o face. It seemed incomprehensible to Eric how this
man exerted such a wide influence, and impossible for himself to enter
into his life. The doctor was immediately called away, for the
landlord's father being sick, his arrival was regarded as very
fortunate. Eric walked up and down the shore; he seemed to himself to
be thrown into a strange world, and to be borne along by strange
potencies. How long it was since he had left Roland, how long since he
went by this village, which was then to him only a name! Now, perhaps,
some eventful occurrence was to take place here, and the name of this
village to be stamped indelibly upon his life.

"Herr Captain! Herr Weidmann wishes me to ask you to come into the
garden," the boatman cried to him.

Eric went back into the garden, where Weidmann came to him, with an
entirely different mien, saying that he would now, for the first time,
bid him welcome; previously he had been very busy. A short time
afterwards the doctor also came.

The three now seated themselves at the table in a corner of the garden,
where there was an extensive prospect, and Weidmann began in a humorous
way to depict "the heroic treatment" of the doctor's, practice, who
liked to deal in drastic remedies. A suitable point of agreement was
established between Eric and Weidmann, while they united in a
facetious, but entirely respectful assault upon the doctor.

Eric learned that the doctor had already proposed that he should
undertake the superintendence of the powder-mill. Weidmann, in the
meanwhile, explained that the difficulties were too great, and that the
government threw in the way all sorts of obstacles, although they
wanted principally to open a market in the New World, and with this
view, his nephew, Doctor Fritz, had sent over from America, and had
well recommended, one of the men with whom he had just been conversing.
And his nephew desired that they would find some experienced German
artillery officer, who would emigrate to America, and there take charge
of a manufactory of gunpowder and matches, with the sure prospect of
soon making a fortune.

The doctor looked towards Eric, but he smiled and shook his head in the
negative.

Weidmann informed them further, that a discovery had been lately made
of a deposit of manganese, and that they were desirous of forming a
company to work the mine; that a man who knew how to regulate matters
might easily make himself acquainted with the business.

He also