"You're old enough now to be told all about it. Who knows whether I shall ever see you again? and I want you to hear it all from my own lips; for you're my heart's brother. I wasn't born in your parts, but on the other side of the Black Forest, toward the Rhine. As you come out of Freiburg, and go through the 'Kingdom of Heaven' and the 'Valley of Hell,' just as you get to the top of the 'Hell-Scramble' you see on your right a valley in which runs the Treisam, turning the wheels of ever so many foundries, saw-mills, and gristmills; and, if you go up the hill on the other side,--they call it the 'Wind-Corner,'--you see a great farm-house, the Beste farmer's house,--and he was my father. You may think it's a pretty fine sort of farm: it has sixty or seventy cows, and no need of buying a handful of hay.
"They don't live in villages there, as you do and as they do hereabout. Each farmer lives by himself in the midst of his own lands. The house is all made of wood: only the foundation is of stone. The windows are close to each other on the east side: a porch runs all round the house, and the roof hangs far over. It is a straw roof, which has grown gray with age, and makes the house warmer than the finest castle. If you ever can, you must go there some day, just to see where your Nat was raised. Our fields reach far up the hill and away down to the Treisam, and we had two hundred acres of woodland,--enough to cut ten thousand florins' worth of wood every year. It was glorious. Wherever you look, it's all your own, and all in apple-pie order. We were three children. I was the oldest, and I had a brother and a sister. In those parts, when the father dies or gives up farming, the farm isn't divided, but the eldest son takes it all, and the father makes an estimate how much money he ought to pay his brothers and sisters. If one of the children is dissatisfied and goes to law, the Government divides the farm. But such a thing was never done except once or twice, and never turned out well. Four hundred yards from our house, on a little patch of field, a widow had a lonely cabin, and lived there with her only daughter. They were the third generation of the descendants of younger children, and poor, very poor, but good as angels,--or, at least, I thought so. The mother was one of those lean, lank women that can always be pleasant and agreeable: as for Lizzie,--no, there wasn't a false vein about her; I will say that to my dying day. They supported themselves by making straw hats; for over there, on the other side of the mountain, in the Glotter Valley, the women-folks wear round, yellow straw hats, just as the gentlemen do in the cities, and the men wear black straw hats. A hat made by Lizzie of the Wind-Corner always sold for three groats more than another; and if a girl was ever so ugly and put one of her hats on it made her pretty. Lizzie had hands as delicate and smooth as a saint's; and yet she could work hard enough in the fields, too. When she sat at the window sewing, I often used to stand outside and watch her, and if she stuck her finger it seemed to go through all my bones. My father soon saw how matters stood between me and Lizzie, and would not hear of it; but I would sooner have died than live without Lizzie: so my father sent me away to the saw-mill. The saw-mill doesn't belong to our inheritance, but my father bought it. There I stayed; and through the week I never cast eyes on a living creature except the child that carried me my dinner and the workmen bringing down the logs and hauling off the boards. At night I used to run for miles, just to have one word with Lizzie. Then, all of a sudden, my father died, and left the whole property to my brother; and I was to have ten thousand florins, and my sister the same. You can't see ten thousand florins: it's hardly as much as you can cut timber for in a year. My sister married a watchmaker in Naustadt. I was wild with rage, and said I wouldn't go out of the house: I would go to law. One night I went over to Lizzie, and, when I looked into the window, who do you think was sitting in there, with his arm round Lizzie's waist, kissing her? My brother! And the old witch was standing beside them, smirking till her face was as long again as usual. I up and into the house, out with my knife, and my brother lay on the floor with a cut in his side,--all done before I knew where I was."
Nat sighed deeply, and was silent a long time. At last he continued:--"My brother never moved: Lizzie fell on her mother's neck, and cried, 'Oh, mother, this is your doing! Go away, Nat: I can't see you any more.'
"I ran away as if the devil was dragging me in chains, and every now and then I stopped and wished to hang myself on a tree. I met George the blacksmith, and went home with him, and hid myself in his house till the next day. A thousand times I prayed to God to take my life and save me from the guilt of my brother's death. I laid my hand on my heart, and swore from that time forth to lead a penitent life; and the Lord heard me. Next morning, very early, George the blacksmith came to the shed where I was lying buried in the hay, and said, 'Your brother is living yet, and may get well.'
"I went off over hill and dale, left every thing to my brother, and hired myself to Buchmaier as a shepherd. I did not like to be among men any more, but wanted to live alone in the fields. Singout, my dog, was my only friend. I used to tell you about him, you remember? I lost him shamefully."
Here Nat stopped again: his new dog crept to his side and looked sadly into his face, as if to show his regret that he could not compensate him for his loss.
"As I lived alone in the fields," Nat went on, "I used to study the herbs, and to gather them and make drinks of them: once in winter one of the hands at Buchmaier's had the ague so badly that it almost shook him out of his bed; and I helped him. From that time on the people in the neighborhood used to come to me whenever one of them was sick, and made me give them a drink. Do you remember the time you came home sick from the fields? Then I helped you too, and that was the first time afterward that I gave any thing to anybody. The doctor heard of it that time and complained of me at court. Then I received a notice to do no more quackery, on pain of great punishment. After that I never listened to anybody's begging or crying.
"Something happened about that time: you can't remember it; you were too little. Dick, who lives out in one of the houses off the main street of the village, had two sons. One was like a count: he was with the Guard in Stuttgard, and was home on furlough. His best friend was his younger brother,--a wild, half-grown boy whom they called Joachim. The guardsman went to see pretty Walpurgia the seamstress: you know her, I guess, she has such a white, delicate face, and always runs about in slippers: but she had another lover besides, from Betra. Dick's boys, the two brothers, once lay in wait for this chap to give him a good drubbing; but the Betra boy held his own: so little Joachim takes out his knife, makes a stab at him, and stabs his brother through the body.
"I was lying in my shepherd's van, and suddenly I heard people crying and calling. I got up, and there was a crowd of men, and Joachim among them, all begging me to do something for the wounded man. All this made me think of that awful night at home: Walpurgia even looked a little like Lizzie; and, in short, I let little Jake mind the sheep, and went with them. As I saw the guardsman lying at the point of death, my heart seemed to turn within me. I cried like a child, and people praised my good heart: they didn't know what was the matter with me, and I couldn't tell them. I gave the guardsman a drink to keep off mortification; but afterward the doctors got at him, and he died after all. In short, they locked me up and put me in the penitentiary for a year. Joachim got into the penitentiary too. He was bad, and tried for a long time to put all the blame on the Betra man; but at last it was proved that it was nobody but him. Brother-heart," said Nat, taking Ivo's hand, "what I suffered in the penitentiary is more than can be told; you couldn't find worse company in hell itself. But I bore it all willingly, and thought it was a chastisement for my past life.
"Once I made shrift to the parson, and told him all about it. He said that I had done the greatest wrong in not getting all the property into the hands of the Church. I would rather be torn to pieces than go to a confessional again after that. When I got out of prison, my first thought was to find Singout again: