How Fritz Sahlmann sat in an apple-tree in the rain without any umbrella, and stuffed a roll of papers in under the back of his waistcoat; and how Mamsell Westphalen declared herself to be a miserable sinner.
After a little while, the Frau Amtshauptmann came back into the room and said, "Weber, what can be the meaning of this? Fritz Sahlmann is not there; and Mamsell Westphalen is not there, and her room looks as if Turks and Infidels had been holding high holiday in it; and the maids say all they know about it is, that the Rathsherr Herse had slipped in at the back-door, and Hanchen had pushed her broom in his face by accident, and Mamsell Westphalen had thrown a lot of peat-ashes in his eyes, also by accident, and afterwards Mamsell Westphalen and Fritz Sahlmann had gone away; and they don't know where they are."
"This is a very strange thing," said the old Herr. "What has the Rathsherr Herse to do in the kitchen? I like the man well enough, Neiting, he's a pleasant fellow; but he must poke his nose into every hole, and I never heard of anything sensible coming of it. Tell me, Neiting, which of the maids do you consider the most sensible?"
"Weber, what are you talking about? As if you could expect sense from that class."
"Well then, the quickest, the sharpest?"
"Oh, then certainly Hanchen Besserdich, for her eyes take in everything at once, and her tongue goes even faster than her eyes."
"Call her to me," said the Herr.
It was done, and Hanchen came. Hanchen Besserdich was a smart little damsel, as sharp and wide-awake as only a Gülzow Schult's[2] daughter can be,--at that time it was the custom for the daughters of the village Schults to go into service.--But now she stood before the Herr Amtshauptmann, and played with her apron-strings, with her eyes cast down, for she felt as if she were in a court of justice.
"You are now before me to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," said her master. "Hanchen Besserdich, what do you know of Mamsell Westphalen? Begin by yesterday evening."
Hanchen told him what she knew, and what we know.
"So she slept with you, and not in her own room?" said the old Herr.
"Weber, what can you mean by asking such questions?" broke in the Frau Amtshauptmann.
"Neiting, every circumstance is of importance, if innocence is to be brought to light. And you don't think," he went on, turning to Hanchen, "that she has run away with the Herr Rathsherr Herse?"
"No, Herr; I think she has run away, but not with the Rathsherr; for I met him alone at the back-door when I came back from seeing my brother who was in the garden, Herr Amtshauptmann, with our horse to draw the French cannons; but--" and here she raised her eyes from the ground, and there was a roguish look in her fresh round face,--"but, Herr Amtshauptmann, he has got away from the French."
"Indeed!" said the old Herr. "Your brother has got away, has he?"
"Yes," said Hanchen, smiling again roguishly, "and he was the first to begin the running-away, and he showed the others the little green gate."
"That was a foolish prank of his; and if the French catch him, they'll make him smart for it. You Besserdichs are a saucy lot.--Neiting, remind me of that young rascal, Fritz Besserdich, another time.--And, Hanchen, where is Fritz Sahlmann?"
Hanchen was cowed again, and what followed, came only by fits and starts. "Why, Herr Amtshauptmann, he smashed all your pipes to pieces this morning and then said I had done it. And, indeed, it wasn't my fault; for I only just wanted to look round the corner when the French Colonel was raging about, and then he ran at me with the pipes in his hand, and now the pieces are strewn all over the kitchen."
"And since then you have seen nothing of him this morning?"
"Yes, Herr, when the watchmaker was transpired, he ran along with him, and then, when he came back again, he went talking High German to Mamsell Westphalen and then they both whispered together."
"High German? Fritz Sahlmann talking High German? What does the rascal want to be talking High German for? What did he say?"
"He said; 'help is near.'"
"Oh! and then the Rathsherr came?"
"Yes, Herr Amtshauptmann, and I shoved my broom in his face; but I couldn't help it."
"This is a very strange thing!" said the old Herr, and walked up and down, and stroked his chin, and looked up at the ceiling, and looked down on the floor. At last he stood still and said, "Neiting, I see clearly what it is. That old fool, Westphalen, has taken fright, and the Rathsherr has been meddling, and has put her up to some folly. She has hidden herself--you'll see."
"Well then, let her, Weber."
"No, Neiting, that won't do. She must come to the town and bear witness for the watchmaker and the Miller, or both their necks may be in danger. If I only knew where that monkey, Fritz Sahlmann, was! He'll know all about it. And you don't know where he is, Hanchen?"
"No, Herr."
"Well, then, you may go."
As Hanchen turned round to go, her eyes fell on the end-window, but, being naturally very clear and wide-awake they took in, not only the window, but what was passing outside it. She turned quickly round again, and said--
"Now I know where he is, Herr Amtshauptmann."
"Well, then, where?"
"Out there, sir."
"Where?" answered the old Herr, and he put up his eye-glasses, and looked everywhere except where Fritz Sahlmann was.
"There, Herr Amtshauptmann, there, in the old apple-tree that stands at the corner of the kitchen wall."
"So he is! Well, this is a strange thing!--In the winter too! Now, if it had been autumn when the apples are on the tree, I could have understood it; but in the winter!"
"Oh! Weber," said his wife, "he is no doubt practising now."
"Hanchen Besserdich, you have good eyes, what is he doing there?" asked the old Herr fumbling with his eye-glass.
"Why, he has got a long pole, but what he means to do with it I don't see. He's pointing it towards the smoking-garret."
"Towards our smoking-garret! What can he want there, Neiting?"
"I don't know, Weber; but I should not be at all surprised if some more sausages were missing tomorrow."
"Bravo, bravo! Why, that is a capital tree for my Fritz. Apples in summer, and sausages in winter!" And he opened the window and cried: "Fritz Sahlmann! Fritz, my lad, come down from that tree; you might catch cold out in the rain."
There is said to be an animal, called the sloth, that takes a week to get into a tree and a week to get out of it again. Now, Fritz Sahlmann did not take quite as long as that to come down out of the apple-tree; but still he was long enough, and it could hardly be for the sake of his trowsers that he climbed down so cautiously, and when he was down at the bottom of the tree, it was apparent that he was meditating deeply whether he should come or make off. But Fritz Sahlmann was an obedient boy, he came, only every now and then he stopped for a moment.
"Hanchen, what is he doing there behind that gooseberry-bush?" asked the old Herr.
"He has thrown something down behind it."
"That's it, is it?--Well, Fritz, you can come in at the back-door.--And, Hanchen, you go down, and take care that he does not make his escape through the front-door."
Hanchen went, and Fritz came--slowly as Christmas, but he came.
"Fritz Sahlmann, my lad, you must have enough intelligence to see that it can't be good for your health to be sitting out there in this rain without any umbrella; another time take one with you when you want to sit out in the rain. And you must also have sufficient intelligence to understand that it is not good for your trowsers to be climbing about trees in the rain; choose a fine day for such work in future. Now, tell me; what were you doing in the tree?"
"Oh, nothing, Herr Amtshauptmann."
"Hm, hm," said the old Herr; "but what I wanted to ask was: Have you seen anything of Mamsell Westphalen?"
Fritz Sahlmann who had expected quite a different sort of question, seemed at once to brighten up and said quite boldly: "No, Herr Amtshauptmann."
"Well, my lad, you could not be expected to know a thing that nobody knows. But now just do me the favour to look straight at me."
Fritz Sahlmann did him the favour; but his look was like bad money, and the old Herr cannot have taken it to be worth much, for he said--"Fritz Sahlmann, here is a knife, go down and cut me a stick from one of the hazel-bushes--you know where they are;--let it be as thick as--as--well, about as thick as your middle-finger; and, my lad, you have lost something behind the gooseberry-bush, call Hanchen to help you to look for it. But Hanchen is to go with you, do you hear?"
Fritz Sahlmann now saw a sad prospect opening before him; but he trusted in two things in which people generally trust in their difficulties, namely, in Providence,--that it would at the right time put some stone in the way of the old Herr's plans; and then, secondly, in his good luck in former difficulties; and besides these he had another help in need which ordinary mortals know nothing of; viz: a little bundle of papers which, in serious cases, he used to stuff up under the back of his waistcoat; and this he did not forget to-day.
He now went into the garden, tolerably quieted, with the secret hope that Hanchen would miss the right gooseberry-bush; but while he was busied looking for the right-sized stick, he saw, with inward quaking, that the girl had gone to the right bush, and picked up something that, in the distance, appeared to him to be very much like a sausage. He must try, therefore, to help himself in some other way. So he first of all cut a couple of imperceptible notches in the stick, which did not exactly add to its firmness, and then he tried to get the find from Hanchen. But this did not succeed, for Hanchen had no wish to undergo a second examination before the Herr Amtshauptmann; and, besides, it occurred to her that perhaps it had been Fritz Sahlmann, who had one night, about a week before, strewn her bed with hog's bristles.
So Fritz and Hanchen made their appearance once more before the Herr Amtshauptmann, the former with the stick, and the latter with a nice little pork sausage.
"Hanchen," said the Herr Amtshauptmann, taking the sausage from her; "you can go now. Neiting," he said, turning to his wife and holding up the sausage before her eyes, "this is what we call a corpus delicti."
"It may be, Weber, that it is called so in Latin, but we call it a 'pork sausage.'"
"Good, Neiting. But, tell me, can you swear that this is one of our sausages?"
"Yes, Weber, I know it by the string."
"Fritz Sahlmann, how did you come by this sausage?"
Now, this was a terrible question for Fritz; Providence was clearly not interfering on his behalf; his luck was deserting him; the Amtshauptmann stood before him, in one hand the sausage, in the other the stick, and the stick was hardly two feet from his back; he was therefore wholly thrown upon the little bundle of papers for help, and that too was only so-so, for the Amtshauptmann might discover it by the noise. So he gave himself up for lost, began to cry and said--"It was given me."
"That's a story," broke in the Frau Amtshauptmann, "you have stolen it with the long pole."
"Be quiet, Neiting! No leading questions. Fritz, who gave you this sausage?"
"Mamsell Westphalen."
"When, Fritz."
"When I was sitting in the tree."
"Was she sitting by your side?"
"No, she was sitting in the smoking-garret, and then she fixed the sausage on the pole; I had stuck a nail into the end of it."
"But you said just now, you did not know where Mamsell Westphalen was. Fritz Sahlmann, you have told me a lie."
"Don't beat me, don't beat me, Herr Amtshauptmann. I couldn't help it, I couldn't really. The Rathsherr Herse made me take a solemn oath not to tell anybody, not even you, where Mamsell Westphalen was."
"Are you in the Rathsherr Herse's service or in mine? You have told me a falsehood, Fritz, and when you tell lies you are to be whipped; those are the terms of our contract."
And, so saying, the Herr Amtshauptmann took Fritz by the collar, and raised the stick in the air; and, if Providence was to come to his help, it was now the highest time, and--Providence did come. A knock was heard at the door, and in walked the Town Messenger--Luth.
"The Herr Burmeister's respects, and things are going hard against the watchmaker and the Miller, and would the Herr Amtshauptmann be so good as to come down at once and not fail to bring Mamsell Westphalen with him, for her evidence was of the greatest importance."
"I will come at once, Luth. Neiting, the matter is pressing. Fritz Sahlmann, get my coat, and, Neiting, you go up to that old bird of misfortune and bring her down."
It may be guessed how quickly Fritz Sahlmann fetched the coat, and how glad he was to get out of sight of the Herr Amtshauptmann!
"Frau Amtshauptmann," said Fritz, "I must come with you, for she won't open the door for you alone; and she's not really in the garret itself, but sitting in a place quite near, that nobody knows but me."
So he ran on in front, and the Frau Amtshauptmann followed him softly. Fritz tapped at the door.
"Mamsell, it's me; open the door." No answer.
"Mamsell, all's well! Pickled pork!" Still no answer.
"Mamsell, the French are all gone." Thereupon, something began to move, and a piteous voice was heard to say--
"Fritz Sahlmann, you are a story-teller. Don't tempt me to come out."
Presently the Frau Amtshauptmann also cried out: "Open the door, Westphalen. It is I--your mistress."
"I cannot let myself be seen," cried the voice, "I am a sinner, a miserable sinner."
"Only open the door. It will all come right again."
After long preliminaries, Mamsell Westphalen at length opened the door; and now stood there, red in the face, and the tears running down her cheeks. But, to this day, nobody knows whether it was from emotion or whether it was from the smoke; enough, the tears ran down, and, if it can properly be said of a stout elderly female, she looked like a broken reed.
"Frau Amtshauptmann," said she, "I cannot appear before you; I have sunk too low. For more than twenty years I have lived in your house, and in all that time I have never taken the smallest thing that did not belong to me; and now, in an evil hour, I have taken what was yours."
"Come, come, Westphalen, never mind. Only come down now."
"Not a step, Frau Amtshauptmann, till I have made a clean breast of it.--Look here, you must know I am in hiding; Rathsherr Herse and this imp, Fritz Sahlmann, helped me to hide. And while I was sitting here in sorrow and anguish thinking about Herr Droi and his fate and all the rest, and expecting this urchin would bring me word how things were going, I heard a cough outside and then my name was called, and when I stole to the window to see who it was I thought I was going to have a fit; for, just think, Frau Amtshauptmann, there was that wicked boy had climbed up into the old apple-tree and slid along one of the branches and was hanging like a crow over the abyss.--'Boy,' I said, 'do you want to tumble out of the tree?' But he only grinned at me. 'Boy,' I cried, 'I can't bear to see you in such danger.' And, do you know, Frau Amtshauptmann, the boy actually laughed at me and said, 'I only came to bring you news that the watchmaker has been hanged, and that the French have seized the Rathsherr Herse, and he is lying in chains; and a whole battalion has been sent to find you out!' That was not comforting news, Frau Amtshauptmann, and I was terribly alarmed; but I assure you I was more alarmed about the boy. 'Fritz,' I cried again, 'get down out of the tree.' Then he grinned at me, like an ape at a camel, and said: 'Yes, if you'll give me a sausage!' And then he began playing all sorts of tricks, and jumping about in the branches like a rabbit in a cabbage-garden, till everything before my eyes seemed green and yellow. Then, Frau Amtshauptmann, then I thought--What is a pork sausage? And what is a human life? And in my terror, I took your property. He pushed in the pole, and I stuck a sausage on it.--Then he was called in by the Herr Amtshauptmann, and, as he clambered down, he said just loud enough for me to hear, that he had been chaffing me, and that it was all untrue. So I say he's a liar, Frau Amtshauptmann, and that's my last word."
"Never mind now, Westphalen, my husband has a rod in pickle for him. He won't escape punishment."
It was with great difficulty that the Frau Amtshauptmann succeeded in getting the old dame downstairs, and when they reached the hall, the Herr Amtshauptmann was pacing up and down with his stately tread, quite ready and waiting for them.
It was hard work now to get Mamsell Westphalen to consent to go with the old Herr to the Rathhaus "into the Lion's jaws," as she said. She would bear what she had brought on herself by her ignorance, although she had acted honestly and with good intentions; but to stand before all the foreigners and to defend herself about Herr Droi, that was beyond her strength as a respectable woman, and, if the Herr Amtshauptmann insisted upon it, Hanchen and Corlin must go too, for they must bear witness that she had passed the night with them. On this point the Amtshauptmann had to give way, and while Mamsell Westphalen was gone to her room to get her cap and shawl, he walked up and down with long strides lost in thought and waving about his Jena stick, without which he never went out. At length he said--
"Neiting, she is right; the maids can do no harm. But, Neiting," and here he sniffed about in the air a little, "there's a smell here of smoked eels. Has old Neils of Gülzow been here with his eels?"
"What are you talking about, Weber? Why, it's from Mamsell Westphalen, she has been sitting, you know, in the smoking-garret for the last hour or so."
"That's another thing," said the old Herr.
His wife then called the two maids. As soon as Mamsell Westphalen came back and they were all together, they set off, after Mamsell Westphalen had taken an eternal farewell of the Frau Amtshauptmann.
No one spoke a word, only, when they reached the Schloss-gate, Mamsell Westphalen looked back and said--"Hanchen, when we get to the market-place, run over to Doctor Lukow, and let him be present at my misery. Something may happen to me--I may faint."
How Witte the baker was drawn into the conspiracy through his meerschaum pipe; why Mamsell Westphalen regarded the Herr Amtshauptmann as a white dove and Hanchen Besserdich as an angel; and what she thought of the French Judge.
If there was confusion up at the Schloss, there was still greater confusion down in the town. To be sure one cannot expect the quiet of a churchyard when a troop of soldiers is quartered in a little town, and the peasants of the neighbourhood and the townspeople are called together, by roll of drum, to help with hand and horse; when misery and woe cry aloud and complain on the one hand, and insolence struts about unpunished on the other.
But, in 1806, when Murat, Bernadotte and Davoust were pursuing old Blücher--and he showed them his teeth at Speck and Waaren--when that famous proclamation: "Order is every citizen's first duty," came from Berlin, it was certainly quieter than now; for it was then only a question of command and obedience. At that time "Messieurs les Français" levied contributions and plundered to their heart's content; and the people crouched down, one behind another; and meanness and baseness were seen on every side, for every one thought of himself and of his own interest; like Meister Kähler of Malchin who said to his wife and children: "I must save myself. You can stay here. If the French come----" and he ran off to the brink of the Eller and hid himself among the reeds.--Everything was foul and reeking from top to bottom.
The times changed. Distress teaches men to pray, but it also teaches them to defend themselves. Schill and the Duke of Brunswick started forth; the whole of Low Germany began to stir; no one knew where the movement came from; no one knew where it would lead to.
Schill marched straight through Mecklenburg to Stralsund. By Buonaparte's command the Mecklenburgers resisted his passage at Damgoren and Tribsees. They were beaten, for they fought wretchedly. A whole company of tall Mecklenburg grenadiers were taken prisoners by one of Schill's Hussars. "Boys," he cried to them, "are you already prisoners." "No," said their brave corporal, "no one has said anything to us." "Well then, come along with me." And they went along with him. Was it cowardice? Was it fear? Whoever saw my fellow-countrymen in 1813 and in 1814; whoever has heard anything of the Strelitz regiment of Hussars, will judge otherwise. No, it was not cowardice; it was unwillingness to fight against that which, in their secret hearts, they hoped and longed for. A movement was beginning in Mecklenburg; and when Prussia broke forth, Mecklenburg was the first state in Germany that followed its example. Thus it was and thus it must ever be.
And times changed again. Providence had stripped the French of their shining snake-skin during their winter in Russia, He, who before had gone about like a master, now came back like a beggar, and implored pity from the Germans; and this noble gift of God's, pity, was stronger than our bitter hatred. No one would raise his hand against him whom God had stricken--pity made us forget his offences. Hardly however was the stiff and frozen snake thawed again in his warm German bed, than his sting once more appeared, and oppression began anew. But the spectre in Germany had become a shadow, and the shadow had got flesh and bone, and had got a name, and the name was shouted out in the streets. "Down with the man-butcher!"--that was the war-cry.
But the war-cry was no passing cry. Not a pack of ragged young fellows--not the orators of the streets first took it up. No! the best and wisest met together; not for conspiracy with knife and poison, but for confederacy with hand and deed against committed wrong; the elders spoke, the young ones got the weapons. Not in the open street did the first fire shoot up to heaven--we Low Germans suffer no bonfires to be lit in our streets; but each one lighted a fire at his own hearth, and neighbour came to neighbour and warmed himself at its glow. Not from a fire made of fir-wood and straw, that leaves behind it only a heap of ashes, did the smoke rise towards the sky--we Low Germans are a hard wood that burns slowly, but that gives out heat; and in those days the whole of Low Germany was one huge charcoal furnace, that smouldered and glowed--quiet and silent--till the charcoal was one red-hot mass; and, when it was free from smoke and flame, we threw our iron into the glowing embers, and forged our weapons by its heat. And hatred of the French was the whetstone on which we sharpened them. What followed is known to every child; or, if there is one to whom it is not known, it is the duty of his father to impress it upon him, so that he may never forget it.
In our parts, too, the charcoal-furnace smouldered and smoked, and the French scented it in the air; they felt, at every step, that the ground on which they marched shook beneath their feet like a quicksand. They had to learn that the officials and magistrates, formerly so humble, were beginning to oppose and assert themselves; they saw that the townspeople and peasants were becoming refractory, and they laid their hands still more heavily on the country. This was not the best way to soothe the rebellious spirit; the people became more and more fractious, the commands of the French were purposely misunderstood, and where things had gone smoothly before, there was now a mere mockery of obedience. The people defended themselves by all manner of devices, and the French, who must assuredly have felt that their rule was soon coming to an end, carried off all they could get. The soldier knew that his officer was doing no better.
But when their rule actually ended, they were far from expecting an open revolt. If, however, they could have read what was written on all faces--for example, on the face of Witte the baker, who, after putting the Miller's horse and cart into his barn, was now leaning over his half-door smoking his tobacco-pipe, and spitting, and looking, with his teeth set, in the direction of the French--they would have taken care not to bend the bow too far. At any rate, the Frenchman who at that moment passed by the baker and snatched the silver-topped meerschaum pipe out of his mouth, and, in his insolence, walked on quietly smoking it as if nothing had happened; at any rate he would have made off a little faster. For the baker had scarcely felt it snatched from his mouth, when he rushed out at the door, picked up a stone as big as his fist, and hurled it with such force at the Frenchman, that, striking him at the back of the neck, it levelled him with the ground.
And, when the Herr Amtshauptmann arrived with his troop of women at the market-place, a fight was going on between the baker's assistants and the French, and the French and the neighbours, with weapons both sharp and blunt, which was not stopped till an officer came and separated them.
The baker was dragged off to the Rathhaus with a broken head, for having dared to raise his hand against "la grande nation;" and whatever he might say as to the "grande nation's" having raised its hand against his pipe, it was of no use--they dragged him along all the same.
At the Rathhaus the French judge was sitting hearing Miller Voss's case about the lost Frenchman; the valise with the money was lying on the table; the colonel, von Toll, and my father as Burmeister, were present. My father had told the story as far as he knew it quite truthfully, only he had been silent as to the watchmaker having frightened the French chasseurs away at his command; for he thought, "Why should I mention it? The watchmaker will tell it himself, or, if he does not, it will come out in Mamsell Westphalen's evidence." But with the Miller things were going badly; he, of all those who were concerned, was the last who had seen the Frenchman; he had wanted to take the Frenchman to the mill with him, and the fellow was no longer to be found. What spoke well for him was, that he had been very drunk at the time, that he had delivered up the money of his own accord, and that he had at once said that the chasseur's horse was in the baker's stable. When he had done this, and guessed from my father's questions that the fact of his having been drunk might be of use to him, he made the very most of it, and to all questions he only replied that he knew nothing further, for he had been dead drunk; but if they chose to ask Friedrich, he would know all about it.
So stood the matter, when the fight with Witte the baker began out in the market-place. My father was just rushing out at the door to set things to rights, when Witte was dragged in. He still exchanged occasional blows with his guards, mingling "bougres" and "sacrés" with "rogues and vagabonds." His entrance into the court did not increase its stillness; he cursed, he swore, and my father had enough to do, only to get him a little quieter.
"My pipe, Herr Burmeister! It was a legacy from my father. And to have it snatched out of my mouth before my very eyes! Am I a Stemhagen burgher or not?"
The French chattered and jabbered away together; Colonel von Toll had gone out, and the judge commanded that the baker should be bound, thrown into a waggon and taken along with the army. What more should be done with him would easily be determined; he had raised his hand against the French, that was quite enough.
Then my father stepped up to the Judge and explained that the baker was a well-conducted man, that he had always borne his share of the burden of the war-taxes and levies, and that he had not attacked the French power but had only attacked a thief; or did the French regard a silver-topped pipe as contribution of war?
This exasperated the Frenchman; he snorted at my father, and gave him to understand that he himself was not by any means too safe.
My father was a brave man, and, when he once saw that a thing was right, he was as obstinate as only a real Mecklenburger can be. He knew, he said, that no honest man was now safe in his own country; but, for his part, he held it to be his duty to stand by his fellow-citizens in a just cause, and he would do so even if there were so many French in the country that one could feed the pigs with them.
The judge foamed with rage, and sputtered out the command to arrest my father at once and lead him out of the room.
As this command was about to be carried out, old Witte sprang towards the judge shouting, "thieves and villains;" and Miller Voss too was ready in a moment to aid with fist and tongue. At this moment Colonel von Toll came back again; and, when he had learned what was the meaning of the tumult, he said that the baker was in the right about the pipe; he had himself inquired into the matter, but that it was quite a secondary affair. This baker was the same man who had got the chasseur's horse standing in his stable, and it seemed to him that there had been a conspiracy to commit a murder,--and, as he said that, he looked very sharply at my father--and the truth must come out, he would pledge his life; and, if it could not be got out here, he knew a place where it could--and that place was Stettin.
My father, Miller Voss, and the baker were now told to go out, and were placed under guard in another room, and the Herr Amtshauptmann was called up. The old Herr came in at the door, with his stick in his hand, as upright and stately as befits a chief magistrate and a good conscience. One of the French wanted to shut the door after him, but that would not do--Mamsell Westphalen forced her way in, and, in her broad wake, followed Hanchen and Corlin; for, as they said, they "did not want to stay outside to be stared at by those horrid Frenchmen;" and Mamsell Westphalen said as she squeezed through, "Pardong Monsoo Frenchmen, where Herr Amtshauptmann is, I must be too; he is my protector." When the old Herr entered, the colonel turned round and looked out of the window.
The judge now asked the Herr Amtshauptmann, through the interpreter, who he was and what was his name.
"I am chief magistrate here in the bailiwick of Stemhagen, and my name is Joseph Weber;" and he laid his hat and stick on a chair.
At the name of Joseph Weber, the French colonel turned half round, and looked at the Amtshauptmann as if he were going to ask him some question; but he seemed to give it up again, and looked out at the window once more. It was now signified to the Herr Amtshauptmann that he should take a seat.
"I thank you," he said, "but I did not come here to take my ease, and I am not enough accustomed to giving evidence to be able to do so sitting." He then, on being questioned, related how the chasseur had first come to him, and everything that he knew about it. And he ended his speech by saying that, if it was to be reckoned as a sin that the Miller had drunk down the chasseur, he himself must bear the blame of it, for it was at his request that the Miller had done it, and the Miller was his subordinate.
At this the judge began to laugh scornfully; the idea that the Burmeister should interfere on behalf of his baker, and the Amtshauptmann on behalf of his miller, seemed too ludicrous.
"And you laugh at that?" said the old Herr calmly, as if he were dealing with Fritz Sahlmann. "Is not that the custom in France? Are officials in your country appointed only to fleece people? Don't you stand by them when they are in difficulties and in the right? And is it not right for one to rid oneself of a rogue and vagabond by a few bottles of wine?"
Well, here was another hard hit for the French judge. "Rogue and vagabond" and a French chasseur were things that could in no way be coupled together, or rather should not be. The judge burst out in a torrent of invective.
The Herr Amtshauptmann remained unmoved, but went to the table and drew out of the Frenchman's valise one of the silver spoons. This he held up to the judge and said,--"Do you see this crest? I know it, and I know the people to whom it belongs. They are not people who would sell their silver spoons; and besides, according to my ideas, an honest soldier has something else to do than to be bargaining for silver spoons."
There was not much to be said against this, so the judge cleverly shifted his ground, and asked the Amtshauptmann how the watchmaker had come to be wearing a French uniform, and what he had been doing up at the Schloss at night?
"There you ask me too much," said the Herr Amtshauptmann; "I did not tell him to come, I only just saw him for a moment when the Miller was taking the chasseur away with him; and his spending the night at the Schloss was against my knowledge and against my will."
The judge soon saw that he could not make much of the Herr Amtshauptmann; he broke off the interview and told the old gentleman he could go, but that he must not leave the Rathhaus.
"Very well," said he, and he turned to leave. "Good day, then, till the matter is settled."
As the Amtshauptmann was about to take his hat and stick, he found the French colonel, who had left the window and was standing close by him, intently engaged in scanning the names which had been cut in the stick in Weber's student days. He looked as eager and as curious as if he were seeking his number in the newspaper advertisements to see whether he had drawn the great lottery prize.
The Herr Amtshauptmann looked at him for one moment, then made him a deep bow,--"By your leave, Herr Colonel, my stick."
The Colonel started and looked rather confused, then handed him the stick, and, as the old Herr went out of the room, he followed him.
Mamsell Westphalen also wanted to follow, and Hanchen and Corlin were preparing to go too, when "Halte, halte!" cried the Judge;--and they who did not get out, were the three women.
Many a time afterwards did Mamsell Westphalen relate this trial and what she had felt during it, but she always began in the same way,--that it had been as if she were standing in the Stemhagen belfry, and all the bells, great and small, were ringing in her ears, and, when the Herr Amtshauptmann went away from her, it was as if a white dove had flown away from the belfry and she must follow him to life or death; but the fellow whom they nick-named a judge had held her fast by the skirt of her gown. "And, Frau Meister," she would then add, "I have seen many a dozen of judges in my life, and they were all bad enough, but such a gallows-bird as this French Judge I never did see. For, look you Frau Meister, he had on a yellow livery and 'gallows' was plainly written in his face."
It was with Mamsell Westphalen as with many honest souls who have a great terror of danger that threatens in the distance, but who are no sooner in the middle of it than they play with it; being like gnats, which cannot bear smoke but are attracted by fire. When she saw that the bridge behind her was broken away, and that she was going to be put on oath, she set her arms a-kimbo, walked forward and stood on the same place on which the Amtshauptmann had stood. "For," she said afterwards, "I had seen that he had stood proudly there, and his spirit came over me."
The Judge now asked what she knew of the watchmaker.
"I know nothing about him except that he speaks broken German, that, for bread, he says 'doo pang' and for wine, 'doo vang;' that's all I know."
How was it that he was in a French uniform?
"I don't know how he gets into it and I don't know how he gets out of it again. I suppose he does like all other men."
Why had he come up to the Schloss last night?
"A great many people come to the Schloss--all honest people, except those whom the gensdarmes bring,--and if I am to bother myself with what they all want, the duke had better make me Amtshauptmann, and the Herr Amtshauptmann can then look after the kitchen."
Why had not the watchmaker gone home?
"Because the weather was so bad that one could not have had the heart to drive a dog out of the house, much less a Christian. I hold the man for a Christian, though he's not too good a one, for, as I have heard say, he goes hunting hares by night--and why doesn't he go in the daytime like other folk?--and then he uses a stool with one leg, which he straps on to himself behind, and every other Christian sits on a stool with three legs; and he wanted to mislead our Corlin into this outlandish mode for milking, but she told him plainly that if that was the fashion in his country, he might run about with the stool tied to him if he liked, but she was not going to make herself the laughing-stock of the place."
But why had she hidden the watchmaker with her in her room?
At this Mamsell Westphalen was silent, the blood rushed into her face at the impertinence of the French fellow; that was the very question that had driven her into flight up in the garret. But while in her distress she was seeking for an answer, help came. Hanchen Besserdich and Corlin pressed forward to her side and burst out "Those are lies; those are foul lies!" They would take their oath of it. Their Mamsell had slept with them; and they should tell the Herr Amtshaup-mann.
The noise became dreadful, and scarcely had the Judge succeeded in restoring quiet, when they broke out again, and at last the Judge ordered them all three to be turned out.
"Frau Meister," said Mamsell Westphalen afterwards to the weaver's wife, "you know I've always been against Hanchen Besserdich's sharp tongue, but no angel could have helped me better at that moment than she with her chatter. Frau Meister, Man must not despise what, at times, is disagreeable to him; who knows of what use it may not be. And a sharp tongue is one of those things. That's what I say and that's what I hold to. And I shan't forget the girl."
Tells how the Amtshauptmann and the French Colonel nearly embraced each other; how my Mother pulled the Amtshauptmann by the tail of his coat; and how the Corsican dragon carried off my Father and my uncle Herse.
When the Herr Amtshauptmann left the Court of Justice, he went straight across to the other side of the hall to a place where he had often been before and often came afterwards, namely my mother's room--for we lived in the Rathhaus.
My mother sat knitting, and we children were playing about her; for what do children know of cares? But she was sad and anxious; she sat there silent and perhaps did not even hear the noise which we were making round her. She probably still knew nothing of the difficulty in which my father was, for it was not his custom to tell all his little troubles; but there is a curious fact about women--a man may see at once which way the wind blows, but a woman will have known a long time before that a change was at hand.--Well, the old Herr came into my mother's room and said,--
"Good morning, my dear friend. How are you? Much troubled with all these Frenchmen? What say you, eh?"
My mother held out her hand to him. She was very fond of the fine old man who used to come and sit by her side for many an hour, pouring out, in his simple and open-hearted way, the experience of his grey hairs. Not but what he was merry and lively enough when he related the exploits of his Jena student-days, and what he and his brother, Adolph Diedrich,--"The Professor juris utriusque at Rostock, my friend--" had done in their students-society, the "amici." My mother held out her hand to him, for she could not get up; she had become lame during a severe illness, and I never saw her otherwise than,--when she was at her best,--sitting on a chair knitting away as industriously as if her poor, weak hands were strong and well; or,--at her weaker times,--lying in bed, in pain, reading her books. What the books were which she read, I know no longer; but novels they were not; I only remember this much, that the Herr Amtshauptmann's Marcus Aurelius was sometimes amongst them, for I had to carry it backwards and forwards.
It was not the Amtshauptmann's habit needlessly to alarm women, and so instead of talking about the troubles in the Court of Justice, he began about the bad weather, and he was just giving a short description of the pools in the Stemhagen market-place--for it was not paved in those days,--when the door opened and the French colonel came in. He made my mother a stiff bow, and advanced towards the Amtshauptmann.
We children left our playthings and crept, in a little knot, into the corner behind the tile-stove, like chickens when a kite is overhead, and wondered what this meant. Probably my mother also wondered, for she gazed anxiously at the old Herr in whose face there was a cold, haughty look that she had never seen before.
But the Colonel did not take it ill, and there was a friendly politeness in his tone as he said to the old gentleman, "I beg your pardon. I heard just now in the court the name of 'Weber.' Is your name 'Weber?'"
"Joseph Heinrich Weber," replied the Amtshauptmann shortly and stood as erect as a pillar.
"Have you not a brother named 'Adolph Diedrich?'"
"Adolph Diedrich, professor at Rostock," answered the old Herr without moving a limb.
"Herr Amtshauptmann," said the French officer and stretched out both hands towards him, "let what passed between us this morning be forgotten. You are dearer to me than you think. I have read a name on your stick that is engraved deeply in my heart. Look here 'Renatus von Toll!'"
"And you know that man?" asked the old Herr, and it was as if the sun had risen over his face.
"How should I not?" said the Colonel, "why, he is my father."
"What!" exclaimed the Amtshauptmann. "What say you, eh? What say you, eh?" And he held the colonel out at arm's length and looked into his eyes. "You the son of Renatus von Toll?"
"Yes, and he has often spoken to me of his two best friends, 'the Webers,' 'the tall Mecklenburgers.'"
"My friend," cried the old Herr, turning to my mother, "of whom have I talked to you oftenest? What say you, eh? Of the fine Westphalian, Renatus?"
My mother nodded her head; she could not speak, for there was something in the old gentleman's delight that brought the tears into her eyes; and we silly youngsters came out from behind the stove and grew bolder, and it all seemed to us as happy as if one of our cousins had come.
"My boy, my boy!" cried the Amtshauptmann, "I ought to have known you, if the damned French uniform.... No, no, I did not mean to say that," he added quickly as he saw the blood rush into the Colonel's face. "Tell me, my boy, has your father still the clear brown eyes? What say you, eh? Has he still the curly brown hair?--Such a splendid man he was, my friend!" said he to my mother, "God has written the word 'man' on his forehead."
The Colonel now said that the brown eyes were still there, but that the hair had turned white.
"True, true," said the Amtshauptmann, "of course. It must be so; Adolph Diedrich's is quite grey too. But now, friend, you must come up to the Schloss with me and stop there awhile. God knows, this is the first time that I ever invited a French officer to stay with me. But you are not properly a French officer, you are a German.--The son of Renatus von Toll can only be an honest German, my friend," he said turning to my mother. "What say you, eh?"
My mother had seen that the Colonel turned hot and cold alternately during this speech of the Amtshauptmann's, and she had made all manner of signs to him, but in vain; and, on his coming nearer to her, as he asked the last question, she plucked him gently by his coat-tail as a sign to him to be quiet. At this, the old Herr turned sharply round and asked--
"Why are you pulling me?"
It was now my mother's turn to be red. But, in the meanwhile, the colonel had recovered himself; he made a sort of half-bow to my mother, and said firmly and earnestly to the old Herr,--"I must refuse your invitation, Herr Amtshauptmann, for we march in half an hour. And, as concerns this uniform which does not please you,--and cannot please you, I grant it--I cannot dishonour it by taking it off in the hour of danger. You say that I am a German, my father's son must be a German--you are right--but, if you regard it as a crime that I am on the other side, you must lay the blame on my sovereign and not on me. When I became a soldier, the Elector of Cologne was in league with the Emperor; and when I went to Spain four years ago the whole of Germany and all her princes lay at his feet. I returned from Spain three weeks ago, and I find Germany quite changed. What I have felt concerns myself alone, and if there is any human soul to whom I can speak of it, it can only be my father. For my father's oldest friend this must be enough; it is more than I have said to any other human being."
The old Herr had been standing at the beginning of this speech, looking the Colonel straight in the face, and every now and then giving a shake of his head; but, as he became aware that there was a sad earnestness in the young man's face, his eyes sought another place to rest on, and when the Colonel had ended, he said, "That's quite another matter;" and he leant towards my mother and said, "My friend, what say you, eh? He is right, is he not? Renatus von Toll's son is right. Pity, that he is right!" and he took the Colonel by the hand: "My dear young friend,--and so you cannot stay here?" And, on the colonel's assuring him that it was not possible, he cried out to me, "Fritz, boy, you can run an errand for me; run to Neiting--to the Frau Amtshauptmann,--and tell her to come down here, something joyful has happened. Do you hear? Say something joyful. She might else be anxious, my friend," he added to my mother.
Well, away I ran as fast as I could up to the Schloss, and it was not long before the Frau Amtshauptmann was walking along by my side slowly and quietly as was her wont, and I hopped round about her like a little water-wagtail, so that she had enough to do to keep me from under the waggons and from the horses' feet.
As we crossed the market-place the French were fast getting ready to march. The guns stood there with the horses fastened to them; the battalion was formed into line; and one could see that they were on the point of starting.
The Frau Amtshauptmann went into the Rathhaus, but she did not get far, for she was seized upon in the hall by Mamsell Westphalen and the two maids; and, before she knew where she was going, she was in the midst of complaints, about "murder and killing," from Witte the baker, and Droz, and Miller Voss, each one telling her his story; and round them and their complaints, gathered Herr Droi's wife and children, crying and entreating; and the Frau Meister Stahl caught Mamsell Westphalen by the skirt of her gown, as if Mamsell were going to spring into the water, and she must save her from suicide. Witte still every now and then fired off a "robbers," but there was not more than half a charge of powder left in him, and, when he saw the grief of the watchmaker's wife, he thought of his own family, and called to me;--
"Fritz, will you run over to my house, my boy? You shall have a bun for it,--and call to my son Johann and my daughter Strüwingken, and tell them they are to come over here, for the rascally French are going to take me to their God-forgotten country as they have already done my brown five-year-old."
I gave the message, and when I came back again with Strüwingken and Johann and the bun, there were Miller Voss's cousin Heinrich and the Miller's wife and Fieka in Heinrich's cart before the Rathhaus; for, after all, the mounted Gensdarmes had found their way to the Gielow Mill at last and had cleared out the nest. Now the sobbing and crying began again, and the only one who remained quiet was Fieka. She asked her father softly,--
"Have you given up the money?"
The Miller pointed towards the court of justice, and said, "It lies there."
"Then be of good heart, father; God will not forsake us."
During the whole of this time, my father had been walking up and down the hall wrapped in his own thoughts. He cannot have been easy in his mind, for he constantly stopped for a moment and passed his hand through his hair when he heard the wailing of the women, and once he went up to Herr Droi and told him he need not be alarmed as things did not look badly for him.
Herr Droi nodded his head and said, "Bon!" became a whole inch taller, planted one leg out in front of the other, and put one arm confidently akimbo.
It seemed now as if everything was ready for marching, for the Adjutant called the colonel out of my mother's room. When the colonel came out his face had become pleasant again, and he went, with the Amtshauptmann, towards the prisoners and ordered that Mamsell Westphalen and the two maids should be set free; and Mamsell Westphalen ducked three times by way of curtseying and said--"I thank you, Herr Colonel von Toll."
The Herr Amtshauptmann caught sight of his wife in the crowd, and set her also free and, scarcely had he introduced her to the Colonel and told her what had happened, when the Adjutant gave the commands to march and Miller Voss, Witte the baker and Herr Droz to bring out.
Fieka had taken her father's arm, and would not let it go. They forced her away from him, but she remained quite quiet and said, "Father, I shall stay by you wherever they may take you."
For the baker it was easier work; he spat three times, let off at random a few "rogues and vagabonds," told Johann shortly what he was to do, and went out. But, with the watchmaker the case was very sad: his wife and children hung about him, and cried, in French and German, till it would have moved the very stones to pity.
My father could now stand it no longer; he stepped forward, and asked upon what ground the watchmaker was to be led away prisoner. The man was a naturalised citizen, and had never in his life committed any crime. No one could reckon it as a crime that he had slept up at the Schloss, for the Herr Colonel and the Herr Adjutant had also slept up there. As to his having on the uniform, why that was natural, seeing that he had served under the French, and his still putting it on now and then could not be taken ill by them, for the man showed by doing so that he still thought with pleasure of the time when he had worn it in their ranks.
"He has abused the uniform!" shouted the Adjutant.
My father cried back that it was not true; that it was no abuse, when anyone got rid of a pack of thieves and rascals by an innocent trick; and the proof that they had had to deal with fellows of that sort was to be found in the Chasseur's valise.
The Adjutant looked at my father savagely and spitefully, as if he would have liked to run him through the body, the colonel stepped up with a face in which a thunderstorm was gathering, and made a sign with his hand to lead away the watchmaker; but my father sprang forward and cried,--"Stop! The man is innocent, and if any one here is guilty, it is I, for it was at my command that he acted. If anyone is to be arrested for it, you must arrest me."
"Be it so," said the colonel coldly, "let that man free, and take this one here."
"My friend," cried the Herr Amtshauptmann, "what are you doing?"
"My duty, Herr Amtshauptmann," said the Colonel and gave him his hand. "Farewell, Herr Amtshauptmann, my time is up," and so saying, he went out of the house.
The whole thing was done so quickly that the greater number of those who were there did not know what the question was. I least of all, for I was still but a little mite then; but I understood enough to see that my father had got himself into danger. Naturally, I now began to cry, and just as the little Droi's were drying their tears, mine were running down my cheeks. I followed close on my father's heels as he was pushed out into the street; the Amtshauptmann also followed.
"Herr Amtshauptmann," said my father, "comfort my poor wife. And you Fritz," he said to me, "go and fetch my hat."
I ran in, and got the hat, and when I brought it to him, he lifted me up and kissed me and whispered in my ear, "Tell your mother I shall soon be back again."
The procession now set off, two men in front and two behind and, in the middle, Miller Voss, Witte the baker, and my father. As they passed by the engine-house, the door opened, and who should come out, but my uncle, the Rathsherr Herse, also with two men; for the colonel of artillery had had him locked up there on account of the escape of the peasants with their teams.
"Why, Herr Rathsherr, what has happened to you?" said my father.
"It's for the Fatherland, Herr Burmeister," cried my uncle Herse, "I entered into a conspiracy with Mamsell Westphalen; and now the Corsican dragon has got me in his claws; but it really is because of Miller Voss's horse and cart and the stupid old peasants."
They now briefly told each other their stories, and my uncle Herse marched down the street, with his cocked hat and red collar, so majestically that he looked almost as if he were commanding the whole. My uncle Herse was no coward; he was not afraid; he regarded this as a day of the greatest glory to him and, looking as if he had grown a couple of inches taller from the rain during the night, he walked along the Brandenburg road, greeting right and left, Christians and Jews. He winked to the Captain of the Fire Brigade not to betray what he knew; and put his finger to his lips as he passed by Solomon's the Jew as a sign that he was to be silent. And scarcely was he outside the gate when old Stahl, the weaver, began telling everybody that the French had taken the Herr Rathsherr with them; they were going to make him a general,--but the others would all be hanged.