"But you promise to do me no harm?"
"Don't you know me, young Maiden, the Miller Werner from the Kreuzgrund, behind Ziegelhausen."
"Ah, is it you Father Werner," said she crying for joy. "How did you find out where I was?"
"The wretches who hunted you down, said, you disappeared from them here as if the earth had swallowed you up, so we could easily imagine where you were. The scoundrels would have quietly let you perish."
"Yes, it was terrible," said Lydia, "but God punished me for my sins."
The ladder was now let down through the opening, and carefully did the brave old man avoid touching Lydia. Then he himself climbed down holding a burning rosin torch. "A filthy hole, this old cellar," he murmured. "How the bats fly the light. Yes, light is horrible to you, you children of darkness." Carefully did he raise Lydia, who like a child wound her arms round his neck. Cautiously did he climb the ladder to the world above, where he laid her down on the soft turf. The question now was how to carry the sick child, who lay pale and faint on the ground, to the high road beneath. The Miller thought at first of using the ladder as a stretcher, and carrying her down on that. But the ladder was small and hard. To fetch a stretcher would have taken too much time and attracted attention. Lydia also begged urgently that he would hurry. Nothing remained but for the old man to carry her down in his arms, for which purpose he bound her to himself with the boy's girdle. The latter ran down to the village to have a covered cart in readiness below, whilst the father climbed cautiously down the stony footpath leading to the road. Lydia lay still, on the back of the miller, with her arms around his neck, while he sought the most lonely path through wood and vineyard. "The lost sheep," he thought, "torn even to bleeding by thorns and its wool remained sticking to the hedges. But when the shepherd finds it again, he takes it on his back with joy." And he looked at the pretty white hands clasped so touchingly under his prickly chin. The sweet burden lay warm on his back, and the maiden's delicate cheek rested on his shoulder. Then the old gray-beard began to lose his head. It seemed to him whilst looking at those white hands, as if an evil voice close to him said: "Thy Martha never had such hands."
"What does that matter to thee, old sinner," he answered the tempter bravely. "Hast thou always lived among the purer brethren, thou would'st not care in thy older days to keep company with the coarser."
"To be waited upon by such hands, would nevertheless be pleasant," continued the first voice.
"Nevertheless thou hast still thy old wife," answered he gruffly.
"Have not Hetzer, Rottmann and other prophets taught, that when a brother felt, he had not found his suitable spiritual bride, he might loose himself from the older bond and enter into a new marriage."