CHAPTER XVIII.
When dinner was over, Mining, whose turn it was to help her mother, in clearing up, tidying the room and making coffee, asked her sister, "Lining, where are you going?"
"I am going to get my sewing," said Lining, "and sit in the arbor."
"Well, I will come soon," said Mining.
"And I will come too," said Gottlieb slowly, "I have a book that I must finish reading to-day."
"That is right," said Bräsig, "that will be a devilish fine entertainment for Lining."
Gottlieb wanted to preach him a little sermon upon his misuse of the word devilish, but restrained himself, since he reflected that it would be thrown away upon Bräsig; so he said nothing, but followed the girls out of the room.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Frau Nüssler, "what has happened to my children? I don't know what to make of it; they are one heart and one soul again."
"Keep quiet, Frau Nüssler," said Bräsig, "I will find out all about it, to-day. Jochen, come out with me; but don't go to talking!"
Jochen followed him into the garden. Bräsig took him under the arm. "Keep quite still, Jochen, and don't look round, and act as if we were taking a walk after dinner."
Jochen did so, very skilfully.
When they came to the cherry-tree before the arbor, Bräsig stopped.
"So, Jochen, now stoop over,--with your head against the tree."
Jochen would have spoken, but Bräsig pushed down his head.
"Keep still, Jochen,--put your head against the tree!" and with that he clambered up on Jochen's back. "So I now stand up! Sure enough, I can just reach,"--and he caught the lowest boughs, and pulled himself up into the tree. Jochen had said nothing as yet, but now he broke out:
"Bräsig, they are not ripe yet."
"Blockhead!" cried Bräsig, looking, with his red face among the green leaves, like a gay basket hung on the branches, "do you think I expect to pick Rhenish cherries on St. John's day? But you must go away now, and not stand there looking at me, like a dog that has treed a cat."
"Yes, what shall I do about it?" said Jochen, and left Bräsig to his destiny.
Bräsig had not long to watch, before he heard a light, quick, step on the gravel-walk, and Lining seated herself in the arbor, with a great heap of needle-work. If she meant to do all that to-day, she should have begun immediately; but she laid it on the table, rested her head on her hand, and, looking out into the blue heaven through Bräsig's cherry-tree, sat in deep thought. "Ah, how happy I am!" said the little, thankful soul, "my Mining is good to me again, and Gottlieb is good to me, else why did he keep touching my foot at dinner? and how Bräsig looked at me! I believe I turned quite red. Ah, what a good old fellow Gottlieb is! How seriously and learnedly he talks, how steady he is, the minister is clearly written on his face! He is not handsome, to be sure, Rudolph is much better looking, but he has something peculiar about him, as if he were ever saying, don't come near me with your pitiable, lamentable nonsense, I have higher thoughts, I am spiritually minded. But I will cut his hair for him, by and by."
It is a merciful providence that the little maidens are not all taken with a fine exterior, else we ugly fellows would be obliged to remain bachelors, and it would be a sad company, for what can be uglier than an ugly old bachelor?
In Lining's closing reflection--that she would cut Gottlieb's hair shorter--was implied such a confident hope, that she blushed to think of it, and, as she heard the gravel creak under slow, dignified steps, she seized her needle-work and begun to sew diligently.
Gottlieb came with his book, and seated himself about three feet from her, and began to read, but often looked off from his book as if he were turning over in his mind what he had just read, or perhaps something else. It is always so with the Pietist candidates, that is, when they have found their right calling, and sincerely believe what they preach to the people; before their examination they have none but spiritual thoughts, but after their examination worldly matters claim their share of attention, and instead of thinking of a parish they think first of a marriage. It was so with Gottlieb, and because, since his examination, no other girls had come in his way but Lining and Mining, and Lining had paid much closer attention to his admonitions than her light-hearted sister, he had happened upon the worldly thought of making her a pastor's wife. He was not very expert at the business, labouring, indeed, under great embarrassment, and had as yet gone no further than treading on her feet, a proceeding which he was quite as bashful in attempting, as Lining in receiving. He had decided, however, to open the matter in proper style, so he said, "Lining, I have brought this book out really on your account. Will you listen to some of it?"
"Yes," said Lining.
"It will be a tedious story," said Bräsig to himself. He did not lie on a bed of roses, up in the cherry-tree.
Gottlieb read an edifying discourse upon Christian marriage, how it should be thought of, and with what feelings entered into, and when he had finished, he moved a step nearer, and asked:
"What do you say to it, Lining?
"It is certainly very beautiful," said she.
"Marriage?" asked Gottlieb.
"Oh, Gottlieb!" said Lining, and bent lower over her needlework.
"No, Lining," said Gottlieb, moving up another step, "it is not beautiful. God bless you for it, that you have not placed a light estimate upon this important act of human life. It is terribly hard, that is in a Christian sense," and he gave her a fearful description of the heavy duties and troubles and cares of married life, as if he were preparing her for a residence at the House of Correction, while Bräsig, up in the cherry-tree, crossed himself, and thanked his stars that he had not entered on that sad estate. "Yes, Lining," said he, "marriage is a part of the curse, with which God drove our first parents out of Paradise," and he took his Bible, and read to the little girl the third chapter of the first book of Moses, till Lining trembled all over, and did not know where to go, for shame and distress.
"Infamous Jesuit!" exclaimed Bräsig half aloud, "to distress the innocent child like that!" and he was almost ready to spring down from the tree, and Lining would almost have run away, only that the book out of which he was reading was the Bible, and what was in the Bible must be good; she covered her face with her hands, and cried bitterly. He was now full of spiritual zeal, and threw his arm about her, saying, "I spare thee not, in this solemn hour! Caroline Nüssler, wilt thou, under these Christian conditions, be my Christian wedded wife?"
Ah, and Lining was in such a dreadful confusion, she could neither speak nor think, but only cry and cry.
Then resounded along the garden path, a merry song:
"Little fish in silver brook,
Swimming off to a shady nook,
Little gray fish
Seeking a wife."
And Lining made a desperate effort, and started out of the arbor, spite of the Bible and Christian conditions, to meet Mining, who was coming out, with her sewing; and Gottlieb followed, with long, slow steps, and his face looked as wonder-stricken as that of the young preacher, when in the midst of his long sermon, the sexton laid the church-door key on the pulpit, saying that when he had finished he might lock up, himself, for he was going to dinner. And he might well looked astonished, for, like the young preacher, he had done his best, and his church stood empty.
Mining was a little, inexperienced child, being the youngest, but she was sufficiently acute to perceive that something had happened, and to ask herself whether she would not cry under similar circumstances, and what sort of comfort would be necessary. She seated herself quietly, in the arbor, arranged her needle-work, and, reflecting upon her own unsettled circumstances, began to sigh a little, for want of anything else in particular to do.
"Preserve me!" said Bräsig, in the tree, "now the little rogue has come, and my legs are perfectly numb, and the business is getting tedious."
But the business was not to be tedious long, for soon after Mining had seated herself, there appeared around the corner of the arbor a handsome, young fellow, with a fishing-rod over his shoulder, and a basket of fish suspended around his neck.
"This is good, Mining," cried he, "that I find you here. Of course you have had dinner long ago?"
"You may well think so, Rudolph," she replied, "it is just two o'clock."
"Aunt will certainly be very angry with me."
"You may be sure of that, she is so already, without your being late to dinner; but your own stomach will be the worst to you, for you have cared for it poorly, to-day."
"So much the better for yours, this evening. I could not come sooner, it was out of the question, with the fish biting so finely. I have been to the Black Pool today. Bräsig will never let me go there, and I understand the reason; it is his private pantry when he cannot find fish elsewhere; the whole pond is full of tench, just look! See there, what splendid fellows!" and he opened his basket, and showed his treasures. "I have got ahead of old Bräsig, this time!"
"Infamous rascal!" exclaimed Bräsig, to himself, and his nose peered out between the leaves, like one of the pickled gherkins, which Frau Nüssler was in the habit of putting up for the winter, in these same cherry-leaves. "Infamous rascal! he has been among my tench, then! May you keep the nose on your face! what fish the scamp has caught!"
"Give them to me, Rudolph," said Mining. "I will take them in, and bring you out something to eat."
"Oh, no! no! Never mind.
"But you must be hungry.
"Well, then, just a little something, Mining. A slice or two of bread and butter!"
Mining went, and Rudolph seated himself in the arbor.
He had a sort of easy indifference, as if he would let things come to him, but yet, when they touched him nearly, he would not fail to grapple with them. His figure was slender, and yet robust, and with the roguery in his brown eyes was mingled a spark of obstinacy, with which the little scar on his brown cheek harmonized so well, that one could safely infer he had not spent all his time in the study of dogmatic theology. "Yes," said he, as he sat there, "the fox must go to his own hole. I have beaten about the bush long enough; to be sure there has been time to spare, there was no hurry about settling matters until now; but, to-day, two things must be decided. To-day the old man is coming; well for me that mother does not come too, else I might find myself wanting in courage, at last. I am as fit for a parson as a donkey to play on the guitar, or Gottlieb for a colonel of cuirassiers. If Bräsig were only here, to-day, he would stand by me. But Mining! If I could get that settled first."
Just then, Mining came along, with a plate of bread and butter.
Rudolph sprang up: "Mining, what a good little thing you are!" and he threw his arm around her.
Mining pulled herself away; "Ah, let me be! What a naughty boy you are! Mother is dreadfully angry with you."
"You mean on account of the sermon? Well, yes! It was a stupid trick."
"No," said Mining, earnestly, "it was a wicked trick. It was making light of holy things."
"Oh, ho! Such candidates' sermons are not such holy things,--even when they come from our pious Gottlieb."
"But, Rudolph, in the church!"
"Ah, Mining, I acknowledge it was a stupid trick, I did not consider it beforehand; I only thought of the sheepish face Gottlieb would make, and that amused me so that I did the foolish thing. But let it go, Mining!" and he threw his arm about her again.
"No, let go!" said Mining, but did not push it away. "And the pastor said, if he should report the matter, you could never in your life get a parish."
"Let him report it then; I wish he would, and I should be out of the scrape once for all."
"What?" asked Mining, making herself free, and pushing him back a little way, "do you say that in earnest?"
"In solemn earnest. It was the first and last time I shall enter a pulpit."
"Rudolph!" exclaimed Mining, in astonishment.
"Why should that trouble you?" cried Rudolph, hastily. "Look at Gottlieb, look at me! Am I fit for a pastor? And if I had whole systems of theology in my head, so that I could even instruct the learned professors, they would not let me through my examination; they demand also a so-called religious experience. And if I were the apostle Paul himself, they would have nothing to do with me, if they knew about the little scar on my cheek."
"But what will you do, then?" asked Mining, and laid her hand hastily on his arm. "Ah, don't be a soldier!"
"God forbid! Don't think of such a thing! No, I will be a farmer."
"Confounded scamp!" said Bräsig, up in the tree.
"Yes, my dear little Mining," said Rudolph, drawing her down on the bench beside him, "I will be a farmer, a right active, skilful farmer, and you, my little old dear Mining, shall help me about it."
"She shall teach him to plough and to harrow," said Bräsig.
"I, Rudolph?" asked Mining,
"Yes, you, my dear, sweet child,"--and he stroked the shining hair, and the soft cheeks, and lifted the little chin, and looked full in the blue eyes,--"if I only knew, with certainty, that in a year and a day you would be my little wife, it would be easy for me to learn to be a skilful farmer. Will you, Mining, will you?"
And the tears flowed from Mining's eyes, and Rudolph kissed them away, here and there, over her cheeks, down to her rosy mouth, and Mining laid her little round head on his breast, and when he gave her time to speak, she whispered softy that she would, and he kissed her again, and ever again, and Bräsig called, half aloud, from the tree, "But that is too much of a good thing! Have done!"
And Rudolph told her, between the kisses, that he would speak with his father, to-day, and remarked also, by the way, it was a pity Bräsig was not there; he could help him finely in his undertaking, and he knew the old man thought a great deal of him.
"Confounded scamp!" said Bräsig, "catching away my tench!"
And Mining said Bräsig was there, and was taking his afternoon nap.
"Just hear the rogue, will you?" said Bräsig. "This looks like an afternoon nap! But it is all finished now. Why should I torment my poor bones any longer?" And as Rudolph was saying he must speak to the old gentleman, Bräsig slid down the cherry-tree, until his trousers were stripped up to his knees, and caught by the lowest branches, saying, "Here he hangs!" and then he let himself fall, and stood close before the pair of lovers, with an expression on his heated face, which said quite frankly he considered himself a suitable arbiter in the most delicate affairs.
The young people did not conduct themselves badly. Mining did like Lining in putting her hands before her face, only she did not cry, and she would have run away like Lining, if she had not, from a little child, stood on the most confidential footing with her Uncle Bräsig. She threw herself, with her eyes covered, against her Uncle Bräsig's breast, and crept with her little, round head almost into his waistcoat pocket, and cried,--
"Uncle Bräsig! Uncle Bräsig! you are an abominable old fellow!"
"So?" asked Bräsig. "Eh, that is very fine."
"Yes," said Rudolph, with a little air of superiority, "you should be ashamed to play the listener here."
"Monsieur Noodle," said Bräsig, "let me tell you, once for all, I have never in my life done anything to be ashamed of, and if you think you can teach me good manners you are very much mistaken."
Rudolph had sense enough to see this, and, although he would have relished a little contest, it was clear to him that on this occasion he must yield to Mining's wishes. So he remarked, in a pleasanter tone, that if Bräsig were up in the tree by chance--he would take that for granted--he might at least have advised them of his presence, by coughing, or in some way, instead of listening to their affairs from A to Z.
"So?" said Bräsig, "I should have coughed, should I? I groaned often enough and if you had not been so occupied with your own affairs, you might easily have heard me. But you ought to be ashamed, to be making love to Mining without Frau Nüssler's permission."
That was his own affair, Rudolph said, and nobody's else, and Bräsig knew nothing about such matters.
"So?" asked Bräsig, again. "Did you ever have three sweethearts at once? I did, sir; three acknowledged sweethearts, and do I know about such matters? But you are such a sly old rascal, fishing my tench out of the Black Pool, on the sly; and fishing my little Mining, before my very eyes, out of the arbor. Come, leave him alone, Mining! he shall have nothing to do with you."
"Ah, Uncle Bräsig," begged Mining so artlessly, "be good to us, we love each other so much."
"Well, never mind Mining, you are my little goddaughter; though that is all over now."
"No, Herr Inspector!" cried Rudolph,--laying his hand on the old man's shoulder, "no, dear, good Uncle Bräsig, that is not over, that shall last as long as we live. I will be a farmer, and if I have the prospect of calling Mining my wife, and"--he was cunning enough to add--"and you will give me your valuable advice, the devil must be in it, if I cannot make a good one."
"A confounded rascal!" said Bräsig to himself, adding, aloud, "Yes, you will be such a Latin farmer as Pistorius, and Prætorius, and Trebonius, and you will sit on the bank of the ditch and read that fellow's book, with the long title, about oxygen and carbonic acid gas, and organisms, while the cursed farmboys are strewing manure, behind your back, in lumps as big as your hat-crown. Oh, I know you! I never knew but one man who had been to the great schools, and was worth anything afterward, and that was the young Herr yon Rambow, who was with Habermann."
"Ah, Uncle Bräsig," said Mining, lifting her head, suddenly, and stroking the old man's cheeks, "what Franz can do, Rudolph can do also."
"No, Mining, that he can not! And why? Because he is a greyhound, and the other is a decided character!"
"Uncle Bräsig," said Rudolph, "you are thinking of that stupid trick of mine, about the sermon; but Gottlieb had teased me so with his zeal for proselyting, I must play some little joke on him."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Bräsig, "well, why not, it amused me, it amused me very much. So he wanted to convert you too, from fishing, perhaps? Oh, he has been trying to convert somebody here, this afternoon, but Lining ran away from him; however, that is all right."
"With Lining and Gottlieb?" asked Mining anxiously, "and have you listened to that, too?"
"Of course I listened to it, it was on their account I perched myself in this confounded cherry-tree. But now come here Monsieur Rudolph. Will you, all your life long, never again go into the pulpit and preach a sermon?"
"No, never again."
"Will you get up at four o'clock in the morning, and three o'clock in the summer-time, and give out fodder grain?"
"Always, at the very hour."
"Will you learn how to plough and harrow and mow properly, and to reap and bind sheaves, that is, with a band,--there is no art in using a rope?"
"Yes," said Rudolph.
"Will you promise never to sit over the punch-bowl, at the Thurgovian ale-house, when your wagons are already gone, and then ride madly after them?"
"I will never do it," said Rudolph.
"Will you also never in your life--Mining, see that beautiful larkspur, the blue, I mean, just bring it to me, and let me smell it--will you," he continued, when she was gone, "never entangle yourself with the confounded farm-girls?"
"Herr Inspector, what do you take me for?" said Rudolph angrily, turning away.
"Come, come," said Bräsig, "every business must be settled beforehand, and I give you warning: for every tear my little godchild sheds on your account I will give your neck a twist," and he looked as fierce as if he were prepared to do it immediately.
"Thank you Mining," said he, as she brought him the flower, and he smelled it, and stuck it in his buttonhole.
"And now, come here, Mining, I will give you my blessing. No, you need not fall on your knees, since I am not one of your natural parents, but merely your godfather. And you, Monsieur Rudolph, I will stand by you this afternoon, when your father comes, and help you out of this clerical scrape. And now, come, both of you, we must go in. But I tell you, Rudolph, don't sit reading, by the ditches, but attend to the manure-strewing. You see there is a trick in it, the confounded farm-boys must take the fork, and then not throw it off directly, no! they must first break it up three or four times with the fork, so that it gets well separated. A properly manured field ought to look as neat and fine as a velvet coverlid."
With that, he went, with the others, out of the garden gate.