These were Klaus's out o' doors troubles. Those within were still worse. His sound, strong horses perished one after another—till at last he had nothing left in his stables but one old gaunt mare called Blässel. A distemper broke out amongst his horned stock, and before a month passed, destroyed every thing in his stalls, with the exception of an old goat and a gormandizing and insatiable porker.
A much more sedate man than Klaus would have been ready to jump out of his skin in the midst of so much disaster. Once more he had recourse to a sale. With a heavy heart he put up his inheritance, and with inexpressible dismay he received the first buyers. Upon their close inspection of house and farm, it soon became too apparent that the whole of the woodwork was thoroughly worm-eaten, and, in the ground-floor, destructive fungus hard at work. Those who came inclined to buy, shook their heads and wished him good-morning: and in less than four-and-twenty hours after their departure, every soul in the parish knew that Lying Klaus was as good as a bankrupt; that his house was already tumbling about his ears; and that he himself would be forced to go from house to house, and practise the art of lattice-tapping.[1]
[1] The more ancient village houses have still, for the most part, before the house door, a kind of lattice, upon which the beggar taps, by way of announcing himself to the dwellers.
"Rumour in this case proved a true prophet. The end of the summer found Klaus's homestead all to pieces. The wind whistled through the broken windows. Rats frolicked about the floor: a lease of the rafters was taken by a society of martens, and Klaus was left the choice of making friends with the vermin, or being dislodged from his miserable den altogether.
"When a poor man suddenly becomes rich, there is no lack of good words thrown away; but when a rich man suddenly comes to beggary, all that is said is—that he is a deplorable wretch—that everybody expected it—and that it serves him right. Klaus led a horrid life. He was shunned by universal consent. The youngest urchins of the parish threw dirt at him, made faces, called him Lying Klaus, and trotted after him, imitating the gait and gestures of an ill-conditioned dwarf. If Klaus entered the tavern—so lately his own property—the boors shrunk from him as though he were a leper—the landlord lazily shoved a dirty glass before him, and looked at the piece of money which he got in exchange, a dozen times before he put it into his till. The most abandoned criminal, who had undergone his ten years of imprisonment and hard labour, could not have been treated more ignominiously. Had Klaus not lived on in a sort of mental intoxication, he must have committed murder or manslaughter, if, in his desperation, he had not even laid unholy hands upon himself.
"All help cut away, every means of support dried up, and the beggar denied even the bread of charity, Klaus at length resolved upon abandoning his birthplace, and seeking his fortune in the open world. He had all along carried on his stick trade without being able to earn even salt to his porridge. A small piece of copse-wood, of little value, for which he had been unable to find a purchaser, he could yet call his own—the lean and bony Blässel was also spared him. With sticks and steed, therefore, he quitted his native place, and began to take his rounds abroad, scarcely hoping to gather what was denied him amongst his own people—a scanty pittance. It was little that poor Nicholas got to break and bite upon his road; he made amends for the deficiency by consulting the brandy flask, from which the deserted one sucked his temporary solace. With the hot liquor in his head, he could whistle and sing, forget his misery, and boldly face mankind.
"Late one evening, Klaus returned from a distant business tour. Blässel had not a leg to stand upon, Klaus himself had eaten nothing the whole day, and he was besides parched with thirst. To satisfy the cravings of nature, he stepped, unwillingly enough, into The Sun at Herwigsdorf. The parlour was full of boors, one of whom, in a gruff voice, read aloud the Weekly Intelligencer, whilst the rest remarked upon its contents. Klaus edged himself into a corner to avoid observation, and mine host brought him, for his two or three pence, a very melancholy supper. The reading came at length to a close, and the stage then became alive. The farmers discussed and argued the news that had been delivered to them, until they grew very warm, and had exhausted all their eloquence, when they commenced knocking the table with their doubled fists, for want of better arguments. In the height of the dispute, a neighbouring miller—a very learned gentleman—entered the apartment. He was at once unanimously appealed to for a decision, and then nobody would abide by his verdict. A general tumult ensued; in the midst of it, unlucky Klaus was detected, and then politics and the welfare of mankind were immediately lost sight of.
"'Devil take me!' cried one, advancing towards the wretched man, 'If there doesn't sit Lying Klaus from Starving Castle!'
"Klaus was surrounded in an instant. The whole assembly hooted him, and he for shame and rage would gladly have buried himself for ever in the earth.
"Well, I will say," continued the unfeeling boor, "the rich Klaus has become the very careful and thrifty. I wonder if the churchwarden means to give him the bell-purse money for ever!"[1] Well, Liar, how gets on the stick trade? Will you soon be able to patch your coat out of your earnings? If you happen now to have a sixpence more than you want, I think we may do a little business together. I have some four-year-old straw that will come in well for your palace. It is eaten away a little by the mice, but that doesn't matter. Why, what are you thinking of, you nincompoop? Don't you know when Klaus wants straw, or money, or an honest name, he has only to go to his couch-grassed stubble-fields, and sneeze three times into the Dwarf's wall, and then he gets directly what he asks for? Who wouldn't have a Dwarf for his godfather! a fellow just three cheeses high, and a fiddle-scrapper A pretty scrape he has made of it for you—only scraped your precious soul into hell, as he would have done if Holy Peter had bound it three times round his key-bit. It is a great pity though, that Dwarf-piper don't fiddle money into his darling's pocket, as well as out of it. Kick the blackguard out, pull his ears for him—I say he isn't honest. He can't be, for he has dealings with the devil!'