The way thither proved to be long. Again and again it was necessary to stop to rest or to give time for the short legs of the little children to catch up. Again and again the heavy burdens were shifted about. They traveled into the open country--a strange stopping place for those who were so soon to continue their journey! They passed many men and women who looked at them curiously. Presently they heard their own German speech.
"We will have to wait awhile, probably, for ships," said John Conrad to his son. "Of course we could not expect to go on at once. We--"
John Conrad stopped short and let his bundle slip to the ground. They had come out upon a great space, which a few months before had been an open heath. Now, as far as the eye could reach, stretched long lines of tents. It was no temporary lodging, for here and there small frame store buildings had been erected and there were long-used, dusty paths between the tents. Men and women and children were going about, meals were being prepared, there was everywhere the sound of voices. John Conrad stood still in amazement.
A single sharp voice answered from the doorway of a sutler's shop.
"We are Germans, lured hither by promise of passage to America. Here we wait. Here we have waited for months. Have you come, oh, fool, to wait also?"
It was not the rudeness of the answer which startled John Conrad, nor the discouraging news which it announced, but the voice of the speaker. For the speaker was none other than his friend the magistrate of Oberdorf, supposed to be by now upon the high seas or in the new country.
For a long moment Heinrich Albrecht, the magistrate of Oberdorf, and John Conrad Weiser, his friend, looked at each other. John Conrad was the first to speak, in a voice trembling with amazement and alarm.
The magistrate burst into a loud laugh. He was a tall, thin man, of a type to whom inaction is misery.
"I have not been away. Here"--he waved his hand with a wide motion over Blackheath--"here we lie, idle pensioners. Here we have been since May, ever encouraged, ever deluded. Here idleness and evil customs are corrupting our youth. Here we are dying."
Now the full meaning of the crowded Rhine and the warning of the Hollanders burst upon John Conrad. He looked at his children, at the young girls, at the little boys, and finally at plump, smiling John Frederick. He thrust his hand into his almost empty pocket, thinking of the long journey back to Gross Anspach for which he had no money. He thought of his high hopes of liberty and peace and independence. He covered his face with his hands so that his children might not see his tears.