eat influence over him, and would, no doubt, take
the file out of his hand; but Pilgrim did not come. Franzl, however,
had now a lucky thought: there was no necessity for her to stay at
home, so she walked along the path far enough to prevent any one
hearing the filing and hammering, and she dismissed those whom she met
coming to the house.

Lenz, however, found that active employment produced calmness and
composure, and he did not leave off till evening, when he went
down into the valley, past the scattered houses, to his friend the
painter, Pilgrim; but half way he turned round suddenly, as if he
had heard some one calling him, and yet all was still around. No sound
was heard but the waterwagtail--called by the country people here
_Hockenock_--twittering incessantly in the reeds, and the yellow
hammer, perched on the young green shoots, on the top of the fir trees,
whistling its solitary note, and glancing round with its bright eyes.
There are no larks here, either in the valley or in the meadows beyond;
they only soar on the high land above, where cornfields are cultivated.

Mists were rising in the meadows, but these thin vapours are only
visible in front and behind, and never in the small space which a
person occupies standing, or walking.

Lenz went quickly along the valley, and did not stop till the sun had
gone down behind the mountains, and then he said: "It is setting for
the first time over her grave." The evening bell rung out; he took off
his hat and proceeded on his way. He paused at a bend in the valley,
and, concealed by a bush, looked up at a solitary cottage. On a
bench before the door was seated a man with whom we are already
acquainted--the clockmaker, Faller. He had a child on his knee, whom he
was playing with, and his sister was seated behind him, whose husband
had gone to foreign parts. She was nursing an infant, and fondly
kissing its little hands.

"Good evening, Faller;" said Lenz in his usual clear tenor voice.

"Oh! is that really you?" replied a bass voice; "we were just speaking
of you; Lisbeth said you would forget us in your grief, and I said, on
the contrary, it is the very thing that would make him think of us."

"You are right, I come to you for that very reason; I remembered that
Hurgel's house is to be sold to-morrow, I will be your security if you
choose to buy it. You will then also be nearer me."

"Capital! famous! so you are going to stay where you are?"

"Why not?"