The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Vii Part 11

"As far as the others are concerned, they do not live with us and I have no authority over them. If they are base enough to refuse to do their duty and to meet their obligations, then simply strike out the names of the scamps, for you can never get anything out of a peasant by a law-suit. But as against those who live in our precinct, I will help you to secure your rights. We still have means of accomplishing that."

"Oho, Squire!" said one of the peasants to him, half-aloud. "You talk as if you always carried the rope around with you in your coat-sleeve. When is the secret court to be held?"

"Be still, tree-warden!" interrupted the old man with earnestness.

"Sneering remarks like that might get you into trouble!"

The man addressed was disconcerted; he cast down his eyes and made no reply. Lisbeth thanked the old man for his offer of help, and inquired about the roads and paths to the other peasants whose names she still had left on her writing-tablet. The Justice pointed out to her the shortest way to the nearest farm, which led across the Priests' Meadow, past the three mills and over the Holle Hills. When she had put on her straw hat, taken her staff, expressed her thanks for the hospitality shown her, and had thus made herself ready to leave, he begged her to make her arrangements such that on her return she could stay for the wedding and a day thereafter. He hoped that he would be able to give her by that time definite a.s.surance in regard to the rents, or, perhaps, even to give her the money itself to take home with her.

When the young girl's slender and graceful form had disappeared behind the last walnut-trees at the farther end of the orchard, the peasants broached the subject which had brought them to the Justice. The building of a new road, which was to establish a connection with the main highway, threatened, if the idea were carried out, to deprive them of a few strips of their land over which it was necessary to lay the new road. Against this loss, although the project would redound to the advantage of all the surrounding peasantry, they were anxious to protect themselves; and how to avert it was the question about which they were anxious to secure the advice of the owner of the Oberhof.

"Good day! How are you?" called out a voice, well known in this locality. A pedestrian, a man in respectable attire, but covered with dust from his gray gaiters to his green, visored cap, had entered through the gate and approached the table, unnoticed at first by the conversers.

"Ah, Mr. Schmitz, so we see you too, once more, eh?" said the old peasant very cordially, and he had the servant bring the fatigued man the best there was in the wine-cellar. The peasants politely moved closer together to make room for the new arrival. They insisted upon his sitting down, and he lowered himself into a chair with great care and deliberation, so as not to break what he was carrying. And this procedure was indeed very necessary, for the man was loaded down like an express-wagon, and the outlines of his form resembled a conglomeration of bundles tied together. Not only did his coat-pockets, which were crammed full of all sorts of round, square and oblong objects, bulge out from his body in an astonishing manner, but also his breast and side pockets, which were used for the same purpose, protruded in a manifold variety of swellings and eminences, which stuck out all the more sharply as the Collector, in order not to lose any of his treasures, had, in spite of the summer heat, b.u.t.toned his coat tightly together. Even the inside of his cap had been obliged to serve for the storing of several smaller articles, and had acquired from its contents the shape and semblance of a watermelon. He sipped, with manifest relish, the good wine that was put before him, and his elderly countenance, bloated and reddened with heat and fatigue, gradually acquired its natural color and form again.

"Been doing good business, Mr. Schmitz?" inquired the Justice, smiling.

"Judging from appearances, one might think so."

"Oh, fairly good," replied the Collector. "There is a rich blessing hidden in the dear earth. It not only brings forth corn and vegetables constantly and untiringly--an alert searcher may secure a harvest of antiquities from it all the time, no matter how much other people have scratched and dug for them. So I have once more taken my little trip through the country, and this time I got as far as the border of the Sieg valley. I am on my way back now and intend to go on as far as the city today. But I had to stop over a while at your place on the way, Justice, in order to rest myself a bit, for I am certainly tired."

"What are you bringing with you?" asked the Justice.

The Collector tapped gently and affectionately on all the swellings and protuberances of his various pockets, and said:

"Oh, well, some very nice things--all sorts of curiosities. A battle-axe, a pair of thunderbolts, some heathen rings--beautiful things all covered with green rust--ash-urns, tear-bottles, three idols and a pair of valuable lamps." He struck the nape of his neck with the back of his hand and continued: "And I also have here with me a perfectly preserved piece of bronze--I had no other place to put it, so I tied it fast here on my back under my coat. Well, it will probably not look amiss, once it is all cleaned up and given its proper place."

The peasants displayed some curiosity to see a few of the articles, but old Schmitz declared himself unable to satisfy it, because the antiquities were so carefully packed and put away with such ingenious use of every bit of s.p.a.ce that it would be difficult, if it were once taken out, to get the entire load back in again. The Justice said something into the servant's ear, and the latter went into the house. In the meanwhile the Collector told in detail all about the places where he had come across the various acquisitions; then he moved his chair nearer to his host and said confidentially:

"But what is by far the most important discovery of this trip--I have now really found the actual place where Hermann defeated Varus!"

"You don't mean it?" replied the Justice, pushing his cap back and forth.

"They have all been on the wrong track--Clostermeier, Schmid, and whatever the names of the other people may be who have written about it!" cried the Collector ardently. "They have always thought that Varus withdrew in the direction of Aliso--the exact situation of which no man has ever discovered--well, anyway, in a northerly direction, and in accordance with that theory the battle is supposed to have taken place between the sources of the Lippe and the Ems, near Detmold, Lippspring, Paderborn, and G.o.d knows where else!"

The Justice said: "I think that Varus had to try with all his might to reach the Rhine, and that he could have done only by gaining the open country. The battle is said to have lasted three days, and in that length of time you can march a good distance. Hence I am rather of the opinion that the attack in the mountains which surround our plain did not take place very far from here."

"Wrong, wrong, Justice!" cried the Collector. "Here below everything was occupied and blocked up by the Cherusci, Catti, and Sigambri. No the battle was much farther south, near the region of the Ruhr, not far from Arnsberg. Varus had to push his way through the mountains, he had no egress anywhere, and his mind was bent on reaching the middle Rhine, whither the road leads diagonally across Sauerland. That is what I have always thought, and now I have discovered the most unmistakable evidence of it. Close by the Ruhr I found the bronze and bought the three idols, and a man from the village told me that hardly an hour's walk from there was a place in the woods among the mountains where an enormous quant.i.ty of bones were piled up in the sand and gravel. Ha! I exclaimed, the day is beginning to break. I went out there with a few peasants, had them excavate a little, and, behold! we came across bones to my heart's content. So that is the place where Germanicus had the remnants of the Roman legions buried six years after the battle of Teutoburg Wood, when he directed his last expeditions against Hermann. And I have therefore discovered the right battlefield."

"Bones do not ordinarily preserve themselves for a thousand years and more," said the Justice, shaking his head doubtfully.

"They have become petrified among the minerals there," said the collector angrily. "I'll have to put an evidence of my theory in your hand--here is one I have brought with me." He drew forth a large bone from his shirt and held it before his opponent's eyes. "Now, what do you call that?" he asked triumphantly.

The peasants stared at the bone in amazement. The Justice, after he had examined it, replied: "A cow's bone, Mr. Schmitz! You discovered a carrion-pit, not the battlefield of Teutoburg."

The Collector indignantly put the discredited antiquity back into its place and uttered a few violent imprecations, to which the old peasant knew the most effective way to reply. It seemed as if a quarrel might ensue between the two men, but as a matter of fact the appearances were of no significance. For it was a common thing for them, whenever they got together, to disagree about this and similar matters. But in spite of these controversies they always remained good friends. The Collector, who, in order to follow up his hobbies, even begrudged himself bread, was in the habit all the year round of feeding himself for weeks at a time out of the full meat-pots of the Oberhof, and in return for it he helped along his host's business by doing all kinds of writing for him.

For the Collector had formerly been, by profession, a sworn and matriculated Imperial Notary.

Finally, after a great deal of fruitless argument on both sides, the Justice said: "I won't wrangle with you over the battlefield, although I still persist in my belief that Hermann defeated Varus somewhere around this neighborhood. As a matter of fact it doesn't make any particular difference to me where it happened--the question is one for the scholars. For if the other Roman general, six years afterwards, as you have often told me, marched into this region with another army, then the whole battle had but little significance."

"You don't know anything about it!" exclaimed the Collector. "The present existence and position of Germany rests entirely upon the battle won by Hermann. If it had not been for Hermann 'the liberator,' you would not be occupying these extensive premises now, marked off by your hedges and stakes. But you people simply live along from one day to the next, and have no use for history and antiquity."

"Oho, Mr. Schmitz, you do me great injustice there," replied the old peasant proudly. "G.o.d knows what pleasure it gives me to sit down of a winter evening and read the chronicles and histories, and you yourself know that I treat the sword of Carolus Magnus (the old man p.r.o.nounced the second syllable long), which has now for a thousand years and more been in the possession of the Oberhof, as I do the apple of my eye, and consequently--"

"The sword of Charles the Great!" exclaimed the Collector scornfully.

"Friend, is it impossible to get these notions out of your head?

Listen--"

"I say and maintain that it is the genuine and actual sword of Carolus Magnus with which he here at the Oberhof located and established the 'Freemen's Tribunal.' And even today the sword still performs and fulfils its office, although nothing further may be said about it." The old man uttered these words with an expression on his features and a gesture which had something sublime in them.

"And I say and maintain that all that is sheer nonsense!" exclaimed the Collector with emphasis. "I have examined the old toasting-iron no less than a hundred times, and it isn't five hundred years old! It comes down perhaps from the time of the feud of Soest, when very likely one of the Archbishop's cavalrymen crawled into the bushes here and left it."

"The devil take you!" cried the Justice, pounding his fist on the table.

Then he mumbled softly to himself "Just wait; you'll get your punishment for that this very day!"

The servant came out of the door. He was carrying a terra-cotta jug with a rather large circ.u.mference and a strange, exotic appearance, gripping it firmly and carefully by the handles with both hands.

"Oh!" cried the Collector, when he had obtained a closer view of it.

"What a splendid large amphora! Where did it come from?"

The Justice replied with an air of indifference: "Oh, I found the old jug in the ditch a week ago when we were digging out gravel. There was a lot more stuff around there, but the men smashed it all to pieces with their picks. This jug was the only thing they spared, and, inasmuch as you are here, I wanted you to see it."

The Collector looked at the large, well-preserved vessel with moist eyes. Finally he stammered: "Can't we strike a bargain for it?"

"No," replied the peasant coldly. "I'll keep the pot for myself." He motioned to the servant, and the latter started to carry the amphora back into the house. He was prevented from doing so, however, by the Collector, who, without turning his eyes away from it, besought its owner with all kinds of lively arguments to turn the longed-for wine-jug over to him. But it was all in vain; the Justice, in the face of the most urgent entreaties, maintained an att.i.tude of unshakable composure.

In this way he formed the motionless centre-figure of the group, of which the peasants, listening to the business with open mouths, the servant tugging the jug with both handles toward the house, and the antiquarian holding on to the lower end, const.i.tuted the excited lateral and secondary figures. Finally the Justice said that he had been of a mind to give the jug to his guest along with several other pieces which he had previously discovered, because he himself would take pleasure in seeing the old things arranged in order on the shelves of the collection around the room, but that the constant attacks made by the Collector against the sword of Carolus Magnus had annoyed him, and that he had decided, therefore, to keep the jug after all.

Thereupon, after a pause, the Collector said in a dejected tone that to err was human, that medieval weapons could not always be distinguished with certainty as to their age, that he himself was less of an expert in these than in Roman relics, and that there were after all many things about the sword which seemed to indicate a more remote age, before the feud of Soest. Whereupon the Justice replied that general statements of that kind were of no use to him; he wanted to have the dispute and doubt regarding his sword settled once and for all, and there was only one way for the Collector to gain possession of the old jug, namely, by writing out on the spot a signed statement, wherein he should formally recognize the sword kept in the Oberhof as the actual sword of Charles the Great.

On hearing this a severe conflict ensued in the Collector's mind between his antiquarian conscience and his antiquarian longing. He pouted his lips and tapped with his fingers about the spot where he had concealed the bone from the battlefield of Teutoburg. Evidently he was striving to subdue the exhortations of a desire which was seducing him into signing an untruthful statement. Finally, however, pa.s.sion, as is always the way, got the upper hand; suddenly demanding pen and paper, he made out in hot haste, now and then casting furtive glances at the amphora, a direct statement to the effect that he, after frequent examinations of it, recognized and declared the sword in the Oberhof as one formerly belonging to the Emperor, Charles the Great.

This doc.u.ment the Justice had signed by the two peasants as witnesses; then he folded the paper several times and put it into his pocket. Old Schmitz, on the other hand, made a quick grab for the amphora which he had purchased at the expense of his better judgment. The Justice said that he would deliver the jug to him in the city on the following day.

But what collector could ever get along, even for a minute, without the actual possession of a piece of property acquired at so high a price?

Our Collector resolutely declined to submit to any delay; he had a string brought to him, ran it through the handles, and suspended the large wine-jug over his shoulders. After that, the Collector having first been invited to the wedding, the two men parted in the best of humor; and the latter with his bulging angularities, his swelled-up, protruding coat-tails, and with the amphora bobbing back and forth at his left side, made a remarkable spectacle as he walked away.

The peasants wished their adviser a good morning, promised to bear his advice in mind, and departed, each one to his own farmstead. The Justice, who, dealing with all the people who had come to him in the course of an hour, had successfully handled everything undertaken, first took the newly-acquired doc.u.ment of recognition to the room where he kept the sword of Charles the Great, and then went with the servant to the granary to measure out oats for the horses.

CHAPTER III

THE OBERHOF

"Westphalia formerly consisted of individual estates, each one of which had its own free possessor. Several such estates const.i.tuted a Bauerschaft (peasant community), which, as a rule, bore the name of the oldest estate. It lay in the original character of the peasant communities that the oldest estate should also stand first in rank and come to be the most aristocratic, and here from time to time the children, grandchildren and house-inmates, ceasing work for a few days, came together and feasted. The beginning, or else the end, of the summer was the usual time for this event, and then every estate-owner brought along with him for the feast some of the fruits which he himself had raised, and perhaps a calf or lamb as well. Then all sorts of matters were discussed, opinions were exchanged, marriages performed, deaths made known, and then the son, as the succeeding head of his father's estate, was sure to make his first appearance in the company with fuller hands and a choicer animal. Disagreements were unavoidable on these days of joy, and in the event of one, the father, as the head of the oldest estate, stepped in and, with the approval of the rest, put an end to the quarrel. If during the previous year any of the estate-owners had disagreed about some matter, both of them brought forward their grievances before the next gathering, and both were satisfied with whatever decision their fellows deemed right and just. After all the eatables had been devoured, and the tree set aside for the occasion had been burned up, the feast, or the gathering, came to an end. Each one returned home, related the events of the occasion to the waiting members of his household, and came to be a living and continuing authority regarding all the happenings of their peasant community.

These gatherings were called Conferences, Peasant Conferences, because all the estate-owners of a peasant community came together to confer with one another, and also Peasant Tribunals, because here the conflicting claims of the men, already by tacit agreement combined in a union, were either settled or rejected. Inasmuch as the Peasant Conferences or Peasant Tribunals were held at the oldest and most aristocratic estate, such an estate was called Court Estate, and the Peasant Conferences and Peasant Tribunals were called Court Conferences and Court Tribunals; and the latter, even at the present day, have not entirely disappeared. The oldest estate, the Court Estate, was called by way of distinction simply the Estate, the name whereby the people designated the Main Estate or the Oberhof of the peasant community, and its owner as the head or chief of the rest.

Thus in a general way we account for the origin of the first a.s.sociation and the first judicial arrangement of the Westphalian Estates or peasant communities. It is the less surprising when we consider that the former condition of Westphalia permitted only a slow increase of population and a gradual development of agriculture; and precisely this gradual progress led to those simple and uniform arrangements, as also to the similarity of culture, manners and customs, which we find among the ancient inhabitants of Westphalia."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OBERHOF BY BENJAMIN VAUTIER]