"Avec plaisir," replied Barnewitz. "I never could bear the fellow!"
"But periculum in mora, gentlemen. You must go to work at once!" chimed in the professor.
"Well, we will," said Cloten. "Come, Barnewitz; I'll tell you on the way what I think we had better do. The professor will accompany us part of the way."
"With pleasure; with great pleasure!" replied the professor. "To be sure, my time is very limited now; very limited. Ah--here is the door; I pray, after you, gentlemen!"
And the three gentlemen hastily left the restaurant.
CHAPTER IV.
The broad sheet of ice between the main land and the island had been for many a week an immense bridge. People no longer reflected that they were walking on frozen water, and that the hoofs of the horses were ringing so loud because they were trotting over a vast abyss. What fear they might feel was easily dispersed as they looked at the gigantic blocks of ice which the fishermen had placed as warning-posts around the large holes cut for the fish, provided they did not carelessly drive or walk right into them, which was not likely, at least in the daytime. And as long as the slanting rays of the sun shone on the bright ice, which covered the sound for miles and miles east and west of the town, there were crowds of pedestrians to be seen among numerous sleighs, which were often drawn by two and not unfrequently even by four horses. But when the sun had set and the mists were thickening, the moving black thread which connected by day the town with the little village of Ferrytown became thinner and thinner. The fishermen, who have been out fishing miles away, come in on their low sledges; or, standing upright on their sleighs, and pushing them with a long iron-shod pole, they sweep by, one by one, drifting with marvellous swiftness through the gray fog, like ghosts of the desert, like spirits from the northern regions. And now lights are seen on both sides of the sound: a few on the island, many more on the side of the town; now the stars also, which until now have peeped stealthily here and there only through the dark evening sky, begin to sparkle and shine in groups, so that the eye cannot see enough of their great splendor. But no one minds them. The moving black thread is no longer seen; only here and there a belated wanderer, who hastens his steps, although knowing full well that nothing can happen to him if he but follows the path; or a sleigh, one of those small, light one-horse sleighs which are fitted up in vast numbers during winter by fishermen and ferrymen in order to serve the restless public.
Such a sleigh was just trotting past through the dim twilight as night was sinking lower and lower every moment, and fogs and mists began to cover the fields of ice. There was but a single passenger sitting in the sleigh by the side of the driver; he had a fur cap drawn low over his face, and the collar of his cloak was drawn up high.
As long as they were meeting near the harbor sleighs and foot-passengers on their return, not a word was said by passenger or driver; but when they rode out on the wild desert of ice, when the lights in town were looking dim, and the trot of the crop-eared hack was sounding loud and clear, the gentleman raised himself in his corner and said:
"All in order, Claus?"