In the Year '13 Part 25

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 Struwingken--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 c.o.c.ked 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 gla.s.s 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 Struwingken 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 Struwingken; 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, Struwingken 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 n.o.body heard, for baker Witte broke out the same moment with: "Hurrah!" and the Miller with "Long live!" and every one joined in and clinked gla.s.ses.

Yes, it _was_ a delightful evening! And a long time afterwards, when I saw a picture of Julius Caesar 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.

CHAPTER XIX.

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:Caes.', 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."