They landed at the quiet village. Eric was introduced to Weidmann. He was a lean man, and, at first sight, seemed uninteresting; his features had an expression of quiet self-possession and intelligence, but in his gleaming eye lay a burning enthusiasm. Weidmann sat with several persons at a table, on which were papers, bottles, and glasses.
He nodded in a friendly way, and then turned to the persons with whom he had been conversing.
It is not well to hear a man so much spoken of and praised, before seeing him face to face. It seemed incomprehensible to Eric how this man exerted such a wide influence, and impossible for himself to enter into his life. The doctor was immediately called away, for the landlord's father being sick, his arrival was regarded as very fortunate. Eric walked up and down the shore; he seemed to himself to be thrown into a strange world, and to be borne along by strange potencies. How long it was since he had left Roland, how long since he went by this village, which was then to him only a name! Now, perhaps, some eventful occurrence was to take place here, and the name of this village to be stamped indelibly upon his life.
"Herr Captain! Herr Weidmann wishes me to ask you to come into the garden," the boatman cried to him.
Eric went back into the garden, where Weidmann came to him, with an entirely different mien, saying that he would now, for the first time, bid him welcome; previously he had been very busy. A short time afterwards the doctor also came.
The three now seated themselves at the table in a corner of the garden, where there was an extensive prospect, and Weidmann began in a humorous way to depict "the heroic treatment" of the doctor's, practice, who liked to deal in drastic remedies. A suitable point of agreement was established between Eric and Weidmann, while they united in a facetious, but entirely respectful assault upon the doctor.
Eric learned that the doctor had already proposed that he should undertake the superintendence of the powder-mill. Weidmann, in the meanwhile, explained that the difficulties were too great, and that the government threw in the way all sorts of obstacles, although they wanted principally to open a market in the New World, and with this view, his nephew, Doctor Fritz, had sent over from America, and had well recommended, one of the men with whom he had just been conversing. And his nephew desired that they would find some experienced German artillery officer, who would emigrate to America, and there take charge of a manufactory of gunpowder and matches, with the sure prospect of soon making a fortune.