On May morning a magnificent tree was found before the house of Michael the wagoner.A magnificent tree was found before the house of Michael.It was a tall fir; the branches had been cut off, and only the crown was left. It towered far over all the houses, and, if the church were not on a hill, it would have looked down on the steeple. There was not another May-pole in all the village; and all the girls envied Eva, the wagoner's oldest daughter, the distinction of having this one set for her.
The children came up the village, a green hut moving along in their midst. A conical roof of twisted withes, covered with leaves, was put on a boy's head, and in this curious disguise he went from house to house, stopping at every door. Two boys walked beside him, carrying a basket filled with eggs and chaff, followed by a crowd with green boughs in their hands. They sang at every house,--
"Bim, bam, bum!The May-man he has come;Give us all the eggs you've got.Or the marten will come to your cot;Give us all the eggs we will,Or we'll strew our chaff on your sill.Bim, bam, bum," &c.
"Bim, bam, bum!
The May-man he has come;
Give us all the eggs you've got.
Or the marten will come to your cot;
Give us all the eggs we will,
Or we'll strew our chaff on your sill.
Bim, bam, bum," &c.
Where they received no eggs they fulfilled their threat, and cast a handful of chaff on the sill, with cheers and laughter. This happened but very rarely, however, though they left not a single house unvisited except the manor-house farmer's. But the "May-man" failed on this occasion to attract the general interest, for all the world had flocked to Michael the wagoner's house to see the May-pole. It could not have been brought there without the aid of at least six men and two horses. How it could have been done so "unbeknown" was the wonder of all, for setting May-poles was rigorously forbidden and punished with three months' confinement in the Ludwigsburg penitentiary. The fear of this punishment had deterred all the boys from putting this monster nosegay before their sweethearts' windows,--all but Wendel's Mat, who went to see Eva. Who had helped him was not to be discovered: some supposed that they were boys from Dettensee, which is only a mile off and belongs to the dominions of his high mightiness the Duke of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
Many of the farmers, on their way to the field with their ploughs and harrows, stopped to look at the May-pole. Others, with hoes on their shoulders, did the same. Wendel's Mat was there also, and he chuckled in his sleeve continually, tipping the wink to Eva, who sat gayly at the window with her eyes shut. Those closed eyes were very significant. At every arch repetition of the question, "Who could have set the May-pole!" she answered with a roguish shrug of the shoulders.
Just as the May-man and his followers had reached Michael the wagoner's house and began their song, the beadle and the ranger made their appearance, and a solemn "Hush your noise, you----!" from the former, stopped the proceedings. Amid the sudden silence the officer of the law walked up to Mat, took him by the arm, and said, "Come along to the squire."
Mat shook off the broad hand of the functionary, and asked, "What for?"
"You'll hear in good time. Come along, now, or you'll be sorry for it."
Mat looked about him as if he did not exactly know what to do, or as if he was waiting for assistance from some quarter. The May-cabin marched straight up to the beadle and struck his face. The boy probably took it for granted that, as May-man, his person was sacred and secure; but the beadle knew no sacred personage except himself, and pulled the boy's hut to pieces at a blow. Christian, Mat's younger brother, sprang out of it; and there was an end of the Maying.
Meantime Eva had come out of the house and took Mat by the arm, as if to save him. But he shook her off almost as roughly as he had done the beadle; while the latter said to Eva, "You may as well wait till I come for you."
Holding her apron to her face, she went back quickly to the house.
"Come on," said Mat, casting a look of much meaning on Eva; but she, poor thing, saw nothing now, for the tears were in her eyes. Holding her apron to her face, she went back quickly to the house.
The farmers went to their work, and Mat followed the officers to the squire's, the children bringing up the rear. When nearly out of hearing, some of the boldest cried, "Soges! Soges!" This was the beadle's nickname, and always made him furious. He had administered his office while the Black Forest yet formed a part of the possessions of the house of Austria. His devotion to his august master was such that he thought it necessary even to affect the dialect of Vienna; and, instead of pronouncing the German for "I say it," "I sag's" or "I han's g'sa't,"--as a plain Black Forester would have done,--he said, "I sog'es." Soges thereby became his title.
The mysterious brown door of the squire's house removed Mat, Soges, and the ranger from the sight of the multitude. The squire welcomed the prisoner with a round rating for the crime of which he stood accused. Mat remained calm, only beating with one foot the time of a tune he sang in imagination. At last he said, "'You 'most done, squire? All that's nothing to me, for I haven't set any May-pole: go on talking, though, for I've plenty of time to listen."
The squire waxed very wroth, and would have assaulted Mat bodily had not Soges whispered some more sagacious counsels in his ear. He sank his clenched fist, and ordered Soges to take the criminal to the lock-up for twenty-four hours for a flagrant denial.
"I belong to the village; I am to be found at any time, and I'm not likely to run away about such a trumpery as this: you can't lock me up," said Mat, rightly.
"Can't?" cried the squire, reddening with anger: "we'll see if we can't, you----"
"Save your blackguarding," said Mat: "I'm going; but it's an outrage to treat the son of a citizen this way. If my cousin Buchmaier was at home it couldn't be done."
On the way to the lock-up they met Eva; but Mat did not even make an attempt to speak to her. Eva could not understand how this happened. She followed Mat with her eyes until he was no longer in sight, and then, bent with shame and trouble, she entered the squire's dwelling. His wife was Eva's godmother, and Eva would not go until Mat had been released. But her intercession was of no use this time: the president-judge of the district was shortly expected on his tour of visitation, and the squire wished to conciliate him by a specimen of unrelenting severity.
In conjunction with his faithful prime minister Soges, a report was prepared and Mat transported to Horb early next morning. It was well that Eva's house lay at the other end of the village, so that she could not see the wretched plight to which a night's imprisonment had reduced the fine, active fellow who generally appeared so neatly clad. In his anger he tore a bough from every hedge he passed, gnawed it between his teeth, and threw it away again. In the fir-wood he broke a twig and kept it in his mouth. He never spoke a word: the fir-sprig seemed to be the symbol of his silence in regard to the May-pole,--a charm with which he intended to tie his tongue. Arrived at the court-house door, he hastily took it out of his mouth and unconsciously thrust it in his pocket.
No one who has not been in the hands of a German court of justice can form any idea of the misery attending such a perfect loss of the power of self-control: it is as if one's mind had been forcibly deprived of its body. Pushed from hand to hand, the feet move with apparent freedom of will, and yet do only another's bidding. Mat felt all this keenly; for he had never been in trouble like this. He felt as if he was a great criminal, and had killed somebody at the very least: his knees seemed to sink under him as he was taken up the long flights of steps which lead to the top of the hill. He was locked up in the old tower which stands so uncomfortably on the hill, like a great stone finger pointing upward as if to say, "Beware!"
Every minute appeared to last an age. As long as he could remember, he had never been left alone for an hour without work: what could he do now? For a while he peered through the doubly-barred and grated window in the wall, which was six feet thick, but saw only a patch of sky. Lying on the bench, he played with the fir-sprig which he found in his pocket,--the only keepsake he had of the green world without. Sticking it into a crack of the floor, he amused himself with supposing it to be the great May-pole before Eva's window,--which he seemed not to have seen for a hundred years. Sighing, he started up, looked around wildly, whistled, and began to count the needles of the fir-sprig. In the midst of this occupation he stopped and regarded it more closely: he had never before seen the beauty of one of Nature's fabrics. At the stem the needles were dark-green and hard; but they grew gradually lighter and softer, and at the ends they were like the plumage of an unfledged bird. At the tip, the germ, with its neatly-folded scales, gave promise of a fir-nut. A smell sweeter than that of lavender or of rosemary oozed out of its pores. Mat passed it gently over his face and closed eyes, until he fell asleep. He dreamed of being spellbound to a swaying fir-tree, without being able to stir: he heard Eva's voice begging the spirit who held him in chains for leave to come up to him and set him free. He awoke, and really heard Eva's voice and that of his brother Christian. They had brought him his dinner, and begged the jailer to let them speak to Mat in his presence; but in vain.
It was late in the day when Mat was brought up for a hearing. The president-judge received him roughly, and scolded him in high German, just as the squire had done in the dialect of the country. Wherever judicial transactions are withheld from the public eye, as they have been in Germany for three or four centuries, any man accused of an offence will always be at the mercy of the officiating functionary. Though it will not do to torture or to beat him, there are means of ill treatment which the law cannot reach.
The judge walked up and down the room with rattling spurs, and twirled a bit of paper nervously between his fingers, as he put his questions.
"Where did you steal the tree?"
"I don't know any thing about it, your honor."
"You lie, you beggarly rascal!" cried the judge, stepping up to Mat and seizing him by the lapel of his coat.
Mat started backward, and clenched his fist involuntarily.
"I'm not a rascal," said he, at last, "and you must write what you have said in the minutes: I'd like to see what sort of a rascal I am. My cousin Buchmaier will come home after a while."
The judge turned away, biting his lips. If Mat's case had been a better one, the judge might have had reason to rue his words; but he wisely abstained from inserting what he had said in the minutes. He rang the bell, and sent for Soges.
"What proof have you that it was this fellow that put up the May-pole?"
"Every child in the village, the tiles on the roofs, know that Mat goes to see Eva: no offence, your honor, but I should think it would be the quickest way to send for Eva, and then he won't deny it: he can't qualify that it isn't so."
Mat opened his eyes wide, and his lips quivered; but he said nothing. The judge hesitated a long time, for he perfectly understood the impropriety of such a mode of proof; but the desire to set an example prevailed.
The hearing ended by drawing up the minutes, and requiring Mat, as well as Soges and the customary two "assessors," or, as they are vulgarly called, "by-sleepers," to sign them. Mat had not the courage to repeat his demand about the abusive words of the judge, but suffered himself to be led back quietly to prison.
When it grew dusk, Eva might have been seen sitting on the stile at the end of the village and looking over toward the tower, thinking that Mat must surely come before long. She sat behind a hedge, to avoid being seen and questioned by the passers-by. There she saw Soges coming up the hillside. As she walked toward the road, Soges beckoned to her; and, hoping to hear news from Mat, she ran to him in all haste.
"Not too fast, Eva," cried Soges; "I only wished to tell you that you must come to court to-morrow: you've saved me a walk."
Eva turned ashy pale, and looked almost beside herself; then she ran down the hill, and did not stop till she had come to the Neckar. She looked around in amazement, for it had seemed to her that she was to be locked up at once with no hope of escape but by running away. She went home, weeping silently.
Eva hardly closed her eyes all night for thinking of the chambers hung in black, and the skull and bones with which her imagination garnished the thought of courts and judges. If her playmate Agatha, the tailor's daughter, had not come to sleep with her, she would have died of fear. At the first dawn of morning she went to the press and took out her Sunday gear. Agatha had to dress her, for she trembled so much that she could not tie a string. She looked at herself sadly in her broken glass. It seemed as if she were forced to go to a funeral in holiday garb.
Michael the wagoner accompanied his daughter, for it would not do to let the child go alone. In the court-house he took off his hat, stroked his short hair, and drew his face into an expression of smiling humility as he stood, scraping the floor with his feet, before the unopened door. He rested his hawthorn stick against the wall, took off his three-cornered hat, pressed it to his breast with his left hand, bent his head humbly, and knocked at the door. It opened. "What do you want?" inquired a gruff voice.
"I am Michael the wagoner, and this is my daughter Eva, and she is very much afraid; so I thought I would ask whether I might come in to court with her."
"No," was the rude answer; and the door was slammed in his face so heavily that he staggered some steps backward. He had no opportunity of advancing his other argument,--that in strictness he ought to appear before court and not Eva, as the house before which the May-pole was belonged to him.
With both hands folded upon his hawthorn stick, and his chin resting upon his hands, Michael the wagoner sat beside his daughter in the entry, and looked at the stone floor, which seemed almost as void of sympathy as the face of the official. "If Buchmaier was at home," he muttered, "they would strike up another tune." Eva could not speak a word: she only coughed once or twice into her neatly-ironed handkerchief.
Summoned at last, she rose quickly. Neither spoke, but, after a mute, parting look, Eva disappeared behind the door. At the door she stood still: the judge was not there, but the clerk sat playing with his pen, while the two "assessors" whispered softly to each other. Eva shook and trembled in every limb: the silence lasted ten minutes, which, to the poor girl, seemed half an eternity. At last the clink of spurs announced the judge's arrival. Eva seemed to find favor in his eyes, for he tucked her chin, stroked her burning cheeks, and said, "Sit down." Eva obeyed, just seating herself on the very edge of the stool. After going through the customary catechism of name, station, age, and so on, the judge asked,--
"Well, who put up your May-polo?"
"How can I know, your honor?"
"Didn't you drop the rope out of the dormer-window to tie it with?"
"No, your honor."
"And don't you know who is your sweetheart?"
Eva began to weep aloud. It was dreadful to deny; and yet she could not confess it. In America such a question would have had no other result than a reprimand from the bench to the counsel putting it. But so defenceless is the condition of parties and witnesses where justice hides in corners, that the judge even went further, and said,--
"It's no use to deny it: Mat is your sweetheart, and you're going to get married very soon."
Eva remembered that four weeks later they intended to ask that same court for permission to get married,--an indispensable formula under the code of that happy country. If she denied it now, she thought they would refuse to give her the "papers" and the "acceptance," and, besides, it was against her conscience to say "No." Her heart beat quickly; a certain feeling of pride arose within her; a consciousness of superiority to all the ills that flesh is heir to pervaded her being: she forgot the papers and the judge, and only thought of Mat. The last tear dropped from her lids; her eyes brightened; she arose quickly, looked around as if in triumph, and said, "Yes: I'll never have any one but him."
"So Mat put up your May-pole?"
"It may be, but of course I couldn't be by, and that night I was----" Here the tears choked her utterance again. It was well for the poor girl that she held her hands before her eyes, and could not see the smiles of the men of justice.
"Confess, now, he put up your May-pole, and nobody else."
"How can I know?"
By all sorts of cross-questions, and the oily assurance that the punishment would be but slight, the judge at last wormed the confession from her. The minutes were now read to her in fine book-German and in connected periods: of her tears and sufferings not a word was written. Eva was astonished to find that she had said so much and such fine things; but she signed the minutes unhesitatingly, only too glad to get away at any price. As the door closed behind her and the latch fell into the socket, she stood still, with folded hands, as if chained to the ground; a heavy sigh escaped her, and she almost feared the earth would open under her feet, for she now reflected, for the first time, how much harm she might have done to her beloved. Clinging to the balusters, she came slowly down the stone steps, and looked for her father, who was keeping up his spirits with a stoup of wine at the Lamb Tavern: she took her seat by his side, but said nothing, nor brought a drop to her lips.
Mat was now called up again, and Eva's confession read to him. He stamped his foot and gnashed his teeth. These gestures were immediately recorded as the basis of a confession, and, after sufficient baiting, Mat found himself completely caught: like game in a net, his desperate efforts to disengage himself only entangled him still further.
Being asked where he had got the tree, Mat first said that he had taken it out of the Dettensee wood,--which was in the duchy of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and therefore under another sovereignty and jurisdiction. But, when another investigation and a report to the court at Haigerloch was talked of, he at last confessed that he had taken it outof his own wood,--"by the Pond,"--and that it was a tree which would have been marked for felling in two or three days by the forester.
In consideration of these extenuating circumstances, Mat was fined ten rix-dollars for having taken a tree out of his own wood before it was marked.
Up at the stile where Mat had torn off a sprig the day before, he met Eva and her father, who were coming up the hill-slope. He would have passed on without a greeting; but Eva ran up to him and cried, huskily, "Don't sulk, Mat: I'll give you my cross and my garnets if they make you pay a fine. Thank the Lord, you're not locked up any more."
After some altercation, Mat gave in: hand in hand with Eva he walked through the village, and received kind congratulations from all he met.
This is the story of the May-pole before Michael the wagoner's house: on the wedding-day it was decked with red ribbons. The heavens and the earth seemed to like it better than the good government or the vigilant police, for it unaccountably took root and sent forth new branches. To this day it graces the house of the happy couple as a living emblem of their constant love.
This story is connected with another, of more general interest. The prevalence at this time of the wicked custom of putting up May-poles, as well as other offences against the peace and dignity of the forests, induced the judge to issue an ordinance which had long hovered at the nib of his pen. From immemorial times it has been the custom of the peasantry of the Black Forest to carry a little axe in their left hand whenever they go abroad. Only the "men"--that is, the married men--do so; and it is a badge which distinguishes them from the "boys," or unmarried young fellows. It is said to be a remnant of the ancient time when every one bore arms.
On Whitsunday the following ordinance was found on the blackboard nailed in front of the town-house of every village in the presidency:--
"It having been found that many offences against the forest are occasioned by the improper practice of carrying axes, the public are hereby notified,--
"That from this day forth every person found upon the road or in the woods with an axe shall be held to give the gamekeeper or ranger accurate information of the purpose for which he has the axe with him; and, if he fails to do so, he shall be punished by a fine of one rix-dollar: upon a repetition of the offence he shall be fined three rix-dollars: and, upon a further repetition, with imprisonment for not less than one and not more than four weeks.
"RELLINGS,President-Judge."
A crowd of farmers flocked around the town-house at the close of the afternoon service. Mat, who was now one of the "men" also, read the ordinance aloud. All shook their heads and muttered curses: the old squire said, audibly, "Such a thing wouldn't have been done in old times: these are our privileges."
Buchmaier was now seen coming down from the upper village with the axe in his hands. Every eye was turned toward him as he walked along. He was a stout, strong man, in the prime of life,--not large, but broad-shouldered and thick-set. The short leathern breeches had allowed his shirt to bag a little round his waist; the open red vest showed the broad band which connected his suspenders, and which was woven in various colors and resembled a pistol-belt in the distance; the three-cornered hat was fixed upon a head disproportionately small; the features were mild and almost feminine, particularly about the mouth and chin, but the large, bright blue eyes and the dark, protruding brows spoke clearness of apprehension and manly boldness.
Mat ran to meet the new-comer, told him of the ordinance, and said, "Cousin, you are not good councilmen, any of you, if you knuckle under to this."
Buchmaier continued his regular pace without hastening his steps in the least:He struck the axe into the middle of the ordinance.he walked straight up to the board, everybody stepping aside to let him pass. He raised his hat a little, and there was an expectant silence. He read the ordinance from beginning to end, struck the flat of his hand upon the crown of his head,--a sign that something decisive was coming,--took the axe into his right hand, and with a "Whew!" he struck it into the board in the middle of the ordinance. Then, turning to the by-standers, he said, "We are citizens and councilmen: without a meeting, without the consent of the councils, such ordinances cannot be passed. If the clerks and receivers are our lords and masters, and we are nobody, we may as well know it; and, if we must go before the king himself, we can't put up with this. Whoever agrees with me, let him take my axe out and strike it into the board again."
Mat was the first who stepped forward; but Buchmaier held him by the arm and said, "Let the older men come first."
This movement turned the scale in the minds of those who had halted between two opinions, not knowing whether to imitate Buchmaier's course or to condemn it. The old squire made his essay first, with a trembling hand; after him, no one kept aloof, and the name of the judge in particular was hacked into a hundred pieces. By degrees, all the village assembled, and every one contributed his stroke amid shouts and laughter.
The acting squire, informed of what had happened, thought of calling the military from Horb. But his sapient minister dissuaded him from such a requisition, as it would be of no use; "and, besides," thought he, "let them make as much rebellion as they can; there will be a fine crop of summonses, and every summons is a creutzer to me. Hack away, boys: you are hacking into your own flesh, and that flesh is my copper." With a joyous mien he counted his coming gains as he drank his stoup of wine in the Adler.
Thus it happened that not one in the village remained innocent of the offence except Soges and the squire.
Next Tuesday, at the suggestion of the old squire, the councilmen went to court of their own accord and gave information of what they had done. The judge stormed. His name--Rellings--is a word used in the Black Forest to designate a tom-cat; and he might then really be compared to a shorn puss, with spectacles on its nose and spurs at its feet. He talked of locking up all the offenders at once; but Buchmaier stepped forward with great decision and said, "Is that all you are good for? Locking up? You won't do that yet a while. We are here to stand by what we have done: we avow it freely, and there can be no such thing as imprisonment before trial. I am not a vagrant. You know where I live. I am Buchmaier, this here's Beck, that there's John the Blacksmith, and that's Michael's son Bat, and we're all to be found on our own freeholds. You can't lock us up without a sentence, and after that the way is still open to Reutlingen and to Stuttgard, if need be."
The judge changed his tone, and summoned the men to appear before him at nine o'clock of the following day. This was well at least, so far as Soges thereby lost his creutzers. Thus do great lords and little lords frequently err in their calculations.
Next day an array of more than a hundred farmers, with axes in their hands, marched through the village. They often stopped before the door of a house and called for the belated master, who rushed out in great haste, pulling on his coat as he walked along the road. Jokes and witticisms were passed about, but died away whenever the speaker's eye fell upon Buchmaier, who walked on silently with contracted brows. Not a drop had been tasted before going to court. Business first, pleasure afterward, was the motto of the farmers.
The judge was lounging at the window in his dressing-gown, with his long pipe in his mouth. On seeing the approach of the armed force, he closed the window in all haste, and ran to ring the bell; but, as his boots were always spurred, he stumbled over the window-curtain and fell at full length upon the floor. His long pipe lay beside him like a weapon of offence. He rose quickly, however, rang for the tipstaff, sent him to the commandant and to the captain of the gens-d'armes, and ordered them all to come up with arms heavily loaded. Unfortunately, there happened to be but four men in the town. He now ordered them to remain in the porter's room and hold themselves in readiness to act at a moment's warning. He then gave directions that but one farmer should be admitted at a time, and the door always closed upon him.
Buchmaier, being first called in, said, holding the door in his hand, "Good-morning, your honor;" and then, turning to the others, "Come in, men: we have a common grievance I'm not going to speak for myself alone."
Write down word for word what I say.
Before the judge could interfere, the room was filled with farmers, each carrying an axe on his left arm. Buchmaier stepped up to the clerk, and said, stretching out his hand, "Write down word for word what I say; I want them to read it at the Provincial Government." Then, after passing his hand twice through his shirt-collar, he rested his hand upon the green baize of the table, and continued:--
"All respect and honor to you, judge: the king has sent you, and we must obey you, as the law requires. The king is a good and a true man, and we know it isn't his will to have the farmers knocked about like dumb cattle or boxed on the ears like children. But the little lords and gentlemen that hang by one another from the top to the bottom are mighty fond of commanding and giving orders: one of these days they will set it down in notes how the hens must cackle over their eggs. I'm going to lift the lid off the pan and just give you a bit of my mind. I know it won't do any particular good just now; but, once for all, it must be said: it has been tickling my throat too long, and I'm going to get it out of me. The commune is to be put on the shelf altogether, and all things to be done in the rooms of you office-holders. Then why don't you sow and reap in the rooms too? Such a little whippersnapper of a clerk twists a whole town-housefull of farmers on his fingers, and before you know it you find clerk after clerk saddled upon us for a squire: then it is all fixed to the liking of you pen-and-ink fellows. What is true is true, and there must be law and order in the land; but the first thing is to see whether we can't get along better without tape-fellows than with them; and then we don't carry our heads under our elbows, either, and we can mind our own business, if we can't talk law-Latin. There must be studied men and scholars to overlook matters; but, first, the citizens must arrange their own affairs themselves."
"Come to the point," said the judge, impatiently.
"It's all to the point. You've ordered and commanded so much that there's nothing left to be ordered or commanded, and now you begin to prevent and precaution: you'll end by putting a policeman under every tree to keep it from quarrelling with the wind and drinking too much when it rains. If you go on this way a body might as well ride away on the cow's back. You want to take every thing from us: now, there happens to be one thing our minds are made up to hold on to." Raising his axe and gnashing his teeth, he continued:--"And if I must split every door between me and the king with this very axe, I will not give it out of my hand. From time immemorial it is our right to carry axes; and if they are to be taken from us the assembly of the hundred must do it, or the estates of the realm; and before them we shall have a hearing also. But why do you want to take them from us? To protect the forests? You have woodrangers, and laws and penalties, for that, and they fall alike on the noble and the beggar. How many teeth must a poor farmer have to eat potatoes with? Pluck out the rest, so that he may not be tempted to steal meat. How do you come to let the dogs run about with their fangs? When a boy is eight or nine years old he has his knife in his pocket, and if he cuts his finger it's his own fault, and there's an end; if he hurts anybody else he gets his fingers chowsed. Who told you that we are worse than little children, and you our teachers and guardians? You gentlemen seem to think that if it wasn't for you I'd jump out of the window this minute and dash my brains out. In all the main matters of life everybody must care for himself, and every commune for itself, and not you lords and gentlemen. Lords, did I say? Our servants you are, and we are the lords. You always think we are here on your account, so that you may have something to give orders about: we pay you that there may be order in the land, and not for the purpose of being bothered by you. You are the servants of the State, and we, the citizens, are the State itself. If we must look for our rights, we don't mean to go to the spout, but to the well; and I will sooner lay my head on the block and let the hangman chop it off with my axe than give up my axe to an office-holder against my will. There! I've done."
There was a general silence; the spectators looked on each other with twitching eyes, which seemed to say, "There! he's got his pipe stuffed: now let him smoke it."
Bat whispered to Beck, "He knows how to ask for a piece of bread and butter when he wants it." "Yes," said Beck; "he doesn't carry his tongue in his pocket."
The judge did not suffer the impression made by this speech to remain long undisturbed. Twirling a bit of paper in his fingers, he began calmly to dilate on the enormity of the offence which had been committed. Many a side-thrust was levelled at Buchmaier, who only shook his head slightly, as if he were driving flies away. At length the judge came to speak of barrators and unquiet spirits, of conceited gentlemen-farmers who had once drunk a stoup of wine with a lawyer, who heard a bell ring without knowing where it was. Returning from this digression, he entered once more on the case in hand; he spoke of some of those present by name, and praised them as good, orderly citizens, utterly incapable of such an action. He expressed his firm conviction that they had been misled by Buchmaier's bad example: he conjured them, by their conscience, by their loyalty to their king and country, by the love of their wives and children, not to load this heavy guilt upon themselves, but frankly to confess the seduction, and their punishment would be lenient.
Again there was silence: some looked at each other and then cast their eyes on the ground. Buchmaier's mien was bold and confident: he looked them all in the face, his breast heaved, and his breath remained suspended with expectation. Mat had already opened his mouth to speak, but John, the blacksmith, stopped his mouth; for at this moment the old squire, who alone of all present had occupied a chair, was seen to rise. With heavy steps, hardly lifting his feet, he came up to the green table and spoke. At first he panted a little, and often stopped for breath, but soon his speech became quite fluent:--"Many thanks to your honor," said he, "for the good opinion your honor has of me and of some others; but what Buchmaier has said I say, to the last I dot. If there was any more proof wanted that the gentlemenfolks look at us as if we were under age, or little children, your honor has given it just now. No, your honor: I am seventy-six years old, and have been squire for twenty years; we are not children, and we don't do things because we have been misled into doing them by naughty boys. My axe sha'n't go out of my hand until I am laid between six boards myself. If there are any children here, let them say so. I am a man, and know what I am about; and, if there's punishing to be done, I am ready to be punished as well as another."
"So are we!" said all the farmers with one voice. Mat could be heard above the rest.
Buchmaier's face was as if bathed in light: he pressed his axe closer to his bosom.
The necessary formalities were soon concluded and the minutes signed. After Buchmaier had requested a copy of the latter, the farmers quietly left the court-house.
Several other communes also remonstrated against the ordinance, and the matter was carried up to the Provincial Government. Those communes who had protested so violently with the axes themselves were mulcted in a heavy fine. Judge Rellings, however, was removed after a time, and the ordinance became obsolete. The men carried their axes on their left arms, as they had done before.
I may have something more to tell of Buchmaier at some other time.
In the little cold alley called the "Knee-Cap" is a little house, with a stable, a shed, and three windows glazed with paper. At the dormer-window a shutter dangles by one hinge, threatening every moment to fall. The patch of garden, small as it is, has a division-line of leafless thorns to cut it into two equal halves. The premises were inhabited by two brothers, who had been in constant warfare for fourteen years. As in the garden, so in the house, all things were partitioned into halves, from the attic down to the kennel of a cellar. The trap-door was open, but underneath the domain of each was enclosed in lattice-work and padlocked. All the other doors were likewise hung with locks, as if an attack of burglars was looked for every moment. The stable was the property of one brother, and the shed of another. Not a word was ever spoken in the house, unless when one of them cursed or swore for his own edification.
Mike and Conrad--such were their names--were both past the prime of life and alone in the world. Conrad's wife had died early, and now he lived by himself; and Mike had never been married.
A blue chest, of the kind called "bench-chests," was the first cause of the quarrel. After their mother's death all the property should have been divided between them: their sister, who was married in the village, had received her share in advance. Conrad claimed the chest as having been bought by his own money, earned by breaking stones on the turnpike: he had only lent it to his mother, he said, and it belonged to him. Mike alleged, on the other hand, that Conrad had eaten his mother's bread and therefore had no property of his own. After a violent altercation, the matter came before the squire, and then before the court; and it was finally decided that, as the brothers could not agree, every thing in the house, including the chest, should be sold and the proceeds divided. The house itself was put up at auction; but, as no purchaser was found, the brothers had nothing to do but to keep it.
They were now compelled to publicly buy their own chattels,--their bedding and other furniture. Conrad disliked this greatly. There are many things in every house which no stranger is rich enough to pay for, for there are associations connected with them which have no value for any one but the original possessor. Such things should descend quietly from generation to generation: this preserves their value unimpaired. But, when they must be torn from the hands of strangers by the force of money, a great part of their value is lost: they are thenceforth things purchased for coin, and have not the more sacred character of an inheritance. Thoughts like these often made Conrad shake his head when some old utensil was knocked down to him; and when the velvet-bound hymn-book of his mother, with the silver studs and buckles, came up, and a peddler weighed it in his hand to judge of the value of the silver, Conrad reddened up to his eyes. He bought it at a high price.
The box was sold last. Mike hemmed aloud, and looked at his brother in defiance: he bid a large sum. Conrad bid a florin more, without looking up, and pretended to count the buttons on his coat. Mike, looking saucily around, went still higher. None of the strangers present interfered, and the brothers were both determined not to give way. Each comforted himself with the thought that he would only have to pay half of what he bid, and so they continued to raise the price up to more than five times its real value,--when it was knocked down to Conrad for twenty-eight florins.
Then he looked up for the first time, and his face was entirely changed. Spite and mockery leered out of his glaring eyes, his open mouth, and his protruding mien. "When you die, I'll make you a present of the chest to lie in," he said to Mike, trembling with rage: and those were the last words he had spoken to him for fourteen years.
The story of the chest was an excellent theme for fun and waggery in the village. Whenever anybody met Conrad, something was said about the mean way in which Mike had acted toward him; and Conrad talked himself into a rage against his brother, which increased with every word he said.
The brothers were of different dispositions in all things, and went their different ways. Conrad kept a cow, which he would yoke with the cow of his neighbor Christian to do field-work. When there was nothing to be done afield, he broke stones on the turnpike for fifteen creutzers, or about five cents, a day. He was very near-sighted. When he struck a flint to light his pipe, he always held his face very near the spunk, to see whether it was lit. All the village called him "blind Conrad." He was short and thick-set.
Mike was the opposite of all this. He was tall and lank, and walked with a firm step. He dressed like a farmer, not because he was one, (for he was not,) but because it was of advantage to him in his business. He dealt in old horses; and people have great faith in a horse bought of a man who is dressed in farmers' clothes. Mike was what is called in Germany a "spoiled blacksmith,"--one who had deserted his trade and lived by dickering. He rented out and sold his fields, and lived like a gentleman. He was a person of importance in the whole country round. In a circuit of twenty miles--in Wurtemberg, in Sigmaringen and Hechingen, and in Baden--he knew the condition and the muster of every stable just as accurately as a great statesman knows the statistics of foreign states and the position of cabinets; and, as the latter sounds the state of public feeling in the newspapers, so did Mike in the taverns. In every village he had a scapegrace as minister-resident, with whom he often held secret conferences, and who, in cases of importance, would send him couriers,--to wit, themselves,--asking nothing but a good drink-money, in the strict sense of the word. Besides these, he had secret agents who would incite people to revolutions in their stables; and thus his shed, which served the purpose of a stable, was generally tenanted by some broken-down hack in the course of preparation for publicity,--i.e.for sale on market-day. He would dye the hair over its eyes and file its teeth; and, though the poor beast was thereby disabled from eating any thing but bran, and must starve on any thing else, he cared little, for at the next market he was sure to sell it again.
He had some curious tricks of the trade. Sometimes he instructed an understrapper to pretend to be making a trade with him. They would become very noisy, and at last Mike would say, in a very loud tone of voice, "I can't trade. I've no feed and no stabling; and, if I must give the horse away for a ducat, away he must go." Or he would pay some stupid farmer's lout to ride the horse up and down, and then observe, "If a man had that horse that knew what to do with it he might make something out of it. The build is capital: the bones are English. If he had a little flesh he would be worth his twenty ducats." If a purchaser turned up, he would undertake to get him the horse, stipulating a commission for himself for the sale of his own property. What he hated most was a warranty: rather than sign that he always agreed to throw off a ducat or two. Nevertheless, he had many a lawsuit, which eat up the horse and the profit; but the unsettled life he led had such a charm that he could not think of leaving it, and he always hoped that the profit on one speculation would compensate for the losses on another. His principle was never to leave the market without a bargain. The Jews of the markets were also his accomplices, and he would return their favors in kind.
He would pass his brother breaking stones on the road.
Sometimes, in riding out on these excursions, or in coming home, he would pass his brother breaking stones on the road. He would look at him half in pity and half in contempt, saying to himself, "This poor devil works from morning to night for fifteen creutzers; and, if I have any luck, I clear fifteen florins."
Conrad, seeing a little of these thoughts in spite of his nearsightedness, would strike the stones until a thousand splinters flew on every side.
We shall see hereafter whether Mike or Conrad did better in the end.
Mike was what is called "good company." He could tell stories day and night, knew a thousand tricks, and was acquainted, as the German proverb has it, with God and the world. Not that his acquaintance with God was very intimate,--though he went to church now and then, as no one in the country can avoid doing; but he went, like many others, without thinking much about what he heard there, or endeavoring to act accordingly.
Conrad also had his faults, among which perhaps the greatest was his hatred of his brother and the manner in which he expressed it. When asked, "How's Mike comin' on?" he would answer, "He'll come to this some day," passing his hands under his chin as if to tie a knot, and then lifting them up and stretching out his tongue. Of course people were not chary in putting the question; and, whenever the standing answer came, it was the signal for peals of merriment. In other ways, also, people would try to keep the hatred of the brothers at the boiling-point, not so much from malice as for fun. Mike never did more than shrug his shoulders contemptuously when the "poor devil" was mentioned.
They never remained in the same room. When they met at the inn, or at their sister's, one of them always went away. No one ever thought of making peace between them; and whenever people lived at daggers' points it became proverbial to say, "They live like Mike and Conrad."
When they met at home they never spoke a word, nor even looked at each other. Yet, when one perceived that the other was lying ill in bed, he would go all the way to their sister's, who lived away off in Frog Alley, and say, "Go up: I guess he's poorly:" and then he would make as little noise as possible while he worked, so as not to disturb the other.
Out of doors, however, and among the neighbors, they kept up their feud without blinking; and no one would have thought of finding a spark of brotherly love in their hearts.
This had now lasted wellnigh fourteen years. Mike, with his traffic and dickering, had let the money received for his two acres slip through his fingers,--he scarce knew how. Conrad, on the contrary, had bought another field from an emigrant, and very nearly paid for it. Mike did a commission-business, and thought of selling another field to set himself afloat again.
The new parson was a young man of great zeal.
"Now, there arose up a new king over Egypt," is a verse of which the people of the village might have made a peculiar application. The old parson was dead. He was a good man, but let things go their own way. The new parson was a young man of great zeal. He was bent upon righting all things, and did accomplish a great deal, until at last he got into a declared connection with Lisa, the Lamb Innkeeper's daughter; after which he ceased to meddle with people's private affairs,--for then he might have been told to sweep at his own door. But as yet he was in the full tide of reform.
One Sunday afternoon, when church was over, people sat about on the lumber brought for the new engine-house which was to be built near the town-house well. Mike was there too, sitting with his elbows on his knees and chewing a straw. Peter, Shackerle's John's boy, who was only five years old, was passing. Somebody cried, "Peter, I'll give you a handful of nuts if you'll do like Conrad: how does Conrad do?" The child shook his head, and was going on, for he was afraid of Mike; but they held him fast, and teased him till at last he did the tying of the knot, the pulling up, and the stretching out of the tongue. The shouts of laughter could have been heard through half the village. The boy called for his nuts, but the contractor was found unable to furnish them; so Peter kicked at him,--which made them all laugh again.
The new parson, who chanced to be coming down the little hill at the town-house, had stopped to see the whole transaction. When the boy was on the point of being pummelled for his indignant dunning, the parson stepped up quickly and took the boy away. The farmers all arose in great haste and pulled off their caps. The parson walked on, taking with him the image-keeper, who happened to be among the crowd. From him he heard the story of the feud between the brothers.
Next Saturday, as Conrad was breaking stones in the village, he was summoned to meet the parson next morning after church. He looked astonished: his pipe went out, and for two seconds the stone under his plank-soled foot remained unbroken. He was at a loss to think what could have happened at the parsonage, and would rather have gone there at once.
Mike received the same invitation as he was "greasing his old nag's Sunday boots,"--as he termed getting up his hoof's for market. He whistled a naughty tune, but stopped in the middle of it, for he well knew what was coming. He was glad of the chance to prepare himself for a good counter-sermon, a few sentences of which he already mumbled between his teeth.
On Sunday morning the parson took for his text, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Psalm cxxxii. 1.) He showed that all the happiness and joy of earth is void and vapid if not shared between those who have slept in the same mother's womb; he said that parents can neither be happy here nor at peace hereafter if their children are sundered by hatred, envy, or malice; he referred to Cain and Abel, and spoke of fratricide as the first venomous fruit of the fall. All this was uttered in a full, resounding voice, of which the farmers said, "It pries the walls apart." Alas! it is often almost easier to move stone walls than to soften the hard heart of man. Barbara wept bitter tears over the evil ways of her brothers; and, although the parson declared again and again that he did not allude to any one in particular, but desired one and all to lay their hands on their hearts and ask themselves whether the true love for their kindred was in them, yet every one was content to think, "That's for Mike and Conrad: the shoe fits them exactly."
The two latter stood near each other, Mike chewing his cap, which he held between his teeth, and Conrad listening with open mouth. Once their eyes met, and then Mike dropped his cap and stooped down quickly to pick it up.
The hymn at the close had a calm, pacifying influence; but, before the last sounds had died away, Mike was out of the church, and knocked at the door of the parsonage. Finding it locked, he went into the garden. He stood before the beehives, and watched their restless labor.
"They never know when Sunday comes."
And he thought, "I have no Sunday either, with my traffic; but then I have no real working-day." Again he thought how many hundred brothers lived together in a beehive, all working like the old folks. He did not dwell upon such reflections, however. He made up his mind that the parson should not bridle him; and when he looked at the graveyard he remembered the last words of Conrad, and his hand clenched.
In the parsonage he found the parson and Conrad in earnest conversation. The parson appeared to have given up the expectation of his coming. He offered him a chair; but Michael answered, pointing to his brother,--
"No offence to your reverence, but I never sit down where he is. Your reverence hasn't been long in the village yet, and don't know his tricks. He is a hypocritical doughface, but false and underhanded. All the children imitate him," he continued, gnashing his teeth: "'How's Mike coming on?'" and here he gave the well-known pantomime again. "Your reverence," he went on, trembling with rage, "he is the cause of all my mishap: he has ruined my peace at home, and so I have sold myself to the devil for horses. You've prophesied it, you bloodhound!" he roared at his brother: "I'll hang myself with a halter yet, but your turn shall come first."
The parson gave the brothers time to vent their wrath, only exerting his dignity so far as to prevent personal violence. He knew that after their anger was poured out love must appear also; yet he was half deceived.
At last the two brothers sat motionless and speechless, though breathing hard. Then the parson began to speak words of kindness: he opened all the secret corners of the heart, but in vain; they both looked at the floor. He depicted the sufferings of their dead parents: Conrad sighed, but did not look up. The parson gathered up all his powers; his voice surged like that of an avenging prophet; he told them how after death they would appear before the Lord's judgment-seat, and how the Lord would cry, "Woe be unto you, ye hardened of heart! Ye have lived in hatred, ye have withheld the grasp of a brother's hand from each other: go, and suffer the torments of hell, riveted together!"
There was silence. Conrad wiped his eyes with his sleeve, got up from his chair, and said, "Mike!"
The sound had been so long unheard that Mike started and looked up. Conrad went up to him and said, "Mike, forgive me." The hands of the brothers were firmly clasped, and the hand of the parson seemed to shed a blessing on them both.
All the village rejoiced when Mike and Conrad were seen coming down the little hill by the town-house, hand in hand.
They did not relinquish their grasp until they had reached home: it was as if they desired to make up for the long privation. But here they hastened to tear off the padlocks; then, going into the garden, they tore away the dividing hedge, heedless of the cabbage destroyed in the operation.
Then they went to their sister's, and sat side by side at the dinner-table.
In the afternoon they sat in church together, each holding one side of their mother's hymn-book.
They lived in harmony from that day forth.