Old Rahel reluctantly obeyed, yet the doctor did not resume his seat at the writing-table, but for a long time paced up and down among his books more rapidly than usual.

CHAPTER VI.

St. John’s day was close at hand.  Ulrich was to go to the monastery the following morning.  Hitherto Father Benedict had been satisfied, and no one molested the doctor.  Yet the tranquillity, which formerly exerted so beneficial an effect, had departed, and the measures of precaution he now felt compelled to adopt, like everything else that brought him into connection with the world, interrupted the progress of his work.

The smith was obliged to provide Ulrich with clothing, and for this purpose went with the lad and a well-filled purse, not to his native place, but to the nearest large city.

There many a handsome suit of garments hung in the draper’s windows, and the barefooted boy blushed crimson with delight, when he stood before this splendid show.  As he was left free to choose, he instantly selected the clothes a nobleman had ordered for his son, and which, from head to foot, were blue on one side and yellow on the other.  But Adam pushed them angrily aside.  Ulrich’s pleasure in the gay stuff reminded him of his wife’s outfit, the pink and green gowns.

So he bought two dark suits, which fitted the lad’s erect figure as if moulded upon him, and when the latter stood before him in the inn, neatly dressed, with shoes on his feet, and a student’s cap on his head, Adam could not help gazing at him almost idolatrously.

The tavern-keeper whispered to the smith, that it was long since he had seen so handsome a young fellow, and the hostess, after bringing the beer, stroked the boy’s curls with her wet hand.

On reaching home, Adam permitted his son to go to the doctor’s in his new clothes; Ruth screamed with joy when she saw him, walked round and round him, and curiously felt the woollen stuff of the doublet and its blue slashes, ever and anon clapping her hands in delight.

Her parents had expected that the parting would excite her most painfully, but she smiled joyously into her playmate’s face, when he bade her farewell, for she took the matter in her usual way, not as it really was, but as she imagined it to be.  Instead of the awkward Ulrich of the present, the fairy-prince he was now to become stood before her; he was to return without fail at Christmas, and then how delightful it would be to play with him again.  Of late they had been together even more than usual, continually seeking for the word, and planning a thousand delightful things he was to conjure up for her, and she for him and others.

It was the Sabbath, and on this day old Rahel always dressed the child in a little yellow silk frock, while on Sunday her mother did the same.  The gown particularly pleased Ulrich’s eye, and when she wore it, he always became more yielding and obeyed her every wish.  So Ruth rejoiced that it chanced to be the Sabbath, and while she passed her hand over his doublet, he stroked her silk dress.