Part 48 (1/2)
”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.