"And your starling, too!" continued the young girl, weeping with joy.
The three young idlers at this broke out into a loud scornful laugh.
"Brother dear, we congratulate you on your new relations, not forgetting the starling. Ha! ha! ha!"
Balduin drove the old man from him with violence, and paid no heed to Malchen. "You vagabonds," he cried, "you will pay dearly for your insolent jest!"
Kummas stood petrified; he raised his arms, and then let them fall down powerless. At length he found strength to say, "Christlieb! are we really so much changed that you do not know us? I am Kummas, this is Malchen, whose grandfather is dead, and we are going to the town in which you live."
"Now I hope you understand!" again shouted Balduin's rude companions. "Such a father is not found every day on the street, neither such a smart young peasant girl."
Balduin trembled with passion. "You must have escaped from Bedlam!" he cried; "away with you! You will get nothing from me!"
The old man could scarcely believe his ears. "No, it is impossible," he said to himself, "that within the short space of one year an angel could be thus changed into a demon. Christlieb!" he continued, "dissemble no longer; you are breaking my heart with your jokes. I have not deserved this treatment; but I need not speak of what I have done for you, as you have always gratefully acknowledged it."
Instead of answering, Balduin paid the reckoning, and left the inn with his noisy companions, leaving Kummas and Malchen behind, who both stood as if rooted to the spot.
A long pause ensued. "Is he really gone?" asked Kummas, scarcely able to speak.
"Quite gone!" Malchen was only able to answer by a sorrowful shake of the head.
"He has denied us, Malchen!" said the old man. "He is in prosperity, as you may see by his dress and well-filled purse. He has been ashamed of us before the other scholars. Alas! alas! I was not ashamed, for his sake, to become like an old nurse." Kummas laid down his head and wept bitterly. "See," he continued after a time, "how soon our soap bubbles have burst! Now we may return the way we came to our old home in the village. You will be able to get something to do; perhaps to herd the cows or the geese; and I---- will find a grave. The ingratitude of my child will be my winding-sheet! What could I now do with a violin? Never again shall I handle the bow, and I will burn the instrument as I did the violincello in which---- Christlieb was cradled." He again laid his grey head on the table, which became wet with his burning tears.