"Yes, father," said Salchen, "and Ruhrdanz the weaver has already joined the Reformverein, and the rest of the villagers will all follow his example; and it may be a bad thing."
"Good heavens, I should think so! But wait, I must get the start of them, I will join it myself."
"You?" cried the two girls, in one breath, as if their father had proposed to sit fire to his house and home, with his own hands.
"I must, I must! It will make me popular among the burghers, so that they will not excite the canaille against me; I will pay up the tradesmen's bills, and--yes, it must be done,--I will advance something to my day-laborers."
Malchen and Salchen were astonished, never in their lives had they heard father talk like that; but they were still more astonished when father went on to say, "And let me tell you one thing, you must be very civil to the Herr Pastor and the Frau Pastorin,--good heavens, yes! Mother won't do it--Häuning, what trouble you make me! The parsonage people can do us a great deal of good, or a great deal of harm. Ah, what can not a proprietor and a pastor accomplish, if they stand faithfully by each other, in these bad times! We must send them a friendly invitation; by and by, when it is quiet again, we can drop the intercourse, if it does not suit us."
And sure enough! After a few days Pastor Gottlieb received a note containing the compliments of the Herr and the Frau Pomuchelskopp--for old Häuning had given in on this point--to the Herr Pastor and the Frau Pastorin, and requesting the honor of their company to dinner. The man waited for an answer. Bräsig happened to be there, having come over to look after things a little. When Gottlieb read the invitation, he stood there, looking as if he had received a summons to the Ecclesiastical Consistory, to answer to charges of false doctrine, or immoral conduct. "What?" he exclaimed, "an invitation from our proprietor? Where is Lining? Lining!" he called, out at the door. Lining came, read the letter, and looked at Gottlieb, who stood before her without a word, then she looked at Bräsig, who sat in the sofa-corner, grinning like a Whitsun ox. "Well," she said at last, "we cannot go, of course?"
"Dear wife," said Pastor Gottlieb,--he always called her "dear wife," when he wished to throw the weight of his clerical dignity into the balance, at other times he said merely "Lining,"--"dear wife, you should not refuse the hand that your brother offers."
"Gottlieb," said Lining, "this is not a hand, it is a dinner, and the brother is Pomuchelskopp. Am I not right, Uncle Bräsig?" Bräsig said nothing, he only grinned, he sat there like Moses' David, when he had staked a louis-d'or, and waited to see whether clerical dignity, or good, sound common sense would turn the scale.
"Dear wife," continued Gottlieb, "it is written, 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,' and 'If thy brother smite thee on one cheek,'----"
"Gottlieb, that does not apply to this affair; we have no wrath against him, and as for smiting on the cheek, I am of Bräsig's opinion. God forgive me the sin! it may have been different in old times, but if it were the fashion now, there would be a great deal of grumbling in the world, for we should all go about with swollen cheeks."