One day when Louisa was returning home from visiting Lina at Gürlitz, as she was walking along a foot path at the back of some of the gardens at Rahnstädt, one of the garden doors suddenly opened, and a pretty little girl came up to her with a bunch of elder-flowers, tulips and acacias. "Please take these flowers," said the little member, blushing deeply, for it was she who had come to speak to Louisa. When Louisa looked at her in surprise, wondering what it all meant, tears began to roll down the girl's cheeks, and covering her eyes with her hand, she murmured: "I w-wanted to give you a little pleasure." Louisa touched by the kindness of the girl, threw her arms round her neck and gave her a kiss. They then went into the garden together and seated themselves in the arbour made of the interlaced branches of elder. There Louisa and the warm-hearted little member began an acquaintance which soon ripened into a firm friendship, for a heart full of love is easily opened to friendship, so it came to pass that the little member became a daily visitor at Mrs. Behrens' house, and whenever she appeared all the faces in the household brightened at her approach. As soon as Hawermann heard the first notes struck on Mrs. Behrens' old piano, he used to come down stairs, and seating himself in a corner, would listen to the beautiful music the little member played for his entertainment. When that was over Mrs. Behrens would come in for her share of amusement, for the little member was a doctor's daughter, and doctors and doctors' children always know the last piece of news that is going; not that Mrs. Behrens was curious, she only liked to know what was going on, and since she had come to live in a country-town she had been infected with the desire, all inhabitants of such towns feel, to know what their neighbours are doing. She once said to Louisa: "you see, my dear, one likes to hear what's going on around one, but still when my sister Mrs. Triddelfitz begins to tell me any news I don't like it, her judgments of people's actions are so sharp and sarcastic; it's quite different with little Anna, she tells such funny innocent stories that one can laugh over them quite happily; she is a dear good child."
This new friendship gained strength and significance when the bad harvest brought its consequences of famine, want and misery into the town. Anna's father was a doctor, although he had not the title of Practising Physician, but he had something that was better than any such title, he had a kind heart, and when he came home and told of the poverty and wretchedness he had seen, Anna used to go to Mrs. Behrens and Louisa and repeat to them what her father had said. Mrs. Behrens used then to go to her larder and fill a basket with food and wine, which the two girls carried out to the homes of the starving people in the dusk of the evening, and when they came home they gave each other a kiss, and then they kissed Mrs. Behrens and Hawermann, that was all, not a word was said about it. When arrangements were to be made about the soup kitchens, all the ladies in Rahnstädt held a great 'talkee-talkee,' as Bräsig called it, to settle how the distress in the town could best be alleviated. The town-clerk's wife said that if there were to be soup-kitchens at all, "they must be on a grand scale." And when she was asked what she meant, she answered that it was all the same to her, but if any good was to be done it must be on "a grand scale." Then the elder members of the council agreed that a difference must be made between the converted and unconverted poor, for a little starvation would do the latter no harm. After that a young and newly married woman proposed that some man should be appointed manager of the charity, but her motion was quashed at once, as all the other ladies voted against her, and the town-clerk's wife remarked that as long as she had lived--"and that's a good many years now," interrupted Mrs. Krummhorn--all cooking and charitable societies had been managed by women, for men didn't understand such things, but she would once more impress upon them that the charity must be done on a grand scale. The Conventicle then separated, every member as wise as she had been at the beginning. When the soup kitchens were opened, two pretty girls of our acquaintance became active workers in them. They flitted about the great fire in their neat gowns and long white linen aprons, and ladled out the soup from the large pots into the tins the poor women brought with them. They sat on the same bench as the converted and unconverted, and helped them to peel the potatoes and cut the turnips for the next day's use. That was the way that Louisa expended what she took from the treasure of love hidden away in her heart, and Anna also added her mite.
Bräsig took a good deal of the distant visiting of the poor off the little member's hands, saying that running messages was just what he was made for, and when he had not got gout he trotted about the town wherever he was wanted. He said to Hawermann one day: "Charles, Dr. Strump says there's nothing like polchicum and exercise for gout, and the water-doctor says, it ought to be cold water and exercise. They both agree in advising exercise, and I feel that it does me good. But what I wanted to say was this,--Moses sends you his compliments and desires me to say that he intends to come and see you this afternoon."--"Why, has he returned from Dobberan already? I thought that he didn't want to come home till August."--"But Charles, this is S. James' day, and harvest has begun. But what I wanted to say was this,--the old Jew has quite renewed his youth. He looks almost handsome, and ran up and down the room several times to show me how active he was. I must be off now to see old widow Klähnen, she's waiting for me in her garden, and is very impatient, for I've promised her some turnip seed. And then I must go to Mrs. Krummhorn's and look at her kittens, she has promised to give us one of them, for, Charles, we require a good mouser; after that I have to go and speak to Rischen the blacksmith about the shoes for Kurz's old riding horse. The poor old beast has as many windgalls as Moses' son David has corns on his feet, I'm not joking, Charles. I suppose you hav'n't heard yet that Mr. von Rambow has already invested in a horse with windgalls, otherwise he might have bought Kurz's horse to complete the infirmary at Pümpelhagen. I have to go and see the mayor's wife later in the afternoon, for she has got some newly mown rye, and wants me to to make her some beer as we have it in our farms. She is going to make quite a festival on the occasion of the beer making. Now good-bye, Charles, I'm going to read aloud to you this afternoon, and I've got a book that I'm sure will amuse us both." Then he went away, and ran up one street and down another, visiting this house and that, and doing all in his power to help his neighbours. As the inhabitants of a small Mecklenburg town are more or less interested in agricultural matters, Bräsig was continually appealed to for advice and assistance, and finally became the oracle and slave of the whole town.
In the afternoon Bräsig seated himself beside his friend Charles, and opening his book prepared to read aloud. If we were to look over his shoulder we should read on the title page: "The Frogs by Aristophanes, translated from Greek." We open our eyes wide with astonishment, but only think how much wider the old Greek humourist would have opened his, had he seen to what heights education had advanced in Rahnstädt, had he known that his frogs had taken their place, two thousand years after his death, in the same shelf of the Rahnstädt circulating library as "Blossoms," "Pearls," "Forget-me-nots," "Roses," and other annuals. How the old rascal would have laughed! Uncle Bräsig did not laugh, but sat there gravely and seriously. He had put on his horn spectacles, that looked for all the world like a pair of carriage lamps, and was holding the book as far away from him as the length of his arm would allow. When he began: "'The Frogs'--he means what we call 'puddocks,' Charles--'by Aristop-Hannes'--I read it 'Hannes,' Charles as I look upon 'Hanes' as a misprint, for there's a book called 'Schinder-Hannes'[[2]] that I once read, and if this is only half as horrible, we may be well satisfied, Charles." He now began to read after school-master Strull's, fashion, only stopping for breath, and Hawermann sat still seeming to listen attentively, but before the first page was finished he was buried in his own thoughts again, and when Bräsig wet his finger to turn the fourth page, he discovered to his righteous indignation that his old friend's eyes were closed. Bräsig rose, placed himself in front of him and stared at him. Now it is a well known fact that the miller wakes when the mill stops working, and that the hearers wake when the sermon is done. So it was with Hawermann, he opened his eyes, pulled at his pipe, and said: "Beautiful, Zachariah, most beautiful."--"What? you say 'beautiful' and yet you were asleep!"--"Don't be angry with me," said Hawermann, who was now thoroughly awake, "but I couldn't understand a single word of it. Put the book away, or do you understand it?"--"Not so well as usual, Charles, but I paid a penny for the hire of it, and when I pay a penny I like to have my money's worth."--"But if you can't understand it?"--"People don't read in order to understand, Charles, they read poor passer lour temps. Look," and he tried to explain what he had read, but was interrupted by a knock at the door, which was followed by the entrance of Moses.
Hawermann went forward to meet him and said: "I'm very glad to see you Moses. How well you're looking!"--"Flora says so too, but it's an old story with her, she told me so fifty years ago."--"Well, how did you like the watering-place?"--"I'll tell you some news, Hawermann. One is very glad of two things at a watering-place. The first is that one can go there, and the other is that one's going away again. It's just the same as with a horse, a garden, and a house one rejoices to have them, and rejoices to get rid of them."--"Yes, I see that you wer'n't able to stand the full course of it; perhaps however it was business that brought you home."--"How I hate business. I am an old man. My business now is not to enter into new transactions, and gradually to withdraw my money from old ones. That's what has brought me here today I want to have the ten hundred and fifty pounds I lent on Pümpelhagen."--"Oh, Moses, don't! You would plunge Mr. von Rambow into great difficulties."--"I don't know that. He must have money; he must have a great deal of money. David, the attorney and Pomuffelskopp tried to ruin him at the new year, but he paid them up sixteen hundred pounds at once. I know all that David has been about; I questioned Zebedee. 'Where were you yesterday?' I asked. 'At the Court's,' he said. 'That's a lie, Zebedee,' I answered. But he swore it was true till he was black in the face. I always said: 'You know you're telling a lie, Zebedee.' At last I said: 'I'll tell you something. The horses are mine, and the carriage is mine, and the coachman is mine. Now if you don't tell me the truth, I'll send you away, for you're a scoundrel.' Then he confessed and told me about the sixteen hundred pounds, and yesterday he said that Pomuffelskopp had given Mr. von Rambow notice to pay up the mortgage he holds on Pümpelhagen, on S. Anthony's day. Now Pomuffelskopp is a wise man, and he must know how it stands with him."--"Merciful heaven!" cried Hawermann quite forgetting his hatred to Alick, and feeling all his former loyalty to the von Rambow family revive, "and you are going to follow his example? Moses, you know that your money is safe."--"Well, I'll confess that it is safe. But I know many other places where it would also be safe." Then looking sharply at the two old bailiffs, he said very emphatically: "I have both seen him and spoken to him."--"What? Mr. von Rambow? Where was it?" asked Hawermann. "In Dobberan at the gaming-table," said Moses angrily, "and also in my hotel."--"Alas!" said Hawermann, "he never used to do that. What will become of him poor fellow?"--"I always said," exclaimed Bräsig, "that too much knowledge would be the ruin of the lieutenant."--"I assure you," interrupted Moses, "that I saw these people round the table with piles of Louis d'ors before them. They sat at one part of the table and then at another. They pushed about the money in this direction and in that, and that's what they call business, and what they call pleasure! It's enough to make one's hair stand on end. And he was always at it. 'Zebedee,' I said, for Zebedee had brought my carriage ready for me to go home on the next day, 'Zebedee, stand here and keep your eye on the Squire of Pümpelhagen. You can tell me afterwards how he gets on. It makes me quite ill to watch him.' Zebedee came to me in the evening, and told me he was cleaned out. And a little later Mr. von Rambow came and asked me for a hundred and fifty pounds. 'I'll tell you something,' I said, 'I'll act like a father to you, come away with me, Zebedee has the carriage all ready, I'll take you with me, and it shan't cost you a farthing.' He refused my offer, and was determined to remain."--"Poor fellow, poor fellow," sighed Hawermann. "That boy," cried Bräsig, "has actually a wife and child! If he belonged to me, what a wigging I should give him."--"But, Moses, Moses," entreated Hawermann, "I implore you by all you love not to demand payment. He will come to his right mind, and your money is safe."--"Hawermann," said Moses, "you also are a wise man; but listen to me; when I began business as a money lender, I said to myself: when anyone comes to borrow money from you who has carriage and horses and costly furniture, lend him what he wants, for he has goods to be security; when any merry-hearted young fellow who laughs and jokes and drinks champagne wants to borrow money from you, lend it to him, for he'll earn enough to pay you back; but if a man should come to you for help who has cards and dice in his pocket, and who frequents gambling-tables, beware what you do, for a gamester's money is never to be counted on. And besides that, Hawermann, it would never do. People would say that the Jews incited the young man to gamble, so as to ruin him the quicker, and make sure of seizing his estate," and Moses drew himself to his full height. "No," he continued, "the Jew has his own code of honour as well as the Christian, and no man shall come and point to my grave, and say: that man drove a dishonest trade.--I won't have my good name taken from me in my old age by a man whose own conduct is not immaculate. Has he not stolen your good name, and yet you are an honest man and a true-hearted man. No," he went on, as Hawermann rose and began to walk up and down the room, "sit down, I won't talk about it. Different people have different notions. You bear your fate, and you have your reasons for doing so; I should not bear it if I were in your place, and I have my reasons for saying so. Good-bye now, Hawermann; good-bye Mr. Bräsig. I shall demand my money at S. Anthony's day all the same," and so saying he went away.
It was thus that the black clouds rose on this side also of Alick's sky, and they rose when he did not expect them. The dark storm clouds hemmed him in on every side, and when once the storm burst who could tell how long it might rage, and how many of his brightest hopes might not be destroyed by it for ever. He would not let himself think that ruin was staring him in the face, he comforted himself by looking forward to a good harvest, by counting up the money he expected to get from the grain merchants and wool-staplers, and with the hope that some lucky chance would stave off the evil day of reckoning a little longer. People always think when things are going ill with them that chance will come to their rescue and make everything easy to them. They treat the future as if it were a game at blind man's buff.--So the year 1848 began.
CHAPTER V.
This is not the place to decide whether the year 1848 brought most good or evil into the world. Let everyone give his verdict as he thinks best, I will not be drawn into expressing an opinion one way or the other, and will only describe how it affected the people about whom I am writing, for if I did not do that, the end of my book would be rather incomprehensible to my readers.
When the February explosion took place in Paris, the Mecklenburgers imagined that it would affect them as little as if it had taken place in Turkey, or some such distant country, and most people thought it a good joke that anything so exciting should still be possible in the world. The good folk of Rahnstädt began to take much more interest in politics than they had ever done before, and the post-master said that if matters remained as they were, the thing would have to be enquired into. He had been obliged to order eleven new newspapers, four of which were the "Hamburg Correspondent," and seven were numbers of the "Tante Voss." He regarded this preponderance in favour of the latter paper as a very bad sign, for the "Tante Voss" inculcated the necessity of overthrowing the existing order of things; perhaps the editor meant no harm by it, but he did it all the same. Thus we see that forty-four politicians were provided with the latest news, for every four of them took a paper amongst them which they each read in turn, and the olive-branches of the various subscribers might be seen running with the newspapers to the different houses at which they were due, looking as if their parents thought it well to bring up their children to be post-men. But what were eleven newspapers in a town like Rahnstädt? The artisans were still unprovided for, that had to be seen to; and it was done before long.
"Where are you going, John?" asked Jack Bank's wife.--"Well, Dora, I'm going to Grammelin's."--"You're going much too often to the public-house. I don't like it."--"Oh, Dora, I only drink one glass of beer. Lawyer Rein is going to read the newspaper aloud there this evening, and one likes to know what's going on in the world."--So Jack Bank and about fifty other artisans went to the ale-house.