Late in the night when all were asleep, Barefoot left the house, and ran up and down through the village, seeking some one whom she could trust to warn John. But she knew no one. “Hold! There dwells the Sacristan—but he is an enemy to Farmer Rodel, and would bring out all the scandal. Go not to an enemy of thy master, much less of thy own, and thou hast enemies enough since the sitting of the parish council about Dami! Ah, Dami? He can do it. Why not? One man can speak to another. He can reveal all. Then John—that is his name—will not forget the service—then Dami will have an advocate. A good one—a man—perhaps a whole family. Then he will succeed. Ah, no! Dami dare not show himself in the village. Was he not expelled? But there is Mathew? He can do it. Perhaps Dami may.”
Thus her thoughts wandered,—swift,—as she herself ran through the fields, not knowing where; and it was frightful to her, as it always is to those who know nothing of the world or of themselves. She was frightened at every sound; the frogs in the pond croaked fearfully; the grasshoppers in the meadow chirped scornfully, and the trees stood, so black in the dark night. Towards Endringen there had been a thunder-storm, and flying clouds hastened across the sky, through which blinked the stars. Barefoot hastened from the fields into the forest. She would go to Dami. She must at least speak with some one. She must hear a human voice. “How dark it is in the forest! Was that a bird that twittered? Like the black-bird when he at evening flies home and sings, ‘I come, come, come, come home; come quick, come quick.’ And now the nightingale struck in—so breathless, so from the inmost heart—welling, sparkling, softly rippling, like a wood fountain, that from the deepest source wells forth.”
The longer she wandered, the more she became involved in the wreaths and sprays that wound confusedly about her feet in the wood, as her plans became confused in her head. “No,” she said at last, “it will come to nothing—you had better go home.” She turned, but wandered long after in the fields. She no longer believed in wandering lights, “Will-o’-the-wisp,” but to-night it seemed to her that she was led hither and thither, and impelled to follow them. She began to feel that she had been all night barefoot in the night dew, and that fever burnt in her cheeks. Bathed in perspiration, she reached at last her bedroom.
CHAPTER XV.
BANISHED AND SAVED.
IN the morning when Barefoot awoke, she saw the necklace which had been given to her by the wife of Farmer Landfried, John’s mother, lying upon her bed. After some moments she recollected that she had taken it out last evening, and looked at it for a long time. When she attempted to rise, she found that she could scarcely move. She felt as though all her limbs were broken. She clasped her hands together, “Oh, not now!” she cried. “Oh, God forbid that I should be ill to-day! I have no time! I cannot be ill to-day!”
As in scorn of her body, and exerting a powerful will she arose—but when she looked in her little glass she started back, shocked at looking so ill. Her whole cheek was swollen. “This is thy punishment,” she cried, “for running about the fields all night, and for wishing to take bad men into thy council.” She struck as for punishment her painful cheek, and then she bound it up and went about her work.
When her mistress saw how ill she was, she advised her to go to bed again, but Rose scolded and said, it was only ill-nature in Barefoot to be ill now, when she knew there was so much for her to do. Barefoot was silent, but afterwards, when she was in the stable putting clover in the rack for her cow, a cheerful voice said, “Good-morning—so early at work!” It was his voice.
“Only a little,” she said, and bit her lip with vexation that she was so disfigured, it would be impossible for him to recognize her.