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"I really don't know," I answered, rather tired, to tell the truth, of the discussion. "There doesn't seem any particular reason why anybody ever should go to Silberbach, except that Goethe and the Duke of Weimar are supposed to have gone there to dance with the peasant maidens. I certainly don't see that that is any reason why I should go there.
My friends were sorry, and I felt ashamed of myself for being so easily knocked up or knocked down. How thoroughly I entered into Frau von Walden's honestly-expressed dislike to "roughing it"! Yet it was not only the uncivilised look of the place, nor the coarse food, nor the want of comfort that made me feel that one night of Silberbach would indeed be enough for me.
You might return here to-morrow from Ulrichsthal while we make our way home, by Silberbach, if my husband really wishes to see it." I looked at her in some surprise. What possessed everybody to caution me so against Silberbach? Everybody, that is to say, except Herr von Walden himself. A spice of contradiction began to influence me.
She never asked where we were going, if we were likely ever to return again, and like her master, as I said, had we been staying there still, I do not believe she would ever have made an inquiry or expressed the slightest astonishment. "There is really something very queer about Silberbach," I could not help saying to Nora, "both about the place and the people.
You might have taken a little villa outside, and then you would not have needed to go away at all." "I wanted a rest from housekeeping, and our queer old inn is very comfortable," I said. "Besides, being here, would it not be a pity to go away without seeing anything of the far-famed Thuringian Forest?" "Yes, certainly it would. I quite agree with you about everything except about Silberbach.
Reggie woke up rosy and beaming evidently no ghosts had troubled his night's repose. There was something consoling and satisfactory in seeing him quite as happy and hearty as in his own English nursery. But though he had no uncanny reasons like us for disliking Silberbach, he was quite as cordial in his readiness to leave it. We got hold of Lieschen, and asked for our breakfast at once.
We, my wife and I and these boys, must be home by Saturday afternoon, so we can only stay the one night at Silberbach," for this was Thursday. And so it was settled. The next day dawned as bright and cloudless as its predecessors. The gentlemen had started I should be afraid to say how early meaning to be overtaken by us at Ulrichsthal.
I see your heart is set on Silberbach, and I am quite sure I shall have the satisfaction of hearing you own I was right in trying to dissuade you from it, when you come back again," she added, rather maliciously. "Perhaps so. But it is not only Silberbach we are going to. We shall see lots of other places. Herr von Walden has planned it all. The first three days we shall travel mostly on foot.
The old peasant woman, strong and muscular as any English labourer, whom we had hired at Seeberg to carry our bags and shawls through the forest, overheard the discussion, and for the first time broke silence to assure "the gracious ladies" that Silberbach was at no great distance; in half an hour or so we should come upon the first of its houses.
I did not then, I do not now, know and I am pretty sure he himself could not say why our guide, Herr von Walden, had chosen Silberbach from among the dozens of other villages which could quite as well as events proved, indeed, infinitely better have served our very simple purpose.
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