Irma trembled. Walpurga grasped her hand. It was as cold as ice. The child cried again.
"You can hear it; there's a little child in there," said the forester to Baum. "Let's go on."
The horseman rode off, and Irma, looking after them, could see her feathered hat hanging from the pommel of the saddle.
The wagon slowly ascended the hill, while the horsemen hurried off in the opposite direction.
Irma kissed the child, and said:
"Oh you darling! you've saved me, for the second time. Let me get out, too. I want to walk."
The mother dissuaded her and begged her to remain with her. Irma yielded; she had hardly lain down before she fell asleep again, and no longer knew that she was crossing the mountains in a farmer's wagon.
It was already past noon when they overtook Hansei, far up the mountain, where he had stopped to rest his horses.
"Let's keep together," said he. His anger had vanished, and he now was twice as kindly as before. "I think we oughtn't to enter our new home in such a straggling way. I've given the servants strict orders to drive slowly. We can easily catch up with 'em, for our wagons are light, and then we'll all be together. I want mother and wife and child to be with me when we enter on the farm."
"That's right! I'm glad you've come to your senses again. Oh! I know you. When you're excited, the only thing to do is to leave you alone for a little while, and you soon get homesick after your folks and the good Hansei that's in you; and then you're all right again. But come here. I want to tell you something. To-day, you'll have to prove whether you're a real, strong man; and if you do, I'll never, in all my life, deny that men are stronger than we."