But still heavier grew her heart, when the rector, as soon as the doctor permitted it, began anew the education of his son. Previous to his cure, Clement had passed the greater part of his day in practising music; religious instruction, history, mathematics, and a little Latin, were all which formerly had appeared necessary or possible; and Mary had been permitted to share his lessons, which, after all, included only the most necessary information. Now, when the boy exhibited the strongest inclination towards natural science, he was set seriously to work, and prepared for one of the higher classes of the town school.
His steady will worked unceasingly onwards, and his really superior talents enabled him in a surprisingly short time to bring himself up to his age, and to recover lost time. He sat many hours, even then, with his books, in the sacristan's garden. But the old way of talking was out of the question, and Mary felt, but too well, that she was doubly parted, both from instruction and from the friend of her childhood.
CHAPTER IV.
Autumn interrupted for a time the boy's studies. The rector determined to take him with him for some days into the neighbouring mountains, before the winter set in, to show him hill-side and valley, and to let him have a wider look into that world which already seemed so beautiful to him, even on the barren village plains. When the boy was told of it he asked, "And we shall take Mary with us too?"
They tried to dissuade him from it, but without her he refused to travel. "Even if she does not see anything, they say the mountain air is so healthy, and she has been so pale and thin for a long time, and will be quite lonely without me." So they did as he wished; the little maiden was lifted into the carriage beside him, and a short day's journey brought them to the foot of the mountain range.
Now began the journey on foot. Patiently the boy led his blind little friend, more reserved than ever. Often he longed to climb this or that isolated rock-peak which promised him a new view, but he supported her as she went, and would not desert his post, however much his parents begged him. Only when they had reached some eminence, and were seated at rest in a shady nook, did he leave the maiden, and sought his own way amongst the dangerous rocks, collecting curious stones, or flowers that did not grow in the plains below. When he returned to the resting-place he had ever something for Mary--berries, or a sweet-scented flower, or the soft nest of a bird which the wind had dislodged from its tree.
She received everything cheerfully from him, and seemed more contented than she had been at home. And she was so, too; for she breathed the same air with him all the day long. But even then her foolish jealousy accompanied her, and she felt angry with the mountains, whose autumnal beauty, she fancied, only made the world dearer to him, and widened the separation between them. Her strange manner struck the rector's wife. She talked with her husband now and again about the child, who was as dear to them as their own, and both placed her obstinate melancholy to the account of her disappointed hopes; and yet she regretted nothing that had been promised, or that she had been told to expect--only what she had already known and enjoyed.
At the end of the second day's journey they were to pass the night at a lonely house celebrated for the neighbourhood of a magnificent waterfall. They had a long day's journey, and the women were quite tired out. When they reached the house, the rector led his wife within, without proceeding onward to the chasm, from which the roar of the waterfall could be plainly heard. Mary, too, was very tired, but she insisted on following Clement, who cared not to rest so soon; so they climbed together higher up the steps, and ever louder the sound of the roaring water was borne towards them. Half-way up the steep path Mary's last strength deserted her: "I will sit here," she said; "go on to the end, and come back for me when you have seen enough." He begged her to let him take her back to the house first, but she was already seated, and so he left her, and advanced towards the roar, deeply affected by the solitude and majesty of the scene.
The girl sat on a stone and awaited his return. She thought that he lingered very long away. A cold shiver struck through her, and the distant muttering thunder of the fall terrified her, "Why does he not come back?" she thought to herself; "he will forget me in his joy now as ever. I wish I could find my way back to the house, that I might get warm."
So she sat, full of anxiety, and listening intently. Suddenly she fancied that she distinguished his voice calling to her; trembling, she started up. What should she do? Almost involuntarily she took a step forward, but her foot slipped, she tottered and fell. Fortunately the stones near the path were overgrown with moss, but still the fall nearly stunned her, and she cried wildly for help. In vain! her voice could not reach Clement, who stood close to the abyss, surrounded by the roarings of the fall, and the house was far too distant. A bitter pain shot through her heart as she lay there between the stones, neglected and helpless. With tears of despair in her eyes, she raised herself painfully. All that she loved best seemed to her at this moment hateful, and the bitterness of her soul permitted no thought of the nearness of the Omnipresent to rise before her.