"What can have happened to my girls? They were as quiet as mice and never said a word to each other till this afternoon, and now they are once more one heart and one soul." "Hush, Mrs. Nüssler," said Bräsig, "I'll find out all about it for you today. Joseph, come with me; but mind you're not to talk." Joseph followed him to the garden, and when they got there Bräsig took his arm: "Now hold your tongue, Joseph," he said, "don't look round, you must appear to be taking a walk after dinner." Joseph did as he was told with much success. When they reached the cherry-tree beside the arbor, Bräsig stood still and said: "Now then, Joseph, give me a back—but put your head close to the stem of the tree." Joseph was about to speak, but Bräsig pressed down his head, saying: "Hold your tongue, Joseph—put your head nearer the tree." He then stepped on his back, and when standing there firmly, said: "Now straighten yourself—It does exactly!" Then seizing the lower branch with both hands, Bräsig pulled himself up into the tree. Joseph had never spoken all this time but now he ventured to remark: "But, Bräsig, they're not nearly ripe yet." "What a duffer you are, Joseph," said Bräsig, thrusting his red face through the green leaves which surrounded him. "Do you really think that I expect to eat Rhenish cherries at midsummer. But go away now as quickly as you can and don't stand there looking like a dog when a cat has taken refuge in a tree." "Ah well, what shall I do?" said Joseph, going away and leaving Bräsig to his fate.
Bräsig had not been long in his hiding-place, when he heard a light step on the gravel walk, and, peering down, saw Lina going into the arbor with such a large bundle of work in her arms that if she had finished it in one day it would have been difficult to keep her in sewing. She laid her work on the table and, resting her head on her hand, sat gazing thoughtfully at the blue sky beyond Bräsig's cherry-tree. "Ah, how happy I am," she said to herself in the fulness of her grateful heart. "How happy I am. Mina is so kind to me; and so is Godfrey, or why did he press my foot under the table at dinner. What made Bräsig stare at us so sharply, I wonder? I think I must have blushed. What a good man Godfrey is. How seriously and learnedly he can talk. How decided he is, and I think he has the marks of his spiritual calling written in his face. He isn't the least bit handsome it is true; Rudolph is much better looking, but then Godfrey has an air with him that seems to say, 'don't disturb me by telling me of any of your foolish worldly little vanities, for I have high thoughts and aspirations, I am going to be a clergyman.' I'll cut his hair short though as soon as I have the power." It is a great blessing that every girl does not set her heart on having a handsome husband, for otherwise we ugly men would all have to remain bachelors; and pleasant looking objects we should be in that case, as I know of nothing uglier than an ugly old bachelor. Lina's last thought, that of cutting Godfrey's hair, had shown so much certainty of what was going to happen, that she blushed deeply, and as at the same moment she heard a slow dignified step approaching, she snatched up her work and began to sew busily.
Godfrey seated himself at a little distance from his cousin, opened his book and began to read, but every now and then he peeped over the edge of it, either because he had read it before, or because he was thinking of something else. That is always the way with Methodistical divinity students even when they firmly believe what they teach. Before the examination they think of nothing but their spiritual calling, but after the examination is well over human nature regains its sway, and they look out for a fitting wife, before they begin to think of a parsonage. Godfrey was like all the rest of his kind, and as no other girls except Mina and Lina had come in his way, and as Lina attended to his admonitions far more docilely than her sister, he determined to make her his helpmate. He was ignorant as to how such matters ought to be conducted, and felt a little shy and awkward. He had got no further in his wooing than pressing his lady-love's foot under the table, and whenever he had done so he was always much more confused than Lina, whose foot had received the pressure.
However he had determined that the whole matter should be settled that day, so he began: "I brought this book out entirely for your sake, Lina. Will you listen to a bit of it just now?" "Yes," said Lina. "What a slow affair it's going to be," thought Bräsig, who could hardly be said to be lying on a bed of roses, his position in the cherry-tree was so cramped and uncomfortable. Godfrey proceeded to read a sermon on Christian marriage, describing how it should be entered into, and what was the proper way of looking upon it. When he had finished he drew a little nearer his cousin and asked: "What do you think of it, Lina?" "It's very nice," said Lina. "Do you mean marriage?" asked Godfrey. "O-oh, Godfrey," said Lina, her head drooping lower over her work. "No, Lina," Godfrey went on drawing a little closer to her, "it isn't at all nice. I am thankful to see that you don't regard the gravest step possible in human life with unbecoming levity. Marriage is a very hard thing, that is to say, in the Christian sense of the word." He then described the duties, cares and troubles of married life as if he wished to prepare Lina for taking up her abode in some penal settlement, and Bräsig, as he listened, congratulated himself on having escaped such a terrible fate. "Yes," Godfrey continued, "marriage is part of the curse that was laid on our first parents when they were thrust out of paradise." So saying he opened his Bible and read the third chapter of Genesis aloud. Poor Lina did not know what to do, or where to look, and Bräsig muttered: "The infamous Jesuit, to read all that to the child." He nearly jumped down from the tree in his rage, and as for Lina, she would have run away if it had not been the Bible her cousin was reading to her, so she hid her face in her hands and wept bitterly. Godfrey was now quite carried away by zeal for his holy calling; he put his arm round her waist, and said: "I could not spare you this at a time when I purpose making a solemn appeal to you. Caroline Nüssler, will you, knowing the gravity of the step you take, enter the holy estate of matrimony with me, and become my Christian helpmeet?" Lina was so frightened and distressed at his whole conduct that she could neither speak nor think; she could only cry.
At the same moment a merry song was heard at a little distance:
"One bright afternoon I stood to look
Into the depths of a silver brook,
And there I saw little fishes swim,
One of them was gray, I look'd at him.
He was swimming, swimming and swimming
And with delight seemed overbrimming;
I never saw such a thing in my life
As the little gray fish seeking a wife."
Lina struggled hard to regain her composure, and then, in spite of the Bible and the Christian requirements demanded of her, she started up and rushed out of the arbor. On her way to the house she passed Mina who was coming out to join her with her sewing. Godfrey followed Lina with long slow steps, and looked as much put out as the clergyman who was interrupted in a very long sermon by the beadle placing the church key on the reading desk and saying that he might lock up the church himself when he had done, for he, the beadle, must go home to dinner. Indeed he was in much the same position as that clergyman. Like him he had wished to preach a very fine sermon, and now he was left alone in his empty church.
Mina was an inexperienced little thing, for she was the youngest of the family, but still she was quick-witted enough to guess something of what had taken place. She asked herself whether she would cry if the same thing were to happen to her, and what it would be advisable for her to do under the circumstances. She seated herself quietly in the arbor, and began to unroll her work, sighing a little as she did so at the thought of the uncertainty of her own fate, and the impossibility of doing anything but wait patiently. "Bless me!" said Bräsig to himself as he lay hidden in the tree. "This little round-head has come now, and I've lost all feeling in my body. It's a horribly slow affair!" But the situation was soon to become more interesting, for shortly after Mina had taken her seat a handsome young man came round the corner of the arbor with a fishing rod over his shoulder and a fish basket on his back. "I'm so glad to find you here, Mina," he exclaimed, "of course you've all finished dinner." "You need hardly ask, Rudolph. It has just struck two." "Ah well," he said, "I suppose that my aunt is very angry with me again."
"You may be certain of that, and she was displeased with you already, you know, even without your being late for dinner. I'm afraid, however, that your own stomach will punish you more severely than my mother's anger could do, you've neglected it so much today." "All the better for you tonight. I really couldn't come sooner, the fish were biting so splendidly. I went to the black pool today, though Bräsig always advised me not to go there, and now I know why. It's his larder. When he can't catch anything else—where he's sure of a bite in the black pool. It's cram full of tench. Just look, did you ever see such beauties?" and he opened the lid of his basket as he spoke, and showed his spoil, adding: "I've done old Bräsig this time at any rate!" "The young rascal!" groaned Bräsig as he poked his nose through the cherry-leaves, making it appear like a huge pickled capsicum such as Mrs. Nüssler was in the habit of preserving in cherry-leaves for winter use. "The young rascal to go and catch my tench! Bless me! what monsters the rogue has caught!" "Give them to me, Rudolph," said Mina. "I will take them into the house, and will bring you something to eat out here." "Oh no, never mind" "But you musn't starve," she said. "Very well then—anything will do. A bit of bread and butter will be quite enough, Mina." The girl went away, and Rudolph seated himself in the arbor. "The devil take it!" muttered Bräsig, stretching his legs softly, and twisting and turning in the vain endeavor to find a part of his body which was not aching from his cramped position. "The wretch is sitting there now! I never saw such goings on!"