He opened one of the various books for the instruction of the young with which his table had been provided by the careful mother of his pupil, and tried to imagine himself a perfectly ignorant child,--a very difficult task.
It is no easy matter, after all, to be a tutor! How had Egon looked down hitherto upon this calling, and here he sat racking his brains over the problem of how to teach a child his A B C! Half an hour passed like a moment, when a timid knock was heard at the door, and Fritz entered shyly. Positively Egon felt his heart beat quicker. Never, even when about to pass the most difficult examination, had he felt such trepidation, such a sense of the utter inadequacy of his knowledge as at this moment. He could not but smile at his cowardice, he could not understand himself. How had he come to take thus seriously the wild jest that had been prompted by the whim of the moment?
'Some things are too sacred to be trifled with!' A charming child had said these words to him a few hours before, and they had sunk into his heart. He had intended to play a madcap prank, but the jest had come to be earnest. He was really undertaking the duty of a teacher, and this duty took grand and sacred proportions in his eyes as he looked at the handsome boy gazing with a smile, but with some shyness, into his face.
In fact, the teacher was more embarrassed than the pupil, but he collected himself, and drew the little fellow towards him, stroked his curls, and said, kindly,--
"Well, Fritz, are you going to please mamma, and study like a good lad?"
"Yes, I have promised mamma, and I promised Lieschen that I will not laugh when I call you Herr Pigglewitch."
"That's right, my boy. Well, here is a primer, and I see you have brought a slate and pencil. We'll begin at once."
And the first hour of Egon's tutorship began. It went better and easier than he had imagined. He contrived to interest his little pupil upon the spot, and the boy's cleverness and capacity interested him in turn. Egon could hardly believe that an hour had really passed when, upon the last stroke of six, Lieschen made her appearance as her mother's ambassador to carry off Fritz.
"We are to go to the meadows by the Oster," Lieschen said, to appease her brother's discontent at being forced to leave his new and delightful occupation. "It will be so pleasant there; even all the maids are busy raking the hay. Can anything be more charming than harvest in such glorious weather? If you will come with us, Herr Pigglewitch, I can perhaps fulfil the wish you expressed to-day in derision, and do something in aid of your neglected education. You may be very learned, and speak Greek and Latin, as well as English and French, but every peasant-lad here in the country will laugh at you if you know nothing of the simplest farming work; there an ignorant country-girl like myself can instruct you."
"You will find me an attentive and grateful pupil, Fräulein Lieschen."