"In the Forest Mill."
"In fact, I need not have asked," rejoined Leegart, glancing round, with a self satisfied air, "I knew where he was; I pointed out exactly the way he was sure to take. At the very minute when the cry of his being found was first heard I was in the act of uttering the words: 'The Forest Miller'—all these women know that this is true."
The most important point for Leegart, was to prove that she was clever enough to know precisely what was going on, even when she was not there herself. When they all came into the room, Martina pressed Leegart's hand warmly—thereby causing her to scatter on the floor a private pinch of snuff. Leegart said again, "I knew it; I said it. I told them he was in the Forest Mill: at the very moment that Häspele arrived, I said the words, 'Forest Miller;' and I prophesy now for you, Martina, that you will get your Adam at last."
"It is so! it is so! here he is!" exclaimed Martina.
Leegart cast down her eyes modestly; she wished to vindicate her prophetic gifts, and to shew that she knew it all beforehand. She nodded emphatically to all who came into the room, as if to say: "I knew that you would all come here—I knew it long before—I foresaw it all, and particularly that Adam would come in, holding Joseph by the hand. I knew all about the wolf too. I only met an adder in the forest, but the one animal is quite as dangerous as the other. All that has occurred could not fail to come to pass." Leegart was surprised at nothing. The expression of her face said, "Nothing is hidden from me;" and she took a stolen pinch with entire complacency.
"I have three fathers now," exclaimed Joseph; "Leegart, here are my three fathers."
"Good," said David, "but go to bed now. Martina, take him away. God be praised, we are all come safe back," shouted he into his wife's ear. The grandmother nodded, with a pleased face. "Has it been snowing hay?" asked she, taking some stalks of hay out of her husband's hair. All laughed, and the deaf grandmother laughed too, and looked earnestly at each person, guessing, from the motion of their lips, what she could not hear. She stretched out her hand to Speidel-Röttmann, saying, "Pray sit down, pray sit down."
Adam went up and shook hands with her of his own accord, bawling into her ear in his stentorian voice, "God bless you! mother-in-law."
The old woman stepped back suddenly, as if she had received a blow. "I hear you well enough, I am not so deaf as all that," said she, retreating to the bench beside the stove, and looking nervously at the great men and the great dogs.
Schilder-David's house was not made for the Röttmanns. The father and son almost touched the ceiling when they stood upright.