They talked a long time together in the sweet moonlight, but what they said no one else has a right to know, for when a father and child speak to each other heart to heart and soul to soul, God is with them, and what they say is between themselves, the world has no part in it.
Down stairs in the parlour it was very different. Mrs. Behrens was sitting in her arm-chair weeping bitterly. The dear good woman was torn in two by conflicting opinions, and her heart was sore for Hawermann and his sorrows; but when she foresaw the terrible struggle she was obliged to cause in the heart of her adopted daughter, and when she saw it awake, and saw faith and courage get the victory in spite of misery, she felt as if she herself had brought all these misfortunes on the head of her darling--remorse and compassion filled her heart, and she burst into bitter tears as soon as she was left alone.--Bräsig on the other hand had left all his compassion upstairs, he had expended all that he had upon Hawermann, and now his wrath, which he had before restrained with infinite difficulty, burst forth, and as he entered the dark room, he exclaimed: "The infamous Jesuitical packages! What do they mean by blotting the fair fame of such a man as Charles Hawermann? It's a Satanic deed! It's just like one man holding the cat, while the other impales it! Curse the ...."--"Bräsig, Bräsig, please don't!" cried little Mrs. Behrens. "Don't let us have any of your unchristian ways here."--"Do you call that unchristian? It sounds to me like a song of the holy angels in paradise, when I say that sort of thing about the infernal plots of these Jesuits."--"But, Bräsig, we are not their judges."--"I know quite well, Mrs. Behrens, that I am not a judge, and that you hav'n't a seat on the municipal board; but still you can't expect me to look at vermin with the same pleasure as at beautiful canary-birds! No, Mrs. Behrens, toads are toads, and Pomuchelskopp is the chief toad that has squirted its venom over us. What do you say to the trick he has been trying to play me lately? You see, he has put up a fence across the foot-path that leads to the glebe, and which has been in existence for a thousand years for anything I know, and has sent me a message that if ever I cross that fence he'll have my boots pulled off and let me hop away home through the snow in my stockings like a crow. Do you call that a Christian sentiment? But I'll go to law with him. The fellow daring to even me to a crow! And parson Godfrey must go to law with him also, for trying to deprivate him of the use of the foot-path. And young Joseph must go to law with him, for he has said, several times, and publicly too, that young Joseph was an old fool, and young Joseph is not obliged to take that quietly. You must also go to law with him for not having built you a dowager-house, as he was obliged to do by law, at least one or two old people have told me so. Then Charles Hawermann must go to law with Mr. von Rambow. We must all get up a rev'lution against those Jesuits, and if everyone will agree with me, we might all drive to Güstrow to-morrow to see the Chancellor, and summons the whole lot of them on a bit of parchment. We can engage five barristers, that'll be one for each of us, and then, 'Hurrah for the lawsuit!'" If Bräsig had had any idea that Louisa had to suffer more than anyone else from "the Jesuits," he would have insisted on engaging a barrister to plead her cause also, but he had not the remotest notion of her misery.--Mrs. Behrens tried to calm him down, but she found it a very difficult task, for the misfortunes of his old friend had caused him much mingled anger and sorrow, and all the small rages proper for a farmer, and the irritability brought on by gout and losing at cards combined to augment his rage.--"I came here," he said, "to amuse myself because it was club-day, and because I wanted to win back the nine shillings from that old sharper Kurz, that he fleeced me of with his confounded trickery, and now the devil is holding his d--d telespope before my eyes that I may the better see some utterly vile human actions! And that's to be my amusement! Now, Mrs. Behrens, if you don't mind I'd like to spend the night here, for I shouldn't make much of that stupid game, Boston, this evening, and it might be as well for me to sleep in Charles' room so as to be able to cheer him up whenever he gets low."--Mrs. Behrens replied that she would be much obliged to him if he would do so, and she spent the rest of the evening trying to calm down the irrascible old man. Neither Hawermann nor Louisa came back to the parlour, and when Bräsig went upstairs he found that Louisa had gone to her own room.
When Bräsig took leave of his old friend on the next morning, he said: "You may leave it all in my hands, Charles, I'll drive over to Pümpelhagen, and get your things. You shall have all your belongings though it makes me ill to cross the threshold of the house where you were so badly treated."
On the same morning Hawermann sat down to write to Frank; he told him honestly and clearly what had happened at Pümpelhagen, even to the terrible ending of his stay there, and the accusation which had been made against him, and said that he and his daughter were of one mind in declining the offer Frank had made. He wanted to tell the young man of his warm friendship for him, but somehow the words would not come as easily as usual, and when written seemed rather forced. He ended by entreating Frank to leave him and his daughter to go their way alone, to forget them, and allow them to live out the rest of their lives by themselves.
Louisa also wrote, and when she had sent Mrs. Behrens' maid out in the evening to post her letter, she went to the window, and watched the servant as if she were taking a last long leave of what was very dear to her, and then looking at the setting sun, she murmured:
"E'en dying, I should long to go
Where all my hope doth rest!"
She did not blush to-day when she said these words, as she had done only yesterday; her face was pale, and when the last rays of the setting sun were hidden behind the houses, she sighed heavily, and slow tears gathered in her eyes and rolled down her white cheeks. She did not weep for her own sorrow, but for his.
As soon as Bräsig reached the parsonage, Lina ran out to meet him, exclaiming: "Oh, uncle Bräsig, I'm so glad that you've come. Such dreadful things have happened here, I don't mean here, but at Pümpelhagen. Dr. Strump has been here--George was taken ill suddenly last night--so I had the doctor's gig stopped in the village as he was coming back from Pümpelhagen, and he told us such a frightful story--I don't mean the doctor, for one could hardly get a word out of him on the subject--but his coachman said that--oh do come in, there's such a draught here," and she drew the old bailiff into the parlour. When there, she told him that the people said her dear uncle Hawermann had shot Alick, and had then gone away no one knew where, but most probably to take his own life. Bräsig comforted her by assuring her that Hawermann was alive, and after having convinced her of that, he asked how Mr. von Rambow was getting on. Lina told him that Dr. Strump did not think him dangerously wounded, and then Bräsig went to see George who was apparently suffering from congestion of the lungs. After that it was time for him to go to Pümpelhagen for Hawermann's things as it was about twelve o'clock, so he set out in search of a man who could act as coachman instead of George.
He asked several of the villagers to go with him, and help him to bring away the things, but they all refused on one pretext or another, and he soon found that he would have to go alone. But at the last moment old Rührdanz, the weaver, came forward, and said: "I don't care what he says; if he chooses to make a scene he can do so, it's nothing to me, I'll go with you, Mr. Bräsig."--"What do you mean by making a scene, Rührdanz?" asked Bräsig.--"You see, sir, he has forbidden us to do any kind of work for the parsonage people, we ar'n't even allowed to go a single step in their service."--"Who forbade you to do so?"--"Why he did. Our master Pomuchelskopp."--"The infamous Jesuit!" muttered Bräsig below his breath.--"He told us that if we disobeyed him we might feed our cattle on saw-dust, for he would give us neither hay nor straw, and we might burn stones to warm ourselves, for he would give us neither wood nor peats."--Bräsig grew more and more furious every moment, and the old weaver, having got into the full swing of talk, went on: "And then you see we've to be ready night and day when he wants us. I myself have been from home all the Christmas holydays, and only got back at ten o'clock last night."--"Where were you?"--"At the old station in Ludwigslust."--"What were you doing there?"--"I wasn't doing any thing there."--"Why you must have been sent on business?"--"Yes, I was sent on business, but nothing came of it, as there were no papers."--"What do you mean?"--"You see, I was sent to the station with a ram, and I got there all right. I found a fellow waiting for me, so I said to him: 'Good-morning,' I said, 'here he is.'--'Who?' he asked.--'The ram,' I said.--'What has he come for?' he asked.--'I don't know,' I said.--'Are there any papers?" he asked.--'No,' I said, 'there are no papers about him.'--'You fool,' he said, 'are you sure that there are no papers?"--'Yes,' I said, 'the ram has no papers.'--'Confound you!' he said. 'Hav'n't you brought me some papers yourself?'--'What?' I said. 'I? What's the good of my having papers? I'm not to be sold to you here.' Then the fellow grew very rude and had me turned out and the ram after me, and so there we were both left standing before the station. 'Ugh! Ugh!' coughed the old ram. We were turned out into the road because he had no papers, and I had none either. What was to be done? I drove him home again, and when I got back last night, there was a frightful scene. I thought our master would have eaten me up he fell upon me so viciously. But it wasn't my fault. If the man ought to have had papers they should have sent him some. But of this I'm sure, that if our master wasn't such a great man and didn't happen to be so much too strong for us, and if we only stuck to each other properly we'd manage to take him down a peg. As for his hop-pole of a wife, she's a thousand time worse than he is. It was only last spring that she nearly beat my neighbour Kapphingst's girl to death. She beat the girl three times with her broom-stick, and then locked her up in the shed without food. And why? Because a hawk had carried off one of her chickens. It wasn't the girl's fault that the hawk carried off the chicken, nor was it my fault that I wasn't given any papers."--Bräsig listened to the weaver's story, and although only yesterday he had wanted to bring about a revolution against Pomuchelskopp, he was now silent, for he would never have forgiven himself, if he had thoughtlessly helped to excite the labourers against their master.
They got to Pümpelhagen at last, and stopped at the farm-house door. Fred Triddelfitz sprang out, and ran up to Bräsig: "Oh, Sir, Sir," he cried, "it wasn't my fault that Mary Möller packed the book by mistake amongst my things, and I knew nothing about it till I was changing my clothes at Demmin."--"What book?" asked Bräsig quickly.--"Why, Hawermann's book, about which there has been such a row."--"And that book," cried Bräsig, seizing Fred by the collar and shaking him till his teeth chattered, "you took to Demmin with you, you infamous grey-hound that you are." Then pushing him towards the house: "Come in, and show me the book."--Fred brought it tremblingly, and Bräsig snatched it out of his hands: "Do you know what you have done, you infamous grey-hound? You have brought the man, who tried in all kindness and gentleness, to make a responsible human being of you, and who always covered your follies with a silken mantle, to misery and shameful suspicion."--"Oh, don't Mr. Bräsig," entreated Fred turning deadly pale, "indeed it wasn't my doing; Mary Möller packed the book with my things, and I galloped home with it from Demmin this morning as hard as I could."--"Mary Möller," cried Bräsig, "what have you got to do with Mary Möller? Oh, if I were your father or your mother, or even your aunt, I'd thrash you till you ran round the wall like a squirrel. What have you got to do with that stupid old woman Mary Möller? Do you think that galloping on the public road is the way to make good your folly? Is your innocent horse to suffer for your sins? But now come away, come away. You must appear in Mrs. von Rambow's Court of Justice. You must tell all about it there, and then you can explain the mystery about Mary Möller." When he had said this he set off to the manor house, and Fred followed him slowly, like hard times when they come into the land, and his heart was full of grief and pain.