The young couple had not been specially favoured by the weather during their visit to the country. The sun showed itself but rarely this spring-time; after many rainy days it shone out at last, however, as if to greet the Sunday. The shafts were empty and the works at rest; but in spite of the Sabbath calm and the smiling sunshine, something of the gloomy monotonous character of the country seemed to weigh on the whole colony.
No attempt at embellishment, no attention to the convenience of the inhabitants, was noticeable in the buildings connected with the industry of the place, or in the dwelling-houses; they were all constructed on a strictly utilitarian principle. That a due sense of the beautiful was not wanting to the proprietor, his own house sufficiently attested. Care had been taken to build it at a suitable distance from the works, and so that it should command a full view over the wooded hills. Within and without it was fitted up and decorated in so luxurious a style as to be almost princely, and with its balconies, terraces and flower gardens, it looked like an oasis of fragrance and poetry lying in the midst of this busy region.
In the immediate neighbourhood of the shafts stood the cottage of Hartmann, the Manager. Its appearance plainly showed that the occupant enjoyed a position of peculiar privilege, and so indeed it was. In his youth the sturdy miner had married a girl in the service of the late Frau Berkow, and a special favourite of her mistress. Even after her marriage the young woman preserved something of her old relations with her former employers, and so it came to pass that her husband was favoured and preferred in every way, advanced from post to post, and finally even promoted to be working-manager. These relations and these favours ceased, it is true, at Frau Berkow's death; the widower was not the man to trouble himself about former members of his household, and when Hartmann's wife also died shortly afterwards, the old connection came altogether to an end.
But from that time forth, the Manager had cherished a strong devotion to the Berkow family, to whose support he owed his present position so devoid of care, whereas, without it, he would probably, like so many of his comrades, never have got beyond the laborious, poorly-paid work in the mines. Several years ago he had brought home his sister's orphan-child, Martha Ewers, and now she admirably filled the place of mistress of his house. As for the fulfilment of his secret desire that she and his son should come together as man and wife, there seemed so far but small prospect of it.
On this particular Sunday morning, the cottage, formerly so peaceful, had been the scene of one of those excited discussions which unhappily had ceased to be uncommon between father and son. The Manager, standing in the middle of the room, was declaiming violently at Ulric, who had just returned from the Director's house, and now leaned, silent and morose, against the door. Martha stood a little apart, watching the strife with unconcealed anxiety.
"Was such a thing ever heard of!" stormed the old man. "Have you not enemies enough up yonder, that you must set to work to hunt up more? A sum of money is offered to my gentleman there, large enough to begin housekeeping upon, and he sets his obstinate head against it, and says 'No!' without more ado! But what do you care about housekeeping and the like? Much you think of taking a wife! To bury yourself in your newspapers when you come home from work; to sit up half the night over your books, and stuff your head full of that new-fangled nonsense which an honest miner has no need to know anything about; to play the lord and master among your mates, so that soon we shall not have to ask the Director, but Herr Ulric Hartmann, what is to be done upon the works--that is all that pleases you. And when, for once in a way, we are reminded that, after all, we are nothing more as yet than a Deputy, then we talk of 'not taking payment,' and throw it back in our employers' faces. I should think if any one ever really earned money, it was you that day."
Ulric had listened in silence so far, but at the last few words he stamped his foot angrily.
"Once for all, I will have nothing to do with the set up there. I have told them that I want no payment for my 'courageous act,' which they make such a fuss about, and I'll take none, so there's an end of it."
The Manager's anger flamed out again; he was just beginning a still sharper remonstrance when Martha interrupted him.
"Let him be, uncle," said she shortly; "he is right."