Part 24 (2/2)

His walk had now brought him to the forest, with its overhanging branches. In other times how little he had cared for the noxious insects of the woods. He had not grown up with gloved hands, but now he shuddered at the caterpillars that hung in the air by their slender threads, as though they were waiting to drop down upon him. These caterpillars can be shaken off, but the world's malicious thoughts, that like caterpillars hang everywhere by invisible threads, cannot.

Landolin was sitting on an old tree-stump, when the game-keeper approached, and addressed him in a friendly manner, expressing his sorrow that Landolin had had to undergo so much trouble. Landolin complained that in the short time, he had grown twenty years older, and suffered with a constant palpitation of the heart.

Suddenly he paused, for he became aware that he was begging for sympathy. And from whom? But the game-keeper responded,

”I know myself how a man feels the half hour that the jury are out, and he is waiting for the verdict of life or death.”

”How do you know about it?”

”Have you forgotten my shooting the poacher? He had his piece leveled at me from behind a tree. Crack--crack. It is self-defense! There you lie,” said the game-keeper, with a crafty smile.

Landolin went home fortified. ”It was self-defense. The court has acknowledged that it was, and it was so. I must learn to keep that in mind. I must.”

CHAPTER XLV.

The summer night was mild and clear. A Sat.u.r.day evening in harvest-time has a peculiar quiet, a premonition of the full day of rest after the six days' unceasing work.

At all the farm-houses, far and wide, the people sat on the out-door benches and talked of the harvest; of how much was already stored away, and of how much was still standing in the fields. Then they talked of their neighbors far and near, and of course of Landolin also. They spoke pityingly of his misfortune, but with a certain quiet self-congratulation that they themselves were free and happy. It was almost like breathing, upon the mountain, air purified and freshened by a thunder-storm in the valley.

Soon with weary steps they sought their beds; for in the morning young and old were going to the celebration in the city.

Landolin and his wife were sitting on the bench before his house. Thoma sat at one side on an old tree-stump, where the men often mended their scythes.

These three had so much to say, and yet spoke so little!

”So to-morrow is the fifteenth of July,” said Landolin. Thoma looked around, but turned quickly away, and again seemed buried in her own thoughts.

The dedication of the flag was to take place the following day. One might imagine that years had already pa.s.sed since the day when Anton, with his two companions, came to ask Thoma to be maid of honor. Thoma was unselfish enough not to think first of the pleasure and distinction she would lose, but she sighed sadly when she thought how dreary and sorrowful the day would be for Anton.

”What do you think, Thoma,” asked Landolin; ”shall I go to the celebration, or not?”

”I have no opinion as to what you should do, or not do.”

”Will you go with me?” said he, turning to his wife.

”I would like to, but I'm not well. I'm so chilly, I think I'll go right to bed.”

Thoma wanted to go into the house too, but her mother refused, and insisted that she should remain with her father.

Her mother went in, and Thoma felt that she now ought to talk with her father; but she couldn't think of a word to say. Every pleasant word appeared to her to be a lie, and the bitterness of her fate lay in the fact that there was a lie to contend with. It distressed her to pa.s.s her father by, at home and in the field, in silence, or with only a cold greeting, and now to sit so speechless, and force him to think of their trouble; but she could not do otherwise.

Landolin said that her mother was more ill than she was willing to admit, and that it was evidently hard for her to keep up. Thoma tried to quiet his fears; but her words sounded as hard as stone, when he said, ”But that is a matter where the doctor can help us.”

”And I know something that no doctor can prescribe, which would make your mother strong and well again.”

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