But a little further on they met, in the fields, an old man who was cutting willows near the path and he knew nothing of any Frenchman, and said the fellow had not passed since six o'clock in the morning.
What vas to be done now? Follow the road straight on? That would be a regular wild-goose chase. But the fellow had certainly gone out of the village; where had he stopped?
The Bailiff scratched his head; Friedrich looked all round and surveyed the country. At last he said;--"We can go no further, Bailiff; the trace is at an end here; so we must think the matter over. But the wind is cold, let us go and sit down by that oven yonder."[[4]]
Well, they did so. "What a fool I was," said the Bailiff, "to go running after a Frenchman in this weather!"
"Father-in-law, leave the Frenchman alone," said Friedrich; "we shall get him yet."
"Are you going to begin again with your 'fathers-in-law,' you Prussian knave?"
"What you are not, you may become. Bailiff.--I have known many people who have given their daughters and plenty of money into the bargain, for that name."
"Yes, but then they got rather different sons-in-law."
"Now, just look at me, Bailiff," said Friedrich, and he placed himself before the Bailiff as erect as he could make himself; "I'm not a lawyer, nor yet a doctor, but I have sound bones, and my hands speak of work. And if you don't trust your own eyes you can ask my Miller."
"Yes, and do you know what he'll say? He'll say you are steady enough and understand a thing or two, but that your sayings are not the sort to 'tice a dog away from a warm stove (oven)."