It was getting dark; the autumn mists were sinking over the wooded mountains. The herdsman was trudging his way home to the tinkling bells of his cattle. For some time longer the farm-hand was heard beating the oat-stalks over a beam that lay on the threshing-floor, until the last grain was separated. The barn door closed at last; and the little houseful of people gathered in the parlour to eat their rye soup and potato mash. Then they betook themselves to their straw beds.

The children were soon asleep.

A rushlight burnt in the room, and the farmer's wife kept putting it straight on its spike. Peter wound up the smoke-browned clock on the wall.

Just as husband and wife were about to get into bed, the watch-dog in the yard began to bark. There came a light tapping at the window-pane.

"Who's that?" cried the farmer.

And his wife added crossly:

"There's no peace for us to-day!"

"It's someone begging for a night's shelter," said a hoarse voice outside.

"I expect it's a poor man," said the farmer's wife. "That's quite a different thing. Go and unbolt the door, Peter."

Soon after a man stumbled into the room, weary and bent, grasping a long stick in his right hand and carrying a little bundle in his left. A wide-brimmed, discoloured, crushed felt hat was on his head, and under the brim hung snow-white strands of hair.

Peter took the rush in his hand and threw a light upon the stranger's face. Then he exclaimed:

"Heavens! It can't be possible——! Why, it's the schoolmaster of Rattenstein!"

"Aye, aye, my dear Heath—Peter," said the old man, recovering his breath, "that's so. With your permission, I will sit down at once."

The farmer's wife pulled on her dress again and hurried into the kitchen to warm some soup; then she called back into the parlour:

"Go and light a candle, Peter. The rush won't burn properly, and the smoke makes one's eyes fairly smart."

Then, when a tallow candle was burning on the table and the old man had wiped the sweat from his careworn face, Heath Peter almost shyly offered him his hand and said:

"Well, how do you come wandering into the Wilderness like this, Schoolmaster?"

"It had to be," replied the old man. "It's a case, with me, of 'Forsaken and beat, like the stones in the street.' I just turned up a footpath and went on over hill and dale as the Lord willed. And so, in the end, I came to you people in the Wilderness."

"And, if I may ask, where do you mean to go, Schoolmaster?"

The old man made no reply. His head sank down upon his chest. His fingers clutched at his blue handkerchief; but, before he could raise it with trembling hand to his face, he burst into heavy sobs.

"Lord Jesus! Schoolmaster!" cried Peter, springing to support him, for the old man threatened to collapse.

"Never would I have thought," he sobbed at last, "that such an hour as this would come to me in my old days. God above, Thou knowest, that I have not deserved it!""There must have been some great misfortune," the farmer said. "But Schoolmaster must not take it too much to heart. And if there is anything I can do he must let me know."

"God bless you, Heath Peter! You are a good soul, and I've known you this many a long day: why, it must be nigh on five-and-thirty years. It was I pushed back your little bonnet when the priest christened you. Ah me, if the same priest were only still alive! He was a good man, indeed, and would not have discharged me like a day-labourer at the end of his day's work, no, not though I did ring ten bells for Louis the herdsman. True, I'm old now, and can't look after the school as I used to. Also I can't get accustomed to the new church government. You know how the new provisor called me a prophet of Beelzebub? I knew that I had done nothing wrong, for all that, and went on holding my extra classes. Lastly, you also must have heard that poor crazy Louis the herdsman took his own life lately. The provisor refused to have the passing-bell tolled for the poor wretch; and then the dead man's mother came to me—for I am sacristan as well—and begged me, for God's sake, to toll the bell for her son. Louis had always been an upright man; the old woman had all her life long thought the world of a Christian burial-bell; and my soul was filled with pity for her when she cried so bitterly. Then thought I to myself, 'The provisor has gone to see a colleague at GrosshÖfen, so I will take it upon myself and, as she asks me to do it for God's sake, I will ring the bells: surely it's the best consolation we can offer the poor woman in her distress.' Louis was buried in the ditch where they found him; and, when the bells rang out, the mother ran to the grave and said an Our Father for his soul. The provisor did not hear the bells nor the prayer, and he didn't feel the sorrow nor the joy of that mother's heart either; but folks' tongues told him all about the bell-ringing. Yesterday, as I was helping him on with his chasuble, he gave me a smile, and I thought, 'Aye, the provisor is a good enough gentleman, after all; and I shall get on with him well enough!' Thereupon I went off to collect my corn dues from the farmers. (The people are well disposed toward me, and look after me finely: I did not have to buy a single slice of bread for myself all last winter!) It's a couple of hard days' work for one like me; but that's nothing—who wouldn't willingly cart away a heap of stones if he knew there was a treasure underneath? It had begun to grow dusk when I reached the village with my last load. Then, as I stood outside my door and was taking the key from my pocket and looking forward to my rest, I said to myself, 'Goodness, what's that? Who's been having a game with me?' The lock was sealed up. I put down my load to have a closer look at the thing. Yes, Peter, I was quite right, the school-house was sealed against me with the parish seal. 'Well,' I thought to myself, 'this is a pretty business!' I threw down my carrier and ran to the presbytery, which is now also the municipal offices. I called out for the provisor. 'Not at home,' cries the housekeeper, tells me to look under the stone-heap if I have lost anything, and slams the door in my face. Then the blood rushed to my heart."

The old man was nearly choking, and the words came half stifled from his throat.

"But I did not remain standing outside the presbytery door, and I did not knock either. I ran down to the stone-heap, and there I found my Sunday washing, my black coat, and my fiddle. And in between the strings was a little tiny bit of paper. Well, here it is; you can read it, Heath Peter."

"So I would, and gladly," said Heath Peter civilly, "but there's just this about it, that I don't know one letter from another."

"Well, well, in that case reading would certainly be a miracle," said the schoolmaster. "However, sometimes it's better not to know how to read. Here's what the note says to the old man that I am: 'We sincerely regret to have to make the following communication to you in the name of the honourable Consistory and of the local parish. Whereas you, Michel Bieder, school teacher in the aforesaid parish, have repeatedly, in the instruction of the youth entrusted to your care, acted contrary to the regulations, and whereas, but recently, you took it upon yourself, in an unprecedented manner, on your own responsibility, to perform an ecclesiastical function, and this, moreover, in favour of a suicide, so now take note and be it known to you that we have relieved you of your post. Given at the presbytery at Rattenstein.'"

The old man ceased.

Peter snuffed the candle in great perplexity, and then said:

"Yes, Mr. Schoolmaster, you might have known that it does not do to toll everyone promiscuous-like into the grave. That much would have occurred even to me, Heath Peter."

"And so there I sat upon the stone-heap, and I wanted nothing to make me a complete beggar but a stick and wallet. The stars were out by this time, and an owl hooting in the forest was hooting at me it seemed. Then I did not know what to do. There I was cast out, a poor old man, that had buried a parish and christened one. So I lay down upon the stone-heap and my white hairs were wet with dew. And the church clock ticked just like a bird pecking the naked grains in a field in autumn, that clock ticked away second after second from the little bit left of my life. 'Tick on, tick on, you honest pendulum,' thought I. 'It's late.' And then, suddenly, I wondered, 'Who will ring the vesper-bell to-night?' I darted up and on, over the mound, to the church, and into the belfry, took hold of the ropes, and rang all the bells at once. And that was my farewell to my dear church and to the congregation. I should have liked to wake the dead in their graves and tell them all about my unfair treatment. But they slept on in peace, while I rang in my beggarhood. Then I cut myself a stick from the bushes by the churchyard walls and went on and on. Oh, I can walk right enough still! It took me barely three hours here to the Wilderness."

The old man bent his head and held his hand before his eyes.

"What nonsense!" said the farmer's wife, who had been standing some time by the table with the soup-plate in her hand. "And you are going up to the wilds next, Schoolmaster?"

"Must I go to the wilds?" cried the old schoolmaster. "God! what should I do in that stony place?"

He hid his face again.

"'It's a proper cross, and no Lord upon it,' says the old proverb. And the old proverb's right," said the wife. "Only eat your soup now, in Heaven's name, Schoolmaster, and get some warmth into your poor body. God will put things straight; don't let that fret you. I say, Peter, come into the kitchen for a minute; I want you to shut the chimney-slide; I can't quite manage it."

But it was nothing to do with the chimney-slide, really.

When the pair were in the kitchen the wife said:

"You must see, Peter, that we can't let the schoolmaster go like this. I went to him for schooling, and he taught me to use my Prayer Book. As long as I live I should never relish a morsel of bread again if I had to say to myself, 'Your old teacher's had to go a-begging!'—What would you say to having the top room fitted up for him? He could cut the rushes for us in the winter; and he could look after the children in the summer, when we were out in the fields; and he could teach them a bit too. You see, it would be just as well if they knew how to read a little, and the boy would love it so and writing too; and I shan't rest content till he can write his name."

"There's no need for that, Klara," answered Peter. "Who is there in the Wilderness that knows how to write his name? Not a soul. Besides, working men's hands are too rough for that kind of thing; and, if it comes to a pinch, we can always make our cross."

Whereupon his wife:

"After that, I don't wonder that we have so many crosses to bear in the Wilderness! But I don't hold with it, and I think that with the schoolmaster's help we might rise a bit."

"You're looking at only one side of the question. You know quite well that we only grow enough corn to make a bushel and a half, and that we have no milk and no bacon in the winter; you know that we have no meat in the larder, that we have no proper bedding, and that we are poor all round, in every nook and corner. And now you want to take the schoolmaster in as well! There can't be any question of it, good wife."

And she:

"Well, if you're beginning to grieve about the bit of bread and the morsel of bacon which the schoolmaster would eat, I'll save it out of my own mouth, and lie on the bare straw, in Heaven's name, and think it an honour if I can have the old teacher under my roof."

And he:

"Yes; and by the time you've done you'll sew a beggar's sack for him and one for me and one for yourself, and we'll fasten the children on to each other's backs."

"Because you have no trust in the Lord!" answered the farmer's wife, a little nettled. "My mother always used to say, 'Every good action done on earth is engraved by the angels in heaven on God's golden throne.' But I am beginning to think that you can't want to see your name there."

"Who has nothing can give nothing," said Peter resignedly. "How can it help a beggar-man if I offer him an empty hand?"

"Well, he can take hold of it and have a support."

"Go on! One must look to one's own children first and not to strangers. And, lastly, we should most likely get into trouble with the priest; and how would that suit you?"

"You're a regular old silly, that's what you are!" cried the wife, and banged a saucepan on the stove till it rang again. "It wants a special grace of God to argue with you. How glad you would be if one day your guardian angel came and said to God, 'Here is Heath Peter, who was good to the poor; and he also took the unfortunate schoolmaster of Rattenstein into his house and looked after him and cared for him in his old age, but he did it for love of Thee, O God our Father, and therefore do Thou mercifully forgive him, if he had other faults, and lead him into Thy heaven, and his children with him and his wife as well!' Wouldn't you be glad, Peter, if that ever happened?"

Peter had been scratching his head a little, and, at last, he answered in a softer voice:

"You're shouting so loud you'll wake the children, and the schoolmaster himself will hear.—You can keep him for all that I care; I say no more."

There was not much to be done with Peter with arguments based on worldly logic; you could say white or black, but he invariably followed his own nose. But his wife knew him inside and out, as well as she knew her own nightcap; she took a higher standpoint, and when, in her clever way of talking, she held up heaven and God before him, he came kneeling, as people say, to the cross—to the matrimonial cross.

When the couple returned to the parlour Klara said:

"One would think that chimney-slide wasn't meant to be reached; one has to stand on tip-toe to get at it. Well, don't you like your soup, Schoolmaster? I did my best to make it good, and I put plenty of caraway seeds in it, against the cramp. Ah! and now there's something else to discuss. I don't know what's come into my Peter's head, but he wants to keep you in the house, here and now, Schoolmaster, so that you can teach our children a bit of reading! What I said was, 'Schoolmaster won't stay with us. A man like that,' said I, 'has something better to do. Even if we were to fit up the top room for him and wait upon him as an honoured guest, he wouldn't stay with us.—And then we can't give him any school fees,' I said, 'and only such poor fare as we have ourselves.—If that's enough for him, I shall be delighted if he will stay.'"

The old man rose from his seat and, in a voice of deep emotion, said:

"Oh, you dear, good people! As you yourselves were the first to suggest it, I now venture to implore you. I have nowhere to go, and I hardly dare risk myself in the wilds. Only give me a roof over my head and a spoonful of soup for a few days and I will go back again to Rattenstein and start my entreaties. The people will take pity on me; and surely the parish provisor will not be stony-hearted."

"I wouldn't throw myself on his mercy exactly, that I wouldn't," said the farmer's wife. "And Heath Peter here was thinking that it would be all right, and that you had better make the house on the heath your home, Schoolmaster, as long as the Lord does not order things differently."

Then little Gabriel suddenly called out something in his sleep.

"There, the child's got the nightmare!" said Klara.

And she went to the little bed and, with her thumb, made the sign of the cross on the boy's forehead.

Peter fixed up a bed in the barn for his guest to sleep in that night; and soon all was dark and silent in the house on the heath.