"Why, Heinrich," said Miller Voss, "there's surely room for you on your own waggon! Come a little nearer, Fieka, and make room for your cousin."

But Heinrich would not have it so; he put the horse-cloth round Fieka's feet, and said he would walk on in front. This he did, now jumping over a ditch and then back again, and always keeping where he could watch Fieka's face.

"Herr Rathsherr," said the Miller, "that's my cousin, Joe Voss's son, he's a fine fellow, isn't he?"

And Rathsherr Herse said: "That he is, Miller, he's a handsome young fellow."

And baker Witte said: "He's a jolly fellow."

Fieka said nothing, but she thought to herself: "He's a good and faithful fellow," and she might perhaps have gone on thinking about him; but all at once Heinrich was at her side, looking at her lovingly, and asking whether she were not cold. Thinking was of course at an end now, and she gave him her hand: "Just feel how warm I am."

Witte now dived into the sausage-and-roll basket, and gave everyone his share; and, on hearing the Herr Rathsherr praise the milk-rolls, the old baker said to himself: "Now look at the fellow! And yet he goes and buys his bread of Guhle; but an owl is a bird, when you have got no other."

The Herr Rathsherr leant over towards the baker and whispered in his ear: "Look, Meister Witte, there is the 'Bremsenkranz' Inn just before us; and if the minions of the Corsican monster have a trace of human feeling left in them, they won't mind our getting a drop to wash down our rolls with." But while saying this, he had neglected his bread, and had let it and the sausage dangle a little over the side of the waggon.

All at once he felt a slight tug at his fingers, and on his looking round he beheld one of the Corsican's "minions" quietly biting into his sausage and roll, and as he was about to lift his voice up against such a manifest act of pillage, another of the Frenchmen put his arm over the back of the waggon and seized the whole basket.

"Confound it!" cried my uncle Herse, "I did not think that things had come to such a pa.s.s as this."

Old Witte burst out afresh with a "cursed thieves;" and the Miller, who was driving, so thoroughly forgot his position, wrapped up as he was in the Amtshauptmann's warm overcoat, that he raised his whip, and was just going to lay it about the Frenchmen's shoulders, when Fieka caught him by the arm:

"For G.o.d's sake, father, what are you doing?"

"Hm--yes--" said the Miller, recollecting himself, "you are right again, Fieka," and he turned to the Frenchmen: "Don't take it ill, I did not mean anything."

Well, they evidently were not going to take it ill at all, for they ate away at the rolls and sausages with such apparent relish, that the Herr Rathsherr was filled with spleen and gall. And now the whole party became once more conscious of their position, which they had for a time forgotten in the warmth and comfort of the waggon. They drove thus towards Brandenburg far into the grey evening, and where the basket of rolls had stood, were now only sorrow and care and thought, which whispered into their ears all manner of dreadful stories; and once, when a flight of crows pa.s.sed over them, my uncle Herse said:

"Yes, _you_ can laugh--you have no cares."

And the baker said: "No, and they pay no taxes and no duties." And the Miller sighed and said: "I wish _I_ were a crow."

But in two hearts care found no place; love had entered into them with its princely company of Secret Wishes and Hope and Trust; and the Secret Wishes flew through the whole household of the heart and into all its recesses, like active bridesmaids,--pushed aside all that stood in the way, and wiped the dust from table and chair, and cleaned the windows, so that one could see far out into the beautiful country called Life; and they spread the table in the bright room, and made the bed in the quiet room, and hung fresh garlands of flowers and evergreens over windows and door, and beautiful pictures on the walls.

And Hope lit her thousand wax-lights, and then sat down quietly in a corner as if it had not been at all she who had done this, but her step-sister, Reality. And Trust stood at the door and let no one in who had not on a wedding-garment; and she said to Care, when she asked after Fieka: "Begone, the old Miller will dance at her wedding;" and to Doubt, when she asked after Heinrich: "Go thy way, it is all right."

CHAPTER XVI.

Why I send the Miller's Friedrich and not a princess through the Gulzow Wood; why Friedrich called the Bailiff Besserdich, "Father-in-law;" how he "decoyed the dog from behind the stove;" and how Luth, the messenger, could not help laughing at his own Burmeister.

If any little Miss who reads this book should feel angry with me for beginning this chapter with a miller's man and not with a princess, she must remember that there could be no princesses at all, if there were no millers' men, and that sometimes a miller's man is of more value than a princess--for example, to me at this moment. For, if I want to catch the French cha.s.seur, I must not send a princess, with a crinoline and satin shoes, through the Gulzow Wood in such weather and along such roads,--but a miller's man. And, best of all, the Miller's Friedrich.

"Dumouriez!" said Friedrich, as he followed the cha.s.seur's track, "if the Frenchman is to be found between here and Gripswold, I'll have him."

Friedrich traced the cha.s.seur through the Stemhagen Wood, and through the Gulzow Wood, and at last reached the Gulzow road; but there he came to a standstill--an owl would have been puzzled; there was nothing to serve as a guide. Had the fellow turned to the right or to the left?

For a while Friedrich stood there--like Matz Fots of Dresden; but soon a bright thought flashed across him, and he said to himself,--"If the rascal has taken the road to Stemhagen, it must have been through sheer stupidity. No, the fellow has gone towards Gulzow." And he went that way accordingly.

At Gulzow, Freier, an old peasant, was standing by his hedge, throwing stones, as big round as the brim of your hat, into the holes in the road. In some places in Mecklenburg this is what they call "mending the roads."

"Good morning, Freier; have you seen a Frenchman pa.s.s by here this morning?" said Friedrich.

"A Frenchman?" asked Freier.

"Yes," said Friedrich; "a French cha.s.seur."

"A cha.s.seur?" asked Freier.

"Yes, in a green uniform," said Friedrich.

"On horseback?" asked Freier.

"No, on foot," said Friedrich.

"What does he want?" asked Freier?

"What does he want?" asked Friedrich. "_He_ doesn't want anything; but _I_ want to speak to him."

"What have you got to speak about to a Frenchman?"

"Dumouriez!" said Friedrich. "What business is that of yours, you blockhead? I only ask you if you have seen such a fellow?"

"In a green uniform?" asked Freier.

"Yes," said Friedrich.

"With a shako?"

"No, with his head bare."

"With his head bare! And this morning in the rain?"

"Yes, you hear, I tell you so," cried Friedrich, angrily. "Just answer me simply: have you seen the fellow or have you not?"

"Wait a moment. Isn't to-day Thursday?"

"Yes," said Friedrich.

"Well, then it was not to-day; it was last Monday, and there were a lot of them, but in blue uniforms, and on horseback; and my boy, Zamel, has gone to-day to Stemhagen with our team for them."

"Freier," said Friedrich, "you should not have sent your team to Stemhagen; you can make a better use of it yourself, especially when you've got to give answers to people."

"How so?" asked Freier.

"And Freier," pursued Friedrich; "I know what would be a good employment for you--driving crabs to Berlin; a fellow like you would get on well at that."

"What do you mean?" asked Freier, more and more mystified.