"My Joseph! where is my Joseph?"

"In the warm stable below, sound asleep," said Tony; "let him sleep on quietly, your father is with him; we laid him in warm, dry hay; and I'll tell you what we will do--we will carry him upstairs immediately, and lay him in my bed, in the next room. You can go down to fetch him: Adam, you need not be afraid about your Martina; go at once, and I will stay with her."

"And I!" said Speidel-Rottmann. Adam went down to the stable, and carried the child upstairs to bed, but Schilder-David was sleeping so soundly that he did not choose to wake him. The child, too, continued fast asleep, even when he took him in his arms. The father stroked the child's head fondly, and then his hand once more hung down by his side.

Martina was now brought gently into the room; she bent over Joseph quietly, and listened to his breathing.

"Lie down beside the child, on my bed," said the Forest Miller's Tony to Martina, who looked at the girl in surprise, while Tony added, "You may be very glad that matters have taken this turn. Your Adam and I were forced into a betrothal; he disliked it quite as much as I did, and your Adam is good and true; he never spoke one word to me except about you; and though we were bride and bridegroom, yet we never kissed each other once."

"Then I will give you a kiss," said Martina, starting up and embracing Tony.

"I wish I had my cheeks between the two," said Haspele to Adam; and then addressing the two women, "You are both very nice girls, I must say! Come, Tony, your best plan is to take me: will you have me? I see you won't, but I'll give you a wedding present whoever you marry, all the same."

"Where is my father?" interrupted Martina.

"Still sleeping in the hay."

"Good Heavens! when he awakes, and no longer finds the child by his side, he will go out of his senses."

"Don't be uneasy, I will go to the stable and stay there with him till he awakes," answered Tony; but Haspele detained her by asking for something to drink, before he set out as quick as he could for the Reitersberg, where the men were still keeping watch. Tony quickly poured him out a gla.s.s of hot wine. The betrothal wine had been tasted by strange guests to-day.

All was again quiet in the mill. Joseph was asleep, and Adam and Martina watching by his bedside; Schilder-David was asleep stretched on the hay, and Tony seated near him; and in the room above the Forest Miller was asleep. The Rottmannin tried to wake him, for she wanted the help of a man, but the Forest Miller made no sound, and the Rottmannin cursed the "flour sack" lying there motionless, while the whole house was in an uproar. Just as the Rottmannin returned into the room, she cried out "What's the matter? is the world come to an end to day?" for the hills echoed with the report of guns, and every valley and rock resounded with joyful cries, so that little Joseph himself was awakened by the noise, and starting up in bed, called out "Father!"

"I am here," answered Adam.

The shots were repeated, and now the whole party drew near, amid the sound of horns, the ringing of bells, the cracking of whips, and the barking of dogs.

"You called on the devil to come--do you hear? he is coming. Give your consent, while it is yet time," said Speidel-Rottmann, in the hope of softening his wife's heart.

"If the devil comes, I shall be very happy to see him; I should rather like to have a talk with him," answered the Rottmannin; "you are all fools. If you choose to truckle to others, do so; but a woman of spirit never gives in--nor will I--never--I would rather die!"

The hobgoblin troop came nearer and nearer, and at last drew up at the mill. They did not come in, however, for in the stable was heard a woman's cry for help, and the wild groans and lamentations of a man's voice. Schilder-David had woke up, and could not find the child, and now he was rummaging among the hay seeking for him, and loudly lamenting; refusing to listen to Tony; indeed, threatening to strangle her on the spot if she did not instantly restore the child.

Edward hurried into the stable, and Tony ran up to him, calling out "Help, help!" Schilder-David looked somewhat formidable by the light of the lantern, when he turned round, after plunging into the hay, which had adhered in quant.i.ties to his hair, covering his face and clothes.

"David, 'he is all right and safe," said the young farmer Edward, in his pleasing voice. Schilder-David sank back into the hay.

"Who is that stranger?" said Tony to Haspele.

"The brother of our Pastorin."

"Sir--sir," began Tony, "do tell David that his grandson is in my room, and Adam and Martina beside him. Pray say this to him, for he won't attend to me, he won't listen to a word I tell him. For G.o.d's sake help me; you are the brother of our Pastorin, and no doubt you are a good man, and I thought so when I saw you once before to day. Help the old man to rise."

Schilder-David, who was now sitting in the hay, stretched out his hand to Tony, saying; "You are right, forgive me, and help me up." Tony and Edward each gave him a hand, and when Schilder-David was once more on his feet, he said, "You are two excellent people." Edward supported David on his left arm, and offered his right hand to Tony, he scarcely knew why,--and she gave him her hand, she scarcely knew why,--but they clasped each other's hands close. "I think I can now quite well walk alone," said Schilder-David, and the other two freed him from all the hay clinging to his clothes, and went with him upstairs.

Martina gave up Joseph to his grandfather, but the meeting with her father was cut short by their all going to the next room together, where Haspele was heard laughing merrily. He proposed to play the part of an evil spirit, and in that way to convert the Rottmannin. He thought this would be the best way to manage her.

When Joseph came into the room holding his grandfather's hand, Tony said, "You had better not be here just now," and she took him back into the room, on the other side of the entrance.

"This is the brother of our Pastorin," said she to the Rottmannin, as she was leaving the room, presenting Edward to her.

The latter now spoke in a very urgent manner to the Rottmannin, who gave him no answer, but fixed her bright staring eyes on him.

"It is time to go to church now," said Rottmann, and the whole of those present left the room. As they all a.s.sembled in front of the house, a voice was heard in the room above shouting, "Long live the Rottmannin, she has given her consent."

It was Haspele's voice, who ran triumphantly down stairs, all shouting "_Vivat_!" again and again; and the horn sounded merrily, and the bells rung, and the dogs barked. A voice screamed something vociferously from the window, but not a word was heard.

Amid singing and sounds of horns, they all went through the wood to the village. Tony walked beside Martina. On the top of the hill, she said, "I must now go back; I should like to go to church with you, and to stay with you; but, though I don't know why, I feel a kind of nervous uneasiness, because my father never woke up during all the commotion in the house. I have not been so dutiful as I ought, in not having gone to see about him. Good night, Joseph," said she, shaking hands with him kindly. "Good night to all." She pa.s.sed Edward, without giving him her hand before all the people, though they both would fain have shook hands again. "Good night," said Edward in a whisper; and she answered, in a low tone, "Good night." Haspele shouted a loud "_Vivat_!" in her honour, as she left them to go to the mill, and all present joined in it.

Adam was carrying Joseph in his arms, who was dressed in his new clothes and his new boots; but at last the father was obliged to let him walk along beside David, who insisted on having him. On the hill, above the village, Haspele called out, with the last effort of his hoa.r.s.e voice, "Stop! Stop!"

Here still lay the wolf, in the field into which Adam had flung him.

Adam took the child close to the dead animal, and said, "Look; I killed this wolf with my cudgel." No scolding, however, nor persuasions would induce Joseph to touch the wolf; he was so frightened. "It's lucky for you that you are now to be under the rule of a father," said Adam, "or you would not have proved a true Rottmann." He led his son by the righthand and dragged the wolf after him with his left; and thus they all went along together, till they arrived at Schilder-David's house.

CHAPTER XVII.

A GREAT EVENT IN A SMALL HOUSE.

"Yes! I quite forgot to tell you that the Forest Miller"--had Leegart said, when she was interrupted by loud cries from the house--

"He is found; Joseph is close by."

The women ran out, and asked, "Is any one hurt?"

"Not one--all safe," was the answer.

Leegart remained immoveable in her chair, only placing her feet more firmly on her footstool, which seemed seized with a sudden trembling.

She took a secret pinch of snuff, to tranquillize her nerves, and looked at the jacket with a glance signifying, "I have done with you at last."

"Joseph is here," called out Haspele, who had ran forward before the rest; "and my jacket is finished," answered Leegart, in the firm conviction that by her incessant sewing she had preserved Joseph's life; but as Haspele, in his ignorance, made no remark on this point, she asked "Where was he found?"

"In the Forest Mill."

"In fact, I need not have asked," rejoined Leegart, glancing round, with a self satisfied air, "I knew where he was; I pointed out exactly the way he was sure to take. At the very minute when the cry of his being found was first heard I was in the act of uttering the words: 'The Forest Miller'--all these women know that this is true."

The most important point for Leegart, was to prove that she was clever enough to know precisely what was going on, even when she was not there herself. When they all came into the room, Martina pressed Leegart's hand warmly--thereby causing her to scatter on the floor a private pinch of snuff. Leegart said again, "I knew it; I said it. I told them he was in the Forest Mill: at the very moment that Haspele arrived, I said the words, 'Forest Miller;' and I prophesy now for you, Martina, that you will get your Adam at last."

"It is so! it is so! here he is!" exclaimed Martina.

Leegart cast down her eyes modestly; she wished to vindicate her prophetic gifts, and to shew that she knew it all beforehand. She nodded emphatically to all who came into the room, as if to say: "I knew that you would all come here--I knew it long before--I foresaw it all, and particularly that Adam would come in, holding Joseph by the hand. I knew all about the wolf too. I only met an adder in the forest, but the one animal is quite as dangerous as the other. All that has occurred could not fail to come to pa.s.s." Leegart was surprised at nothing. The expression of her face said, "Nothing is hidden from me;"

and she took a stolen pinch with entire complacency.

"I have three fathers now," exclaimed Joseph; "Leegart, here are my three fathers."

"Good," said David, "but go to bed now. Martina, take him away. G.o.d be praised, we are all come safe back," shouted he into his wife's ear.

The grandmother nodded, with a pleased face. "Has it been snowing hay?"

asked she, taking some stalks of hay out of her husband's hair. All laughed, and the deaf grandmother laughed too, and looked earnestly at each person, guessing, from the motion of their lips, what she could not hear. She stretched out her hand to Speidel-Rottmann, saying, "Pray sit down, pray sit down."