"What are you doing here? Who sent for you?" inquired the grandmother of Zenza, who replied:

"Good-morning to you--I didn't come to see you; I want to see this man.

Who's master here? you or he?"

"Speak out; what's the matter?" said Hansei, winking at his mother-in-law.

"I was to bring you the smith's compliments and tell you that the gun's ready for you, at his workshop."

"And so you're going to be a sportsman?" inquired the grandmother; "are you going a-hunting?"

"I suppose I'll have to go if you don't carry me," replied Hansei, laughing loudly at his joke.

The grandmother left the room, slamming the door after her. As nimbly as a cat, Zenza sprang toward Hansei and said:

"She'll wait for you up there, at dusk." Then, in a loud voice, she added: "G.o.d keep you, Hansei," and left the house.

The grandmother went out to the woodcutter and told him that he mustn't think they were used to having such wicked people as Zenza come to the house; but that, no matter how often they forbade her coming, she would force herself upon them, in order to show her grat.i.tude for Walpurga's having procured the pardon of her son Thomas. It had been a foolish action; for Red Thomas would have been much better taken care of under lock and key. But Walpurga had meant it for the best. The woodcutter was satisfied; he well knew that it was a respectable house, and it was quite by accident that he remarked: "I wonder why Zenza's without Black Esther. They're generally together in the daytime."

The grandmother's eyes flashed when she heard his words. She bent down hurriedly, took up an armful of wood and carried it up to the house.

When she reached the gable side, she found Hansei there, piling up the wood and whistling cheerfully. The grandmother kept on carrying wood, while Hansei piled it up, neither of them speaking a word. At noon, Hansei paid the woodcutter and said: "I'll cut the rest myself; you needn't come to-morrow."

"He's a good fellow, after all," thought the grandmother to herself.

"He don't like to give in, in so many words, but afterward he does what you tell him, for all. He soon finds out what's right."

After dinner she brought the child to him and said:

"Just look here! Just feel! There's a tooth coming already. It's very soon, but it was just the same way with your wife. Just see how it puts its little hands in its mouth. G.o.d be praised that our child is thriving so nicely! Since you've been using hay for fodder, and since it's been getting the new cow's milk, you can see the child growing before your very eyes. If Walpurga could only see it, just for an hour.

Take it; I'll give it to you carefully. See, it's laughing at you. It knows you. Ah, dear me! but it doesn't know its mother yet."

"I can't take the child on my arms; I'm afraid I'd hurt it," replied Hansei.

The grandmother felt like saying: "If you let yourself go to ruin, you'll surely harm the child--" but checked herself. When a man is getting back into the right road, it isn't well to keep preaching at him. Let him go on quietly in his own way, or else he will lose all pleasure in it.--Thus thought the grandmother to herself, and, although she had already opened her lips to speak, she swallowed her words.

Hansei looked about him, with an unsteady glance, and said:

"Mother-in-law, you were going to say something else."

"There's no need of saying everything. But yes!--you lower yourself when you let Zenza bring messages to you. I noticed the woodcutter making a queer face when he saw that Zenza was allowed to enter our house. Don't go to the Windenreuthe; the place has a bad name, and it does no one credit to go there. If you do want to go hunting, and have bought yourself a gun, you can give a boy a penny to go there and get it for you."

"Yes, indeed," thought Hansei, smiling, "grandmother's right; but one needn't tell all one's thoughts."

"I'm going into the forest now. I want to be about when they load up my wood."

He took his hat and mountain-staff, donned his hunter's pouch and provided himself with a piece of bread. The grandmother, carrying the child on her arm, accompanied him as far as the cherry-tree, from which the withered leaves were already beginning to fall.

Hansei went into the forest; but, as soon as he was out of sight, he turned about and took the road that led to Windenreuthe.

He felt quite strangely while on his way. He had never before known that he breathed so hard and was so easily frightened. He was terrified by every sound, by the nutp.e.c.k.e.r flying from the tree, the chattering magpie, the hooting hawk-owl on the rocky ridge, and the bellowing cow in the meadow.

"I oughtn't to go, and I won't go," he exclaimed, bringing his staff down with such force that the pointed ferrule struck sparks from the stones in the road, and yet he went on.

Fortunately, a mist was ascending the mountain, but he walked on, farther and farther, through the clouds.

Windenreuthe consists of a few poor-looking, scattered houses. Hansei stopped in front of the first house, as if riveted to the spot. He was seized with fright as sudden as if a bullet had struck him, and yet what had alarmed him was nothing, after all. He had merely heard a child crying in the house before which he stood. "Your child cries just like this one," said an inner voice. "How will you be, when you see it and hear it and kiss it again? How will you be, when you pa.s.s this house on your way back.... How will you be, in the spring, when your wife returns and you walk with her and meet Black Esther? And at every merry-making, either at home or at the inn, Black Esther will come and say: 'Make room for me; I belong here too.'"

Hansei's brain reeled. He looked into the future--days and years pa.s.sed before him in an instant. And yet he went on. Indeed, he snapped his fingers and said to himself: "You're a foolish fellow; a perfect simpleton; you haven't a bit of courage. Other people are merry and lead a happy life, and don't care a deuce about it and--what jolly stories the innkeeper tells of such and such a one, and what pranks the hunters tell of.... To enjoy all you can and lead a loose life into the bargain, does one credit with those who're not obliged to earn a living."

He removed his hat; his head seemed as if burning. He put his hat on again, pressing it down over his eyes, and went on through the dreary village.

Night had come on. Zenza lived in a so-called herb-hut, in the woods and at some distance from the village. It was there that her deceased husband had distilled brandy from various herbs, but princ.i.p.ally of gentian. His master-wort was still noted.

The light from a large fire shone through the open door of the hut. At that moment, some one came to the threshold and leaned against the doorpost. She was full of wild beauty and power. Behind her, the flames were brightly burning. Hansei was now quite free from the fear he had experienced on the night when he still believed in the fabled forest-sprites. The figure now placed its hand to its cheek and uttered a shrill shout, which might be compared to a tone-rocket ascending on high and then bursting into all sorts of carols. Hansei trembled, and then he heard Zenza say:

"You needn't shout so. Don't scream to the whole world that you're at home. Wait till the horse is in the stable--"

"Hallo!" thought Hansei to himself, while he stood there, trembling, "she means to make a prisoner of you, and will drag every kreutzer from your pocket, if you act meanly or badly with her.... She'll make a beggar of you, and disgrace you in the bargain. No, you shan't rob me of my money. I won't put myself in your clutches. I'll do no such thing. You shan't have a right to stand up before my wife, and look her in the face and talk to her, while I'll have to thank you, in the bargain, if you don't do it. No, a thousand times no. I won't be wicked. I'd rather--"

As if pursued by an enemy, Hansei hurried back with mighty strides, and the unbarked oaken staff which he held with both hands served to support him in his flight. It was long since he had bounded down the rocks with such energy and rapidity. He again pa.s.sed the house where he heard the child crying. It had not yet been hushed, but he who heard it was a different man from what he had been a little while ago. He hurried on as if pursued. The perspiration trickled down his cheeks and dropped on his hands, but he did not once stop. He felt as if Zenza, Black Esther and Red Thomas had followed and overtaken him, and were tearing the clothes from his body. It was not until he had gone far into the forest, that he ventured to sit down on the stump of a tree.

He felt as tired as if he had been running ten miles. He rested his hands on his naked knees, and it seemed as if they were grasping a strange body. He touched the stockings that Walpurga had knit for him, and the first word that left his lips was: "Walpurga, I've only once trodden such a path. It shall never happen again. I swear it, Walpurga," and taking the last letter he had received from her out of his pocket, he said: "I put your letter in my shoe, and these feet shall never tread the path of evil again. Thank G.o.d! I've only been wicked in thought." He took off his shoe, placed the letter in it, and had just stood up again, when he once more heard the loud shout issuing from Zenza's house.

"Scream on, as long as you've a mind to," said he to himself, while he went farther into the wood. He tried to light his pipe, but always struck his fingers with the steel; and, besides, his tinder was damp.

"You don't need any fire, you wicked fellow," said he at last, while he put the pipe into his pocket. "You don't need fire; there's one burning up there, that would have been h.e.l.l-fire for you. You may be right glad that you're out of it; it's more than you deserve."

If Hansei, at that moment, could have laid hands on the Hansei of an hour ago he would have strangled him.

The mist had become so thick that it was almost like a drizzling rain.

The forest seemed to be growing vaster, and a path was nowhere to be found.

"You've lost your way, and it serves you right," said Hansei, speaking to himself. "You're no longer fit to be with decent men, you good-for-nothing wretch. It's only a pity that your wife and child are innocent sufferers by it--"

Two men in one were lost in the mist. Hansei cursed and swore at himself, but soon grew frightened, for his mind became filled with stories of the evil spirits that lead the solitary traveler up and down hill, and round and about, through the livelong night. He was about to turn back. It would be easier to find the way to Windenreuthe.

"Wait, you accursed devil," said he, addressing the invisible companion who had thus advised him; "all you want is to get me back there again.

No, you shan't catch me."

He again tried to strike a light and, this time, with success. Just as he drew the first puff, he heard the tones of the bell, and pressed his hand to his forehead, for it seemed to him as if the clapper of the bell were striking against his head.

"That's the vesper bell of the chapel by the lake. The sounds seem so near. Can I be on this side? No, it's the mist that makes it sound so."

Uncovering his head, and clinging with both hands to the staff which now stood firmly planted in the ground, he cast aside all other thoughts and breathed a silent prayer.

While praying, he could not help thinking: O G.o.d! I can still pray, although I could so far forget myself and go astray.

The immortal words which an inspired mind drew from the depths of the human heart and its never-ending struggles, thousands of years ago, have been, and still are, the source of blessings innumerable. They are a guide to the lonely wanderer who has lost his way in the mist and darkness of the forest, and lead him back to the right path. The bell utters its sounds and, though it does not speak in words, it yet fills the soul with those immortal words which serve as a staff to the weary and a guide to the blind. When Hansei finished his prayer, the bell was still tolling, and it seemed to him as if the whole village, every soul in it,--and above all, his wife and child--were calling to him. And now he found the path. He descended the stony bed of a dried mountain current which led into the valley. He had gone far out of his way, for when he descended the mountain, he found himself back of the Chamois inn. Evil desires, fright, devotion, and losing his way had made him both hungry and thirsty.

"Ah! G.o.d greet you, Hansei," exclaimed the host. "G.o.d greet you! G.o.d be with you!" stammered out Hansei, confusedly.

"What's the matter with you? You're as pale as death. What's happened to you? Where do you come from?" inquired the host.