Hans Sachs smiled tenderly. He nodded his head wisely as he gazed after her.
"Ah!" he said to himself, "that's just what I thought! That's just what I thought!"
And still shaking his head, he gathered up his tools and entered the workshop. He closed the door behind him; that is, he nearly closed the door,--nearly, not entirely, which was most fortunate, as you shall see.
Not long afterward Sir Walter von Stolzing came hastening down the street. His face was full of sorrow. All his hopes of winning Eva were gone. He would see her once more, and then bid her farewell forever.
Eva saw him coming. Running toward him, she greeted him gladly and led him to the garden seat, beneath the shade of the linden tree. And there the young knight told her of his failure. As he spoke of the narrow-minded Masters who had spurned his song, his voice grew bitter. "Ah," he continued, "all hope is gone unless you will marry me to-night." Eva assented eagerly. And so, in excited whispers, just loud enough for Hans Sachs to hear, the two lovers planned to run away.
Losing no time, Eva ran into the house and donned Magdalena's cloak. Then, bidding the maid seat herself by the window in her stead, she hurried to join Sir Walter.
Just as the two lovers made ready under cover of the darkness to dive down the narrow street, clever Hans Sachs threw his workshop door wide open, and the broad stream of bright light from his lamp flooded their path. Eva and Sir Walter fell back. They could not pass that way. The cobbler would be sure to see them. They looked in the opposite direction. No. There was the watchman, and skulking in his wake was still another figure. Who could that be? He was coming that way. Oh, this would never do. In despair the lovers rushed back to the friendly shadows beneath the linden tree.
Meanwhile Hans Sachs, who had no objection to their marriage, but who felt a great distaste for elopements, had brought out his tools, and had seated himself at his workbench once more. He, too, spied a strange figure slinking down the street toward Pogner's house. Well he knew those thin legs, that fat body, the too bald head, the too red face. It was Beckmesser, the town clerk, the Marker of the guild. He had come to serenade the fair Eva. He would show her what fine singing was. And he looked up at her window expectantly, as he tuned his lute.