Next morning, punctually, at four o'clock, came the bailiff with the other laborers. The coffin was screwed up; the procession moved slowly toward the church-yard; the only mourners himself and his little girl. The coffin was lowered into the grave. A silent Pater Noster,--a handful of earth,--and the image of her who had for years refreshed and comforted him, rejoiced and enlivened, was concealed from his eyes, and if he would see it again he must turn over his heart like a book, leaf by leaf, until he comes to the closing page, and then,--yes, there will the dear image stand, fair and lovely before his eyes once more.
He went among his people, shook hands with every one, and thanked them for this last service which they had rendered him, and then said "Good-bye" to them, gave to the bailiff the money for the coffin, cross and funeral, and then, absorbed in thought, started on his lonely way out into the gloomy future.
As he came to the last house in the little hamlet, the young laborer's wife stood with a child on her arm before the door. He stepped up to her.
"Stina, you took faithful care of my poor wife in her last sickness,--here, Stina," and would press a couple of dollars into her hand.
"Herr, Herr," cried the young wife, "don't do me that injury! What have you not done for us in good days? Why should we not in hard times make some little return? Ah, Herr, I have one favor to ask; leave the child here with me! I will cherish it as if it were my own. And is it not like my own? I have nursed it at my breast, when your poor wife was so weak. Leave me the child!"
Habermann stood in deep thought. "Herr," said the woman, "you will have to separate from the poor little thing, sooner or later. See, here comes Jochen, he will speak for himself."
The laborer came up, and, as he heard of what they were speaking, said, "Yes, Herr, she shall be cared for like a princess, and we are healthy, and well to do, and what you have done for us, we will richly repay to her."
"No," said Habermann, lifting himself from his thoughts, "that won't go, I can't do it. I may be wrong to take the child with me upon an uncertainty; but I have left so much here, this last thing I cannot give up. No, no! I can't do it," cried he hastily and turned himself to go, "my child must be where I am. Adieu, Stina! Adieu, Rassow!"
"If you will not leave us the child, Herr," said the laborer, "let me at least go with you a little way, and carry her for you."
"No, No!" said Habermann, "she is no burden for me;" but he could not hinder the young woman from stroking and kissing his little daughter, and ever again kissing her, nor that both these honest souls, as he went on his way, should stand long looking after him. She, with tears in her eyes, thought more of the child, he, in serious reflection, more of the man.