations with the parents and the children."
"Be strict with them: that's the main point," said the old gentleman, repairing the damage with the hoe. "As to the new ways of teaching, I don't understand them. They ask the children, 'Who made the table?'--just as if they didn't know that without teaching. And then they give only the sounds of h, k, l, m, like the dumb, and the alphabet's gone out of fashion entirely."
"Strict, you say?" interposed the new teacher, to avoid the shoals and quicksands of a discussion.
"Yes. Of all the men running about the village now, there's not one who hasn't had his good salting down from me many and many a time; and I leave it to you whether they don't respect me to this day."
"Most certainly," responded the Jewish teacher, smiling. The old gentleman went on:--"And when there's a festivity in the village it won't do to play the gentleman of refinement and look on a while to see how the ignorant vulgar amuse themselves; but you must go in and help them. I've been the wildest among 'em all. The barber's dance they learned from me, and the seven-league jump I always led them in, with my Madge: my legs itch when I think of it."
"You were born and bred here, and had no need of establishing a reputation."
"I was not born and bred here. All this country fell to Wurtemberg in the year five: before that time it had belonged to Austria. I was born at Freiburg."
"You have seen much of life?"
"I should think so. People that are thirty years old nowadays don't know any thing of the world, for now every thing rolls as smoothly as a tenpin-alley. I don't refer to you: but what can a teacher be expected to know nowadays? Where has he been in the world? In books up to the eyes. Every thing runs like clock-work now, and it's one, two, three, pupil, student, teacher. I was a soldier, a musician, and a court clerk, in the lands of many rulers. I have gone through with Russians, and Frenchmen, and Saxons, and other deviltry. I began a copy-book here, in the finest of German text; and when I'd got as far as F, down came those lubberly Frenchmen, and they turned all our German text into French; and there was an end of it."
Leaning on his hoe, he went on to tell the two grand stories of his life,--the one of a pot containing two hundred florins, which he had buried in the cellar, but which the French discovered notwithstanding, and the other of how, on a bitter cold winter's day, he had gone with the parson to Eglesthal to administer extreme unction to an old woman, and they were met by a Cossack, who relieved the teacher of his mittens of fox's skin. An elaborate description of the mittens was interrupted by the stroke of eleven, which put an end to the colloquy. Our friend walked with the Jewish teacher to the Eagle, where he had taken board.
Next morning the new teacher's performance on the organ attracted great admiration. From various groups which formed as the congregation were leaving the church, the remark was heard,--
"He's 'most as good as the old teacher."
He sought out the latter, and requested him to officiate in the afternoon.
The old man laughed with joy,
and said at last, in the short, broken sentences usual to him, "Oh, yes! young folks can learn something if they wish to. I was sub-organist in the Freiburg Cathedral for two years and a half: ha, ha! Yes, the last professor drove me out of the church. I didn't go there for a whole year: I couldn't stand his squeaking; and even after that I only went to mass, and to hear the sermon: when the singing began I had to run away."
He played in the afternoon; but the bizarre and fantastic movements he made on the sacred instrument caused the young man more than once to shake his head. The rest of the auditory, however, gave tokens of unalloyed satisfaction.
For his attention to the old teacher the new one was greatly praised; while he was blamed in the same degree for calling on the councilmen on a weekday, when he might have known they could not be found at home. Of both praise and blame the teacher remained equally unconscious.
On Monday the school began. The parson, a man of pleasing manners and high tone of character, introduced the teacher to his new sphere of duties with a pithy address, in the presence of the entire council and committee of citizens.
From this day forth the teacher ceased to take his dinner at the public house: the noise and confusion of the place disturbed him, and he wished to be left to himself after the unruly tribe of children was dismissed. In fact, he lived a life of entire seclusion: the duties of his station were consciensciously performed, but beyond that he studiously avoided all society.
At rare intervals only would he take a walk in company with the Jewish teacher or with the old one. The latter he soon fathomed. In the mind of the former the foreground was occupied by the political and social affairs of his brethren, and he found but little congenial to his own turn of thinking. The remainder of the citizens--even Buchmaier himself--were as much strangers to him as before he had entered the village. He never went to the inn, nor ever joined the knots of talkers assembled in front of some of the houses, after dark. When school was over, he rambled alone through the woods and fields, sketched the landscape, or took notes of his thoughts and feelings. In the evening he read, or practised on his violin.
As we cannot produce copies of his drawings nor repeat his musical performances, we must content ourselves with a copy of his reflections, under the title given them by the author himself.
"WISDOM IN THE FIELDS.
"(Lying on the grass.) Every resuscitation is mingled with remnants of decay which it displaced. Look at the pastures in spring, and you will find many a day blade of last year's growth amid the fresh grass of the present: its destiny is to wither away and serve as manure for future crops. When fools perceive this, they say, 'There is no spring, and there never will be: look at these wilted wisps.' Is it not the same case with all intellectual growth? Is not the old schoolmaster a blade of dry grass of this sort?
"To me all nature is but a symbol of the mind: it appears like a mere mask, behind which the mind is hidden. These poor peasants! They live in this free growth of nature with the same feelings as if they inhabited a dead-house: in all the fields and woods they see nothing but the profit, the number of sheaves, the sacks of potatoes, the cords of wood: I alone inhale the spiritual essence that breathes from it all. Let me turn my eyes from these human grubs who creep sightlessly through all this splendor; let me elevate my thoughts above this paltry traffic, and as the bee makes honey from the spiked thistle which the ass merely swallows, so let me derive the sweet intellectual savor out of all things. Assist me, thou Eternal Mind, and let me not be like those who cleave to the sod until the sod rolls over their coffins! And you, ye master-minds of my nation, whose works have followed me hither, strengthen me, and let me sit at your feet continually.
"Every patch of ground has its history. Could any one unravel the mutations which transferred it from hand to hand, and the fortunes and sentiments of those who tilled it, he would understand the history of the human race; while its geological structure, traced to the centre of the earth, would unfold all the developments of the earth's formation.
"Every thing on earth becomes the food, or in some way the consumption, of something else: man alone appropriates all things, himself remaining free and unsubdued until the earth opens and swallows up his body. This brings me, by a way of my own, to the commonplace remark that man is the lord of the earth. But there is really no other truth but that self-acquired knowledge which we attain by the labor of our own spirits.
"I once heard, or read, that it is only where the number of domestic animals exceeds that of human beings that a state of society obtains in which all may be comfortable and none need be wretched.
"Is there a parallel truth,--that the number of irrational men must always be greater than that of men of reason?
"A dreadful thing to think of! And yet----
"It is clear that agriculture was the beginning and the first occasion of civilization. As long as men depended on hunting and fishing, they were but like the beasts, who seek their subsistence. It was when they began to prepare their food, by observing and directing the natural laws of vegetation, planting and nursing, that they first attached themselves to particular spots, and were impelled to study the elements and their combinations, and to exert an influence upon the world without and the world within them.
"Agriculture is the root of all civilization; and yet the agriculturists of the known world have never tasted but a small portion of its fruits. Is this unavoidable?
"Upon the unsteady flower that rocks in the breeze the bee makes her perch and gathers her honey: thus man enjoys the fleeting things of earthly life, while all things rock under his feet.
"(At the Beech-Pond.) A drop from the sky falls into the pond, forms a little bubble for a while, then bursts, and mingles with the morass; another falls into the stream and becomes a part of the living billow. Is my existence like that of such a rain-drop? Then let me be resolved into a living stream: it must be so.
"Every bird flees from the rain: only the swallow revels in it.
"When I go abroad to refresh myself with a little bodily fatigue, I meet the farmers returning wearied from their work: it almost makes me ashamed to be out sauntering.
"In the morning and in the evening we perceive the changes between light and darkness; yet this change is going on to the same extent throughout the day.
"Is not the development of the human mind in the same case?
"I have looked upon numberless sunsets, and yet no two were alike. Such is the endless variety of nature; and therein lies its inexhaustible beauty.
"In watching the sunset, we are tempted to suppose that from where we stand, as far as the western horizon, the red glow of evening extends and there is light, but that behind us all is darkness. Those again who stand farther eastward imagine that the light extends quite to their feet, though no farther. Thus every man measures the horizon from the little spot on which he stands, and all regard themselves as the last remnants of enlightenment.
"Why is a sunset more attractive to most men than a sunrise?
"Is it because but few ever see the latter, or because that which departs has more of our sympathies? I think not. The sunset comes to a beautiful mysterious close in the shade of night and the stillness of universal rest; but the sunrise never comes to a conclusion: it is dissipated in the glare and noise and turmoil of the day. Beautiful is death! Oh, how I long----
"(Behind the manor-house garden.) When a post is driven into the earth, the end must be charred to keep it from decay: he who is touched by the fire of the mind can never die.
"The hide of one poor beast is sliced into harness for another. The application is easy.
"If a man is told that a place he desires to reach is nearer than it really is, his fatigue is doubled,--the result probably of his over-eagerness to get to the end of his journey.
"I have erred in thinking the way to the goal of my life shorter than it turns out to be.
"In mowing you must take short steps and walk forward in a straight line. The more sparse the clover, the more fatigue in the labor: the scythe reels about the hard earth, and at last plunges in the air without effecting any result. Significant!
"Green feed, and every thing brought home in the sap, is free from tithes.
"In cutting corn, the reaper must lay the swath behind him, so as to have nothing before him but the blades still standing. So with the deeds that we have done. They must be out of the sight, so that all our attention may be turned upon what yet remains to do.
"When in the distance I see the mowers bowing and rising so regularly, it seems as if they were going through some ceremonious ritual of prayer.
"The new paling of the manor-house garden is being painted green. Dry wood rots in wind and weather if not covered with a coating. Nature furnishes a secure vestment for all her creatures: men tear off these natural coats and are compelled to replace them with artificial ones.
"What if education were nothing more than oil-paint, a poor surrogate for the fresh lustre of Nature? No: it is Nature itself, elevated, purified; men like those around me here----
"Valentine, the old carpenter, is so forgetful that he walks along the road with the cart-whip on his shoulder, and cries 'Hoy!' without perceiving that his cows have turned into a wrong road forty yards behind him. Is not this the lot of many rulers?
"In a garden by the roadside is a weeping willow, the boughs of which have been tied and twisted into all sorts of ellipses, circles, oblique and right angles, until they have taken this shape permanently.
"The boughs of sorrow are tractable, and may be cramped into almost any deformity; still, the irrepressible vigor of Nature will restore the original growth and proportion. What is it that makes farmers so fond of distorting Nature? Why are they so prone to maltreat the weeping willow, the loveliest of trees? Perhaps there lies at the very root of human nature a disposition to indemnify one's self for a year's hard labor by making a plaything of the subject of it on a holiday.
"(At the crucifix in the Target Field.) Although there were some Jews living in the place where I was born, I never thought much about them. I only remember that when a little boy, like the other little boys, I jeered and even struck the little Jews at every opportunity.
"It as little occurs to us to meditate upon our relation to the Jews as upon that we hold to horses or other cattle. On the contrary, the Bible inspires every Christian child with an indistinct impression of having received some personal wrong at the hands of every individual of the Jewish persuasion. A mysterious abhorrence of them gradually settles upon the infant mind. I involuntarily regarded every Jew as having some disease of the skin. A child thus educated will caress an animal, but never a Jew.
"I am now thrown into frequent intercourse with the Jews. The Jewish teacher is a man remarkably free from prejudice, and possessed of a degree of culture such as I have not often met with. He is more conversant with theology than with the natural sciences. Is that the case with Jews in general? His method of instruction is highly intellectual, but a little wanting in system and regularity,--a disadvantage for children not extraordinarily gifted. A strange sensation overcame me on my first visit to the synagogue. The Hebrew words have wandered from the slopes of Lebanon to these German pine-forests. And yet, is not our religion derived from the same spot? Again, while ancient Rome could not vanquish the Germans, nor make them speak the language of the Capitol, modern Rome perfected the achievement. Every Sunday the Roman language is heard upon these distant hills.
"Over against the school-house is the so-called Burned Spot, the site of the house in which a whole Hebrew family--the grandmother, daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren--fell a victim to the flames. It is now the favorite resort of children when they wish to play at hide-and-seek. The old ruins abound in choice hiding-places. The rosy-cheeked boys clamber up and down the blackened walls, and shout and yell; just where the flames crawled! Such things occur in the history of great things also.
"The bel-wether dance has just been held. "These things are no longer suited to our times: they are a feature of the Middle Ages. Then the lord of the manor may have looked with complacency from the turret of his castle upon the follies of his villeins: he had given them the wether and the ribbon, and probably gave the winning pair pittance of a marriage-portion. All these things are at an end; and why continue the form of that which no longer has a substance?
"Sometimes a chord of the music steals out into the fields and strikes upon my ear; but it is only the braying of the grand trumpet that becomes thus distinguishable. Like me, the peasants here are beyond the reach of the harmonies produced by the intellectual efforts of humanity: not until the great trumpet brays or the bass-drum rattles does a solitary link attach them to the mighty chain, and, for a space, they keep step with the pace of time. Of the gentle adagio and the more intricate harmonies they know nothing.
"It is well that spots of ground are always to be found in which, strictly speaking, no man has a property, and where the poor may pluck their bundles of grass without molestation. Such are the steep banks, cliffs, gulches, and so on. And where even the poor can no longer find a footing, the goat--the companion of the needy--makes her way and picks a scented herb or an aromatic twig.
"On 'wood-days' the poor are allowed to appropriate the dry boughs of the green trees. I have read somewhere that kind Nature herself instituted this traditional charity, and throws to the poor the crumbs of her laden board. The poor and the dry sticks.
"The weeds in the corn-fields are also no man's property until the poor take them away and convert them into nutritious food. Do you ask, of what use are weeds? Perhaps many other things should be judged by the same rule."
These leaves were the product of three months of comparative solitude. His habit of writing when abroad had been discovered, and had subjected him to various uncharitable suspicions. As the reader may have divined, many of them were but the answers given by the peasants to questions on matters very familiar to them, and indeed to everybody except the very learned men of learned Germany. The villagers were at their wits' end. They could not conceive how any one could be ignorant of these matters.
Those who travel afoot must have noticed the demeanor of peasants when asked the way to a place in the immediate neighborhood. At first they suspect that a joke is being played upon them; and then they give an explanation which presupposes a perfect acquaintance with other localities in point of fact equally unknown to the questioner. Yet educated men are often no wiser. Perfectly at home in a certain sphere of ideas, they take for granted that every one else is equally so, and explain themselves in such a manner as to leave the hearer more mystified than he was before.
Of course the teacher was no better known to the villagers than they to him. Very few of them had ever heard his name. One thing, however, they had discovered,--that the teacher came from Lauterbach; and this single fact was used by the wit and humor of the village as the rod with which to punish his pride and reserve. In the evening, whenever he was known to be in, the young fellows assembled under his window and sang the "Lauterbacher" without cessation. As he had taken the part of the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, they generally wound up with,--
"I won't sing any more:
A mouse ran over the floor;
I'll hunt it and I'll find it,
Put out its eyes and blind it,
Take out my knife and skin it,
And lay it out and pin it,"
&.c. &c. &c.
This piece of vulgarity vexed the teacher; but he never quite understood the meaning of it all until the College Chap joined the singers; for, though a married man, he could not forego the privilege of being the leader in all sorts of mischief. He made a new verse, which was repeated again and again:--
"At Lauterbach I was born so proud,
And proud I am going to die:
Oh, carry me back to Lauterbach:
That is where I ought to lie."
A light flashed upon the teacher's mind. It grieved him to the soul to find himself thus abused by those whom he meant so well. He mourned within-doors, and without the noise grew louder and louder. He gathered himself up, intending to open the window and address the crowd in conciliation: luckily, however, his eye fell upon his violin, and, taking it down, he played the air of the song with which they were persecuting him. There was a sudden silence below, interrupted by low chucklings. Presently the singing recommenced, and the teacher resumed the accompaniment as often as the provocation was repeated.
At length he appeared at the window, saying, "Is that the way?"
"Yes," was the general answer; and from this time forth he was unmolested,--for he had shown that his temper was proof against teasing.
But on this occasion he formed the resolution of seeking intercourse with his neighbors more than formerly. He saw that his duties to his fellows were not circumscribed by the school-room.
The execution of this design was not long without its reward.
One Sunday afternoon, on returning from church-service, he took his way by the street which skirted the hill-side, called the "Bruck," or Bridge. An old woman was sitting in front of her house with her hands folded and her head shaking with palsy. He said, kindly,--
"How do you do? The sunshine does you good, doesn't it?"
"Thank you, kind gentleman," answered the old woman, still nodding.
The teacher stood still.
"You have seen many summers, haven't you?" said he.
"Seventy-eight: a good number. Seventy years is the life of man, says the Scripture. I often think Death must have forgotten me. Well, our Lord God will fetch me in his own good time: he knows when. I sha'n't get out of his sight."
"But you seem to keep up very well."
"Not very well,--the cramp; but this helps it." She pointed to the gray threads she had tied around her arms, the veins of which were swollen.
"What is that?"
"Why, a pure virgin spun this before she broke her fast in the morning, and spoke the Lord's Prayer three times while she did it. If you put that round your arm, and don't cry out about it, and speak the prayer to the Lord's holy three nails nine times over, it drives away the cramp. I have to cough so much," she said, pointing to her chest, to excuse the frequent interruptions in her speech.
"Who spun the threads for you?" inquired the teacher, again.
"My Hedwig,--my grand-daughter. Don't you know her? Who are you?"
"I am the new teacher."
"And don't know my Hedwig! Why, she's one of the choristers. What's the world coming to, I'd just like to know! The schoolmaster doesn't know the choristers any more!
"I used to sing in the choir myself,--though, to hear me cough, you wouldn't think so. I was a smart lass: oh, yes. I was fit enough to be seen: and once a year there was a grand dinner, and the parson and the schoolmaster were there. Oh, they did use to sing the funniest songs then, about the Bavarian Heaven, and such things! That's all over now: the world isn't what it used to be when I was young."
"You love your grand-daughter very much, don't you?"
"She is the youngest. Oh, my Hedwig is one of the old sort; she lifts me up and lays me down, and never gives me an unkind word. I almost wish to die, just for her good,--she's kept home so much on account of me; and, after I'm dead, I'll pray my best for her in heaven."
"Do you pray a great deal?"
"What can I do better? My working-days are over.
"I know a prayer which brings the souls out of the moon right into heaven, and so that they don't get into purgatory at all. The Holy Mother of God once said to God the Father, 'My dear husband, the way the poor souls squeak and howl down there in purgatory is too bad: I can't stand it any longer.' So he said, 'Well, I don't care: you may go and help them.' So, there was a man in the Tyrol with eight children: and his wife died, and he went on about it dreadfully when they carried her to the churchyard. But the Mother of God came every morning and combed the childrens' heads and washed their faces, and made the beds; and for a long time the man never found out who did it all. At last he went to the parson, and the parson came very early with the sacrament, and saw the Mother of God flying out of the window, as white as snow; and the prayer was lying on the sill; and they built a church on the spot."
"And you know this prayer, ma'am?" said the teacher, taking a seat beside her.
"You mustn't say 'ma'am' to me: it's not the way hereabouts."
"Have you more grandchildren?"
"Five more; and fourteen great-grandchildren,--and I'm going to have another soon by my Constantine. Don't you know my Constantine? He is studied too, but he's a wild one. I have no reason to complain of him, though, for he's always good to me."
Suddenly there appeared, coming from behind the house, a girl, closely followed by a snow-white hen. "Ha' ye gude counsel, grandmammy?" she asked, scarcely looking up as she passed. The teacher was so taken by surprise that he rose involuntarily and touched his cap.
"Is that your grand-daughter?" he asked, at length.
"To-be-sure."
"Why, that is splendid," said the teacher.
"Isn't she a smart-looking lassie? Old George the blacksmith always tells her, when she goes into the village, that she's just like his grandmother. George the blacksmith is the last of the young fellows I used to dance with: we might as well be three hundred miles apart as the way we are: he's down in the village and can't come up to me, and I can't get down to him. We'll have to wait until we meet each other half-way in the churchyard. I expect to find all the old world there, and in heaven it'll be better yet. My poor Jack Adam has been waiting a long time for me to come after him: he'll be getting tired of it."
"All the people in the village must like you," said the teacher.
"Call into the wood, and you'll have a good answer. When we're young, we want to eat everybody up,--some for love, and some for vexation: when we're old, we live and let live. You wouldn't believe me how good the people are here if I were to tell you: you'll have to find it out yourself. Have you been much about in the world?"
"Not at all. My father was a schoolmaster like myself, and when he died I was only six years old: my mother soon followed him. I was taken to the Orphans' House, and remained there--first as a pupil, and then as an incipient and assistant--until this spring, when I was transferred here. Ah, my good friend, it's a hard lot to have almost forgotten the touch of a mother's hand."
The old woman's hand suddenly passed over his face. He blushed deeply, and sat for a moment with closed lids and quivering eyeballs. Then, as if awaking from a dream, he seized her hand, saying,--
"I may call you grandmother, mayn't I?"
"Yes, and welcome, my kind, good friend: a grandchild more or less won't break me, I'll try it, and will knit your stockings: bring me your torn ones, too, to mend."
The teacher still kept his seat, unable to tear himself away. The passers-by were astonished to find the proud man chatting so cosily with old Maurita. At last a man came out of the house, rubbing himself and stretching his eyes.
"'Had your nap out, Johnnie?" asked the old woman.
"Yes; but my back aches woefully with mowing."
"It'll get well again: our Lord God won't let any man get hurt by working," answered his mother.
The teacher recalled the thoughts suggested by the bowing motion of the mowers. He saluted Johnnie, and walked out into the fields with him. Johnnie liked those conversations which were not attended with drinking, and, therefore, free from expense. He found the teacher, who was an excellent listener, in the highest degree amiable and smart. He favored him with an exposition of his finances, with the story of Constantine, and many other interesting particulars.
In the evening he informed all his friends that the teacher wasn't near so bad as people made him out to be, only he couldn't drive his tongue very well yet: he hadn't got the right way to turn a sharp corner.
The teacher, on coming home, wrote into his pocketbook,--
"Piety alone makes even the decrepitude of age an object of admiration and of reverence. Piety is the childhood of the soul: on the very verge of imbecility it spreads a mild and gentle lustre over the presence and bearing. How hard, tart, and repulsive is the old age of selfish persons! how elevating was the conversation of this old woman in the midst of her superstition!"
He wrote something more than this, but immediately cancelled it. Wrapt in self-accusation, he sat alone for a long time, and then went out into the road: his heart was so full that he could not forego the society of men. The distant song of the young villagers thrilled his breast. "I am to be envied," said he to himself; "for now the song of men is more potent over me than the song of birds. I hear the cry of brothers! Men! I love you all."
Thus he strolled about the village, mentally conversing with every one, though not a word escaped his lips. Without knowing how he had come there, he suddenly found himself once more in front of the house of Johnnie of the Bruck. Every thing was silent, except that from the room the occupation of which was part of the dower of old Maurita issued the monotonous murmur of a prayer.
Late at night he returned home through the village, now still as death, except that here and there the whispers of two lovers might be heard. When he re-entered his solitary room, where there was no one to welcome him, no one to give answer to what he said, to look up to him, and to say, "Rejoice: you live, and I live with you," he prayed aloud to God, "Lord, let me find the heart to which my heart can respond!"
Next day the children were puzzled to know what could have put the teacher in such good humor. During recess he sent Mat's Johnnie to the Eagle to say that they need not send him his dinner, as he was coming there to eat it.
It was unfortunate that, in approaching the life that surrounded him, his thoughts were pitched in such an elevated key. Though he had wit enough to refrain from communicating these flights of imagination to others, he could not avoid seeing and hearing many things which came into the most jarring discord with them.
As he entered the inn, Babbett was in the midst of an animated conversation with another woman. "They brought your old man home nasty, didn't they?" she was saying: "he had the awfullest brick in his hat. Well, if I'd seen them pour brandy into his beer, as they say they did, I'd 'a' sent 'em flying."
"Yes," returned the woman: "he was in a shocking way,--just like a sack of potatoes."
"And they say you thanked them so smartly. What did you say? They were laughing so, I thought they would never get over it."
"Well, I said, says I, 'Thank you, men: God reward you!' Then they asked, 'What for?' So I said, says I, 'Don't you always thank a man when he brings you a sausage?' says I; 'and why shouldn't I thank you,' says I, 'for bringing me a whole hog?' says I."
On hearing this, the teacher laid down his knife and fork: but, soon resuming them, he reflected that, after all, necessity and passion were the only true sources of wit and humor.
Whenever his feelings were outraged in this manner, he now fell back, not upon mother Nature, but upon Grandmother Maurita, who gave him many explanations on the manners and customs of the people. Many people took it into their heads that the old woman had bewitched the schoolmaster. Far from it. Much as he delighted to hold converse with her simple, well-meaning heart, it would have been much more correct to have accused Hedwig of some incantation, although the teacher had only seen her once and had never exchanged a word with her. "Ha' ye gude counsel, grandmammy?" These words he repeated to himself again and again. Though uttered in the harsh mountain dialect, even this seemed to have acquired a grace and loveliness from the lips it passed.
Yet he was far from yielding to this enchantment without summoning to his aid all the force of his former resolves. To fall in love with a peasant-girl! But, as usual, love was fertile in excuses. "She is certainly the image of her grandmother, only fresher and lovelier, and illuminated by the sun of the present time. 'Ha' ye gude counsel, grandmammy?'"
One evening, as he was sitting by the old woman's side, upon the same bench, the girl came home from the field with a sickle in her hand: her cheeks were flushed,--perhaps from exercise: she carried something carefully in her apron. Stepping up to her grandmother, she offered her some blackberries covered with hazel-leaves.
"Don't you know the way to do, Hedwig?" said her grandmother: "you must wait on the stranger first."
"Help yourself, Mr. Teacher," said the girl, looking up without hesitation. The teacher took one, blushing.
"Eat some yourself," said her grandmother.
"No, thank you: just help yourselves: I hope they'll do you good."
"Where did you pick them?" asked her grandmother.
"In the gully by the side of our field: you know where the bush is:" said the girl, and went into the house.
The bush which had formed the subject of the teacher's first sketch was the same from which Hedwig now brought him the ripened fruit.
Hedwig soon returned, still followed by the white hen.
"Where are you going so fast, Miss Hedwig?" asked the teacher: "won't you stop and talk with us a little?"
"No, thank you: I'll go and see the old teacher a little before supper."
"If you have no objection, I'll go with you," said our friend, and did so without waiting for an answer.
"Do you see the old teacher often?"
"Oh, yes: he's a cousin of mine: his wife was my grandmother's sister."
"Was she? Why, I'm delighted to hear it."
"Why? Did you know my grandaunt?"
"No, I was only thinking----"
On entering the old teacher's garden, Hedwig closed the gate hastily behind her: the white hen, thus excluded, posted herself before it like a sentinel.
"What makes that hen run after you so?" asked the teacher. "That's something extraordinary."
Hedwig pulled at her apron in great embarrassment.
"Are you not permitted to tell me?" persisted the teacher.
"Oh, yes, I can, but---- You mustn't laugh at me, and must promise not to tell anybody: they would tease me about it if it was to become known."
He seized her hand and said, quickly, "I promise you most solemnly." It seemed a pity to let the hand go at once, and he retained it, while she went on, looking down,--
"I--I--I hatched the egg in my bosom. The cluck was scared away and left all the eggs; and I held this one egg against the sun, and saw there was a little head in it, and so I took it. You mustn't laugh at me, but when the little chick came out I was so glad I didn't know what to do. I made it a bed of feathers, and chewed bread and fed it; and the very next day it ran about the table. Nobody knows a word of it except my grandmother. The hen is so fond of me now that when I go into the field I must lock it up to keep it from running after me. You won't laugh at me, will you?"
"Certainly not," said the teacher. He tried to keep her hand as they walked on, but soon found reason to curse the economy of the old teacher, who had left so little room for the path that it was impossible for two to walk abreast.
His indignation grew still greater when the old teacher came to meet them with a louder laugh than usual, and cried, "Do you know each other already? Ah, Hedwig, didn't I always tell you that you must marry a schoolmaster?"
With a great effort he restrained himself from giving vent to the mortification caused by this rude dallying with the first budding of so delicate a flower. To his astonishment, Hedwig began, as if nothing had been said:--"Cousin, you must cut your summer-barley in the mallet-fields to-morrow: it's dead ripe, and will fall down if you don't take care."
But little was spoken. Hedwig appeared to be fatigued, and seated herself on a bench under a tree. The men conversed, our friend regarding Hedwig all the while with such intensity that she passed her apron several times across her face, fearing that she had blackened it in the kitchen while putting the potatoes over the fire. But our friend's attention was directed to very different matters. He perceived for the first time a slight cast in Hedwig's left eye: the effect was by no means unpleasant, but gave the face an interesting air of shyness which suited very well the style of the features. A fine nose of regular form, a very small mouth with cherry lips, round, delicately-glowing cheeks,--all were enough to arrest the delighted gaze of a young man of twenty-five. At last, after having given a number of wry answers, he became aware that it was time to go. He took leave, and Hedwig said, "Good-night, Mr. Teacher."
"Sha'n't I have a shake of the hand for good-night?"
Hedwig quickly put both her hands behind her back.
"In our parts we shake hands without asking: ha, ha!" said the old teacher.
At this hint our friend whisked round the tree to catch Hedwig's hand; but she drew them quickly before her. Not having the courage to pass his arms round her, he ran forward and backward around the tree, until he stumbled and fell down at Hedwig's feet. His head fell into her lap and on her hand, and he hastily pressed a warm kiss upon it and called her his in spirit. Finding him in no haste to get up, Hedwig raised his head, her hands covering his cheeks, and said, looking around in great confusion, "Get up: you haven't hurt yourself, I hope? See: this comes of such tricks: you mustn't learn them from my cousin here."
As he rose, Hedwig bent down to brush his knees with her apron; but this the teacher would not permit: his heart beat quickly at the sight of this humble modesty. He said "Goodnight" again; and Hedwig looked down, but no longer refused her hand.
He walked homeward without feeling the ground beneath his feet: a feeling of inexpressible power coursed through his veins, and he smiled so triumphantly on all he met that they stared and stood still to look after him.
But the mind of man is changeful; and when the teacher had reached his home he lapsed into cruel self-accusation. "I have suffered myself to be carried away by a sudden passion," he said. "Is this my firmness? I have committed myself,--thrown myself away upon a peasant-girl. No, no the majesty of a noble soul breathes from those lineaments."
Various other thoughts occurred to him. He knew something of the life of the villagers now; and, late in the evening, he wrote into his pocket-hook, "The silver cross upon her bosom is to me a symbol of sanctity and purity."
At home Hedwig had not eaten a morsel of supper, and her people scolded her for having overworked herself,--probably by having assisted the old teacher in the garden before supper. She protested the contrary, but made haste to join her grandmother, in whose room she slept.
Long after prayers, hearing her grandmother cough, and seeing that she was still awake, she said, "Grandmother, what does it mean to kiss one's hand?"
"Why, that one likes the hand."
"Nothing else?"
"No."
After some time, Hedwig again said, "Grandmother."
"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 Abbé 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.
"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 inertiæ 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.
"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."
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."
After a while, Thaddie drew Agnes closer to him, and they sang:--
"Lassie, crowd, crowd, crowd;
Let me sit close beside you:
I love you very much,
I can abide you.
But for what folks say
You'd be my love to-day;
If the folks were all gone
You and I'd be one.
Lassie, crowd, &c.
"Lassie, look, look, look
Down my black eyes, and see them
Dance in the light
The sight of you does give them.
Look, look in them deep:
Your likeness they must keep;
Here you must stay,
And never go away.
Lassie, look, &c.
"Lassie, you, you, you
Must take upon your finger
The wedding-ring:
And may it linger, linger!
If I can't do so,
To the wars I'll go;
If you I can't have,
All the world is my grave.
Lassie, you," &c.
Many other songs they sang,--mostly sad ones, though the singers were in bounding spirits. As the spring flowed on at their feet and meandered through the fields, so the song-fountain in them appeared inexhaustible.
The teacher found himself in a world unknown to him before. Though he had heard and experienced something of the rich tenderness of the rude national ditties of Germany, he had tasted them as we eat the wild berries of the wood on a well-served table: we prefer them to the products of the greenhouse, yet sweeten them with sugar, and, perhaps, wash them down with wine. Here he plucked them fresh from the bush, and ate them not upon a piled saucer, but singly, as they left the stems. Their deep, untranslatable force and simplicity were revealed to him in all its glory: he felt how much his individual spirit was allied to that of the nation, and saw its lovely representative sitting by his side. He began to aspire to the priesthood of this marvellous spirit.
On returning to Hedwig's house and meeting her grandmother still at the door, he seized the hand of his beloved and pressed it to his heart, saying, "Not in bitter toil shall you lift these hands for me, but to give blessings, as becomes them."
Unable to say more, he walked quickly away.
The village gossips that evening were occupied with nothing but the fact that the new teacher went to see Johnnie's Hedwig.
Our friend, who had been so fond of seclusion, now found it impossible to spend fifteen minutes by himself after school-hours, in his house or out of it. Of all the books in his library, not one seemed to chime in with his frame of mind: and when he undertook to write into his note-book his lucubrations appeared so bare and profitless that he crossed them out immediately.
In the fields he never could collect his thoughts sufficiently to make sketches: he talked with every one he met. The people were friendly; for his open soul beamed out of his eyes. Frequently he would stand by them as they worked, in dreamy silence: he was reluctant to leave them and return to the solitary dignity which a little earlier he had thought indispensable.
Once he saw Hedwig cutting grain in the field, and hastened toward her. But he did not long remain there: it was insufferable to find himself the only idler among so many hard workers; and yet he was entirely unskilled in field-work, and knew what a sorry figure he should have made had he attempted it. Hedwig had gained in his eyes by having been seen at work. "Hosts and manna should be baked from the ears that she has cut," he said to himself, in turning away.
He was often absent-minded when conversing with her grandmother, and it was only when the old lady spoke of her parents and grandparents that she riveted his attention. It was delightful to climb up this family tree into the dim regions of the past. Her grandfather had fought in the wars of Prince Eugene against the Turks: and she had many of his soldier's stories by heart. At times also, without repining, she would predict that next winter she would meet all her ancestors again. It was easy to divert her mind from such reflections. He loved to make her talk of Hedwig's childhood, of the early loss of her mother, and of how she was distressed to find that her doll could not shut its eyes at night, and pasted paper over them. When the old woman spoke in this strain, her eyes and those of the listener beamed in the same brightness, like two neighbor-billows lit up by one moonbeam.
Hedwig is not mentioned in his note-book. The following passage, however, may have been suggested by the reminiscences of her aged relative:--
"We are prone to think that with a catechism of pure reason promulgated among the people it would be easy to convert them; but at every step we find ourselves upon the holy ground of history, and compelled to trace the footsteps of the past. Alas that our German history is so torn and disjointed! where shall we begin?"
He frequently called on Buchmaier also, and heard with delight the solid views, albeit at times a little roughly worded, of the squire. But the more intimate he became at his house the less kindly did he find himself received at Johnnie's. Even Hedwig began to avoid him, and her salutations became more and more shy and timid.
One evening Hedwig came to Agnes, weeping, and said, "Only think! that wild brother of mine won't allow it."
"What?"
"Why, the teacher to come and see me. He says if I am seen once more with the Lauterbacher he'll beat me and him to a jelly: you know he sulks because the teacher is friends with your father."
"Why, that is too bad! What shall we do?"
"Tell the teacher when he comes that he mustn't be angry: but he mustn't come to our house so much. I can't help it; I can't talk to him. I wouldn't mind it, if my brother was ever so wicked to me, but he might insult him somewhere, where everybody saw it; and if he did that I'd cry my eyes out."
"Make yourself easy," replied Agnes: "I won't tell him a word of all that, anyhow."
"Why not?"
"Why not, you crazy pigeon? Because I don't want him to think that the Nordstetten girls come running up to you the minute you whistle to 'em."
"He won't think any thing of the kind."
"But I a'n't a-going to run the risk of it. I won't say a word about you unless he begins. Let me fix it: I'll get him round. Jilly wo gee! And when he's pretty well buttered up I'll just slither him down a little, and say, 'Mayhap I might manage to get Hedwig to our house of a Sunday.' I'll see if the pears come off by shaking."
"Well, you may do as you like: you're your own mistress. But one thing I beg of you, don't worry him: you see, he's one of that kind of men that have a deal of thought about every thing; I've found that out well enough; so he might be sorry, and lose his sleep."
"Why, who told you all that?"
"Oh, I only think he does, and I do so myself sometimes."
"Well, never mind: I won't do him any damage. These teachers are always examining somebody else, and now I'd just like to see whether he's smart or not."
"He is smart: I can tell you he is!"
"Well, if he says his lesson well, may I kiss him?"
"Oh, yes."
"Then don't look so solemn: love must be merry and not mawkish. Last Sunday the parson asked, 'How must we love God?' So I said, right out, 'Merrily.' He smiled at that, and took a pinch of snuff, and said, 'That's right,'--you know that's what he says to any thing, if it isn't too awful stupid: but, after he has said so, he explains it, and then it turns out to be something else; and he went on to explain that we must love God as a child loves its father, with veneration; and then I said some children loved their fathers merrily, and then he laughed ever so much, and opened his snuff-box wrong side up, and all the snuff fell on the floor, and then we all laughed:--
'Always a little merry,
And always a little glad.'"
Thus singing, she wound up her exhortation and dragged Hedwig out into the garden, where she gathered up the clothes on the grass-plot, to bring them into the house, telling her that they were intended as a portion of her outfit.
Next evening the teacher came to Buchmaier's house, as usual; but Agnes forgot all her intended raillery when the first mention of Hedwig's name brought a deep shade to his brow, and he frankly told her all his troubles. She now explained to him the state of parties in the commune. The College Chap, having married the old squire's daughter, of course belonged to his party, and therefore regarded any associate of Buchmaier's as his sworn foe; and his animosity was still further increased by the election of Mat to the committee of citizens, against himself,--which he ascribed to Buchmaier's efforts.
"Alack-a-day!" said Agnes, in conclusion, "I had it all cut-and-dry about going to the harvest-home together. But never mind: the College Chap isn't smart enough to get ahead of me, and Thaddie must help us make plans, too."
Against this the teacher protested, to Agnes' great surprise. He obtained her promise, however, to invite Hedwig to come there, and even to feign sickness as a pretext, and to remain in-doors all day.
Late in the evening the teacher wrote into his notebook,--
"How easy is it to preserve the whiteness of our souls while we shut ourselves out from human intercourse and construct our own fabric of things and thoughts! But the moment we approach reality every step is fraught with dangers, and we find ourselves engulfed in all the quarrels of faction and of party-strife. I longed to taste the peaceful joys of these villagers; and here I am in the midst of their contentions, with which the every affections of my heart are intertwined."
Agnes kept her word. The stolen interview of the lovers broke down the last barrier of reserve between them. Denial had lost all pretext, now that they met in secret.
After an interchange of condolence, Hedwig was the first to take a more cheerful view of the subject.
"Is it true," she asked, "that you are from Lauterbach?"
"Yes."
"Why did you want to deny it, then? There's no shame in it, I'm sure."
"I never denied it.
"Well, isn't it a shame? how people tell stories! They all said that the reason you were by yourself so much, running about like a poor, frightened little chick, was that you were afraid they'd tease you about being from Lauterbach. Why, if you were from Tripstrill you'd be----"
"What would I be?"
He looked at her so penetratingly that she held her hands over his eyes; but he kissed her and strained her to his heart. "Dearest! dearest!" he cried; "it shall, it must, all be well."
"Don't do so," said Hedwig, but without trying to extricate herself: so he kissed her again. "Now talk to me, and tell me something. What have you been doing? You don't talk a word."
The teacher pressed her hand to his lips, as if to say that that was the only language he was capable of uttering. So Hedwig seemed to understand him, for she said, "No: you must talk to me; I love to hear you talk so much; and my grandmother always says you have such beautiful words,--my grandmother thinks so much of you."
Something like moisture must have been glistening in the teacher's eyes; for she went on:--"Never mind: there's nothing lost yet; and Constantine had better look out, or he'll find out in some way he don't like that I'm my own mistress."
Though opposed to tears in theory, she was fast lapsing into the practice. Rallying herself, "Come," said she; "let's think of nothing but the present. If it's God's will we should have each other, it'll come so: no doubt about it. I always think it would have been too good for this world if things had gone all right from the very first. I don't know how it is, but that Sunday when I came round the corner of the house and found you sitting there with grandmother, it seemed as if a fiery hand was passing across my face, or as if--I can't tell how, I'm sure."
"Yes; I loved you from that moment."
"Mustn't talk of it!" cried she, looking into her lover's face with beaming eyes. As a true peasant-girl, the more she loved, the more dread had she to hear love mentioned. "Talk of something else." Nevertheless, she was well content to sit in perfect silence, with her hand in his; while nothing was to be heard but the cooing of the turtle-doves in their cote and the monotonous tick of the Black Forest clock.
Agnes, who had wisely absented herself, at length returned.
"Make him talk," said Hedwig, rising. "Ho won't do any thing but look at me."
Her eye fell to the looking-glass as she passed it; but she quickly averted it, for she seemed to have seen a perfect stranger, so unaccountable was the change which had come over the expression of her features.
The teacher sat motionless, dreaming with open eyes.
Agnes sang, as she skipped about the room, snapping her fingers,--
"How is it, I wonder,
When sweetheart I see,
I want to be talking,
But yet it won't gee?
'No, no,' and 'Yes, yes,'
And 'I s'pose,' and 'In course,'
Is often the whole of our loving discourse."
"Come, wake up!" said she, shaking the teacher's arm; "stir your stumps. 'I lost my stocking at Lauterbach:'" and she danced around the room, dragging him after her.
Thaddie now came in, and general hilarity with him. In a grand council the politic resolve was taken that, if the Constantine question should be still unadjusted when harvest-home came on, the teacher was to attend Agnes at the festival, while Thaddie was to figure as the nominal escort of Hedwig.
After a long conversation in anticipation of what the future was expected to bring forth, Agnes called upon the teacher to reward her intervention by telling a story. The others joined their requests to hers. The teacher offered to go home to get a book; but this was not permitted: he had nothing to do but begin at once.
Collecting his thoughts with an effort, he launched into the story of the Beautiful Magelona. At first he spoke almost without intonation, hardly knowing what he said, and thinking more of Hedwig's hand, which rested in his, than of the tale. As the interest of the narrative increased, he closed his eyes, and resigned his imagination entirely to the world of wonders and witchery he was describing. His hearers hung upon his words with beaming eyes, and Hedwig's heart bounded within her.
When he had finished, Agnes took his head between her hands and shook it, saying, "He is a fine fellow, every inch of him. May I kiss him now, Hedwig?"
"Yes, with all my heart."
Availing himself of the permission, the teacher immediately turned to Thaddie and said, extending his hand, "Let us be friends too."
When he took his leave, Thaddie went with him to the door and said, on the steps, "Mr. Teacher, I want to ask a favor of you, and maybe I can do you another some day. I can read very well: won't you lend me one of your storybooks?"
"With the greatest pleasure," said the teacher, shaking hands warmly at parting.
Besides the happy change in his feelings which the love of Hedwig had effected, it was attended with a further consequence; for he was one of those sensitive natures in which the thirst for union and harmony brings all thoughts into very near juxtaposition and allows the electric spark of association to combine them with rare frequency.
The words that fell from Hedwig's lips were so sweet as to imbue with their charm even the harsh dialect in which they were spoken. He now determined to devote his particular study to this idiom, and, if possible, to make it the basis of the instruction of his pupils. He asked the old teacher to help him to some of the works written in the Upper Suabian dialect, and received that old gentleman's favorite work,--indeed, almost the only one he read,--Sebastian Sailer's poems.
With all his new predilections, it was some time before he could read these effusions with pleasure. The entire absence of what is ordinarily called refinement in the character of these people--that spirit which cannot deal even with the most sacred things save in a vein of blunt good-humor akin to burlesque--is here presented with overpowering truthfulness. The poet--a spiritual one, by-the-by--represents God the Father in the character of a village squire, and keeps up the rôle for many pages.
The old teacher explained that all this had not in the least affected the sanctity of religion. "In those days," said he, "when people's piety was in their hearts and not on their tongues, they could crack a dozen jokes, and yet their hearts remained the same: nowadays they're afraid of the snuffers coming near the candle, for they know it will take very little to put it out, and they must trim it all the time to keep it alive. I used to play jigs on the organ whenever I had a mind to."
Our friend, while admitting the force of this argument, suspected that a little of the scoffing spirit of the last century had also found its way into the poet's rhymes, though, doubtless, not into the hearts of his public; but he kept this idea to himself, and drew from the schoolmaster a full account of the manner in which these extraordinary dramas used to be performed at Carnival-time. The old gentleman was particularly explicit in describing the costume he himself had worn in the character of Lucifer.
"Modern culture and refinement have taken many things from the people. What substantial joys have they received in return? Can they be compensated? and how?"
These words, taken from his note-book, appear to have been written about that time. A movement was going on within him.
One day Buchmaier urged him to apply for the right of citizenship in the village, as he might calculate upon receiving the office of town-clerk. Seizing the broad hand of his friend, he replied, joyfully, "Now you have it in your power to make peace in the whole village, if you will only get my broth--I mean the College Chap, this office: he is amply competent."
Buchmaier smiled, but would not consent. At the teacher's earnest entreaties, however, he agreed to abstain from all opposition.
The teacher hastened to broach the matter to the College Chap. The latter received the suggestion with some hauteur, and said he did not know whether he could take the office. Nevertheless, he thanked the teacher for his good-will, and the preliminaries of a peace were concluded between the parties.
Harvest-home came, and the two couples went to the dance, as they had arranged.
No longer did the teacher loiter in the fields while the village was alive with dance and song: he was himself a participator in the revel; but even yet he was not entirely absorbed in it.
For two days he did not leave the dancing-floor, except once, to take a short walk with Hedwig and Agnes in the fields and refresh his powers for new exertions. At times a pang would strike him when an impure song was heard: he would fain have stopped his ears and Hedwig's against it. The idea of endeavoring to exert an influence upon this spontaneous product of the popular mind and heart recurred to him with more force than ever. He had acquired some popularity among the young fellows by his participation in their amusements; and upon this foundation he built a portion of his hopes.
For two whole nights he had kept it up; but when, on the third day, the harvest-home was buried with pomp and funeral solemnities, he could not induce himself to join in this extravaganza also. Standing before his door, he watched the procession as it passed up the street, preceded by the band playing a dead march, sometimes interrupted by a whining chant or dirge. A trestle, covered with broken bottles, glasses, and legs of chairs, was borne solemnly to the height and there cast into a grave and covered with earth, while the wit of the village expended itself in funeral orations.
Joy and sadness came and went by turns in Johnnie's house, after the harvest-home. Constantine was elected town-clerk, the teacher having electioneered for him in public. Peace was thus restored between the contending parties, and the College Chap made friendly advances to the teacher. The latter, in the gladness of his heart, addressed him, according to the German custom, with "thee" and "thou." Such an excuse for drinking a "smollis" was not to be neglected. The new town-clerk took the teacher's arm and dragged him by force to the inn, where the toasts were drunk in the most approved forms, the "brothers hail" standing arm in arm and clinking their glasses as they sang.
After these preliminary operations, the College Chap entered the family council at home, and advocated the teacher's suit of Hedwig with his usual eagerness and impetuosity.
The betrothal of the two lovers was solemnized with the accustomed ceremonies. They plighted their troth to each other in the presence of her father and brother, of the old squire, and of Buchmaier, whom the teacher had invited in lieu of kindred or other friends.
When the transaction was over, Hedwig left her room with the bridegroom--for to that name, in German parlance, he was now entitled--and embraced him for the first time, saying, "I do love you dearly,--dearly!"
They repaired to her grandmother's room, who was lying ill in bed, and knelt down at her bedside.
"He is mine now, forever," said Hedwig. She could not say more. The grandmother laid her hands upon them and muttered a prayer; after which she said, "Get up, and don't kneel here: you mustn't kneel anywhere but before God. Don't I tell you? I am the messenger who is to give them notice in heaven that you have found each other. Teacher, what's your mother's name? I'm going to her the minute I get there, and to your father too; and then I mean to take my Jack Adam, and my brothers and sisters, and my parents with me, and my three grandchildren that are gone, and we'll all sit down together and talk about you and pray for you; and then you must be happy. Hedwig, I leave you my necklace, you'll find it in the closet there. And there's a wreath beside it, from my wedding: take good care of it: it will bring blessings down on you. Let your children smell at it after the christening. And, though you should get married soon after I go, you must have music at your wedding. Do you hear? You sha'n't be grieving for me, and the seven-league dance you must dance for me: I will look down on you with joy, and the whole family up there shall celebrate the wedding too."
The lovers tried to dispel her anticipations of death; but she replied, "I feel just as if somebody was pulling my arm all the time, and saying, 'Make haste: it's time.' But it isn't hard enough yet: it must come harder. You mustn't cry now: don't. I am going into good hands, a'n't I? I thank the Lord for having let me live long enough to see Hedwig get a good husband. Love each other, and honor each other.
"Hedwig, he's a studied man, and they often get kinks into their heads: I know that from my sister. You must have patience with him. These studied men have very different notions from other folks, sometimes, and then they let them out the wrong way and to the wrong person. And you, teacher, when you get my Hedwig, my dear Hedwig----" She could not speak further: the girl lay on her neck, weeping.
The old woman had spoken quite fluently, her cough having disappeared entirely; now, however, she sank upon her pillow exhausted. The lovers stood looking upon her sadly. At last she raised herself again, and said, "Hedwig, go and ask Valentine's Christina to stay with me: I sha'n't die to-day yet. You mustn't come to me again all day. Go, now, both of you, and be in good spirits: promise me to be in good spirits."
The teacher executed the commission she had given to Hedwig, and then both were dismissed from the bedside. Their hearts continued to quiver with sadness until they had seen Buchmaier's Agnes, who managed to enliven them with her usual chat and raillery.
Then they walked in the fields, followed by the white hen. The seed was not yet in the ground,--so that there was no objection to her being at large. The breath of Nature recalled their souls to the full gladness of the occasion. Around them autumn was at work among the yellow leaves; but in their hearts it was all spring.
Next day Hedwig's grandmother called for the Eucharist. The teacher did duty for the sexton, and carried the lantern for the parson: a considerable portion of the congregation assembled at the door and prayed while Maurita was being "served" within. The only reflection occupying the teacher's thoughts during the ceremony was, "Would that all freethinkers could meet death with equal confidence!" Maurita received the sacrament with open, beaming eyes, then turned to the wall and spoke no more. When they looked at her after a time, she was dead.
Maurita was buried with silent and devout sadness, unaccompanied by loud weeping or wailing. The whole village mourned. Even old George the blacksmith said, with a seriousness unusual to him, "I am so sorry she is dead! My turn comes next."
When the teacher returned from the burial, Hedwig embraced him, and said, weeping, "I want you more than ever now: I have no grandmother any more."
The teacher had found another tie to attach him to the village: the corpse of a friend rested in its soil.
Thus we have accompanied the good Maurita to the entrance of the life beyond, and the teacher to the opening of a new life on earth. We cannot follow the good old grandmother to heaven: let us see, a little longer, what happened to the teacher.
His betrothal had given great satisfaction throughout the village. Even the children playing on the site of the fire were sometimes involved in excited discussions, as they endeavored to explain their relationship to Hedwig, and therefore to the teacher. Johnnie had not a great many friends in the village; but this event gave pleasure to all. Everyone whom the teacher met shook hands and wished him much joy and happiness. Every one had something good to tell of Hedwig. Men and women who would otherwise never have thought of conversing with the teacher now chatted like old acquaintances. Mat came to his house, shook his hands warmly, and said, "Ah, I was the one that told you it must come so: don't you remember? You might have given me a farm and you wouldn't have pleased me more. When the old teacher dies you shall have the two fields he farms now: it's good land, and, if you'll let me know, I'll work two or three days for you with pleasure."
The teacher was doubly pleased at this friendly spirit. He saw the good hearts of the villagers; and he also saw how firm a footing he had gained in their affections, and how much he had bettered the prospect of exerting a beneficent influence over them.
Mankind are no longer accustomed to receive benefits emanating from no other motive than the general desire to do them good. They have been betrayed and disappointed so often that now they meet the philanthropist with intuitive suspicion. They think so very general an aspiration must cloak some very particular design. They will permit no one to love them unreservedly but those who are related to them by some special bond of kindred or other relationship.
Winter stalked into the village with rapid strides. The villagers remained at home and enjoyed what their toil had gathered. Threshing, and a little manuring, was the only kind of labor that could be performed. When the grain was threshed, all was silent. Here and there a travelling peddler might be heard crying "Spindles! wives' spindles!" The snow drifted about the street, and all cuddled around the genial tile stove. At such times an evil spirit would walk in the village in broad daylight,--the spirit of idleness. Whomsoever the spirit looked at was doomed to yawn and gossip and quarrel. The time of rest was not a time of recreation, because there had been no exertion to rest from. Young men sat for whole days in the tavern, playing cards; and, though so sorely burdened with excess of time, they never thought of going home till the last stroke of the "police-hour" of eleven had brought in the beadle and the landlord's inevitable notice to quit. Others went to bed early and drowned their time in sleep; while still others soiled it with wickedness.
Idleness is the root of all evil. The industrious alone are intrinsically cheerful, peaceable and well meaning; idlers easily lean to gambling and drunkenness, and are prone to wrangling, quarrels, and treachery. It is for this reason, and this alone, that all the vices love to dwell among the so-called upper classes of society.
While the greater part of the villagers were thus vegetating, the teacher had awakened to a double existence. It sometimes happens that a man who has had a violent fever rises from his bed an inch or two taller than before. Thus our friend, while his flying pulses studied Hedwig's life and being, had made wonderful progress in the understanding of the people's character. As he had formerly "sipped the intellectual breath of beauty" from the productions of inanimate nature, leaving to others the task of turning into use her treasures, so now he recognised the presence of a higher principle in every living intelligence. Every person who crossed his path was a representative of some portion or place of the people's character. Instead of looking down upon others from the eminence of his own intellectuality, he forgot himself, and unconsciously looked up to the intelligence he detected in every other. The others were raised in his estimation, because he thought only of that which ennobled them: himself had sunk, because he was only reminded of himself by those petty occurrences of every-day life which brought out the lesser traits in his own nature.
He was a man who understood the inmost thoughts and feelings of all around him. He boldly followed up his resolve to give them a taste of the pleasures of the mind: he was sufficiently matured himself to penetrate the rough bark which concealed the core of their minds and hearts.
In the evening he would read aloud the papers at the inn. He had many explanations to give, and many false impressions to remove: for the College Chap, who had previously acted as oracle, had taken pleasure in "stuffing up the natives." A little circle habitually gathered round him, while others played cards at the table: even these, however, would occasionally listen to what he was saying, by which many a trick was lost.
Little by little the teacher obtained their confidence, and they spoke their minds more freely. With all the excellence of his intention, he still found it difficult to translate himself entirely into their ways of thinking. It is an easy thing to say, "I love the people!" but to be prepared at all times to receive all sorts of crudities with respect, without taking offence at habits and customs often repulsive and obdurate,--to follow the discursive ones through a thousand pointless digressions,--to sympathize with the impetuous in a jargon of incoherent impulses and sentiments,--requires a power of self-abnegation, a degree of control over one's own individuality, with which but very few are favored. Thanks to his clear understanding of the task, our friend was one of the number.
One evening Mat began, "Mr. Teacher, I'm going to ask a stupid question; but why is that paper called the 'Suabian Mercury,' and not the 'Suabian Markery'? Sure it is a markery; because every thing that happens is marked down there. Is 'Mercury' High German for 'Markery'?"
"You've caught the old robin in his nest," said the College Chap. "You're right there, Mat: those fellows in Stuttgard don't know any thing about it. If I was you I'd go down and tell 'em: they'll give you a premium, depend upon it."
The teacher explained that Mercury had been the messenger of the gods, and the god of trade, in ancient Greece.
"Yes; but how does he come to be called 'Suabian'?" asked Mat, again.
"Well, they chose to give that name to the paper," answered the teacher. He had never thought about it himself.
"I want to know," began Hansgeorge: "did the Greecelanders believe in more gods than one?"
"Of course," replied the College Chap. "One of 'em manured and the other sowed, one rained and the other thundered: they had a particular god or goddess for every particular job. The Greeks even allowed their gods to marry."
"I guess they were saints or angels," said Wendel the mason, "or tutelaries; but they must have had some sort of a captain over them, or it would be a carnival stupid enough to split your sides with laughing."
"You weren't by when they built the tower of Babel, neither, mason," said the College Chap. "Of course they had a captain, and a trump card he was: he had a jealous wife, though, and she gave him lots of trouble. Now, I'll leave it to the teacher whether all this isn't as true as gospel."
Suppressing a sigh, the teacher gave the company a cursory sketch of the Grecian mythology. Some of the wonders included in it created much sensation. It occurred to him, also, how strange it was that he should be expounding the Hellenic sages in a smoky bar-room of the Black Forest. All this was the doing of the Suabian Mercury.
It was almost impossible to persuade the farmers that the Greeks were not "jackasses." He told them of the wise and good Socrates, and of his martyrdom.
"Why, that was almost as bad as the way they treated our Savior," said Kilian of the Frog Alley.
"Certainly," replied the teacher. "Whoever undertakes to teach a new and wholesome truth by its right name and without circumlocution must take a cross for his pains." He sighed as he said this; for it seemed to have some bearing upon his own case: the task he had undertaken was not an easy one.
As they went away, the men said to each other, "We've had a fine evening for once: you get a little wiser, and time passes round before you know it."
The teacher had formed the design of reading something to the farmers about the Grecian mythology: fortunately, however, he laid his hand upon a very different book,--a collection of German proverbs. On entering the bar-room, he took the book from his pocket, saying, "Let me read you something."
There were wry faces on all sides; for farmers regard books as their natural enemies. Mat spoke first:--
"Better tell us a story, Mr. Teacher."
"Yes, yes; tell us something: don't read," was the general response.
"Well, just listen a little while," said the teacher: "if you don't like it, say so, and I'll stop."
He began to read the proverbs, pausing after every one.
"Why, that's what George the blacksmith says," and "That's Spring Bat's word," "That's what old Maurita used to say," "That's your speech, Andrew, Mike, Caspar," was soon heard from different quarters of the room. The players laid aside their cards and listened; for at times a pithy sentence would provoke general merriment.
The teacher could not refrain from asking, with an air of some triumph, "Shall I read on?"
"Yes; read on till morning," said every one; and Kilian of the Frog Alley added, "It must have been the smartest kind of a man that made that book; for he knew every thing. I wonder if he wasn't one of the ancient sages."
"Yes: those are your sort of folks, Kilian," said some one in a corner.
"Be quiet, now," cried others. "Read on, Mr. Teacher."
He did so. Sometimes corrections and additions were suggested, which the teacher would gladly have noted in writing, but refrained for fear of restraining the open-heartedness of the audience. They were overjoyed to find the whole stock of their collective wisdom thus heaped up in a single granary. One or two discussions arose in reference to the explanation, or the truth of this or that proverb, with which the teacher never interfered; others would urge the disputants to silence; while still others urged the teacher to proceed. A bright fire was burning, which our friend had the satisfaction of having kindled.
When he returned the next evening, he found more guests than usual. They had lost their dread of books, and immediately inquired whether he had not some similar entertainment for them.
"Yes," said the teacher, taking out a book. But this time things were not destined to go so smoothly; there were tares among the wheat, sowed by the College Chap, who had a deep-seated aversion to any thing serious or sensible. With some partisans whom he had enlisted, he sat at a table and began to sing. The teacher was at a loss.
"Why, Constantine," said Mat, "a'n't you ashamed of yourself, and you a town-clerk?"
"I've paid for my wine, and have as good a right here as the next man," replied the College Chap; "and the tavern isn't a place to read books in."
There was a general murmur.
"Hold on," said Mat, "we'll soon fix this. Landlord, I'll go and get some wood, and we'll make a fire in the room upstairs. Whoever wants to listen may come up, and whoever don't may stay where he is."
"I'll go," said Thaddie, who had come this evening also. The stove was soon in a glow, for Thaddie was afraid of losing something by making up the fire afterward. Mat sat down beside the teacher and snuffed the candle. The story was Zschokke's "Village of Gold-Makers."
In spite of its fine subject and elevating tendency, the book was far from earning the applause which the teacher had expected: it was so interwoven with the experiences of peasant-life that every one felt himself qualified to judge it. It would occupy too much of our space to repeat all the opinions expressed. Whenever the phrase recurred, "Oswald opened his lips and spoke," Buchmaier smiled in derision of its formality. Many of the ideas were lost; while others received a general nod of approbation.
To the teacher's surprise, the first thing manifest when the story had reached its close was that most of the company sided with the village and against Oswald. Mat soon hit upon the reason of this incongruity in saying, "What I don't like is that Oswald seems to do all the good in the village alone."
"And I," said Thaddie, "would like to pull off his feather and his star: he's a fine fellow, and don't want them gimcracks."
"You're right," replied Buchmaier. "He plays the gentleman too much, anyhow; and as for his hereditary prince, what's he good for? But what were you going to say, Andrew? Bring out the wild-cats."
"I think Oswald has no business to put his nose into other people's pots and pans. What's he got to do with their cooking?"
"And I think," said Kilian, "the farmers are made out a good deal too stupid: it isn't quite so bad, after all."
"And you're a learned man yourself, too," said Hansgeorge. Everybody laughed.
"My notion is," said Wendel the mason, "the village is a deal too bad at first and a deal too good afterward. I don't see how things can change so in one and the same place."
"What puts me out most," said Buchmaier, "is that they can't get through without even making out what sort of clothes people shall wear and what they sha'n't. That's just like the cruelty-to-animals societies. These things must be left to every man's own taste and fancy. And once I could hardly help laughing when Oswald, in his uniform and with the feathers on his hat, embraced the thirty-two men one by one: there's a job for you!"
The teacher called to mind that the book had been written years ago, when people were far more ceremonious than at present. He adverted to the fine moral of the book and the many fine passages it contained. He showed how great is the use of position, money, dress, and other externals to those who desire to carry out good intentions among men, and concluded by saying that it was unjust to make such incidental trifles an excuse for condemning the whole.
"No doubt about that," said Buchmaier. "If I could see the man that wrote that book, I'd take off my hat rather than to the king himself, and say, 'You're a good fellow, and mean well by us.' That's my notion."
When they rose to go, Thaddie nudged Mat, and said, in a whisper, "Come! out with it now, or they'll all run away."
"What do you say, men," began Mat, "to getting the teacher to read to us an evening or two every week?"
"Why, that would be first-rate," cried all.
"I'm quite ready," said the teacher. "Let's have a meeting to-morrow night, say in the school-room. Meantime, all can think about the society, and make proposals."
"Yes, that's right," said every one: and they parted in great good-humor.
The meeting, which was held next day, was stormy. The teacher, with Buchmaier's assistance, had prepared a draft of a constitution. It was read paragraph by paragraph, with a long pause after each. At every pause there was a buzz of conversation; but when the talkers were requested to express their opinions publicly they suddenly ceased. None but Mat, Hansgeorge, Kilian, and Wendel could be induced to address the whole company. A general tempest was provoked by the paragraph,--
"During the continuance of the reading-nights no smoking shall be permitted."
There was no end to the angry mutterings, until Buchmaier, nodding to the teacher, as if to say, "Didn't I tell you so? I know my men," moved to "strike out the law about smoking altogether."
"Yes, yes!" they all exclaimed as with one mouth. Buchmaier continued:--
"So, whoever can't do without smoking, let him smoke. It'll be hard for the teacher to read in the steam; so, if he has to stop, nobody can blame him. But one thing we will stick to: if any man's pipe goes out, he sha'n't light it again till the teacher's done reading. He may sleep if he can't keep his eyes open; but he sha'n't snore."
A roar of laughter ensued, after which Buchmaier went on:--
"So we won't put a word about smoking into the law, and we'll only have the understanding that, when the reading is all done, every man shall light his pipe with the wisdom he's got by listening, and smoke what's been told him. Is that right, or not?"
"Yes: that's right."
"And whoever wants to talk must take the pipe out of his mouth," said the voice of an unknown speaker, who has been too modest to reveal himself to this day.
Another knotty point was the place of meeting. With a fine tact, the teacher objected to the school-room. All the members of the town-council being present, the large anteroom of the town-hall was fixed upon.
On Jack George's motion, it was resolved that every man should be at liberty to have his glass of beer before him, but no more. This proposal made Jack George so popular that he was elected to the executive committee with Mat and Kilian.
There were many other difficulties to be overcome; but a knot of enthusiasts had gathered around the teacher, who carried him over every thing in triumph. The foremost of these were Mat and Thaddie. The latter only regretted that he could not find some herculean labor to perform for the teacher: he would gladly have run through the fire to please him.
On the other hand, the society had two mortal foes, in the landlord of the Eagle and the College Chap. The former feared for his custom, and railed against the teacher, who since his betrothal boarded with his intended father-in-law. The College Chap suspected "psalm-singing" in all things, and said that his brother only meant to catch the people first and pluck them afterward.
It is a customary trick of the monarchical Governments of Europe to disarm demagogues by appointing them to office. In pursuance of the same policy, the teacher made Constantine "alternate reader." Now that it afforded scope for his ambition, the College Chap was one of the most devoted adherents of the society.
Thus the teacher gradually learned to understand men and to govern them. He made efforts to gain the support of the old teacher and of the Jewish schoolmaster. What the former wanted in zeal the latter richly atoned for. Some Jews, who, being engaged in agriculture or in mechanical trades, were always at home, also took an active part.
The selection of the books was not easy. Our friend soon found that didactic reading, or that which aimed immediately at moral instruction and improvement, must not be allowed to preponderate. Without degrading the matter to mere amusement, he read extracts from the Limpurg Chronicles, Gleim's poems, and the lives of Schubart, Moser, Franklin, and others. Particular success attended the reading of Paul and Virginia, and of Wallenstein's Camp, to which were added some chapters from Simplicissimus. The greatest attention, however, was excited by the reading of Kœrner's "Hedwig, the Bandit's Bride," by the teacher, the College Chap, and the Jewish teacher. The exalted diction and wonderful incidents produced a great impression. At the close of the piece, Mat inquired, "What became of the robbers in the cellar? Were they burned or hanged?"
The teacher could not repress a laugh at this sympathetic question, but he knew not what to answer. Perhaps one of our readers will have the goodness to inform him.
Sometimes the old popular books were read likewise: the Schildburgers aroused especial merriment.
The teacher now rarely found time to enter general reflections into his note-hook: what he thought was at once communicated to those around him, and what he felt was expressed to Hedwig. We find one or two observations, however, in those half-forgotten leaves:--
"When I look at these lucubrations, it occurs to me that I used to be a great egotist: I meant to swallow the whole world, instead of giving the world any benefit from my being in it. What is the value of all this selfish refinement of feeling compared to a single sound thought imparted to the mind of another! How glad I am to have all this behind me!"
"How easy it is to appear great, learned, and superior, if you withdraw from intercourse with the people, build a private palace of knowledge and thought, a castle on a hill, far from the denizens of the valley! But the moment you descend to mingle with the inhabitants of the plain, the moment you live among them and for them, you find to your astonishment that often you are ignorant of the simplest things and untouched by the finest thoughts. I have read of princes who never, or scarcely ever, are seen by the people. For them it is easy enough to be hedged with majesty."
"As the breath of the land and sea returns to them after having been congealed into rain-drops in upper air, so the spirit of a people must return from the lofty realms of literature to its source,--the people's heart."
"There can be no doubt that many of the world-renowned Grecian heroes were no more educated in what we now term education than my Hansgeorge, Kilian, Mat, Thaddie, Wendel, and so on, not to speak of Buchmaier, Bat, owing to the publicity of their political and social organization, of their arts, of the forms of worship which emanated from the very core of the people's heart, a world of thoughts, feelings, views, and delicate suggestions hovered in the air. People were not restricted to Biblical stories, narratives of men and women who had lived in other climes and under other traditions, having no immediate correspondence with their own condition. They heard of their own forefathers, who had lived as they lived, who had acted thus and so and thought so and thus: particular sentiments and anecdotes were handed down from generation to generation; all these things concerned them nearly; and at need the descendants emulated the heroism of their ancestors. We give the name of sacred history to the fortunes of a foreign people, and neglect our own as profane. The Greeks had Homer by heart; and this gave them a fund of sayings and images adapted to their condition. We Germans have no one to take his place: even Schiller is not in the reach of every class of the people. Almost all we have is a stock of national wisdom garnered up in the form of proverbs, which has developed itself independently of the Old and New Testament. We have the sentiment of the people incarnate in their songs. This the Greeks had not."
Soon after the reading-room was organized, the teacher established a musical association, which was joined by all the single men and a few of the married ones. This appeased mine host at the Eagle, as they met for practice in his room up-stairs. Though virtually the master-spirit of the whole, our friend devolved the ostensible management upon the old schoolmaster, who was marvellously well fitted for the office. They wisely devoted the most of their attention to popular songs. The villagers were delighted thus to come by their own again in a new dress and without the omission of the text consequent upon mere oral transmission. One by one, some new songs were cautiously introduced, great attention being paid to the time and emphasis.
As the opposition of the College Chap had been the chief obstacle of success of the reading-room, so the arrogance of George threatened to stifle the glee-club in the bud. Considering himself a singer of renown, he took the lead, but disdained any reference to time and measure. The steps taken to conciliate him failed: he left the club, and his secession threatened to dismember it. Its good effects had already been perceived: many vulgar and improper songs had been displaced by better ones; and, though the preference might be owing to their novelty rather than to their superiority, yet the better words and tones, once introduced, could not but exercise their legitimate influence.
George now noised abroad that the teacher meant to make the grown-up folks sing children's songs, and that it was a shame for grown-up people to sing them. He soon drew a party around him, and the number of those who remained faithful dwindled away. Thaddie offered to give George a good whacking; but Buchmaier found a more gentle method of preserving the club. He invited the parson and all the members of the club, except George, to sup with him on New Year's Eve. This infused new life into the dry bones.
The parson had left the teacher entirely undisturbed; for he was not one of those who decry every thing good which they have not originated themselves.
On New Year's Eve there was great rejoicing in Buchmaier's house.
"Mr. Teacher," said Buchmaier, "when you're married you must get up a glee-club for the girls."
"And the young married women may come too," cried Agnes.
"Yes; but you must keep them singing all the time, or they'll talk the devil's ears off."
Many a toast was given. Boys otherwise noted for their bashfulness here made speeches in presence of the parson, the teacher, and the squire. At last Thaddie seized a glass and drank to "the teacher and his lassie," which was drunk with never-ending cheers.
With Hedwig he was on the happiest footing. She willingly followed all his suggestions the moment she was convinced that he no longer desired to remodel her whole being but only to further her native development. At first his experience was singular. Whenever he wished to direct her thoughts into a higher channel, he made a thousand preparations and inductions. He meant thus and so, and she must not misapprehend him. Once Hedwig said, "Look here: when you want me to think something, say it right out, and don't make so many concoctions about it. I'll tell you whether I like it or not."
So he dropped this last remnant of his solitary wanderings, and they understood each other perfectly. Even in school the new impetus to his mind was invaluable. He illustrated abstractions by illustrations drawn from what was familiar to all. He labored earnestly at a history of the village, intending to make it the starting-point for his instruction of the history of the country.
Some wiseacres predicted that the teacher's zeal would not be of long duration. We take the liberty to think otherwise.
Spring came, and the bells repaired to Rome to tell the story of the village: they had fewer sins than usual to report of the past winter.
After Easter came the wedding-day, which had been fixed on the anniversary of the teacher's arrival in the village. On the evening before, Hedwig went to the old teacher and asked him to do his best in the prelude next day. He smiled, and said, "Yes: you shall like it."
Next day they went to church, preceded by the musicians. Hedwig dressed like her playmate Agnes, the teacher decorated with a nosegay, like his playmate Thaddie, Buchmaier, Johnnie, and the Jewish teacher behind them. When all had assembled, the old teacher began the prelude. Every one smiled; for the old joker had interwoven the air of the Lauterbacher very skilfully into his piece. Soon after, the glee-club struck up the chant,--
"Holy is the Lord!"
and the nuptial tie was fastened with joyous earnestness, Blessings attend it!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1]: Bartholomew's Sebastian's.
[Footnote 2]: Not a lord of the manor, according to the English acceptation of the term, but a sort of village mayor, elected by the farmers out of their own number. Very little of the feudal tenure remains in the Black Forest, the peasants being almost everywhere lords of the soil.
[Footnote 3]: A ring of hard wood or stone fixed to the end of the spindle, to weigh it down and improve its turning.
[Footnote 4]: About half a cent.
[Footnote 5]: And thereby escape being taken as a recruit.
[Footnote 6]: Joseph; Joe.
[Footnote 7]: The name of a tract of ground. All the lands belonging to a village are divided into such tracts, every tract having particular qualifications. These are subdivided, and the subdivisions distributed among the farmers: in this manner every farmer has a portion of every kind of ground belonging to the farm-manor.
[Footnote 8]: If the American reader is tempted to doubt or to contemn this stretch of economy, he must remember the different standards governing the people of the Old and the New World in this respect.
[Footnote 9]: Clotho holds the distaff, Lachesis spins the thread, and Atropos severs it.
[Footnote 10]: Black Forest provincialism:--a scamp, a loafer.
[Footnote 11]: Suabian.
[Footnote 12]: Brother.
[Footnote 13]: Son of God.
[Footnote 14]: What temptation a counterfeit wild cat holds out to the traveller to sit down upon it, the translator is not in a condition to explain,--probably on instance of the matter-of-fact character of the American mind.