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The old doctor looked fearfully grim and forbidding. Hans's heart was in his throat, but he found voice enough to cry out, just as he was passing, "Mynheer Boekman!" The great man halted and, sticking out his thin underlip, looked scowling about him. Hans was in for it now. "Mynheer," he panted, drawing close to the fierce-looking doctor, "I knew you could be none other than the famous Boekman.
Throughout their friendship Deronda had been used to Hans's egotism, but he had never before felt intolerant of it: when Hans, habitually pouring out his own feelings and affairs, had never cared for any detail in return, and, if he chanced to know any, and soon forgotten it. Deronda had been inwardly as well as outwardly indulgent nay, satisfied.
The raft upon which he had expended so much labor went to pieces during a sudden rise of the river the night after little Hans's adventure, and three days later Thorkel Fossen was killed outright by a string of logs that jumped the chute. "It isn't the same sort of place since you took little Hans away," the lumbermen would often say to Nils. "There's no sort of luck in anything."
So Fate having issued its decree, of which Hans's version was that Zikali, or his Great Medicine, had so arranged things, I shrugged my shoulders and waited. Next morning at the dawn guides arrived from the Town of the Axe, bringing with them a yoke of spare oxen, which showed that its Chief was really anxious to see me.
Hans's mother asked, "Whither are you going, Hans?" "To Grethel's," replied he. "Behave well, Hans." "I will take care; good-bye, mother." "Good-bye, Hans." Hans came to Grethel. "Good day," said he. "Good day," replied Grethel. "What treasure do you bring today?" "I bring nothing. Have you anything to give?" Grethel presented Hans with a needle. "Good-bye," said he. "Good-bye, Hans."
And he set to work with such a good will that, in a very short time, poor Hans's crust had vanished, and there was nothing left before the stranger but a few crumbs of bread on the table, and a few drops of water in the cup.
After his first paralysis, Cousin Hans's blood began to boil; a violent anguish seized him: he raged against the captain, against Miss Schrappe, against Uncle Frederick and Wellington, and the whole world.
But it was a blissful smile, he was in that frame of mind in which one sees, or at any rate apprehends, nothing of the external world; and he said to himself, half aloud, "Love endures everything, accepts everything." "And perspires freely," said a fat little gentleman whose white waistcoat suddenly came within Cousin Hans's range of vision. "Oh, is that you, uncle?" he said, a little abashed.
Now, it was true, as Hans's mother said, that he did often tear his clothes; and as he had an indomitable curiosity, and had to investigate everything that came in his way, it was also no uncommon thing for him to come home with his face stung or scratched.
On this object, and on this alone, Hans's eyes and thoughts were fixed; forgetting the distance he had to traverse, he set off at an imprudent rate of walking, which greatly exhausted him before he had scaled the first range of the green and low hills.
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