"Will you let your mistress know that this young man and I want to speak to her," said Bräsig to Daniel Sadenwater, pointing at the same time to Fred. Daniel made a half bow, and went. Fred waited, and amused himself by making a face, in the same way as he used to do at Parchen, when he was called before the headmaster of his school to answer for some piece of mischief. Bräsig meanwhile was pulling up his boots in the corner, the better to show their yellow tops, and at the same time holding the book tightly under his arm. When Mrs. von Rambow crossed the hall on her way to the drawing-room, Bräsig followed her, his face quite red with inward excitement, and with stooping. Fred came slowly after, looking pale and anxious.--"You have something to say to me, Mr. Bräsig," said the lady turning from one to the other of her visitors.--"Yes, Madam, but under the circumstances, I'd be much obliged by your first listening to what this apothecary's son, this ...."--"infamous grey-hound" he was about to have said, but stopped himself in time--"has to say; he has a nice little story to tell you."--Mrs. von Rambow looked enquiringly at Fred, who began to stammer out something very like what had really happened, turning red and pale as he spoke. The only thing he left out was Mary Möller's name, and he concluded his story thus: "So the book got into my portmanteau by accident."--"Out with it about Mary Möller," interrupted Bräsig, "the truth must be made known."--"Yes," said Fred, "Mary Möller packed my things for me as I had so much to do that day."--Mrs. von Rambow had grown very uneasy: "Then," she said, "it was all owing to a wretched mistake?"--"Yes, Madam," answered Bräsig, "and here's the book. Look, Hawermann's account is balanced in the last page, and besides his sal'ry, you see that he has to be paid sixty pounds. You may be sure that it's all right, for Charles Hawermann never added up wrong in his life; he was always better at accounts from a boy than I was."--Mrs. von Rambow took the book with a trembling hand, and as she looked at the column of figures on the last page, the thought flashed into her mind, that as Hawermann was proved innocent in this particular, he might be equally innocent of the other charge brought against him, and in which she herself had never believed. Fred's story bore truth on the face of it, and so she saw that she had done the old bailiff a grievous wrong. But he had shot her husband! She had an excuse for her conduct in that. She said: "What made him shoot at Alick?"--"Madam," said Bräsig, raising his eyebrows and putting on his gravest expression, "allow me to say that that is a false accusation. It was your husband who got the gun, and when Hawermann tried to take it from him, it went off. That's the whole truth, for Hawermann himself told me, and he never lies."--She knew that well, and she also knew that she could not say the same of her husband. In the first excitement he had certainly declared: "He is not a murderer;" but ever since then, he had said that Hawermann had shot him. She sat down and covered her eyes with her hand. She tried to regain her self-control, but it was only with a great effort that she roused herself to say: "You have come, I suppose, to receive the money for the bailiff, but my husband is ill, and I cannot disturb him by asking for it just now. I will send it."--"No, Madam, I hav'n't come for that," answered Bräsig, drawing himself up to his full height, "I came here to tell the truth, I came here to defend my friend, my old school-fellow of sixty years ago."--"That was unnecessary if your friend has a good conscience, which I believe he has."--"I see, Madam, that you don't understand human nature. Every man has two consciences, one of which is within him and of that no devil can deprive him; but the other is external, and is known as his good name, and that can be stolen from him by any rascal who has power and cleverness enough to do it. When his good name is taken from him, the man dies morally, for no one lives for himself alone, but also for the world. Evil reports are like the thistle-down which the devil and his accomplices sow in our fields. The better the ground, the more the weeds flourish, and when they are in seed the wind comes--no one knows whence it cometh, or whither it goeth--and carries the thistledown with it, scattering it over the land, and next year the field is full of thistles. Then people come and abuse the land, but no one will lend a hand to pull up the weeds, for each man is afraid of hurting his fingers. And you, lady, have also feared the pricks. That was what pained my friend Charles Hawermann most of all, when he was turned out of the house as a cheat and a thief. That is what I came to tell you--and now farewell--I will say no more." He then left the room, and Fred slunk after him.
And Frida? Where was the high spirited young woman with the wise eyes and clear judgment, who could see what ought to be done so calmly and decidedly? She was changed now, her calm judgment was gone, and uneasiness had taken its place, and a veil of sorrow had fallen over her eyes, which hindered them seeing as clearly as before. "Oh," she exclaimed aloud. "Another untruth! All these suspicions were only born of lies, self-deception and unmanly weakness! My anxiety about him and my love for him, have made me participate in his guilt; have made me wound the noblest heart that ever beat for me. But I will tell him all," and she sprang to her feet, "I will tear the net in which I am entangled." Then falling back in her chair again, she went on sadly: "No, not now; I can't yet; he is too ill." Ah me! She was right: self-deception and lies had gained ever more power and strength, and her true heart would find it very difficult to keep itself uninfluenced by its surroundings, and to distinguish between what was real and what merely seemed to be real.
When Bräsig got back to his carriage, he found that Rührdanz had collected nearly all of Hawermann's possessions with the help of Christian Däsel, and the rest of the things were very soon got together. As Bräsig was getting into the carriage beside Rührdanz, Fred Triddelfitz pulled him back, and said: "Mr. Bräsig, please tell Mr. Hawermann that I am innocent; that it wasn't my fault."--Bräsig was not going to have answered him at first, but catching sight of his miserable face, was sorry for him, and said: "Yes, I'll tell him that; but see that you improve." And then he drove away.
After they had gone a short distance Rührdanz said: "It's nothing to me, Sir, and that's why I speak of it, but who ever would have thought it! I mean about Mr. Hawermann."--"What are you talking about?"--"Oh, nothing! I mean that he should have gone away so suddenly, and then the shooting!"--"That's all nonsense," said Bräsig angrily.--"I said so too. Sir, but Christian, the groom who helped me to pack told me it was true. He said the quarrel was all about some confounded papers, for Hawermann's papers wer'n't right. Yes, that was it, the confounded papers!"--"Hawermann's papers were all right."--"That's just what I said, Sir, but then there's the shooting. Our young master Gustavus was telling the story all over the village this morning."--"Gustavus," cried Bräsig furiously, "is a young rascal, a puppy! A puppy whose ears ar'n't shorn yet!"--"That's just what I said, and I hope you won't be angry with me, Sir; but still he's the best of the lot up at the manor. You see, my father's sister's son came here from the Prussian district near Anklam last week, and he told us what sort of a man our squire is. He always had some human skin sticking to the end of his cane, he was so fond of thrashing folk, but the Prussians would stand it no longer. The people had him up before the county-court or the country-court--I forget what the thing's called--and the Landgrave punished him severely. I only wish that we had a Landgrave like that close at hand, for the Chancellor's office is too far away."--"Yes," cried Bräsig crossly, "if you had a Landgrave like that, you'd have rare doings."--"That's just what I say, Sir; but Mr. Pomuchelskopp once went too far, he beat a woman who was in the family way very brutally, and--don't be angry with me. Sir--I think that was a horrible thing to do. The king happened to hear of it, and commanded that he should be imprisoned for life at Stettin with hard labour. Then his wife went to the king and fell at his feet, and his majesty granted her request on condition that he wore an iron ring round his neck for the rest of his life, and that he did convict's work at Stettin jail for a month every autumn. He was there this autumn. He was also banished from Prussia, and so he came here. Now tell me, Sir, where do you think he will go if he is chased away from here?"--"Where the pepper grows, for all I care," cried Bräsig.--"That's just what I say, Sir; but--don't be angry with me--I don't believe that they'll take him there even, for you see he has money to buy himself off, though indeed there are his papers against him. If the king sees from his papers that he has to wear an iron ring round his neck, and that that's the reason he wears such a large handkerchief round his throat, he won't let him buy himself off."--"Ah, then you see you'll have to keep him," said Bräsig.--"Yes, of course that'll be the way of it; we'd have to keep him because he'd be given into our charge. Tche!" he said to the horse and then they drove on at a slow trot through the village of Gürlitz, Bräsig thinking deeply.--What a strange world it is! he thought. A fellow who is well known to be a rascal has the power to take the good name from an honourable man, and the world believes the evil speaking of the bad man, while it turns a deaf ear to the asseverations of him whom he calumniated. Bräsig believed, from what he had heard of the stories Gustavus had been telling that Pomuchelskopp was doing his utmost to spread evil reports of Hawermann.--"It's scand'lous," he said to himself as he got out of the carriage at Mrs. Behrens' door in Rahnstädt, "but wait Samuel! I've got the better of you once in preventing you having the glebe, and I'll get the better of you again. But first of all I'll have the law of you for likening me to a 'crow'."
CHAPTER II.
New year's day 1846 had come with all its pleasures. The Rahnstädt people congratulated themselves on the cold weather outside, and on their warm rooms. There was a great deal of sledging in the morning, and many salt herrings were eaten because of Sylvester, Eve. Amongst the young people there was much talking of this and that thing they had noticed at the ball on the previous evening, and the fathers and mothers talked, not of what had happened at the ball, but of what was going on in the world. The story of the quarrel between Hawermann and Mr. von Rambow was one of the chief subjects of conversation at all the dinner tables in the town. As every house has its own style of cookery, every house spices its gossip to suit its own palate, and Slus'uhr and David added the one pepper and the other garlic to make the Pümpelhagen dish of scandal more appetising. So it came to pass that in Rahnstädt and its neighbourhood the story was now so highly seasoned that it satisfied all who partook of it, more especially as each individual had thrown into it some of his favourite spice. It was said that Hawermann had been cheating the young squire and his late father for years, and had amassed such a large fortune that he had impoverished Mr. von Rambow; that he had got possession of half of the money stolen by the labourer Regel, for which reason he had assisted the thief to escape, and had at the same time provided the man with an estate pass to help him on his way. No one had quite made up his mind as to what part Joseph Nüssler had taken in the business. At last Mr. Frederic Triddelfitz, son of the apothecary, a very clever young man, had discovered the roguery on one occasion when he was privately looking through the farm book. He had told the housekeeper, Mary Möller, what he had found out, and they had both agreed that Triddelfitz must take possession of the book until Hawermann was gone. The young man had therefore taken the book to Demmin with him, intending to hand it over to Mr. von Rambow on the first opportunity. Hawermann had missed the book next day, and had taken it into his head that Mr. von Rambow had seized it, so he had gone to him and told him he was a thief and that he must give him back his book. The squire had refused to admit that he had it, and so he had rushed at him with a gun. The squire had then tried to get the gun away from him, but it had gone off and Mr. von Rambow was now lying wounded to death. Hawermann was hidden away somewhere in the town. The story current in the town was much the same as this, and everyone wondered why the mayor did not put such a dangerous man in irons instead of letting him go at large.
Fortunately there were two wise men in the town who would not believe the story, and one of these was Moses, who when his son told him his version of what had happened, only said: "What a fool you are, David!" and then went back to his work. The other was the mayor himself, who only shook his head when the story was told him and then went on with his work.--Rector Baldrian did not go back to his work, for it was holiday time. He said that there must be something in the story as the whole town was full of it; but of this he was so certain that he would take the Holy Sacrament on it, that his son Godfrey's father-in-law, Joseph Nüssler, was not in the plot.--Kurz said: It might be true, though he would never have thought it of old Hawermann, but no one could see into the heart of another. At the same time, he must confess that the affair seemed to be improbable, for he could not imagine Fred Triddelfitz acting with so much precaution, and he therefore thought the story must be much exaggerated.--The apothecary of course believed it, because it redounded to his son's honour, and so he went about spreading the news in the town.
Strangely enough while the whole of Rahnstädt united in praising Fred, he looked upon himself as a great criminal, and humbling himself before Hawermann entreated his forgiveness with piteous earnestness, assuring him that he had wronged him unintentionally. Hawermann stroked the lad's red hair gently, and said: "Never mind, Triddelfitz! Remember this. Many a good action has evil consequences in this life, and many a bad action good consequences; but we have nothing to do with the consequences of our actions, they are in other hands than ours, and the consequences of our deeds do not make them good or evil. If you hadn't done wrong in trying to deceive me about the corn account your conscience wouldn't prick you, and you wouldn't have had to come to me to-day. But I forgive you heartily, and here's your receipt for the money. Try to be good, won't you? And now good-bye." He gave Fred the receipt for the money Mr. von Rambow had sent him for his wages, and for what he had expended for Alick.
Fred went to the inn where he had left his horse. A crowd had collected, and several people came up to him, and said: "Well, how is it? You behaved very well!"--"Is Mr. von Rambow dangerously wounded? And is he still alive?"--"Bless my soul! can't you be quiet and let Mr. Triddelfitz tell us about it."--"Tell me ....."--"Have you got Hawermann's place?"--Fred was not at all in the mood for talking, and besides that, he had no wish to publish the tale of his own folly. He forced his way through the crowd with a few "pishes" and "pshaws", and mounting his horse rode away, so all the Rahnstädters said with one voice that he was a very modest young man, who did not wish to sing his own praises.
The Rahnstädters had surrounded Fred, and had tried to get at his news, as if they had been a swarm of flies and he a bottle of syrup, but they had made nothing by the move. Still New-year's-day was not to pass without news. Scarcely was Fred, outwardly proud and haughty and inwardly sad and humble, gone away, when a carriage drove up to the inn--the gentleman was driving himself and the servant was on the back seat--the Rahnstädters flattened their noses on the window panes and wondered who it was. "I'm sure I know his face," said one.--"Yes, and I've seen him before too," said another.--"Isn't it ....?" began a third.--"My patience!" said Bank, the shoemaker. "You mean that it isn't him."--"I know who it is," said Wimmersdorf, the tailor, "I've made many a coat for him. It's the Mr. von Rambow who lives at Hohen-Selchow on the other side of Schwerin, and he's a cousin of the squire of Pümpelhagen."--"The tailor's right, it's just him."--"It's just him."--"It's just him."--"Of course he has come because of the quarrel."--"Most likely, for the squire of Pümpelhagen's too ill to attend to business. You'll see that matters will soon be put to rights now."--When Frank went into the coffee-room to take off his furs, the worthy town's folk present turned their backs to the window, the stove, and the wall, and looked with all their eyes into the middle of the room where he was standing. They resembled hungry spiders enclosing Frank like a helpless fly in the web of their curiosity.