"And I, fool, didn't want to come back," he murmured to himself.
The boat landed.
The ferryman was still old Jürgens, with the plaid woollen comforter round his neck and the same great patches of sailcloth on the knees of his trousers. He began to grumble and scold.
"Why hadn't they shouted across 'Horse and carriage.' Did not every baby in arms know by this time that was the right way of summoning the big ferry barge instead of the small boat."
"You are quite right, Jürgens," said Leo, tapping him majestically on the shoulder; "it is a grave scandal that your system of governing the stream is not more respected."
At the first sound of his voice the old man shook with fright. Then he snatched off his cap and stammered in confusion, "The master! the master!"
The post of ferryman at Wengern was in the gift of Halewitz, and it had been given twenty years ago to old Jürgens (for even then he had been old), in reward for his long and faithful services to the family. It was no sinecure; but where does such a thing as a sinecure exist in the country of Prussia?
The aged retainer struggled to keep back his tears; he seized the leonine paw that rested on his shoulder, and seemed as if he would never stop stroking it with his horny gnarled hands.
Leo, who was every moment feeling more at home in his patriarchal inheritance, ordered his luggage to be left in the little ferry-house, and, lavishly overpaying the young driver, dismissed him.
The boat put off and glided with a slight grinding on the pebbles of the shallow water into mid-stream. Leo, content, absently let his hand dip into the water, and delighted in the little sparkling rivulets that ran up his arm. Meanwhile the old man gazed at him from the end of the boat with big tear-dimmed eyes.