Fred Triddelfitz entered the parlour at the moment when Kurz was triumphant and the others hardly knew what to do next. He looked pale and frightened: "Mr. Hawermann," he said, "do please come with me."--"What's the matter?" asked Hawermann starting up, but Kurz forced him back into his chair, saying: "You mustn't go till you've finished the game. The same thing happened to me once before, at the time of the great fire, I had just laid a grandissimo on the table when everyone ran away."--"Confound it," cried Hawermann freeing himself from Kurz, "can't you tell me what it is. Is there a fire?"--"No," stammered Fred, "it's--it's--it's only something that has happened to me."--"What has happened to you?" asked Bräsig sharply across the table.--"My mare has got a foal," said Fred.--"Is that all?" said Bräsig, "she has often had one before and I don't see what's to frighten you in that. Such an event is always a subject of rejoicing."--"I know," said Fred, "but--but--it looks so very odd. You must come, Mr. Hawermann."--"Is the foal dead?" asked Hawermann.--"No," answered Fred. "It's quite well, it only looks so odd ..... Christian Däsel says it's a young camel."--"Bless me!" cried Hawermann. "We'll put off the game till another time. Will you all come with me?"--And in spite of Kurz's expostulations they all followed Fred to the stable.--"I never saw a foal like it," said Fred while they were on their way there, "its ears are so long," and he showed them his arm from his elbow upwards.
When they came to the stable they found Christian Däsel in the stall, where the sorrel-mare was making much of her foal, which was trying to skip about merrily though rather staggeringly. He turned to Bräsig and said with a shake of his head: "Please, Sir, what in all the world is it?"--Bräsig looked at Hawermann and said emphatically: "Yes, I know what it is, Charles, this thorough-bred foal is neither more nor less than a mule."--"You're right," said Hawermann.--"A mule?" cried Fred, rushing into the stall and, notwithstanding the mother's displeasure, succeeding in getting hold of the foal's head and examining its face, eyes and ears with anxious scrutiny. As soon as he was convinced of the dreadful truth, he exclaimed angrily: "I'd like to strangle the creature, as I can't get at Augustus Prebberow."--"For shame, Triddelfitz!" said Hawermann gravely. "Don't you see how pleased its mother is with it although it isn't a thoroughbred?"--"Yes," said Bräsig, "and she's 'the nearest' to it, as Mrs. Behrens would say. You may strangle Augustus Prebberow though for all I care; he's a thrice distilled contraband rascal!"--"Nay," said Fred, whose wrath had given place to sadness, "how is it possible? He was my best friend, and yet he cheated me into buying a deaf mare and a mule. I'll prosecute him."--"I tell you that friendship and honesty are nowhere in horse-dealing," said Bräsig, taking Fred by the arm and leading him out of the stable, "but I'm very sorry for your disappointment. You've paid dearly for your experience in horse-dealing, but that's what everyone has to do. You mustn't go to law about it, for a law-suit is an endless thing; it'll still be going on long after the mule is dead. Look here," he said, making Fred walk up and down the yard with him, "I'll tell you a story as a warning. Old Rütebusch of Swensen sold his own brother-in-law, who was bailiff here before Hawermann, a regular porcupine of a riding-horse. Well, or as you always say, 'Bong,' three days afterwards the bailiff wished to try his new inquisition. He climbed into the saddle, and it was really climbing, I can tell you, for the horse, which had very short legs, had poked up its back till it looked more like a rainbow than anything else. No sooner was he mounted than the beast ran away with him, and never stopped till it had got deep into the village pond, right up to the neck in fact, and there was no inducing it to move either one way or the other. That was a blessing though in one sense, both for the horse and the bailiff, as they would otherwise most likely have been drowned. The bailiff shouted for help. The water was too deep to allow him to wade ashore, and he couldn't swim, so at last old Flegel the carpenter had to save him in a boat. Then there was a law-suit, for the bailiff said the horse was incurably mad, or as we farmers call it 'witless,' and Rütebusch must take it back, as madness when proved was sufficient cause to dissolve any bargain. Rütebusch refused, and the brothers-in-law became on such bad terms that they couldn't see each other three miles off without getting into a rage. The law-suit went on. All the Swensen people were called upon to swear that the horse was in full possession of its senses, and the Pümpelhagen people had to swear to the contrary. The law-suit went on for five years, and during that time the horse was left quietly in the stable eating his oats comfortably, for the bailiff had never ridden him since the first day, as he looked upon him as a dangerous wretch that had sold his soul to the devil, and he didn't dare to kill the beast because he was what is called the corpus delictus of the whole affair. The most learned vetinairy surgeons, six in number, were brought to look at the horse, but no good came of that, for they didn't agree. Three of them said he was all there, and the other three pronounced him mad. The lawsuit went on, and a number of other law-suits branched out of it, for the learned horse-doctors accused each other of being malicious and rude, and ended by going to law. Then a famous professor of vetinairy surgery in Berlin was applied to, and he wrote to desire them to cut off the horse's head and send it to him, as he must examine the brain before he could pronounce judgment. It's very difficult to say of any reasonable human being whether he is witless or wise, and how much more difficult is it to speak decidedly of an unreasoning animal. The bailiff determined to do as the professor wished, but old Rütebusch and his legal advisers wouldn't consent, so the law-suit went on as before. At last Rütebusch died, and six months later his brother-in-law died also. They hadn't made up their quarrel at the time of their death and each of them went into eternity clinging to his own opinion; the one that the horse was in his right senses and the other that he was mad. The law-suit was then suspendicated and three weeks afterwards the old horse died of fat and idleness. The head was nicely pickled and was sent to the learned professor at Berlin, who wrote clearly and decidedly that the horse had never been mad in all its life; that in point of fact it had been every bit as sane as he was himself, and that he only wished for the sake of the rival litigants that their brains had been in as perfect a condition as that of the horse. And he was right, for the rascally boy who had saddled the bailiff's horse, confessed to me afterwards when he was in my service, that he had tied a burning sponge under the poor beast's tail out of revenge, because the bailiff had thrashed him the day before. Now I ask you as a reasonable mortal, didn't the horse show his wisdom by running into the pond and so putting out the fire? The great law-suit was at an end, but the little ones between the farriers are still going on. And now I'll tell you something; Hawermann is a great friend of old Prebberow, the father of your roguish friend, and he will try to make an arrangement for you and see that you have fair play. You may go now, but don't be unkind to the innocent little foal or its mother, for they are not to blame for your having been cheated, indeed the mother was as much cheated as you were." Bräsig then went to join his friends and they all resumed their places at the card-table.
"All right!" said Kurz, "well it was ten grandissimo, and my turn to play."--"Charles," said Bräsig, "you must have a talk with old Prebberow some time or other, and try to make better terms for that confounded grey-hound of yours."--"I'll see to it, Zachariah, and it'll all come right. I'm heartily sorry for the poor boy having his pleasure spoilt like this--a mule of all things in the world!"--"I perceive," said the rector, laying down the cards which he had just finished arranging, "that you all talk of that little new born foal as a mule, and mule is the term used in natural history ....."--"Don't drive us mad with your natural history!" cried Kurz who had been sitting on thorns in fear of a long harangue. "Are we playing at natural history or at cards? Look, there's the ace of diamonds lying on the table."--They went on with their game and Kurz won. He was never tired of talking of his ten grandissimo during the next few weeks.
They played in the most friendly manner, till the rector who had arranged his money in a half circle, found out that he had won ten shillings, and then seeing that fortune was beginning to go against him, determined to stop playing; he therefore rose, and complaining of his feet having grown very cold, put his winnings in his pocket.--"If you suffer from cold feet," said Bräsig, "I'll tell you an excellent cure; take a pinch of snuff every morning before you have eaten anything and that'll prevent your ever having cold feet."--"Nonsense!" cried Kurz, who had been winning, "what's to make his feet cold?"--"Why," said the rector, defending himself, "can't I have cold feet as well as you? Don't you always complain of having cold feet at the club when you've been winning?" And so Baldrian succeeded in keeping his right to cold feet and to what he had won. After a little further talk the two town's people drove away taking Bräsig with them as far as their roads went in the same direction.
Just as Hawermann was going to bed he heard loud talking and scolding outside his door, and immediately afterwards Fred Triddelfitz and Christian Däsel came into the room.--"Good evening, Sir," said Christian, "and I don't care a bit."--"What's the matter?" asked Hawermann.--"Well, Sir," said Fred, "you know--how--how disappointed I was about the--the mule, and now Christian won't let the poor thing remain in the stable."--"Why not," asked Hawermann.--"You see, Sir," answered Christian, "I don't mind anything else, but I can't consent to that. My work lies amongst horses and foals, and I never set up to undertake camels and mules. And why? If I did Mr. Triddelfitz would be for bringing apes and bears into my stable next."--"But if I tell you that the mule is to stay there, and that you're to treat it as you would any other foal?"--"Nay then, of course I must do it if you tell me that, and it's all right now. Well, goodnight, Sir, I hope you'll not take it ill of me saying what I did," and so saying he went away.--"Mr. Hawermann," asked Fred, "what do you think that Mr. von Rambow will say when he hears what has happened, and Mrs. von Rambow too?"--"Don't distress yourself, they won't trouble themselves about it"--"Ah," sighed Fred as he left the room, "I'm awfully sorry that this has happened."
When the squire came home he was told the whole story of the sorrel-mare by Christian, and as he was a good-natured fellow at heart, and really liked Fred, whom he felt to be somewhat like himself in disposition, he spoke kindly and comfortingly to the lad, saying: "Never mind! Our little traffic in thorough-bred foals has come to nothing as the mare had made a mésalliance. We'll soon put her and her foal out into the field, and you'll see that things will turn out better than you expect"--Every one took an interest in the little mule, which soon became a general favourite. When the village children were passing through the field on Sunday afternoons they went to the enclosure where the foals were kept and looking at the mule used to say: "Look, Josy, that's it."--"Yes, that's the one. Just look how he's waggling his ears."--"I say, he's kicking like a donkey."--And when the young women who worked on the farm trooped past the enclosure, they also stood still, saying: "Look, Stina, that's Mr. Triddelfitz's mule."--"Come, Sophie, let's go a little nearer."--"No, I'd rather not. What an ugly beast it is to be sure."--"You've no right to say so. You don't dislike him so much, for he always gives you the easiest bits of work."--The sorrel-mare, the mule and Fred became well known in all the country side, and wherever the latter showed himself, he was asked how the mule was getting on, much to his chagrin. The little mule was happy and careless of all the remarks made about him, he ran and jumped about the paddock with the other well-born, high-bred foals, and when one of them tried to bully him he was quite able to take his own part.
CHAPTER X.
Everything went on well at Pümpelhagen that year. The harvest was plenteous, and the price of corn was high. Alick von Rambow saw a way opening before him of getting out of his difficulties; he did up his accounts over and over again, and saw clearly that if he sold the rape for so much, the sheep for so much, and the cattle for so much, that all this, with what he got for the wheat would be amply sufficient to pay off the last farthing of his debts. The devil himself must take part against him, if he failed to do so. He thought that the reason of his good fortune this year was that he himself was at Pümpelhagen, and was therefore able to look after things with his own eyes. The eye of the master is to a farm what the sun is to the world, everything ripens under it, and the tender blades of grass grow green under his footstep. So thinking, it was not long before Alick quite forgot that these blessings were the gift of God, and began to look upon them as the result of his own efforts, and even the high price of corn seemed to him to be a piece of well merited good fortune.
He rode his high horse without fear, and even when the farming and household expenses of the moment ran away with all the bank-notes with which David and Slus'uhr had provided him, and his small change began to run short, he congratulated himself on his excellent farming which gave him such unlimited credit in the neighbourhood, that Pomuchelskopp had offered to lend him various small sums from time to time. He had accepted loans from Pomuchelskopp without fear, in order to get rid of David for the time being, so that he paid David and Slus'uhr with Pomuchelskopp's money, and they paid it back to Pomuchelskopp, and he again lent it to Alick, thus the money was kept continually going round and round in a circle. It would altogether have been a very pleasant little arrangement, if Pomuchelskopp had not been obliged to take the trouble of removing the marks from the bills for fear of Alick's finding out that it was always his own money that he got back. It could not be helped however if Pomuchelskopp still wished to keep his plans for gaining the Pümpelhagen acres a profound secret from his victim, and indeed he enjoyed the sense of power which came of his rapid intimacy with Alick far too much to grudge the trouble he had to take.
Alick was also perfectly satisfied with the course events were taking, for he was always well supplied with money to ward off the attacks of the usurers, and at what seemed to him a very small price, for he never thought of adding up at the end of the year how much the total came to, and he was firmly convinced that his affairs were better attended to now that he lived at Pümpelhagen than they had ever been before. It was the old story over again. When a young squire who knows nothing whatever of farming wants to make improvements, he always begins with the live-stock. And why is this the case? Well, I imagine it is because young gentlemen think this subject the easiest to understand. All that they have to do is to buy a new bull, and a ram or two of some new fashioned breed, and then, as the laws of cattle-breeding are still sufficiently indefinite to allow of much theorising, even the stupidest of them has no difficulty in speaking learnedly on the subject. They have only to pass over as of no account, all that the old men around them have learnt from the experience of years, and they do not find it hard to do; after that these youthful farmers are as worthy of being listened to, in their own opinion at least, as those whose hair has grown grey at the work.