CHAPTER X.
How Fritz Sahlmann sat in an apple-tree in the rain without any umbrella, and stuffed a roll of papers in under the back of his waistcoat; and how Mamsell Westphalen declared herself to be a miserable sinner.
After a little while, the Frau Amtshauptmann came back into the room and said, "Weber, what can be the meaning of this? Fritz Sahlmann is not there; and Mamsell Westphalen is not there, and her room looks as if Turks and Infidels had been holding high holiday in it; and the maids say all they know about it is, that the Rathsherr Herse had slipped in at the back-door, and Hanchen had pushed her broom in his face by accident, and Mamsell Westphalen had thrown a lot of peat-ashes in his eyes, also by accident, and afterwards Mamsell Westphalen and Fritz Sahlmann had gone away; and they don't know where they are."
"This is a very strange thing," said the old Herr. "What has the Rathsherr Herse to do in the kitchen? I like the man well enough, Neiting, he's a pleasant fellow; but he must poke his nose into every hole, and I never heard of anything sensible coming of it. Tell me, Neiting, which of the maids do you consider the most sensible?"
"Weber, what are you talking about? As if you could expect sense from that class."
"Well then, the quickest, the sharpest?"
"Oh, then certainly Hanchen Besserdich, for her eyes take in everything at once, and her tongue goes even faster than her eyes."
"Call her to me," said the Herr.
It was done, and Hanchen came. Hanchen Besserdich was a smart little damsel, as sharp and wide-awake as only a Gülzow Schult's[[2]] daughter can be,--at that time it was the custom for the daughters of the village Schults to go into service.--But now she stood before the Herr Amtshauptmann, and played with her apron-strings, with her eyes cast down, for she felt as if she were in a court of justice.
"You are now before me to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," said her master. "Hanchen Besserdich, what do you know of Mamsell Westphalen? Begin by yesterday evening."
Hanchen told him what she knew, and what we know.
"So she slept with you, and not in her own room?" said the old Herr.
"Weber, what can you mean by asking such questions?" broke in the Frau Amtshauptmann.
"Neiting, every circumstance is of importance, if innocence is to be brought to light. And you don't think," he went on, turning to Hanchen, "that she has run away with the Herr Rathsherr Herse?"
"No, Herr; I think she has run away, but not with the Rathsherr; for I met him alone at the back-door when I came back from seeing my brother who was in the garden, Herr Amtshauptmann, with our horse to draw the French cannons; but--" and here she raised her eyes from the ground, and there was a roguish look in her fresh round face,--"but, Herr Amtshauptmann, he has got away from the French."
"Indeed!" said the old Herr. "Your brother has got away, has he?"
"Yes," said Hanchen, smiling again roguishly, "and he was the first to begin the running-away, and he showed the others the little green gate."
"That was a foolish prank of his; and if the French catch him, they'll make him smart for it. You Besserdichs are a saucy lot.--Neiting, remind me of that young rascal, Fritz Besserdich, another time.--And, Hanchen, where is Fritz Sahlmann?"
Hanchen was cowed again, and what followed, came only by fits and starts. "Why, Herr Amtshauptmann, he smashed all your pipes to pieces this morning and then said I had done it. And, indeed, it wasn't my fault; for I only just wanted to look round the corner when the French Colonel was raging about, and then he ran at me with the pipes in his hand, and now the pieces are strewn all over the kitchen."
"And since then you have seen nothing of him this morning?"
"Yes, Herr, when the watchmaker was transpired, he ran along with him, and then, when he came back again, he went talking High German to Mamsell Westphalen and then they both whispered together."
"High German? Fritz Sahlmann talking High German? What does the rascal want to be talking High German for? What did he say?"
"He said; 'help is near.'"
"Oh! and then the Rathsherr came?"
"Yes, Herr Amtshauptmann, and I shoved my broom in his face; but I couldn't help it."
"This is a very strange thing!" said the old Herr, and walked up and down, and stroked his chin, and looked up at the ceiling, and looked down on the floor. At last he stood still and said, "Neiting, I see clearly what it is. That old fool, Westphalen, has taken fright, and the Rathsherr has been meddling, and has put her up to some folly. She has hidden herself--you'll see."
"Well then, let her, Weber."
"No, Neiting, that won't do. She must come to the town and bear witness for the watchmaker and the Miller, or both their necks may be in danger. If I only knew where that monkey, Fritz Sahlmann, was! He'll know all about it. And you don't know where he is, Hanchen?"
"No, Herr."
"Well, then, you may go."
As Hanchen turned round to go, her eyes fell on the end-window, but, being naturally very clear and wide-awake they took in, not only the window, but what was passing outside it. She turned quickly round again, and said--
"Now I know where he is, Herr Amtshauptmann."
"Well, then, where?"
"Out there, sir."
"Where?" answered the old Herr, and he put up his eye-glasses, and looked everywhere except where Fritz Sahlmann was.
"There, Herr Amtshauptmann, there, in the old apple-tree that stands at the corner of the kitchen wall."
"So he is! Well, this is a strange thing!--In the winter too! Now, if it had been autumn when the apples are on the tree, I could have understood it; but in the winter!"
"Oh! Weber," said his wife, "he is no doubt practising now."
"Hanchen Besserdich, you have good eyes, what is he doing there?" asked the old Herr fumbling with his eye-glass.
"Why, he has got a long pole, but what he means to do with it I don't see. He's pointing it towards the smoking-garret."
"Towards our smoking-garret! What can he want there, Neiting?"
"I don't know, Weber; but I should not be at all surprised if some more sausages were missing tomorrow."
"Bravo, bravo! Why, that is a capital tree for my Fritz. Apples in summer, and sausages in winter!" And he opened the window and cried: "Fritz Sahlmann! Fritz, my lad, come down from that tree; you might catch cold out in the rain."
There is said to be an animal, called the sloth, that takes a week to get into a tree and a week to get out of it again. Now, Fritz Sahlmann did not take quite as long as that to come down out of the apple-tree; but still he was long enough, and it could hardly be for the sake of his trowsers that he climbed down so cautiously, and when he was down at the bottom of the tree, it was apparent that he was meditating deeply whether he should come or make off. But Fritz Sahlmann was an obedient boy, he came, only every now and then he stopped for a moment.
"Hanchen, what is he doing there behind that gooseberry-bush?" asked the old Herr.
"He has thrown something down behind it."
"That's it, is it?--Well, Fritz, you can come in at the back-door.--And, Hanchen, you go down, and take care that he does not make his escape through the front-door."
Hanchen went, and Fritz came--slowly as Christmas, but he came.
"Fritz Sahlmann, my lad, you must have enough intelligence to see that it can't be good for your health to be sitting out there in this rain without any umbrella; another time take one with you when you want to sit out in the rain. And you must also have sufficient intelligence to understand that it is not good for your trowsers to be climbing about trees in the rain; choose a fine day for such work in future. Now, tell me; what were you doing in the tree?"
"Oh, nothing, Herr Amtshauptmann."
"Hm, hm," said the old Herr; "but what I wanted to ask was: Have you seen anything of Mamsell Westphalen?"
Fritz Sahlmann who had expected quite a different sort of question, seemed at once to brighten up and said quite boldly: "No, Herr Amtshauptmann."
"Well, my lad, you could not be expected to know a thing that nobody knows. But now just do me the favour to look straight at me."
Fritz Sahlmann did him the favour; but his look was like bad money, and the old Herr cannot have taken it to be worth much, for he said--"Fritz Sahlmann, here is a knife, go down and cut me a stick from one of the hazel-bushes--you know where they are;--let it be as thick as--as--well, about as thick as your middle-finger; and, my lad, you have lost something behind the gooseberry-bush, call Hanchen to help you to look for it. But Hanchen is to go with you, do you hear?"
Fritz Sahlmann now saw a sad prospect opening before him; but he trusted in two things in which people generally trust in their difficulties, namely, in Providence,--that it would at the right time put some stone in the way of the old Herr's plans; and then, secondly, in his good luck in former difficulties; and besides these he had another help in need which ordinary mortals know nothing of; viz: a little bundle of papers which, in serious cases, he used to stuff up under the back of his waistcoat; and this he did not forget to-day.
He now went into the garden, tolerably quieted, with the secret hope that Hanchen would miss the right gooseberry-bush; but while he was busied looking for the right-sized stick, he saw, with inward quaking, that the girl had gone to the right bush, and picked up something that, in the distance, appeared to him to be very much like a sausage. He must try, therefore, to help himself in some other way. So he first of all cut a couple of imperceptible notches in the stick, which did not exactly add to its firmness, and then he tried to get the find from Hanchen. But this did not succeed, for Hanchen had no wish to undergo a second examination before the Herr Amtshauptmann; and, besides, it occurred to her that perhaps it had been Fritz Sahlmann, who had one night, about a week before, strewn her bed with hog's bristles.
So Fritz and Hanchen made their appearance once more before the Herr Amtshauptmann, the former with the stick, and the latter with a nice little pork sausage.
"Hanchen," said the Herr Amtshauptmann, taking the sausage from her; "you can go now. Neiting," he said, turning to his wife and holding up the sausage before her eyes, "this is what we call a corpus delicti."
"It may be, Weber, that it is called so in Latin, but we call it a 'pork sausage.'"
"Good, Neiting. But, tell me, can you swear that this is one of our sausages?"
"Yes, Weber, I know it by the string."
"Fritz Sahlmann, how did you come by this sausage?"
Now, this was a terrible question for Fritz; Providence was clearly not interfering on his behalf; his luck was deserting him; the Amtshauptmann stood before him, in one hand the sausage, in the other the stick, and the stick was hardly two feet from his back; he was therefore wholly thrown upon the little bundle of papers for help, and that too was only so-so, for the Amtshauptmann might discover it by the noise. So he gave himself up for lost, began to cry and said--"It was given me."
"That's a story," broke in the Frau Amtshauptmann, "you have stolen it with the long pole."
"Be quiet, Neiting! No leading questions. Fritz, who gave you this sausage?"
"Mamsell Westphalen."
"When, Fritz."
"When I was sitting in the tree."
"Was she sitting by your side?"
"No, she was sitting in the smoking-garret, and then she fixed the sausage on the pole; I had stuck a nail into the end of it."
"But you said just now, you did not know where Mamsell Westphalen was. Fritz Sahlmann, you have told me a lie."
"Don't beat me, don't beat me, Herr Amtshauptmann. I couldn't help it, I couldn't really. The Rathsherr Herse made me take a solemn oath not to tell anybody, not even you, where Mamsell Westphalen was."
"Are you in the Rathsherr Herse's service or in mine? You have told me a falsehood, Fritz, and when you tell lies you are to be whipped; those are the terms of our contract."
And, so saying, the Herr Amtshauptmann took Fritz by the collar, and raised the stick in the air; and, if Providence was to come to his help, it was now the highest time, and--Providence did come. A knock was heard at the door, and in walked the Town Messenger--Luth.
"The Herr Burmeister's respects, and things are going hard against the watchmaker and the Miller, and would the Herr Amtshauptmann be so good as to come down at once and not fail to bring Mamsell Westphalen with him, for her evidence was of the greatest importance."
"I will come at once, Luth. Neiting, the matter is pressing. Fritz Sahlmann, get my coat, and, Neiting, you go up to that old bird of misfortune and bring her down."
It may be guessed how quickly Fritz Sahlmann fetched the coat, and how glad he was to get out of sight of the Herr Amtshauptmann!
"Frau Amtshauptmann," said Fritz, "I must come with you, for she won't open the door for you alone; and she's not really in the garret itself, but sitting in a place quite near, that nobody knows but me."
So he ran on in front, and the Frau Amtshauptmann followed him softly. Fritz tapped at the door.
"Mamsell, it's me; open the door." No answer.
"Mamsell, all's well! Pickled pork!" Still no answer.
"Mamsell, the French are all gone." Thereupon, something began to move, and a piteous voice was heard to say--
"Fritz Sahlmann, you are a story-teller. Don't tempt me to come out."
Presently the Frau Amtshauptmann also cried out: "Open the door, Westphalen. It is I--your mistress."
"I cannot let myself be seen," cried the voice, "I am a sinner, a miserable sinner."
"Only open the door. It will all come right again."
After long preliminaries, Mamsell Westphalen at length opened the door; and now stood there, red in the face, and the tears running down her cheeks. But, to this day, nobody knows whether it was from emotion or whether it was from the smoke; enough, the tears ran down, and, if it can properly be said of a stout elderly female, she looked like a broken reed.
"Frau Amtshauptmann," said she, "I cannot appear before you; I have sunk too low. For more than twenty years I have lived in your house, and in all that time I have never taken the smallest thing that did not belong to me; and now, in an evil hour, I have taken what was yours."
"Come, come, Westphalen, never mind. Only come down now."
"Not a step, Frau Amtshauptmann, till I have made a clean breast of it.--Look here, you must know I am in hiding; Rathsherr Herse and this imp, Fritz Sahlmann, helped me to hide. And while I was sitting here in sorrow and anguish thinking about Herr Droi and his fate and all the rest, and expecting this urchin would bring me word how things were going, I heard a cough outside and then my name was called, and when I stole to the window to see who it was I thought I was going to have a fit; for, just think, Frau Amtshauptmann, there was that wicked boy had climbed up into the old apple-tree and slid along one of the branches and was hanging like a crow over the abyss.--'Boy,' I said, 'do you want to tumble out of the tree?' But he only grinned at me. 'Boy,' I cried, 'I can't bear to see you in such danger.' And, do you know, Frau Amtshauptmann, the boy actually laughed at me and said, 'I only came to bring you news that the watchmaker has been hanged, and that the French have seized the Rathsherr Herse, and he is lying in chains; and a whole battalion has been sent to find you out!' That was not comforting news, Frau Amtshauptmann, and I was terribly alarmed; but I assure you I was more alarmed about the boy. 'Fritz,' I cried again, 'get down out of the tree.' Then he grinned at me, like an ape at a camel, and said: 'Yes, if you'll give me a sausage!' And then he began playing all sorts of tricks, and jumping about in the branches like a rabbit in a cabbage-garden, till everything before my eyes seemed green and yellow. Then, Frau Amtshauptmann, then I thought--What is a pork sausage? And what is a human life? And in my terror, I took your property. He pushed in the pole, and I stuck a sausage on it.--Then he was called in by the Herr Amtshauptmann, and, as he clambered down, he said just loud enough for me to hear, that he had been chaffing me, and that it was all untrue. So I say he's a liar, Frau Amtshauptmann, and that's my last word."
"Never mind now, Westphalen, my husband has a rod in pickle for him. He won't escape punishment."
It was with great difficulty that the Frau Amtshauptmann succeeded in getting the old dame downstairs, and when they reached the hall, the Herr Amtshauptmann was pacing up and down with his stately tread, quite ready and waiting for them.
It was hard work now to get Mamsell Westphalen to consent to go with the old Herr to the Rathhaus "into the Lion's jaws," as she said. She would bear what she had brought on herself by her ignorance, although she had acted honestly and with good intentions; but to stand before all the foreigners and to defend herself about Herr Droi, that was beyond her strength as a respectable woman, and, if the Herr Amtshauptmann insisted upon it, Hanchen and Corlin must go too, for they must bear witness that she had passed the night with them. On this point the Amtshauptmann had to give way, and while Mamsell Westphalen was gone to her room to get her cap and shawl, he walked up and down with long strides lost in thought and waving about his Jena stick, without which he never went out. At length he said--
"Neiting, she is right; the maids can do no harm. But, Neiting," and here he sniffed about in the air a little, "there's a smell here of smoked eels. Has old Neils of Gülzow been here with his eels?"
"What are you talking about, Weber? Why, it's from Mamsell Westphalen, she has been sitting, you know, in the smoking-garret for the last hour or so."
"That's another thing," said the old Herr.
His wife then called the two maids. As soon as Mamsell Westphalen came back and they were all together, they set off, after Mamsell Westphalen had taken an eternal farewell of the Frau Amtshauptmann.
No one spoke a word, only, when they reached the Schloss-gate, Mamsell Westphalen looked back and said--"Hanchen, when we get to the market-place, run over to Doctor Lukow, and let him be present at my misery. Something may happen to me--I may faint."