Many other songs they sang,--mostly sad ones, though the singers were in bounding spirits. As the spring flowed on at their feet and meandered through the fields, so the song-fountain in them appeared inexhaustible.
The teacher found himself in a world unknown to him before. Though he had heard and experienced something of the rich tenderness of the rude national ditties of Germany, he had tasted them as we eat the wild berries of the wood on a well-served table: we prefer them to the products of the greenhouse, yet sweeten them with sugar, and, perhaps, wash them down with wine. Here he plucked them fresh from the bush, and ate them not upon a piled saucer, but singly, as they left the stems. Their deep, untranslatable force and simplicity were revealed to him in all its glory: he felt how much his individual spirit was allied to that of the nation, and saw its lovely representative sitting by his side. He began to aspire to the priesthood of this marvellous spirit.
On returning to Hedwig's house and meeting her grandmother still at the door, he seized the hand of his beloved and pressed it to his heart, saying, "Not in bitter toil shall you lift these hands for me, but to give blessings, as becomes them."
Unable to say more, he walked quickly away.
The village gossips that evening were occupied with nothing but the fact that the new teacher went to see Johnnie's Hedwig.
Our friend, who had been so fond of seclusion, now found it impossible to spend fifteen minutes by himself after school-hours, in his house or out of it. Of all the books in his library, not one seemed to chime in with his frame of mind: and when he undertook to write into his note-book his lucubrations appeared so bare and profitless that he crossed them out immediately.
In the fields he never could collect his thoughts sufficiently to make sketches: he talked with every one he met. The people were friendly; for his open soul beamed out of his eyes. Frequently he would stand by them as they worked, in dreamy silence: he was reluctant to leave them and return to the solitary dignity which a little earlier he had thought indispensable.
Once he saw Hedwig cutting grain in the field, and hastened toward her. But he did not long remain there: it was insufferable to find himself the only idler among so many hard workers; and yet he was entirely unskilled in field-work, and knew what a sorry figure he should have made had he attempted it. Hedwig had gained in his eyes by having been seen at work. "Hosts and manna should be baked from the ears that she has cut," he said to himself, in turning away.
He was often absent-minded when conversing with her grandmother, and it was only when the old lady spoke of her parents and grandparents that she riveted his attention. It was delightful to climb up this family tree into the dim regions of the past. Her grandfather had fought in the wars of Prince Eugene against the Turks: and she had many of his soldier's stories by heart. At times also, without repining, she would predict that next winter she would meet all her ancestors again. It was easy to divert her mind from such reflections. He loved to make her talk of Hedwig's childhood, of the early loss of her mother, and of how she was distressed to find that her doll could not shut its eyes at night, and pasted paper over them. When the old woman spoke in this strain, her eyes and those of the listener beamed in the same brightness, like two neighbor-billows lit up by one moonbeam.
Hedwig is not mentioned in his note-book. The following passage, however, may have been suggested by the reminiscences of her aged relative:--