"Rely upon me," said Brasig, "I will hold you," and he caught him by the coat-collar at once.

"But what was the stick to blame for?" said Habermann, going to pick it up. Something stuck fast to the stick, Kurz had thrust it through, with his working, and thrown it away with the stick; the old man was going to shake it off, but as he looked at it, he stood still. Brasig had been occupied with Kurz, and had not paid attention to his old friend, and he now called.

"Come, Karl, we are going! There is nothing to be made of this business."

He got no answer, and as he looked at his friend, he saw him standing, with something black in his hand, which he regarded with fixed attention, not turning nor moving.

"Good heavens, Karl, what have you there?" cried Zachary Brasig, going towards him. Still he got no answer, Habermann, pale as death, was looking at that which he held in his hand, and which made his features quiver with agitation.

"Karl, Karl! What have you found, what is the matter?"

And at last the words burst from Habermann's struggling breast: "That packet! This is that packet!" and he held out to Brasig a piece of waxed cloth.

"What? What sort of a packet?"

"Oh, I have held it in my hand, I have seen it for years, waking and dreaming! See, here is the von Rambow coat of arms, here are the marks on the cloth. It was put together like that, it was of that size! It was put up so, with the two thousand thalers in gold! This is the packet, which Regel was sent to Rostock with."

AH this came out as disjointedly, anxiously and confusedly, as when one talks in a dream, and the old man seemed to be so overpowered by excitement that Brasig sprang towards him, and held him, but he held the cloth fast, as if it had grown into his heart, and Brasig raised himself, to look at it nearer,--Kurz came up also, without noticing any thing remarkable, for he was not yet over his vexation: "Well," he exclaimed, "now, tell me, isn't it enough to drive me crazy? There lies my manure, there lies my ten thalers, on baker Wredow's field."

"Thunder and lightning!" cried Brasig, "do leave your confounded manure in peace! Your talk is as bad as the stuff itself. There is your cane,--we must go home. Come, Karl, recollect yourself."

And when Habermann had taken a few steps, the color returned to his face, and a restless agitation and a driving haste came over him, he began to ask after this thing and that; of whom Kurz had bought the manure, when it was loaded, how it was loaded, what sort of a man the butcher Krauger was, and then he stood still, and folded the packet together, and looked at the creases in the cloth, and at the seal, while Kurz quite forgot his anger, and wondered what had came over the old inspector, that he should take so much interest in his manure and his ten thalers. At last Brasig told him about the matter, but he made him promise with a fearful oath, that he would not repeat a word of it, to any one; "For," said he, "you are one of the people whose tongues run away with them."

And then they stood together in the street, and deliberated how the wrapper of the packet could have come into the butcher's yard, and Kurz, as well as Brasig, was of the opinion, that it was impossible the butcher could have anything to do with the business,--he was too respectable a man.

"Yes," said Habermann, and the old energy and decision and judgment, which he had seemed to lose in his trouble and grief, had quite come back to him, "yes, but a neighbor might have thrown it over there. Does the butcher live alone in the house?"

He had tenants in the back part of the house, Kurz said, but he did not know who they were.

"I must go to the burgomeister," said Habermann, and as they came back into the town, he went to his house. Kurz would have gone with him, but Brasig held him back: "We two have lost nothing." And as he said farewell to him, at his own door, he added, "You belied me to-day in the most shameful manner; I have forgiven you, however, the 'riding on a donkey;' but if you breathe a word about Karl Habermann's business, I will wring your neck for you,--you confounded old syrup-prince, you!"

Habermann found the burgomeister at home; he told him about his discovery and laid the waxed cloth together in the previous folds, while the burgomeister grew more and more attentive, and finally said:

"Yes, to be sure, to be sure! I had the packet in my hand, also, when I gave the messenger his pa.s.s; the examination, that followed immediately, fixed it clearly in my memory, and if I were called as a witness, I must testify that it is the same, or one exactly like it.

But, my dear Herr Habermann, the trace is still too indistinct; for example, the butcher certainly can have nothing to do with the business, he is one of our best citizens; it is not to be thought of."

"But there are other people in the back of the house."

"That is true, yes! Do you know who lives there? Well, we can soon find out," and he touched the bell. The waiting-maid came in.

"Fika, who lives in the back part of the house with Krauger the butcher?"

"Eh, Herr, widow Kahlert lives there, and then Schmidt the weaver,"

said Fika.

"Schmidt? Schmidt? Is that the weaver Schmidt, who is divorced from his wife?"

"Yes, Herr, and people say he is going to be married again, to the widow Kahlert."

"So? so? Do people say that? Well, you may go;" and the burgomeister walked up and down, thinking and thinking, and then stopped before Habermann, and said, "It is really a remarkable coincidence; that is the divorced husband of the woman, whom we took up once for examination; you know, she claimed to have found the Danish double louis-d'ors."

Habermann said nothing, fear and hope were struggling too powerfully in his breast.

The burgomeister touched the bell again; Fika came: "Fika, go round to butcher Krauger's, and tell him I want him to come here, in a quarter of an hour."

Fika went; and the burgomeister said to Habermann, "Herr Inspector, these are very significant indications; yet it is possible we may come to a dead halt; I can give you very little encouragement. But even if we arrive at no certainty, what does it matter? No reasonable being can have any suspicion of you. I have been really troubled to see that you have taken such utterly groundless suspicions so much to heart. But I must ask you to go now; people will certainly think you are concerned in the matter. Say nothing about it, and take care that Kurz and Brasig are silent also. Yes--and--yes, that will do! You can send Inspector Brasig to me, to-morrow morning at nine o'clock."

Habermann went, and Krauger the butcher came.

"Dear Herr Krauger," said the burgomeister, "I sent for you, that you might give me information on a few points. The widow Kahlert and the weaver Schmidt live with you?"

"Yes, Herr Burgomeister, they live in the back of my house."

"As I hear, weaver Schmidt is going to marry widow Kahlert. Does the woman know that there are some legal hindrances in the way of Schmidt's contracting a second marriage?"

"Yes, Herr Burgomeister; I don't know about that last; I don't trouble myself about the people; but, you know, these women folks! if these is a courtship in the air, they are like the bees, and bring the news into the house,--well, Herr Burgomeister, you won't take it ill, mine is naturally no better than the rest; well, she came in lately, and said the business was so far settled that Kahlertsch was quite determined about it, but the weaver wasn't ready yet. And Frau Kahlert told Frau Bochert, she had cooked and washed for him over a year, and it was time he were making his preparations; but it was all the fault of that baggage his divorced wife, who came and teased the weaver to take her back again. If she should come again, however, she would trip her up, and the weaver might cook and wash for himself."

"The widow Kahlert must be very foolish," said the burgomeister, "to want to marry that man. She has a little something, enough to live on; but he has nothing in the world but his loom; that came out in the evidence, at the divorce."

"Yes, it was so _then_. But, you see, Herr Burgomeister, I don't trouble myself about him,--if he pays his rent, I have no further business with him, and he has always done that honestly; and he has rented, for this year past, a little room of mine, that opens into his, and my wife says she went in there once, with Frau Kahlert, and it was very nicely fitted up, with a sofa, and pictures on the wall."

"He must have had a good deal to do then, and have earned a good deal."

"Eh, Herr Burgomeister, a weaver! and it is such a noisy business, they can tell, all over the neighborhood, when the old loom stands still, and there are a good many days, when I don't hear its music. No, he must have something laid up."

"Then he lives very comfortably?"

"Yes, indeed! He has his fresh meat every day, and I told my wife, 'You shall see,' I said, 'it is only because of the nice mutton and beef that Kahlertsch wants to marry him.'"

"Well, Herr Krauger, just tell me plainly,--I ask you in confidence,--do you think the man is really an honest man?"

"Yes, Herr Burgomeister, I think he is. Now in some things I am very observant, I have had some tenants who would run a splinter into their fingers, in the yard, and when they pulled it out, in their kitchen, it would be a four-foot log of my beechen timber, and when they went through the shop, a pound of beef would jump into their coat-pockets, and the apples from my trees were always falling at their feet. Well, it isn't so with him; I say to you, don't meddle with him!"

The burgomeister was an honorable man, and a man of the best intentions; but at this moment such good testimony in behalf of one of his fellow-men, was not agreeable to him; he would rather have heard that people thought the weaver a rascal. Some things are hard to explain; but so much is certain, there are dark abysses in human nature, and when such an abyss has opened in the office of the judge, it has swallowed up thousands of innocent men. "Judge, judge justly!

G.o.d is thy master, and thou his servant!" is a fine old proverb, which my father taught me when I was a little boy, but the weakness of human nature does not always suffer us to act up to it, to say nothing of the openly wicked, who seek their advantage in injustice.

The butcher had gone, and the burgomeister walked up and down the room, thinking over the matter, and contriving how he could find out how the waxed cloth came into the butcher's yard. Two things urged him powerfully to this investigation, one was his deep compa.s.sion for Habermann's troubles, the other, his firm persuasion that this was the wrapper of the gold-packet which he had held in his own hand. But he knew, also, that he had not yet a firm clue, which he could follow; yet he was sure of so much, that the weaver's divorced wife still held intercourse with him.

Habermann, also, was walking up and down in his room, hastily, restlessly. Ah, how strongly he was impelled to share his hopes and his prospects with his child, and the Frau Pastorin! But unrest for both?

And he had enough to do, to control his own.

Brasig sat in a chair, turning his head back and forth as Habermann walked up and down the room, and looking at him; like Bauschan when Jochen Nussler had his cap on.

"Karl," said he, finally, "I am very glad to see you are growing so active, and you shall see, it will have a good effect upon you. But, I tell you, you must have an advocate. Take the Herr Advocate Rein; he is a good fellow, who knows how to turn and twist, in spite of his length.

You can't go through with it alone, Karl; but he can help you, and, if it is necessary, I can bring the matter before the Reformverein, and your fellow-citizens can help you to your rights."

"Brasig, for mercy's sake! what are you thinking of? You might as well tell it to the town-crier! I am dreadfully afraid Kurz will let it out."

"Kurz? No, Karl, don't be afraid, he can't talk about it to-day, for I have been to him and scolded him till he can scarcely see or hear, and to-morrow you shall see he will have the croup, so that he cannot speak a word."