Three days after this interview, Brasig came home, and met the Frau Pastorin in the hall. Her right hand was in a bandage, for she had just sprained it, falling down the cellar-stairs.

"Frau Pastorin," said he, with great earnestness and expression, "I shall come down again immediately, and have something to tell you."

With that, he went up-stairs to Habermann. He said neither "Good day"

nor anything else, as he entered the room, but, looking very solemn, went through into the bedroom. There he poured out a gla.s.s of water, and returned with it to Habermann.

"Here, Karl, drink!"

"What? Why should I drink?"

"Because it is good for you. What you will need afterward, will not hurt you before."

"Brasig, what ails you?" cried Habermann, pushing away the water; but he noticed that something unusual was coming.

"Well, Karl, if you won't take it, you won't; but collect yourself, collect yourself quickly;" and he walked up and down, while Habermann followed him with his eyes, and turned pale, as he felt that this moment was to influence his destiny.

"Karl," said Brasig, standing before him, "have you collected yourself?"

He had really done so; he stood up and exclaimed:

"Brasig, say what you have to say! What I have borne so long, I can bear yet longer, if need be."

"That is not my meaning," said Brasig. "It is all out, the rascals are convicted, and we have the money; not all, but some of it."

The old man had dreamed what it would be to be delivered from his troubles, for a ray of hope had gleamed upon his horizon; but when the sun was fairly risen upon this new day, and shone brightly in his face, his eyes were blinded by the sudden splendor, and a thousand suns floated around him.

"Brasig! Brasig! My honest name! My child's happiness!" and he sank back in his chair, and Brasig held him the gla.s.s of water, and the old man drank, and recovered himself a little, and grasped Brasig, who stood before him, about the knees: "Zachary, you have never in your life deceived me!"

"No, Karl, it is the pure truth, and it stands in the protocol, and the rascals will be sent to Dreiberg, the Herr Burgomeister says; but first to Butzow, to the criminal court."

"Brasig," said Habermann, and he stood up, and went into his sleeping room, "leave me alone, and say nothing to Louise! Yes, tell her to come up."

"Yes, Karl," said Brasig, walking to the window, and looking out, and wiping the tears from his eyes, and as he went through the door he saw his Karl, in the bedroom, upon his knees.

Louise went to her father, Brasig told her nothing; but to the Frau Pastorin he was not so silent.

"Bless me," said the little Frau, "now Louise has gone away, and Habermann does not come, and you, Brasig, don't come at the right time, the dinner will be cold, and we have such nice fish. What were you going to tell me, Brasig?"

"Oh, nothing much," said Uncle Brasig, looking as if the rascals had infected him with all sorts of roguery, and he must exercise it now upon the Frau Pastorin, because she had abused him so about the letter; "only that Habermann and Louise are not coming to dinner. But we two can begin."

"Eh, Brasig, why are they not coming?"

"Well, because of the ap.r.o.n."

"The ap.r.o.n?"

"Yes, because it was wet."

"Whose ap.r.o.n was wet?"

"Why, Frau Kahlert's. But we will eat our dinner, the fish will get cold."

"Not a morsel!" cried the Frau Pastorin, and put a couple of plates over the fish, and over those a napkin, and over that her plump hands, and looked so wildly at Brasig with her round eyes, that he could no longer persist in his _role_, but burst out: "It is all out, Frau Pastorin, and they are convicted, and we have most of the money again."

"And do you tell me that now, first?" cried the little Frau, and jumped up from the table, and was running up to Habermann. Brasig would not allow that, and, by promising to tell her everything, brought her back to the sofa.

"Frau Pastorin," said he, "the chief thing that is, the princ.i.p.al indicium, came out through Kahlertsch, that is to say, not properly, of her own accord, but through her wicked jealousy, which is a dreadfully powerful feeling in many women, and produces the most terrible consequences. I don't mean you, by that, I only mean Kahlertsch. You see the woman had made up her mind to marry the weaver, and the weaver would'nt have her. Now, she is rightly of the opinion that the weaver's divorced wife wishes to marry him again, herself, and she lies in wait for them, and so it happened once that her ap.r.o.n--I mean Kahlertsch's--was wet, and she was going to dry it on the garden fence.

While she was there, half concealed behind the fence, she saw the weaver and his divorced wife, holding a _rendezvous_,--well, you know what that is, Frau Pastorin----"

"Brasig, I tell you----"

"Quiet, Frau Pastorin! and they were not sitting in a ditch, they were standing among the pole-beans, so that the woman must have got into the garden from over the fence, in the rear, since she had not gone through the house. Kahlertsch in her wicked jealousy, called Frau Krauger, the butcher's wife, to come and look also, and they two watched the other two, till they disappeared among the beans, and after a little the woman got over the fence, and the weaver busied himself in the garden, whereupon the two women quietly retired. So far we had got, and this was true, for the butcher's wife swore to it.

"Then the Herr Burgomeister says, if Kahlertsch would only speak out, we might learn more. Then I say, 'Herr Burgomeister, woman's jealousy!'

then he says, 'But how?' Then I say, 'Herr Burgomeister, I knew something about it, when I had three sweethearts at once,--jealousy is a terrible pa.s.sion, and it knows neither mercy nor pity. Let me try her.' and when Kahlertsch came again I said, in an off-hand way, 'Well, if the weaver had not married any body else, meantime, I suppose he could marry his divorced wife again.' And the Herr Burgomeister took my hint, and said yes, if he wanted to, the clerical consistory could give him a desperation. You see, that put the woman, herself into a desperation, and she burst out, if it was coming to that, she would tell something, the weaver had brought money with him out of the garden, for before that he had had no money in his cupboard, but afterwards she had looked, and had found money there, several double louis-d'ors. You see, she had trapped herself, showing that she had been, with a night-key, into other people's cupboards. The Herr Burgomeister had her arrested and put in prison, so we now had the three rogues fast.

"When the weaver came in again, and lied again, as to how he had come by the money, and lied to the very face of the butcher's wife, that he had not been with his wife in the garden, you see, the butcher's wife got angry too, and said she had seen the calves of her legs, as she was climbing over the fence,--don't take it amiss, Frau Pastorin,--but she said so. And then the weaver was sentenced to have ten on his jacket, for our laws,--thank G.o.d!--still have penalties for infamous lying, and the Herr Burgomeister talked to him very solemnly, and told him he was a master weaver, and he should be degraded from his trade; but would he confess? not a bit of it. But so soon as he had had his first three on the jacket, he fell on his knees,--which was a dreadful sight to me, so that I turned away,--and said he would confess everything, and he did so, since he had not stolen it himself, but his wife. The woman had stolen the money from the day-laborer, Regel, taking the black packet from his waistcoat pocket, when he was intoxicated, and hid it in the woods, under the moss and bushes, and there it had lain for two years, and whenever she went to get wood, she would take out a couple of pieces, which she would get changed by the help of some of the old Jew women,--she has been to Kurz, also. And then, perhaps a year and a half ago, she met the weaver, and asked him if he would not marry her again, for she was no longer poor, she had something now, and she gave him a double louis-d'or; he would'nt listen to her then, however, because at that time he was in love with Kahlertsch,--I beg you, Frau Pastorin, with Kahlertsch! They might offer me Kahlertsch on a silver salver, I should never fall in love with her. But he took the louis-d'or, and she teased him again, and made him other presents, till at last his inclination began to return to her, and he wanted nothing more to do with Kahlertsch. And she showed him all her treasure, and they changed it about, now here and now there, to keep it concealed, and finally, this spring, they locked it up in a box, and he threw the black cloth into the butcher's compost heap, and they buried the treasure in the garden. And we went there with the weaver, and found fourteen hundred thalers, among the potatoes. Just think of it--fourteen hundred thalers among the potatoes! They had spent the rest of it."

"Good heavens!" cried the Frau Pastorin, "how clever you and the Herr Burgomeister must have been, to get so much out of them."

"So we are, Frau Pastorin," said Uncle Brasig, quietly.

"But the woman?" cried the little Frau. "She was the nearest to it."

"Yes, Frau Pastorin, that was an exciting moment, for the Herr Burgomeister had concealed the indicium of the box and the gold, under his every-day hat, and when the weaver's wife was confronted with her husband, and once more admonished to tell the truth, and persisted in lying, then the Herr Burgomeister lifted his hat, and said, 'It is no matter. We have the money already.' You see, when she saw the box, she flew at the weaver, like a fury, and in a moment she had torn his whole face, just with her nails, and screamed, 'Cursed wretch! I would have made him happy, and he has made me unhappy!' Frau Pastorin, love is madder than jealousy. Kahlertsch never would have done that! But, Frau Pastorin, our fish must be quite cold."

"Ah, Brasig, how can you think of anything like that. But I must go to Habermann, I must tell him--"

"That you are very glad he is so triumphantly cleared." said Brasig, drawing her down on the sofa again; "so you shall, but not yet. For, you see, I believe Habermann has something to tell the Lord, and Louise will help him, and that is right too, but she is enough; for, Frau Pastorin,--as Pastorin you should know,--our Lord is a jealous G.o.d, and when He communes with a thankful soul he does not suffer that others should approach, but draws back, and, where the presence of G.o.d has shone, human sympathy must wait till afterwards."

The little Frau Pastorin looked at him in astonishment, and finally broke out:

"G.o.d bless you, Brasig! I always called you an old heathen; but you are a Christian, after all!"

"I don't know, Frau Pastorin, I don't know what I am. But I know that the little I have done, in this matter, I have not accomplished as a Christian, but as a.s.sessor at the criminal court. But Frau Pastorin, our fish is spoiled by this time, and I don't feel at all hungry. The house seems too narrow for me,--adieu, Frau Pastorin, I must go out in the fresh air a little while."

CHAPTER XLI.

The Friday, on which Rudolph and Mining were to be married, had come, and the loveliest Whitsuntide weather shone upon Rexow, and on the singular edifice which Jochen, with the aid of Schultz the carpenter, had constructed near his modest farm-house. From the outside, the affair was not very distinguished looking, it was only of boards and laths hammered together, and looked uncommonly like a building in which wild beasts are exhibited, at the Leipsic fair. Inside, the work of art presented a more stately appearance, for the boards were covered with blue and yellow cloth, half of one color, and half of the other, since there was not enough of one kind, in Rahnstadt, to cover so large a hall; and secondly, it was adorned with six notched beams, for on no other condition would carpenter Schultz undertake the job. There ought, properly, he said, to be nine, in such a building as a wedding-hall, but the expense would be too great, and since Jochen did not understand much about architecture, and Frau Nussler had enough to do with the eating and drinking for the wedding, and Brasig was his friend, and would not oppose him, because he had helped him at the Reformverein, carpenter Schultz had his own way, like a moth in a rug, and built in the notched beams to his heart's content; and upon each of them Brasig hung a sort of contrivance, intended to represent a chandelier, and Krischan the coachman climbed about on them for a week, in his buckskin breeches, adorning them with oak-leaves; which he did very finely, but to the detriment of his apparel, since the beams, with their splinters, little by little devoured his buckskin breeches.

Jochen put his hand in his purse, and paid the money for the new house, for he wanted everything done, for his Mining, in the finest manner, and he got Krischan a new pair of breeches.

"Mother," he cried to his wife, "come! look! What shall we do about it?"

"Yes, Jochen, it is all very well. But there ought to be lights in the chandeliers!"