It was dark when he reached Hechingen. Though it was but five hours' walk to his home, and he felt no fatigue, he kept his promise to his friends. He wished, moreover, to come home in the daytime. "It was dark when I went away," he said to himself as he sat at the inn, "and it must be light when I return." He was even vain enough to wish that his father's house was at the other end of the village, so that his green knapsack and student's dress might attract universal attention.
The sun shone brightly when Ivo awoke. It was a happier waking than that on which the lantern of the convent used to look down. It was a beautiful day,--a day of jubilee for the birds in the air and the buds on the trees.
He longed for wings; and, in default of them, he flung his cap high in the air as he walked briskly along. He suddenly stopped, sat down on the wayside, and, repeating the words of Exodus iii. 5,--"Put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground,"--he obeyed the precept. Like an unshod colt, he 'bounded along for a time; but soon he found that the life of the convent had unfitted him for such exercise. Compressing his lips with pain, and resuming his shoes, he again thought of the beautiful Psalm,--"He shall give his angels charge over thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." Psalm xci. 11, 12.
At Haigerloch he bought two "pretzels,"--one for his mother and the other for Emmerence. "Didn't she give me the duck when I went away?" he argued to himself, to quiet his ecclesiastical conscience. He avoided the short turns which the footpaths offered, and followed the highroad, fearing to miss his way: besides, he had more of the village to pass through on this route than in going by the way of Muehringen. The nearer home he came, the more his heart bounded within him. Sometimes it all seemed too good to be true, and he dreaded some unforeseen disaster, or even that the weight of his exultation would drag him down: at such times he would sit down to recover his strength.
People were wrong in saying that it was but two hours' walk from Haigerloch to Nordstetten. "The fox must have measured this road and thrown in his tail," said Ivo, repeating the old German proverb: "it is eight hours' walk at least."
Near the beech farm he saw his Brindle pulling a plough. Running up to the ploughman, he asked how Brindle worked, and rejoiced to hear him praised. The brute had forgotten him, however, and let his head droop earthward under the yoke. Ivo was tempted to give him one of the pretzels to eat, but was ashamed of showing his weakness to the workman, and went on.
At the brick-yard he met Hansgeorge's Peter, the one-eyed, who shook his hand sadly, and said, "Constantine came last night."
Welcomed on every side, Ivo passed on. Every thing warmed his heart,--the things which moved, and those which moved not: every hedge, every stack of wood, looked like a friend, and seemed to be telling a good old story: when his father's house stood before him it trembled in his eyes, for the tears were running down his cheeks.
Emmerence sat under the walnut-tree with the school master's child on her lap.
