"Let us run off," she said, seriously, and then clapped her hands, and we now heard "Hallo! Hallo!" in the good Hans's powerful voice.
"It is he!" she cried; "my good Hans, my dear Hans, my best Hans! He shall hear it first. No one has a better right."
And now came up Hans, who had hurried on ahead of the two grooms, holding his lantern high to let the light fall on our faces, and again shouting "Hallo!" with all the strength of his lungs, but this time for joy that he had found us so happily--so happily that he set his lantern on the ground and shook both Hermine's hands and then mine, and then hers again and then mine again, all the time saying "So, so! that is right! so, so!" as if we were a pair of young headstrong horses, with which he had had great trouble, but had brought to reason at last.
The two grooms had now come up. "Poor fellows," said Hermine, "they must have pleased faces too. Give me quick what you have; and you too Hans, give me all you have, both of you!"
I emptied my purse--there was not much in it--into her hands, and Hans rummaged his pockets and found some crumpled notes which she took and gave the two men who stood open-mouthed, not knowing what to think. A couple of thalers fell on the ground, and the men said "It would be a sin to leave the good money lying there," so commenced to look for it, while we three hastened on, and Hans informed us that the whole company was at his house, and that he had harnessed up his farm-wagons--the only vehicles he had--to take them to Zehrendorf, whither he had sent already a messenger on horseback to have preparation made.
"We will both go, will we not, George?" said Hermine. "Everybody will open their eyes, of course. It will be a droll sight, and I am just in the humor for it. O, I am so happy, so happy!"
It was indeed a droll sight that presented itself to us as we entered the ruinous old mansion of Trantowitz. In the wide bare hall, in Hans's narrow sitting-room, even in the sanctuary of his bed-room, in the kitchen, which was entered from the hall, the unlucky excursionists were rambling and pushing about, calling, scolding, crying, laughing, according as they were more or less able to accommodate themselves to the situation. To the more able belonged without question Fritz von Zarrentin and his little wife, who were altogether the jolliest, most comfortable, and at the same time most good-natured people in the world, though in the storm they had not distinguished themselves by their courage any more than the rest. But now Fritz, who was in the kitchen brewing a bowl of punch with the assistance of the cook, boasted of the heroic deeds he had performed in the course of the evening, and his brisk little merry wife busied herself about the ladies, who were all in the very worst of humors, and to say the truth, in pitiable plight.
The Born Kippenreiter sat in Hans's high-backed chair, like a queen who had been hurled from her throne by a storm of revolution, her false hair plucked off, and the rouge all washed from her cheeks. Upon the sofa sat the two Eleonoras, locked in each other's arms and weeping freely on each other's bosom, without any one, themselves probably included, having the least idea of what it was about; unless it was for their soaked straw hats and drenched clothing, which had changed the virginal whiteness of the morning, for a color to which no name could be assigned. The stout Frau von Granow was standing before Fräulein Duff, who was crouching half insensible upon Hans's boot-box, proving to her that on such occasions it was the first duty of every one to look out for himself; and that if Fräulein Hermine was really drowned in the morass, nobody of any sense would lay the slightest blame upon her, the governess.
"No, Duffy, not the slightest blame!" cried Hermine, who, coming in with us at this moment through the door which was standing open, had caught the last word. "Duffy! dear, darling Duffy!"
And the excited girl fell on the neck of her faithful old governess, and embraced and kissed her with a flood of passionate tears.