Fieka drew her arm from round her father's neck, but she could not prevent the tears from flowing, and as the Colonel came nearer, she felt as if she must cry all the more; when he gave her his hand she curtseyed silently, for she could not bring out a word. As long as anxiety, like a dark night, had lain upon her, she had gone steadily on her way without looking either to right or left,--trust in G.o.d her sole guiding-star; but now that the sun had risen, she stood still; her heart opened like a beautiful rose to the light; as the fresh morning's breeze plays in its leaves, so her thoughts could now wander hither and thither, to the right and to the left, behind her and before her, and her tears fell like the morning dew.

The old Miller, too, stood silent before the Colonel; but when he was asked if he was the father of the young girl, the words came out in a torrent.

"Yes, sir," said he. "And though it's true what our Herr Amtshauptmann says, that boys are better than girls, girls are always crying--for they _are_ that, sir, as you can see in Fieka"--and, as he spoke, he wiped the tears from his own eyes--"still I don't know what better I can wish you, for your goodness to us, than that G.o.d may some day send you a little daughter like my Fieka."

The Colonel no doubt thought so too, though he did not say so. He turned quickly towards Fieka, and asked: "Can you write?"

"Yes, Herr," said Fieka, and made a curtsey.

"She can do everything," said the Miller; "She can write and read writing like a schoolmaster, for she has to do all my writing."

"Well, then, my little one," said the Colonel, "write your name and the place where you were born, in here; but in Platt-deutsch, mind."

And Fieka wrote in the Colonel's pocket-book, "Fieka Voss, born at the Gielow Mill in the parish of Stemhagen." The Colonel read it, shut up his pocket-book, gave her and her father his hand, and went away with the words: "Good-bye! We may perhaps meet again some day."

CHAPTER XVIII.

How Witte's pint-pot was always running over; why the Town of Stemhagen had raised a fir-plantation; why neighbour Rickert rang the alarm-bell; and why the portrait of Julius Caesar always reminds me of my uncle Herse.

Rather less than half an hour afterwards, two waggons drove out of the Treptow Gate of Brandenburg towards Stemhagen. In the first were the elders, the Herr Rathsherr and the baker and the Miller, and, as a mark of respect, the valet-de-chambre; in the second sat, on the foremost sack, Fritz Besserdich and Luth, and on the hind sack, Fieka and Heinrich. Friedrich lay behind in the straw. After they had gone along some way, my uncle Herse began to talk:

"So we are out of his claws at last," said he.

"Yes, Herr Rathsherr," answered the Baker, "and we have to thank the Herr Amtshauptmann and our Burmeister and, above all, the Miller's Friedrich for it."

"That's according as you look at it, Witte," said my uncle. "For my part I have nothing to say against those three, and there is no doubt the Cha.s.seur's being brought there did us good service, but it by no means set us free. Did you not notice how the French Colonel talked to me aside before the door of the Inn?"

"Yes, Herr Rathsherr."

"Well, then, let me tell you, that, if he had not employed me to take a secret message for him, we might have left Brandenburg by a very different gate from this."

"The Devil we might!" cried the old Baker, and he looked at the Rathsherr out of the corner of his eye.

My uncle said nothing; he only opened and shut his eyes importantly, and then turned away, and looked over the cornfields, as if he meant to let his words have due effect on the Baker. But this did not succeed.

Old Baker Witte's head was like the pint measure in which he sold milk; when it was full to the brim, it would hold no more, and whatever more was poured in, ran over into the room. And, just now, his head was br.i.m.m.i.n.g full of all he had gone through, so that the Rathsherr's words made it run over, and he said nothing.

"I wish I was in Stemhagen," said the Rathsherr, after a while.

These drops went into the baker's pint measure, he said, therefore: "So do I, for it will be a precious long time before we get there."

"I don't mean that," said the Herr Rathsherr. "I mean as to our reception."

The baker's pint measure was running over again: "What?" he asked.

"Our reception with a triumphal arch."

The contents of the pint measure were now running over very fast:--"Reception! Triumphal arch! What? Is our Duke coming then?"

"No, Witte, _he_ is not coming, but _we_ are coming."

It was now just as if some one had given Witte's arm a jerk, while he was pouring the milk into the measure, so that half of it went on to the floor. This was lucky, for now there was room for the Herr Rathsherr's explanation.

"I say, Witte, that _we_ are coming. Ought not the burghers of a town like ours to erect a triumphal arch for their fellow-burghers and officers of state, who have suffered for the Fatherland, just as much as for a Duke?--But who is to do it? The old Amtshauptmann? The Burmeister? They won't be thinking of such a thing. Or do you think the old Rector, because he once made a thing of a '_transparency_?' That was a fine thing!--Or old Metz? There's as much sense in his talk, baker Witte, as in a squirrel's tail.--Or old Zoch? He can blow his horn on the watch tower, nothing else.--Ah! if _I_ were there!"

"But, at this time of year, Herr Rathsherr," said the Baker, "where could you get flowers and evergreens from?"

"Flowers? What do old Heimann Kasper, and Leip, and the other Jews, sell red and yellow ribbons for? Evergreens! For what purpose has the town of Stemhagen raised a fir plantation in the State Forest?"

"That's true," said old Witte, for the pint measure was now full again.

"What do you say, Miller Voss?" asked the Herr Rathsherr.

"I say nothing, Herr Rathsherr," said the Miller, turning towards him a face so full of wrinkles that it looked like a puckered tobacco-pouch rising above his shoulder, "I say nothing; I only think: yesterday when I was driving towards Brandenburg I didn't feel exactly comfortable, and now to-day, when I am driving away from it, I feel as if I had got a stomach-ache in my head."

"How's that?" asked my uncle Herse; and the Miller told him his difficulties with Itzig.--"Hm!" said my uncle, and he pa.s.sed his hand slowly down his face as far as his chin where it remained fast caught in the stubbly beard. With his chin in his hand and his mouth wide open, he gazed fixedly for a while into vacancy. He tried the same thing over again once or twice, but his hand never got over his beard.

Now, though my uncle Herse had a bristly beard, he had a tender soul; and if his mouth opened wide, his heart opened wider still; and, as he was taking a last look into the grey sky, his eyes fell on a blue place, and a ray from the blue sky pa.s.sed through his eyes into his open heart. He must do a good work.

"Baker Witte," said he, "let the Miller come and sit here, and you take his place on the front seat,--I have something to say to him."

This was done, and Baker Witte talked on the front seat to the valet-de-chambre in a very loud voice, and the Herr Rathsherr talked on the hind seat with the Miller in a very low one.

"Miller Voss," said my uncle, "I will help you out of the bog. I will send for Itzig to-morrow--and then observe how servile he will be, for I know something about him,--a secret!--that does not concern anybody else;--but it's nothing very good you may be sure.--The fellow shall give you time till Easter, and I will be surety for you; and I'll come out to-morrow, and look through all your papers and take the matter into my own hands. For, look here," and as he spoke he drew out the seal at the end of his watch-chain, "I am appointed to do such things.

Here it stands. Perhaps you can't easily read Latin backwards?" The Miller said he could not read it either backwards or forwards.--"Well, it does not matter. Here it stands: _Not. Pub. Im. Caes_., that's to say, I'm Notarius Publicus, and _Im. Caes_. means--I can be consulted in every lawsuit. So, Miller, I'll help you.--But upon one condition only: that you tell no one of my being surety for you, or of our agreement,--above all not the Herr Amtshauptmann. The affair must remain a profound secret."

The Miller promised.

In one way things were going on in the second waggon in the same manner as in the first. On the front sack the voices were very loud, and on the hind sack, on which Heinrich and Fieka were sitting, they were very low. I need not tell what they were saying to each other, for Friedrich, you know, was lying close behind them in the straw, and heard every word they said, and he will come out with it in good time.

About three hours after this, that young rascal Fritz Sahlmann was running through the streets of the good town of Stemhagen, shouting--"They are coming! They are coming!"--He had been watching for a couple of hours on the Windmill-hill, and, during that time, the Herr Amtshauptmann had rung his bell seven times for him, and had, at last, come down to my mother out of sheer vexation.

"They are coming!" cried the young wretch.

"Is it true, boy?" asked old Rickert the bell-ringer.

"Yes, neighbour Rickert, they are just at the bridge."

And old Rickert said to himself: "It can't be helped: I must do my duty;" went to the bell-tower, and as he could not manage the whole peal, rang the alarm bell. At that sound all were on foot, and at their house-doors. "They are coming!"--"Who is coming?"--"The Rathsherr, and baker Witte, and the Miller, and all the others."

"Hurrah!" shouted Shoemaker Bank waving his arm in the air,--forgetting he had got a boot on it.

"Hurrah!" cried Locksmith Tropner, rushing into the street with his leathern ap.r.o.n on. "But let us have everything quiet and orderly, good people"--and he knocked the jug out of Frau Stahl's hand, which she was carrying down from the Schloss.

"Hurrah!" cried Herr Droi, running out into the street with his bearskin on, but otherwise in plain clothes; and behind him trooped his little French children and shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" as the Rathsherr pa.s.sed through the crowd in the first waggon.