“no fire, no raging heat,
like secret love can burn;
all silent, yet how sweet,
and to the world unknown.”
thus sang amrie in the morning, standing before the fire, while all in the house were yet asleep. the stable-boy, who had risen early to give the horses their first feed, came into the kitchen for a coal to light his pipe.
“why up so early,” he asked, “before the sparrows begin to twitter?”
“i am mixing a warm draught for the cow in calf,” answered barefoot, stirring in meal and clover, but without looking round.
“i and the upper servant sought you last evening at the dance, but you could not be found,” said the boy. “true, you did not want to dance; you were satisfied to be made a fool of by the stranger prince.”
“he was no prince, nor did he make a fool of me; and had he done so, i would rather be made[160] a fool of by such as he, than to be made wise by thee or the upper servant.”
“why did he not tell you who he is?”
“because i did not ask him,” said barefoot. the stable-boy made a coarse joke, and laughed at himself, for there are certain occasions when the most simple can be witty.
the cheeks of barefoot glowed like crimson, from the double heat of the fire and her own inner flame.
“i tell you what,” she said, “you know yourself what you are worth, and i cannot make you respect yourself; but i can forbid you from having no respect for me. and now leave the kitchen. you have nothing to do here; and if you do not go immediately, i will show you the way out.”
“will you wake the master?”
“that is not necessary,” said barefoot, taking a burning brand from the hearth that scattered sparks; “go! or i shall mark you.”
the stable-boy sneaked with a forced laugh away. barefoot tucked up her dress, and went with the smoking drink down into the stall.
the cow seemed grateful that she had been thought of so early in the morning. she lowed, and left drinking many times to look with gentle, open eyes at barefoot.
“yes, now i shall be questioned and finely teased,” thought barefoot; “but what does it matter?”
[161]going with the milk-pail to another cow, she sang,—
“turn about, turn about,
red spotted cow:
who will then milk you,
when i am away?”
“foolish stuff!” she added, and scolded herself. then she finished her work quietly, and in the mean time life stirred in the house. scarcely was rose fully awake, when she called for barefoot, and blamed her harshly; for rose had lost a beautiful neck-ribbon. she declared she gave it to amrie to keep for her; and she, in her foolish eagerness, when the stranger asked her to dance, had thrown it away with the others.
“who knows,” she asked, “whether he were not a thief, who had stolen his horse and his dress; to-morrow he might be brought in with chains on his hands. and what a shame it was, that barefoot had danced so high and spoken so loud. it was the first and the last time she would take her to a dance. her eyes, indeed, had been shamed out of her head, when she heard everybody ask,—‘so she is your servant, is she?’ if the sister-in-law did not command, and they all must follow her orders, the goose-herd should instantly quit the house.”
barefoot endured every thing calmly. she had already to-day experienced both extremes of what she must expect, and had taken the course which[162] she intended to hold. if scolded, she silently shook it off; if joked, she knew how to give back better jokes than she received. if she had not always a burning brand at hand, as for the stable-boy, she had glances and words that served her as well.
it was impossible to tell brown mariann all that rose made her suffer; and as she could not speak in that house, she let her tongue loose, and at other times blamed rose with violence. but quickly she reflected, and said, “ah! this is not right. i am as bad as she is, when i take such words into my mouth.”
mariann consoled her. “it is brave,” she said, “to scold thus. why, when one looks upon a disgusting object, they must spit, else they will be ill; and when you hear, or see, or experience any thing bad, the soul must spit it out, or it will become wicked itself.” barefoot could not but laugh at the wonderful consolation of brown mariann.
day after day passed in the old manner, and soon the wedding was forgotten, the dance, and all that happened there, by every one except barefoot, who felt perpetual anticipation, which she could not conquer. it was well that she confided all her thoughts to mariann. “i think i must have sinned in being so excessively happy that day,” she once said.
“sinned! against whom?”
[163]“i mean god will punish me for it.”
“oh, child, what do you mean? god loves us as his children. is there a greater joy for parents than to see their children happy? a father, a mother, who sees her children dance happily, is doubly happy. god looked upon you as you danced so joyfully. your parents also have seen you dance, and have rejoiced. let the living say what they please. when my john comes back! ah, he can dance! but i say nothing. thou hast in me a friend who does thee justice. what more dost thou need?”
the counsel and support of brown mariann were consoling; but barefoot had not wholly confided in her; had not told her all. it was not merely what people said of her that troubled her; alas, it was no longer true that she could be satisfied with being once completely happy. she longed to see again the person who had made her so; who had completely changed her whole being; and yet knew nothing more about her.
yes, barefoot was completely changed. she suffered no work to fail; no one could blame her; but a deep melancholy had taken firm hold of her. there was another reason for this sadness, which she could acknowledge before the world. dami had not written a single word from america. she forgot herself so far as one day to say to brown mariann, “the proverb is not false, that when a fire burns beneath an empty pot, a poor soul burns[164] also. under my heart there burns a fire, and my poor soul burns with it.”
“why so?”
“that dami has not written to me,” she said, deeply blushing. “this waiting is the most frightful murder of time. time is never so sadly destroyed as by expectation. at no hour, at no minute, can one feel secure. no ground is firm beneath one; one foot must be always in the air.”
“oh, child, say not so,” cried mariann, sorrowfully. “how can you speak of waiting? think of me, how i have waited patiently, and shall wait till my last hour, and never give it over!”
in the recognition of another’s grief, the complaint of barefoot was extinguished in tears; and she said, “my heart is so heavy, that i think only of dying. how many thousands of pails of water must i draw, and how many more sundays will there be? ah, one need not, after all, fret so much, for life will soon have an end. when rose scolds, i think, ‘well, scold on, we shall both die soon, and then there will be an end.’ and then comes over me again such fear! i tremble at the thought of death, when i lie and think how it will be when i am dead! i shall hear nothing! i shall see nothing! these eyes, this ear is dead. every thing that is myself will exist no longer. it is day, and i shall never know it! they will mow, they will reap, and i shall not be there. oh, what is this dying?”
[165]“what wouldst thou have?” asked mariann. “many others have died of more worth than thou. we must bear it calmly—”
“hark! the watch cries something.” thus barefoot interrupted her strange complaint; and she, who now would die, and again would not die was anxious to learn what the village watcher had cried.
“let him cry,” said mariann, sadly smiling; “he brings you nothing. oh, what creatures we are. how must every one of us seek to crack the hard nut of life; and at last lay it aside unopened! i will tell you, amrie, what is the matter with you. you are dying with love! be merry! with how few is it so well; how few are so happy as to cherish a true, real love! take an example from me. let hope never die! do you know who within a living body is already dead? he who does not every morning, especially in every spring, think, ‘now, life first begins with me; now, something comes which has never happened before.’ you must yet be happy; you do unconsciously the work of the righteous. what have you not done for your brother, for me, for farmer rodel, for every one? but it is well that you do not know the good you do. he who does good, and is always praying and thinking of it, and builds a future upon it, will pray himself right through heaven, and perhaps on the other side will keep the geese.”
[166]“that i have done here,” said amrie, laughing. “i am quit of it there.”
“an inward voice tells me,” continued the old woman, “that he who danced with you was no other than my john. and i will now say to you, that if he is not already married, he must marry you. he would always willingly have worn velvet clothes. i think he is now waiting about the frontiers till our present king dies, and then he will come home. how wrong of him that he does not let me know, when i have such a longing for him!”
barefoot shuddered at the undying hope of poor mariann, and the tenacity with which she forever clung to it. henceforth, she never mentioned the stranger, but when from any cause she spoke of hope or of return, she instantly named dami, although, secretly, she thought of the stranger. “he was not beyond the sea, and could come again or write to her—but alas, he had not even asked where she dwelt. how many thousand cities and villages, and solitary farms there are in the world! perhaps he is now seeking thee, and can never find thee. but no—he could ask in endringen. how easily could he ask dominic or amelia, and they could give him any information he sought. but i—i know not where he is. i can do nothing!”
it was again spring, and amrie stood by her flowers in the window, when a bee came flying to the plants, and sucked from the open calix.
[167]“ah! so it is,” thought amrie, “a woman is like a plant,—rooted in one place,—she cannot go and seek,—she must wait, and wait to be sought.”
“were i a little bird
with wings so downy soft,
to thee, i’d fly, my love,
to thee, i’d fly full oft.
but far i am from thee,
in dreams i am but near,
and when i wake alone
my trembling heart has fear.
my waking hours are filled
with longing thoughts of thee,
oh, bird of downy wing,
bear my love’s love to me.”
thus sang barefoot. it was wonderful how all songs and all music seemed made for her. how many thousands, out of the depths of their souls, have sung these songs, and how many thousands will continue to sing them. you that long, and at last hold lovingly intwined, a heart with your own, you hold also intwined all that ever loved or will ever love.
