The little girl came very near to crying. "Please don't look so angry," said she; "I will go to India with you."
Reinhard seized both her hands with frantic glee, and rushed out with her into the meadow.
"To India, to India!" he sang, and swung her round and round, so that her little red kerchief was whirled from off her neck. Then he suddenly let her go and said solemnly:
"Nothing will come of it, I'm sure; you haven't the pluck."
"Elisabeth! Reinhard!" some one was now calling from the garden gate.
"Here we are!" the children answered, and raced home hand in hand.
* * * * *
IN THE WOODS
So the children lived together. She was often too quiet for him, and he was often too head-strong for her, but for all that they stuck to one another. They spent nearly all their leisure hours together: in winter in their mothers' tiny rooms, during the summer in wood and field.
Once when Elisabeth was scolded by the teacher in Reinhard's hearing, he angrily banged his slate upon the table in order to turn upon himself the master's wrath. This failed to attract attention.
But Reinhard paid no further attention to the geography lessons, and instead he composed a long poem, in which he compared himself to a young eagle, the schoolmaster to a grey crow, and Elisabeth to a white dove; the eagle vowed vengeance on the grey crow, as soon as his wings had grown.