"And in summer, over the _kaltschale_," she replied.

"Especially when the old man was not at home," I added.

"Yes, indeed," she said; but her countenance took a serious expression, and she continued, looking at me gravely, "you know it then?"

"Know what, Christel?"

"That he----"

She laid her finger upon her lips and drew me, with an uneasy look at the chamber-door, further back into the room.

"He must not hear it--he has not got over it yet, though it is now more than three months ago."

"What was three months ago, Christel?" I asked in some alarm, for the young woman had turned quite pale, and cast uneasy glances first at me and then at the bed-room door.

"I hardly know how to tell you," she said. "He lived at last entirely alone, for no one would have anything to do with him, and even the deaf and dumb Jacob left him. n.o.body knew exactly how he lived; and for a week no one had seen him, until one day the collector came for the house-tax, and--and found him hanging in the forge, over the hearth, where he must have been hanging n.o.body knows how long."

"Poor Klaus!" I said. "He must have felt it deeply, in spite of all."

"Indeed he did," said Christel. "And no one knows how he came to his death; whether he did it himself, or whether it was done by others; for they swore--at that time, you know--that they would settle with him one day."

"Very likely, very likely," I said.

"Here I am again," said Klaus, coming in in his best coat, and with a face as red as cold water, black soap, and a coa.r.s.e towel, all applied in haste, could make it.

The supper, at which Christel's young a.s.sistants joined us, was soon over, and after the cloth had been removed, the girls dismissed, and Christel had mixed us a gla.s.s of grog, for which she had not forgotten her old recipe, Klaus and I fell into such discourse as naturally arises between old friends who have not seen each other for many years, and have gone through many experiences in the interval. I had to narrate to Klaus the story of my imprisonment from that time in the first year when he paid me that memorable visit, which was within a hair of bringing him into contact with the criminal law. Not that I could tell him, or even desired to tell him, everything, good fellow as he was. We do not admit our friends, even the most intimate, behind the inmost of the seven walls with which we prudently surround the citadel of our soul; but enough came to discourse to arouse the interest of the good Klaus to the highest pitch, and quite pa.s.sionate was his sympathy when I came to speak of the last period of my imprisonment, when I fell into the hands of the new superintendent and his accomplice, the pious Deacon Von Krossow, and in seven worse than lean months had to expiate the seven years of fatness which I had hitherto enjoyed.

"The wretches! The villains! Is it possible? Are such things allowed?"

the good Klaus kept muttering.

"Whether it is allowed or not, my dear Klaus, I cannot say; but that it is possible is only too certain. Under the most frivolous pretexts in the world I was deprived of my place as secretary, and treated as an unusually ill-disposed and contumacious prisoner; and as all that did not satisfy their vengeance, I was ordered seven months of disciplinary punishment beside."

"And what did the good old overseer whom I saw with you that day say to that?"

"Sergeant Sussmilch? He would have sworn terribly, I promise you, if he had seen it. Fortunately, he went away with the family of Herr von Zehren a week after the death of the latter."

"I would never have done that," said Klaus with emphasis; "I would never have left you alone in their robber-den."

"But he had other claims upon him, of longer standing, Klaus."

"All the same: I would not have left you."

Then I told how I had been discharged at last, how my first visit had been to my native town, and the reception I met with there.

"Poor George! poor George!" said Klaus, over and over again, shaking his big head in sympathy.

"But you have had a harder trial still, poor fellow," I said.

"Who told you that?" asked Klaus, quickly.

"She did," I answered, pointing to the room in which Christel had been for the last five minutes busied in a vain attempt to quiet the wails of her youngest.

"Hush," said Klaus, "we must not speak of it so that she can hear; it is different with us men, but a little woman like that--it always has a dreadful effect upon her, poor thing: I am frightened whenever any legal paper comes in about the adjustment of the estate--you understand."

"Your father left a very respectable sum, did he not?"

"G.o.d forbid," said Klaus. "They must have robbed him, or else he buried it; and either is very possible, for at last he did not trust in any human creature, and had little reason to, G.o.d knows. And he always had a secret way in everything. Just think; we believed that Christel had floated to land, as naked and dest.i.tute as a fish flung up by the tide, without the least possibility of discovering the name of the ship in which she was wrecked, much less her own. And what does she find in the great cupboard, opposite the door, you know, but a bundle of papers in a tin case, which evidently belonged to the same ship; these papers were the captain's, and his name is written in them, with the name of the ship, and how he was married, and that his young wife had given birth to a child at sea; and there was a slip of paper besides, saying that the ship could not now be saved, and that it was impossible to save their lives, so he would fasten the child and the papers, which he had put in a tin case, to a piece of cork, and trust them to the sea and to G.o.d's mercy. So there is no doubt that my Christel is this child of the Dutch captain, whose name was Tromp--Peter Tromp, and his ship _The Prince of Orange_, and he was on his way home from Java. But I am not the least surprised at it all," Klaus concluded; "I should not be surprised if I she had turned out to be the daughter of the Emperor of Morocco----"

"And had come down from the sky in a chariot drawn by twelve peac.o.c.ks,"

I said.

"No; not even then," replied Klaus, with immense emphasis, after a moment's reflection.

"And what have you done with the papers?" I inquired, with a smile.

"I have had them translated; nothing else."

"But that is not right," I said. "The papers might possibly lead to the discovery of a rich uncle, or something of the sort. Such things have happened before, Klaus."

"That is just what Doctor Snellius says."

"Who says?" I asked in astonishment.

"Doctor Snellius," Klaus repeated. "Your old friend in the prison. He is now the physician to the factory: did he never write to tell you?"

"No; or else the letter was intercepted, which is very possible. So he is your doctor, eh?--the doctor of the factory, I mean."

"Well, yes; I call him so, because he is always sent for when anything happens; but in truth he is, I believe, the doctor of all the poor in this part of the city."

"He must have a heavy practice, then."

"Heaven knows he has; but he will never grow rich with it, for he never takes a penny unless they can well spare it, which is not often the case, and frequently he gives them medicine besides. Ah, he has a n.o.ble soul; though he always seems as if he were going to eat you up, and the children scream whenever he comes in the door."

"And he is your doctor too, then?"

"Oh yes, of course: that is, we have really only called him in once--the last time--very much against Christel's will, who insisted that----but that you will not understand; a married man's cares, you know; and she was quite right, as it happened----"

"As always, Klaus."

"As always."

"And why do you not make some investigations about those papers?"

Klaus scratched his ear.

"Well, I don't know," he said. "We feel somehow--we are living so happily now, and I always think things can not be better; more likely worse. If she really had a rich aunt--we always suppose it is an aunt--and she should leave her property to Christel, what in the world should we do with all the money? I can't think, for my part."

"Suppose, for example, you lent it to me: I should know what to do with it."