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"Agreed as to the method, but how about the principles?" He smiled with self-satisfaction, for he perceived how nice a distinction he had drawn. The man had made him conscious that, in an intellectual struggle, he had here no mean antagonist.

"Here I must take a wider range," resumed Eric. "The great contest, which runs through the history of humanity and the whole of human life, shows itself in the most direct way in the training of one human being by another; for here the two elementary forces confront each other as living personalities. I may briefly designate them as individuality and authority, or historic civilization and nature."

"I understand – I understand, go on!" was thrown in encouragingly by Sonnenkamp, when Eric paused for a moment, anxious not to get lost in generalities.

"The educator is necessarily the representative of authority, and the pupil is a personality by the very endowment of nature," resumed Eric. "There is continually then a balance to be adjusted between the two, a treaty of peace to be made between the contending forces, which shall at last become a real reconciliation. To train one merely as an individual is to place a child of humanity outside of actual existence, and for the sake of freedom to isolate him from the common life, and make it burdensome to him; to subject him merely to prescribed laws is to rob him of his inborn rights. The human being is a law to himself, but he is also born into a system of laws. It was the great mistake of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the French Revolution, that in their indignation at the traditions contradictory to reason, they thought that an individual and an age could develop everything from themselves. A child of humanity neither contains all within himself, nor can he receive all from without. I think then that there is a mingling of the two elements, and there must be an hourly and an imperceptible influence exerted both from within and from without equally, inasmuch as man is a product of nature and a product of history. It is through the last, only, that man is distinguished from the beasts, and becomes an heir of all the labors and all the strength of the past generations."

Sonnenkamp nodded acquiescingly. His whole mien said, This man lays down very aptly what he heard yesterday from the lecturer's desk; and Eric continued, —

"Man alone comes into an inheritance, and an inheritance is the heaviest human responsibility."

"That is something new to me. I should like to ask for a fuller explanation."

"Permit me to illustrate: the beast receives from nature, from birth, nothing except its individual strength and its stationary instinctive capacity, while the human being receives from his progenitors and from humanity a superadded strength which he has not in himself, but of which he becomes possessor, and so he is the only inheritor. And let me say further, that it is difficult to decide whether it is harder to turn to good advantage that which a man is in himself, or that which he may receive, as for example your son will, as an inheritance. Most persons are of account only through what they possess. I consider this last of no trifling importance, but – "

"Wealth is no sin, and poverty is no virtue," Sonnenkamp interrupted. "I admit the depth and fineness of your perception in all this. I confess it is new to me, and I think that you have taken the right view. But whether, in the education of one individual boy, you shall find occasion for such great fundamental principles – "

"While engaged in the work of instruction," Eric quietly replied, "I shall not be likely to have directly before my eyes universal principles, as everything must be developed from its own basis. While one is loading, aiming, and firing off a musket, he does not define to himself the various physical laws that come into play, but he must know them in order to proceed in the right way."

Sonnenkamp was rather tired of this discussion; it was somewhat out of his line, and he had the unpleasant consciousness, that while trying to make an impression upon the stranger, he had himself been made to appear infinitely small.

"Pardon, gracious sir," a groom interposed, as Eric was beginning to expatiate anew. Sonnenkamp stood up hastily, and remarking that it was time for his ride, with affable condescension he waived with his hand the discussion to some other time.

He went quickly away. Roland came along the path, and called out, —

"I may ride out with Herr Dournay, may I not, papa?"

Sonnenkamp nodded, and departed with a hurried step. He mounted on horseback, and was soon to be seen riding a spirited black horse along the white high-road by the river. He made an imposing appearance as he sat on horse-back; the groom followed him.

CHAPTER V.
A NEW PATRON AND A NEW TUTOR

By Roland's direction his own pony had been saddled, and also a horse for Eric. They mounted, and rode slowly through a part of the village which joined the estate. At the very end of it stood a small vine-covered house, with all the window-shutters closed. Eric asked who owned it, and why it was shut up. Roland told him that it belonged to his father, and that the architect, who built the villa, had lived there, and sometimes his father also, when he came from Switzerland or Italy during the building of the house, or the laying out of the park and garden.

"Now for a good trot," said Eric; "take your bridle more firmly in your left hand. Now!"

They started briskly, keeping side by side, but suddenly Eric's horse shied and began to rear. Roland uttered a cry, but Eric reassured him, saying, "I'll conquer him;" he drew his feet from the stirrups, and rode off at such a pace that the horse was soon covered with foam and quite submissive; then he rode back to Roland, who was waiting for him in anxiety.

"Why did you throw off the stirrups?" he asked.

"Because I didn't want to hang by them if the horse fell backwards."

They rode on quietly near each other. Eric asked: —

"Which do you like best, to have some fixed object for your ride, or simply to go over a certain distance, and then turn back?"

Roland looked puzzled.

"Didn't you understand my question?"

"Yes, perfectly."

"And what do you think?"

"I like to have some object, a visit to pay, at the end of my ride."

"I thought you would say so."

"Only think," said Roland, "they say I must have another tutor."

"Indeed."

"But I won't."

"What do you want?"

"I want to get away from home and go to a military school! Why should Manna go to the convent? They always say that my mother can't eat unless I am with her, but she'll have to eat when I'm an officer."

"Then you want to be an officer?"

"Yes, what else should I be?"

Eric was silent.

"Are you a nobleman?" asked the boy, after a pause.

"No."

"Shouldn't you like to become one?"

"We cannot make ourselves noblemen."

The boy played with his horse's long mane; glancing back, he saw that the flag had been lowered from the tower. He pointed it out to Eric, saying haughtily that he should hoist it again. His fine, delicately cut, but pale face gained strength and color as it lost its weary look, and assumed a daring expression.

Without noticing his domineering manner, Eric said how much he liked Roland's pride in being an American.

"You are the first person in Germany who has commended it," cried the boy joyfully. "Herr von Pranken and Fräulein Perini are always ridiculing America; you are the only man, – but I beg your pardon, I ought not to be talking so familiarly to you."

"Put away that notion; we want to be good friends."

The boy held out his hand, and Eric pressed it warmly.

"See, our horses are good friends too," said Roland. "Have you many horses at home?"

"No, not any; I am poor."

"Wouldn't you like to be rich?"

"Certainly, wealth is a great power."

Roland looked at him in surprise; none of his tutors had said that to him; they had all represented wealth as a temptation and a vanity, or had extolled it for the sake of flattering him.

After some time, in which the boy was evidently thinking about Eric, he said, "Are you French, like your name?"

"No, I am a German, but my ancestors were French emigrants. How old were you when you came to Europe?"

"Four."

"Have you any recollection of America?"

"No, but Manna has. I can only remember a song which a negro used to hum, but I can't quite recall it, and nobody can sing it to me."

As they rode up the mountain, the little man, whom they had seen at work in the garden, stood aside to let them pass, and greeted them respectfully. They drew up, and Roland asked Nicholas, as the dwarf was called, why he was going home so early.

The little man replied that he was going home now at noon, and then into the wood to get some of the new earth which Herr Sonnenkamp had found. Up in the wood was a spring which contained iron, and Herr Sonnenkamp had dug down and found the earth also impregnated with iron. In this earth he had planted hydrangeas, and the flesh-colored flowers had changed to sky-blue.

The little man could not express all his wonder at Herr Sonnenkamp, who knew everything, and how to turn everything to account; it was no wonder that he had grown so rich, while stupid men might go all over the world, where millions were to be had, without ever knowing it.

But the little man took especial delight in telling them of a simple device of his master, who always mixed juniper leaves with the earth where he planted seeds of fruit-trees, and in that way kept away worms and mice.

As they rode on, Eric expressed his admiration for a man, who, like a second Columbus, was still making new discoveries in a world which seemed already explored and parcelled out. His readiness to appreciate, from a single example, Herr Sonnenkamp's greatness in this direction made Roland draw himself up in his stirrups, struck with surprise as he thought of the subject. He had never before heard his father so praised.

"Is there no one in the neighborhood whom you would like to call upon?" "No – or – yes, the major – but he is now at the castle. But up there in the village the huntsman Claus lives, he has our dogs-will you go with me to see him? I must let him know how Nora's puppies are; he was with me an hour before you came."

Eric readily assented, and they trotted up the gentle ascent, turned into a side path, and dismounted before a small cottage. Dogs of various kinds came round them and jumped upon Roland; Puck also seemed to have friends; he played with a brown badger-dog. An old man came out of the house and touched his cap with a military salute. He wore the short, light-gray cotton jacket which is the easy and comfortable everyday dress of the country people along the Rhine, and he was smoking a clay pipe, on which a sort of Ascension of Napoleon was painted in glaring colors.

The tone and manner with which Roland presented his new friend to the huntsman, showed that he knew how to take an imperious tone toward his inferiors.

"Off with your cap," said he to the screamer; "only think, the captain knew by their whimper how old and of what breed Nora's puppies were, before he had seen them."

"Yes, one can do that," replied the screamer in a very loud voice, "one can do that. Dogs have their own peculiar whine and bark, according as they belong to a knowing or a stupid race; and stupid people, too, cry and complain quite differently from smart ones."

He cast a pleased glance upon Eric, and held his pipe in his hand for some time.

"You are right," said Eric. "I see you have had much experience and reflection."

"May be so," answered the huntsman.

He led the way into his house, and when Eric asked what saint it was whose picture hung on the wall, he replied, laughing, —

"That is my only saint, it is Saint Rochus of the mountain yonder, and I like him because he has a dog with him."

There were many bird-cages in the room, and such a twittering and confused singing, that one could hardly hear himself speak. The old man was very happy in explaining to Eric how he taught birds that lived on beetles and caterpillars to eat seeds, and how he got maggots and weevils also, and he complained of Roland's want of interest in the feathered tribe.

"No, I don't like birds," the boy declared.

"And I know why," said Eric.

"Do you? why then?"

"You have no pleasure in the free-flying creatures which you cannot make your own, and you don't like them imprisoned either. You like dogs because they are free and yet cling to us."

The dog-trainer nodded to Eric, as if to say, "You've struck the nail on the head."

"Yes, I do like you!" cried Roland, who had two young spaniels in his lap, while the mother stood by and rubbed her head against his side, and the other dogs crowded round.

"Envy and jealousy," said Eric, "are striking characteristics of dogs. As soon as a man caresses one, all the rest want to share the favor."

"There's one that doesn't trouble himself about it," said the trainer, laughing.

In the corner lay a small brown dog, that only blinked at them occasionally. Eric remarked that it must be a fox-hound, to judge from its appearance.

"Right, he understands dogs!" cried the screamer, turning to Roland. "You are right! I got that fellow out of a fox-hole, and he is and always will be an unfaithful and ungrateful beast, who is not to be trusted; do what you will for him, he is never thankful nor affectionate."

The dog in the corner just opened his eyes and shut them again, as if he didn't disturb himself about the talk of men.

Roland showed Eric his ferrets, which seemed to know him as he took them out of the cage. He pointed out a bright yellow one, as an especially cunning, tough rascal; he had given him the name of Buchanan. The name of the other he would not tell; it was really Knopf, but now he only said that he called him Master of Arts, because he always considered so long before he went into a hole, and moved his lips as if he were delivering a lecture.

They went into the garden, and the huntsman showed Eric his bee-hives. Turning to Roland, he said, —

"Yes, Roland, your father's flowers are good for my bees, if the poor little creatures didn't have to fly so far down to reach your garden. I let my cattle feed in other men's pastures, and the world hasn't yet got so far that rich men can forbid poor men's bees to suck honey from their flowers."

A sharp glance shot from his eyes as he said this, which expressed the whole rankling hostility of the poor towards the rich. The keeper complained that Sonnenkamp cherished so many nightingales, which certainly sang beautifully, but robbed the bees of their honey, and even ate the bees with the honey. The nightingale, which men prize so highly, is a cruel murderer of bees.

"Yes," answered Eric, "the nightingales do not know that the bees give honey, and we cannot blame the birds for considering them as plagues for whose destruction men will be grateful. However, they do not eat them altogether for our sakes but their own."

The screamer looked first at Eric, then at Roland, and nodded as if saying, "Yes, yes, that's quite another thing."

Roland now asked how far Griffin had been broken in. The reply was, that he would now run at the man, but he was still too wild, and his leap not quite regular, but he was beginning to seize hold. Roland desired to see him do it; but the day-laborer, who allowed himself to be experimented upon in that way, was not at home. Roland said that the dwarf was at home, and he would be ready to do it. He himself went after the dwarf.

After Roland had gone, the huntsman, Claus, hastily grasped Eric's hand, saying, "I will help you to catch him, and I can give the fellow slick into your hand."

Eric gazed in utter astonishment at the old man, who proceeded to inform him that he understood very well what he had come for, and whoever knew how could make out of Roland a proper man. He signified by a very sly wink that Eric would some day be exceedingly grateful to him, if he should help him out.

Before Eric could make any reply, Roland came back with the dwarf, who allowed a pillow to be fastened over his shoulders, and stationed himself at the garden-fence, holding fast by the palings with both hands. A large Newfoundland dog was let out of a kennel, and sprang about awkwardly in all directions, but at a whistle from the keeper stationed himself behind him.

The keeper now called out, "Griffin! catch him! At him!"

With a bound the dog-leaped through the garden at the dwarf standing by the fence, jumped upon him, bit into the pillow, tugged at him until he fell over, and then placed his right fore-foot upon his breast, looking back at his master.

"Bravo! bravo! You see he is a real devil!"

"You are right!" exclaimed Roland. "Devil! that's just the name – Devil he shall be called. Now they will be afraid of me all over the neighborhood."

Eric was shocked at this insolent bravado as well as at the off-hand application of the idea. He appealed to the trainer whether a dog's name ought to be changed who had already cut all his teeth.

"Certainly not," asserted the man; "a dog whose name is changed don't know when he is called."

"And besides," added Eric, "it is wholly wrong to give a dog such a name. A dog's name ought to have an a in it, and have only one syllable; the letter a can be called aloud very easily."

"You are a great scholar; I never heard of the like before; you know everything;" the screamer went on in high commendation, winking at the same time merrily, and with half-sidelong glances.

Devil – for Roland persisted in giving the dog this name – would not come away from the dwarf, prostrate on the ground, although both Roland and the trainer called to him repeatedly. That was not a part of his lesson. He held on until the trainer showed his whip.

Roland gave the dwarf a piece of money, for which he was very abjectly grateful, and only wished that he might be thrown down in that way three times every day by the dog. Eric looked on meditatively. How was this rich youth to be made to learn to love, labor for, and influence the world which so laid itself at his feet?

When the two left the cottage, the trainer escorted them a part of the way, followed by a whole pack of dogs. They led their horses by the bridle, and the trainer, keeping exclusively by the side of Eric, made an ostentatious display of his whole stock of wisdom concerning the training of dogs. The huntsman considered himself infinitely clever, and all learned men stupid.

He seemed also to wish, in a sly way, to instruct Eric, when he said to him that as soon as a dog can stand without stumbling over his own legs, a beginning could be made. And it was an all-important thing not to say much to a dog, but to use short, simple words, such as "go!" "come!" "here!" but never any long speeches; and one must not make much of him, but leave him to himself for whole days; and if he wished to make friends, not to mind it, for if one gives too much attention to a dog he becomes troublesome; and any one whom a dog is to respect must not be found wanting at the hunt, especially when the dog is taken out for the first time; if one has shot any game that the dog can fetch, he will be faithful and true, but if one misses, he acquires no respect, and never gains over the dog.

"Do you know Herr Knopf?" the screamer asked abruptly. Eric answered in the negative.

"Yes; Herr Knopf," said the screamer, "has told me a hundred times, that all the school-masters ought to be under my tuition. Dogs and human beings are just alike. But the dogs are the more faithful beasts, and let themselves be broken in, and bite only when the master orders them to."

Eric looked at the man in astonishment; there was in him an inexplicable bitterness, and this man was the boy's friend. He returned to their former topic, and the screamer chuckled when he said that beasts acquire something of the understanding of the men they are with.

The huntsman was very merry, and when they were about to separate, on reaching the level ground, he took Roland aside, and said to him: —

"Thou blustering fellow! all thy ramrod priests and school-masters have been of no account. That would be the man! Thy father ought to buy such a man as that, and then something might be made of thee. But all your money can't get him!"

The screamer said this ostensibly to Roland alone, but Eric was also to hear it, for he must know that he ought to be grateful to him.

Just as they mounted, the huntsman said further, —

"Do you know that your father is buying up the whole mountain? Cursed accumulation! Your father is buying the whole Pfaffen-street." At the same time, pointing to the far extending wide-spread Rhineland, he said, —

"In a hundred years, not one handbreadth of all those vineyards will belong to those who rake and dig there. Must that be? Can that be allowed?"

A brisk trot carried them back to the villa; Eric had made up his mind; at the very moment when Eric had said to himself, "It is your duty not to abandon the boy," he saw in the garden, near the small vine-embowered house, a female form which vanished round the corner.

Had he really seen his mother, or had she been only present to his imagination?

Quicker than one can compute, the idea was formed in his mind, that here his mother and his aunt were to dwell; this house with its little garden, its dwarf-trees, and its beautiful prospect was made ready for her.

"Did you see a woman there in the garden?" he asked Roland.

"Yes, it was Fräulein Milch.

"Who is Fräulein Milch?"

"The Major's housekeeper."