"If we did so, he told us, we might fodder our cows next winter on sawdust, he wouldn't give us a handful of hay or straw, and we might build with bricks, for he would give us no wood or turf."

Brasig turned dark with anger, but the old man was fairly launched, and went on, under full sail:

"And we must be always ready for him, night or day. I was out for him, the whole holiday, and got home last night, at ten o'clock."

"Where did you go?"

"Eh, to Ludswigsl.u.s.t, to the old railroad."

"What had you to do there."

"Eh, I had nothing to do there."

"But you must have had business there."

"Why, yes, I had business; but it came to nothing, for he had no papers."

"Well, what was it, then?"

"You see, he sent down from the Court, I should drive a ram down to the old railroad; well, I did so, and we got there all right. There was a fellow standing at the station; he let me pa.s.s, and I said to him, 'Good morning,' says I, 'here he is.' 'Who?' he asked. 'The ram.' says I. 'What of him?' says he. 'Well, I don't know,' says I. 'Has he any papers?' asked he. 'No,' says I, 'he hasn't any papers.' 'Blockhead,'

says he, 'I asked if _he_[8] had any papers.' 'No,' says I, 'I told you before, the ram has no papers.' 'Thunder and lightning!' says he, 'I asked if _he himself_ had any papers.' 'What?' says I, 'if I? What do I want of papers? I was to deliver him here.' You see, the fellow was undecided, and first he turned me out, and then he put out the old ram after me, and there we both stood by the train. Huiuu! said the old thing, and then it went off, and we stood there, he had no papers, and I had no papers, and what should I do about it? I loaded him in again, and drove back home. And when I went up to the house, last evening, there was a great uproar, and I thought our Herr would eat me up, he flew at me so. But what did I know? If he must have papers, he should have given them to somebody. But so much I know, if our Herr were not such a great Herr, and if he hadn't such a stiff backbone, and if we all held together, we would try a tussle with him. And his old Register of a wife is a thousand times worse than himself! Didn't she beat my neighbor Kapphingsten's girl half dead, last spring? She beat the girl three times with a broomstick, and shut her up in the shed, and starved her, and why? Because a hawk had carried off a chicken. Was it her fault that the hawk carried off the chicken, and was it my fault that he had given me no papers?"

Brasig listened to all this, and, though yesterday he wanted to start a revolution against Pomuchelskopp, to-day he kept perfectly still, for he would never have forgiven himself, if he had, by a thoughtless word, excited the people against their master.

They came to Pumpelhagen, and drove up to the farm-house door. With a great leap, Fritz Triddelsitz came out of the house to Brasig: "Herr Inspector, Hen Inspector! I truly could not help it, Marie Moller packed the book up, through an oversight, and when I went to change my clothes, in Demmin, there was the book."

"What book?" asked Brasig hastily.

"Good gracious! Habermann's book, that all this uproar has been about."

"And that book," said Brasig, catching Fritz by the collar, and shaking him, till his teeth chattered in his head, "you infamous greyhound, did you take that book to Demmin with you?" and he gave him a push towards the door: "In with you! Bring me the book!"

With fear and trembling, Fritz brought out the book; Brasig s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his hand. "Infamous greyhound! Do you know what you have done? The man who in his kindness and love has tried to make a man of you, who has covered all your stupidities with a silken mantle, you have ruined, you have brought into this shameful quarrel."

"Herr Inspector, Herr Inspector!" cried Fritz, deadly pale, "Oh, Lord!

it wasn't my fault, Marie Moller packed up the book, and I rode from Demmin to-day, in two hours, to bring it back again as soon as possible."

"Marie Moller!" cried Brasig, "what have you to do with Marie Moller?

Oh, if I were your Herr Father, or your Frau Mother, or even your Frau Aunt, I would lash you till you ran like a squirrel along the wall.

What have you to do with that old goose of a Marie Moller? And do you think to make up for your stupidity by gallopping over the public road?

Shall the innocent beast suffer for your fault? But come now, come before the board! Come before the judgment seat, to the gracious Frau!

You shall tell her how it has all happened, and then you can go and parade with Marie Moller."

And with that, he went off, and Fritz followed slowly behind, his heart full of misgivings.

"Announce me, with the young man, to the gracious Frau," said Brasig, to Daniel Sadenwater, when they came to the porch, and he pointed to Fritz. Daniel made a sort of half-grown bow, and went. Fritz stood there, like b.u.t.ter in the sun, making a face, which came very readily to him, since his days at Parchen, because he used to make it when there was a conference of teachers, and his misdeeds came up for judgment. Brasig stood bent up in the corner, with the book under his arm, and tugged alternately at his left and right boot-straps, that his yellow tops might appear to the best advantage. When the gracious Frau came, and went into the living-room, he followed her, quite red from the stooping and his excitement, and Fritz, very pale, went in behind him.

"You wished to speak to me, Herr Inspector?" asked the young Frau, looking now at Brasig, and now at Triddelsitz.

"Yes, gracious Frau, but I would first beg you graciously to hear what this Apothecary's son, this--infamous greyhound,"--he was going to say, but restrained himself--"young man has to say, he has a fine story to tell you."

The young Frau turned a questioning glance upon Fritz, and the old fellow began to stammer out his story, growing first red, and then pale, and told it pretty much as it happened, only that he left out Marie Moller's name, ending with, "And so the book came, by an oversight, into my travelling bag."

"Out with Marie Moller!" cried Brasig, "the truth must finally come to light!"

"Yes," said Fritz, "Marie Moller packed it up; I had so much to do that day."

The young Frau was greatly disturbed. "So it was all only an unhappy accident?"

"Yes gracious Frau, it was so," said Brasig, "and here is the book, and here, on the last page, is Habermann's account, and there are four hundred thalers due him, beside his salary, and it is right, and balances, for Karl Habermann never makes mistakes, and when we were boys he used to excel me myself, in the accuracy of his reckoning."

The young Frau took the book with trembling hand, and as she, without thinking of it, noticed the sum total on the last page, the thought shot confusedly through her mind, Habermann was innocent of this charge, why not of the other, in which she had never believed? Fritz's story could not be an invention, and she had done the man the bitterest injustice; but he had shot her husband! In that, she found a sort of excuse, and she said, "But for G.o.d's sake, how could he shoot at Axel?"

"Gracious Frau," said Brasig, raising his eyebrows very high, and putting on his most serious expression, "with your favor, those are abominable lies; the young Herr took aim at him, and as Habermann was trying to wrest the gun from him, it went off, and that is the whole truth, and I know all about it, because he told me himself, and he never lies."

Dear heart, she knew that, and she knew also, that so much could not be said of her husband; at the first, in his first excitement, he had said, "He is not a murderer," but since then, he had constantly affirmed that Habermann had shot him. She sat down, and laid her hand over her eyes, and tried to take counsel with herself; but it was of no use; she collected herself with an effort, and said, "You have come, I suppose, to receive the money for the inspector; my husband is suffering, I cannot disturb him now, but I will send it."

"No, gracious Frau, I did _not_ come for that," said Brasig, drawing himself up, "I came here to tell the truth, I came here to defend my old friend, who was my playmate sixty years ago."

"You have no need to do that, if your friend has a good conscience, and I believe he has."

"I see, by this remark, gracious Frau, that you know human nature very poorly. Man has two consciences, the one inside of him, and that no devil can take from him, but the other is outside of him, and that is his good name, and that any scamp may take from him, if he has the power, and is clever enough, and can kill him before the world, for man lives not for himself alone, he lives also for the world. And these wicked rumors are like the thistles, that the devil and his servants sow in our fields, they stand there, and the better the soil is the bigger they grow, and they blossom and go to seed, and when the top is ripe, then comes the wind,--no man knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth, and it carries the down from the thistle-top all over the field, and next year the whole field is full of them, and men stand there and scold, but no one will take hold and pull up the weeds, for fear of getting his fingers p.r.i.c.ked. And you, gracious Frau, have also been afraid of p.r.i.c.king your fingers, when you let my old friend be driven out of your house, as a traitor and a thief, and I wanted to tell you that, and to tell you that _that_ hurt my Karl Habermann the worst of all. And now farewell! I have nothing more to say." With that, he left the room, and Fritz followed him.

And Frida? Where was the bright young wife with her clear eyes and sound understanding, who looked at everything so sensibly and quietly?

This was not the same woman, the cool, intelligent composure had changed to restless agitation, and before the clear eyes lay a shadow, which hindered her from looking about her. "Ah," she exclaimed, "untrue again! All these suspicions are merely the progeny of lies, of self-deception and the most unmanly weakness! And my distress for him, my love for him, must make me a sharer in his wrong, I must give a deadly wound to this honest heart that loved me so truly! But I will tell him!"--she sprang up,--"I will tear away this web of lies!" but she sank down again, in weakness; "no, not yet; I cannot; he is too ill." Ah, she was right; insincerity and falsehood surround in a wide circle even the most upright heart, and come nearer and nearer, and draw it into the whirlpool, till it no longer knows whether it is out or in, when cool composure is lost, and considerate thought is absorbed in fear or hope.

When Brasig came to his wagon, Ruhrdanz, with the help of Krischan Dasel and others, had packed nearly all the goods, and what was left soon found a place. Brasig was getting into the wagon by Ruhrdanz, when Fritz Triddelsitz held him fast: "Herr Inspector, I beg of you, tell Herr Habermann that I am innocent, that I couldn't help it."

Brasig would have made no answer, but when he saw Fritz's sorrowful face, he pitied him, and said, "Yes, I will tell him; but you must reform." Then he drove off.

"Herr Inspector," said Ruhrdanz, after a little while, "it is none of my business, and perhaps I should not speak of it; but who would have thought it--I mean about Herr Habermann."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing,--I only mean that he should go off so suddenly, and then this shooting."

"Eh, that is all stuff and nonsense," said Brasig, in vexation.

"So I said, Herr Inspector; but the groom Krischan, he stood there, as we were packing, and he said that the whole disturbance came from the confounded papers, because Herr Habermann had no regular papers to show. Yes, so I say, the confounded papers!"

"Habermann's papers are all right."

"Yes, so I say, Herr Inspector, but about the shooting! Our young Herr Gustaving was telling about it this morning, all over the village."

"Gustaving," cried Brasig in his wrath, "is a rascal of a puppy! a puppy who has not yet got his eyes open."

"So I say, and don't take it evil of me, Herr Inspector; but he is the best of the lot, up at the Court. For, you see, there is the old--well, Orndt's nephew was here last week, and he came from Prussia to Anclam, and he said that our Herr always had human skin on his stick, he banged the people about so; but the Prussians wouldn't put up with him, and the people went to the Landgrafenamt, or to the Landrathenamt,--I don't know what the old thing is called,--and complained of him, and the Landgraf turned him out in disgrace. I wish we had such a Landgraf in our neighbourhood, for the court of justice is too far off."

"Yes," said Brasig hastily, "if you had such a Landrath as that, you would have something rare."