"It's of no consequence to me what _he_ says. It is I, Miller Voss, _I_, who am, through my office appointed to make written writing fast and secure by my seal. And this paper frees you from all difficulties till Easter."

"Yes, Herr Rathsherr, and I thank you for it;--but then?"

It was now my uncle's turn to hum and haw: "Hm, what _then_?--Well--Yes--Well, Miller," and his good old face threw its official look out of window and put on human kindness for spectacles, and looked benevolently at the Miller and the whole world: "Well, Miller Voss, I have procured you breathing-time till Easter, and, maybe, I can give you further help; I have come on purpose to set matters right. But, in order for me to do so, you must tell me exactly how you stand, and show me all your papers."

So the Miller told and told, and went on till any other head than my uncle Herse's would have been quite lost in the maze; and he brought out so many papers that anyone else would have been alarmed; but my uncle was very thorough in business matters and was fond of solving riddles and mysteries. He listened to, and read, everything with patience, though not with much profit to his undertaking.

"Is this all, Miller Voss?" he asked at last.

"Yes," said the Miller, and he looked as down as a potatoe-field when the night frost has gone over it; "and this is my contract with the bailiwick of Stemhagen."

My uncle took the contract, and read it through, looking, in his turn, like a parsnip-field that has been cut up by the hail. But, all at once he jumped up:--"Why, what is this? Miller, your difficulties are at an end. In a couple of years you will be a _millionaire_. The whole town and bailiwick of Stemhagen is bound to have its corn ground at your mill; here it is in paragraph four. And what says paragraph five? 'For every bushel that the Miller grinds he has a right to take one bushel as payment.'"

"A pint, Herr Rathsherr," cried the Miller; and he, too, jumped up now.

"For every bushel one pint."

"No, a bushel. Here it is: for every bushel one bushel as payment; and what is written is written, and here is the Amtshauptmann's seal."

"Herr Rathsherr, my head is swimming. Herr, that is only a mistake."

"Mistake or no mistake, what is written is written; the old Amtshauptmann said so himself."

"That he did," said the Miller; "yes, that he did, I can swear to it."

And now the Miller saw before him a prospect of deliverance from the Jew's clutches, and of many, many bushels of corn and of many, many bright thalers; for was not the whole bailiwick obliged to bring corn to his mill?

"This is a good thing, Herr Rathsherr," he cried; "but----but----"

"What do you mean with your buts, Voss?" cried my uncle indignantly.

"The thing is plain and clear."

"Yes, Herr Rathsherr, I only mean, what is to be done with the sacks?"

"With the sacks?--What sacks?"

"Why, the sacks in which the corn is brought to me. I get all the corn, but who gets the sacks?"

"Hm," said my uncle, "that's a difficult question in law, Miller. I did not think of it, and there's nothing about it in the contract, but, if you'll follow my advice, you'll keep them yourself for the present, for what says the Lubeck law: '_beati possidentes_,' that is in German, 'what a man has, that he's got.' Now, Miller, I have helped you out of everything. But one thing I insist upon: silence!--Not a soul must be spoken to about this matter. Do you hear?--not a soul. I will speak to Itzig. He must take corn, instead of money, and by Easter the debt will all be cleared off, and then, Miller Voss...."

"And then, Herr Rathsherr?..."

"Then--it will all be overplus--But, Miller, the affair remains a secret."

The Miller promised, and the Herr Rathsherr set off home again, and Heinrich and Fieka saw him nod from his carriage to the Miller, and lay his finger on his lips.

"Keeping secrets is not one of my gifts, Fieka," said Heinrich: "I shall go to your father and speak to him."

"Do so," said Fieka. But if she had known the state the Miller was in, she would certainly have told him to wait.

The old Miller was in a strange mood. That morning he had been a beggar, and had been unwilling to give his child away, because he had no dower for her. Now he was a rich man, and his only daughter had no need to take the first who came; she might become a fine lady as well as anybody else. The change had come too quickly, he did not rightly know what had happened to him; and there now arose, too, a secret fear in him, lest all might not be as it ought to be, and great anxiety lest what he was going to do might not be right. "But," said he to himself, "the Amtshauptmann himself said 'what is written is written;' and the Rathsherr must know better than me what is right."--If it was difficult for him, in ordinary times, to come to a decision, it was quite impossible at a moment like this.

When Heinrich made his offer therefore, the Miller began to talk about the lawsuit, and said Heinrich was not at all to suppose that he was a ruined man. Many had tried to drown him, but he still swam at the top.

Heinrich then said that he had no evil intentions, that he had thought to himself that the Miller would give him his Fieka, and would sell him his lease, and that his father and mother-in-law might live with him in peace and quietness for the rest of their lives.

But at this the old Miller fired up: yes, Heinrich would like that; he could readily believe it. But n.o.body should cry "Fish" before they had caught any; he was not going to let himself be taken in by anyone, let alone a young man like Heinrich. His lease, indeed! His lease! he would keep it himself, though a king should come and court his Fieka!

For such a speech Heinrich was not at all prepared after what had already pa.s.sed. The blood mounted into _his_ face also, and he said sharply, that the Miller must say "yes" or "no," would he give him his daughter or not.

The Miller turned round abruptly and looked out of window, and said "No."

Heinrich also turned round, and went out of the room, and half an hour afterwards Friedrich drove into the yard with Heinrich's waggon; and, at his call, Heinrich and Fieka came out of the garden. Fieka looked very pale but also quite firm, and said: "Heinrich, what I have said I will keep to, and you too will keep to it."--He nodded his head, and pressed her hand, stepped up to the Miller's wife who was standing at the door, said a few parting words to her, got into the waggon, and drove slowly away.

When he was some little distance from the Mill, he heard some one calling after him, and on turning round to look, he saw Friedrich coming towards him across the corner of a rye-field: "Where are you driving to, Heinrich?"

"To Stemhagen."

"Shall you stop the night there?"

"Yes, I thought I would stay for the night at Baker Witte's, for I have something to speak to the Herr Amtshauptmann about."

"I must say, that's a good idea of yours, Heinrich, and I have something to do at the Schloss this evening too; and, maybe, I shall have something to say to you, so don't drive off from Witte's till I come. I shall not be there till late, however, when everything is quiet here."

Heinrich promised he would wait for him, and drove on again towards Stemhagen. On the road he met Baker Witte who was driving with corn to the Mill and said:--"Well, Heinrich, put up at my house, I shall be at home again by evening, and then we can have a bit of a chat together."

Evening had long since set in, and the baker had been some time at home, but Heinrich was still up at the Schloss with the old Herr.

Friedrich, too, had arrived and had gone up to the Schloss, and old Witte said to Struwingken, "Something has happened at the Mill, you'll see. I don't think much of the Miller's wife sitting crying, for her tears run easily, but I don't at all like to see Fieka going about so quiet and saying nothing to all the fooleries and scoldings of the old Miller; and he has got one of those queer fits upon him this morning which you can make nothing of. When I asked him how soon I should come for the flour, he said he must first look at his lease; and when I said I wanted it next week, he said it was all the same to him, he should act according to his lease; and when I was driving away, he called out after me that, if anything strange should happen to the flour, I was only to go to Rathsherr Herse, and he would explain the matter to me,--that is if he thought proper."

"Why he must be mad," said Struwingken.

At that moment Heinrich came in, looking calm and indifferent; and on the baker beginning to talk about the flour, and of the queer reception he had met with, Heinrich abruptly broke in with: "Will you do me a favour, Witte?"

"Why not?" said the baker.

"Look here, many people come to your place; and you have room in your stable. I want to sell my horse and waggon, will you help me with it."

"Why not?" said Witte again; "but, Heinrich," added he after a while, and you could almost imagine you saw how he was collecting his thoughts together inside his brain, and weaving them into a long chain so as to spin out the conversation. "But, Heinrich, there's no hurry about it.--Horses--horses--you see they are cheap now. Why?--Well--what do I know?--Why, because no one feels sure that the French won't take them out of the stables overnight. But, you'll see, they'll get dear; for, you'll see in a few weeks we shall all be marching against the French."

"I have just heard the same from a man who must know much more about it than you or I. But it's just for that reason I want to be rid of them."

"Yes," said Friedrich, who had come into the room during the Miller's speech; "horses will get dear and women cheap. There will be a great call for horses when the war begins, and little for women; and when it's over, and half the young men are killed, there'll be still less.

And it's going to begin. Yesterday, at Brandenburg, a fellow took me aside, who looked as if he had tried the blue beans,[5] and he said to me that from my appearance I must have carried a musket, and, if I liked, he knew of a place for me. I said I would think about it; but to-day is not yesterday, and today I don't need to think about it. I deserted from the Prussians, but only because I had to rock the cradle for my Captain's children; and yesterday I only wanted to think it over, because I expected I should soon have to rock children; of my own. But to-day I need think no more; I shall enlist against the French. And, Witte, I have no one in the world to look after my things, so when you hear that I have left the Mill, will you see about my box?

And now, good-bye. I must go back to the Mill this evening." So saying he departed.

Heinrich followed him: "Friedrich, what does this mean?"

"What does it mean?" said Friedrich. "I will tell you. 'What the one looks the other feels.' The same thing has happened to us both, only your Fieka cries and my Hanchen laughs. I am not young enough for her.

Well, it doesn't much matter; I was not too old for that fellow at Brandenburg, but what is one man's owl is another's nightingale."