"Thou blustering fellow! all thy ramrod priests and school-masters have been of no account. That would be the man! Thy father ought to buy such a man as that, and then something might be made of thee. But all your money can't get him!"
The screamer said this ostensibly to Roland alone, but Eric was also to hear it, for he must know that he ought to be grateful to him.
Just as they mounted, the huntsman said further,—
"Do you know that your father is buying up the whole mountain? Cursed accumulation! Your father is buying the whole Pfaffen-street." At the same time, pointing to the far extending wide-spread Rhineland, he said,—
"In a hundred years, not one handbreadth of all those vineyards will belong to those who rake and dig there. Must that be? Can that be allowed?"
A brisk trot carried them back to the villa; Eric had made up his mind; at the very moment when Eric had said to himself, "It is your duty not to abandon the boy," he saw in the garden, near the small vine-embowered house, a female form which vanished round the corner.
Had he really seen his mother, or had she been only present to his imagination?
Quicker than one can compute, the idea was formed in his mind, that here his mother and his aunt were to dwell; this house with its little garden, its dwarf-trees, and its beautiful prospect was made ready for her.
"Did you see a woman there in the garden?" he asked Roland.
"Yes, it was Fräulein Milch.