I will therefore only say that, through the Frenchman's being given up safe and sound, the Miller and the Baker were acquitted of the murder; and that, through his confession and through the evidence of Inspector Bräsig and the valet-de-chambre, the Landrath von Uertzen came to his own again; and the Colonel von Toll, when the Judge was going to keep back the money, as unclaimed property, got up, and said severely, that his regiment should not be branded with robbing and thieving. And so saying he took the valise and said to Luth:--
"You seem a sensible man; take this sealed valise and give it to the Herr Amtshauptmann Weber; he is to do with it what is right according to the practice of the country." Luth received a paper with it, and thus the matter was settled.
But now there arose a difficulty which no one had thought of before:--what was to be done with my uncle Herse. When the Miller and the baker and all the others had gone out of the court and away from him, my uncle remained there, like a fine old oak which the forester has left in a clearing, alone in its grandeur.
The Colonel looked at him and asked: "Why are you still here?"
My uncle Herse stirred his branches as it were, and from the look in his dusky-red face, it was clear that a storm of wind was beginning to agitate the head of the old tree: "That's what I was going to ask you," was his answer.
If a stranger had entered the room at that moment, he would hardly have been able to say which was the Rathsherr and which the colonel. Both had imposing uniforms on, both had proud aristocratic faces, and both had these from the habit of command; if the Colonel was a couple of inches taller, my uncle Herse was half a foot broader; and if the Colonel had hair on his upper lip, my uncle had it all over his face, for he had not been shaved for the last two days: old Metz the barber had forgotten to shave him the day before yesterday, and the day before yesterday's, yesterday's and to-day's growth, weighed fully as much as the French officer's moustache.
"Who are you?" asked the Colonel.
"I am a Rathsherr, a Stemhagen Rathsherr," replied my uncle.
This seemed to take the Colonel by surprise. He walked up and down and at last stood still before my uncle and said: "I do not see any advantage for the Emperor Napoleon in my dragging you about the country any longer. You can go."
Now this was not the sort of thing my uncle was used to.--"Sir!" he cried: "this treatment...."