CHAPTER III.
Why Fritz Sahlmann got a box on the ears, and the watchmaker spent the night fighting with Mamsell Westphalen's four-post bed, and why the French Colonel paid a visit to the watchmaker in a red blanket.
When the Miller's waggon had driven off, the Amtshauptmann began to walk towards the house, but suddenly turning round again, he went up to Herr Droz and asked: "Droz, how much do I owe you?" Droz said as well as he could that he had been very glad to do it, for "ze Allemagne is now my patrie and I am tout for ze patrie."
"I don't mean that," said the old Herr, "I meant for my watch which you set to rights for me?" Droz replied that that was already paid for, adding "ze leetle boy, Fritz Sahlmann, had make it all right."
"I am quite aware of that," said the old Herr; "but, my dear Droz, a watchmaker must be paid not only for what he does to a watch but also for what he does not do, and therefore take this," and he put a couple of thalers into his hand and went into the house.
"Oh! let him go," said Mamsell Westphalen, "he's a curious old gentleman, but he means it well. But Herr Droi now come in with me and stay a bit in my room for this weather is enough to make one's soul freeze in one's body."
Herr Droi went with her, but they had scarcely sat down when in came Fritz Sahlmann with the Frenchman's sword in his hand, and the Frenchman's helmet on his head, and a moustache which he had grown on the instant with the snuff of a candle. Smack! he had a box on his ears from Mamsell Westphalen: "Monkey!" and she took the sword and helmet from him and put them by her bed: "Monkey, have you nothing better to do than to be playing your tricks on an evening like this when we're all in such trouble? Go down to Herr Droi's good wife, represent my compliments to her, and she is not to be anxious; Herr Droi is with me, and there is no danger."
Fritz Sahlmann goes; and now they both sit down and tell one another about old times and new, that is to say, they try; but what Mamsell Westphalen says, Herr Droi does not understand well, and what Herr Droi says, Mamsell Westphalen understands very badly indeed.
"He are bon," said Droz and chinks the two thalers in his hand.
"Of course, they're good," replied Mamsell Westphalen, "do you think the Amtshauptmann would give you bad money?"
"Ah! not bad money! I mean him, lui-même," and he pointed to the room above.
"Oh! the Herr Amtshauptmann you mean is bong. Yes, certainly he is bong, but the older he gets the more whimsical he grows, for he turns night into day and day into night, Herr Droi. Just think, here have I to sit up and roast and fry right into the middle of the night because he won't eat his supper till eleven or even twelve o'clock; and if it is burnt or dried up, he begins to scold, and then Frau Amtshauptmann who is very soft-hearted, she begins to cry. Then I say, 'Frau Amtshauptmann, why do you cry? Can we help it if he will live like a heathen? Leave off crying, we have a good conscience.' But Herr Droi it's very hard for me, a lone person, to sit here and listen to the storm raging round the Schloss, and the rain beating against the windows, and the owls hooting, and the winds whistling along the passages, as if all the evil spirits were let loose. Just listen! what weather it is again!--Herr Droi, are you at all afraid?"
"Oh, non!" replied Herr Droi; but he sat still and listened to the weather outside and said at last: "Leesten, Mamsell, du tonnerre!"
"What! Pommes de terre?" asked Mamsell Westphalen, "what have potatoes to do with the weather at this season?"
"I not mean ze leetle boys wid ze brown jack'ts, I mean"--and here he made a rapid gesture with his hand indicating forked lightning--"I mean ze bright tsick-tsack wid rumpel, pumpel, rat-tat-te-tah."
"Then you are right, Herr Droi, for it really does go rumpel, pumpel, rat-tat-te-tah, out of doors."
"Ah!" said Herr Droi, "zat are ze tambours, zat are my camerades, ze grenadier." And he jumped up and marched up and down with his bearskin on his head, for here it was high enough; and then he stood still again: "Écoutez, zey march on ze marché, on ze market, and écoutez, zat are ze grand canons!"
And Mamsell Westphalen sat there with her hands folded in her lap and looked at him and shook her head and said: "How his soldiering does cling to him! He's generally a well-behaved man, what does he want to be looking so fierce for now? It's just like the old coachmen, when they can drive no longer, they are still always cracking their whips."
Presently the wife of Stalsch the weaver came in at the door,--she was Mamsell Westphalen's oracle and newspaper, bringing her the news of the town, and for every mouthful of news she brought to the castle, she took away a plateful of food,--she had turned her gown up over her head and the rain was streaming off her as from the roof of a house. She shook herself once, twice--
"Br-r-r, what a night it is," she said.
"That it is, Frau Meister," answered Mamsell Westphalen;--she always called her Frau Meister to show that she was the wife of a master weaver, "not for Stalsch's sake" she would say, "no, for my own sake, for what would people say if I were to be intimate with a woman of no standing. I can be proud like other folk."
"Mamsell," said the Frau Meister, "I came up to tell you the market-place is full of Frenchmen, and they've brought with them ever so many great cannons, and the Burmeister has sent for my husband, and has ordered him this dark night and in this weather to the villages round about to tell the peasants to be here with their waggons at noon tomorrow, and you see if you don't get some one quartered on you to-night."
"Heaven preserve us!" exclaimed Mamsell Westphalen, and went to the door and called to Hanchen and Corlin (the maids) and told them to light the fire in the blue room next hers, and to put up a couple of bedsteads for the Devil would soon send a bigmouthed French Colonel and a chattering ape of an adjutant up to the Schloss, and turning round to her company: "There they may lie," she said, "and if the ghost in the blue room is a Christian ghost it's not much sleep they'll get to-night and that's the best luck I wish them. For, Herr Droi," she went on, "the next room to this is haunted. Do you believe in ghosts?"
Herr Droi said, no.
Presently there was a noise outside and as Mamsell Westphalen looked out at the window, yes, there was a French Colonel with his adjutant coming in at the gate, and a couple of orderlies were following them. They were taken into the blue room where they put on dry clothes, and then they went up to the Amtshauptmann's room and had supper.
Herr Droi in the meantime sat deep in thought, muttering over and over again "Diable" and "Diantre", and on their questioning him it came out that he was in great fear; it might be his death he said, for if he were to go out in his uniform and the bearskin and sword and gun, he might be seen by one of the orderlies or one of the French sentries or some ruffian or other of a Frenchman and they might ask him where he came from and where he was going to, and then if he could not give a satisfactory account of himself, there would be the devil's own work, and the story of this afternoon might come out, and what would happen then?
"Herr Droi," said Mamsell Westphalen, "that's a bad business. You couldn't put on that imp Fritz Sahlmann's things, for if you did manage to squeeze yourself into them, they would be much too short for you. And the Herr Amtshauptmann's clothes? No, Herr Droi, you mustn't ask that of me. It would be just as if I were to set fire to the Schloss with my own hands. And, heaven be praised, we have no other men here. But Herr Droi you saved us when we were in danger this afternoon, and so I will save you in return. Your wife knows that you're up here amongst Christian folk. You shall sleep to-night in my four-post bedstead, and I will sleep with the housemaid; I'll put on fresh linen. Come, Frau Meister." So saying she went out, and presently she came back again, put fresh sheets on the bed and asked once more: "Herr Droi, are you not afraid?"
And Herr Droi again replied that he was not.
"That's all right," said she; "for it often goes tap--tap--tap, in a curious way close by. But it never comes into the room. I have had a horseshoe nailed over the door.--Listen, just listen! The Frenchmen are going to bed now. Just listen to the chattering! Herr Droi can you understand it all?"
"Ah, yes," said Herr Droi.
"I can easily believe it, for the wall is very thin. This was one large room once, but now it's made into two. Well, good night, Herr Droi. Come, Frau Meister."
So saying she went out, followed by the Frau Meister, and shortly afterwards by Herr Droi too, who suddenly remembered he had a message for the Frau Meister to take to his wife. Scarcely were the three out of the room, when some one flew along the corridor where the night-lamp was burning, into Mamsell Westphalen's room. It was that young rogue Fritz Sahlmann, and under his arm he had a lump of ice as large as a pumpkin; he climbed up the bedpost like a cat, and laid the lump of ice on the top of the bed. "Wait a little while, you old termagant, this is for the box on the ears I got," he said to himself. "It will perhaps cool you a little." And he slid down again and was out of the door in a moment.
Herr Droi now came back again, undressed, laid "la grande nation" on a chair by the side of the bed, blew out his candle, lay down, and stretched himself out in the nice soft bed and said: "Ah! que c'est bon;" then listened to the storm outside and the rain pouring down and the jabbering of the Frenchmen. At last the chattering ceased; and Herr Droi was half asleep and half awake--when tap--tap--tap. "Haha," thought Herr Droi, in French, "that's the ghost in the next room;" and he listened to hear what his countrymen would have to say to it. They lay quite still; but tap--tap--tap--it goes again and now it seems to Herr Droi to be in his room. Yes, it is in his room; and if it's in the room, it must have come in at the door. How else could it get in? So he caught up one of his shoes and flung it at the door. Bang! went the shoe against the door; the noise resounded through the corridor as if a thunderbolt had fallen. The Frenchmen in the next room began to move and to speak to one another. All however was soon quiet again, but tap--tap--tap--it went once more, close to Herr Droi's bed. He raised himself up and bent over the side of the bed to be able to hear better,--splash!--fell a drop on his bald head--and splash! another on his nose, and on stretching out his hands he found the bedclothes were beginning to get wet through. "Diantre!" he exclaimed, in French, "there's a hole in the roof, and the rain's coming in through the ceiling. What's to be done?" Of course he at once thought of moving his bed as any other sensible person in his place would have done. He therefore got up and began to drag at the head of the old bed, but forgot all about the French Chasseur's helmet and sword which were standing in the corner and which now fell rattling and jangling along the wall down to the ground. Herr Droi was not a little startled and stood still and listened and--yes--the two Frenchmen had been awakened by the noise and were raging and swearing.
"But," thought he, "even this much must have done some good," and he crept into bed again. But the lump of ice was now nearly melted and the water of course came streaming through on to the bed; he lay still a while, but it kept coming faster and faster, and the water came through the bedclothes, and he got quite cold and he thought, in French, "they will be fast asleep now, if I can only bring the foot of the bed as far away from the wall, I shall get rid of this rain," and got up and began to move the foot of the bed;--crash! fell his musket along the wall on to the floor; and if there was no noise before, there was certainly noise now.
The poor watchmaker stood there biting his lip, biting his nails, and holding his breath as if his very breathing might wake the Frenchmen, who were already swearing half aloud and crying "silence" and tapping against the wall.
"Que faire?" he said to himself, in French. "The first want must be supplied, as the old woman said when she burned her kneading-trough to heat the water for the bread;" crept into bed again and said, "Heaven be praised at last I'm out of the drip."
But he had got out of the drip to come into the torrent, for--dash!--it came down from above,--splash! it poured into the bed. He felt cold and wet, like a frog in spring. It was all of no use. He must get up once more and turn the bed round again; but softly so as not to throw anything over. He pulled it into one corner, it had been dry there before; he pulled it into the other corner, there too it had been dry before, and in this way he went pulling the bed about the livelong night always gently, very gently, but wherever he went there was water.
At last he stood still in the middle of the room, and thought and thought, and finally slapped his forehead, in French, saying: "Fool that I am!" for a light had flashed across him, that's to say across his mind, for in the room it was quite dark. But a light in the room he must have. So he stole out into the corridor--yes--the nightlamp was still burning; he lighted his candle, and went back, looked up at the top of the bed and saw something lying there, muttered: "Ah, Canaille!" and mounted on to the bed, but could not reach. He stretched himself out as far as he could and tried to get the lump of ice, but it was so slippery he could not hold it. Parbleu! half an inch more. He leant his whole weight against the top of the bed when--crack it went, and bed and ice and Droi all fell in a heap against the wall, and there lay Herr Droi among the innocent white curtains, helplessly kicking his feet about, as if they could express the state of their owner's mind.
All at once the door opens, and in comes the French Colonel. In order not to catch cold he had thrown a red blanket over his shoulders and in his hand he held a double-barrelled pistol. Behind him stood the adjutant with a drawn sword. Herr Droi scrambles out from under the bed-curtains, puts on his bearskin, then draws himself up to his full height and makes a salute saying: "Bon soir, mon colonel."
The Colonel looked at Droz, and the adjutant looked at the Colonel. They saw that they had a Frenchman to deal with. They saw the black leggings and the whole "grande nation" lying beside the bed. They saw the sword and gun, and--worse and worse--they saw the Chasseur's sabre and helmet. What's this? What's the meaning of this? Herr Droi stammers out something. Herr Droi begins to tell them about Jena and Marengo. Herr Droi begins to tell lies. Herr Droi lies capitally, pity they don't believe him. In the room and in the corridor there is a fearful noise; the Colonel calls Herr Droi a deserter and marauder, the adjutant calls for the orderlies, the orderlies in haste and in scant apparel,--as if some one had fallen into the water and they wanted to jump in after him without wetting their trousers,--rush in from one side of the corridor, while from the other side advances Mamsell Westphalen with the cook and the housemaid. In her hand she has a large stable lantern, but otherwise she is not well off as to clothes. She holds one hand up to her eyes as if the light of the lantern blinded her, and the housemaid looks over her (Mamsell Westphalen's) shoulder and says to the cook "Good heavens, Corlin, do look."
"For shame," says Mamsell Westphalen, "what is she to look at? what have you got to look at? and what is there here to look at? We have come here on account of this heathenish noise at a time when every one ought to be asleep, and because we heard Herr Droi's voice crying out in terror and trouble. And now turn about." The two women and Mamsell Westphalen turn their backs on the Frenchmen and Mamsell says: "Herr French Colonel, what is this? what do you call this? and what is the meaning of this? Why don't you let Herr Droi sleep in peace in my room? This is a christian house and a quiet house, and we are not accustomed to such ways." And she added to herself half aloud "one of them will be sure to understand me."
The French Colonel looked at himself, as he stood there in his red blanket, and Herr Droi with the bearskin on his head, and his thin-legged adjutant skipping about in his zeal, and Mamsell Westphalen's broad back; and the whole scene looked so comical, he burst out laughing and said in good German that she was only to go on, he could understand her well enough, for he was a German, a Westphalian (Westphalen).
"That's my name," said Mamsell Westphalen.
The Colonel laughed and said he was only a Westphalian by birth, his name was "von Toll."
Mamsell Westphalen dropped a low curtsey, backwards. "Begging your pardon, are you perhaps a relative of Toll our postmaster and innkeeper down in the town?"
The Colonel said that he had not the honour, but that he was almost freezing; that the orderlies were to remain with Herr Droi, for he must be a French deserter, and they were also to search for the French Chasseur to whom the helmet and sabre belonged.
Herr Droi now began again to lie, and Mamsell Westphalen felt quite ashamed of him and turned round in anger and said: "For shame, Herr Droi, to be stuffing the easy chair that ought to make you comfortable in your old age with wickedness, you're making a hard pillow for your conscience." Then making a little curtsey, she said to the colonel, "My compliments, Herr Colonel von Toll," and marched off with the two maids.
The others also went; and soon all was still again, and the Herr Amtshauptmann had no suspicion of what was passing in his house for he slept the sleep of the just.
CHAPTER IV.
How the Miller felt next morning; why Friedrich appeared to the Miller's wife like the serpent in the Garden of Paradise; and why Fieka thought Joe Voss's son was sent to them by Providence.
The next morning Miller Voss felt as if he had half-a-dozen sparrows in his head, which were pecking away at flies. It was not, he said to himself, because of last night's deep drinking. No, it was chiefly because of the Frenchman.
"Mother," said he as he pulled on his boots,--and he nodded his head and looked knowingly into their wide tops, "red wine is a fine thing in the evening, but, in the morning, it seems to me it's no better than brandy or beer. However, if you jump over a dog you jump over his tail too. But where is the Frenchman? He lay in the straw, and Friedrich must know what has become of him."
"Father," said his wife, "never mind that now. Friedrich must come soon you know, for it's time for the first breakfast."
The Miller went into the room, sat down at the table where the large bowl of barley-broth was standing and helped himself; then the mother helped herself and then Fieka and, lastly, the two maid-servants; for such was the custom in those days; and no miller had yet heard of coffee.
The Miller ate, then laid down his spoon: "Where can Friedrich be?" He began eating again, then went to the window and shouted across the yard; "Friedrich." Still no Friedrich.
The bowl of broth was empty; the servants took away the things, and the Miller said: "When I have hired a servant, I'm not going to have him play the fine gentleman!"--and was just setting out to look after him, when Friedrich came in, carrying something under his arm.
"Where have you been, you vagabond?" asked the Miller?
"Miller," said Friedrich, and drew his clasp-knife out of his pocket and stuck it under the door-latch, "don't speak like that; it's not fit for you, nor yet for me. When wild geese are in the air it's ill sowing peas, and when gossiping women are in the room it's best not to say what you don't wish everybody to know. So I waited till the maids had left the room. Here!" and he threw something on to the table so that it rang again. "Here, Miller Voss. I've not brought you the fox himself, nor yet his skin, but here's his leather bag."
"What does this mean?" exclaimed the Miller, and hastily seized the valise and began unbuckling the straps.
"What does it mean?" said Friedrich "You must find that out for yourself; it's no business of mine. I have taken my share already."
The Miller shook the valise over the table, and a packet of silver spoons fell out and a quantity of silver coin, and beautiful, round, yellow gold--and a little box came to light, and when the Miller's wife opened it, there lay rings and broaches with gold chains coiled in amongst them like serpents among brilliant flowers.
"Heaven preserve us!" she cried, and let the box fall.
Fieka had stood there looking on, her hands pressed to her bosom and her eyes getting larger and larger. She now threw herself, pale as death, across the table, laid her arms over the gold and silver treasure and cried:
"It is the Frenchman's! It is the Frenchman's. It is not ours."
When she lifted up her head, and glanced at her father, she looked as if some one had stabbed her with a knife, and the anguish of death was in her face as she said "Father, father."
And the old Miller sat there fidgeting about with his night-cap, and he looked at his child in her anguish and then again at the glittering money. All at once he sprang up, nearly overturning the table, and cried:
"God in Heaven! I know nothing about it. I don't know what has become of him; he lay in the straw, that I know," and added in a feeble voice, "Friedrich must know the rest."
Fieka left the money, and darted towards Friedrich. "Where is the Frenchman?" she screamed.
Friedrich, with his old iron face, stood quietly looking at her. "God save us!" he said at last. "Is this to be a court of justice then? Why, Fieka, Fieka! Do I look like a robber and murderer? I laid the Frenchman with my own hands under a beech-tree in the Stemhagen wood, and, if the night air hasn't been too cool for him, he'll be lying there now--still as a rat--for he was dead drunk."
"That he was," said the Miller.
Fieka looked first at Friedrich and then at her old father, who was listening to what Friedrich was saying, "Friedrich," she said, "how could I help thinking it. You are always talking about killing and murdering Frenchmen." And she put her apron up to her eyes, threw herself down on the bench behind the large, tile-covered stove, and began to cry bitterly.
"Dumouriez! That I am," said Friedrich, "and if I could wring the necks of those d--d patriots I'd do it. But a man who could not defend himself?--And for his money too!" ... muttered something in his beard and went to the door; he took his knife from under the latch, and then turned round and said:
"Miller, the air is clear again, for the two girls are gone to their work. I have given you the things; consider well what you do with them. If you wish to keep them--well and good. I have nothing to say against it, for, according to my poor wits you've a right to them. The French have taken more than this from you; and, if you don't wish it to be talked about, I, for my part, can be silent. But if you are going to deliver it up to the Amtshauptmann, and have to swear that nothing has been taken out of it, just say that I have taken my share."
"Friedrich, Friedrich," said the Miller's wife, "do not be bringing yourself into trouble, nor us either.--At this moment you seem to me to be like the serpent in the Garden of Paradise."
"Frau," replied Friedrich, "everybody knows best what he ought to do himself. Two years ago when I had been taking salt to the Inn at Klaukow for Rathsherr Krüger of Malchin, and was going to pay my bill, and put an eight-groschen piece down on the table, an infamous rascal of a Chasseur pounced upon it, and when I tried to get it back, three of them fell upon me and nearly beat me to death. I have taken the eight groschen, but the blows I keep in store for them. And if this fellow did not do it himself, perhaps his brother did, or his comrade--the account remains in the family. The eight groschen I shall certainly keep." And so saying he went out at the door.
The Miller, meanwhile, had been walking up and down the room, and had rubbed his head, and had scratched his head, had stood still and looked at the money, and when Friedrich went out, he walked up to his cupboard, brought out Adler Erben of Rostock's Calendar, and looked for that which he had looked for a hundred times before, and sighed "Yes, it is tomorrow." His wife stood with her back against the clock, wringing her hands.
"Yes," said the Miller, "if we keep it, we shall be out of our troubles."
"O God, Father!" groaned his wife, and looked up anxiously in his face.
"And the fellow has stolen it," he went on; "the silver spoons have a crest; but even if it can be found out who they have belonged to, the money is from all sorts of places and won't easily find its way back to the right pockets."
"Father," said his wife, "you risk your neck if the fellow accuses you publicly of having taken them from him."
"He won't open his mouth, for if he has to tell where the money has all come from, they won't quite feed him on raisins and almond cakes.--And after all, have we taken it? They fastened the horse to the tail of the waggon up at the Schloss, and the horse brought the leather bag into the stable to Friedrich last night. Who can say I took it?"
Thereupon he began to count the money, and sort it into heaps.
"Yes, but it does not belong to us," said his wife.
"Who does it belong to, then?" asked the Miller. "It doesn't belong to the Frenchman either; and, if we wanted to give it back to him, where is he?"
"Why, Friedrich tells you he is in the Stemhagen Wood."
"Indeed!" said the Miller scornfully. "Do you think then that he would lie there in this weather from eight o'clock in the evening till nine o'clock in the morning? He will have gone on his way long ago; and who is to order me to run after him with his money?"
He began to count again, and his wife sat down and folded her hands in her lap, and sighed. "You know who orders it."
Fieka was still sitting on the bench crying by herself. The Miller went on counting the money, but looked up so frequently at Fieka that it seemed as if he must certainly miscount. At last he had finished, and leaning with his two hands on the table, he looked once more over the treasure, and said,--"A third of this gold and silver would make more than seven hundred thalers in Prussian money. Now, we are out of our troubles."
Then Fieka stood up and dried her eyes; her face was pale and quiet;--"Our troubles are only just beginning," she said in a low voice.
"Don't talk like that, Fieka," said her father, and turned his head away from her.
"From this time forward we shall eat unblessed bread, and sleep unblessed sleep, and you can bury the money and bury your own good name with it.
"There is no question of burying," said the Miller, "No indeed! I shall pay my debts with it honestly."
"Honestly, Father? And if it were so--which it is not--would not the old Herr Amtshauptmann ask you what money you had paid the Jew with? And would not the French ask where you got the horse from? And how can you be sure that Friedrich will not tell?"
The Miller looked half taken aback and half angry, and was just going to burst out as people do when any one catches them in some stupid or dishonest act. They try to silence their conscience by bluster, as children in the dark try to keep away the ghosts by whistling and singing. But Fieka did not let the storm come; she flung her arms round her father, looked straight into his eyes, and cried--"Father! Father! Take the money to the bailiwick; give it to the Herr Amtshauptmann. You know he said he would not forget you. How often you have told me about your old father, and about your mother, how she honestly earned her bread to the end of her life by spinning; and how often you have told me about when you were an apprentice, and your finding the other apprentice's purse, and how you gave it back to him, and how glad he was, and how glad you were."
"That was quite a different thing," said the Miller. "I knew who that money belonged to, but I don't know whose this is, and I haven't either taken or stolen it. I have a clear conscience."
All at once the Miller's wife jumped up from her chair, and cried, "Good Heavens! A strange man has just passed the window and he is coming in."
"Bolt the door!" shouted the Miller, and turned sharply round towards the money; knocked up against the table, and shook down some of the gold pieces which went rolling along the floor.
"Is that your clear conscience?" asked Fieka, and looked at her father and mother, and said: "Mother, unbolt the door. The man is sent by Providence; he brings a blessing upon the house."
Her mother unbolted the door, and stood with her eyes cast down, while the Miller grew very red, and turned hastily round, and looked out at the window.
A knock came. "Come in," said Fieka, and in stepped a fine young fellow of about two-and-twenty. He glanced round the room rather curiously as if he had long been wishing to know how it stood with them; made a proper bow with a little scrape of the foot, and said--
"Good morning."
"Good morning," returned Fieka.
The Miller did not move, and his wife stooped down and picked up the gold pieces which had fallen on the floor. As the two elders did not return his greeting, and he became aware of the money on the table, the young man said--
"I am afraid I am in the way?"
"Oh, no!" said Fieka and put a chair for him by the tile-stove, "Father will soon have done his business."
"Yes, directly," said the Miller, and he opened the window, and called out "Friedrich, get out the little cart, and put the horse to, and fasten the Frenchman's horse behind. We are going to the bailiwick." He shut the window, and said, turning to his wife and daughter: "Well! That's done. Now, pack the things into the leather bag, and Friedrich can put it into the cart"--went up to the stranger and said "welcome."
"Miller Voss," said the young man, rising and giving the Miller his hand, "don't let me disturb you. I can wait; for, though the matter I have come to you about is important, there is no great hurry.--In fact what I chiefly came for was to see my relations."
"Relations?" said the Miller, and looked at him doubtingly.
"Yes," said the other, "I am Joe Voss's son, your twin-brother's child;" and as the Miller was silent, and drew back his hand, he added: "a fortnight ago, I came of age, and then I thought to myself, 'I have no brother or sister or any relation hereabouts, I must drive over to Stemhagen and see if there is no one there who will care to know Joe Voss's son.'" And, so saying he went up to the Miller's wife, and gave her his hand, and then to Fieka; and, as the miller still stood pondering and looking as if the mice had taken the butter off his bread, he added: "Uncle, the lawsuit is weighing on your mind; let it be, we can be friends all the same."
"The devil we can!" said the Miller. "And you've been boasting to people that you would oust me from the Borcherts Inn."
"Whom have I said it to?" asked Heinrich. "People will talk. Can I help it? My father began the quarrel;--he thought he was in the right--my guardian has gone on with it; and I have stood by. But a pretty sum of money has slipped through my fingers, I honestly confess, and it shall not be my fault if we don't come to an understanding."
"You want to beat the bush; your lawyer has advised you to come here."
"I advise myself, uncle," said the young man, and took up his hat, "for, if I were to listen much longer to the lawyer's advice, the water would run short and my mill would stop. It's very different for you. Any one who can lard his leather bag like that, can fry a long time without burning." And he pointed to the valise which was just packed.
"What the devil does that matter to you?" thundered the Miller, and turned hastily round quite black in the face. "That money ... that money is not mine."
Fieka went up to her father, and stroked his cheek. "Father, he did not mean anything wrong."
"No," said Heinrich, "I came with good intentions, and I will not go away in anger if I can help it. So I wish you good morning. My waggon is standing out there before the yard gate only a couple of paces off."
"Stop," said Fieka, "Cousin Heinrich, do not be in such a hurry. Father's head is full of business that must be attended to this morning. It would vex him very much if you were to leave us in ill will."
"Fieka," said the old Miller, and turned round, and kissed his daughter on the forehead, "you have been twice right and I twice wrong, this morning; you are a darling child," and he gave his hand to the young man.--"Heinrich, it shall never be said that I drove Joe Voss's son out of my house with hard words. You want to go away without having anything to eat or drink? No, my son, you must stay here till I come back, for I must be off now to the bailiwick, I have pressing business. Look, Friedrich is waiting. Well, goodbye! and if you are really in earnest about coming to an understanding, something may be done. Goodbye, mother; goodbye, Fieka." And he went out and mounted into his waggon.
CHAPTER V.
In which Friedrich translates the Prussian motto "suum cuique" for the Miller's benefit, and goes on a wild-goose chase after the Frenchman: and the Miller finds he has sat down on a swarm of bees.
"Miller," said Friedrich as they left the mill and came out into the high road, "have you ever seen an old woman break her pitcher and then put the pieces together and say 'that's how it was?'"
"Why?" asked the Miller.
"Oh! nothing," said Friedrich, and he waved his whip vacantly over the horses as if it were the season for flies. The Miller sat lost in thought.
After a time Friedrich asked again--"Miller, have you ever seen a boy out of whose hand a sparrow has just escaped, look into his empty hand and say 'O!'?"
"Why?" asked the Miller.
Friedrich simply repeated "Oh! nothing."
The Miller sat still again, and all sorts of things passed through his mind, and he puzzled over some such rule-of-three sum as: "What will the bushel of oats come to next Easter if I don't pay the Jew to-morrow?" and was soon lost in the fractions.
They drive on and on. At last Friedrich turns half round and asks--"Miller, do you know the proverb: 'don't pour your dirty water away till you have got clean'?"
The Miller began to get angry, and after thinking for some time what Friedrich was driving at with these questions, he said: "Are you chaffing me?"
"Chaffing?" said Friedrich. "No, heaven forbid!--I didn't mean anything.--But I know another saying, and that is, 'If you have a thing, you've got it.' And we Prussians have an eagle for our crest, and underneath is a Latin verse which fits that saying as close as your finger and thumb when you nip a pig's tail. And the sergeant of my company--he was a runaway student--he understood the verse and translated it: 'Hold fast what you've got, and take what you can get.' Now, this proverb is handy at times, 'specially in time of war." Turning round again he went on. "Miller Voss, cursed be the shilling I steal from my neighbour, and cursed be the wheat, oats, or barley I cheat my master of; but in time of war it's quite different. The Turks and the French are the country's enemy, and the country's enemy is not better by a hair than the arch-enemy. What said old Captain von Restorp? 'Injury must be done to the enemy in every way!' Now, Miller Voss," and he pointed to the valise, "that would be an injury."
"Hold your tongue," said the Miller sharply, "the thing is settled. I'll have nothing to do with the money, I'll take it to the bailiwick,--and I wish I could take the Frenchman along with it. Fieka thinks some bad end will come of the business."
"As you please," said Friedrich, "Gee up," and he touched the horses with his whip. "Some listen to men, and some listen to women; for my part I don't hold by women's advice."
"Nor I neither generally," said the Miller.
They drove on silently again till at length Friedrich asked--"Miller, who was that young fellow who came to the mill this morning?"
"That was Joe Voss's son; it's him I have the lawsuit with. Do you like him?"
"I only saw his back. Well--yes he'd make a grenadier."
"He says he wants to come to an understanding," said the Miller.
"Then I like him still better; a lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit."
"He is going to wait for me till I come back."
"Is he?" said Friedrich, and turned half round again, "Miller, I tell you what, it would be better if he came to an understanding with Fieka."
"What do you mean by that?" asked the Miller.
"Oh! nothing," said Friedrich.
Presently he bent down and looked sharply along the road, then gave the reins into the Miller's hand, jumped off the waggon, unfastened the Chasseur's horse and, before Voss knew what was going to happen, was in the great Kolpin dyke, had turned round a corner and bound the horse to a thorn-tree in the dyke, so that he could not be seen.
"What is the matter?" asked the Miller, when he came back.
"What's the matter? Why, two men are coming along on horseback, out yonder by the Stemhagen fields, and just now when the sun came out, I saw a bright flash. Those are Frenchmen, and if they were to catch a Chasseur's horse here with bridle and saddle, they would have something to say to us;--take my word for it."
"True," said the Miller.
When they came to the Stemhagen wood. Friedrich pointed with his whip to the beech-tree where the straw still lay, and said: "That's where I laid him."
"If he were only there now!" sighed the Miller.
"You can't expect it, Miller. For it rained in torrents last night, and a beech-tree is not quite waterproof at this time of year."
"True," said the Miller again.
Whilst they were still talking, the two Frenchmen rode up, and asked the way to the Gielow mill; for several roads met here. Before the Miller could answer, Friedrich pointed to the right, the way to Cumrowsch wood, and on their asking how far it was, he said "a little lieu," whereupon they rode off.
"Are you possessed by the devil?" asked the Miller. "If they go on riding that way, they may look at the Gielow mill with their backs all their lives. But what was it for?"
"Those sorts of fellows leave a house cleared out, and I have no wish to eat warmed-up cabbage for the first breakfast every morning."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, I only mean--look here, Miller; who knows but what those two, if they had gone to the mill, might have fallen in love with our Stiena. And perhaps they might have followed her into the cowhouse, and the cowhouse might have seemed a little crowded, and they might have led out our two milch-cows; and when they had got them out, it might have come into their heads to drive them away, and then we should have no more boiled milk for breakfast, and the cabbages would have come on in their turn and I can't bear cabbages."
"Yes, that is possible," said the Miller.
"But maybe they weren't after cows at all," Friedrich went on after a short pause. "They were a couple of your mounted Gensdarmes, and they are no doubt looking for something very different. I think it's a mercy we are not at the mill, for--Miller, we must look out--they are after the Frenchman or perhaps after you. Who knows what has happened in Stemhagen. Something may have come out. Perhaps Fieka was right after all. I should be glad myself now, if we had the Frenchman with us."
"That's what I said, that's what I said," cried the Miller.
"Hm," said Friedrich, "he lay here, and he's got up, and he has gone down here, these are his marks in the mud; and look--he has dragged the straw along with him a little way, and he's gone towards Gülzow. Now, I'll bring you back the horse, and then you can drive to the bailiwick and deliver up bag and horse together, and I will go after the Frenchman and stop him."
So the horse was fastened to the waggon once more, and Friedrich started off towards Gülzow, and said to himself:
"Dumouriez! I've brought the Miller into a pretty mess, and our Fieka is, after all, a clever girl. But if the Frenchman is to be found between here and Gripswald, I'll find him."
The Miller drove towards Stemhagen. "Lord of my life!" he said, "If it had not been for my little Fieka, most likely I should be sitting in irons now. And I'm many miles from safe yet, for the devil's only just beginning his work.--It's raining, too, and pretty heavily!"
The first person he met when he reached the Stemhagen Barns was Witte, the baker, standing before his barn by a waggon of straw:
"Good morning, neighbour," said Witte. "What the thunder! How came you by that French horse?"
"Well, I'll tell you," replied Miller Voss; and he briefly narrated the story.
"That's ugly," said the baker, "for the whole town is filled with French, and you couldn't get the horse through without being seen. I advise you to leave him here in my empty barn."
This was done. Old Baker Witte drew his crooked brass comb through his hair several times, shook his head and said:
"Neighbour, you have let yourself in for a scrape you won't get out of easily, and up at the Schloss things don't seem to be quite right; for this morning the Herr Amtshauptmann sent for the roll he takes with his coffee, at eight o'clock instead of eleven. And Fritz Sahlmann says Mamsell Westphalen has disappeared--not a soul knows where she is to be found--and the watchmaker has been thrown into prison--that I saw with my own eyes; and people are talking about court-martials and executions."
"Lord, save us!" cried the old Miller. "What a swarm of bees I have sat down on! But it can't be helped; I must take the bag up to the Schloss. And, neighbour, I'll drive round the town till I get near the green gate of the Schloss garden, and then I'll fasten up my horse. You follow to take care of him and the cart, and if I am carried off to prison, drive over to the mill and break the news gently to my wife and Fieka; and tell the young man you'll find there to do his uncle the favour of looking after the house and mill, and not to leave the women."
Baker Witte promised, and the Miller drove round, as they had agreed, tied up his horse, and was proceeding on his way on foot, when Farmer Roggenbom's waggoner, Johann Brummer, dashed through the gate, lashing his four greys till they struck out behind and bespattered the Miller with mud.
"Better mud in my face than your lashes across the back," cried the Miller.
"Hmm! It only wanted this. Robbers!" grumbled old Zanner of Gielow, as he drove full gallop with his cream-coloured horses through the gate after Brummer.
"Yes," said Adler of Stemhagen, who had thrown a sack over his shoulders (the only waterproof coats known in those days), giving his black saddle-horse a dig in the ribs; "it would be nice work for us to be drawing cannons, wouldn't it, old fellow? No! I'll take you to the Stemhagen wood, and fasten you to a tree by the sand-pit. It's all one here or there, for there's nothing at home for you to eat--confound it, how it's raining!"
When the Miller entered the garden, he found it all alive--peasants hustling and bustling about, hiding their carts and waggons, some behind the bushes and some behind the ramparts.
"Miller Voss," said the son of the Schult Besserdich of Gielow, "hide your horse. Everyone who is wise is taking advantage of this rain, for the French have all crept under cover."
But the old Miller went steadily on, and took the valise to the Schloss.