When Hallheimer, the trader, came back from Italy, he heard something on the mountain which astonished him; he was not to sell the smithy at Waltheim, for Stephen Fausch was going back to his old place within a short time.

The trader asked what had happened.

He got no answer. The smith only said, rudely: "It's none of your business what I do." So Fausch gave the trader a new nut to crack, though he had long puzzled over the smith's behavior and character. But Simmen, the landlord, of whom he also asked the cause of Fausch's departure, was equally evasive.

Meanwhile Stephen Fausch passed the days exactly as he had always done; now and then he nailed up a box of his possessions and gradually got his goods once more ready for moving. Cain and Katharine tiptoed around him with a sort of timidity. There was something about Fausch that they did not rightly understand, and that made them both involuntarily feel small and humble. Yet his manner had not altered in any way; he was sparing of his words as always, and the little that he said had a surly sound. He was just the same on the morning when he called Cain into the workshop, and told him that he, himself, was going back to Waltheim. Cain had listened eagerly, had then remonstrated, and when his father gave him a harsh answer, he had at last kept silence, to think things over. And now, days afterward, he was still thinking about it all. First he would feel joyful, and then doubtful. That he, Cain, was to stay at the hospice made him joyful, and yet he felt doubtful, because he could not understand his father's sudden decision to leave the place. But one thing was clear to him: If he were freed from his father's presence, the talk about the disgraceful name his father had given him would sooner die out, even if only gradually. He, Cain, if he were alone, would have the courage to stay there, and bear it, if a couple of servants, men or maids, should ridicule him for a time, until--they got tired of it. But his father? What was coming over the strange man? Was it not almost certain that he was making a sacrifice for him, for Cain, by going away? Did he repent of the injury he had formerly clone him? And was he--it often seemed so in little things--was his father somewhat fond of him, of Cain?

Forest_Meadows

Oskar Frenzel

The young man was able to think all this over quietly. Thus far, he had felt neither love nor dislike for Fausch. In all his life, his father had done too little for him to awaken the boy's love, and yet too much to permit of his hatred. But the more he now thought and speculated about Fausch, the clearer it became to him, that in the smith's deeper self, there was something which, until now, he had neither known nor understood, something which gave the boy food for thought, and made him feel a sort of awe, as if Stephen were suddenly very far above him.

Meanwhile the time passed by. The day came when Fausch's goods and chattels were all packed. The same wagon stood again before the door that had brought the goods up to the smithy months before. It was now loaded, and Katharine, a feeble old woman, took her place on a chest as before. But today she could not keep her eyes dry, for Cain was staying behind, her boy on whom she had leaned for many years with a feeling of comfort.

Cain had already been living at the tavern for some days, and was sharing a room with a young working man, and had nothing in the world to complain of. The number of guests had increased again, there was plenty of work, and Cain and Vincenza hurried about as of old in the room where the higher class of guests were entertained. Both did their work even more quickly and easily than before, for an inner joy shone in their faces and made their fingers fly. The guests watched them with pleasure. If the landlord's wife looked in, her expression was serious and austere as always, but she saw nothing in Cain to find fault with, and if Simmen himself looked into the room on the right, he would nod to himself and then go out again: the smith's boy was not so bad to have about, he was a real help in the house!--

Stephen Fausch's horses and wagon started, and the teamsters ran alongside. Then Cain came out of the tavern with his father, who had been to say good-by. Simmen and a few others came out, to see them off.

"I will go with you as far as the path to the Schwarzsee," said Cain to Fausch, then hurried after the wagon, swung himself up and sat down by Katharine. No pair could be more unlike: he was like a slim, flexible young tree, she like an old, old crumbling branch. Stephen Fausch noticed nobody. In his dark, heavy clothes, with his blacksmith's cap on his head, he walked behind the wagon with lowered head, and fell into a long, regular step, that suited the rhythm of the rumbling wheels. He scarcely seemed to concern himself even about Cain.

The weather was about to change. The clouds were chasing each other across the heavens and slowly weaving themselves into a silver gray shroud. But the sun behind them was still so strong, that a dazzling light fell upon the landscape. The gray road lay clearly defined with the lakes on both sides and the dark rocky peaks on the north, among which it vanished. Along the pale colored road, in the dazzling light went the heavy wagon, the smith marching stolidly behind it.

He now fell back a few steps.

As he did so Katharine laid her trembling hand on Cain's. "I must tell you," she began mysteriously, and looking back at Fausch, as if he might hear her.

"Yes?" asked Cain.

"You may believe me, that it is half killing him," said she, motioning toward Fausch, "that he cannot have you with him any more."

"Yes--I--" said Cain, and could say no more. He looked back at his father: the feeling grew upon him, that the smith was doing a great thing for him.

"You may believe me," whispered Katharine. Then they both kept silence, and involuntarily looked uneasily at the smith who was tramping along behind them.

The lakes were now left behind, and the rocks were nearer. Far behind from the hospice some one came running swiftly. It seemed to Cain that he recognized Vincenza; but she turned off from the road into some hilly meadow land and disappeared. So he was not sure whether he had seen correctly. He and Katharine now began to talk of things that had to do with their approaching separation. The old woman was overcome by grief, and her tears flowed freely down the furrows on her wrinkled cheeks. Cain tried his best to comfort her, and his sympathy and affection moved him so, that he did not notice when they passed the Schwarzsee and the road began to wind down toward the valley. When he again took note of his surroundings, they had gone quite a distance downward, and he called out quickly to the teamsters to stop and let him get off. At the same time he looked about for Fausch, who was nowhere to be seen.

"My father has not come with us," said he to Katharine. "You might wait for him here," he added, and then said: "I must go now. I shall meet my father on the road." Then he shook hands with the old woman.

"We shall never see each other any more," she lamented.

"Take care of yourself," said he. "You will be glad to be back in the old place again down below!"

Then he jumped down. He hurried on up the hill and did not look back again at the wagon, which stood in the road. A restlessness drove him involuntarily onward. It seemed strange that his father did not come.

As he approached the entrance to the pass, he saw the smith standing by the roadside. He was leaning against a rock, from which there was a wide view over the high plateau. The glaring light, that the white sky cast over the earth, had grown yet more dazzling. The whole valley floor seemed to be brought quite close to the eyes. The dark lakes glistened; the road lay between them, a blinding stripe of white. The mountains stood like a dark wall beneath the glistening sky, showing every gap and fissure in the rocks, which were like scars on their weatherbeaten forms.

As Cain came forward, Fausch turned toward him. "Are they waiting down there?" he asked.

Just then some one came out from between the rocks, by which he had been standing. It was Vincenza. She behaved as if her coming was perfectly natural, but her face was flushed. "I didn't have a chance to bid you good-by, Smith," said she.

He took her hand in his, and as Cain came forward just then, he took the boy's right hand too, and laid it beside Vincenza's. The two hands had plenty of room in one of his. The smith laughed to see them there. But it was such a strange, uncanny laugh, that it entirely changed the expression of his face. It was neither merry nor scornful. Perhaps all the kindliness that Stephen Fausch had to give lay in that one laugh. His solitary eye looked larger and more quiet than usual. And as his gaze rested thus on them both at once, they felt as if he were trying to say: "So--you--you belong together, you two!" And then, with his free hand he stroked their two hands a moment, and that was perhaps, together with the laugh, the first outward sign of love that Stephen Fausch had shown to anybody, since Maria's death. It was a poor, thirsty, dried-up love, and far from tender; but as his hand touched Cain's, something happened that no one saw; the smith's thick lips trembled for a brief moment, in the midst of his black, woolly beard. It seemed improbable and yet--perhaps Fausch had stifled a sigh. Then he looked away from the two young people, and as he turned about, his eye wandered once more slowly, and as if reluctant to lose the sight, over the Alpine meadows, to the hospice, and over the dark and rugged mountains and over the dazzling heavens above.

"Well, good-by!" said Fausch to Cain and the girl, letting their hands go. And he walked heavily away, with head bowed down, showing in his bearing the old churlishness. He did not look back again.

Cain and Vincenza looked after him for a long time. They could see him plainly. If he sometimes disappeared around a bend of the road, he would reappear far below, and they would soon see him again, walking behind the wagon, dark and heavy and big.

Cain was very still. He had taken off his hat and held it in both hands. He did not really know why he did so. He looked after his father in amazement, and it was on his account that he had involuntarily taken off his hat.

Vincenza now turned to him. She was breathing fast, as if she were only now beginning to recover from her quick run. "Do you know why I ran after you, Franz?" she asked. Her eyes were shining.

Cain shook his head.

"It came over me suddenly that your father might take you with him."

The fear that had driven her to follow him, still showed in her words and in her eyes. Cain laid his hand thankfully on hers; they were still watching the little group that was moving downward to the valley.

"He is a strange man, your--the smith," whispered Vincenza at last. "I was always half afraid of him."

Cain suddenly seemed to awaken from deep thought. He turned, took the girl's hand, and started to walk back toward the hospice with her. As they walked, he gazed into the distance with wide open eyes. He was still carrying his hat in his hand. Suddenly he stood still. "It seems to me," said he, with a dreamy look, "that we have all misunderstood him--my father."

Vincenza dared not reply, his manner was so unusual. He walked silently along beside her, and that evening, and many times afterward, his thoughts were more with Stephen, who was gone and never came back, than with Vincenza, on whom his heart was set, and from whom he soon learned that Simmen would not refuse her to him.