Page:Select Popular Tales from the German of Musaeus.djvu/181

Rh and said to Veit, on parting, “Go hence, and with diligent hand, make use of the money. Forget not that thou art my debtor, and mark well the entrance into the dell, and the cleft in the rock. As soon as three years are past, pay me back the capital with the interest. I am a stern creditor, and should you break faith, I will come in fury and demand it.” The honest Veit promised faithfully to pay on the very day, though without an oath, and without pledging his soul and happiness, as bad payers are accustomed to do, and then departed from his benefactor of the rock with a grateful heart, easily finding his way out of the cavern.

The hundred dollars had such a beneficial influence both on mind and body, that he needed no other strengthening; when he again saw the morning light, he felt as if he had inhaled the balsam of life whilst in the rocky cave. Joyful and strong he now stept towards his home, and entered the lonesome hut about nightfall; when the famishing children beheld him, they came all towards him, crying, “Bread, father! a morsel of bread! You have long let us want.” The sad mother sat weeping in a corner, fearing the worst, according to the manner of thinking of the weak and timid, and expected her husband to begin a melancholy tale. He, however, shook hands cheerily, commanded a fire to be kindled on the hearth, as he had brought groats and millet from Reichenberg in his wallet, with which the good woman was to make pottage so thick that the spoon could stand in it. Afterwards he gave her an account of the happy consequences of his journey. Your cousins, said he, are excellent people; they did not upbraid me with my poverty, did not misapprehend me, or drive me shamefully from their door; but they kindly took me in, opened to me heart and hand, and counted out to me on the table a hundred dollars in cash, as a loan. Upon this the heavy weight was taken from the heart of the poor woman, which had long oppressed her. Had we applied sooner, she said, to the right smith we might have been spared much misery. She now boasted of the relationship, of which she had never known any good before, and became quite proud of her rich cousins.

Her husband willingly gave her this pleasure, so flattering to her vanity, after the many sorrows she had experienced. As she, however, never ceased speaking of her rich cousins, and passed many days in doing nothing else, Veit at last became worn out with the loud praises of the avaricious churls, and said to his wife, “When I was at the right forge, do you know what the master smith gave me as a piece of good advice?” “What?” asked his wife. “That every one was the smith of his own fortune; and we must strike the iron while it is hot; therefore, let us begin, and diligently set to work, and follow our occupation, so that from our earnings we may be able, in three years, to repay the loan with its interest, and be free from all debt.” Veit then bought an