"Thanks, my lady, but that will not serve us much," said the Manager, who had come up, and now laid his arm round his son's shoulder. "Keep still, Ulric!" and he drew out his own strong linen handkerchief, and applied it to what appeared to be a deep wound in the head.
"Is it dangerous?" languidly asked Arthur Berkow, coming over to the spot accompanied by the other gentlemen.
With one push Ulric freed himself from his father, and he stood erect, his blue eyes gleaming more darkly than ever, as he answered roughly:
"Not in the least. Nobody need trouble themselves about it, I can take care of myself."
The words had a disrespectful sound, but the recent service he had rendered was too great for any one to find fault with them. Herr Berkow seemed relieved that the answer spared him any further trouble about the business.
"I will send the doctor to him," said he, in his quiet indifferent way, "and we will reserve our thanks for another time. At present, there seems to be assistance enough. Will you not come, Eugénie?"
His wife took the arm he offered her, but she turned her head once again, as if to assure herself that the required succour was really there. It seemed as though she did not quite approve of the way her husband treated the matter.
"Our whole reception is a failure!" said Wilberg to the chief-engineer a few minutes later, as, quite dispirited, he joined the others in escorting the proprietor's son and his bride to the house.
"And your poem into the bargain!" joked the person addressed. "Who can think now of flowers and verses? Really, for any one who believes in omens, this first home-coming can hardly be called promising. Deadly peril, wounds and bloodshed! there is something romantic in it, just in your style, Wilberg. You should write a ballad about it, only this time you would have no choice but to take Hartmann for your hero."
"And what a bear he is after all!" said Wilberg excitedly. "Might he not have said a word of thanks to Lady Berkow when she offered him her own handkerchief? And then he replied to Herr Arthur in such an ill-mannered way. But the fellow has the strength of a giant! when I asked him why, for goodness sake, he had not put a bandage on sooner, he answered curtly that he had not noticed the wound at first. What do you say to that? He gets a blow on the head which would have stretched one of us senseless, and he first tames the horses, carries the lady away from the carriage, and only awakes to the fact that he is wounded when the blood rushes down in a stream. I should like to see any one else who could do it!"