Part 7 (1/2)

He walked on, lost in dreams of the days that had fled and could never return, while far above his head the larks sang unceasingly, the black crows stalked over the quiet fields abandoned to Sabbath solitude, the bright-plumaged jays fluttered over the moors, and above the border of the distant woods an eagle wheeled in majestic circles. Jochen, who had taken nothing except Gotthold's dressing-case and paint-box tied up with his own little bundle in a gay cotton handkerchief, generally loitered a little behind and did not disturb his silent companion by any undue loquacity. Jochen had his own thoughts, which to be sure did not dwell upon the past but the future, thoughts he would gladly have uttered, only that he knew not how to guide the conversation in that direction. But they were approaching nearer and nearer to the corner of the woods, where he must part from Gotthold for the day, and if he wished to hear his opinion at all, now was the time. So he took heart, overtook his companion with a few long strides, walked on a few minutes by his side in silence, and was not a little startled himself when he suddenly uttered aloud the question he had mutely repeated a hundred times: ”What do you think about marrying, Herr Gotthold?”

Gotthold paused and looked in astonishment at the worthy Jochen, who also stood still, and whose broad face, with its staring eyes and half-open mouth, wore so singular an expression that he could not help smiling.

”What put that into your head?”

”Because I want to get married.”

”Then you must know about it far better than I, who do not.”

Jochen closed his lips and swallowed several times, as if he had taken too large a mouthful. Gotthold was now forced to laugh outright.

”Why, Jochen,” he exclaimed, ”why are you so mysterious to an old friend? I will gladly give you my best advice, and if I can, and you care about it, my blessing also, but I must first know what the matter is really about. So you want to be married?”

”Yes, Herr Gotthold,” said Jochen, taking off his cap and wiping the drops of perspiration from his brown forehead; ”at least I don't exactly, but she says she has always wanted me.”

”That is something, and who is she?”

”Stine Lachmund.”

”But, Jochen, she is at least fifteen years older than you.”

”She can't help that.”

”No, certainly not.”

”And then she is a capable woman, who has a good stout frame and strong bones, only it is a little hard for her to move about because she has rather too much flesh now, but she says that would probably go off if she had more work to do than she has at the Wollnows', where life is altogether too easy.”

”Well, if she thinks so herself.”

”Yes, and then she has put by a pretty sum of money at the Wollnows', and her old father and mother at Thiessow,--you know, Herr Gotthold, we sailed over there once with the young master, and there was a terribly high sea outside, so that we got there as wet as cats, and old Lachmund thought we must really have had a ducking.”

”And then he made us a stiff gla.s.s of grog,” said Gotthold.

”And our young master drank a little too much, and played all sorts of pranks in the old man's long jacket, with his sou'wester on his head--that was a jolly time, Herr Gotthold.” Jochen had lost the thread of his story, but Gotthold kindly prompted him, and he now went on to relate that the old couple, rich people for their station in life, who had kept a sort of inn in the large fis.h.i.+ng village, at last wished to resign the sceptre they had so long and obstinately held to their only daughter, and give themselves up to repose for the rest of their days, on condition that she should instantly marry some good man.

So Stine Lachmund, whom Jochen had visited in the kitchen at the same time that Gotthold had been calling upon her master and mistress, had reported, and asked Jochen whether he would be her husband.

”For you see, Herr Gotthold,” continued Jochen, ”she don't take to everybody, and she has known me, as one might say, all my life, and knows I am an orderly, sober man, who understands how to take care of horses, knows enough about farming, and can even manage a boat, if it doesn't blow too hard.”

”Then so far everything would be perfectly suitable,” said Gotthold, ”but now we come to the princ.i.p.al thing: do you really love her?”

”Yes, that's just it,” replied Jochen thoughtfully. ”She asked me herself last night, and what was I to say?”

”The truth, Jochen, nothing but the truth.”

”I did, Herr Gotthold, I did tell the truth. 'Not yet,' I said, and then she laughed and said that would do no harm, all that would come right if the woman and the man were well-behaved. I must ask you, you would give me the right advice.”