"You must taste the other dishes also," urged Franzl.

Lenz did as she wished, though it was a painful effort; he then rose, and the girl did the same, saying: "Do not be angry with me, Lenz, I ought to have tried to comfort you, but--but--"

"I know; thank you. I can't speak much either, just now."

"May G.o.d preserve you! My father told me to say that he hoped you would come to us; he cannot leave the house, as he has a bad foot."

"I will see: when I feel able I will come."

The girl left the room, and Lenz paced up and down, stretching forth his hands, as if expecting some one to take hold of them, but no one did so; then his eyes rested on his tools, and more particularly on a certain file which hung on a nail by itself; he shivered as he laid hold of it, for something was now in contact with his hand.

This file was the most precious heritage he possessed. There was an indenture in its maple handle imprinted by his father's hand, for he had worked with this same tool for more than forty seven years, and liked to show it, and often said: "It seems scarcely credible that the wooden handle should, in the course of years, become indented in this way by the pressure of the fingers." Whenever a stranger came to call, his mother used to exhibit the singular looking tool.

The doctor, in the valley below, who had a collection of old fashioned clocks of the Black Forest, often begged to have the file, to hang it up in his cabinet, but the father never would consent to part with it, and still less the mother and son after his death. After his father's burial, when the son was sitting alone with his mother, she said: "Lenz, we must no longer grieve, we must bear our affliction with patience. Take your father's file, and set to work--'Watch and pray,'

say the Scriptures, 'for the night cometh when no man can work.' Be thankful that you have an honest trade already, and not one still to seek. A thousand times your father used to say: 'It is such a good thing to rise in the morning, and to know that your work is waiting for you; and while I am filing, I file away all useless splinters out of my head; and when I hammer, I knock on the head all sad thoughts, and away they fly!'"

These were his mother's words, and, in recalling them at this moment, she seemed to say them once more: "If I could only recall thus every word she ever said to me!"

So Lenz began to work busily.

Franzl was standing outside with Kathrine, saying: "I am so glad that you were the first person to bring food here, it is a good omen--for the person who gives you the first morsel of food in such a case, is sure to----, but I won't say it out; we must not forestall such matters. Come back in the evening, for it must be you who say good night to him; and you must say it three times over, and then it has effect. Hush! what is that? Our Heavenly Father in the Seventh Heaven above! I declare he is at work on the day of the funeral! No one knows that young man thoroughly, not even I, who have been with him from his childhood; he has singular ideas which no one can understand, but the kindest heart in the world. But don't tell any one that he is working to-day, for it might bring him into bad odour. Do you hear? Come back for the dishes to-night, and then take care to speak to him properly; you can talk well enough generally."

Franzl was interrupted by Lenz opening the door, and saying: "Franzl, if any visitor comes, say that I can see no one but Pilgrim. So, you are not gone yet, Kathrine?"

"I am just going," said she, and ran hastily down the hill. Lenz went back into the room, and worked on busily, while Franzl was in a state of incessant perplexity at the strange young man, who had been first crying, as if his heart would break, and was now hard at work. It was certainly not from hardheartedness, nor from avarice, so what could be the reason?

"My old head is not wise enough to find out," said Franzl, turning to ask her old mistress what she was to think about it; but she clasped her hands in sorrow, on suddenly remembering that the mother was dead.

Franzl's heart sunk when she saw visitors arrive; the schoolmaster, some of the choir, and various others. She dismissed them all, with a sorrowful face, and would gladly have stopped their ears if she could, that they might not hear Lenz at work. She looked out anxiously for Pilgrim, who had great influence over him, and would, no doubt, take the file out of his hand; but Pilgrim did not come. Franzl, however, had now a lucky thought: there was no necessity for her to stay at home, so she walked along the path far enough to prevent any one hearing the filing and hammering, and she dismissed those whom she met coming to the house.

Lenz, however, found that active employment produced calmness and composure, and he did not leave off till evening, when he went down into the valley, past the scattered houses, to his friend the painter, Pilgrim; but half way he turned round suddenly, as if he had heard some one calling him, and yet all was still around. No sound was heard but the waterwagtail--called by the country people here _Hockenock_--twittering incessantly in the reeds, and the yellow hammer, perched on the young green shoots, on the top of the fir trees, whistling its solitary note, and glancing round with its bright eyes.

There are no larks here, either in the valley or in the meadows beyond; they only soar on the high land above, where cornfields are cultivated.

Mists were rising in the meadows, but these thin vapours are only visible in front and behind, and never in the small s.p.a.ce which a person occupies standing, or walking.

Lenz went quickly along the valley, and did not stop till the sun had gone down behind the mountains, and then he said: "It is setting for the first time over her grave." The evening bell rung out; he took off his hat and proceeded on his way. He paused at a bend in the valley, and, concealed by a bush, looked up at a solitary cottage. On a bench before the door was seated a man with whom we are already acquainted--the clockmaker, Faller. He had a child on his knee, whom he was playing with, and his sister was seated behind him, whose husband had gone to foreign parts. She was nursing an infant, and fondly kissing its little hands.

"Good evening, Faller;" said Lenz in his usual clear tenor voice.

"Oh! is that really you?" replied a ba.s.s voice; "we were just speaking of you; Lisbeth said you would forget us in your grief, and I said, on the contrary, it is the very thing that would make him think of us."

"You are right, I come to you for that very reason; I remembered that Hurgel's house is to be sold to-morrow, I will be your security if you choose to buy it. You will then also be nearer me."

"Capital! famous! so you are going to stay where you are?"

"Why not?"

"People said that you were going to travel now, for a year or more."

"Who said so?"

"I think it was your uncle; but I am not quite sure."

"Really: well perhaps I may; if I go away, you must live in my house."

"You had far better stay at home, it is too late to travel----"

"And marry soon," added the young wife.

"Yes; for then all taste for travelling is at an end--a married man has too many links at home. There is no doubt you will prosper, Lenz, for thinking of me in all your sorrow; your mother in heaven will bless you for it; no single minute pa.s.ses without my thinking of her; in all things her first thought was for others, and you take after her--G.o.d will bless you."

"Kindness brings its own blessing; my walk here, and what we have agreed on, has lightened my heart already.--Lisbeth, have you anything to eat in the house? I begin to feel hungry for the first time to-day."

"I will boil you a couple of eggs."

"That will be quite sufficient."

Lenz ate with a tolerable appet.i.te, and his hosts were delighted to see him enjoy his meal.

Faller's mother, in spite of her son's remonstrances, persisted in asking Lenz to give her some of his mother's clothes.

Lenz promised to do so.

Faller would not be prevented walking a good part of the way home with him; but scarcely had he gone twenty steps, when he gave a shrill whistle. His sister asked what was the matter? He called out in answer, that he would not return home tonight.

"Where are you to be?" said Lenz.

"With you."

The two friends walked on together in silence; the moon shone brightly, the owls in the wood hooted, but strains of cheerful music proceeded from the village.

"It would never do if every one lamented for one person:" said Lenz, "G.o.d be praised that each one has his own joys and sorrows!"

"Your mother said that through you;" replied Faller.

"Stop;" said Lenz, "would you not like to tell your betrothed bride, that you can now buy the house?"

"Indeed I should--come with me--you will see a degree of joy seldom to be seen in this world."

"Climb up the hill alone to her cottage, for I am not in a mood for joy today, and I feel quite exhausted. I will wait here; now go quickly, and don't be long of returning."

Faller went up the hill hurriedly, and Lenz seated himself on a heap of stones beside the path, and, like the dew now softly sinking on the gra.s.s and the trees, making everything revive, so a sensation of pure, heavenly dew, seemed to refresh the soul of the solitary man.

Far up the hill, a light now sparkled through the window of the cottage which had been hitherto dark, and hope and joy pa.s.sed into the hearts of the betrothed, who had so long felt desolate and hopeless. Lenz too was happy.

There is no greater felicity on earth than doing good to others. Faller ran back, panting for breath, and described all the joy with which his news was received; the old father and the bride threw open the window, and shouted down into the valley, "May a thousand blessings attend you, worthy man!" and the bride first cried, and then laughed.

The two friends now pursued their way for some time, each following his own train of thought. Faller went along with a firm step: in his whole bearing there was something vigorous and determined, and while Lenz walked beside him, he involuntarily held himself more upright.