The morning shift was just finished, and Ulric Hartmann was on his way back to his father's house. He had been obliged to moderate his usual swift pace, for at his side walked Herr Wilberg, also going home from his office. This gentleman had been lucky enough to catch Ulric up, and had attached himself to him. It was rather surprising to see one of the officials on such familiar terms with the Deputy Hartmann, who enjoyed but little sympathy among his superiors; still more surprising was it that such familiarity should come from Herr Wilberg, unless indeed the old saying that "extremes meet" be taken as an explanation.
There was, however, another reason here. The chief-engineer little knew what his jokes had brought about, but his laughing hints as to the subject-matter for a ballad had, unfortunately, fallen on a too receptive soil. Wilberg had made up his mind to treat the subject poetically, but he was still in doubt as to whether the masterpiece should be in the form of a ballad, an epic, or a drama. At present one thing only was settled, namely, that it should unite in itself the combined excellences of all three styles.
Unhappily for Ulric, his energetic and courageous act had awakened in the future author's mind the notion that the miner was exactly fitted for a hero of tragedy, and Wilberg now dogged his footsteps perpetually, in order to study this most interesting character. When Ulric further took it into his head to refuse the considerable sum offered him with a disdainful pride which abashed even the Director, the romantic halo about him grew so strong in the poet's eyes that nothing could shake or diminish his admiration, not even the inconsiderate rudeness of the object of it, nor the cutting remarks of those in authority, who hardly approved of such an intimacy.
Ulric could not be said to meet him half-way, or in any manner to facilitate his "studies;" he tried often impatiently to shake off the company thus forced upon him, as one tries to free one's self from a troublesome fly, but it availed him little. Herr Wilberg was determined to see in him a hero, a rough, wild, undisciplined sort of hero, it is true, but still a hero; and the more this view of him was justified by his behaviour, so much the better pleased was the would-be author, who only studied him the more closely for each such fresh development of character.
At last the young miner shrugged his shoulders, and resigned himself to the inevitable. Custom did its work, and there grew up at length between the two a sort of familiarity, not over respectful on Ulric's part.
The wind was still blowing rather cold from the north. Herr Wilberg prudently buttoned up his coat, and tied the ends of his thick woollen scarf carefully together, as he said with a sigh,
"What a lucky fellow you are, Hartmann, with your health and strength of iron! You can go up and down the shafts from heat to cold, and come out afterwards into this biting wind, whilst I have to protect myself from every variation of temperature. And I get so nervous, so shaken, so irritable! That is the way when the spirit gains too great dominion over the body. Yes, Hartmann, it is the press of thought and feeling that does it!"
"I think, Herr Wilberg, it is more likely your everlasting tea-drinking that is the cause of it," replied Ulric, with a rather compassionate glance at his weakly little companion. "If you go on swallowing that hot, thin stuff morning and evening, you will never get strong."
Wilberg glanced up aloft at his adviser with a look of infinite superiority.
"You do not understand, Hartmann. I could not possibly bear such a heavy diet as yours. My constitution would not stand it, besides, tea is of great service to the mental faculties. It quickens me, it stimulates me when the day's work is done, and when in the quiet eventide the Muses draw near"----