"I will write to him," said Mr. Baumann; "but I fear, honored lady, that it will be to no purpose, for, now that he himself is a loser by it, he will never look back from the plow to which, for the sake of others, he has put his hand."
"He does not belong to the plow, but to the pen," cried the cousin, irritably, "and his place lies here. And because he gets a good name here, and drinks his tea comfortably, he does his duty none the less. And I tell you, too, Mr. Baumann, that I beg never to hear again of your African notions."
Baumann smiled proudly. However, as soon as the cousin had left the room, he obediently sat down and wrote off the whole conversation to Anton.
The snow had melted away from the Polish estate; the brook had swollen to a flood, the landscape still lay silent and colorless, but the sap began to circulate in the branches, and the buds on the bushes to appear. The ruinous bridge had been carried away by the winter torrents, and Anton was now superintending the building of a new one. Lenore sat opposite him, and watched his measurements. "The winter is over," cried she; "spring is coming. I can already picture to myself green grass and trees, and even the gloomy castle will look more cheerful in the bright spring sunshine than it does now. But I will sketch it for you just as it is, and it shall remind you of the first winter that we spent here under your protection."
And Anton looked with shining eyes at the beautiful girl before him, and, with the pencil in his hand, sketched her profile on a new board. "You won't succeed," said Lenore; "you always make my mouth too large and my eyes too small. Give me the pencil; I can do better. Stand still. Look! that is your face—your good, true face; I know it by heart. Hurrah! the postman!" cried she, throwing away the pencil and hurrying to the castle. Anton followed her; for the postman and his heavy bag were to the castle as a ship steering through the sandy deep, and bringing the world's good things to the dwellers on a lonely island. The man was soon relieved from his burden. Lenore gladly caught up the drawing-paper that she had ordered from Rosmin. "Come, Wohlfart, we will look out the best place for sketching the castle, and you shall hang up the picture in your room instead of the old one, which saddens me whenever I see it. Once you sketched our home, now I will sketch it for you. I will take great pains, and you shall see what I can do."
She had spoken joyously, but Anton had not heard a word she said. He had torn open Baumann's letter, and as he read it his face reddened with emotion. Slowly, thoughtfully, he turned away, went up to his room, and came down no more. Lenore snatched up the envelope, which he had dropped. "Another letter from his friend in the firm!" said she, sadly; "whenever he hears from him, he becomes gloomy and cold toward me." She threw away the envelope, and hurried to the stable to saddle her trusty friend the pony.
CHAPTER XXXII.
It was the weekly market in the little town of Rosmin. From time immemorial this had been an important festival to the country people around.
For five days of the week the peasant had to cultivate his plot, of ground, or to render feudal service to his landlord, and on Sunday his heart was divided between the worship of the Virgin, his family, and the public house; but the market-day led him beyond the narrow confines of his fields into the busy world. There, amid strangers, he could feel and show himself a shrewd man in buying and selling; he greeted acquaintances whom else he would never have met; saw new things and strange people, and heard the news of other towns and districts. So it had been even when the Slavonic race alone possessed the soil. Then the site where Rosmin now stands was an open field, with perhaps a chapel or a few old trees, and the house of some sagacious landed proprietor, who saw farther than the rest of his long-bearded countrymen. At that time the German peddler used to cross the border with his wagon and his attendants, and to display his stores under the protection of a crucifix or of a drawn Slavonic sword. These stores consisted of gay handkerchiefs, stockings, necklaces of glass and coral, pictures of saints and ecclesiastical decorations, which were given in exchange for the produce of the district—wolf-skins, honey, cattle, and corn. In course of time the handicraftsman followed the peddler, the German shoemaker, the tinsmith, and the saddler established themselves; the tents changed into strongly-built houses that stood around the market-place. The foreign settlers bought land, bought privileges from the original lords of the soil, and copied in their statutes those of German towns in general. In the woods and on the commons round, it was told with wonder how rapidly those men of a foreign tongue had grown up into a large community, and how every peasant who passed through their gate must pay toll; nay, that even the nobleman, all-powerful as he was, must pay it as well. Several of the Poles around joined lots with the citizens, and settled among them as mechanics or shopkeepers. This had been the origin of Rosmin, as of many other German towns on foreign soil, and these have remained what at first they were, the markets of the great plains, where Polish produce is still exchanged for the inventions of German industry, and the poor field-laborer brought into contact with other men, with culture, liberty, and a civilized state.