"I cannot say much for your food," replied the boy shortly and carelessly, as he sat dreamily in a corner playing with a wild flower.
"What!" shrieked the old woman in a still sharper key; "you ungrateful viper! Is that the thanks I get for so often cooking something on purpose, because our nice savoury potatoes and nourishing black bread are not good enough for you? And so, forsooth, the gentleman must have milk porridge and honey cakes,—and even these he pecks at as if they were not delicate enough for him, the beggarly ingrate!"
"One might as well eat mill-stones and wood-choppers as your vile hard potatoes and sour bread," said Julius in the same tone of indifference.
The old woman fell into such a rage that her breath failed her for further utterance; so her husband, who was making bird-traps at the table, began in his turn.
"You rascal! do you dare to blaspheme God's good gifts, when, if we did not feed you out of charity—you must starve! And what return do you make us, you stray vagabond? When the fellow wants to slip out at night, truly he can be as sharp and cunning as any fox; but place a book before him, that he may learn to be pious and wise, and he loses his senses at once, and stares as stupidly at the letters as a cow at a new gate. Does he suppose I picked him off the road for love of his paltry flaxen hair and his blue goggle eyes? Fool that I was for my pains! Mark my words, and let every one beware of having anything to do with a child that is not his own flesh and blood! Why was I such a goose as not to let the child lie where I found him, kicking and screaming in the forest?"
"Well, why did you not?" said Julius. "I should have fared much better beneath God's bright sky, than in your nasty smoky hovel."
At this, the old pair—he with a stick, and she snatching up a broom—rushed furiously on the boy, screaming and scolding as if they had a wager who should make most noise. But the child, light and active as a roebuck, bounded away. He fled to the wood; and when at last the old people had calmed down a little they heard him singing in the distance—
"You ill-favoured couple, adieu to you now!
I'm off to the forest where waves the green bough.
The bees, they know neither to read nor to write,
Yet they gather sweet honey in sunshine bright;
Though the little birds never were taught how to spell,
Full many a blithe song they warble right well;
The flowers are not fed on potato-roots vile,
Yet through the long summer's day sweetly they smile.
The butterfly, he has no tailor to pay,
Yet he never feels cold,—and who dresses so gay?
The glow-worms at eve show a lovelier light
Than the dim lamps that mortals consume through the night.
So adieu, ye vile pair, whom no more I shall see,—
To the wood! to the wood! there I'm wealthy and free!"
Fearlessly ran Julius about in the forest, and the further he penetrated into it the lighter grew his heart. The dark night came on; and many a child would have been frightened, and fancied the tall dark trees with their strangely contorted branches were giants with long arms, or black dragons with twisted tails. But Julius was accustomed to wander by night, and went gaily on. When, however, it began to rain, and it was so dark that he found difficulty in walking, he sang in a clear sweet voice:—
"You glow-worms bright,
You leaf-clad trees,
That shine in the night,
And that bend in the breeze;
Hither I came, for I trusted that you
Would lighten my darkness and shelter me too.
Come, glow-worms! light me to my mossy bed,—
Branches! keep off the rain-drops from my head!"