"What do you mean?" asked both ladies, quite confounded.
"That the bans of your children have been proclaimed in church to-day for the first, second, and third time. There was general astonishment, and though you have acted in so unfriendly a way as to keep it a secret, all your acquaintances were delighted. Now the whole city is full of it."
Without speaking a word the two mothers flew into each others' arms in the open street, midway between the houses. The comedian stood on one side with his hand in his breast pocket, the godmother on the other with folded hands.
It was also a troublous Sunday on the estate of Ilse's father. During the previous night a waterspout had burst on the hills, and a wild flood poured down where formerly the brook ran between the meadows. The oldest people did not remember such a rush of water. Before this the brook had been much swollen by the rains of the previous week, now it roared and thundered through the narrow valley between the manor-house and the sloping hills, and overflowed the fields where it was not defied by the steepness of the country and rocks. Furiously did the water rush and foam over the rocks and about the heads of the willows, carrying away the hay from the meadows in its course, uprooting reeds and tearing off branches of trees, and also the ruins of habitations, which, though far above, had been reached by the flood. The people of the estate stood by the edge of the orchard, looking silently upon the stream and the ruins it bore along with it. The children ran eagerly along the side of the water, endeavoring to draw toward them with poles whatever they could reach. They raised loud cries when they saw a living animal floating along. It was a kid standing on one of the boards of the roof of its stall. When the little creature saw the people standing near, it cried piteously, as if begging to be rescued. Hans put out a well-hook, caught hold of the plank, the kid sprang ashore and was taken in grand procession by the children to the farmyard and there fed.
Ilse was standing at the new bridge leading to the grotto. It had only been built a few weeks, and was now threatened with destruction. Already the supports were bending on one side. The force of the water worked against the lower end, and loosened the pegs. The foam of the water whirled round the projecting foot of the rock, which formed the vault of the grotto, and the power of the rising water made deep furrows in the flood.
"There comes some one running from the mountain," exclaimed the people.
A girl came hastily round the rock, with a large kerchief full of fresh-mowed mountain grass on her back. She stopped terrified on the platform of the rock, and hesitated about crossing the unsafe bridge.
"It is poor Benz's Anna!" exclaimed Ilse; "she must not remain there in the wilderness. Throw your burden away--be brisk, Anna, and come over quickly."
The girl passed rapidly across the bridge.