A green meadow valley lay before the house, on which fat, comfortable-looking cows were grazing; well-scoured milk-pails hung on the garden fence, fruit-trees were trained on the house-walls, a powerful dog lay basking in the glowing sunshine before the door; from the well-populated barn-yard one heard an animated conversation among the feathered tribes, where a peacock was chairman, and made short emphatic speeches, and a turkey-cock filled the office of crier; in short, all bore the stamp of wealth and comfort.
And yet the owner of all, Herr Adam Neubauer, walked discontentedly up and down his room.
His sharp eye had long observed that pilfering hands had laid hold of his field-products, and it had pained him excessively that one would steal from him, for he had never permitted the needy to depart with empty hands; but in the last night so much had been stolen from his pea-field that his hitherto silent displeasure broke forth in expressions of anger.
"Anna," said he to his wife, a blonde of perhaps thirty years, with soft features and gentle dove eyes, "thou knowest I am patience itself, but that is too bad—that is too bad. The people take advantage of my forbearance and kindness, and it is time to let them see that I can also be angry. The first one I catch stealing, if he has only taken one ear, shall be so punished that he will forget to come again, thou mayest depend on it!"
"But, dear husband," replied Frau Anna, in a gentle voice, for she had not seen her husband so excited for a long time, "do not excite thyself so. Certainly it is vexatious when wicked men lay hands on our property; but as all the people of the earth are not purely honourable, if thou wilt appoint guards, thou wilt soon have the pleasure of seeing the thieves face to face."
"It is just that that makes me so angry," answered Neubauer—"that all the appointed sentinels do not help in the least. Since eight days, our servants, well hidden, have watched; but no one has shown himself, and nevertheless as much has been stolen as before. What is to be done?"
Anna heard with surprise this puzzling communication, and after many suppositions on the subject she went out shaking her head, to direct household matters, and Adam remained alone with his vexation.
The evening of the same day the heavens had greatly changed. It had been sultry all day, and now dark, silver-bordered clouds rose over the Harz, united and formed a colossal black wall.
It grew darker and darker. Hollow rolled the distant thunder, the dazzling lightnings flamed, and great drops fell. Fearfully raged the storm in the tops of the firs and beeches, and drove dust and gravel in wild whirls up the mountain path, on which now a wanderer, with hair wildly blowing in the wind and fluttering garments, descended.
Not a ray of light pierced the clouds save the fire of the lightning, followed ever more quickly by the deafening claps of thunder; in torrents the clouds now poured their streams on the mountains, the firm rocks seemed to quake to their foundations; it was as if the Dies Iræ were come.