"What did it cost?" cried Will Huelsmeyer, Frederick's rival.
"Will you pay for it?" asked Frederick. "Have you paid for it?" retorted Will. Frederick threw him a haughty glance and seized the bow in silent majesty. "Well, well," Huelsmeyer went on, "such things have happened. As you know well enough, Franz Ebel had a beautiful watch too, till Aaron the Jew took it away from him." Frederick did not answer, but nodded proudly to the first violin and they began to play with all their might and main.
Meanwhile the lord of the manor had stepped into the room where the women of the neighborhood were investing the bride with the white head band, the insignia of her new position. The young girl was crying bitterly, partly because custom so decreed, partly from honest nervousness. She was to manage a run-down household, under the eye of a peevish old man, whom, moreover, she was expected to love. He stood beside her, by no means like the groom in the Song of Solomon who "steps into the chamber like the morning sun." "You've cried enough now," he said crossly; "remember, it isn't you who are making me happy; I am making you happy!" She looked up to him humbly and seemed to feel that he was right. The business was ended; the young wife had drunk to her husband's health, some young wags had looked through the tripod to see if the bride's head band was straight, and they were all crowding again toward the dancing-floor, whence there still resounded inextinguishable laughter and noise. Frederick was no longer there. He had met with a great unbearable disgrace, when Aaron the Jew, a butcher and casual second-hand dealer from the nearest town, had suddenly appeared, and, after a short unsatisfactory conversation, had dunned him before the whole company for the sum of ten thalers in payment of a watch delivered at Eastertide. Frederick had gone away, as if annihilated, and the Jew followed him, shouting all the while: "Oh, woe is me! Why didn't I listen to sensible people! Didn't they tell me a hundred times you had all your possessions on your back and no bread in your cupboard!" The room shook with laughter. Some had pushed after them into the yard. "Catch the Jew! Balance him against a pig!" called some; others had become serious. "Frederick looked as white as a sheet," said an old woman, and the crowd separated as the carriage of the lord of the estate turned into the yard. Herr von S. was out of sorts on the way home, the usual and inevitable effect when the desire to maintain popularity induced him to attend such feasts. He looked out of the carriage silently. "What two figures are those?" He pointed to two dark forms running ahead of the wagon like two ostriches. Now they sneaked into the castle. "Another blessed pair of swine out of our own pen!" sighed Herr von S. Having arrived at home, he found the corridor crowded with all the domestics standing around two lower-servants, who had sunk down pale and breathless on the steps.
They declared that they had been chased by old Mergel's ghost, when they were coming home through the forest of Brede. First they had heard a rustling and crackling high above them, and then, up in the air, a rattling noise like sticks beating against one another; then suddenly had sounded a shrieking yell and quite distinctly the words, "O, my poor soul!" coming down from on high. One of them even claimed to have seen fiery eyes gleaming through the branches, and both had run as fast as their legs could carry them.
"Stupid nonsense!" exclaimed the lord of the estate crossly, and went into his room to change his clothes. The next morning the fountain in the garden would not play, and it was discovered that some one had removed a pipe, apparently to look for the head of a horse's skeleton which had the reputation of being an attested instrument against any wiles of witches or ghosts. "H'm," said Baron von S.; "what rogues do not steal, fools destroy."
Three days later a frightful storm was raging. It was midnight, but every one in the castle was out of bed. The Baron stood at the window and looked anxiously out into the dark toward his fields. Leaves and twigs flew against the panes; now and, then a brick fell and was dashed to pieces on the pavement of the courtyard. "Terrible weather!" said Herr von S. His wife looked out anxiously. "Are you sure the fire is well banked?" she asked; "Gretchen, look again; if not, put it all out with water! Come, let us read the Gospel of St. John." They all knelt down and the lady of the house began: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." There was a terrible clap of thunder. All started; then there was a terrible scream and noise up the stairs. "For God's sake! Is something burning?" cried Frau von S., and sank down with her face on the chair. The door burst open and in rushed the wife of Aaron the Jew, pale as death, with her hair wildly disheveled, dripping with rain. She threw herself on her knees before the Baron. "Justice!" she cried, "Justice! My husband is murdered!" and she fell in a faint.
It was only too true, and the ensuing investigation proved that Aaron the Jew had lost his life by a single blow on the temples delivered by some blunt instrument, probably a staff. On his left temple was the blue mark; beyond that there was no other injury. The statement of the Jewess and her servant, Samuel, ran thus: Three days ago Aaron had gone out in the afternoon to buy cattle and had said at the time that he would probably be gone overnight, because there were still several bad debtors in B. and S., on whom he would call for payment; in this case he would spend the night with the butcher, Solomon, in B. When he did not return home the next day his wife had become greatly worried and had finally set out at three o'clock in the afternoon with her servant and the big butcher dog. At the house of Solomon the Jew, no one knew anything about Aaron; he had not been there at all. Then they had gone to all the peasants with whom they knew Aaron had intended to transact some business. Only two had seen him, and those on the very day when he had left home. Meanwhile it had become very late. Her great anxiety drove the woman back home, where she cherished a faint hope of finding her husband after all. They had been overtaken by the storm in the Forest of Brede and had sought shelter under a great beech on the mountain side. In the meantime the dog had been running about and acting strangely, and had, in spite of repeated calling, finally run off into the woods. Suddenly, during a lightning flash, the woman had seen something white beside her on the moss. It was her husband's staff, and almost at the same moment the dog had broken through the shrubbery with something in his mouth; it was her husband's shoe. Before long they found the Jew's body in a trench filled with dry leaves.
This was the report of the servant, supported only in general by the wife; her intense agitation had subsided and her senses now seemed half confused or, rather, blunted. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!" These were her only words, which she at intervals ejaculated.
The same night the guards were summoned to take Frederick into custody. They needed no warrant, because Herr von S. himself had been witness to a scene which inevitably threw the strongest suspicion on him; furthermore there was the ghost story of that night, the beating together of the sticks in the forest of Brede, the scream from above. Since the clerk of the court was at that time absent, Herr von S. hastened everything faster than would otherwise have been done. Nevertheless dawn was already breaking when the riflemen as quietly as possible surrounded poor Margaret's house. The Baron himself knocked; it was hardly a minute before the door was opened, and Margaret appeared, fully dressed. Herr von S. started; he scarcely recognized her, so pale and stony did she look. "Where is Frederick?" he asked in an unsteady voice.
"Search for him!" she answered, and sat down on a chair. The Baron hesitated a moment longer.