He informed them that this was his "little children's school;" he had established a "coltgarten" for colts, to which all the breeders of horses in the district sent the foals. There was good pasture-land, where they could perform their gymnastic exercises, be well-sheltered and safely cared for. This helped the whole surrounding country in the rearing of horses.
Roland was highly pleased with this information, and Eric took fresh satisfaction in the thought of having brought him here. A man like Weidmann would exert an influence over Roland such as no other person could.
"Have you studied chemistry?" Weidmann asked, turning to Roland.
He said no.
Weidmann looked down, then up, and asked,—
"Have you determined yet what you mean to do?"
For the first time, Roland hesitated to give a direct answer.
Weidmann urged the matter no further. Eric could not conceive what made Roland so timid; but he saw clearly what a great influence this man had acquired over his pupil. Perhaps also what Roland had heard caused him to waver, and he was reluctant to speak, before a man of such active usefulness, of a vocation in which outward show and glory were the ends in view.
But there was another reason. The child with golden hair let go her father's hand, went up to Knopf and whispered to him, that now he must be convinced all was true she had told him; that he had never believed she had met any one in the wood, but now the witness was before his eyes.
Roland whispered to Knopf, that Eric had never been disposed to believe that such a thing had really happened to him.