The Banner of the Upright Seven | Page 4

last sit idle a minute, who was it that used to throw her arms around my neck and kiss me more times than I could count?"
At these words he nearly pitched into the water, for as he had tried again to approach unnoticed as he talked, she suddenly gave his little boat such a violent push that it almost upset. Her clear laugh rang out as his left arm slipped into the water to the elbow and he swore.
"Just you wait," he said; "I'll pay you out for this some day!"
"There's time enough ahead," she replied, "you needn't be in too much of a hurry, my dear sir." Then she continued somewhat more seriously, "Father has found out about our intentions; I didn't deny them, in the main; he won't hear of such a thing, and forbids us ever to think of it again. So that is how we stand now."
"And do you intend to bow to your father's decree as dutifully and unresistingly as you seem to?"
"At least I shall never do the exact opposite of his wishes, and still less would I dare to stand in open hostility to him, for you know that he bears a grudge a long time, and is capable of a deep, slow-consuming anger. You know too, that, although he has been a widower for five years, he has not married again on my account; that is something that a daughter ought certainly to consider. And, now that we are on this subject, I must tell you too, that, under these circumstances, I don't think it proper for us to see each other so often. It's bad enough for a child to be disobedient in her heart; but there would be something hateful in our actually doing things every day that would displease our parents if they knew about them, and so I don't want to meet you alone oftener than once a month at the most, instead of nearly every day as we have been doing. And for the rest just let time go on."
"Let time go on! And you really can and will let things go like this?"
"Why not? Are they so important? It is possible that we may have each other after all, it is also possible that we may not. But the world will go on just the same, perhaps we will forget each other of our own accord, for we are still young; in any case, it doesn't seem to me that we've any reason to make a great to-do."
The seventeen-year-old beauty delivered this speech in an apparently cold and matter-of-fact tone, at the same time picking up her oars and heading for the shore. Karl rowed beside her full of anxiety and apprehension, and no less full of vexation at Hermine's words. She was half glad to know that the hot-headed fellow had something to worry about, but at the same time, the conversation had made her, too, pensive, and particularly the separation of four weeks which she had imposed on herself.
Thus Karl finally succeeded in taking her by surprise and bringing his boat up against hers with a sudden pull. In an instant he held her slender body in his arms, and drew her part way towards him, so that they both leaned over the deep water, their boats tipped away over threatening to overturn at the slightest movement. Hence the girl was helpless and had to submit when Karl pressed seven or eight passionate kisses on her lips. Then gently and carefully he righted her and her boat. She stroked her hair back out of her face, seized her oars, panted, and, with tears in her eyes, cried angrily and threateningly:
"Just wait, you scamp, till I hold the reins! Heaven knows, I'll make you feel that you've got a wife!"
With that she rowed rapidly, without looking round at him again, towards her father's yard and home.
Karl, however, filled with triumph and bliss, called after her, "Good night, Miss Hermine Frymann; that tasted good."
Mrs. Hediger had told her husband nothing but the truth when she caused him to go out. She had merely saved up the message to use when she thought best, and then had done so at the right moment. A meeting really was held, a meeting of the Band of Seven, or of the Staunch, or of the Upright, or of the Lovers of Liberty, as they interchangeably called themselves. They were simply a circle of seven old and tried friends, all master-craftsmen, patriots, arch-politicians and stern domestic tyrants after the pattern of Master Hediger. Born, one and all, in the previous century, they, as children, had seen the downfall of the old régime, and then for many years had lived through the storms and birth-pangs of the new period, until, with the