"No, but Manna has. I can only remember a song which a negro used to hum, but I can't quite recall it, and nobody can sing it to me."
As they rode up the mountain, the little man, whom they had seen at work in the garden, stood aside to let them pass, and greeted them respectfully. They drew up, and Roland asked Nicholas, as the dwarf was called, why he was going home so early.
The little man replied that he was going home now at noon, and then into the wood to get some of the new earth which Herr Sonnenkamp had found. Up in the wood was a spring which contained iron, and Herr Sonnenkamp had dug down and found the earth also impregnated with iron. In this earth he had planted hydrangeas, and the flesh-colored flowers had changed to sky-blue.
The little man could not express all his wonder at Herr Sonnenkamp, who knew everything, and how to turn everything to account; it was no wonder that he had grown so rich, while stupid men might go all over the world, where millions were to be had, without ever knowing it.
But the little man took especial delight in telling them of a simple device of his master, who always mixed juniper leaves with the earth where he planted seeds of fruit-trees, and in that way kept away worms and mice.
As they rode on, Eric expressed his admiration for a man, who, like a second Columbus, was still making new discoveries in a world which seemed already explored and parcelled out. His readiness to appreciate, from a single example, Herr Sonnenkamp's greatness in this direction made Roland draw himself up in his stirrups, struck with surprise as he thought of the subject. He had never before heard his father so praised.
"Is there no one in the neighborhood whom you would like to call upon?" "No--or--yes, the major--but he is now at the castle. But up there in the village the huntsman Claus lives, he has our dogs----will you go with me to see him? I must let him know how Nora's puppies are; he was with me an hour before you came."
Eric readily assented, and they trotted up the gentle ascent, turned into a side path, and dismounted before a small cottage. Dogs of various kinds came round them and jumped upon Roland; Puck also seemed to have friends; he played with a brown badger-dog. An old man came out of the house and touched his cap with a military salute. He wore the short, light-gray cotton jacket which is the easy and comfortable everyday dress of the country people along the Rhine, and he was smoking a clay pipe, on which a sort of Ascension of Napoleon was painted in glaring colors.