The three carriages, to which the impatient coachmen had harnessed the horses long before, drove up. The quarrel had been continued from the room to the hall, from the hall to the door, and even to the carriage steps.
"We shall see, we shall see," cried Hans Redebas; "are you in, Pastor? Then, in the devil's name, drive on--we shall see," he shouted again from the carriage window, as the powerful Danish horses trotted away at a rapid pace towards the northern gate, from whence the shorter road, which, however, was scarcely visible in the darkness, led through the forest to Dahlitz.
Meantime Otto and Gustav von Plüggen had finally become involved in a quarrel with each other. Gustav, who had no lamps on his carriage, declared that he must go across the moor, while Otto wanted to follow Redebas. Gustav had already borne so much from his older brother that day, that he considered himself obliged to take this refusal as a personal insult. He had no bundle of hay in front of his head, and wouldn't run the risk of breaking his skull against the trees in the forest. "Then he could light the straw in it, and find his way home by that," Otto replied.
So they drove away in opposite directions.
"That is very foolish," said Brandow, looking after Gustav's carriage.
"One will get across and the other won't," replied Hinrich Scheel.
"We know that you are the best driver."
"An accident is liable to happen to any one."
"That is, you want it to be so."
"It seems you don't."