The children walked on, and when they had got near enough for the farm-bailiff--for such was the calling of the little man--to see what they were wearing, he stood still, and raised his bushy yellow eye-brows till they were quite hidden under his pointed cap, treating them as if they were the most beautiful part of his face, and must therefore be put away in a safe place out of all danger: "Bless me!" cried he. "What's the matter?--What on earth have you been about?--Why you've got the whole of your old grandparent's Sunday-finery on your heads!"--The two little girls allowed themselves to be deprived of their borrowed plumes without remonstrance, and showing the broken jar, said that the wheel-wright was to mend it.--"What!" exclaimed Mr. farm-bailiff Bräsig--that was the way he liked to be addressed--"is it possible that there is such insummate folly in the world?--Lina, you are the eldest and ought to have been wiser; and Mina, don't cry any more, you are my little god-child, and so I'll give you a new jar at the summer fair. And now get away with you into the house."--He drove the little girls before him, and followed carrying the peruke in one hand and the cap in the other.
When he found the sitting-room empty, he said to himself: "Of course, every one's out at the hay.--Well I ought to be looking after my hay too, but the little round-heads have made such a mess of these two bits of grandeur, that they'd be sure to get into a scrape, if the old people were to see what they've been after; I must stay and repair the mischief that has been done."--With that he pulled out the pocket-comb that he always carried about with him to comb his back-hair over to the front of his head, and so cover the bald place that was beginning to show. He then set to work at the peruke, and soon got that into good order again. But how about the cap?--"What in the name of wonder have you done to this, Lina?--It's morally impossible to get it back to the proper fassong.--Ah--let me think.--What's the old lady like on Sunday afternoons? She has a good bunch of silk curls on each side of her face, then the front of the cap rises about three inches higher than the curls; so the thing must be drawn more to the front. She hasn't anything particular in the middle, for her bald head shows through, but it always goes into a great bunch at the back where it sticks out in a mass of frills. The child has crushed that part frightfully, it must be ironed out."--He put his clenched fist into the cap and pulled out the frills, but just as he thought he was getting them into good order, the string that was run through a caser at the back of the frilled mass gave way, and the whole erection flattened out.--"Faugh!" he cried, sending his eye-brows right up in the air. "It wasn't half strong enough to keep it firm. Only a bit of thread! And the ends won't knot together again! God bless my soul! whatever induced me to meddle with a cap?--But, wait a bit, I'll manage it yet."--He thrust his hand into his pocket, and drew out a quantity of string of different sizes, for like every farm-bailiff who was worth anything he always carried a good supply of such things about with him. He searched amongst his store for some thing that would suit the case in hand.--"Whip-cord is too thick--but this will do capitally," and then he began to draw a piece of good strong pack-thread through the caser. It was a work of time, and when he had got about half of it done, there was a knock at the door; he threw his work on the nearest chair, and called out: "Come in."
The door opened, and Hawermann entered with his little girl in his arms. Bräsig started up. "What in the," he began solemnly, then interrupting himself, he went on eagerly: "Charles Hawermann, where have you come from?"--"From a place, Bräsig, where I have nothing more to look for," said his friend. "Is my sister at home?"--"Everyone's out at the hay; but what do you mean?"--"That it's all up with me. All the goods that I possessed were sold by auction the day before yesterday, and yesterday morning"--here he turned away to the window--"I buried my wife."--"What? what?" cried the kind-hearted old farm-bailiff, "good God! your wife. Your dear little wife?" and the tears ran down his red face. "Dear old friend, tell me how it all happened."--"Ah, how it all happened?" repeated Hawermann, and seating himself, he told the whole story of his misfortunes as shortly as possible.
Meanwhile, Lina and Mina approached the strange child slowly and shyly, stopping every now and then, and saying nothing, and then they went a little nearer still. At last Lina summoned courage to touch the sleeve of the stranger's frock, and Mina showed her the bits of her jar: "Look, my jar is broken." But the little girl looked round the room uneasily, till at last she fixed her great eyes on her father.
"Yes," said Hawermann, concluding his short story, "things have gone badly with me, Bräsig; I still owe you £ 30, don't ask for it now, only give me time, and if God spares my life. I'll pay you back every farthing honestly."--"Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Bräsig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're--you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!"--And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught Lina and Mina by the waist-band, and put them on Hawermann's knee, saying: "There, little round heads, that's your uncle."--Just as if Lina and Mina were playthings, and Hawermann were a little child who could be comforted in his grief by a new toy. He, himself, took Hawermann's little Louisa in his arms, and danced about the room with her, his tears rolling down his cheeks the while. After a short time he put the child down upon a chair, upon the very chair on which he had thrown his unfinished work, and right on the top of it too.
In the meanwhile the household had come back from the hay-field, and a woman's clear voice could be heard outside calling to the maids to make haste: "Quick get your hoop and pails, it'll soon be sunset, and this year the fold's[[3]] rather far off. We must just milk the cows in the evening.--Where's your wooden-platter, girl? Go and get it at once.--Now be as quick as you can, I must just go, and have a look at the children."--A tall stately woman of five-and-twenty came into the room. She seemed full of life and energy, her cheeks were rosy with health, work, and the summer air, her hair and eyes were bright, and her forehead, where her chip-hat had sheltered it from the sun, was white as snow. Anyone could see the likeness between her and Hawermann at first sight; still there was a difference, she was well-off, and her whole manner showed that she would work as hard from temperament, as he did from honour and necessity.
To see her brother and to spring to him were one and the same action: "Charles, brother Charles, my second father," she cried throwing her arms round his neck, but on looking closer at him, she pushed him away from her, saying: "What's the matter? You've had some misfortune!--What is it?"
Before he had time to answer his sister's questions, her husband, Joseph Nüssler, came in, and going up to Hawermann shook hands with him, and said, taking as long to get out his words as dry weather does to come: "Good-day, brother-in-law; won't you sit down?"--"Let him tell us what's wrong," interrupted his wife impatiently.--"Yes," said Joseph, "sit down and tell us what has happened.--Good-day, Bräsig; be seated, Bräsig."--Then Joseph Nüssler, or as he was generally called, young Joseph, sat down in his own peculiar corner beside the stove. He was a tall, thin man, who never could hold himself erect, and whose limbs bent in all sorts of odd places whenever he wanted to use them in the ordinary manner. He was nearly forty years old, his face was pale, and almost as long as his way of drawling out his words, his soft blond hair, which had no brightness about it, hung down equally long over his forehead and his coat collar. He had never attempted to divide or curl it. When he was a child his mother had combed it straight down over his brow, and so he had continued to do it, and whenever it had looked a little rough and unkempt, his mother used to say: "Never mind, Josy, the roughest colt often makes the finest horse."--Whether it was that his eyes had always been accustomed to peer through the long hair that overhung them, or whether it was merely his nature cannot be known with any certainty, but there was something shy in his expression, as if he never could look anything full in the face, or come to a decision on any subject, and even when his hand went out to the right, his mouth turned to the left. That, however, came from smoking, which was the only occupation he carried out with the slightest perseverance, and as he always kept his pipe in the left corner of his mouth, he, in course of time, had pressed it out a little, and had drawn it down to the left, so that the right side of his mouth looked as if he were continually saying "prunes and prism," while the left side looked as if he were in the habit of devouring children.
There he was now seated in his own particular corner by the stove, and smoking out of his own particular corner of his mouth, and while his lively wife wept in sympathy with her brother's sorrow, and kissed and fondled him and his little daughter alternately, he kept quite still, glancing every now and then from his wife and Hawermann at Bräsig, and muttering through a cloud of tobacco smoke: "It all depends upon what it is. It all depends upon circumstances.--What's to be done now in a case like this?"
Bräsig had quite a different disposition from young Joseph, for instead of sitting still like him, he walked rapidly up and down the room, then seated himself upon the table, and in his excitement and restlessness swung his short legs about like weaver's shuttles. When Mrs. Nüssler kissed and stroked her brother, he did the same; and when Mrs. Nüssler took the little child and rocked it in her arms, he took it from her and walked two or three times up and down the room with it, and then placed it on the chair again, and always right on the top of the grandmother's best cap.