[Illustration: _With an exclamation of joy he embraced Wegeler_]
He told in passionate words how his father’s temper had made him suffer from the days of his childhood, of that father’s insatiable craving for drink, and how, on that account, the family often had to go without the necessaries of life.
“Though my father naturally is good-natured,” he went on, “this craving makes him exceedingly irritable and sometimes violent. His habits drive him to extremes. At one moment he is a tender father, at the next a cruel tyrant. The despair of it all is that when necessity and trouble press hardest he has no patience to bear, but seeks consolation and forgetfulness in wine. This is my heaviest burden, for, so long as he cannot resist drinking, there is no hope of better conditions for our family. My mother, my good, true, tender mother, secretly weeps, and bears her hard lot with Christian calmness. But I and my two younger brothers[14] suffer unspeakably, and many a time I have been tempted to throw myself into the Rhine and end all my miseries.”
“Calm yourself, dear boy,” said Wegeler soothingly. “Don’t be so vehement. I am free to acknowledge that your situation is bad and gloomy enough, but bad as it is, some relief will be found. Let me think it over. For the present banish your sad thoughts, and let us enjoy the delicious atmosphere, the blue sky, the green woods, and the sparkling sunshine. This is not a day for melancholy. Cheer up! Let us go farther into the wood and visit my good friends, the monks of the Heisterbach cloister. We shall be well received there, and in any case find a good breakfast, which doubtless we shall greatly relish after the morning tramp.”
Ludwig was ready to accept his friend’s guidance. They sprang up from the mossy bank upon which they had been sitting during their conversation, and followed a small, scarcely perceptible footpath that led through the wood. Wegeler chattered about everything possible, told his new friend many humorous and pleasant stories, and quickly succeeded in cheering him up. When they reached the Heisterbach cloister, shortly before noon, Ludwig’s melancholy had given place to a somewhat defiant but still good humor.