Fritz and Eric The Brother Crusoes

Excerpt

“Good-Bye!”

“Time is getting on, little mother, and we’ll soon have to say farewell!”

“Aye, my child. The parting is a sad one to me; but I hope and trust the good God will hold you in His safe keeping, and guide your footsteps back home to me again!”

“Never you fear, little mother. He will do that, and in a year’s time we shall all meet again under the old roof-tree, I’m certain. Keep your heart up, mother mine, the same as I do; remember, it is not a ‘Farewell’ I am saying for ever, it is merely ‘Auf wiedersehen!’”

“I hope so, Eric, surely; still, we cannot tell what the future may bring forth!” said the other sadly.

Mother and son were wending their way through the quaint, old-fashioned, sleepy main street of Lubeck that led to the railway station—a bran-new modern structure that seemed strangely incongruous amidst the antique surroundings of the ancient town. Although it was past the midday hour, hardly a soul was to be seen moving about; and the western sun lighted up the green spires of the churches and red-tiled pointed roofs of the houses, glinting from the peculiar eye-shaped dormer windows of some of the cottages with the most grotesque effect and making them appear as if winking at the onlooker. It seemed like a scene of a bygone age reproduced on the canvas of some Flemish artist; and, but that Eric and his mother were accustomed to it, they must have rubbed their eyes, like Rip Van Winkle when he came down from the goblin-haunted mountain into the old village of his youth, in doubt whether all was real, thinking it might be a dream. Presently, however, they were at the railway station, and they would have been convinced, if they had felt inclined to believe otherwise, that they were living in the present. But, even here, amid all the hissing of steam, and creaking of carriages, and whirr of moving machinery, the queer old-world costumes of the peasantry, with their quaint hats and mantles, which more resembled the stage properties of a Christmas pantomime than the known dress of any people of the period, all spoke of the past—a past when the great Barbarossa reigned in Central Europe, and when there were “Robbers of the Rhine,” and “Forty thousand virgins,” in company with Saint Ursula, canonising the sainted and scented city of Cologne. Ah, those days of long ago!

“Here we are at last, mother,” said Eric, slinging the bag containing his sea kit on to the railway platform. “The old engine is getting its steam up, and we’ll soon be off. Cheer up, little mother! As I’ve told you, it is not a good-bye for ever!”

“So you say, my son. The young ever look forward; but old people like myself look back, and it makes us reflect how few of the noble aspirations and longing anticipations of our youth are ever realised!”

“Old people like yourself indeed, little mother!” said Eric indignantly, tossing up his lion-like head, and looking as if he would like to see any one else who would dare to make such an assertion, the next moment throwing his arms round her neck, and hugging her fondly....