"The devil take you!" exclaimed Rathsherr Herse. "Don't you see, Miller Voss, that I don't wish to be known?"
"Well, that's my case too," said the Miller. "But, Herr Rathsherr, you would do me a great favour if you would see my horse and cart into a place of safety. I have fastened it up near the green gate. I'll do you a good turn in exchange. As soon as the perch in the mill-pond begin to bite, I'll let you know."
"I will see to it," said the Rathsherr.
He went on to the green gate, and when he had found the Miller's cart and unfastened it, he got into it, and was just driving off, when up came a party of French soldiers, and at their head the colonel of artillery by whose command all the horses and waggons had been sent for from the surrounding villages.
My uncle Herse was now forthwith arrested, and pulled down off the cart; and, what with his uniform and his keeping on crying out that he was "conseiller d'état"--for he could not at the moment find any better word for a Stemhagen Rathsherr--the French thought they must have made a good catch, and that they had now got the head of the conspiracy to rob them of their waggons and teams.
The colonel of artillery cursed and swore in the most unchristian French; he would make an example of the Rathsherr; four men should take him between them.
And so my uncle Herse, who had come in the greatest secrecy, to do a good work to others, was led back into the town a public spectacle, to suffer martyrdom for his good intentions.
When this happened, Witte the baker was standing close by, behind the great chestnut-tree; for he, too, had come to take the Miller's cart into a place of safety.
"That can't hurt the Herr Rathsherr," he said to himself; "he buys his white bread of Guhlen, why doesn't he buy it of me? Well, he must judge for himself, and he can do it too, he's clever enough; but the unreasoning cattle can't, and so one of us must look after them." And, so saying, he got into the cart, and, following the French at a distance, drove slowly towards his barns, and put the horse in his stable.