Katharine shook her head gaily as she came down the steps. Her astonishment at what Fausch had said, overcame her so, that she was quite bewildered, and the motion of her head was the mechanical expression of her great satisfaction. Cain looked straight before him into the bright daylight, and his eyes were glistening. He felt as if he were entering into a new life.
The old woman was allowed to sit on a chest in the wagon. There sat the feeble-looking old soul, thin and stooping on her seat. She wore a neat, dark dress and a black kerchief on her head, beneath which looked out her pinkish wrinkled face, and her thin, reddish gray, smoothly parted hair. Her face was almost childishly small. Her faded eyes, which had neither eyebrows nor lashes, looked down at the smith and his boy, and when Fausch looked up at her, she laughed back at him. It was a long while since old Katharine had laughed.
Fausch spoke a few words more with the trader, to whom he gave over the keys of the smithy, then he growled "Go on," and the wagon started. Cain and the smith walked behind. Hallheimer looked after them and tried to recollect something. Had he not heard rightly, or had not the smith just now called his boy "Franz?" Had the old man been converted? Was he trying to wipe away the mark of shame from the poor fellow?
The wagon with its creaking wheels rumbled comfortably along the road, into the strip of woodland and out again, toward Waltheim. The sun rose higher into the blue sky. The teamsters, the smith, and the boy, Cain, tossed their smock-frocks onto the wagon. The sharply marked shadows of the men and of the horses and wagon ran along beside them with comical movements. The day was very still, the sun reigned supreme and threw so strong a light on the long, quiet, white country road and the broad, level meadows on each side, that the people seemed like toys in the full clear light. The little caravan now reached the village, through the very middle of which ran the road, so that as they entered the place, they could already see the point at the further edge where they should leave it again. Here too there were very few on the road, because it was so early in the day. But people were stirring, right and left, at the doors and windows. The rumbling of the wagon awoke the prying eyes of Waltheim. Each one beckoned or called to the others. It was as if the little group were running the gauntlet. Fausch and Cain walked with lowered heads, the smith, because it was his surly fashion, the boy, through bashfulness, because he knew that now all eyes and tongues were busy with him once more. If from here and there a greeting came to the two, who scarcely looked to right or left, "Good-by, smith!" "I wish you a good journey, Fausch!" the smith grumbled: "Yes--yes," or some word that was hard to make out; but only rarely did he step up to one of his customers or other acquaintance, shake hands and say perhaps, "We're going away now," or something of the sort, and then turn quickly away, leaving behind those who would have been glad to ask more about this or that. And so they reached the end of the village and came out again onto the straight open road. Cain breathed more freely. As the noise of the place died out behind him, the gossip in Waltheim would cease also, when he was out of sight.
MOONRISE IN THE MOOR
Then their journey stretched on and on. For two days they traveled over level country, stopping here and there at modest taverns to sleep or for their meals, and the ranges of high mountains, which bounded their view on the south, came nearer and nearer. Stephen Fausch and Cain still continued to walk behind the wagon in the same way. They did not talk much. But whenever they met any one, or passed through a town, glances of surprise and curiosity followed them; for it seemed as if the living images of night and day were walking side by side over the land. Fausch's clothes were dark and coarse, such as he always wore. They hung loose and heavy about his ungainly form, his hands were blackened, and his large head, which was set upon his broad shoulders as if thrust forward to meet some obstacle, matched them in color; his thick curly hair was deep black, and his face looked as if tanned by the hot sun of some foreign land. Beside him Cain seemed almost small, although he was well above medium height. The symmetry of his whole form was very striking. He had a free, powerful gait. But his beardless face seemed, by contrast with the brown tint of his father's, almost like the face of a tender, lovely woman. He was neatly dressed in some light color, and since, like Fausch, he wore no hat, his blond hair shimmered in the sunlight.
Wherever they went, the people said of Fausch: "Look at that fellow," then they would nudge each other: "But see what a pretty boy it is with him."
On the third day the dark, fir-covered mountains closed in around their road in a half circle. The road led deeper and deeper in between these high walls. Soon the walls became steeper, and changed to roughly piled rocky turrets, upon whose highest summits the snow glistened. Then the road itself began to climb, and wound upward over first one hill and then another, always higher and higher up a wild valley, where the villages seemed to cling to the steep slopes as if they were glued on, while there were no more cheerful white or yellow houses gay with flowers as in the valleys, but only huts darkened by the storms and poor, shingle roofed church towers. The teamsters were kept busy, for the horses found their load heavy to pull. They swore a good deal, but here and there, when the road was too steep, Fausch and the boy put their shoulders to the wagon and pushed from behind to help the horses. Katharine was still sitting on her chest; she nodded now and then, and looked frequently at Cain, whose face had always been the delight of her eyes.
The sun seemed to favor them, for they had it constantly with them. But the sky above grew always narrower, the great mountains were piled so high. Finally even the dark firs were left behind them, and then the last villages. On each side of the road now lay treeless, green Alpine meadows, boldly arched slopes, from which arose a whole world of glistening white mountains, with glaciers, pinnacles and rocky peaks. And now the snow often lay quite near the road. Cain, who had often sung to himself in the valley, when there was no one on the road, was now silent. But he opened his eyes wide with astonishment, and often paused to draw a deep breath; for the mountain air was singularly pure and invigorating. And to his surprise, his father too would pause, and gaze at this world of mountains and rocks and snow, and once he said to him in a deep, hollow voice: "Isn't it beautiful, my boy?"