CHAPTER XIII.
Why Fritz Sahlmann fell in the mud; why Bank, the shoemaker, got a blow with the butt-end of a musket; why Rathsherr Herse wished to set fire to all the mills in the country; and why the King of Prussia always kept a place at his table for the Rathsherr.
When our prisoners got outside the Brandenburg gate, they marched with their two men in front and two behind, across the bridge, along the Brandenburg lane,--for, though called a road it was only a lane, there being in those days no high roads in Mecklenburg,--and when they came to the narrow pass leading up to the Windmill hill to which the Stemhagen folk have given the names of, "Killhorse" and "Break-neck," the guard commanded "Halt," for they could go no further.
The whole of the artillery lay in the pass, and had sunk so deep in the mud that, if all the horses of the neighbourhood had been at hand--which they were not--they could not have pulled this heap of misfortune out of it. There lay the French now, and cursed and swore. Labourers were fetched from the town with spades and shovels, and fresh horses were sent for from Jürnsdorf and Klaukow, and all the while it rained so heavily that no one could keep a dry thread on his back.
"Neighbour Voss," said baker Witte "what do you say to this rain?"
"Fine weather for late barley," replied the Miller, "if folks have sown any."
"My shirt is wringing wet," said the baker!
"And my boots are filling with water," said the Miller.
"Herr Burmeister, come behind me; my cloak will give you some shelter," said my uncle Herse, and he made himself a little bit broader than nature had already made him. "I am only glad that these 'slaves of the tyrant' will get a wetting through and through."
My father got under the cloak, but said nothing, for something had caught his eye.
Above, on the edge of the narrow pass a group of people were standing: labourers, servants and Stemhagen burghers, who had followed the procession in spite of the rain and bad weather, partly from curiosity and partly from sympathy, and amongst these people Fritz Sahlmann was slipping in and out, telling the whole story first to one and then to another of those who did not yet know it. When my father first caught sight of him, he was standing close by Inspector Bräsig of Jürnsdorf, who had come on horseback, and had to ride alongside of the French army, lest he should never see his team-horses again.
The Inspector was an old friend of my father's, and my father could clearly see that old Bräsig nodded to him and whispered something in Fritz Sahlmann's ear, when the boy told him of the scrape. Fritz Sahlmann now stuck his hands in his trowsers' pockets, and began whistling; whistled himself along the edge; whistled himself down the bank; when nearly at the bottom cleverly caught his foot in the root of an old willow; stumbled quite naturally towards the prisoners; and, when close to my father, fell in the mud as if he could not help it in the least.
My father bent down and raised him up.
"Watch the horse," whispered Fritz.
He could say no more for he was at once driven off by the French, and he climbed up the bank again.
If, before, my father had paid attention to the movements of the Inspector and the lad, he now did so doubly. He watched old Bräsig get down from his horse, crack his riding-whip and give it into Fritz Sahlmann's hand; the boy now began to lead the horse up and down, but always a little lower on the bank, till at last he stood still under a willow-tree as if he were seeking shelter there from the rain. From this place he made a sign to my father, and my father, who stood under the cover of my uncle Herse's broad back, waved his hat three times as if he were shaking the rain from it.
Presently, a coach-and-four came round the corner where the Brandenburg Lane meets the Ivenack Lane and, in it, sat a general who had been quartered on the Graf of Ivenack the night before. It, too, drove up the pass and, when it came to the place where the transport had stuck fast, some confusion arose amongst the soldiers in getting out of the way, and no sooner did my father observe this, than he flew, as if shot out of a pistol, from behind the Herr Rathsherr's cloak, up the bank on the other side of the coach, to the willow-tree, snatched whip and bridle out of Fritz Sahlmann's hands, jumped on to the horse, and--quick as lightning--was down the hill.
"Feu, feu!" shouted the French; "click, click," went the hammers, but no response came from the old firelocks, for the powder was as wet--as Stahl the weaver's coffee grounds.
For one short instant, it seemed as if the Stemhagen burghers, when they saw their Burmeister riding over hedge and ditch, were going to give him three cheers; and Bank the shoemaker was just beginning "Our Burmeister viv ..." when the butt-end of a French musket applied between his shoulders clearly hinted to him that he had better be off. His example was followed by the others and, in a twinkling, the place was clear of everybody except Inspector Bräsig, who had stationed himself against a tree and was smoking a pipe with the greatest calmness.
Now, whether no one had observed that he had come on horseback, or whether the French had distinctly seen that he had had nothing to do with my father's escape, he having stood a long way off from his horse--whatever it was, nothing was said to him.
The other three prisoners, however, got a double guard, and were brought away out of the pass into an open field, and thence, to the old windmill from which the hill took its name, as it was a little drier there. Here they sat back to back on a millstone and talked together.
"It's a good thing for the Burmeister," said old Witte, as he combed his wet hair with his brass comb, "that he has got away, but it's bad for us. We are now like a swarm of bees without a queen. He would have been sure to have got us all off sooner or later."
"Well, neighbour, it can't be helped," said Miller Voss, and he nodded his head to Inspector Bräsig who had also taken shelter in the mill.
"Hm! Meister Witte," broke in my uncle Herse, "he is well up in town matters, I don't deny it; but as to war-matters--to what concerns military affairs--why he has never in his life given the least attention to them, and he knows about as much of them as ... as ..."
"As you or I, Herr Rathsherr," said the Miller innocently.
"Miller Voss," said the Rathsherr and he drew himself up, making himself an inch taller, "speak for yourself, if you please, and not for others. What you know of such matters has all been learned since yesterday afternoon; for you and the Amtshauptmann and the Burmeister have brought us into this mess, and, if I had not come to the rescue, Mamsell Westphalen would be sitting here too, with her teeth chattering. What I know, I will soon give you a proof of. Do you know Jahn?"
"Do you mean old Jahn of Peenhäuser, who mends pots for my wife?"
"Bah! I mean 'Gymnast-Jahn,' who is now in Berlin, the brother-in-law of Kolloffen of Lukow."
"No, I don't know the man."
"Well then, listen. One day this 'Gymnast-Jahn' was walking along the streets of Berlin with a student when they came to the Brandenburg Gate--for the Berliners have got a Brandenburg Gate just as much as the Stemhageners,--and he pointed to the place where the Goddess of Victory, which the French had carried off, had formerly stood; and he asked the student what thought came into his head at the sight.--'None.'--Smack! he gave him a sound box on the ear."
"That was cool," said the Miller.
"Yes, Herr Rathsherr," said old Witte, "my hand is pretty ready, but ..."
"Let me finish first, will you?" said my uncle Herse. "'Master Good-for-nothing,' said Gymnast-Jahn, seeing the student's astonishment, 'that will teach you to think in future. You should have thought on seeing that place that we must get the Goddess of Victory back again from Paris.'"
"Yes but ..." said Witte.
"That's all very well but ..." said the Miller.
The Herr Rathsherr however did not let them get possession of the field, but turned to the Miller and said,--"Now I ask you, Miller Voss, when you see this mill, what idea comes into your head?"
"Herr Rathsherr," said the Miller, and he got up and stood a little distance off, "I hope you don't mean to treat me in that manner?"
"I only ask you, Miller Voss, what idea comes into your head?"
"Well," said the Miller, "what idea ought to come? I think it's a rusty old thing, and that, in Spring, it ought to have new sails; and that, if the stones above are no better than these down here, the Stemhagen folk must get a devilish lot of sand along with their flour."
"And you're right there, neighbour," said the baker.
"And he's wrong there!" cried my uncle Herse. "If he had answered properly he would have said that it must be set fire to. And it will be set fire to; all the mills in the whole country must be set fire to." And he stood up and walked, with long strides round about the mill-stones.
"Lord save us!" said Miller Voss. "Who is to do this wickedness?"
"I," said my uncle Herse, and he slapped himself on the breast and went nearer to the two, who wondered what could be coming next, and said, in a low voice: "When the Landsturm[[3]] rises, we must set fire to all the mills as a signal;--that's called a beacon, and the best proof you know nothing about war-matters is, that you don't even know what a beacon means."
"Herr Rathsherr," said Miller Voss, "it's all the same to me whether it's a beacon or a deacon, but, whoever sets fire to my water-mill, had better look out."
"Watermill? Windmills I mean. Miller Voss; who ever said anything about watermills? Watermills lie in the ground and don't burn. And now, I ask you, has the Burmeister as much knowledge and courage to act in time of war as I have?"
"He's never said he would set mills on fire," said the baker, and looked at the Herr Rathsherr rather doubtfully as if he did not quite know whether he was in fun or earnest.
"My dear Witte, you look at me like a cow at a new gate. You are, no doubt astonished and thinking what does a Stemhagen Rathsherr like me, know of war and stratagems? My dear Witte, you knead your dough with your hands, in the baking-trough; I knead mine in my head by thought. If I were where I ought to be, I should be in the presence of the King of Prussia, talking with the man. 'Your Majesty,' I should say, 'you are rather in difficulties, I think?' 'That I am, Herr Rathsherr,' he would say, 'money is devilish scarce just now.'--'Nothing else?' I say. 'That's a mere trifle. Only give me full power to do what I like'--licentia poetica that is called in Latin, Miller Voss,--'and a regiment of Grenadier Guards.'--'You shall have them, my dear Rathsherr,' says the King; and I have all the Jews from the whole of Prussia assembled in the palace-yard at Berlin. I surround the palace with my grenadiers, place myself at the head of a company and march with them into the palace-yard. 'Are you all there?' I ask the Jews. 'Yes,' say they. 'Now, are you willing,' I say to them, 'to sacrifice the half of your possessions on the altar of the Fatherland?'--'We can't do that,' says one, 'for we should be ruined.'--'Will you, or will you not?' I ask. I give the word of command 'Attention.'--'Herr Rathsherr,' says another, 'take a quarter.'--'Not a groschen less than half,' say I; 'Make ready!'--'We will!' scream the Jews--'Good,' say I, 'then let each one go singly up to the Presence Chamber where his Majesty is sitting on the Throne, and let each one lay his money on the steps at his feet.' When they have all been up, I go. 'Well,' I say, 'how is it now your Majesty.'--'Capital, my dear Herr Rathsherr,' says he, 'would that the other business were going as well.'--'We'll soon manage it,' say I; 'only give me twenty regiments or so of infantry, ten of cavalry and as much artillery as you have by you.'--'You shall have them,' says the King.--'Good,' say I, and march off with my soldiers away through field and flood, my flanks always covered. I throw myself upon Hamburg, and surprise the Prince of Eckmühl; he is brought before me. 'Build a good high gallows,' say I.--'Mercy,' says he.--'No mercy,' say I; 'this is for trying to become Duke of Mecklenburg.'"
"In Heaven's name, Herr Rathsherr," said Miller Voss, "don't talk like that; just think if those fellows were to understand you."
"That would be the very Devil!" said my uncle Herse, and he looked at the Frenchmen one after another, but, when he saw that they were paying no heed to him, he said, "You're an old coward. Miller Voss, the fellows cannot understand Platt-Deutsch;--Well, so I have him hanged, and march, to the left, into Hanover, and fall on the rear of the Corsican--you know whom I mean.--You must always fall upon the enemy's rear, that is the chief thing, everything else is rubbish. A tremendous battle! Fifteen thousand prisoners! He sends me a trumpeter: 'A truce.'--'No good,' say I, 'we have not come here to play.'--'Peace,' he sends me word.--'Good,' say I; 'Rheinland and Westphalia, the whole of Alsatia and three-fourths of Lothringen;'--'I can't,' says he, 'my brother must live.' Forward then again! I march to the right and quiet Belgium and Holland; all at once I wheel to the left.--'The Devil take it!' says he. 'Here's that confounded Rathsherr again in my rear.'--'First regiment of Grenadiers, charge!' I command; the battery is taken. 'Second regiment of Hussars to the front!'--He ventures too far forward with his staff. Swoop, the Hussars come down upon him.--'Here is my sword,' says he.--'Good,' say I, 'now come along with me. And you, my boys, can now go home again, the war is at an end.' I now lead him in chains to the foot of the Throne.--'Your Majesty of Prussia, here he is.'--'Herr Rathsherr,' says the King, 'ask some favour.'--'Your Majesty,' say I, 'I have no children, but, if you wish to do something for me, give my wife a little pension when I leave this life. Otherwise, I wish for nothing but to retire to my former position of Stemhagen Rathsherr.'--'As you like,' says the King; 'but remember that whenever you may happen to come to Berlin, a place will be kept for you at my table.'--I make my bow, say 'Good day,' and go back again to Stemhagen."
"That's fine of you," said baker Witte. "But what is the good to us of all this grand military art? This time the thing has begun at the wrong end; you haven't got him, he has got you--and us into the bargain; and, if anyone is to be brought bound to the foot of the throne, it will be us. After all, the Burmeister was the cleverest of us, for he's now on the other side of the hill, and sitting in a dry place, and our teeth are chattering with cold like nuts in a bag."
"Pooh, pooh!" said my uncle Herse, "what art is there in running away before everyone's eyes? No, my advice is that we should do it more delicately with a stratagem of war. Let us each think of one, and then we can choose the best."
The Miller had not spoken a word all this time. He was looking, as well as the rain would let him, down the hill-side to the road. "Good God!" he said at last. "Why it's sheer impossible; why it's my Fieka and Joe Voss's Heinrich, who are coming along in that waggon!"
And so it was.