So time went on, till Schmule was thirteen years old. Who knows how long he might have gone on hawking his mother's "Fladen" and almond comfits about the country-side, if something had not happened that changed the whole course of his life.
One very hot day in August Schmule set out for the castle. The sun was blazing down upon him, and the great heat made him pant as he toiled up the steep ascent leading to the castle; but he almost ran, he was so eager to get to the top--and no wonder. It was between eleven and twelve on a Friday morning, and there was not a penny at home with which to buy the Sabbath dinner. If hunger is hard to bear on an ordinary day, it is much worse on the Sabbath, when there is more time to think of it.
As Schmule hastened along, he was far too busy thinking of what had to be bought on his return to Z----, to look about him, or to keep his ears open; and so he never heard a horse galloping up the drive, until it was so close to him that he only saved himself from being ridden over by a hasty spring on one side.
The rider was a pale-faced youth, with a fowling-piece at his side, and turned out to be young Baron Wladislaus Wodnicki, who had come home to spend his summer holidays. He laughed heartily when he saw what a fright he had given the Jewish boy, who was still trembling too much to remember to touch his cap. He then turned his horse and rode slowly up to Schmule, till he almost touched him. The latter meanwhile pressed as close as he could to the wall of rock that bordered the drive.
"Why didn't you touch your cap to me, you rascal?" asked the young Baron, raising his riding-whip.
"Because--I--was--so--frightened," stammered Schmule.
The young man lowered his riding-whip, and after a few moments' thought, burst into a loud laugh.
"You're afraid of the horse, are you?" he asked; "very well, then, go and stand there," pointing to the middle of the road. "Don't you hear me? _There!_" he repeated, angrily; and the boy obeyed with manifest terror. "Now, then," he continued, "don't move from there till I allow you--do you understand? It'll be the worse for you if you move," and snatching up his gun, he went on. "I swear, by all the saints, that I'll shoot you down like a mad dog if you move!"