The Miller drove towards Stemhagen. "Lord of my life!" he said, "If it had not been for my little Fieka, most likely I should be sitting in irons now. And I'm many miles from safe yet, for the devil's only just beginning his work.--It's raining, too, and pretty heavily!"

The first person he met when he reached the Stemhagen Barns was Witte, the baker, standing before his barn by a waggon of straw:

"Good morning, neighbour," said Witte. "What the thunder! How came you by that French horse?"

"Well, I'll tell you," replied Miller Voss; and he briefly narrated the story.

"That's ugly," said the baker, "for the whole town is filled with French, and you couldn't get the horse through without being seen. I advise you to leave him here in my empty barn."

This was done. Old Baker Witte drew his crooked bra.s.s comb through his hair several times, shook his head and said:

"Neighbour, you have let yourself in for a sc.r.a.pe you won't get out of easily, and up at the Schloss things don't seem to be quite right; for this morning the Herr Amtshauptmann sent for the roll he takes with his coffee, at eight o'clock instead of eleven. And Fritz Sahlmann says Mamsell Westphalen has disappeared--not a soul knows where she is to be found--and the watchmaker has been thrown into prison--that I saw with my own eyes; and people are talking about court-martials and executions."

"Lord, save us!" cried the old Miller. "What a swarm of bees I have sat down on! But it can't be helped; I must take the bag up to the Schloss.

And, neighbour, I'll drive round the town till I get near the green gate of the Schloss garden, and then I'll fasten up my horse. You follow to take care of him and the cart, and if I am carried off to prison, drive over to the mill and break the news gently to my wife and Fieka; and tell the young man you'll find there to do his uncle the favour of looking after the house and mill, and not to leave the women."

Baker Witte promised, and the Miller drove round, as they had agreed, tied up his horse, and was proceeding on his way on foot, when Farmer Roggenbom's waggoner, Johann Brummer, dashed through the gate, lashing his four greys till they struck out behind and bespattered the Miller with mud.

"Better mud in my face than your lashes across the back," cried the Miller.

"Hmm! It only wanted this. Robbers!" grumbled old Zanner of Gielow, as he drove full gallop with his cream-coloured horses through the gate after Brummer.

"Yes," said Adler of Stemhagen, who had thrown a sack over his shoulders (the only waterproof coats known in those days), giving his black saddle-horse a dig in the ribs; "it would be nice work for us to be drawing cannons, wouldn't it, old fellow? No! I'll take you to the Stemhagen wood, and fasten you to a tree by the sand-pit. It's all one here or there, for there's nothing at home for you to eat--confound it, how it's raining!"

When the Miller entered the garden, he found it all alive--peasants hustling and bustling about, hiding their carts and waggons, some behind the bushes and some behind the ramparts.

"Miller Voss," said the son of the Schult Besserdich of Gielow, "hide your horse. Everyone who is wise is taking advantage of this rain, for the French have all crept under cover."

But the old Miller went steadily on, and took the valise to the Schloss.

CHAPTER VI.

The sight which met Mamsell Westphalen's eyes when she went into her room; and the reason why she let Corlin slap her twice on the back. How Fritz Sahlmann smashed the Herr Amtshauptmann's pipes, and the French Colonel nearly drew his sword.

If you wish to tell a story properly, you must do as the husbandman does when he tills a field: you must keep the furrows straight, clearing everything as you go along, and leaving no stubble standing.

But do this as carefully as you may, there will always be some few bits left untouched here and there, and you must go back and finish them off. Even so must I go back a little way in my story to finish off Herr Droi's and Mamsell Westphalen's ends, that I may be able once more to work straight on.

On the same morning that the Miller, with his headache, looked into his boot-tops, Mamsell Westphalen dressed herself, and was just going to put on her cap, when she saw it was rather out of shape; so she went into her room to get a fresh one, but tapped first at the door and asked, "Herr Droi, are you quite dressed?" The watchmaker said he was.

She opened the door--merciful heavens, what a sight! Anything like it she had never seen in her life; for in the night she had only been as far as the door, and had not even glanced into the room. The top of the bed was broken in, and right across the door lay one of the Frenchmen rolled up in the white bed-curtains, and smoking a clay pipe, with her beautiful red-and-white-striped pillow under his head; the other was sitting in her easy chair, and had wrapped his feet up in her new gingham gown; Herr Droi sat at the foot of the bed, and from under his bearskin peered a face that spoke only of sorrow and woe. What a sight her poor room was! It had been her pride, her jewel-box; here she had reigned supreme; here she had sat with everything round her clean and in order. She had dusted and polished everything with her own hands. No one else had dared to touch or alter anything--not even her oracle the Frau Meister. "No," she had said, "the Frau Meister is all very well in her way, but since she let my amber earrings fall, I cannot trust her any more."

And now everything was turned upside down, the room was blue with tobacco-smoke, her clothes had been taken out of the closet and were lying beside Herr Droi's gun, and the French Cha.s.seur's helmet; and her bed--her beautiful bed--stood out in the middle of the room. The bed was her own; her G.o.dfather, the joiner Reuss (the old Reuss, not the young one) had made it for her from the same block of wood from which he made her coffin; she had spun the yarn for the sacking herself, and the Meister Stahl had woven it "pretty well," she said, "but two inches too small each way, and that was stupid of him, for I am a well-grown woman, and _that_ he might have known." The Frau Amtshauptmann had wished to make her a present of the feathers, but she had not accepted the offer, and had paid for them herself; "for, Frau Meister," she said, "it's my pride to earn my earthly and my heavenly rest." And when the bed was so far on, she bought two sets of snow-white curtains, and put them up, and then she drew back a few paces, and, nodding her head complacently, said, "Frau Meister, 'the last touch crowns the work.'"

And now the bedding lay scattered about in disorder, and the crown lay levelled in the dust.

At first she stood as if thunderstruck, and looked through the tobacco-smoke like the full moon through the evening mist; then she advanced a couple of paces towards Herr Droi, her face as red as the inside of the great copper washing-kettle in her kitchen, and her cap shaking with anger; but she merely said, "What's this?" Herr Droi stuttered and stammered, and stammered and stuttered; but, looking him sharply in the face, she said, "Lies, Herr Droi. You lied last night, and you are lying again this morning. I gave up my room and my own bed to you out of pity, and this is the thanks I get." So saying, she went to her chest of drawers, and took out a clean cap, and then, without casting another glance at Herr Droi, she sailed out of the room like Innocence going to the block. The two Frenchmen laughed and joked, but she paid no heed to them.

As she pa.s.sed down the corridor, the Colonel stepped out of the blue room in full uniform, with his adjutant, and made her a polite bow. She was not exactly in the mood for civilities, but if you are asked a question you must give an answer; and, besides, man is a creature that must have his sausages cooked, so she answered him with a low curtsey, "Good morning, Herr Colonel von Toll," and walked on.

But the Colonel stopped her. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but I must speak to the Herr Amtshauptmann. Where shall I be likely to find him?"

Mamsell Westphalen felt as if she should go into a fit. "_What_ do you want?" she asked, quite dumbfoundered.

The Frenchman repeats his question.

"Is it possible," exclaims she, "that you want to speak to the Herr Amtshauptmann--_our_ Herr Amtshauptmann at half-past seven o'clock in the morning?"

Finding he was not to be shaken, she said: "Herr Colonel von Toll, everything was turned topsy-turvy in my room last night. Unfortunately I must put up with it as well as I can, but no one shall ever say of me that I lent a hand to overturn the laws of nature. And, though it's no Christian sleep that the old gentleman takes, still he is a gentleman, and can sleep like a gentleman, and do as he pleases. No king, no emperor--no, _not even our Duke_ Friedrich Franz himself shall drag me into a conspiracy against the laws of this house."

"Then I will do it myself," said the colonel, and politely put her on one side and went up-stairs.

"Lord, save us!" said Mamsell; and her hands fell down helplessly by her side. "I do believe he'll do it;" and when she heard him go into the old Herr's room, "He has!" said she.

The adjutant went into her room to Herr Droi. "You long-legged donkey!"

thought Mamsell Westphalen, "Must you poke yourself in there too;" and she went into the kitchen and said to the two maids, "Corlin and Hanchen, this G.o.d-given day has begun badly; and if it goes on so, Heaven only knows how it will end. We will put the clothes in soak to-morrow--I have my reasons for it; to-day we'll go about our work just as if nothing had happened."

And, so saying, she took the coffee-mill and turned and turned, and the mill rattled and rattled; but when she came to take the drawer out, there was nothing in it; for she had forgotten to pour any coffee-beans in at the top.

Up stairs, in the old Herr's room, the sound of loud talking was now heard, and that silly boy, Fritz Sahlmann, who was filling the Amtshauptmann's long pipes, must of course want to tell them what was going on, and rushed in at the kitchen-door with the pipes in his hand; but Hanchen had that moment put her ear against the door-post to hear a little of what was being said, and--bang! he went up against her, and--smash! went the pipes as they fell clattering on the floor.

Mamsell Westphalen's hand was not raised this time; her hands lay on her lap, and she said meekly:

"It's not to be wondered at! If everything is going to rack and ruin, of course clay pipes will be amongst the first; and 'if the heavens fall the sparrows will all be crushed!' It would not surprise me now if some one were to come in and throw the whole of the crockery out at the window."

The quarrel upstairs became louder; the voices resounded over the house and the Amtshauptmann came down stairs into the hall with the Colonel.

The old Herr said, in short, sharp sentences, that he must allow what he could not prevent. The Frenchman must do as he chose, for the power was in his hands.

The Colonel said he knew that. But before he made use of his power he should inquire into things, for there could be no doubt events had happened which there was an attempt to conceal.

_He_ had nothing to conceal, the old Amtshauptmann said. If there was _anything_ to be concealed it was on the part of the French. And was a vagabond like the Cha.s.seur really held in such high esteem and regard by them? For his own part, he knew nothing further than that the fellow had come to him like a robber, had behaved like a pig, and that his servants and the watchmaker Droz had told him the Gielow Miller had taken him away in his waggon.

But where did the watchmaker get his French uniform from, the Colonel asked?

That did not concern him, was the old Herr's reply; the man was not in his district. He had, however, heard it said, that the fellow sometimes put the uniform on for his amus.e.m.e.nt.

The Colonel said those were merely excuses.

At that the old Herr fired up, and drawing himself to his full height, he looked in his dignified way at the Frenchman, and said--"Excuses are the cousins of lies. You forget my age and rank."

The Colonel became more violent, and said: "In short, the whole story is incredible."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the Amtshauptmann, and from under his grey eyebrows there shot a look full of scorn and anger, like a flash of lightning darting from out of a cloud over a peaceful landscape. "You think it is incredible?"--And he half turned his back upon the Colonel.--"Why mayn't a Frenchman wear the French uniform for his pleasure when so many Germans wear it for theirs?" he added, looking over his shoulder at Colonel von Toll.

The Frenchman turned red as fire, then pale as death; he stepped back a couple of paces and clutched at his sword. The ghost of a fearful deed haunted him for a moment and guided his hand; but, overcoming the dark thought, he turned hastily round and went with long strides down the hall, and Hanchen, who saw it all through a c.h.i.n.k in the door, said, ever after, that she had never in her life seen anything like it. "He was a handsome man, and had a pleasant face," she would add, "but when he came striding down the hall, I don't know why, but it reminded me of how once, when I was herding geese, on a fine day in the middle of summer, suddenly there came a fierce wind, and in the twinkling of an eye, all the leaves were blown off from the beautiful oak at the back of the Convent garden and were flying about."

The Colonel turned round again, went up to the Amtshauptmann, and said in a quiet cold voice, that they would _discuss_ the point at a future time; but his duty required that the matter should be probed to the bottom without delay. "Why had the watchmaker slept at the Schloss last night?"