In the Year '13 Part 29

"Here," answered the Miller, giving it to him. The old Herr read it, and shook his head: "Hm! hm! This is a very strange thing!" he took up his bell and rang: "Fritz Sahlmann is to come down to me."

Fritz came.

"Come here, Fritz,--nearer!"

Fritz came nearer.

The Herr Amtshauptmann took him by the ear and led him to the table where the lease was lying open.

"Fritz, what have I often told you? That you would do some terrible mischief one day with your flightiness! And now it's come to pa.s.s. You have led two old people into follies that would have cost them dear, if I did not know that they were nothing more than follies. Take your pen and strike out 'bushel' here and write 'pint' above."

Fritz did so. The Herr Amtshauptmann took the lease and gave it back to the Miller: "There, Miller Voss, it's all right now."

"But, Herr Amtshauptmann...." cried the Miller.

"I will speak to your creditors," said the old Herr, "that they may give you a week's respite; but you must get the corn or the money in that time, else it will go ill with you."

"But, Herr Amtshauptmann...." cried my uncle Herse, getting up. The Herr Amtshauptmann looked at him. My uncle had clearly lost command over himself.

"Seat yourself, Herr Rathsherr, and listen to me," said the old Herr very earnestly. "You have no children and you have got enough to live upon. Give up your Notary Publicship, or, if you cannot, then do not exercise it within my district. No good will ever come of your doing so." So saying, he turned his back upon the Rathsherr, rang his bell, and said: "Let the Miller's man, Friedrich Schult, come in."

The old Miller had gone towards the door quite broken down and humbled.

My uncle had followed him; and anyone could see that all was whirring and buzzing inside his head. At the door, he stopped and stretched out both arms, but said nothing. But now Friedrich came in and pushed him a little on one side and out of the door; he threw one hasty glance at Friedrich; the old beadle, Ferge, shut the door; and that was the last look my uncle ever gave into law matters, for after that he hung the Notaryship on a nail.

"Come a little nearer, my son," said the Herr Amtshauptmann to Friedrich, "come a little nearer.--It is you who want to marry my Hanchen, is it not?"

"No," said Friedrich.

"Eh!" said the old Herr, looking more sharply at him, "are not you in the Miller's service then?"

"No," said Friedrich, without moving.

"What! Are not you the Miller's man, Friedrich Schult, whom I once said I would remember? What say you, eh?"

"1 am Friedrich Schult, Herr; but I'm no longer in the Miller's service. I've left him, and I don't wish for the girl any longer, for she let me go. And I'm not a Miller's man any more. I enlisted about half an hour ago."

"Well, you've chosen the right thing, I think. But, my son, I have a rod in pickle for you. Was it not you who first took the valise from the cha.s.seur's horse?"

"Yes."

"And you opened it and took money out of it, and knew therefore that there was money in it?"

"Yes, I did," said Friedrich boldly. "I don't deny it."

"Well, then, listen attentively to what I am going to say to you. The money is now ownerless property, for the French have given it up. But there is a fellow whom they call 'Exchequer.' He's a rapacious fellow.

He swallows everything he can lay hold of, and he's especially hard on 'treasure-trove,' and he has got all this, so to speak, in his jaws.

But sometimes he has also kind fits, when he sees a rare piece of honesty and somebody brings it clearly before his eyes. I have done this last with all my might, and this Mr. Exchequer has given up his claim to the money, in your favour. And here is the rod I had in pickle for you." And he threw back a cloth, and the Frenchman's valise appeared. "Friedrich Schult, the valise and the money are yours!"

Friedrich stood still and looked at the Herr Amtshauptmann and at the valise and then again at the valise and the Herr Amtshauptmann, and at last began to scratch his head in a determined way, behind the ears.

"Well!" said the Amtshauptmann, and he laid his hand on Friedrich's shoulder. "What say you, Friedrich, eh?"

"Hm! Yes, Herr Amtshauptmann, I thank you very much, but it doesn't exactly suit me."

"What! The money does not suit you!"

"O, yes, the money suits me well enough, but not just now. The girl won't have me, and I've enlisted, and I can't take it with me."

"Hm!" said the old Herr, and he paced up and down the room with long strides, "this is a very strange thing!" At last he stood still in front of Friedrich, and looked at him with a peculiar look in his eyes: "Money is very scarce just now, and I know where there is a father of a family wringing the very skin off his fingers, and his wife and child sit in tears."

Friedrich looked up. He looked into the Amtshauptmann's face, and it seemed to him as if a beam of light came from it and fell warmly upon his heart.

"Dumouriez!" he cried and he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the valise and put it under his arm.--"I know what to do with it," he said, "Good-day, Herr."

He was going. The old Herr followed him to the door--"My son," and he took his hand, "when you come back again from the war let me see you, and hear how things have gone with you."

The Justice-room was empty. The Herr Amtshauptmann was sitting with his wife in her room.

"Neiting, when this Friedrich, this Miller's man, comes back again I think I shall be better pleased than if a Princess were to come and see us."

As the Miller and my uncle Herse went down the Schloss Hill, they did not speak a word; but for opposite reasons: the Miller was silent because he was wrapped up in himself, my uncle because he was quite _out_ of himself. At last my uncle broke out:--

"And so that's what they call a court of justice! That's what they call a verdict? The rude old fellow won't let a man bring in a single word.

We'll go further, Miller Voss; we'll go to a higher court."

"I'll go no further, Herr Rathsherr,"' said the old Miller, feebly, "I have gone far enough already!"

"Neighbour," said old Baker Witte, who had followed them and had heard what the Miller said, "don't let that worry you too much, things may get better. And now come home with me; your Fieka is there."

"My Fieka!----"

But the Baker would not let him say anything more, and the old Miller followed him into his house like a helpless child. Poverty not shame pressed him down.

My uncle Herse did not go in with them. He walked up and down before the door and all sorts of thoughts came into his head. My uncle had always plenty of ideas and generally they trotted about in his brain like pretty little blue-eyed children, and though they would often run about and tumble over each other in play at blind-man's-buff, and do all sorts of perverse things, yet they were always dressed in their Sunday best, and nice and neat for him to look at; but the thoughts which came to him at Witte's door were a parcel of ragged beggar children who would not be driven away, but stretched out their hands as it were, and cried with one voice: "Herr Rathsherr, Herr Rathsherr Herse, help the Miller. You brought him into this sc.r.a.pe--now get him out of it again."--"Leave me, leave me, for G.o.d's sake, leave me,"

cried my uncle. "I will help him, I will mortgage my house; but who will take it! Where is the money to come from?" And the little beggar children drove him so hard into a corner, that he was obliged to take refuge inside Witte's stable to get out of their way.

Heinrich was standing there, saddling and bridling his two horses, which were not yet sold, and, just as my uncle had found out who it was in the red jacket and with "_war_" on his upper lip, Friedrich came in and threw the valise into the crib so that it rang again.

"Heinrich," cried he, "the first step is always the hardest, as the Devil said when he began to carry millstones, but----" here he became aware of the presence of the Rathsherr and broke off--"Good morning, Herr Rathsherr; excuse my asking you, but you could do me a great favour. You see, the Miller hired me till Midsummer, and, by rights, I ought to stay; but I terribly want to go; so will you tell him that if he'll let me go, I'll lend him the Frenchman's money till I come back.

For they gave it me to-day up at the Schloss, and it's lying here in the crib."

Away were all the little beggar boys, and back came the nicely arrayed little children into my uncle Herse's brain-box, and jumped about and threw somersets, and he himself nearly threw a somerset over a halter as he sprang towards Friedrich: "Friedrich, you are a--a--you are an angel."

"Yes, a fine old angel," said Friedrich.

"We'll put it on paper at once, Friedrich" cried my uncle

"No, Herr Rathsherr," said he, "we will not do that, there might be another slip of the pen, and then there would be fresh misery; what is spoken from mouth to mouth--that counts. Heinrich," he went on, turning to the latter, "have you settled your affairs, and everything with Fieka?"