When Habermann reached Rexow, his sister sprang to meet him, as quickly as her stoutness would allow:
"Karl! God bless you! Karl! Have you come at last! And how bright you look! And so handsome! Dear brother, has anything happened? Has something good happened to you?"
"Yes, child, yes; I will tell you by and by. Where is Jochen?"
"Jochen? Dear heart, you may well ask. Where he is, no mortal knows; he comes and goes like a bird on the fence. Since the time when it was settled that Rudolph and Mining are to be married next week, on Friday,--you are coming to the wedding?--he has no rest, day nor night, and busies himself about the farming, and now that the spring seed is all planted and he has nothing in the world to do, he runs about the fields, and when he comes home, he makes us all miserable. It is just as if he would make up, in the eight days between now and the wedding, what he has neglected for five and twenty years."
"Oh, let him work! It will do him no harm."
"So I say, but Rudolph is vexed because he follows him round so."
"Well, that won't last long. Is everything quiet here?"
"Oh, yes, and if Jochen had not wanted to make that speech about the geese, we should have known nothing about the troubles, but at Gurlitz and Pumpelhagen it looks badly."
"At Pumpelhagen, too?"
"Oh, yes, yes! They say nothing about it; he doesn't speak, and she doesn't speak, but the whole region knows that it may break out, any day. He has so many debts, now the day-laborers demand their wages, and he has been letting them run up, and then they want you again for inspector."