"Nay, that young lass is not used to such long walks," said the farmer good-naturedly; "she can get as far as my house down yonder, and then we must see what is to be done."
And what a beautiful, substantial farm-house they were taken to, with the pretty garden in front, and the splendid meadow behind, and the nice cool parlour, which was shaded from the sun by the projecting thatch; and then what a kind farmer's wife she was, who set before them delicious butter-milk and new-baked cakes, for they had that morning been baking. The children were overjoyed. Mina had heard and read a great deal about the dangers of the world, but if everywhere throughout the world people were as good as these, it could not be so very bad. The farmer's wife, who had been born and brought up at this farm, and had never in all her life been farther from home than Disselsburg, felt great compassion for the children, who had come such a long way. She would not therefore hear of them again setting out before dinner, although they had partaken so largely of cake and butter-milk that they were in no condition to do much honour to the excellent buttered oatmeal porridge, of which the dinner principally consisted.
The children of the farmer, who also came hot and tired from the school, beheld with great astonishment the young travellers, who appeared to them to have such polished town manners, though Steinheim was anything but metropolitan. Before long, however, they became quite familiar, took them into the stable and showed them a calf and a young kid.
It was very agreeable to the children in this hospitable house, but the twelve full miles, of which the farmer had spoken, lay like a weight on Mina's soul. How could it possibly be so far to Barenburg Castle?
"Do you know what?" said the farmer, when, after dinner, they were thinking of again setting out. "I promised some time ago to take a waggon-load of straw to Kochendorf; I shall not be doing anything with the horses this afternoon, I will therefore have the straw loaded; you can ride nicely upon it, and from Kochendorf down to Barenburg is only a nice little mile and half, and in the cool of the evening I can drive home, and you reach the end of your journey."
No sooner said than done! Fritz thought it was rather a pity that the pedestrian journey upon which they had calculated so much had now dwindled down to a mere nothing; but Mina, not being ambitious in this way, accepted with the greatest delight a lofty seat on the soft bundles of straw. The beautiful butter that her mother had sent by them for Mrs. Dote was becoming soft from the heat by this time, therefore the kind farmer's wife exchanged it for some of her own, which was fresh, of a much finer colour and quality, and quite firm from having been kept in ice-cold water.
Towards evening, a little shaken, but at the same time nicely rocked as in a cradle, for the waggon travelled slowly, the children reached Kochendorf. The waggoner helped them down from their lofty throne-like seat; Mina carefully picked off from Fritz and herself all the straws that hung dangling about them, then taking up their knapsack and basket, after a friendly leave of the kind farmer, they followed in the cool of the evening, with renewed strength and cheerful hearts, the road that was pointed out to them.
It was at first a narrow green path between thick hedges, where they could scarcely see many paces in advance; before long, however, it opened into a broad, magnificent avenue of old lime-trees, which, now in flower, filled the air with a delicious fragrance. With beating hearts and full of a strange expectation, the children pursued this road which seemed already very grand, and unlike anything they had been accustomed to.