Seed-time and Harvest Part 23

"Good, Frau Pastorin."

"Good heavens!" said she to herself, "I seem to myself like a Delilah indeed. Seated at a rendezvous, at half past eight in the evening! At my time of life! How scandalized I should have been when I was a young girl, at the thought of such a thing, and to be doing it now in my old age! Brasig! Don't sneeze so dreadfully! One might hear you a quarter of a mile off. And all this for that boy, for that miserable boy! G.o.d bless me, if my Pastor knew! Brasig, what are you laughing at? I forbid you to laugh!"

"I am not laughing, Frau Pastorin."

"Yes, you were laughing: I distinctly heard you laugh."

"I was merely yawning a little from weariness, Frau Pastorin."

"And can you yawn, over such a matter as this? I am ready to fly, hand and foot. Ah, you miserable scamp! What have you made of me! And I can tell n.o.body, I must fight it out alone. Brasig is a real G.o.dsend."

By and by Brasig spoke--in a whisper to be sure, but one could hear it as distinctly as the cry of the quail in the distance:--"Frau Pastorin, make yourself as long as Lewerenz's child, and as thin as possible, and put on a lovely, shamefaced mien, for he is coming over the hill, I can see him against the evening sky."

And the little Frau Pastorin's heart throbbed, and her wrath rose high against the youth, and she glowed with shame at her own situation, and now she would certainly have run away, if Brasig had not laughed again; but that provoked her, and she meant to show him that she was in earnest.

This time, Brasig really did laugh, for, behind the first dark figure that came over the hill he saw a second, and behind the second a third, and he chuckled to himself, behind his thorn-bush: "So! There is Karl Habermann, too; and now the whole inspectorship of Pumpelhagen is on foot, probably out to see how the peas look in the evening. This looks like a comedy!"

The Frau Pastorin did not see the others, she saw merely her precious nephew, who came straight towards her. Now he ran across the bridge, now he ran along the bank of the ditch, now he sprang forward a couple of feet, and clasped his dear aunt about the waist: "Beloved angel!"

"Wait, you rascal!" cried she in reply, and with the grip which Brasig had taught her she seized him, not exactly by the throat, but by the coat-collar, and cried with a clear voice, "The Philistines be upon thee!" and Brasig, the Philistine, scrambled up. Oh, thunder! his foot was asleep! but no matter! He hopped on one leg along the ditch, and almost sprang upon Fritz; but the overtasked leg failed under the weight of the hundred and eighty pounds it dragged after it; Brasig fell backwards into a thorn-bush, lost his balance, and tumbled, a lump of misfortune, into the foot and a half of ditch-water.

There he sat, for a moment, stiff and stark, as if he were at the water-cure, taking a sitz-bath. Fritz, also, stood stiff and stark, and felt as if he were taking a bath, but a shower-bath: he stood fairly under the stream of his aunt's indignant reproaches, which rushed and roared about his ears, ever ending with the words: "The dragon has you now, my son! The dragon has you now!"

"And here comes the horned beast!" growled Brasig, who had scrambled out of the ditch, and was close upon them. But Fritz had come to himself by this time; he broke loose from his aunt, and would have escaped, if a new enemy had not come upon him, from across the ditch.

This was Franz, and it was not long before Habermann also was there, and the little Frau Pastorin had scarcely recovered from this shock, when her Pastor stood before her, asking, "For heaven's sake, Regina, what does all this mean?"

The little Frau Pastorin was at the last extremity; but Brasig was not quite so far gone, although he felt as if he were changed into running waters, and on the point of dissolving. "Infamous greyhound!" cried he, giving Fritz a couple of digs under the ribs, "must I go and get my cursed Podagra again, on your account? But they shall all know what a confounded Jesuit you are. Habermann, he----"

"For heaven's sake!" cried the Frau Pastorin, catching breath again, in the gathering storm, and springing between them,--"don't any of you listen to Brasig! Habermann, Herr von Rambow, I beg of you! just go quietly home, the business is over, it is all over, and what isn't finished, my Pastor will attend to; it is a family affair, merely a family affair. Isn't it so, Fritz, my son? It is just a family affair, that concerns only us two. But now come, my son! We will tell my Pastor all about it. Good-night, Herr von Rambow! Good-night, Habermann. Fritz shall come back to you soon. Come, Brasig, we must get you to bed immediately."

And so she dispersed the company. The two who were not to be enlightened went off homewards, each by himself, shaking their heads; Habermann annoyed at the inexplicable behavior of his two young people, and that he could not penetrate its secret; Franz more than suspicious of the whole concern, for he had clearly recognized Louise's hat and shawl, in the half-twilight, and Louise must have some connection with the affair though he could make no sense of it.

Fritz, quite abashed, followed the Pastor and the Frau Pastorin, while the latter, in shame and sorrow, related the whole story. The procession drew near to the parsonage, and the evil-doer had so far recovered his courage, that he showed signs of running away; but Brasig stuck so close to his side that he was compelled to yield outwardly; but he raged inwardly all the more, and when Brasig asked the Frau Pastorin, who it was that had come so opportunely to their aid, and she mentioned the name of Franz, Fritz stood still, and shook his fist over the peas, in the direction of Pumpelhagen, and exclaimed, "I have been betrayed, and it shall be avenged, the Junker shall pay for it."

"Boy!" cried the Frau Pastorin, "will you hold your foolish tongue?"

"Softly, Regina!" said the Pastor, who was getting a tolerable idea of the matter, "go in and see that Brasig is put to bed; I will have a few words with Fritz."

She complied with his request, and as much reason as Fritz was capable of taking in was then, in all kindness, administered by the old Herr Pastor; but one can pour only so much clear wine into a full cask, as the working off of the froth and sc.u.m leaves room for, and while the Pastor gently poured in, Fritz was foaming out of the bung-hole: his own relations had conspired against his happiness, and thought more of the rich Junker than of their own sister's child.

Much the same thing was going on inside the house; only the cask, before which the Frau Pastorin stood, neither foamed nor dripped; this was Uncle Brasig, who would not be put to bed.

"I couldn't do it, Frau Pastorin," said he; "that is to say, I could, to be sure, but I oughtn't, for I must go to Rexow. Frau Nussler has written me orders to report myself at Rexow."

The same spirit and leaven which worked in Fritz sending off froth and sc.u.m not of the purest, fermented slowly but strongly in old Brasig, although the old cask had stood long in the cellar, and had become seasoned; and when he at last, out of respect for the Frau Pastorin and the Frau Podagra, suffered himself to be persuaded into bed, his thoughts turned the same corner which those of Fritz were turning, as going through the pease-field, back of the Pastor's garden, he stamped for the second time his heroic resolutions into the earth: "He would renounce her! Renounce her! But the devil take the confounded Junker!"

CHAPTER XIII.

The next morning--it was Sunday morning--Brasig awoke, and lay stretching himself in the soft bed--"A pleasure," he said to himself, which I have never allowed myself before, but which is very agreeable.

However, it is mainly from the novelty of the thing; one would soon get tired of it; "and he was on the point of getting up, when Frau Pastorin's maid-servant whisked in at the door, seized his clothes with one grasp, and ran off with them, leaving in their place a black coat and black trousers, and a black vest, lying on the chair.

"Ho, ho!" laughed he, looking at the black suit. "It is Sunday, and this is the parsonage; can it be possible they think I am going to preach to-day?" He lifted one garment after another, and said, at last, "Now I understand! It is only because of the ditch yesterday; because my own clothes are so wet and dirty, I must make myself comfortable in the Herr Pastor's. Well, here goes!"

But it didn't go quite so easily, and as for being comfortable that was out of the question. The clothes were long enough, to be sure, but as for breadth, he found close quarters in the Herr Pastor's trousers, it was utterly impossible to b.u.t.ton the lower b.u.t.tons of the vest, and when he put on the coat, it cramped him dreadfully between the shoulder-blades, and his arms stood out from his body, as if he were ready on this Sunday morning, to press the whole world to his honest heart.

So he went down stairs to the Frau Pastor in, his legs turned outward, as was his usual manner of walking since he had been pensioned; but his arms also were turned outward now, and the Frau Pastorin had to laugh heartily; but retreated behind the breakfast table, as Brasig came towards her, with open arms, as if she were to be the first subject of the world-embrace.

"Don't come near me, Brasig!" cried she '"If I had dreamed that you would cut such a ridiculous figure in my good, old Pastor's clothes, you should have stayed in bed till noon, for it will be as late as that before yours are washed and dried."

"Ho, ho!" laughed Brasig, "was that the reason? And I was flattering myself that you sent me the Pastor's clothes that I might be more pleasing in your eyes at our rendezvous this morning."

"Just listen to me, Brasig!" said the Frau Pastorin, with a face red as fire. "I will have no such joking as that! And if you go round in the neighborhood--you have nothing else to do now, but carry stories from one to another--and tell about last evening, and that confounded rendezvous, I'll have nothing more to say to you."

"Frau Pastorin, what do you take me for?" cried Brasig, advancing upon her again, with outspread arms, so that she took refuge a second time behind the table. "You need not be afraid of me, I am no Jesuit."

"No, Brasig, you are an old heathen, but you are no Jesuit. But you must tell something. Oh, dear! Habermann must know, my Pastor says so himself. But when he asks you about it, you can leave me out of the story. Only think, if the Pomuchelskopps should get hold of it, I should be the most miserable woman in the world. Oh, heaven help us!

And I did it only in the kindness of my heart, for that innocent child, Brasig. I have sacrificed myself for her."

"That you have, Frau Pastorin," said Brasig, earnestly, "and therefore don't worry yourself about it the least in the world; for, you see, if Karl Habermann asks me what we were doing there, then I can say--then--then I will say you had appointed a rendezvous with myself."

"With you? For shame, Brasig!"

"Now, Frau Pastorin, am I not as good as that greyhound? And surely our years are more suited to each other!" And with that Brasig looked up as innocently, as if he had thought of the best excuse in the world. The Frau Pastorin looked keenly in his honest face, and folded her hands thoughtfully on her lap, and said, "Brasig, I will trust you. But, Brasig, dear Brasig, manage it as quietly as you can. And now come, sit down, and drink a cup of coffee." And she grasped one of his stiff arms, and turned him round to the table, as a miller turns about a windmill to the wind.

"Good!" said Brasig, taking the cup, which he held out with his stiff arm as if he were a sleight-of-hand performer, and the cup a hundred-pound weight, and he was holding it before an appreciative public in the open air; he tried to seat himself also; but as he bent his knees something cracked, and he sprang up,--whether it was the Pastor's chair, or the Pastor's trousers, he did not know; but he drank his coffee standing, and said, "It was just as well; he could not wait long, for he must go to Rexow, to Frau Nussler."

All the Frau Pastorin's entreaties that he would wait till his own clothes were dried were of no avail; Frau Nussler's least wish was for him a command, registered in the memorandum book of his conscience, and so he sailed off,--the long, black flaps of the priestly garment flying behind him in the summer morning,--toward Pumpelhagen and Rexow, slowly and heavily, like the crows we used to catch, when I was a boy, and then let fly again.

He came to Pumpelhagen, and there he was accosted by Habermann, who saw him over the garden fence. "Good heavens, Zachary, how you look!"

"The result of circ.u.mstances, Karl! You know I fell into the mud, last night,--but I haven't time, I must go to your sister."

"Brasig, my sister's business can afford to wait better than mine, I have noticed for some time, there has been a great deal going on behind my back, which I was to know nothing of. That wasn't so much; but, since last night, I am sure that the Herr Pastor and the Frau Pastorin know all about the matter, and if they are keeping anything from me, I know it can be merely out of kindness."

"You are right, Karl; it is out of kindness," interrupted Brasig.

"I am sure of it, Brasig, and I am not disposed to be suspicious, but for some time it has lain heavy on my heart that this is a matter which concerns me very nearly. What did you have to do with the business last evening?"

"I, Karl? I only had a rendezvous with the Frau Pastorin, in the water-ditch."

"What did the Herr Pastor have to do with it?"

"Karl, we did not know anything about it, he surprised us."

"What had the Herr von Rambow to do with it?"