“Ah, yes,” said John, “that you need not have said. But I thank you, cousin, for your hospitality, which, if you will come to us, we will gladly return.” Then pressing with both hands his head, he cried,—“Oh, God—Oh, mother! mother! How wilt thou rejoice!”
“Go up, Barefoot, instantly, and take away your trunk. Nothing of yours shall remain another hour in the house,” said Rodel.
“Yes, but with less noise,” said John. “Come, Barefoot, I will go up with you. But tell me, what is your real name.”
“Amrie.”
“I was once to have had an Amrie! Huzza! Huzza! Come, I will see your chamber—the chamber where you have lived so long—but soon you shall have a larger house.”
The dog went round and round Rodel with bristling, erect hair; no doubt he saw that the farmer would willingly have throttled his master; and only when John and Barefoot reached the top of the stairs did Lux follow them.
John left the trunk, for he could not take it upon his horse, and packed every thing belonging to Barefoot in the sack inherited from her father; she all the time telling him what wonders had already occurred in connection with that sack; but to her, all the world had come together in one moment, and was a thousand-yeared wonder. She looked on, astonished, when John seized her writing-book, preserved from her childhood, and with joy kissed it, exclaiming, “This will I bring to my mother; she foresaw this. Ah, there are yet miracles in the world!”
Barefoot asked no further. Had not all that had happened to her been a miracle? As she knew that Rose would instantly tear up her flowers and throw them into the street, she passed her hand caressingly over the plants, till she felt it cooled with the night dew. She went down with John, and as she was leaving the house, she felt a silent pressure of her hand in the dark. It was the farmer’s wife, thus bidding her farewell!
Upon the threshold where she had so often dreamily leaned, she laid her hand upon the door-post and said, “May God restore to this house all the good it has done to me, and forgive, as I do, all the ill.” But scarcely had she gone a few steps when she exclaimed, “Oh, dear! I have forgotten all my shoes. They stood upon an upper shelf.” The words were hardly out of her mouth, when the shoes came flying after her upon the street.
“Run in them to the devil,” cried a harsh voice, which was nevertheless the voice of Rose.