In the Year '13 Part 14

Mamsell Westphalen also wanted to follow, and Hanchen and Corlin were preparing to go too, when "Halte, halte!" cried the Judge;--and they who did not get out, were the three women.

Many a time afterwards did Mamsell Westphalen relate this trial and what she had felt during it, but she always began in the same way,--that it had been as if she were standing in the Stemhagen belfry, and all the bells, great and small, were ringing in her ears, and, when the Herr Amtshauptmann went away from her, it was as if a white dove had flown away from the belfry and she must follow him to life or death; but the fellow whom they nick-named a judge had held her fast by the skirt of her gown. "And, Frau Meister," she would then add, "I have seen many a dozen of judges in my life, and they were all bad enough, but such a gallows-bird as this French Judge I never did see. For, look you Frau Meister, he had on a yellow livery and 'gallows' was plainly written in his face."

It was with Mamsell Westphalen as with many honest souls who have a great terror of danger that threatens in the distance, but who are no sooner in the middle of it than they play with it; being like gnats, which cannot bear smoke but are attracted by fire. When she saw that the bridge behind her was broken away, and that she was going to be put on oath, she set her arms a-kimbo, walked forward and stood on the same place on which the Amtshauptmann had stood. "For," she said afterwards, "I had seen that he had stood proudly there, and his spirit came over me."

The Judge now asked what she knew of the watchmaker.

"I know nothing about him except that he speaks broken German, that, for bread, he says '_doo pang_' and for wine, '_doo vang_;' that's all I know."

How was it that he was in a French uniform?

"I don't know how he gets into it and I don't know how he gets out of it again. I suppose he does like all other men."

Why had he come up to the Schloss last night?

"A great many people come to the Schloss--all honest people, except those whom the gensdarmes bring,--and if I am to bother myself with what they all want, the duke had better make me Amtshauptmann, and the Herr Amtshauptmann can then look after the kitchen."

Why had not the watchmaker gone home?

"Because the weather was so bad that one could not have had the heart to drive a dog out of the house, much less a Christian. I hold the man for a Christian, though he's not too good a one, for, as I have heard say, he goes hunting hares by night--and why doesn't he go in the daytime like other folk?--and then he uses a stool with one leg, which he straps on to himself behind, and every other Christian sits on a stool with three legs; and he wanted to mislead our Corlin into this outlandish mode for milking, but she told him plainly that if that was the fas.h.i.+on in his country, he might run about with the stool tied to him if he liked, but she was not going to make herself the laughing-stock of the place."

But why had she hidden the watchmaker with her in her room?

At this Mamsell Westphalen was silent, the blood rushed into her face at the impertinence of the French fellow; that was the very question that had driven her into flight up in the garret. But while in her distress she was seeking for an answer, help came. Hanchen Besserdich and Corlin pressed forward to her side and burst out "Those are lies; those are foul lies!" They would take their oath of it. Their Mamsell had slept with them; and they should tell the Herr Amtshaup-mann.

The noise became dreadful, and scarcely had the Judge succeeded in restoring quiet, when they broke out again, and at last the Judge ordered them all three to be turned out.

"Frau Meister," said Mamsell Westphalen afterwards to the weaver's wife, "you know I've always been against Hanchen Besserdich's sharp tongue, but no angel could have helped me better at that moment than she with her chatter. Frau Meister, Man must not despise what, at times, is disagreeable to him; who knows of what use it may not be. And a sharp tongue is one of those things. That's what I say and that's what I hold to. And I shan't forget the girl."

CHAPTER XII.

Tells how the Amtshauptmann and the French Colonel nearly embraced each other; how my Mother pulled the Amtshauptmann by the tail of his coat; and how the Corsican dragon carried off my Father and my uncle Herse.

When the Herr Amtshauptmann left the Court of Justice, he went straight across to the other side of the hall to a place where he had often been before and often came afterwards, namely my mother's room--for we lived in the Rathhaus.

My mother sat knitting, and we children were playing about her; for what do children know of cares? But she was sad and anxious; she sat there silent and perhaps did not even hear the noise which we were making round her. She probably still knew nothing of the difficulty in which my father was, for it was not his custom to tell all his little troubles; but there is a curious fact about women--a man may see at once which way the wind blows, but a woman will have known a long time before that a change was at hand.--Well, the old Herr came into my mother's room and said,--

"Good morning, my dear friend. How are you? Much troubled with all these Frenchmen? What say you, eh?"

My mother held out her hand to him. She was very fond of the fine old man who used to come and sit by her side for many an hour, pouring out, in his simple and open-hearted way, the experience of his grey hairs.

Not but what he was merry and lively enough when he related the exploits of his Jena student-days, and what he and his brother, Adolph Diedrich,--"The Professor _juris utriusque_ at Rostock, my friend--"

had done in their students-society, the "amici." My mother held out her hand to him, for she could not get up; she had become lame during a severe illness, and I never saw her otherwise than,--when she was at her best,--sitting on a chair knitting away as industriously as if her poor, weak hands were strong and well; or,--at her weaker times,--lying in bed, in pain, reading her books. What the books were which she read, I know no longer; but novels they were not; I only remember this much, that the Herr Amtshauptmann's Marcus Aurelius was sometimes amongst them, for I had to carry it backwards and forwards.

It was not the Amtshauptmann's habit needlessly to alarm women, and so instead of talking about the troubles in the Court of Justice, he began about the bad weather, and he was just giving a short description of the pools in the Stemhagen market-place--for it was not paved in those days,--when the door opened and the French colonel came in. He made my mother a stiff bow, and advanced towards the Amtshauptmann.

We children left our playthings and crept, in a little knot, into the corner behind the tile-stove, like chickens when a kite is overhead, and wondered what this meant. Probably my mother also wondered, for she gazed anxiously at the old Herr in whose face there was a cold, haughty look that she had never seen before.

But the Colonel did not take it ill, and there was a friendly politeness in his tone as he said to the old gentleman, "I beg your pardon. I heard just now in the court the name of 'Weber.' Is your name 'Weber?'"

"Joseph Heinrich Weber," replied the Amtshauptmann shortly and stood as erect as a pillar.

"Have you not a brother named 'Adolph Diedrich?'"

"Adolph Diedrich, professor at Rostock," answered the old Herr without moving a limb.

"Herr Amtshauptmann," said the French officer and stretched out both hands towards him, "let what pa.s.sed between us this morning be forgotten. You are dearer to me than you think. I have read a name on your stick that is engraved deeply in my heart. Look here 'Renatus von Toll!'"

"And you know that man?" asked the old Herr, and it was as if the sun had risen over his face.

"How should I not?" said the Colonel, "why, he is my father."

"What!" exclaimed the Amtshauptmann. "What say you, eh? What say you, eh?" And he held the colonel out at arm's length and looked into his eyes. "You the son of Renatus von Toll?"

"Yes, and he has often spoken to me of his two best friends, 'the Webers,' 'the tall Mecklenburgers.'"

"My friend," cried the old Herr, turning to my mother, "of whom have I talked to you oftenest? What say you, eh? Of the fine Westphalian, Renatus?"

My mother nodded her head; she could not speak, for there was something in the old gentleman's delight that brought the tears into her eyes; and we silly youngsters came out from behind the stove and grew bolder, and it all seemed to us as happy as if one of our cousins had come.

"My boy, my boy!" cried the Amtshauptmann, "I ought to have known you, if the d.a.m.ned French uniform.... No, no, I did not mean to say that,"

he added quickly as he saw the blood rush into the Colonel's face.

"Tell me, my boy, has your father still the clear brown eyes? What say you, eh? Has he still the curly brown hair?--Such a splendid man he was, my friend!" said he to my mother, "G.o.d has written the word 'man'

on his forehead."

The Colonel now said that the brown eyes were still there, but that the hair had turned white.

"True, true," said the Amtshauptmann, "of course. It must be so; Adolph Diedrich's is quite grey too. But now, friend, you must come up to the Schloss with me and stop there awhile. G.o.d knows, this is the first time that I ever invited a French officer to stay with me. But you are not properly a French officer, you are a German.--The son of Renatus von Toll can only be an honest German, my friend," he said turning to my mother. "What say you, eh?"

My mother had seen that the Colonel turned hot and cold alternately during this speech of the Amtshauptmann's, and she had made all manner of signs to him, but in vain; and, on his coming nearer to her, as he asked the last question, she plucked him gently by his coat-tail as a sign to him to be quiet. At this, the old Herr turned sharply round and asked--

"Why are you pulling me?"

It was now my mother's turn to be red. But, in the meanwhile, the colonel had recovered himself; he made a sort of half-bow to my mother, and said firmly and earnestly to the old Herr,--"I must refuse your invitation, Herr Amtshauptmann, for we march in half an hour. And, as concerns this uniform which does not please you,--and cannot please you, I grant it--I cannot dishonour it by taking it off in the hour of danger. You say that I am a German, my father's son must be a German--you are right--but, if you regard it as a crime that I am on the other side, you must lay the blame on my sovereign and not on me.

When I became a soldier, the Elector of Cologne was in league with the Emperor; and when I went to Spain four years ago the whole of Germany and all her princes lay at his feet. I returned from Spain three weeks ago, and I find Germany quite changed. What I have felt concerns myself alone, and if there is any human soul to whom I can speak of it, it can only be my father. For my father's oldest friend this must be enough; it is more than I have said to any other human being."

The old Herr had been standing at the beginning of this speech, looking the Colonel straight in the face, and every now and then giving a shake of his head; but, as he became aware that there was a sad earnestness in the young man's face, his eyes sought another place to rest on, and when the Colonel had ended, he said, "That's quite another matter;" and he leant towards my mother and said, "My friend, what say you, eh? He is right, is he not? Renatus von Toll's son is right. Pity, that he _is_ right!" and he took the Colonel by the hand: "My dear young friend,--and so you cannot stay here?" And, on the colonel's a.s.suring him that it was not possible, he cried out to me, "Fritz, boy, you can run an errand for me; run to Neiting--to the Frau Amtshauptmann,--and tell her to come down here, something joyful has happened. Do you hear?

Say something _joyful_. She might else be anxious, my friend," he added to my mother.

Well, away I ran as fast as I could up to the Schloss, and it was not long before the Frau Amtshauptmann was walking along by my side slowly and quietly as was her wont, and I hopped round about her like a little water-wagtail, so that she had enough to do to keep me from under the waggons and from the horses' feet.

As we crossed the market-place the French were fast getting ready to march. The guns stood there with the horses fastened to them; the battalion was formed into line; and one could see that they were on the point of starting.

The Frau Amtshauptmann went into the Rathhaus, but she did not get far, for she was seized upon in the hall by Mamsell Westphalen and the two maids; and, before she knew where she was going, she was in the midst of complaints, about "murder and killing," from Witte the baker, and Droz, and Miller Voss, each one telling her his story; and round them and their complaints, gathered Herr Droi's wife and children, crying and entreating; and the Frau Meister Stahl caught Mamsell Westphalen by the skirt of her gown, as if Mamsell were going to spring into the water, and she must save her from suicide. Witte still every now and then fired off a "robbers," but there was not more than half a charge of powder left in him, and, when he saw the grief of the watchmaker's wife, he thought of his own family, and called to me;--

"Fritz, will you run over to my house, my boy? You shall have a bun for it,--and call to my son Johann and my daughter Struwingken, and tell them they are to come over here, for the rascally French are going to take me to their G.o.d-forgotten country as they have already done my brown five-year-old."