He read about Lyons and Milan and Munich; revolutions were breaking out everywhere, and spreading all over the world. "Come, here is something," said he. "'Island of Ferro, the 5th inst. The island is in great excitement; they intend taking away our meridian, which we have had over three hundred years, and transferring it to Greenwich, in England. Great animosity to the English. The people take up arms; our two regiments of hussars are ordered to the defence of the Meridian.'"

"Just think of that, how they are going on!" "Yes, neighbor, that is no small matter; when one has had a thing three hundred years, it must be hard to do without it." "Neighbor, do you know what a meridian is?"

"Eh, what should it be? It must be something the English can make a good use of. You see, you wouldn't believe me, yesterday, that the English were at the bottom of the whole trouble, now you hear it for yourself."

Advocate Rein laid the paper on the table, and said, "The business is getting serious; one may well feel anxious and disturbed."

"Good heavens, what is the matter now?" "Has anything serious happened?"

"Serious? I should think so! Just listen! 'North pole, 27th February.

An extremely dangerous and serious outbreak has occurred among the Esquimaux; they obstinately refuse to turn the earth's axis any longer, and they pretend there is a lack of train-oil, for greasing, since the whale-fisheries have been so bad, during the last year. The consequences of this disturbance, for the whole world, are not to be reckoned.'"

"Thunder and lightning! what is that? Will the whole concern stand still?"

"Eh, the government must do something about it!"

"Eh, neighbor, the n.o.bility will not suffer that."

"I don't believe a word of it," said Hanne Bank.

"You don't believe it? Well, as a shoemaker, you should know something about it. Hasn't train-oil gone up since last year?"

"Well, children," said Wimmersdorf, the tailor, "so much I say, no good can come of it."

"Well," cried another, "it is all one to me! If the skies fall, the sparrows will drop dead. But so much I say, _we_ have to work, and shall those lazy dogs at the north pole sit with their hands in their laps? Grammelin, another gla.s.s of beer!"

From these stories one may perceive three things; first, that the advocate, Rein, read not merely out of the papers, but occasionally out of his head, and that he was a waggish fellow, and, secondly, that the Rahnstadt burghers were not yet quite ripe for the newspapers, and, thirdly, that men, as a general thing, look at a matter very coolly, when it does not affect their own interests.

But it was coming nearer to us. One fine day, the Berlin post did not arrive, and the Rahnstadters stood in a great crowd before the post-office, asking themselves, what was the meaning of this? and the grooms who had come to fetch the post-bags for the country places, asked themselves whether they should wait or not; and the only contented man, in all this disturbance, was the Herr Postmaster, who stood before the door, with his hands folded on his stomach, twirling his thumbs, and saying, for thirty years he had not had such a quiet time, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the morning, as to-day. The next day, instead of the little newsboys, came the grandees themselves, and instead of the grooms the gentlemen themselves rode in, but that did not help the matter, for still the post did not come; but instead, it began to be whispered about that a revolution had broken out at Berlin. One knew this, and another that, and old Dusing, the potter, who lived by the gate, said he had heard cannon firing distinctly, all the morning, which all the people honestly believed, although Rahnstadt is twenty-four miles from Berlin. Only his neighbor, Hagen, the wheelwright, said, "Gossip, that cannon firing was done by me; I have been splitting beechen-logs all the morning in my wood-shed."

The third day a post came; but not from Berlin, only from Oranienburg; and they brought along a man, who could have told everything, since he was himself in Berlin at the time, if he had not talked himself so hoa.r.s.e that by the time he reached Rahnstadt he could not speak a loud word. He was a clerical candidate belonging in the region, and the Rahnstadters knew him and nourished him with egg-nog to clear his throat; he drank a considerable quant.i.ty of the stuff, but it did no good; he pointed to his throat and chest, shook his head and was going away. But it was asking too much of the Rahnstadters to expect them to submit to such a disappointment, they wouldn't let him off, and the candidate was obliged to give a representation of the Berlin revolution, in pantomime. So he constructed a couple of barricades,--in the air, so to speak, for, if he had taken hold of the Rahnstadt paving stones literally, the police would have been after him,--he shot, with his cane, behind the barricades, he stormed them,--still with his cane,--from in front, he ran about wildly among the people to represent the dragoons, and succeeded in imitating the thunder of the cannon, for he was just able to say "b.u.mm!"

So the Rahnstadters knew, now, how a revolution looked, and how it should be conducted, and they sat together and drank beer and disputed, and things began to look so serious that even our friend Rein did not try to get off any more of his North pole stories. Sometimes, now, also, the grandees would come and drink beer, to earn popularity against the time when the revolution should begin here.

And it was seriously thought of. There were wide-awake people in Rahnstadt, as well as in other places, and although the citizens had no great common grievance, each had his little individual difficulty upon which to hang his discontent, one had this, another that, and Kurz had the stadtbullen. So it came about that all were united in the opinion that things must be different, and it would come to no good, if they did not have their revolution also,--that is to say, a little one.

Out of the indefinite reading of newspapers, came a definite Reformverein, with a president and a bell; and the irregular running up and down became regular, and the number of visitors became so large that the company adjourned, one evening, from the beer-house to the hall; but they took their beer-mugs along with them. All this happened in the greatest order, which is rather astonishing when one considers that the company was made up of discontented people, for the only contented member of the union was the landlord, Grammelin. They had speech-making in the hall, at first from the tables and benches; but that was to be altered. Thiel, the joiner, made a round sort of thing, which should serve for the speaker's stand, and the first speech made from it was by Dreiern, the cooper, against Thiel himself, since he considered the thing to be rather cooper's work than joiner's work, and begged of the a.s.sembly protection for his trade. He did not carry it through, however, although it was apparent to all that the thing bore a striking resemblance to a cooling-vat for a brandy-still. The old stout baker, Wredow, also failed in carrying his motion that the cask should be made larger, since there was no room to move about in it; for, as Wimmersdorf the tailor told him, the thing was not made for stout people; they had had enough of folks who cared merely for their own comfort. The thing was meant for those who had nothing on their ribs, and it was large enough for them. And so it happened that only the lean people got a chance to speak, and the stout folks in their anger and vexation stayed away, at which the others declared themselves to be well pleased. But it was a mistake, for in this way they expelled "the quiet element"--as it was called--from the union, and in their stead the day-laborers crowded in, and now they were ready for the revolution. The only two people of comfortable dimensions who still remained in the Reformverein, were Schultz the carpenter and Uncle Brasig.

No one could be more contented, in these restless times, than Uncle Brasig; he was always on the street; he was like a bee, or rather a humble-bee, and looked upon every house-door and every window in Rahnstadt as a flower whence he could suck news, and when his appet.i.te was satisfied he flew back to his place, and fed his friend Karl with his bee-bread: "Karl, they have driven away Louis Philippe."

"Is that in the papers?"

"I read it myself. Karl, he must have been an old coward. How is it possible a king could let himself be driven away?"

"Eh, Brasig, such things have happened before. Don't you remember about the Swedish Gustavus? When a people are all united against him, a king stands entirely alone."

"You are fight there, Karl; but yet I wouldn't have run away. Thunder and lightning! I would sit on my throne and put the crown on my head, and kick and thrash with my arms and legs, if any one touched me."

He came later, saying, "Karl, the post has not come again from Berlin, to-day, and your young Herr rode in splashing through the streets, up to the post-office, to make inquiries himself, and why not? But it came near going badly with him, for some of the burghers were already plotting together there, and asking themselves, by way of example, whether they ought to allow a n.o.bleman to go splashing through the mud like that. Well, he rode off, afterwards, in quite a different manner, towards Moses' house, and then the matter was dropped. I had a word to say to Moses, and went there shortly after, and as I came up he was just coming out of the door; he looked at me, but did not know me; not that I take it unkindly of him, for his head was full of his own affairs, for I could hear Moses saying, 'What I have said, I have said: I will lend no money to a gambler.' Moses is coming here, this afternoon."

So, in the afternoon, Moses came. "Habermann, it is correct, it is all correct about Berlin."

"What? has it broken out there?"

"It has broken out,--but don't say anything about it; this morning the son of Mana.s.seh came to me from Berlin, travelling post; he is going to make a business of buying up old flint-locks, he has got some thirty thousand, left from the year '15."

"What can he do with his flint-locks?" cried Brasig; "every educated person uses percussion locks, now-a-days."

"What do I know?" said Moses. "I know a good deal, and I know nothing at all. He thinks, when it begins, there will be a demand for the old muskets with the flint-locks, too, and he told me at Berlin they shot with flint-locks and sabres and pistols and cannon on the people, and it went 'Puh! puh!' the whole night, and the cuira.s.siers rode through the streets, and the people threw stones, and shot out of windows, and from behind the barricades. Terrible! terrible! but don't say anything about it."

"So there was a regular cannonization?" inquired Brasig.

"Good heavens!" cried Habermann, "what times these are! what dreadful times!"

"Why, what do you call dreadful times? It is always bad times for the foolish, and always good for the wise. When we had good times, I had no reason for drawing in my money, and giving notice here and there. For an old man like me, these are good times."

"But, Moses, have you no anxiety, when everything seems going to destruction? You are well known to be a rich man."

"Well, I am not afraid; my Blumchen came and whispered to me, and David came,--he trembled like that,--and said, 'Father, what shall we do with our money?' 'Do with it?' said I, 'do as we have done. Lend, where it is safe, do business where it is safe; we can be "people" too, if it is necessary. Let your beard grow, David,' I said, 'the times require it.'

'Well, and when other times come?' he asked me. 'Then you can cut it off again,' I said, 'the times will not require it then.'"

The talk then turned upon Axel, and his difficulties, and the fact that money and credit were nowhere to be had, and there was much to say on that point, for if credit fell property must fall with it, and many a one would not be able to keep his estate. And when Moses was gone the two old farmers sat together through the evening, with the Frau Pastorin, and the talk wandered sadly, hither and thither, and the Frau Pastorin clasped her hands, once and again. Over the wicked world, and, for the first time, thanked her Creator that her pastor had been taken away before these evil times, and had not lived to see such unchristian behavior; and Habermann felt like a man who has given up a fine business, which had grown very dear to him, and now sees his successor going to destruction. Brasig, however, did not allow himself to be dismayed; he held up his head, and said these agitations, which were spreading over the whole world, were not merely the result of human invention, our Lord had his hand in the business as much as ever; at least. He had allowed it, and after the storm the air would be clear again. "And, Karl," he added,--"I say nothing about you, Frau Pastorin,--but if I may advise you, Karl, you should come with me, tomorrow evening, to Grammelin's, for we are not mere rebels, and do you know how it seems to me? Just as it is in a stormy day; if you stand in the house and look out, you shudder and shrink, but once out in the midst of the rain, you scarcely notice it."

So Brasig attended the Reformverein at Rahnstadt, and every evening came back to the house, and told what had happened there. One evening, he came home later than usual: "They have gone crazy, today, Karl, and I have drank a couple of gla.s.ses more beer than usual, merely on account of the great importance of the matter. You see, the day-laborers have all become members of the union, and why not? we are all brothers. And the cursed fools have been planning that the whole limits of the town of Rahnstadt must be measured over again, and cut up into equal sections, and every one is to have just so much land, and every one is to have the right to cut down a beech-tree, from the town forest, for the winter; then there will be regular equality among men.

Then all who owned land got up; they were for equality, but they wished to keep their property, and Kurz made a long speech about fields and meadows, and introduced the stadtbullen into them; and when he had finished they reviled him for an aristocrat, and turned him out. And then the tailor, Wimmersdorf, stepped up, and discoursed about the freedom of the trades, and the other tailors attacked him, and belabored him unmercifully, they wanted equality, they said, but they must have guilds for all that. And a young man got up, and asked, mockingly, how it should be with the tailoresses? Should they be admitted to the guilds, or not? And the old master tailors would have nothing of the kind, and then the young people declared themselves for the tailoresses, and turned out the old tailors, and there was a great uproar outside; and, in the hall, Rector Baldrian made a long, long speech, in which there was a great deal about the emanzipulation--or something else--of the female s.e.x, and he made the proposition, that if the master tailors would not admit the tailoresses into their guild, the tailoresses should establish a guild of their own, for they were as good human sisters as any other guild; and that was pa.s.sed, and the tailoresses are a guild now, and I was told, as I was going out, the tailoresses would be out to-morrow, in white dresses, with their forewomen at the head. Karl, that old, yellow old maid who goes by here every day, that they always call a Tartar, should lead them to the rector's house, and thank him, and in token of grat.i.tude for his speech should present him with a woolen under-jacket and drawers, on a cushion."

"Brasig! Brasig!" exclaimed Habermann, "what nonsense you are talking!

One would think you had n.o.body above you, and that you could decide everything for yourselves."

"Why not, Karl? Who is to hinder us? We make our resolutions, as well as we know how, and if nothing comes of it, why, nothing comes of it; and nothing ever will come of it, in my opinion, for you see, Karl, the whole story comes to one point; all will have something, and n.o.body will give up anything."

"So it is, to be sure, Zachary, and I do not think, in this little city, there will be much harm done, for one party will always oppose the other; but, just think, if the day-laborers, in the country, should get the idea of dividing the estates, what would become of us then?"

"Eh, Karl, but they won't do it!"

"Brasig, it lies deep in human nature, this desire to call a little bit of our earth one's own, and they are not the worst men who care the most for it. Look around you! When the mechanic has laid up something, then he buys himself a little garden, a little field, and has his pleasure as well as his profit in it, and the laboring man in the city may do the same, for he has the possibility; and for that reason, I do not believe the discontent of the laborers, here in the city, is of much consequence. But it is different with the laborers in the country; they have no property, and, with all their industry and frugality, can never acquire any. If these opinions should spread among them, and ignorant men should attempt to carry them into effect, you would see, the consequences would be bad. Yes," he cried, "at first, it would begin merely among the bad masters, but who will be security that it shall not extend to the good also?"

"Karl, you may be right, Karl, for this evening Kurz told me,--that is to say, before he was turned out,--that, last Sunday, a couple of Gurlitz laborers used very singular expressions at his counter."

"Do you see," said Habermann, and took up his candle to go to bed, "I wish no evil to any one, though many may have deserved it, but it is sad that the good masters should suffer with the bad, and that the punishment, which falls justly here and there, should fall upon the whole country."

With that he went off, and Brasig said to himself, "Truly! Karl may be right, in the country it might go badly, I must go immediately to look after young Jochen and Pastor Gottlieb. Well, there is no danger about young Jochen, he has never said a word to his laborers, and they will say nothing to him, and the pastor's Jurn is decidedly no rebel."

Habermann's opinion of the people, with whom he had so long been connected, was just; through the whole country spread a restlessness, like a fever. The most well-founded complaints, and the most unreasonable and shameless demands went from mouth to mouth, among the people, and what was at first lightly whispered was soon loudly spoken out. The masters were mostly to blame for it, themselves; they had lost their heads, each one acted on his own hook, and selfishness became very evident, when each cared merely for his own interests, and, provided he could live in peace with his people, did not trouble himself about his neighbor. Instead of going forward, with a good conscience, in the old, friendly intercourse with the people, some masters cringed before their own laborers, and granted all their unreasonable demands; others mounted the high horse, and would compel them with sword and pistol, and I have known some who would not ride about their own fields without a couple of rifles in the wagon. And why? Because they had not a good conscience, and had long ceased to have any friendly feelings towards their people. Of course, this was not true of all masters, nor was it true of Axel; he had never been unkind to his people, nor was he generally hard, but he could become so, if he believed his position as master to be in danger. Under such circ.u.mstances as the present, every one showed his true character, and it required a very cool and experienced head to look over the whole tumult and trouble, hold oneself in readiness for action, and decide what was good and what was evil, and how one should steer his ship safely through these swelling waves.

This was not the case with Axel, he sat in the midst of the whole confusion, and groped blindly about him for resources which he should have found in himself, and so it happened, that he committed both follies of the masters, now he would yield unwisely, and again the lieutenant of cuira.s.siers would get the ascendancy, and he would seize his pistols and sabre. The people were not what they had been, and that was his own fault; for at one time he would deprive them of little things, which, from old custom, were dear to the heart of the small folk, and again, in a fit of good nature, he would give liberally all sorts of favors, and that made the people greedy, for he did not understand human nature, especially that of the small folk, in the country. He would praise the people when they had been idle, and scold them when they had been industrious, for he did not know how much they could bear. In short, he had not treated them in accordance with right and justice, but merely according to his own caprices, and because these had not lately been favorable, discontent had increased among the day-laborers, and against such solid old oaks as would not easily burn, or let the flame kindle, was piled one dry fir-branch after another, until, at last, they begin to take fire.

Every one knows that only diseased firs afford such dry branches, and in Axel's neighborhood stood such a diseased fir-tree, which was full of splinters, and that was Gurlitz. This tree had formerly been quite sound; but, in spite of all Pastor Behrens could do to preserve it, it had decayed, for each of the several masters, whom they had exchanged for another, had taken away branch after branch, and the old tar-barrel, Pomuchelskopp, was really glad that it was diseased, and thought merely of the fat he could roast out of it; for there are masters,--sad to say,--who prefer a bad state of things, among their day-laborers, to a sound one, and rejoice when they have their people at a disadvantage, because they can skin them the better. But Pomuchelskopp had not taken it into account that, when the lightning strikes such a dry tree, it will burn quicker and brighter than a sound one; and the neighbors of our Herr Proprietor, who knew very well that the Gurlitz people were in a bad way, and often jested about it, never thought that the fire which Pomuchelskopp--of course without meaning it--had kindled for his own destruction, might also happen to scorch themselves, and Gurlitz might be the bonfire, from which the whole region should be kindled. The Gurlitz laborers had taken to drinking brandy, because there was a distillery at the court, and they could have brandy on credit, through the week, to be deducted from their wages on pay-day, and they were in the habit of running to the city, to spend every shilling--spare or not,--at the shops in Rahnstadt, and here they had learned what was going on in the world, and the shopmen had also instructed them how it ought to go on in the world, and then they came home, and put their besotted ignorance together, and kindled it with their greedy wishes, till it rose up in blue flames, and their half-starved wives and children stood behind them, like ghosts, and they thrust in the splinters of the dry fir-tree,--that is, their poverty and distress,--and ran with them about the neighborhood, and so they had kindled even the honest, tough old oaks.

It did not blaze out openly, at first, there was much opposition to be overcome; there were well-meant words of intelligent people, there was the old dependence, there was the recollection of former benefits, there was the eternal justice, which holds out long, even in a diseased soul, and presses its sting into the conscience, and all this fell like cold rain on the glowing embers, and kept the fire from blazing out, even in Gurlitz. Had they been able to read the souls of their masters, however, it would have blazed up merrily, for in Pomuchelskopp's heart the common hatred and the most pitiable cowardice strove for the mastery, for his good conscience had long ago taken leave of him, and he could not rely upon his former kind treatment. At one moment he would cry cut in rage, "Oh, these wretches! I should only---- There must be new laws made! What have I to do with a government that has troops, and will not let them march? What! My property is in danger, my government must protect my property." And the next moment he would call his Gustaving in from the yard: "Gustaving, you blockhead, why are you running about among the threshers, let them thresh as they please, I will have no quarrel with my people," and he turned to his Hauning, who sat there, stiff as a stake, her sharp nose and her sharp eyes turned steadily in one direction, and not even shaking her head, "Hauning," he said, "I know what you think, you mean I should let them see that I am the master; but it won't do, it really won't do, Klucking! we must be careful, we must be careful, with great caution we may possibly pull through."