One day they sat together under a shady grove: the baron was weaving a chaplet of roses, Klein-Else was fondling her latest-born upon her knee; round them sported their little ones, bringing fresh baskets of roses for the chaplet the baron was weaving for Klein-Else; while Otto the heir, a noble boy who promised to reproduce his father’s stately figure and handsome lineaments, rejoiced them by his prowess with his bow and arrow.
“How the time has sped, Klein-Else!” whispered the baron; “it seems but yesterday that you first came and knelt beside me in your sunbeam garment. Then, just as now, it was happiness to feel you beside me. I knew not who was there, but as I heard the flutter of your drapery a glow of joy seemed to come from its shining folds, and I, who had never loved any one else, loved you from that moment as I love you now!”
“How well you say it, love!” responded Klein-Else. “Yes; where is the difference between to-day and yesterday, and last year and the year before that? Ever since that first day it has been one long love, nothing else! Yes; well I remember that day. I was poor, and despised, and had no one to talk to, and never thought any one would ever look at me again—except to scold me. And then I went into the church and knelt by you; and I felt as the new ivy twig must feel when it has crept and tossed about in vain, and then at last finds, close under its grasp, the strong, immovable oak, and clasps it—clasps it never to loose its hold again, never! but grows up clasping it ever closer and closer, till it grows quite one with it, and no one can separate them any more for ever!”
“Yes,” replied the baron; “nothing can separate them any more—nothing can separate us now! We have grown together for years, and have only grown the closer. It is now—let me see—five, six, seven years, and we have only grown the closer to each other! To think it is seven years! no, it wants a few weeks; but it will soon be seven years. Seven—” he turned to look at her, for he perceived that as he spoke she had loosened her hold of him, and now he saw she was pale and trembling.
“But what ails you, Elschen[61]? Elschen dear! speak to me, Elschen!” he added, with anxiety, for she sank back almost unconscious against the bank.
“I shall be better presently,” stammered the baroness. “I think the scent of the flowers is too powerful. I don’t feel quite well—take me down by the side of the water; I shall be better presently.” An attendant took the babe from her arms—and the baron remembered afterwards, that as she parted from it she embraced it with a passionate flood of tears; then he led her to the side of the stream, and bathed her burning forehead in the cooling flood.
Suddenly voices in angry altercation were heard through the trees, and the servants summoned the baron with excited gesticulations, saying there was a strange knight, all in armour, who claimed to see the baroness.
Klein-Else was near fainting again when she heard them say that.
“Claims to see the baroness, say you?” replied their lord, with menacing gesture. “Where is he? Let him say that to me!” and he darted off to meet him, without listening to the faint words Klein-Else strove to utter.
Now she was left alone by the side of the stream where, as the Hennenpfösl, she had first washed away the stains of servitude and dressed herself to meet him who was to teach her to love. It was beside that stream she had sat, and her tears had mingled with it, as she had vowed that if ever such joy was hers as now she owned, her treasure should be for those who were outcast and suffering as she had been, and her happiness should be in making others happy!