"g116v10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ebers Georg)

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]





MARGERY

By Georg Ebers

Volume 4.




CHAPTER XV.

We reached the forest lodge that evening with red faces and half-frozen
hands and feet. The ride through the deep snow and the bitter December
wind had been a hard one; but the woods in their glittering winter
shroud, the sharp, refreshing breath of the pure air, and a thousand
trifling matters--from the white hats that crowned every stock and stone
to the tiny crystals of snow that fell on the green velvet of my fur-
lined bodice--were a joy to me, albeit my heart was heavy with care. The
evening star had risen or ever we reached the house; and out here, under
God's open heavens, among the giants of the forest and its sturdy,
weather-beaten folk, it scarce seemed that it could be true that I should
see my bright, young Ann sharing the sorry life of the Magister, an alien
from all this world's joys. Those who dwelt out here in these wilds
must, methought, feel this as I felt it; and so in truth it proved.
After I had taken my place at the hearth by my aunt's side, and she had
mingled some spiced wine for us with her own feeble hands, she bid me
speak. When she heard what it was that had brought me forth to the
forest so late before Christmas, which we ever spent with our grand-uncle
Im Huff she at first did but laugh at our Magister's suit; but as soon as
I told her that it was Ann's earnest purpose to wed with him, she swore
that she would never suffer such a deed of mad folly.

Master Peter had many times been her guest at the lodge; and she, though
so small and feeble herself, loved to see tall and stalwart men, so that
she had given him the name of "the little dry Bookworm," hardly accounting
him a man at all. When she heard of his newly-gained wealth, she said:
"If instead of being the richer by these thousands he could but be the
same number of years younger, lift a hundredweight more, and see a
hundred miles further out into the world, I would not mind his seeking
his happiness with that lovely child!"