Say he in truth is here! our long, long lost is found.”
The reader’s imagination must delineate to him the ecstatic joy of that meeting; how embrace followed embrace, and a thousand questions were put to him, ere Witikind had time to answer ten: how Count Rudolf, having first forgotten his ambitious schemes, in the joy of seeing his son, soon began to express his belief that the Lady Abracadabra had mismanaged things shockingly; that she was a Fairy without either talent or discrimination; that she ought not to have allowed the boy to quit the palace till she had secured a handsome pension for him; and that it was quite inexcusable of her to allow a child of Witikind’s high rank to return home in the form of a hare, and to be liable to be barked at by every village cur; how Witikind poured forth his regrets that he had ever been selfish enough to desire to leave his home; how ardently he hoped that all he had gone through had cured him of some of his worst faults; how useful a lesson he had been taught; how truly he appreciated the blessing of a home; and how earnestly he trusted that his future life would be spent in doing good to his neighbours and dependants at Taubennest.
“I have seen enough,” said he, “young as I am, to cure me of ambition. I would rather pass my days in retirement here, striving to benefit those among whom I dwell, and to repay, so far as I can, my dear parents’ care of me, than have the highest place and the highest honours, in the greatest kingdom in the universe.”
“Wait a few years, and we shall see!” said Count Rudolf.
“May Heaven strengthen you to keep to such a determination, my dearest Witikind,” exclaimed the Countess Ermengarde. “The Fairy has proved herself a true friend to us, by giving you an opportunity of learning, by your own experience, to estimate, at their proper value, those things which are so commonly looked on as advantages, and which the world so earnestly covets. How I long to express my thanks to our kind patroness! How earnestly I hope she will continue to help you with her counsels and advice!”
“Mother,” replied the boy, “I am as grateful to her as you could wish me to be; but so long as I can be guided by you, I will seek no other counsellor!”
As he said this, he threw himself into his mother’s arms, and mingled his kisses with her tears of affection and joy.
And thus engaged we must leave them for the present.
Bump, bump, bump! never was ball so elastic and springy. Caoutchouc was as lazy and lumpish as lead itself when compared with it! Bump, bump, bump! and a bound of twenty feet between each bump. Down to the ground as light as a feather, and then up in the air again, ever so high, almost before you could say it had touched the earth. A single kick from the Lady Abracadabra, and away it went, down the broad gravel terrace, as if it took pleasure in its feats!