Why Fritz Sahlmann fell in the mud; why Bank, the shoemaker, got a blow with the butt-end of a musket; why Rathsherr Herse wished to set fire to all the mills in the country; and why the King of Prussia always kept a place at his table for the Rathsherr.
When our prisoners got outside the Brandenburg gate, they marched with their two men in front and two behind, across the bridge, along the Brandenburg lane,--for, though called a road it was only a lane, there being in those days no high roads in Mecklenburg,--and when they came to the narrow pass leading up to the Windmill hill to which the Stemhagen folk have given the names of, "Killhorse" and "Break-neck," the guard commanded "Halt," for they could go no further.
The whole of the artillery lay in the pass, and had sunk so deep in the mud that, if all the horses of the neighbourhood had been at hand--which they were not--they could not have pulled this heap of misfortune out of it. There lay the French now, and cursed and swore. Labourers were fetched from the town with spades and shovels, and fresh horses were sent for from Jürnsdorf and Klaukow, and all the while it rained so heavily that no one could keep a dry thread on his back.
"Neighbour Voss," said baker Witte "what do you say to this rain?"
"Fine weather for late barley," replied the Miller, "if folks have sown any."
"My shirt is wringing wet," said the baker!
"And my boots are filling with water," said the Miller.
"Herr Burmeister, come behind me; my cloak will give you some shelter," said my uncle Herse, and he made himself a little bit broader than nature had already made him. "I am only glad that these 'slaves of the tyrant' will get a wetting through and through."
My father got under the cloak, but said nothing, for something had caught his eye.
Above, on the edge of the narrow pass a group of people were standing: labourers, servants and Stemhagen burghers, who had followed the procession in spite of the rain and bad weather, partly from curiosity and partly from sympathy, and amongst these people Fritz Sahlmann was slipping in and out, telling the whole story first to one and then to another of those who did not yet know it. When my father first caught sight of him, he was standing close by Inspector Bräsig of Jürnsdorf, who had come on horseback, and had to ride alongside of the French army, lest he should never see his team-horses again.
The Inspector was an old friend of my father's, and my father could clearly see that old Bräsig nodded to him and whispered something in Fritz Sahlmann's ear, when the boy told him of the scrape. Fritz Sahlmann now stuck his hands in his trowsers' pockets, and began whistling; whistled himself along the edge; whistled himself down the bank; when nearly at the bottom cleverly caught his foot in the root of an old willow; stumbled quite naturally towards the prisoners; and, when close to my father, fell in the mud as if he could not help it in the least.
My father bent down and raised him up.
"Watch the horse," whispered Fritz.
He could say no more for he was at once driven off by the French, and he climbed up the bank again.
If, before, my father had paid attention to the movements of the Inspector and the lad, he now did so doubly. He watched old Bräsig get down from his horse, crack his riding-whip and give it into Fritz Sahlmann's hand; the boy now began to lead the horse up and down, but always a little lower on the bank, till at last he stood still under a willow-tree as if he were seeking shelter there from the rain. From this place he made a sign to my father, and my father, who stood under the cover of my uncle Herse's broad back, waved his hat three times as if he were shaking the rain from it.
Presently, a coach-and-four came round the corner where the Brandenburg Lane meets the Ivenack Lane and, in it, sat a general who had been quartered on the Graf of Ivenack the night before. It, too, drove up the pass and, when it came to the place where the transport had stuck fast, some confusion arose amongst the soldiers in getting out of the way, and no sooner did my father observe this, than he flew, as if shot out of a pistol, from behind the Herr Rathsherr's cloak, up the bank on the other side of the coach, to the willow-tree, snatched whip and bridle out of Fritz Sahlmann's hands, jumped on to the horse, and--quick as lightning--was down the hill.
"Feu, feu!" shouted the French; "click, click," went the hammers, but no response came from the old firelocks, for the powder was as wet--as Stahl the weaver's coffee grounds.
For one short instant, it seemed as if the Stemhagen burghers, when they saw their Burmeister riding over hedge and ditch, were going to give him three cheers; and Bank the shoemaker was just beginning "Our Burmeister viv ..." when the butt-end of a French musket applied between his shoulders clearly hinted to him that he had better be off. His example was followed by the others and, in a twinkling, the place was clear of everybody except Inspector Bräsig, who had stationed himself against a tree and was smoking a pipe with the greatest calmness.
Now, whether no one had observed that he had come on horseback, or whether the French had distinctly seen that he had had nothing to do with my father's escape, he having stood a long way off from his horse--whatever it was, nothing was said to him.
The other three prisoners, however, got a double guard, and were brought away out of the pass into an open field, and thence, to the old windmill from which the hill took its name, as it was a little drier there. Here they sat back to back on a millstone and talked together.
"It's a good thing for the Burmeister," said old Witte, as he combed his wet hair with his brass comb, "that he has got away, but it's bad for us. We are now like a swarm of bees without a queen. He would have been sure to have got us all off sooner or later."
"Well, neighbour, it can't be helped," said Miller Voss, and he nodded his head to Inspector Bräsig who had also taken shelter in the mill.
"Hm! Meister Witte," broke in my uncle Herse, "he is well up in town matters, I don't deny it; but as to war-matters--to what concerns military affairs--why he has never in his life given the least attention to them, and he knows about as much of them as ... as ..."
"As you or I, Herr Rathsherr," said the Miller innocently.
"Miller Voss," said the Rathsherr and he drew himself up, making himself an inch taller, "speak for yourself, if you please, and not for others. What you know of such matters has all been learned since yesterday afternoon; for you and the Amtshauptmann and the Burmeister have brought us into this mess, and, if I had not come to the rescue, Mamsell Westphalen would be sitting here too, with her teeth chattering. What I know, I will soon give you a proof of. Do you know Jahn?"
"Do you mean old Jahn of Peenhäuser, who mends pots for my wife?"
"Bah! I mean 'Gymnast-Jahn,' who is now in Berlin, the brother-in-law of Kolloffen of Lukow."
"No, I don't know the man."
"Well then, listen. One day this 'Gymnast-Jahn' was walking along the streets of Berlin with a student when they came to the Brandenburg Gate--for the Berliners have got a Brandenburg Gate just as much as the Stemhageners,--and he pointed to the place where the Goddess of Victory, which the French had carried off, had formerly stood; and he asked the student what thought came into his head at the sight.--'None.'--Smack! he gave him a sound box on the ear."
"That was cool," said the Miller.
"Yes, Herr Rathsherr," said old Witte, "my hand is pretty ready, but ..."
"Let me finish first, will you?" said my uncle Herse. "'Master Good-for-nothing,' said Gymnast-Jahn, seeing the student's astonishment, 'that will teach you to think in future. You should have thought on seeing that place that we must get the Goddess of Victory back again from Paris.'"
"Yes but ..." said Witte.
"That's all very well but ..." said the Miller.
The Herr Rathsherr however did not let them get possession of the field, but turned to the Miller and said,--"Now I ask you, Miller Voss, when you see this mill, what idea comes into your head?"
"Herr Rathsherr," said the Miller, and he got up and stood a little distance off, "I hope you don't mean to treat me in that manner?"
"I only ask you, Miller Voss, what idea comes into your head?"
"Well," said the Miller, "what idea ought to come? I think it's a rusty old thing, and that, in Spring, it ought to have new sails; and that, if the stones above are no better than these down here, the Stemhagen folk must get a devilish lot of sand along with their flour."
"And you're right there, neighbour," said the baker.
"And he's wrong there!" cried my uncle Herse. "If he had answered properly he would have said that it must be set fire to. And it will be set fire to; all the mills in the whole country must be set fire to." And he stood up and walked, with long strides round about the mill-stones.
"Lord save us!" said Miller Voss. "Who is to do this wickedness?"
"I," said my uncle Herse, and he slapped himself on the breast and went nearer to the two, who wondered what could be coming next, and said, in a low voice: "When the Landsturm[3] rises, we must set fire to all the mills as a signal;--that's called a beacon, and the best proof you know nothing about war-matters is, that you don't even know what a beacon means."
"Herr Rathsherr," said Miller Voss, "it's all the same to me whether it's a beacon or a deacon, but, whoever sets fire to my water-mill, had better look out."
"Watermill? Windmills I mean. Miller Voss; who ever said anything about watermills? Watermills lie in the ground and don't burn. And now, I ask you, has the Burmeister as much knowledge and courage to act in time of war as I have?"
"He's never said he would set mills on fire," said the baker, and looked at the Herr Rathsherr rather doubtfully as if he did not quite know whether he was in fun or earnest.
"My dear Witte, you look at me like a cow at a new gate. You are, no doubt astonished and thinking what does a Stemhagen Rathsherr like me, know of war and stratagems? My dear Witte, you knead your dough with your hands, in the baking-trough; I knead mine in my head by thought. If I were where I ought to be, I should be in the presence of the King of Prussia, talking with the man. 'Your Majesty,' I should say, 'you are rather in difficulties, I think?' 'That I am, Herr Rathsherr,' he would say, 'money is devilish scarce just now.'--'Nothing else?' I say. 'That's a mere trifle. Only give me full power to do what I like'--licentia poetica that is called in Latin, Miller Voss,--'and a regiment of Grenadier Guards.'--'You shall have them, my dear Rathsherr,' says the King; and I have all the Jews from the whole of Prussia assembled in the palace-yard at Berlin. I surround the palace with my grenadiers, place myself at the head of a company and march with them into the palace-yard. 'Are you all there?' I ask the Jews. 'Yes,' say they. 'Now, are you willing,' I say to them, 'to sacrifice the half of your possessions on the altar of the Fatherland?'--'We can't do that,' says one, 'for we should be ruined.'--'Will you, or will you not?' I ask. I give the word of command 'Attention.'--'Herr Rathsherr,' says another, 'take a quarter.'--'Not a groschen less than half,' say I; 'Make ready!'--'We will!' scream the Jews--'Good,' say I, 'then let each one go singly up to the Presence Chamber where his Majesty is sitting on the Throne, and let each one lay his money on the steps at his feet.' When they have all been up, I go. 'Well,' I say, 'how is it now your Majesty.'--'Capital, my dear Herr Rathsherr,' says he, 'would that the other business were going as well.'--'We'll soon manage it,' say I; 'only give me twenty regiments or so of infantry, ten of cavalry and as much artillery as you have by you.'--'You shall have them,' says the King.--'Good,' say I, and march off with my soldiers away through field and flood, my flanks always covered. I throw myself upon Hamburg, and surprise the Prince of Eckmühl; he is brought before me. 'Build a good high gallows,' say I.--'Mercy,' says he.--'No mercy,' say I; 'this is for trying to become Duke of Mecklenburg.'"
"In Heaven's name, Herr Rathsherr," said Miller Voss, "don't talk like that; just think if those fellows were to understand you."
"That would be the very Devil!" said my uncle Herse, and he looked at the Frenchmen one after another, but, when he saw that they were paying no heed to him, he said, "You're an old coward. Miller Voss, the fellows cannot understand Platt-Deutsch;--Well, so I have him hanged, and march, to the left, into Hanover, and fall on the rear of the Corsican--you know whom I mean.--You must always fall upon the enemy's rear, that is the chief thing, everything else is rubbish. A tremendous battle! Fifteen thousand prisoners! He sends me a trumpeter: 'A truce.'--'No good,' say I, 'we have not come here to play.'--'Peace,' he sends me word.--'Good,' say I; 'Rheinland and Westphalia, the whole of Alsatia and three-fourths of Lothringen;'--'I can't,' says he, 'my brother must live.' Forward then again! I march to the right and quiet Belgium and Holland; all at once I wheel to the left.--'The Devil take it!' says he. 'Here's that confounded Rathsherr again in my rear.'--'First regiment of Grenadiers, charge!' I command; the battery is taken. 'Second regiment of Hussars to the front!'--He ventures too far forward with his staff. Swoop, the Hussars come down upon him.--'Here is my sword,' says he.--'Good,' say I, 'now come along with me. And you, my boys, can now go home again, the war is at an end.' I now lead him in chains to the foot of the Throne.--'Your Majesty of Prussia, here he is.'--'Herr Rathsherr,' says the King, 'ask some favour.'--'Your Majesty,' say I, 'I have no children, but, if you wish to do something for me, give my wife a little pension when I leave this life. Otherwise, I wish for nothing but to retire to my former position of Stemhagen Rathsherr.'--'As you like,' says the King; 'but remember that whenever you may happen to come to Berlin, a place will be kept for you at my table.'--I make my bow, say 'Good day,' and go back again to Stemhagen."
"That's fine of you," said baker Witte. "But what is the good to us of all this grand military art? This time the thing has begun at the wrong end; you haven't got him, he has got you--and us into the bargain; and, if anyone is to be brought bound to the foot of the throne, it will be us. After all, the Burmeister was the cleverest of us, for he's now on the other side of the hill, and sitting in a dry place, and our teeth are chattering with cold like nuts in a bag."
"Pooh, pooh!" said my uncle Herse, "what art is there in running away before everyone's eyes? No, my advice is that we should do it more delicately with a stratagem of war. Let us each think of one, and then we can choose the best."
The Miller had not spoken a word all this time. He was looking, as well as the rain would let him, down the hill-side to the road. "Good God!" he said at last. "Why it's sheer impossible; why it's my Fieka and Joe Voss's Heinrich, who are coming along in that waggon!"
And so it was.
How the Herr Amtshauptmann stood beside my Mother with an empty bowl in his hand; what Fieka and Heinrich had come for; and how Fritz Sahlmann lost his chance of glory.
This was the saddest day that I can remember in all my childhood. What a scene it was in my mother's room!
My mother had, for some time past, seen clearly that things were going on which should not be; but, though she had a very excitable mind and a lively imagination, which brought everything in a strong light before her eyes, pain and illness had accustomed her to restrain her feelings and to bear with resignation whatever might come. But uncertainty at a time like that was hard to bear, and what made it still harder was, that it was impossible to procure certainty. When she heard my father's raised voice in the hall, and the violent tone of the adjutant, and the colonel's short, sharp commands, she guessed what was happening without being able to understand what was said. She became alarmed; and not a soul was near her, not a soul attended to her bell. Her helpless state, and the bitter sense that she could be of no use, that she did not stand there where she ought to stand,--at my father's side,--overcame her; and when the Amtshauptmann came back into her room she had fainted, and was lying as if dead in her armchair.
He had entered with the most consoling passage he could think of from Marcus Aurelius on his lips; but, as soon as he saw the state my mother was in, he forgot everything he had meant to say, and began to cry out--"Why, what is the matter, my friend? What is the matter? What say you, eh?"
The old man, who did not usually lose his presence of mind, was altogether confused and bewildered, and had retained only an indistinct feeling that something must be done; and when I rushed in, with the tears streaming down my cheeks, he was standing before my mother with a bowl in his hand with no water in it, and saying--"This is a very strange thing!"
At last my screams brought the Frau Amtshauptmann and Mamsell Westphalen to the rescue. I had thrown myself on my mother's neck, and cried over and over again, "Mother, dearest mother, he will come back; he told me to tell you he should soon be back again." At last, at last her consciousness returned; and, if we had been anxious before, we were miserable now.
To console is the easiest thing in the world for those who are satisfied with offering the stereotyped phrases of politeness to one in sorrow; but for anyone whose heart is overflowing with love, which he longs to pour into another's sorrowing heart, and who at the same time feels that all the love he can give is insufficient to awaken fresh hopes in this poor heart, it is most difficult, and becomes indeed impossible if he does not believe in the words of comfort which he utters. Heaven be praised! This was not the case here. The most faithful of friends stood by us, and the old Herr and his wife by degrees succeeded in quieting my mother's grief; and when she was recovered enough to understand his reasons, there was no lack of them, for if there was anyone in the world who had reasons to give for everything, it was the Amtshauptmann, and he did not spare them to-day.
Reasons were of little use to me; but, all the same, I was comforted before my mother was. Mamsell Westphalen had taken me on her lap, and, while the tears were rolling down my face, she gave me delightful descriptions of the apples I should have, and this did its work. A child's heart is soon consoled; the tree requires heavy rain, but a drop of dew refreshes the blade of grass.
The first burst of grief was over, when Luth, the town-messenger, came in, and told the Herr Amtshauptmann that Miller Voss's Fieka was outside, and wished to speak a few words to him.
"My friend," said the old Herr, "she is a good girl, I know it for certain; and she is no doubt anxious about her father. We may as well have her here, I think, and see what she wants. What says Horace? 'Est solamen miseris socios habuisse malorum.' I will translate that to you by-and-bye. Luth, go and fetch the girl."
Fieka came in. She was a slender little damsel, but her fresh round cheeks were health itself, and though just now her eyes looked sad, yet you could see that they would be able to laugh merrily enough at other times. Her whole appearance showed that she was a resolute girl, who would not be easily turned aside from her purpose; and her true simple face plainly told that she would engage in no undertaking which she did not feel to be right. She had tied a coloured handkerchief over her cap to keep it safe from the rain, and looked so neat in her red and green striped woollen petticoat as she stood there before the old Herr, that he could not help turning to his wife and saying half aloud, "Eh, Neiting, what say you?"
When Fieka had made her curtsey to the Amtshauptmann, she went round towards the Frau Amtshauptmann and my mother and Mamsell Westphalen, and made a curtsey to each of them, and shook hands with them, according to the fashion of those good old times.
"Herr Amtshauptmann," said Fieka, "my father and the neighbours have told me so much good of you that I have made bold to come to you in my trouble."
"What have you got on your mind, then, my daughter?" asked the old Herr kindly, and he laid his hand on her head. "What say you, eh?"
"My father is innocent," she replied, looking up in his face with perfect trust.
"That he is innocent I know, my child," said he, and he nodded his head.
"And so I've no fear but he'll be set free soon," continued Fieka.
"Hm? Yes. That's to say it would be no more than right. But, in these days, might counts as right; and if it's difficult, in quiet times and with the best intentions, to pick out the innocent from the guilty, it is harder still in war-time, especially if the good intentions are lacking."
"I am not at all afraid," said Fieka quickly, "he must be set free, and that soon. But my father is an old man, something might happen to him, and there would be nobody about him then; so I want to go and be near him."
"My daughter," said the old Herr, shaking his head, "you are young, and soldiers are rough hosts. It would be no comfort to your father to know you were in their company."
"I am not going alone, Herr; my cousin Heinrich, Joe Voss's son, is going with me; and we thought if you would give us some writing, as a sort of pass, nothing would happen to us."
"A pass?" said the Amtshauptmann, shaking his head still more seriously. "Much those fellows will heed a pass from a Stemhagen Amtshauptmann! And yet, my friend," he added, turning to my mother, "if I were to give her a letter to Colonel von Toll--what say you, eh? He could not be the son of Renatus von Toll if he were to leave this girl without protection. And you say," he added, turning to Fieka, "that your cousin Heinrich is going with you?"
"Yes, Herr Amtshauptmann; he is waiting in the hall outside."
"Call him in to me."
Heinrich came in. He was a fine fellow, broad in the shoulders and narrow across the hips, with blue eyes and light hair; one of those men whom you may see any day in harvest from six o'clock in the morning till nine o'clock in the evening handling the scythe as lightly as if it were a feather.
"I hear, my son," said the old Herr, "that you wish to go with Fieka?"
"Yes, Herr Amtshauptmann."
"And you will protect her, and will not leave her?"
"Yes, Herr Amtshauptmann; and I have got my horse and waggon here, and I thought if the French had nothing against it, the prisoners might drive along with Fieka, and I could walk by the side."
"Herr Amtshauptmann!" cried my mother. "Help him to do what he proposes; perhaps it will be the only opportunity I shall have of sending anything to my husband. He was carried off just as he was--and in this weather too!"
"True, true, my friend. Yes, Fieka, I will give you a letter. And, Neiting, the old Miller was also carried off unprovided for; get something for him. My cloak, Mamsell Westphalen, and a nightcap, for I know he wears one. And, my friend," and here he turned once more to my mother, "anyone who is used to wearing a nightcap would very much miss it if he hadn't one."
"Fritz," said the Frau Amtshauptmann to me, "run over to Baker Witte's and see if his daughter would not like to send something to him."
Now began the packing. In a few minutes it was done; and, just as everything was in the cart, Strüwingken appeared, carrying an immense basket of milk-rolls and sausages. Fieka had now taken her seat in the waggon, and the Herr Amtshauptmann had finished his letter; as he gave it to Fieka he called Heinrich aside, and said to him--"So you are Joe Voss's son, who has been so long at law with the Miller?"
"Yes, Herr, but do not take it ill. My father was somewhat obstinate and had set his heart upon it; but it's about that I came over here. I have already spoken of it to the Miller and to Fieka, and if I have my way it will all be settled soon."
"My son," said the Amtshauptmann, and shook him by the hand, "I will tell you something;--you please me. But I will tell you something else;--you have taken upon yourself to protect the Miller's Fieka. If you let a hair of her head be touched, never dare to appear before my eyes again." So saying he turned round, and went into my mother's room again, and said to her--"A splendid girl that, my friend!"
"What did the Herr Amtshauptmann say to you?" asked Fieka after Heinrich had seated himself, and they had set off.
"Oh, nothing particular," said Heinrich. "But you will catch cold," he added wrapping her up in the old Herr's cloak, and then driving rapidly down the street.
They had not gone far, when they were met by the Stemhagen folks who had been following the French and the prisoners. Fritz Sahlmann, of course, was foremost of all. What a picture he looked! Just as if he had been working all day long in brick-maker's clay.
"The Burmeister has escaped," he shouted out to them down the street. "The Burmeister has made off across the country on old Bräsig's brown mare. I gave him the signal and off he went."
"What are you talking about, boy?" said the shoemaker's wife, who was looking out over her half door watching for her husband.
"Yes, neighbour," said Tröpner the captain of the fire-brigade who now approached; "the Burmeister's off, but they have given your husband something to remember. You had better make him a poultice of saffron and rye-flour, and lay it between his shoulders where the Frenchman tickled him with the butt of his musket."
The news ran through the town like wildfire: "The Burmeister has got out of the hands of the French on Bräsig's brown mare;" and Luth burst into my mother's room looking as if Easter and Whitsuntide had fallen on the same day, and he had been ordered to have the pleasure that the Stemhagen folk allowed themselves at these seasons all at once.
"Frau Burmeister," he cried, "don't be alarmed--Good news, Herr Amtshauptmann;--good news Frau Amtshauptmann! Our Herr Burmeister has escaped from the French--"
Heavens! what an uproar followed. My mother trembled from head to foot, the Herr Amtshauptmann forgot his age and position, and seized Luth by the collar and shook him with all his might. "Luth, man, recollect yourself! We are not in a mood for jesting here."
The Frau Amtshauptmann went up anxiously to my mother. Mamsell Westphalen sat upright and stiffly in her chair and said--"If you will let me say so, Herr Amtshauptmann, he is a clown."
"Herr Amtshauptmann, Herr Amtshauptmann," said Luth letting himself be shaken; "you may believe me; Fritz Sahlmann saw it all and told me about it."
"Fritz Sahlmann? My Fritz Sahlmann?" asked the old Herr, and let Luth go.
"It looks like our Fritz Sahlmann, Herr Amtshauptmann," said Mamsell Westphalen, quietly; "Fritz Sahlmann and truth are as far asunder as the cuckoo and the Seven Stars."
"Where is the boy?" asked the Amtshauptmann.
"He is standing outside in the Hall," said Luth.
The old Herr strode with long steps to the door and called out,--"Fritz, Fritz Sahlmann, come in here."
Fritz Sahlmann came. Two forces were struggling in his breast, the desire to recount his valorous deeds and the fear of a sound rating on account of his appearance; the one drew him forward and the other held him back; and, at the same time perhaps, one pulled him to the left, and the other to the right, for he came in at the door askew, with his good side first. But he had reckoned without his host, for he had not taken into account that coming in, in this way, his natural centre of gravity, on which he had sat down in the mud, would at once catch the eyes of the Frau Amtshauptmann and Mamsell Westphalen.
"Fritz Sahlmann," asked the old Herr, "what is the meaning of all this?"
Fritz Sahlmann who had marched in with a sort of pride, now let his head drop and looked down at his clothes:
"Oh, nothing, Herr Amtshauptmann. It's only a little mud."
"Heaven preserve us," cried the Frau Amtshauptmann; "what does the boy look like? Who is ever to get him clean again?"
"Hanchen and Corlin must go all over him with the kitchen brooms," said Mamsell Westphalen.
"Boy!" cried the Herr Amtshauptmann; "now tell me at once the pure truth. Has the Burmeister escaped or not?"
"Yes, Herr Amtshauptmann," said Fritz, and looked up again; "he's scuttled."
"That's a lie," burst out Mamsell Westphalen; "how can pure truth come from an unclean vessel?"
"Proceed, Fritz," said the old Herr. And Fritz proceeded.
It often happens in this world that in seeking to carry off an undue share of honour, people lose even that amount which they really deserve. This happened to Fritz. When he came to his own share in the story he made it so full of details, described the naturalness of his fall so minutely, and made so much of everything, in order to place his deeds in a conspicuous light, that he was still a long way from the end, when Luth came in with the Captain of the Fire-Brigade; and the Herr Amtshauptmann turned to the latter, and said in High German--"Tröpner, my man, what do you know of the matter." Tröpner felt, from this question being put in High German, that the Herr Amtshauptmann looked upon him as an educated man, and so he determined to behave like one, and replied in as good High German as he could muster, "I saw it from beginning to end." He now began the whole story over again, entirely left out Fritz Sahlmann's part and concluded with these words: "And thereupon the Herr Burmeister sprang from behind the Herr Rathsherr's cloak, dashed right round the eclipage, scrambled on all fours up the bank to the hollow willow-tree, snatched the bridle out of Fritz's hands by main force, swung himself into the saddle, and no sooner did he feel the brown mare under him, than off he went like a bolt straight towards the Pribbenow fir-wood."
"And the French?" asked the Amtshauptmann.
"Oh, Herr Amtshauptmann, they were half-frozen and, when they wanted to fire, their guns would not go off because of the wet, and so they threw themselves in their rage upon us, who were innocently looking on; and gave Bank the shoemaker who lives in the Brandenburg road, a touch of the butt-end of a musket between the shoulders, and then all of us made off and ran down the hill."
"My friend," cried the Amtshauptmann, "this Burmeister of ours is a fellow; he is as quick as a gun."
But she for whom this speech was meant could not hear it. My mother lay back in her chair, crying bitterly. At the talk of shooting she had pressed the arm of the good Frau Amtshauptmann tightly, as if she were holding to it as a safeguard against the giddiness that came over her; but when at last it was certain that my father had got off safe and sound, the tears started from her eyes, she covered her face, and gave way to silent tears.
Were they tears of joy?--Who can tell?--Who can say where joy begins and sorrow ends? They are so wonderfully interwoven in the human heart; they are the warp and the woof, and happy is he who weaves them into a firm web. The tear which is born of sorrow has as much its woof of hope as the tear of joy its woof of fear. The past anguish about my father and the fear as to his future wove themselves into my mother's joyful feeling of thankfulness, and the tears which fell were not tears of pure joy. Does any tear of pure joy ever fall on this earth?
It had become quite quiet; an angel flew through the room--; for a short time only: angels do not stay long here below; I know it for I stood with my head against our tall brown clock and cried and listened to the ticking of the pendulum--a short time! I looked up: the old Amtshauptmann was looking out of the uppermost window at the grey heavens, my mother and the Frau Amtshauptmann were crying, Mamsell Westphalen too; she had taken Fritz Sahlmann by the hand, and at the last stroke of the angel's wing she said;--
"Go up to the Schloss, Fritz, and put on dry clothes; Hanchen can give you your Sunday suit."
"I will be off to Gülzow, Herr Amtshauptmann," said Luth, "and Tröpner can go round to Pribbenow, and then we can't both miss the Herr Burmeister."
The Amtshauptmann nodded his head, walked up to my mother, against whose knees I had laid myself, and said,--"You and the boy, here, have good cause to thank God to-day, my friend."
How the Colonel was obliged to turn away at Fieka's words, and Fieka at Heinrich's. Why the Herr Rathsherr cursed all thin people; and the Miller wished he were a crow.
When Fieka and Heinrich arrived at the Windmill-hill, she looked round on all sides, and, in a few moments, caught sight of her father as he sat with his companions under the mill-shed.
"There's my father," said she to Heinrich.
"Well, then," he replied, "we'll turn up here to the right of the pass, towards the ploughed field. It will be hard work; but there's no getting through 'Breakneck.' We shall get to the mill this way, and you can speak to your father then."
"Stop," cried Fieka, "don't turn up to the right towards the mill; turn down to the left, away from it; I don't want to speak to him.--Look there now! He has seen us; he's making signs to us!"
"Fieka," said Heinrich, doing as she told him, "what are you doing this for? Why do you want to get out of your father's way?"
"Because I can't help him till I have given the Colonel the letter. Who knows, how the French might take it, if I spoke to him? There might be some dispute, and if we were taken before the Colonel so, it's not likely he would look on us with much favour. And then too, why should I be holding out hopes to my old father, when they are so far off? It's enough for the moment that he knows we are near him."
The cannon were now gradually got out of their bed of mud, and the procession began to move on once more. The prisoners were led along one side of the pass; and Heinrich drove along the other--as well as he could over old Nahmaker's ploughed field. Fieka looked out for the Colonel.
"I shall know him again when I see him," she said to Heinrich. "He has a kind face for all that it looked hard when he commanded them to take the Burmeister."
Thus talking, they passed by the cannon and many a knot of French plodding heavily through the deep mud. At last, close to the sign of the "Bremsenkranz" they saw the Colonel on horseback slowly making his way onwards, side by side with some of his officers.--
"Drive on a little way past them, Heinrich," said Fieka, "and stop at the edge of the bank, and I will get down."
This was done. As the Colonel approached, Fieka stood in the foot-path in his way, advanced a couple of steps towards him and said--"Herr, I have a letter for you."
The Colonel stopped, took the letter, and looked at Fieka, rather astonished: "From whom is it, my child?"
"From our Herr Amtshauptmann Weber."
The Colonel broke the seal and read; his face gradually softened with pity; but when he had finished reading, he silently shook his head. Fieka had watched him with the greatest anxiety; she read the answer to the letter in his face; and when he so sorrowfully shook his head, the tears started to her eyes: "Sir, it is my old father, and I am his only child," she cried.
She might have said anything in the world,--the finest speech or the most beautiful text from the Bible,--nothing would have made so deep an impression upon the strong man as these few words in the Platt-Deutsch tongue. He too had an old father and was his only child. His father lived in a high castle in Westphalia; but in loneliness,--discontented with his countrymen and his country. Time and the world had rolled many a stone between father and son, until a broad wall had grown up between them, above which it was only with difficulty that they could understand one another. Discord and dissension had arisen, and where they are, conscience makes its voice heard in quiet hours. How often had this inner voice said to him: "It is your old father, and you are his only child!" Happiness and misery, the thunder of the cannon and the roar of battle had, indeed, at times been able to overpower it; but the wound in his heart always opened afresh like the indelible blood-stain reappearing on a room-floor. Now, for the first time, did he hear these words uttered by stranger lips,--for the first time in the language of his childhood. It seemed to him as if there were no longer any reproach contained in them; they were spoken so gently, they sounded as softly in his ears as if they were words of forgiveness; and, when he saw the poor girl standing there before him with her pale, anxious face, it was too much for him,--he was obliged to turn away, and it was some time before he could speak to her again. At last he recovered himself, and said to her with all the warmth of manner which such a moment calls forth: "My dear child, it is not in my power to set your father free; but he will be soon. You and your love to him shall not, however, have appealed to me in vain; you shall stay near him, and he can go in the waggon with you. And when we get to Brandenburg, come and speak to me again."
Thereupon he gave the necessary orders, and rode on with the other officers.
Heinrich now approached a little nearer with his waggon, jumped down, and asked: "How has it gone, Fieka?--But I need not ask you that. You look as if your heart were on your tongue; he has set your father free, has he not?" And he put his arm round her: "Come, Fieka, get up into the waggon, here's a lot of Frenchmen coming,--we must get out of their way."
"They won't hurt us," said Fieka, mounting higher up the bank and looking along the road. "He hasn't set him free, but he's promised that he will. I am to stay near father, and all the prisoners are to come in our waggon; and, Heinrich; you can go home now to the mill and help mother."
Heinrich made the reins fast to a willow-tree, and bent down to buckle some strap in the harness, and then patted and stroked the smooth glossy neck of the near side-horse.--
"You are right, Heinrich," said Fieka, "you do not like to leave your horses and waggon behind you; but old Inspector Bräsig will take them back for you,--he will willingly do us that favour."
"Fieka, I was not thinking about the horses and waggon," said Heinrich, "I was thinking about you and what the old Herr Amtshauptmann said to me."
"What was that?" she asked.
"If I let a hair of your head be touched, I was never to dare appear before his eyes again. And, Fieka, I promised him I would stay by you at all times, and when I made him that promise," and he went up to her and took her hand in his, and looked earnestly into her eyes--"there were two present listening, though no one knew it, but I alone; Fieka, they were--God, and my own heart."
Fieka blushed red as a rose, but when he put his arm round her, she gently freed herself from his embrace and said--
"Not here, Heinrich!--Not to-day, Heinrich!--Good heavens, why there is my old father!"
So saying, she left him, and went to meet her father; and Heinrich stood there like a tree in the winter-time when the green leaves have all fallen off, and the birds no longer sing of love and joy in its branches. But when she turned round; came back to him again, cried: "Heinrich, Heinrich," and the tears welled up into her eyes; and then hastily set off again towards her father, leaf after leaf burst forth, and songs of joy and love sounded in the air, and spring arose in his heart, the Spring of Love,--the only Spring which can, through a whole lifetime, survive summer's heat, and autumn's storms and winter's cold;--can survive, if the Spring be real; the life true.
"Why, Fieka," cried old Miller Voss, "where do you come from?" And when Fieka threw herself on his neck, and told him all about it, with the tears standing in her eyes, the old man scolded her, and said that Heinrich could have come alone quite well, and these were affairs with which women should not meddle. But Rathsherr Herse declared that the Miller understood nothing whatever about such matters, and that Fieka's idea about the waggon was so good, he could not have thought of a better one himself; for his patent-leather boots had been made by Bank the shoemaker expressly for the Council-Chamber, and not for four miles of the Mecklenburg roads at this time of year. And when baker Witte heard of the basket of sausages and milk-rolls, he patted himself on the stomach and said that Fieka was his "dear god-child," and that though he was one of those people who carry a good provision-chest inside them, yet circumstances alter a case, and in weather like this "the best oven must sometimes have extra fuel."
The French sergeant had now brought the Colonel's orders to the guard, and the company mounted into the waggon, and made themselves as warm and comfortable as they could. My uncle Herse appropriated to himself the wraps intended for my father, because as his colleague he had the next best right to them; and he swore at lean-bodied people in general, and my father in particular. About height, he said, he would say nothing, for that was a thing which no one could give or take away from himself, but every reasonable man could in time obtain the proper amount of breadth.
"Look here, Meister Witte, this is supposed to be a coat for a full and well-grown man!" And so saying, he held up my Father's coat in the air, as a public spectacle.
"Herr Rathsherr," said baker Witte, "put your arms through the sleeves with the coat hind part before, so that the Burmeister's back-piece comes upon your breast; and here is another coat, which I'll hang over your back for you, and so we shall make one good coat out of two little ones; 'necessity is the mother of invention!'"
Well, this was done, and my uncle Herse looked like a fine fat oyster, sent on a long journey; behind and before he had a firm shell, but at the sides it gaped open from time to time. Baker Witte had got a silk cloak that had belonged to his late wife, and he put it on with the rabbit-skin lining outside, because he said the rain would spoil the silk, but it could not hurt the skin, for as far as he knew, rabbits always ran about with the furry side of their skin turned outwards.
The dressing-up of these two went on pretty quickly; but with the Miller it was a long affair, for when he heard that the great-coat with the seven capes which was intended for him, belonged to the Herr Amtshauptmann, he was first of all overwhelmed with respect and made bow after bow to it, as if the old gentleman were standing before him and wished him to enter first; and then he was overcome with feeling at the idea of the Amtshauptmann having thought of him in his trouble, and said he was not worthy of it; and when Fieka had got one sleeve on, the thought struck him that he might be taken for some one of high rank.
"And, neighbour," he turned to Witte, "supposing I were to begin to speak now, and the ass's ears were to show above the seven capes!"
"Yes, neighbour," replied the baker, "you're right there; you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear; but you can hold your tongue;--or else speak High German. You can, you know."
"Yes, I can--after a fashion," said the Miller, and seated himself on the foremost sack.
They were now all seated except Heinrich.
"Why, Heinrich," said Miller Voss, "there's surely room for you on your own waggon! Come a little nearer, Fieka, and make room for your cousin."
But Heinrich would not have it so; he put the horse-cloth round Fieka's feet, and said he would walk on in front. This he did, now jumping over a ditch and then back again, and always keeping where he could watch Fieka's face.
"Herr Rathsherr," said the Miller, "that's my cousin, Joe Voss's son, he's a fine fellow, isn't he?"
And Rathsherr Herse said: "That he is, Miller, he's a handsome young fellow."
And baker Witte said: "He's a jolly fellow."
Fieka said nothing, but she thought to herself: "He's a good and faithful fellow," and she might perhaps have gone on thinking about him; but all at once Heinrich was at her side, looking at her lovingly, and asking whether she were not cold. Thinking was of course at an end now, and she gave him her hand: "Just feel how warm I am."
Witte now dived into the sausage-and-roll basket, and gave everyone his share; and, on hearing the Herr Rathsherr praise the milk-rolls, the old baker said to himself: "Now look at the fellow! And yet he goes and buys his bread of Guhle; but an owl is a bird, when you have got no other."
The Herr Rathsherr leant over towards the baker and whispered in his ear: "Look, Meister Witte, there is the 'Bremsenkranz' Inn just before us; and if the minions of the Corsican monster have a trace of human feeling left in them, they won't mind our getting a drop to wash down our rolls with." But while saying this, he had neglected his bread, and had let it and the sausage dangle a little over the side of the waggon. All at once he felt a slight tug at his fingers, and on his looking round he beheld one of the Corsican's "minions" quietly biting into his sausage and roll, and as he was about to lift his voice up against such a manifest act of pillage, another of the Frenchmen put his arm over the back of the waggon and seized the whole basket.
"Confound it!" cried my uncle Herse, "I did not think that things had come to such a pass as this."
Old Witte burst out afresh with a "cursed thieves;" and the Miller, who was driving, so thoroughly forgot his position, wrapped up as he was in the Amtshauptmann's warm overcoat, that he raised his whip, and was just going to lay it about the Frenchmen's shoulders, when Fieka caught him by the arm:
"For God's sake, father, what are you doing?"
"Hm--yes--" said the Miller, recollecting himself, "you are right again, Fieka," and he turned to the Frenchmen: "Don't take it ill, I did not mean anything."
Well, they evidently were not going to take it ill at all, for they ate away at the rolls and sausages with such apparent relish, that the Herr Rathsherr was filled with spleen and gall. And now the whole party became once more conscious of their position, which they had for a time forgotten in the warmth and comfort of the waggon. They drove thus towards Brandenburg far into the grey evening, and where the basket of rolls had stood, were now only sorrow and care and thought, which whispered into their ears all manner of dreadful stories; and once, when a flight of crows passed over them, my uncle Herse said:
"Yes, you can laugh--you have no cares."
And the baker said: "No, and they pay no taxes and no duties." And the Miller sighed and said: "I wish I were a crow."
But in two hearts care found no place; love had entered into them with its princely company of Secret Wishes and Hope and Trust; and the Secret Wishes flew through the whole household of the heart and into all its recesses, like active bridesmaids,--pushed aside all that stood in the way, and wiped the dust from table and chair, and cleaned the windows, so that one could see far out into the beautiful country called Life; and they spread the table in the bright room, and made the bed in the quiet room, and hung fresh garlands of flowers and evergreens over windows and door, and beautiful pictures on the walls. And Hope lit her thousand wax-lights, and then sat down quietly in a corner as if it had not been at all she who had done this, but her step-sister, Reality. And Trust stood at the door and let no one in who had not on a wedding-garment; and she said to Care, when she asked after Fieka: "Begone, the old Miller will dance at her wedding;" and to Doubt, when she asked after Heinrich: "Go thy way, it is all right."