Her appeal now put new life into him; he hurried to the tree behind which he had hidden his hunting-bag. There he saw, lying on the ground, the unfortunate gun. He seized it furiously and brought it down on a stone with such strength that the stock was shattered to pieces, both barrels bent, and the lock wrenched from the screws. He cursed the day, himself, and his hand. Then, rushing back to the girl, who had sat down on a stone in the "Open Tribunal," he fell at her feet, kissed the hem of her dress, and with passionate tears flowing from his eyes in a torrent, besought her forgiveness. She merely begged him to please arise; he couldn't help doing it, the wound was surely of no significance, and the thing for him to do now was to help.
He now fitted up a seat for her by laying his bag on the stone, bound his handkerchief around her neck, and gently and loosely laid his coat over her shoulders. She sat down on the stone. He took a seat beside her and invited her to rest her head, for relief, against his breast. She did so.
The moon, in its full clarity, had risen high in the heavens, and now shone down with almost daytime brightness on the couple, whom a rude accident had thus brought so close together. In the most intimate proximity the strange man sat by the strange girl; she uttered low moans of pain on his breast, while down his cheeks the tears ran irrepressibly. Round about them the silent solitude of night was slowly gathering.
Finally Fortune so willed it that a late wanderer passed through the cornfields. The Hunter's call reached his ears; he hurried to the spot and was dispatched at once to the Oberhof. Soon afterwards footsteps were heard coming up the hill; the men were bringing a sedan chair with cushions. The Hunter gently lifted the wounded girl into it, and thus, late at night, she reached the sheltering roof of her old friend, who was, to be sure, greatly astonished to see his expected guest arrive in such a condition.
CHAPTER X
THE WEDDING
On a clear morning in August there were so many cooking fires burning at the Oberhof that it seemed as if they might be expecting the entire population of all the surrounding towns to dinner. Over the hearth fire, built up to unusual size with great logs and fagots, there was hanging on a notched iron hook the very largest kettle that the household possessed. Six or seven iron pots stood round these fires with their contents boiling and bubbling. In the space before the house, toward the oak grove, there were crackling, if history reports the truth, nine fires, and an equal number, or at the most one less, in the yard near the lindens. Over all these cooking-places jacks or roasters had been erected, on which frying-pans were resting, or on which kettles of no small size were hanging, although none of them could compare in capacity with the one which was doing duty over the hearth fire.
The maids of the Oberhof were briskly hurrying back and forth with skimming-spoons or forks between the various cooking-places. If the guests were to find the food palatable, there could not be any dawdling over the skimming and turning. For in the large kettle over the hearth eight hens lent strength to the soup, and in the other twenty-three or-four pots, kettles, and pans there were boiling or roasting six hams, three turkeys, and five pigs, besides a corresponding number of hens.
While the maids were exerting themselves, the men too were industriously attending to their part of the work. The one with the black eyes was building an immense, long table with stands, blocks, and boards, in the orchard among the flower-beds, having already completed a similar construction in the entrance-hall. The fat, slow one was decorating with green birch twigs the gates of the house, the walls of the entrance-hall, and the doors of the two rooms in which the Pastor and his Sexton had once eaten. He sighed deeply over this delightful green work, and the heat, too, seemed to oppress him greatly. Nevertheless an easier task had fallen to him than to his fellow-partner, the gruff, red-haired man. For the former had only flexible May twigs to deal with, whereas it fell to the latter to decorate the cattle for the festivity. The red-haired man was, accordingly, gilding with gold tinsel the horns of the cows and bullocks, which were standing on one side of the entrance-hall behind their mangers, or else was tying bright-colored bows and tassels around them. This was, in fact, a provoking task, especially for an irascible man. For many of the cows and an occasional bullock would have absolutely nothing to do with the festival, but shook their heads and butted sideways with their horns, as often as the red-haired fellow came anywhere near them with the tinsel and brush. For a long time he suppressed his natural instinct, and merely grumbled softly once in a while when a horn knocked the brush or the tinsel out of his hand. These grumbles, however, scarcely interrupted the general silence in which all the busily occupied people were attending to their work. But when, finally, the pride of the stable, a large white-spotted cow, with which he had been struggling in vain for more than a quarter of an hour, became positively malicious and tried to give the red-haired fellow a dangerous thrust, he lost all patience. Springing aside, he seized that fence-pole with which he had once restrained himself from striking Peter of the Bandkotten, and which happened by chance to be handy, and gave the obstinate beast such a mighty blow on the groins with the heavy end of it that the cow bellowed with pain, her sides began to quiver, and her nostrils to snort.
The slow, fat fellow dropped the twigs which he had in his hand, the first maid looked up from the kettle, and both cried out simultaneously: