How Witte's pint-pot was always running over; why the Town of Stemhagen had raised a fir-plantation; why neighbour Rickert rang the alarm-bell; and why the portrait of Julius Caesar always reminds me of my uncle Herse.
Rather less than half an hour afterwards, two waggons drove out of the Treptow Gate of Brandenburg towards Stemhagen. In the first were the elders, the Herr Rathsherr and the baker and the Miller, and, as a mark of respect, the valet-de-chambre; in the second sat, on the foremost sack, Fritz Besserdich and Luth, and on the hind sack, Fieka and Heinrich. Friedrich lay behind in the straw. After they had gone along some way, my uncle Herse began to talk:
"So we are out of his claws at last," said he.
"Yes, Herr Rathsherr," answered the Baker, "and we have to thank the Herr Amtshauptmann and our Burmeister and, above all, the Miller's Friedrich for it."
"That's according as you look at it, Witte," said my uncle. "For my part I have nothing to say against those three, and there is no doubt the Chasseur's being brought there did us good service, but it by no means set us free. Did you not notice how the French Colonel talked to me aside before the door of the Inn?"
"Yes, Herr Rathsherr."
"Well, then, let me tell you, that, if he had not employed me to take a secret message for him, we might have left Brandenburg by a very different gate from this."
"The Devil we might!" cried the old Baker, and he looked at the Rathsherr out of the corner of his eye.
My uncle said nothing; he only opened and shut his eyes importantly, and then turned away, and looked over the cornfields, as if he meant to let his words have due effect on the Baker. But this did not succeed. Old Baker Witte's head was like the pint measure in which he sold milk; when it was full to the brim, it would hold no more, and whatever more was poured in, ran over into the room. And, just now, his head was brimming full of all he had gone through, so that the Rathsherr's words made it run over, and he said nothing.
"I wish I was in Stemhagen," said the Rathsherr, after a while.
These drops went into the baker's pint measure, he said, therefore: "So do I, for it will be a precious long time before we get there."
"I don't mean that," said the Herr Rathsherr. "I mean as to our reception."
The baker's pint measure was running over again: "What?" he asked.
"Our reception with a triumphal arch."
The contents of the pint measure were now running over very fast:--"Reception! Triumphal arch! What? Is our Duke coming then?"
"No, Witte, he is not coming, but we are coming."
It was now just as if some one had given Witte's arm a jerk, while he was pouring the milk into the measure, so that half of it went on to the floor. This was lucky, for now there was room for the Herr Rathsherr's explanation.
"I say, Witte, that we are coming. Ought not the burghers of a town like ours to erect a triumphal arch for their fellow-burghers and officers of state, who have suffered for the Fatherland, just as much as for a Duke?--But who is to do it? The old Amtshauptmann? The Burmeister? They won't be thinking of such a thing. Or do you think the old Rector, because he once made a thing of a 'transparency?' That was a fine thing!--Or old Metz? There's as much sense in his talk, baker Witte, as in a squirrel's tail.--Or old Zoch? He can blow his horn on the watch tower, nothing else.--Ah! if I were there!"
"But, at this time of year, Herr Rathsherr," said the Baker, "where could you get flowers and evergreens from?"
"Flowers? What do old Heimann Kasper, and Leip, and the other Jews, sell red and yellow ribbons for? Evergreens! For what purpose has the town of Stemhagen raised a fir plantation in the State Forest?"
"That's true," said old Witte, for the pint measure was now full again.
"What do you say, Miller Voss?" asked the Herr Rathsherr.
"I say nothing, Herr Rathsherr," said the Miller, turning towards him a face so full of wrinkles that it looked like a puckered tobacco-pouch rising above his shoulder, "I say nothing; I only think: yesterday when I was driving towards Brandenburg I didn't feel exactly comfortable, and now to-day, when I am driving away from it, I feel as if I had got a stomach-ache in my head."
"How's that?" asked my uncle Herse; and the Miller told him his difficulties with Itzig.--"Hm!" said my uncle, and he passed his hand slowly down his face as far as his chin where it remained fast caught in the stubbly beard. With his chin in his hand and his mouth wide open, he gazed fixedly for a while into vacancy. He tried the same thing over again once or twice, but his hand never got over his beard. Now, though my uncle Herse had a bristly beard, he had a tender soul; and if his mouth opened wide, his heart opened wider still; and, as he was taking a last look into the grey sky, his eyes fell on a blue place, and a ray from the blue sky passed through his eyes into his open heart. He must do a good work.
"Baker Witte," said he, "let the Miller come and sit here, and you take his place on the front seat,--I have something to say to him."
This was done, and Baker Witte talked on the front seat to the valet-de-chambre in a very loud voice, and the Herr Rathsherr talked on the hind seat with the Miller in a very low one.
"Miller Voss," said my uncle, "I will help you out of the bog. I will send for Itzig to-morrow--and then observe how servile he will be, for I know something about him,--a secret!--that does not concern anybody else;--but it's nothing very good you may be sure.--The fellow shall give you time till Easter, and I will be surety for you; and I'll come out to-morrow, and look through all your papers and take the matter into my own hands. For, look here," and as he spoke he drew out the seal at the end of his watch-chain, "I am appointed to do such things. Here it stands. Perhaps you can't easily read Latin backwards?" The Miller said he could not read it either backwards or forwards.--"Well, it does not matter. Here it stands: Not. Pub. Im. Cæs., that's to say, I'm Notarius Publicus, and Im. Cæs. means--I can be consulted in every lawsuit. So, Miller, I'll help you.--But upon one condition only: that you tell no one of my being surety for you, or of our agreement,--above all not the Herr Amtshauptmann. The affair must remain a profound secret."
The Miller promised.
In one way things were going on in the second waggon in the same manner as in the first. On the front sack the voices were very loud, and on the hind sack, on which Heinrich and Fieka were sitting, they were very low. I need not tell what they were saying to each other, for Friedrich, you know, was lying close behind them in the straw, and heard every word they said, and he will come out with it in good time.
About three hours after this, that young rascal Fritz Sahlmann was running through the streets of the good town of Stemhagen, shouting--"They are coming! They are coming!"--He had been watching for a couple of hours on the Windmill-hill, and, during that time, the Herr Amtshauptmann had rung his bell seven times for him, and had, at last, come down to my mother out of sheer vexation.
"They are coming!" cried the young wretch.
"Is it true, boy?" asked old Rickert the bell-ringer.
"Yes, neighbour Rickert, they are just at the bridge."
And old Rickert said to himself: "It can't be helped: I must do my duty;" went to the bell-tower, and as he could not manage the whole peal, rang the alarm bell. At that sound all were on foot, and at their house-doors. "They are coming!"--"Who is coming?"--"The Rathsherr, and baker Witte, and the Miller, and all the others."
"Hurrah!" shouted Shoemaker Bank waving his arm in the air,--forgetting he had got a boot on it.
"Hurrah!" cried Locksmith Tröpner, rushing into the street with his leathern apron on. "But let us have everything quiet and orderly, good people"--and he knocked the jug out of Frau Stahl's hand, which she was carrying down from the Schloss.
"Hurrah!" cried Herr Droi, running out into the street with his bearskin on, but otherwise in plain clothes; and behind him trooped his little French children and shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" as the Rathsherr passed through the crowd in the first waggon.
He sat bolt upright on his sack, and held his hand to his hat all along the street, and turned his dignified face to right and left; and with his dignity was mixed some emotion, as he whispered to the Miller: "Voss, this makes me forget the triumphal arch."
"Yes, and me Itzig," said the old Miller, who, on seeing what the Rathsherr did, began to do the same. The valet-de-chambre kept on bowing away at his side of the waggon, treating his hat most cruelly and from the other side old Witte kept up a fire of: "Good day neighbour. Good day Bank, how's your back. Good day Johann. Good day Strüwingken--Is all right? How are the pigs?"
When they came to the market-place, they saw Aunt Herse waving the bottom half of one of the white curtains out at the window, and such a storm-wind arose in my uncle Herse's heart that his feelings rolled in great waves and sent the water up to his eyes:--"Aunt," he said half aloud to himself, "Aunt,"--for he always called his wife "Aunt" and she called him "Uncle" in return,--"Aunt, I cannot obey your signal, for both these last days have concerned me in my public, and not in my private capacity--have concerned me as Rathsherr and not as Uncle, and they must end in the same way as they have begun.--To the Rathhaus, baker Witte!" he cried, and as he said it, he pulled his cocked hat down over his eyes. The Rathsherr had won the victory over the "Uncle" and father of a family.
O, what a merry evening it was at the Rathhaus! Everything in kitchen and cellar that had been hidden away from the French was brought out, and whatever was wanting was fetched from the Schloss. Marie Wienken laid the cloth on a long, long table, and to the table added leaf after leaf, and, when there were no more leaves, she joined on small tables, and when there were not enough of them, the chairs were spread for us children. Mamsell Westphalen stood at the corner-cupboard, and squeezed lemons on to sugar, and poured the contents of all sorts of bottles over it; and the kettles went backwards and forwards, from the kitchen into the room, and from the room into the kitchen; and the Herr Amtshauptmann stood by, and kept tasting and shaking his head, and then pouring in something himself; and at last he nodded and said: "Now Mamsell Westphalen it's right; this is quite another thing;" and he turned round to my mother, and said:--"You must let me have my way in one thing, my friend, I will make the punch." My father managed the corkscrew, Luth the pouring out, and the valet-de-chambre stood by the stove, and shook his head at all these arrangements; and he showed Luth how he ought to wait; and, as Luth tried to imitate him, he spilled a glass of punch into Mamsell Westphalen's lap.--Yes, it was a merry evening!
Friedrich stood at the door, upright as a grenadier, and not moving or stirring a limb except to drink; Fritz Besserdich stood at his side, not moving or stirring either, except, too, when he drank. And Fieka Voss sat next to my Mother, and my Mother pressed her hand, and stroked her soft cheek, and when I came up to her side, she stroked mine too and said: "Shall you love me as much as Fieka loves her father?"
The Herr Amtshauptmann called Heinrich Voss into a corner, and talked to him aside. What had the Herr Amtshauptmann got to say in secret to Heinrich Voss, and why did he keep patting him on the shoulder? Old Miller Voss asked himself this, and when he had made out that it must be about the lawsuit, he said to Witte:--
"Well, I have finished with the lawsuit now, the Jew's the only thing remaining, and I'll drown him to-night in punch."
"By the way that reminds me ..." said the baker going out.
After a time he came back again, holding a basket in one hand and Strüwingken by the other:--"By your leave, Herr Burmeister, perhaps I may bring something towards the feast; here are a few sweet cakes; and here, Frau Burmeister, is my daughter Strüwingken; pardon the liberty, but she wished so much to see the company."
But what was all this to the splendour and pomp which surrounded my uncle Herse. He had taken off his cloak, and now stood there in full uniform; and everyone came round him, and thanked him; my father because he had taken him under the shelter of his cloak; My mother because he had thereby helped my father to escape; Mamsell Westphalen curtseyed three times, and said she should never forget what he had done for her; and Miller Voss said that, strictly speaking, they had only been set free at Brandenburg owing to the Herr Rathsherr; and when old Witte confirmed this, Strüwingken secretly promised herself that she would send the Rathsherr an immense tea-cake. His fine, full face beamed with pleasure and delight, and he bent down to my Mother and said:--"I can't at all make out why 'Aunt' does not come."
At the Miller's words, he suddenly recollected the French Colonel's message and turned to the Herr Amtshauptmann:--"I have two words to say to you, Herr Amtshauptmann, on a very secret matter," and so saying he drew him into a corner. We know what it is he is going to say, but if the corner could speak, and were to tell us what the Rathsherr had said there, we should be obliged to pretend that we had known nothing about it.
My father was obliged at length to free the old Amtshauptmann. He took my uncle and placed him in the post of honour at the head of the table, and never was anyone put in the right place more at the right time; for, hardly was he seated, when the door opened and in came Aunt Herse in a black silk dress, and behind this dress stood old Metz the father of the present old Metz, and the present rich Joseph Kasper who was then a little Jew boy. Aunt Herse had a wreath of green laurel in her hand picked from old Metz's laurel-tree, from which he generally picked the leaves only when his wife cooked bream; and the wreath was bound with a long red ribbon; Joseph Kasper had furnished this, and so Aunt Herse had brought him with her. She went up to uncle Herse, gave him a kiss, placed the wreath on his head with the ends of ribbon hanging down his back, and made a pretty little speech which nobody heard, for baker Witte broke out the same moment with: "Hurrah!" and the Miller with "Long live!" and every one joined in and clinked glasses.
Yes, it was a delightful evening! And a long time afterwards, when I saw a picture of Julius Cæsar it put me in mind of my uncle Herse, for he looked exactly like it in his laurel wreath, only my uncle was a good deal stouter and more genial than the crabbed dried-up Roman. And a long time afterwards whenever I had specially nice cakes before me I thought of Baker Witte's. And I can still praise them; for you may eat a great many, and yet not be made ill.
Why the Miller again looked into the tops of his boots; how a pint became a bushel; why Heinrich said good-bye, and why Friedrich considered that women were getting cheap.
The next morning, when the Miller had got out of bed, he again sat resting his head on his hands and looking thoughtfully into the tops of his boots.
"Mother," asked he at last, "did I quarrel with Heinrich last night, or did I dream it?"
"Why, father," replied his wife, "you kept embracing him and calling him your dear son, and you promised Friedrich he should have plenty of money when you became a rich man, and said it would not be so very long either before that time came."
"Then, mother, I was a fool."
"That's what I told you last night, but you would not believe it."
"Lord save me!" cried the Miller; "there is no end to these stupid tricks of mine!"
Friedrich came in.--"Good morning, Miller; good morning, Dame. I only came in to tell you, Miller, I had thought over the matter. I will let the money which you promised me yesterday evening stay with you at interest for some time longer, till I want it."
"Hm!" said the old Miller, moving uneasily on his chair.
"Yes," said Friedrich; "but there was another thing I wanted to ask you: will you let me leave at Easter? I know it's rather before my time."
"Why? What do you want to do?"
"I want to get married."
"What? You marry?"
"Yes, Miller, I am going to marry Bailiff Besserdich's Hanchen, who is now in service at the Schloss; and I thought if Heinrich Voss marries our Fieka, and our fathers-in-law have nothing against it, we could be married on the same day."
This was too much for the Miller: "You rascal...!" He jumped up and seized one of his boots.
"Stay, Miller;" said Friedrich, drawing himself up, "that word's neither fit for you nor fit for me. How things stand with me, I have known for three days, and how they stand with Heinrich and our Fieka I came to know yesterday afternoon; I was lying behind them in the waggon and heard everything they said."
"It would be a good thing, father," said the Miller's wife.
"You don't understand anything about it," cried the Miller, and strode about the room savagely.
"Well, Miller," said Friedrich, and he went to the door, "think the matter over; my father-in-law has been going about thinking of it ever since the day before yesterday."
"I will give you your character at once," cried the Miller after him, "but you are not to leave before midsummer."
Why was the old Miller so angry? He liked Heinrich very well; he had himself often thought during the last few days, that Heinrich and Fieka might do for one another; and he had called him his "dear son" only last night. But that was just it. Last night the punch had made him a rich man, and this morning he was looking into the tops of his boots--a beggar; even if Itzig would be put off till Easter, it would be but a short reprieve.
"Father," said his wife, "this is the best thing that could happen to us and to our Fieka."
"I tell you, mother," cried the Miller, and it was fortunate he had not got his boot on or he would have stamped on the floor with rage, "I tell you, you don't understand anything about it. What? I am to give my child to Joe Voss's son, who is at law with me, and who travels about the country with a great bag of money,--my best, my dearest child--and I am to say to him: 'there she is, but I can give you nothing with her for I am a beggar?' No, wife, no! Why, I should have to borrow the very clothes in which my only child,--my little Fieka,--was married.--No, no! I must get right again first."
It often happens so in the world. Some piece of good fortune hangs close before our eyes, and when we stretch out our hand to seize it, our arm is held by a chain, forged, without our having been aware of it, in times long past, the ends of which are fastened far behind us, so that we cannot get it off. The Miller's chain was his law-suit and his bad management in former years, and now when he tried to seize the good fortune which seemed within his reach, it held him back; and he fretted and fumed in vain. He might perhaps cut the chain in two, but then he would be obliged to drag about one end of it all his life like a runaway convict, and his honour would not suffer this. One cannot help pitying the old man. He avoided everybody, and worked alone in the mill and the stable, as hard as if he thought he could, in this one day, make good all the neglects of past years.
At last he was freed from his toil. My uncle Herse arrived,--but in the dress of a plain burgher to-day: "Good day, Voss; well, our affairs are all right."
But the Miller was not to be so easily satisfied to-day, and he said shortly: "Yes, for whoever thinks so, Herr Rathsherr."
"When I say it, Miller Voss," said the Herr Rathsherr, as he fetched a packet of papers from his carriage, and went with the Miller into his room, "when I say it, you may believe it, for I am here to-day as a Notary Public."
"Mother," said the Miller, "leave us by ourselves; but give us a light first, Fieka."
Now, there was no exact necessity for this, seeing, that it was broad daylight; but the Miller had noticed that, when a court of justice was being held, the Herr Amtshauptmann always had a wax-light burning by him, and so he determined to have a light, thinking it was safer, because it made everything more complete. And he went to his cupboard and fetched out a pair of spectacles and put them on, which was also unnecessary, for he could not read writing; but he thought he should be able to pay better attention in spectacles. Finally, he drew a table into the middle of the room, and brought forward a couple of chairs.
When they were alone and seated before the table and the light, the Herr Rathsherr read aloud, in a clear voice, a paper in which the Jew promised to wait till Easter, the Herr Rathsherr being bail for the Miller. And, when he had read it, he laid the paper by his side and looked at the Miller with a face which seemed to say, "What do you think of that?"
The Miller hummed and hawed, and scratched his head.
"Miller Voss," said my uncle angrily "what do you mean with your 'hms' and 'haws'? There is my seal underneath. Do you see, it's a stalk of hirse. because my name is 'Herse'; I could also have a portcullis on it, if I liked, because in French that's 'herse'--but I am not fond of the French. And here, round it, is my authority: 'Not:Pub:Im:Cæs.', and here is the Jew's signature 'Itzig', and what is written is written."
"That's what the Herr Amtshauptmann says," said the Miller and he looked a great deal more cheerful, "what's written is written."
"It's of no consequence to me what he says. It is I, Miller Voss, I, who am, through my office appointed to make written writing fast and secure by my seal. And this paper frees you from all difficulties till Easter."
"Yes, Herr Rathsherr, and I thank you for it;--but then?"
It was now my uncle's turn to hum and haw: "Hm, what then?--Well--Yes--Well, Miller," and his good old face threw its official look out of window and put on human kindness for spectacles, and looked benevolently at the Miller and the whole world: "Well, Miller Voss, I have procured you breathing-time till Easter, and, maybe, I can give you further help; I have come on purpose to set matters right. But, in order for me to do so, you must tell me exactly how you stand, and show me all your papers."
So the Miller told and told, and went on till any other head than my uncle Herse's would have been quite lost in the maze; and he brought out so many papers that anyone else would have been alarmed; but my uncle was very thorough in business matters and was fond of solving riddles and mysteries. He listened to, and read, everything with patience, though not with much profit to his undertaking.
"Is this all, Miller Voss?" he asked at last.
"Yes," said the Miller, and he looked as down as a potatoe-field when the night frost has gone over it; "and this is my contract with the bailiwick of Stemhagen."
My uncle took the contract, and read it through, looking, in his turn, like a parsnip-field that has been cut up by the hail. But, all at once he jumped up:--"Why, what is this? Miller, your difficulties are at an end. In a couple of years you will be a millionaire. The whole town and bailiwick of Stemhagen is bound to have its corn ground at your mill; here it is in paragraph four. And what says paragraph five? 'For every bushel that the Miller grinds he has a right to take one bushel as payment.'"
"A pint, Herr Rathsherr," cried the Miller; and he, too, jumped up now. "For every bushel one pint."
"No, a bushel. Here it is: for every bushel one bushel as payment; and what is written is written, and here is the Amtshauptmann's seal."
"Herr Rathsherr, my head is swimming. Herr, that is only a mistake."
"Mistake or no mistake, what is written is written; the old Amtshauptmann said so himself."
"That he did," said the Miller; "yes, that he did, I can swear to it."
And now the Miller saw before him a prospect of deliverance from the Jew's clutches, and of many, many bushels of corn and of many, many bright thalers; for was not the whole bailiwick obliged to bring corn to his mill?
"This is a good thing, Herr Rathsherr," he cried; "but----but----"
"What do you mean with your buts, Voss?" cried my uncle indignantly. "The thing is plain and clear."
"Yes, Herr Rathsherr, I only mean, what is to be done with the sacks?"
"With the sacks?--What sacks?"
"Why, the sacks in which the corn is brought to me. I get all the corn, but who gets the sacks?"
"Hm," said my uncle, "that's a difficult question in law, Miller. I did not think of it, and there's nothing about it in the contract, but, if you'll follow my advice, you'll keep them yourself for the present, for what says the Lubeck law: 'beati possidentes,' that is in German, 'what a man has, that he's got.' Now, Miller, I have helped you out of everything. But one thing I insist upon: silence!--Not a soul must be spoken to about this matter. Do you hear?--not a soul. I will speak to Itzig. He must take corn, instead of money, and by Easter the debt will all be cleared off, and then, Miller Voss...."
"And then, Herr Rathsherr?..."
"Then--it will all be overplus--But, Miller, the affair remains a secret."
The Miller promised, and the Herr Rathsherr set off home again, and Heinrich and Fieka saw him nod from his carriage to the Miller, and lay his finger on his lips.
"Keeping secrets is not one of my gifts, Fieka," said Heinrich: "I shall go to your father and speak to him."
"Do so," said Fieka. But if she had known the state the Miller was in, she would certainly have told him to wait.
The old Miller was in a strange mood. That morning he had been a beggar, and had been unwilling to give his child away, because he had no dower for her. Now he was a rich man, and his only daughter had no need to take the first who came; she might become a fine lady as well as anybody else. The change had come too quickly, he did not rightly know what had happened to him; and there now arose, too, a secret fear in him, lest all might not be as it ought to be, and great anxiety lest what he was going to do might not be right. "But," said he to himself, "the Amtshauptmann himself said 'what is written is written;' and the Rathsherr must know better than me what is right."--If it was difficult for him, in ordinary times, to come to a decision, it was quite impossible at a moment like this.
When Heinrich made his offer therefore, the Miller began to talk about the lawsuit, and said Heinrich was not at all to suppose that he was a ruined man. Many had tried to drown him, but he still swam at the top.
Heinrich then said that he had no evil intentions, that he had thought to himself that the Miller would give him his Fieka, and would sell him his lease, and that his father and mother-in-law might live with him in peace and quietness for the rest of their lives.
But at this the old Miller fired up: yes, Heinrich would like that; he could readily believe it. But nobody should cry "Fish" before they had caught any; he was not going to let himself be taken in by anyone, let alone a young man like Heinrich. His lease, indeed! His lease! he would keep it himself, though a king should come and court his Fieka!
For such a speech Heinrich was not at all prepared after what had already passed. The blood mounted into his face also, and he said sharply, that the Miller must say "yes" or "no," would he give him his daughter or not.
The Miller turned round abruptly and looked out of window, and said "No."
Heinrich also turned round, and went out of the room, and half an hour afterwards Friedrich drove into the yard with Heinrich's waggon; and, at his call, Heinrich and Fieka came out of the garden. Fieka looked very pale but also quite firm, and said: "Heinrich, what I have said I will keep to, and you too will keep to it."--He nodded his head, and pressed her hand, stepped up to the Miller's wife who was standing at the door, said a few parting words to her, got into the waggon, and drove slowly away.
When he was some little distance from the Mill, he heard some one calling after him, and on turning round to look, he saw Friedrich coming towards him across the corner of a rye-field: "Where are you driving to, Heinrich?"
"To Stemhagen."
"Shall you stop the night there?"
"Yes, I thought I would stay for the night at Baker Witte's, for I have something to speak to the Herr Amtshauptmann about."
"I must say, that's a good idea of yours, Heinrich, and I have something to do at the Schloss this evening too; and, maybe, I shall have something to say to you, so don't drive off from Witte's till I come. I shall not be there till late, however, when everything is quiet here."
Heinrich promised he would wait for him, and drove on again towards Stemhagen. On the road he met Baker Witte who was driving with corn to the Mill and said:--"Well, Heinrich, put up at my house, I shall be at home again by evening, and then we can have a bit of a chat together."
Evening had long since set in, and the baker had been some time at home, but Heinrich was still up at the Schloss with the old Herr. Friedrich, too, had arrived and had gone up to the Schloss, and old Witte said to Strüwingken, "Something has happened at the Mill, you'll see. I don't think much of the Miller's wife sitting crying, for her tears run easily, but I don't at all like to see Fieka going about so quiet and saying nothing to all the fooleries and scoldings of the old Miller; and he has got one of those queer fits upon him this morning which you can make nothing of. When I asked him how soon I should come for the flour, he said he must first look at his lease; and when I said I wanted it next week, he said it was all the same to him, he should act according to his lease; and when I was driving away, he called out after me that, if anything strange should happen to the flour, I was only to go to Rathsherr Herse, and he would explain the matter to me,--that is if he thought proper."
"Why he must be mad," said Strüwingken.
At that moment Heinrich came in, looking calm and indifferent; and on the baker beginning to talk about the flour, and of the queer reception he had met with, Heinrich abruptly broke in with: "Will you do me a favour, Witte?"
"Why not?" said the baker.
"Look here, many people come to your place; and you have room in your stable. I want to sell my horse and waggon, will you help me with it."
"Why not?" said Witte again; "but, Heinrich," added he after a while, and you could almost imagine you saw how he was collecting his thoughts together inside his brain, and weaving them into a long chain so as to spin out the conversation. "But, Heinrich, there's no hurry about it.--Horses--horses--you see they are cheap now. Why?--Well--what do I know?--Why, because no one feels sure that the French won't take them out of the stables overnight. But, you'll see, they'll get dear; for, you'll see in a few weeks we shall all be marching against the French."
"I have just heard the same from a man who must know much more about it than you or I. But it's just for that reason I want to be rid of them."
"Yes," said Friedrich, who had come into the room during the Miller's speech; "horses will get dear and women cheap. There will be a great call for horses when the war begins, and little for women; and when it's over, and half the young men are killed, there'll be still less. And it's going to begin. Yesterday, at Brandenburg, a fellow took me aside, who looked as if he had tried the blue beans,[5] and he said to me that from my appearance I must have carried a musket, and, if I liked, he knew of a place for me. I said I would think about it; but to-day is not yesterday, and today I don't need to think about it. I deserted from the Prussians, but only because I had to rock the cradle for my Captain's children; and yesterday I only wanted to think it over, because I expected I should soon have to rock children; of my own. But to-day I need think no more; I shall enlist against the French. And, Witte, I have no one in the world to look after my things, so when you hear that I have left the Mill, will you see about my box? And now, good-bye. I must go back to the Mill this evening." So saying he departed.
Heinrich followed him: "Friedrich, what does this mean?"
"What does it mean?" said Friedrich. "I will tell you. 'What the one looks the other feels.' The same thing has happened to us both, only your Fieka cries and my Hanchen laughs. I am not young enough for her. Well, it doesn't much matter; I was not too old for that fellow at Brandenburg, but what is one man's owl is another's nightingale."
"Don't speak so loud, Friedrich," said Heinrich in a low voice. "You are going to turn soldier and so am I."
"What! You?"
"Hush! Yes, I. I have no friends or relations far and wide, and stand alone in the world. I have spoken to the Herr Amtshauptmann, and he has promised to keep an eye on my property. I can let my Mill at Parchen any day, and I am going to sell my horse and waggon."
"Hurrah!" cried Friedrich, "your hand, comrade! Dumouriez! The very first morning, I said you had the making of a soldier in you."
"Yes, that's all very well," replied Heinrich. "I have got the will, but how about carrying it out?"
"When anyone has it in his mind to do something wrong, comrade," said Friedrich, "the Devil is always at hand to show him the way. And the Almighty will not do less. He will show us the right way, now, for this is for our country. Look,--I can't, I must stay till Easter--but do you drive over at once to Brandenburg, and ask at the Inn, where we were, for a tall man with a grey moustache and a scar across the right cheek, you will be sure to find him. Present yourself to him and report me as 'Friedrich Schult;' say that I have served, but you need not say that I deserted once from rocking children. And, when all is settled, let me know, and then I'll come."
"So let it be!" cried Heinrich. "And, Friedrich, greet Fieka from me, and tell her she's not to be surprised at what I may do. I will keep to what I said."
"I'll give your message. And now, goodnight."
"Good-night." And as Heinrich still stood there listening to Friedrich's footsteps, he heard round the corner "Dumouriez! Accursed patriots!"
How everything went head over heels--in the world, in Stemhagen, and in the Miller's house; why the Miller and Friedrich drove to Stemhagen; and why Fieka followed them.
The French came no more into our part of the country; but, all the same, it did not get any quieter. The Landsturm (levy en masse) was called out; the Herr Amtshauptmann commanded in chief, and, under him, Captain Grischow; but their men had only pikes,--except the Schoolmaster who had had a halbert made for himself by the locksmith, Tröpner. My uncle Herse raised a corps of sharpshooters of one-and-twenty fowling pieces, and the young peasants sat on horseback with their long swords at their sides.
It is a thing to laugh at, say the would-be wise. I say, it is a thing to weep at that such a time comes so seldom in Germany, and that such a time should have had no other result than that which the last forty years have to show.
A single French regiment would have driven the whole pack like chaff before the wind, say the would-be wise. It may be so, say I, but they would not have driven away the spirit; one may laugh at the individual signs; no one then, not even Buonaparte himself, laughed at the whole. On one and the same day the cry went through the whole of Lower Germany from the Vistula to the Elbe, from the Baltic to Berlin "The French are coming!" They say now that this cry was raised on purpose to see what Lower Germany would do. If that is true, then they had their wish: Lower Germany stood the test. Everywhere, far and wide, the alarm-bell sounded, not a village remained at home; everywhere there was marching hither and thither, and the "single French regiment" must have had long legs to crush the movement in all places at once.
The Stemhagen folk marched on Ankershagen; the French were said to be in Ankershagen. The Malchin folk marched on Stemhagen; the French were said to be in Stemhagen. Yes, it was a queer medley. In the market-place at Stemhagen the pike-men were divided into companies; Droz and the Miller's Friedrich were to manage them because they were the only ones who understood anything about war; but the burghers would not obey their commands, because the one was a Frenchman and the other a Miller's man. Nobody would stand in the rear rank. Deichert, the shoemaker, objected because Bank stood in the front; Groth, the taxgatherer, because Stahl the weaver, who was in the front, always sent the reverse end of the pike into his ribs in levelling bayonets, and he could not put up with it.
My uncle Herse drilled his one-and-twenty fowling pieces in the horse-pound, always making them fire off all together. His chief command was "At 'em! At 'em!" They were then all to fire off at once, first with blank cartridges, and afterwards with "ball," that is to say, shot; but as, at the first volley, Dr. Lukow's white cow was wounded, this shooting with "ball" had to be given up. They all said afterwards that the tailor, Zachow, had done it, but it was never proved. At last, they were all beautifully in rank and file, and when Captain Grischow commanded "left wheel," out they came into the Brandenburg road, and marched on in a splendid heap of confusion; and when they were outside the town-gates, every one looked for a dry path for himself, and they marched one behind the other, like geese among the barley. A halt was made at the Owl Hill to wait for their commander, the Herr Amtshauptmann. The Herr Amtshauptmann was too old to walk, and he could not ride, so he drove to battle; stately he sat in his long basket-carriage with his sword lying by his side. When he arrived, he received a "Vivat" from his troops; and then he made them a speech and said: "My children! We are not soldiers, and we shall make plenty of blunders, but that will do no harm. Whoever likes to laugh, may do so. But we will do our duty, and our duty is to show the French that we are at our post. It's a pity that I know nothing about the art of war, but I will look out in good time for a man who does--Herr Droz, come up here by my side, and when the enemy comes, tell me what I am to do. I will not forsake you, my children. And now forward, for the Fatherland!"
"Hurrah!" cried his people, and away they went against the enemy. The Pribbnow peasants and the labourers of Jürnsdorf and Kittendorf came, with pitchforks and such things, and joined them.
"Hanning Heinz," said my uncle Herse to his adjutant, "these are our Irregulars. At times, these sorts of troops are of great use,--as we have seen in the Cossacks; but they easily bring the regular troops into disorder; so keep yourselves well in a mass together, and when the attack begins, then 'At 'em!'"
The cavalry was sent out to reconnoitre, and rode in front, and Inspector Bräsig and the Ivenack town clerk had pistols; these they fired off every now and then,--probably to frighten the French; and in this way they reached Ankershagen;--but they did not meet the French. When this was reported to the Herr Amtshauptmann, he said:
"Children, it seems to me that we have done enough for to-day, and if we go back at once, we shall be home again by daylight. What say you, eh?"
The idea was good. Captain Grischow commanded "Right about face," and they all went home except half a company of pikes, and two fowling-pieces who fell upon the Kittendorf public house and there did wonders.
As they were marching back, Stahl came up to the Amtshauptmann and asked: "By your leave, Herr Amtshauptmann, may I lay my pike in your carriage for a little while?"
"Certainly."
And Deichert came, and Zachow came, and many came, and at last all came, with the same request; and by the time the Herr Amtshauptmann drove into the town, his innocent basket-carriage looked like an engine of war, like some scythe-chariot out of the Persian and Roman times.
Rathsherr Herse just let them fire "At 'em" three times more in the market-place, and then everyone went home quite satisfied. My uncle alone was dissatisfied: "Hanning Heinz," said he again to his adjutant; "there's no good in all this. Why does not the old Amtshauptmann let me set fire to the windmills first?"
If things went head-over-heels in the great world, they did not go differently at the Gielow Mill. People brought corn, and got no flour; the Mill stood still, and the corn was poured out on to the floor. Itzig came and received sack after sack, and every time that he drove away from the Mill, the Miller said: "Heaven be praised! There's another thirty--or forty--thalers paid," according to the quantity. But, all the time, he was not cheerful; he rather got despondent, and it was only after Rathsherr Herse had been with him, and had given him fresh courage, that he could ride his high horse, and talk about the great Christopher. When his wife sat and cried, and he felt Fieka near him with her quiet, calm face, he would get uneasy again, and he was obliged to talk in a loud voice to keep off fear; and when Fieka, as often happened, took his hand, or fell upon his neck, and said earnestly, with the tears in her eyes: "What is it, father? Tell me what you are doing this for?" he would answer according to the mood he was in. If it was his rich mood, he would kiss his child and tell her she had only to wait, things would come all right for her; but if he was despondent, he would push her away from him and say, coldly and harshly, that his affairs were not women's affairs, and he must know best what he had to do.
On all sides, there was secret torment and secret fear. However the whole thing could not but come out at last, when Baker Witte insisted on having his flour. He had sent for it, he had written for it, he now came for it himself, and there was noise and wrangling; and as the Baker drove away he shouted out "You thief!" and threatened the Miller with the arm of the law.
Fresh troubles came every day. Easter was at hand: large quantities of corn came from the neighbouring farms and villages to be ground for the feast-day; the Miller's corn flourished, but there was much, much weed with it. The Sheriff's officer came to the Mill to inquire into the matter. The Miller droned out unintelligible stuff about his lease and his right.
The day before Easter Itzig fetched the last load of corn, and the Miller came in to dinner to his wife and Fieka, and said: "At last we are rid of him. He has got his money!"
His wife and Fieka were silent, and the Miller did not pass a joyful Easter; for, do what he would, no happy belief in a sure future would rise within him.
And the next day the Sheriff's officer came again, and ordered the Miller to appear the following day before the Amtshauptmann. He asked for Friedrich, and when he came, told him he was also to appear.
"If I like," said Friedrich, and he turned on his heel, for he remembered that the Amtshauptmann had said to him: "I will not forget you."
"If you do not come," said the officer, "it will be at your peril."
"You gentlemen always imagine," laughed Friedrich, "that when your plums are ripe, one of us is to pick them. However, I shall be going to Stemhagen to-morrow in any case, for my time with the Miller is up."
"Nothing of the kind!" growled the Miller. "I have hired you till Midsummer."
The next day, the Miller drove with Friedrich to Stemhagen. Neither spoke a word; when they reached the market-place, Friedrich wanted to turn down to baker Witte's.
"Stop," cried the Miller; "I am not going there, I shall put up at Gruhle's."
"Then, Miller," said Friedrich, and he jumped down off the waggon, and threw the reins to him, "you can drive yourself there, I shall stay at Witte's." And with these words he went off.
In better days, the Miller would not have put up with this, but would have taught his man a lesson, even though that man were Friedrich. But now he said nothing. He was no longer the same Miller. He sighed heavily, drove up before Guhle's door without going in, and went to the Herr Rathsherr's over the way.
Scarcely had the waggon left the Mill, when Fieka came down, dressed in her best, to her mother, who was sitting by the stove crying.
"Mother," she said, "do what I can, I cannot get rid of the thought that everything depends on to-day; to-day will show whether we are to remain at the Mill or not. Father has done something and what it is...."
"It's stupid of him to have done it," interrupted the Miller's wife.
"And so I want to follow him," Fieka went on. "I will ask the Herr Amtshauptmann or the Frau Amtshauptmann or some one else--I don't know whom exactly yet.--God will show me the way, and put the words in my mouth."
"Go, Fieka," said her mother.
Fieka went. She could still see the waggon in the distance. She reached Stemhagen, and went, as usual, to Witte's house: she asked for the baker, he was at the Schloss; she went into the room,--there was Friedrich sitting talking to a soldier who had on a red jacket, and had got his back turned to her.
Friedrich jumped up: "Dumouriez! Fieka! How did you come here?"
The soldier also jumped up. Good heavens! What is this? Can that be Heinrich!--Yes it was. He threw his arm round her.
"Fieka, my darling little Fieka," he cried, "don't you know me again?"
Alas! she knew him well enough. She screamed out loud: "What, Heinrich? Heinrich, you turned soldier?"
"Well," said Friedrich, "and what should a brave fellow turn now but a soldier?"
Fieka paid no heed to the question, she had enough to do with her own thoughts, and they broke out from her lips:--"O, God! and this, too, is my old father's fault. What can be the matter with him?"
"He need not reproach himself about me, Fieka," said Heinrich. "Although at first when I wanted to go away, it was all the same to me where I went to, it is different now. Now, for the first time I know what I have turned soldier for, and for what cause we go to battle. Now, I know what it means when comrade stands by comrade, and a whole regiment enters the field with heart and soul for the Fatherland. You know how I love you; and yet if you would give me your hand to-day, I could not take it. I must go, but I take your heart with me."
"Spoken like a man!" cried Friedrich.
"You are right, Heinrich," said Fieka. "Go. But, when you come hack, you must not expect to find us here any longer. Misfortunes are coming over our heads, and who knows how long the Mill may shelter us."
"Eh, what, Fieka?" said Friedrich, "the Miller has got somewhat into a pickle, he has got up to his neck in water; but, for all that, the waves need not close over his head. He has still got good friends who can stretch out a hand to him."
"Who can help him?" said Fieka, and sat down and let her hands fall in her lap. "Nobody knows what he has got into his head."
"O, Heinrich knows something about it," said Friedrich. "He heard a little bird sing this morning.--Make him tell you what it said, for I must now be off to the Schloss."