The uncle also promised that he would not let Irmgard know anything of the matter.
Toward evening, Walpurga and Hansei went home again and, when night came, Franz returned also. The inmates of the shepherd's hut were once more alone. Not a word was spoken among them, for they had talked and heard enough during the day. All was silent. Not a sound was heard but the tinkling cow-bells in the woods and on the green hillside, and the stars shone overhead. Irma was seated on the spot from which the distant lake was visible, and it was long before she retired to rest.
CHAPTER X.
Irma now spent but a small portion of the day at the workbench. Her work had become even more irksome than at first. Her eye was constantly fixed on the vast and extended mountain prospect, toward which she would ever return from her task with added zest.
The little pitchman, who was quite diplomatic in his way, begged Irma to go with him while he went out to hunt plants and roots, for he said that he was old and did not know but what he might sometime lose his footing, and it would, in that case, be well to have some one with him who could go for help.
After that, Irma spent the greater part of the day with the little pitchman, wandering through the forest and over hill and dale. Her greatest delight was whenever they reached the spot where the brook arose. It flowed smoothly from a dark, rocky cavern and then boldly galloped down the hill, striking against fragments of rock by the way, now gliding over them, now forcing its way below them, until it reached the first valley, where it formed a basin encircled by tall, silver fir-trees. Thence it flowed through the table-land and, softly murmuring, glided down over the second mountain into the valley below.
The little pitchman plainly saw how much Irma liked to be here. He even thought that he had once heard her sing, and that her voice had been audible above the rushing and roaring of the water, and it was a strange coincidence that most of the herbs of which he was in search could be found in the neighborhood. Now and then, he was fortunate enough to discover a bird's nest, and would show it to Irma, who was as delighted with it as though she were a little child. The animals here seemed as yet to be without fear of man, and the little pitchman maintained that the reason the little birds didn't fly away when Irma looked at them, was because she had such kindly eyes. They flew about her as if she were an old friend, and the mother bird in the nest looked at her affectionately, and did not take wing.
Thus Irma would spend whole afternoons, sitting by the spring and, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, would, now and then, throw some flower which she had plucked into the brook.
The brook flowed through the town in which Gunther lived. A beautiful boy was sitting on its banks, and a red-haired servant in livery was by his side.
The boy ordered the servant to fish out a beautiful flower that was floating by. The servant clambered down the steep bank and, just as he reached the edge of the stream, the boy threw a stone into the water, so that it splashed, and the servant exclaimed: "My young master, you've behaved badly again!"