CHAPTER V.
Funk had been unable to deny himself the pleasure of being on hand.
When we passed the garden of the "Wild Man" tavern he stood at the fence, surrounded by several of his companions. They lifted their foaming beer-glasses on high, and cried, "Long live Ludwig, the republican!" Ludwig merely nodded his thanks, and then said to me:
"Father, let us get in and ride home."
The carriages were awaiting us.
I wanted my daughter-in-law to sit with me, but she insisted that Ludwig and Wolfgang should do so, while she joined Johanna and the rest of the party.
Rothfuss, who at other times took so great a pleasure in cracking his whip, now sounded it but lightly.
"Rothfuss, how long have you been with us?" asked Ludwig.
"Longer than you have been in this world," was the answer.
My grandson, Wolfgang, laughed out loud, and told us that his father had prophesied that very answer.
As we drove through the village, every one came to the windows to greet us.
We were passing the house of the kreis-director. The family were seated in the garden, and we were obliged to stop with them for a little while. The roses were lovely, and the faces of our friends were bright with kindness.
The husband, the wife, and the daughters welcomed the new-comers most cordially, and the wife handed my daughter-in-law a bouquet of roses.
Their son was also present. He had become a lieutenant, and his countenance seemed to combine the clear, bright expression of the mother, with the sternness of the father.
Julius and Martha were standing a little way off, beside a blooming rose-bush, and when I said to Ludwig, "Behold your future niece," they were both so suffused with blushes, that they resembled the roses. My daughter-in-law embraced Martha, and was afterward embraced by the Privy Councillor's wife.
Ludwig urged our departure for home, and the charming woman thanked us heartily for the short visit we had paid her. In the meantime, Rontheim had opened a bottle of wine and filled our glasses.
Our glasses clinked; we emptied them, and started on our way; and Rothfuss said, "The Privy Councillor did the right thing in pouring out some wine; eating and drinking is the best half of nourishment." Ludwig laughed heartily.
Ludwig held me by the hand while we drove along the valley road.
"The houses have been rebuilt," he said, pointing towards the right bank of the stream. It was there that, during the uprising of 1848, he had been in command, and where the houses had been burned to the ground.
"We have him in a sack; if we could only keep him there for ourselves for a couple of weeks," called out Rothfuss.
My grandson did not understand him, and I was obliged to explain how Rothfuss always managed to catch my very thought.
I had wished to be able to have Ludwig's society for myself, and to give no one a part of him, except of course his brothers and sisters. From a few remarks of Ludwig's, I gathered that he was aware of my thoughts, and the first thing he said to me was a text for all that followed.
"I have not forgotten mother's saying, and it has often been a guide for me: 'We have part in the world, and the world ought to have part in us.'"
It seemed to me that Rothfuss was laughing to himself. I had been mistaken, however, for Wolfgang, who was seated on the box with Rothfuss, now called out, "Father, Rothfuss is crying!"
"Is there anything that such an American wouldn't notice?" replied Rothfuss, sitting upright on the box, and cracking his whip with all his might.
"And so the new road through the valley is finished," said Ludwig; "I suppose Antonin built that. It would have been better, though, if they had carried it along the other bank."
The new road had, however, only been laid out as far as the boundary line; from there unto my dwelling, which was fully two hours distant, there was only the old road, which was in a horrible condition.
"Father," exclaimed Wolfgang, "here are the boundary posts that you told me of."
"Yes," said Ludwig; "this is yet old Germany. Here, there is still separation."
I believe that I have not yet mentioned that I live near the border. Our village is the last point in our territory, and further down the valley is the beginning of the neighboring principality.
How strange! There was so much that we wished to speak of to one another, and the first subject of conversation was the laying out of the new road.
And it is well that it is so; for this helps one over the heart-throbs that otherwise would be almost insupportable.
Ludwig had mentioned mother, and for the present she was not referred to again.
He had a quick glance, and always thought of what might benefit the community; and when Wolfgang expressed his delight at the wild, rushing valley stream, Ludwig said to me, "That stream could do much more work. There is a fortune floating there, thrown into the water, as it were, and flowing away from our valley out into the ocean."
"To whom does water-power belong?" inquired Wolfgang.
We gave him the desired information, and this question was a happy proof of his active, inquiring mind.
"Over yonder," said Rothfuss, "there is a miller who has his water-power direct from the heavens." He pointed to the house of the so-called "thunder miller," who had built his mill in such a way that its wheel would only go after there had been a storm.
The ground for some distance before we reached the tunnel, was covered with cherry-trees with straight trunks, the branches of which looked like a well-arranged bouquet; and on the heights were the beech-trees with their red buds, and one could follow the gradual development of the foliage.
"Look, Wolfgang," said Ludwig, "you can see here how spring gradually climbs up the mountain side."
"Father," exclaimed Wolfgang, "the people in the fields are all looking up at us."
"They all know grandfather," replied Ludwig; and, turning to me, he explained: "It seems strange to the boy, for the American never looks up from his work, even if seven trains of cars rush by within ten paces of him."
At the boundary line, Gaudens greeted us.
We halted there for a while. He came up to the carriage, stretched out his hand, and exclaimed, "Do you know me yet?"
"Certainly I do; you are Gaudens."
"Yes, it is easy to find me; from here around the corner, down to the Maiengrund is my district. I was in the revolution too, but I lied my way out. Yes, Ludwig, you have wandered about a great deal in the wide world. It is best at home, after all; isn't it? Is this your son?"
"It is."
"God bless him. And what a splendid wife you have!--What a pity about Ernst; he has such a good heart and is such a sensible fellow, and yet commits such wicked and foolish tricks. All I wish for is to have a place where I might have some little extra profits from fruit and grass by the road; nothing ripens here but pine cones."
When Wolfgang shook hands with him at parting, he said, "He has a soft hand; he cannot swing the pickaxe as you did when you were building your first road."
"How lovely it is here," said Wolfgang. "Here you know every one, and every one knows you; you cannot meet a stranger."
He was right; it is so; and this makes a full life, but a hard one too.
We left the forester's house, where the forester's pretty wife, holding a child on her arm, greeted us. Our way lay along the crest of the mountain, and looked down into the valley, where the haystacks were scattered about the meadow, in the hollow, and along the hillside. Ludwig said:
"Whenever I thought of home, this view of the valley always came back to me. I was walking here once with Ernst, while he was yet quite a little fellow, and he said to me, 'Ludwig, look at the haystacks. Don't they look like a scattered herd of cows on the meadow?'"
He must have noticed that his allusion to Ernst had agitated me, and he added, "Father, we must be strong enough to think calmly of the dead and of the lost ones."
When we passed the woods that belonged to Uncle Linker and me, Ludwig was delighted to find how nicely they had been kept.
He then inquired about Martella, and when I said that she had a strange aversion to America, and disliked to hear it mentioned, he replied:
"Do you not believe, father, that she has an unexplained, and perhaps sad, past, which is in some way associated with America?" I was startled;--the case seemed to present new and puzzling difficulties.
Ludwig was pleased with the meadow-valley where he had arranged the trench with sluices. In very good seasons, there were four crops; but one was always sure of at least three. The value of the meadow-farmer's property had in this way been doubled.
Down by the saw-mill, we met Carl, who was just using the windlass to drag a large beam from the wagon.
He turned around as we approached and saluted us, and Ludwig's wife said, "What a handsome fellow! He is just as I have imagined all your countrymen to be."
We alighted, and walked up the hill and on towards the village.
When Ludwig saw the churchyard, he removed his hat from his head, remained standing for a moment in silence, and then walked on briskly.
At the steps of the house he extended his hand to his wife and said, "Welcome to the house of my parents!"
Martella was standing on the piazza: she stood there immovable, holding herself by the railing.
"That pretty girl there, with large staring eyes, is Ernst's betrothed, I presume?" said Ludwig.
I said, "Yes."
We went up the steps and entered the room. Without speaking a word, Martella offered her hand to every one of the new arrivals. She seemed absent minded and was silent.
My daughter-in-law and Wolfgang were surprised to find that we still had fires in our stoves.
A little pleasantry at once made us all feel at home with one another. I told my new daughter-in-law how happily I had lived with my wife, but that even we had been obliged to adapt ourselves to each other's ways.
From the earliest days in autumn until far into the summer, it had been our custom to have our sitting-room heated every morning and evening. At first it went hard with me, but after a while we accustomed ourselves to the same outer temperature, and the nicely warmed room at last became a great comfort to me, whenever I returned from the fields.
"I understand perfectly, and thank you for telling me of mother first of all," said my daughter-in-law.
Martella remained silent and reserved towards the newcomers, and, for the rest of the evening, we did not see her again. She remained in the kitchen and instructed one of the servants to serve the meal. With the help of the schoolmaster's wife she had prepared us a fine feast.
Wolfgang suddenly asked to see the family woods, and as it was still broad daylight, Ludwig took him out to gratify his curiosity.
I was left alone with my daughter-in-law, and when I conducted her through the house and showed her, above all things, the apartment with the plaster casts, her pure and tranquil nature became revealed to me for the first time.
When Ludwig returned, he expressed great pleasure with the fountain that mother had ordered to be repaired at the time the new forest path was laid out. He promised to send to the iron foundry at once, and order a pretty column with a pipe through it.
"Mother inspired me with an affection for this spring," said he. "While building the aqueduct, I thought of her almost every day; and along the space where the pipes were running under ground, I planted pines, in order that pretty woods might grow there, and the temperature of the water always remain the same. Of all the great and impressive things I beheld in America, one little monument impressed me most of all; it was that to Fredrick Graff, who built the waterworks of Philadelphia."
Night approached. We were seated in the arbor, and Wolfgang exclaimed, "The stars shine more brightly here than elsewhere."
"The dark woods make it appear so," said Ludwig. And just over the family woods, seeming to touch the tops of the trees as if fixed there, a star glistened and shone with a brightness that was marvellous even to me.
Ludwig conducted himself with great self-control and moderation. He spoke slowly and in a low voice, in order to keep down all agitation.
Long after the new-comers had retired to rest, Rothfuss and I were still sitting in front of the house.
Rothfuss could not come to an understanding with himself. He said, "Our Ludwig is still the same, and is changed for all; he has not grown, and yet he is larger."
He told me that Ludwig had come out into the stable to him, and when he had told Ludwig that the sorrel horse was the son of our gray stud, he had taken the horse firmly by the mane and said, "Rothfuss, you have been faithful to my father; I cannot fully recompense you for it, but express a wish and I will do what I can for you."
Rothfuss had heard no more of what was said.
He could not help crying like a child; and now he would like to know what he ought to wish for. He said that he wanted no one to advise him; he must find it out himself. For a long while, neither of us spoke a word. There was not a sound to be heard, save the bubbling of the fountain in front of the house.
I retired to my room, but could find no rest, and sat by the window for a long while.
It seemed to me as if an invisible and inaudible spirit was wandering through the house and bestowing upon it peace and quiet, above all other spots upon this earth.
Just then the watchman called the hour of midnight; the window of Ludwig's chamber opened, and Ludwig called out, "Tobias, come and see me to-morrow: I have something for you."
"Are you still awake?" cried I.
"Yes, father; and when I heard the watchman I knew for sure that I am at home. Now I understand the proverb, 'He who does not wander, does not return.' It is only among strangers that one learns to appreciate his home.
"But now go to sleep. Good-night, father."