over the mountains; and now thou rejectest me!’ He earnestly entreated more and more; but I was firm in my determination.
“‘My heart does not reject thee, Benedix,’ I replied; ‘it is only my hand which for the present I withhold. Away! make more money! and when thou hast been successful, return, and then I shall become thy wife.’
“‘Well,’ said he in anger, ‘since this is thy will, I go into the world. I shall run, beg, borrow, become a miser, steal, or do any thing; so that thou shalt not again see me until I have obtained the vain price, without which I am not to have thee. Farewell! I go.’
“In this way did I bewilder the poor Benedix; he departed in wrath; his good angel left him; he did what was not right; and what his heart, I am certain, abhorred.”
The worthy citizen shook his head at this speech; and after a pause, with a thoughtful look, he exclaimed, “Wonderful!” and turned towards the maiden. “But why,” he asked, “dost thou fill the forest with thy lamentations, which can be of no avail either to thy lover or to thyself?”
“Good sir,” she replied, “I was on my way to Hirschberg, but sorrow so oppressed me, that I was obliged to rest for a time under this tree.”
“And what wilt thou do in Hirschberg?”
“I will fall at the feet of the judge, fill the town with my lamentations, and the daughters of the city will aid me in imploring the judge to be merciful, to have compassion, and spare the life of the innocent youth. Should I not succeed in saving my betrothed from ignominious death, then will I gladly die with him.”
The spirit was so much touched by these words, that he forgot all at once his revenge, and resolved to give the young sorrowing girl her lover again. “Dry up thy tears,” he said, with a look of sympathy, “and banish thy grief. Before the sun sinks to rest thy lover shall be free. To-morrow morning, when the first cock crows, be awake and watchful, and when a finger taps at thy window, open the door of thy little chamber, for it will be Benedix who stands there; but, beware of bewildering him again by thy folly: know, likewise, that he has not committed the crime of which thou believest him guilty, and thou, too, art free from sin, for thy wilfulness did not induce him to perpetrate so foul a deed.”
The maiden, astonished at this speech, gazed earnestly at the speaker, but as his countenance bore neither the expression of deceit, nor of waggishness, she gained confidence, her clouded brow brightened up, and she said, with a kind of cheerful hesitation, “Good sir, if you do not mock me, and it be as you say, then must you be a seer, or the guardian angel of my poor lover, to know all this so well.”
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