Not far off, by the charcoal-heap, sat Dami in the quiet night, listening to the charcoal-burner, who related to him wonderful histories from past times, when the trees stood so closely together that a squirrel could run from the Neckar to the Bodensee, from tree to tree, without once touching the ground. Then he told him the history of a rider upon a white horse, a messenger from the old heathen gods, who diffused over the earth beauty and splendor, and poured out joy to men.
There are proverbs and fables that influence the soul, as looking long into an intense fire affects the eye. Varied colors play around, are extinguished, and again break out; but when we turn from the flame, the night is darker than before.
Thus listened Dami, and thus he looked around, while Mathew in a monotonous voice related his stories. He held in, for down the hill came a white horse with sweet and pleasant music accompanying him. “Has the world of wonders come to us?” Nearer came the horse, and there sat upon him a wonderful rider, broad and tall, and apparently with two heads. It came always nearer, and the music changed to a man’s and a woman’s voice, crying, “Dami, Dami, Dami!”
Both would have sunk into the ground from fright; they could not stir, but the horse was there, and now the strange figure alighted.
“Dami! it is I,” cried Barefoot, and related all that had happened to her.
Dami had nothing to say, but stroked sometimes the horse and sometimes the dog, and only nodded when John told him he would take him for his dairyman; that he should have the care of thirty cows, and learn to make butter and cheese.
“That will be coming out of darkness into the light,” said Barefoot. “We could make a riddle out of that, Dami.”
At last Dami recovered his speech, “not forgetting a pair of leather breeches also,” he said. All laughed, and he declared that John’s mother had promised him a pair of these breeches.
“In the mean time take my pipe,” said John,—“the pipe of a brother-in-law,”—and he gave him his pipe.
“But you will have none for yourself,” Amrie objected.