America. Sometimes I find a newspaper, and I read it all through."
"History?"
"A little, and geography."
"With all this wide learning you ought to be something better than a tender of geese."
"It is honest work, and that is good."
"I meant nothing wrong, Kindchen. But you would find it easier in a milliner's shop, as a lady's maid, something of that order."
"With these?"—holding out her hands.
"It would not take long to whiten them. Do you live alone?"
"No. I live with my foster-mother, who is very old. I call her grandmother. She took me in when I was a foundling; now I am taking care of her. She has always been good to me. And what might your name be?"
"Ludwig."
"Ludwig what?"—inquisitive in her turn.
"Oh, the other does not matter. I am a mountaineer from Jugendheit."
"Jugendheit?" She paused to look at him more closely. "We are not friendly with your country."
"More's the pity. It is a grave blunder on the part of the grand duke. There is a mote in his eye."
"Wasn't it all about the grand duke's daughter?"
"Yes. But she has been found. Yet the duke is as bitter as of old. He is wrong, he was always wrong." The old man spoke with feeling. "What is this new-found princess like?"
"She is beautiful and kind."
"So?"
The geese were behaving, and only occasionally was she obliged to use her stick. And as her companion asked no more questions, she devoted her attention to the flock, proud of their broad backs and full breasts.
On his part, he observed her critically, for he was more than curious now, he was interested. She was not tall, but her lithe slenderness gave her the appearance of tallness. Her hands, rough-nailed and sunburnt, were small and shapely; the bare foot in the wooden shoe might have worn without trouble Cinderella's magic slipper. Her clothes, coarse and homespun, were clean and variously mended. Her hair, in a thick braid, was the tone of the heart of a chestnut-bur, and her eyes were of that mystifying hazel, sometimes brown, sometimes gray, according to whether the sky was clear or overcast. And there was something above and beyond all these things, a modesty, a gentleness and a purity; none of the bold, rollicking, knowing manner so common in handsome peasant girls. He contemplated her through half-closed eyes and gave her in fancy the triffing furbelows of a woman of fashion; she would have been beautiful.
"How old are you, Gretchen?"
"I do not know," she answered, "perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty."
Again they went forward in silence. By the time they reached the gates the sun was no longer visible on the horizon, but it had gone down ruddy and uncrowned by any cloud, giving promise of a fair day on the morrow. The afterglow on the mountains across the valley was now in its prime glory; and once the two wayfarers paused and commented upon it. Once more the mountaineer was agreeably surprised; the average peasant is impervious to atmospheric splendor, beauty carries no message.
Arriving at length in the city, they passed through the crooked streets, sometimes so narrow that the geese were packed from wall to wall. Oft some jovial soldier sent a jest or a query to them across the now gray backs of the geese. But Gretchen looked on ahead, purely and serenely.
"Gretchen, where shall I find the Adlergasse?"
"We pass through it shortly. I will show you. You are also a stranger in Dreiberg?"
"Yes."
They took the next turn, and the weather-beaten sign Zum Schwartzen Adler, hanging in front of a frame house of many gables, caused the mountaineer to breathe gratefully.
"Here my journey ends, Gretchen. The Black Eagle," he added, in an undertone; "it is unchanged these twenty years. Heaven send that the beds are softer than aforetime!"
They were passing a clock-mender's shop. The man from Jugendheit peered in the window, which had not been cleaned in an age, but there was no clock in sight to give him warning of the time, and he dared not now look at his watch. He had a glimpse of the ancient clock-mender himself, however, huddled over a table upon which sputtered a candle. It touched up his face with grotesque lights. Here was age, mused the man outside the window; nothing less than fourscore years rested upon those rounded shoulders. The face was corrugated with wrinkles, like a frosted road; eyes heavily spectacled, a ragged thatch of hair on the head, a ragged beard on the chin. Aware of a shadow between him and the fading daylight, the clock-mender looked up from his work. The eyes of the two men met, but only for a moment.
The mountaineer, who felt rejuvenated by this contrast, straightened his shoulders and started to cross the street to the tavern.
"Good night, Gretchen. Good luck to you."
"Good night, Gretchen. Good luck to you and your geese to-morrow."
"Thanks, Herr Ludwig. And will you be long in the city?"
"That depends; perhaps," adding a grim smile in answer to a grim thought.
He offered his hand, which she accepted trustfully. He was a strange old man, but she liked him. When she withdrew her hand, something cold and hard remained in her palm. Wonders of all the world! It was a piece of gold. Her eyes went up quickly, but the giver smiled reassuringly and put a finger against his lips.
"But, Herr," she remonstrated.
"Keep it; I give it to you. Do not question providence, and I am her handmaiden just now. Go along with you."
So Gretchen in a mild state of stupefaction turned away. Clat-clat! sang the little wooden shoes. A plaintive gonk rose as she prodded a laggard from the dank gutter. A piece of gold! Clat-clat! Clat-clat! Surely this had been a day of marvels; two crowns from the grand duke and a piece of gold from this old man in peasant clothes. Instinctively she knew that he was not a peasant. But what could he be? Comparison would have made him a king. She was too tired and hungry to make further deductions.
She was regarded with kindly eyes till the dark jaws of the Krumerweg swallowed up both her and her geese.
"Poor little goose-girl!" he thought. "If she but knew, she could make a bonfire of a thousand hearts. A fine day!" He eyed again the battered sign. It was then that he discerned another, leaning from the ledge of the first story of the house adjoining the tavern. It was the tarnished shield of the United States.
"What a penurious government it must be! Two weeks, tramping about the country in this unholy garb, following false trails half the time, living on crusts and cold meats. Ah, you have led me a merry dance, nephew, but I shall not forget!"
He
