“And I, Margaret, do not know anything about you either,” he replied, “except that your aunt intends to have you marry the Baron de Lindenwald, my suit against whom it appears is lost.”
“It is true,” said Margaret, laughing. “My aunt hopes, in that way, to console me for the death of Baron Olaus. But since you guess so well what is going on, you ought to know, also, that I do not intend to marry at all.”
Christian understood this resolution, which left him free to hope, and he vowed in his heart that he would make a fortune, even if he should have to become an egotist. In spite of all he could say, Margaret would not consent to hide the fact of his being there from the lieutenant and the minister’s family, who drew near in the midst of their tête-à-tête.
“It is he!” she cried, running to meet them; “it is our Stollborg friend—you know who I mean! This Christian, this friend of the poor, the hero of the mine, is the baron without a barony, but not without honor and heart, and if you are not as happy as I am to see him again—”
“We are, we are!” cried the minister, shaking hands with Christian. “He is setting a grand example of true nobility and religious faith.”
Christian, overwhelmed with caresses, praise, and questions, was obliged to promise to go and take supper in the village with his friends, who intended to pass the night there before returning to Waldemora, where Margaret was spending a fortnight at the parsonage.
They wanted to carry him away with them immediately; but, on the one hand, Christian could not dispose of his time so freely as they supposed, and, on the other, he was more anxious, than was quite appropriate for such a reasonable man, to dress himself in clothes, which, however coarse, should at least be irreproachably clean. They made an appointment to meet in the evening, and Christian, aroused and happy, returned to his work.
There, however, he was agitated by tumultuous and conflicting thoughts. Ought he to persist in cherishing the chimerical hope that he was loved? Margaret expressed her affection for him with too much warmth, too much frankness; it might be that she regarded him merely with a peaceful friendship, bringing no trouble to her soul, no blush to her forehead! Could love be so spontaneous, so courageous, so expansive? He accused himself of presumption and folly; and then, a moment afterwards, he accused himself of ingratitude; an inner voice told him that, whatever his fate might be, he would always find Margaret resolved to share it.
He left his work at last, when the hour came for quitting the mine, and as he greatly preferred being pulled up in the bucket, in which he never felt dizzy, to making the long ascent over the ladders and inclines, he got ready to mount, in a moment, to the entrance of the gloomy shaft, through which he could catch a glimpse of a scrap of blue sky framed with branches of the mountain-ash and lilacs. Just then a miner came up, whom he had already met on the previous evening within his limits, although he did not belong to the brigade that he had joined at first, and which he was now directing.
None of the miners with whom Christian was associated knew this man. Excessively begrimed with smoke and dirt, either through negligence or design, and wearing a rag of a hat that flapped about his ears, it was not easy to form any idea of his face. Christian had not tried to see him. He might be one of those who were called humble workmen; as we sometimes say the humble poor, in speaking of persons whose apparent humility is perhaps a mere mask concealing their silent pride. Christian respected the evident desire of the unknown to avoid observation; and after having given the customary whistle to warn those who worked the pulley, he contented himself with pointing to a seat by his side in the bucket; for he supposed that he also wished to ascend. The unknown hesitated. Laying his hands upon the edge of the bucket, he seemed about to jump in, but paused, and looked around, apparently to seek for something.