"We must go home," said Cain, and seized the oar. But even now they did not go fast. The darkness that swept down suddenly over the Schwarzsee deepened around them. The ruddy glow was quenched. The lake lay like polished black glass, and the rocky banks seemed to grow higher.
Stephen Fausch still stood and waited. In the uncertain light his figure seemed to have grown bigger, like the rocks. As the young people approached the bank, he gave them no greeting, but turned away, with his hands in his pockets, and grumbled, as they bid him Good evening: "Where have you been all this time, you two?"
He had on his black, Sunday clothes; but his face had not a Sunday expression. His brow had an angry look.
They stepped out quietly onto the bank, looked at the smith, to see if he was coming with them, then all three started on the homeward road. The night had almost descended upon them before they reached the hospice. During the whole walk they hardly spoke ten words; only Fausch grumbled once, turning to the side where Cain was walking: "Pretty soon we shall not see you all day long."
Vincenza was inwardly angry. What a bull-headed, unfriendly man he was, the smith!
Cain did not know what to make of his father. Was he displeased with something? What could have come over him? He did not know that Stephen Fausch was always looking for him when he was not by. He could not know that the man was hungering for him, perhaps without knowing it himself, and that his restlessness and that strange wild hunger, that his shut- in nature hid under a rough, ill-tempered manner, had today driven him to follow them to the lake.
Chapter VIII
Fausch's ill temper that evening did not hinder Cain and Vincenza from enjoying each other's company as before. They were too young and too thoughtless to think very much about others, and Cain did not suspect the feeling that his father was hiding. Their days grew only more lovely and contented, as the season changed again, and autumn gave way to winter. The cold weather drove those who lived at the hospice together in a couple of little rooms. The troops of travelers diminished. Only one regular post now passed over the mountain daily in each direction. The trains of pack animals still came; but the work at the smithy grew less. The apprentice was dismissed. Fausch was once more alone in his shop. Everything lay deep under the snow, the mountain meadows were one smooth sheet of white. The rocks were invisible and the lakes lay buried. The mountains round about had lost their gloomy shade, and now seemed to surround the valley with walls of alabaster, and when the sun shone, the whole white world was radiant. Where the road, which looked like a single furrow in a white field, separated, running northward and southward, stood the hospice. The gray walls were plastered with snow, and the buildings looked like an island that is about to be submerged in some great flood. From without, the few houses on the lonely mountain had a defenseless look. But inside they were snug and warm, and there was need of warmth and comfort; for the winter storms came rushing over the snow fields, and the thick, cold clouds came, bringing night at noonday. Then the travel over the mountain road would cease, for days or weeks, or if some foolhardy man, or a daring troop came up from the valley, they would cross themselves, if they got as far as the hospice, and would gasp out: "That was tempting Providence: that road meant life or death."
The two men from Waltheim passed this first winter as contentedly as the autumn, and the same contentment lasted into the spring, when the avalanches came crashing down the mountain sides. When the danger of snowslides was somewhat less, some travelers began to come through the pass, and one of the first who came was Hallheimer, the trader. Two things were especially noticeable in him, on his arrival, first that his illness had gone hard with him, for he was still thinner and his straggling beard looked still more scanty: second, that he had felt very curious to make this mountain trip once more. He greeted the smith first, for he had taken his wagon at once to the stables, and wanted to know how Stephen liked the place, and gave him news about the smithy at Waltheim, for which he had a purchaser in view. Fausch stood by his workbench and let the words pass by him, muttered an answer now and then and let the trader see that he did not regret the change. Then the trader wanted to go over to the tavern. Simmen, with whom he was a profitable and quite a favorite guest, because he always brought news, greeted him with "Hullo," and Hallheimer soon had the conversation precisely where he wanted it. "How goes it with the smith?" he asked.
"He's an odd stick," said Simmen. "But he can work!"