"He is a fool who gives to the blacksmith what he can earn himself!"
He picked up the anvil as if it were a feather, and carried it, along with the hammer and tongs, under a little shed which stood between the house and the barn, and in which there were standing, or hanging, a work-bench, saws, chisels, and whatever other tools pertain to the carpenter"s or joiner"s trade, as well as a quant.i.ty of wood and boards of many kinds.
While the old man was still busying himself under the shed, the horse-dealer said to the receiver:
"Would you believe it that he also repairs with his own hands all the posts, doors, thresholds, boxes, and cases in the house, or if luck favors him makes new ones himself? I believe that he could be an expert joiner, if he wanted to, and put together a first-cla.s.s cabinet."
"You are wrong there," said the Justice, who had overheard the latter remark and who, having taken off his leather ap.r.o.n, now emerged from the shed in a smock-frock of white linen and sat down at the table with the two men.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Master of the Oberhof]
A maid brought a gla.s.s to him also, and, after drinking the health of his guests, he continued: "To make a post or a door or a threshold, all you need is a pair of sound eyes and a steady hand, but a cabinet-maker has to have more than that. I once allowed my conceit to deceive me into thinking that I could put together, as you call it, a first-cla.s.s cabinet, because I had handled plane and chisel and T-square more or less doing carpenter"s work. I measured and marked and squared off the wood and had everything fitted down to the inch. Yes, but now when it came to the joining and gluing together, everything was all wrong; the sides were warped and wouldn"t come together, the lid in front was too large, and the drawers too small for the openings. You can still see the contraption; I let it stand on the sill to guard me from future temptation. For it always does a man good to have a reminder of his weakness constantly before his eyes."
At this moment a loud neigh was heard from the stable across the yard.
The horse-dealer cleared his throat, spat, struck a light for his pipe, blew a dense cloud of smoke into the receiver"s face, and looked first longingly toward the stable, and then thoughtfully down at the ground.
Then he spat once more, removed the varnished hat from his head, wiped his brow with his sleeve, and said: "Still this sultry weather!"
Thereupon he unbuckled his leather money-pouch from his body, threw it down on the table with a bang, so that its contents rattled and jingled, untied the strings, and counted out twenty bright gold pieces, the sight of which caused the receiver"s eyes to sparkle, while the old Justice did not even look at them.
"Here is the money!" cried the horse-dealer, bringing his clenched fist down on the table with a thump. "Do I get the brown mare for it? G.o.d knows, she"s not worth a penny more!"
"Then keep your money, so that you won"t suffer any loss!" replied the Justice cold-bloodedly. "Twenty-six is my price, as I have already said, and not a farthing less! You"ve known me a good many years, Mr. Marx, and you ought to realize by this time that d.i.c.kering and beating down don"t work with me, because I never take back what I say. I ask for a thing what it is worth to me, and never overcharge. So an angel with a trumpet might come down from heaven, but he wouldn"t get the bay mare for less than twenty-six!"
"But," exclaimed the horse-dealer, provoked, "business consists of demanding and offering, doesn"t it? I"d overcharge my own brother! When there is no more overcharging in the world, business will come to an end."
"On the contrary," replied the Justice, "business will then take much less time, and for that very reason will be more profitable. And besides that, both parties always derive much benefit from a transaction involving no overcharge. It has always been my experience that, when an overcharge is made, one"s nature gets hot, and it results in n.o.body"s knowing exactly what he is doing or saying. The seller, in order to put an end to the argument, often lets his wares go for a lower price than that which he had quietly made up his mind to charge, and the buyer, on the other hand, just as often, in the eagerness and ardor of bidding, wastes his money. Where there is absolutely no talk of abatement, then both parties remain beautifully calm and safe from loss."
"Inasmuch as you talk so sensibly, you have, I presume, thought better of my proposal," broke in the receiver. "As I, have already said, the government wants to convert into cash all the corn due from the farms in this region. It alone suffers a loss from it, for corn is corn, whereas money is worth so much today and so much tomorrow. Meanwhile, you see, it is their wish to free themselves from the burden of storing up corn.
Kindly do me the favor, then, to sign this new cash-contract, which I have brought with me for that purpose."
"By no means!" answered the Justice vehemently. "For many hundreds of years corn, and only corn, has been paid over from the Oberhof to the monastery, and the receiver"s office will have to content itself with that, just as the monastery has done. Does cash grow in my fields? No!
Corn grows in them! Where, then, are you going to get the cash?"
"You"re not going to be cheated, you know!" cried the receiver.
"We must always stand by the old ways of doing things," said the Justice solemnly. "Those were good times when the tablets with the lists of imposts and taxes of the peasantry used to hang in the church. In those days everything was fixed, and there were never any disagreements, as there are nowadays all too often. Afterwards it was said that the tablets with the hens and eggs and bushels and pecks of grain.
interfered with devotion, and they were done away with." With that he went into the house.
"There is a stubborn fellow for you!" cried the horse-dealer, when he could no longer see his business friend. He put his varnished hat back on his head again with an air of vexation. "If he once makes up his mind not to do something, the devil himself cannot bring him around. The worst of it is that the fellow rears the best horses in this region, and after all, if you get right down to it, lets them go cheap enough."
"An obstinate, headstrong sort of people it is that lives hereabouts,"
said the receiver. "I have just recently come from Saxony and I notice the contrast. There they all live together, and for that reason they have to be courteous and obliging and tractable toward one another. But here, each one lives on his own property, and has his own wood, his own field, his own pasture around him, as if there were nothing else in the world. For that reason they cling so tenaciously to all their old foolish ways and notions, which have everywhere else fallen into disuse.
What a lot of trouble I"ve had already with the other peasants on account of this stupid change in the mode of taxation! But this fellow here is the worst of all!" "The reason for that, Mr. Receiver, is that he is so rich," remarked the horse-dealer. "It is a wonder to me that you have put it through with the other peasants around here without him, for he is their general, their attorney and everything; they all follow his example in every matter and he bows to no one. A year ago a prince pa.s.sed through here; the way the old fellow took off his hat to him, really, it looked as if he wanted to say: "You are one, I am another."
To expect to get twenty-six pistoles for the mare! But that is the unfortunate part of it, when a peasant acquires too much property. When you come out on the other side of that oak wood, you walk for half an hour by the clock through his fields! And everything arranged in first rate order all the way! The day before yesterday I drove my team through the rye and wheat, and may G.o.d punish me if anything more than the horses" heads showed up above the tops. I thought I should be drowned."
"Where did he get it all?" asked the receiver.
"Oh!" cried the horse-dealer, "there are a lot more estates like this around here; they call them Oberhofs. And if they do not surpa.s.s many a n.o.bleman"s, my name isn"t Marx. The land has been held intact for generations. And the good-for-nothing fellow has always been economical and industrious, you"ll have to say that much for him I You saw, didn"t you, how he worked away merely to save the expense of paying the blacksmith a few farthings? Now his daughter is marrying another rich fellow; she"ll get a dowry, I tell you! I happened to pa.s.s the linen closet; flax, yarn, tablecloths and napkins and sheets and shirts and every possible kind of stuff are piled up to the ceiling in there. And in addition to that the old codger will give her six thousand thalers in cash! Just glance about you; don"t you feel as if you were stopping with a count?"
During the foregoing dialogue the vexed horse-dealer had quietly put his hand into his money-bag and to the twenty gold pieces had added, with an air of unconcern, six more. The Justice appeared again at the door, and the other, without looking up, said, grumbling; "There are the twenty-six, since there is no other way out of it."
The old peasant smiled ironically and said: "I knew right well that you would buy the horse, Mr. Marx, for you are trying to find one for thirty pistoles for the cavalry lieutenant in Unna, and my little roan fills the bill as if she had been made to order. I went into the house only to fetch the gold-scales, and could see in advance that you would have bethought yourself in the meantime."
The old man, who one moment displayed something akin to hurry in his movements and the next the greatest deliberation, depending upon the business with which he happened to be occupied, sat down at the table, slowly and carefully wiped off his spectacles, fastened them on his nose, and began carefully to weigh the gold pieces. Two or three of them he rejected as being too light. The horse-dealer raised a loud objection to this, but the Justice, holding the scales in his hands, only listened in cold-blooded silence, until the other replaced them with pieces having full weight. Finally, the business was completed; the seller deliberately wrapped the money in a piece of paper and went with the horse-dealer to the stable, in order to deliver the horse over to him.
The receiver did not wait for them to return. "One can"t accomplish anything with a clod-hopper like that," he said. "I But in the end if you don"t come around and pay us up regularly, we will--" He felt for the legal doc.u.ments in his pocket, realized by their crackling that they were still there, and left the yard.
Out of the stable came the horse-dealer, the Justice, and a farm-hand who was leading behind him two horses, the horse-dealer"s own and the brown mare which he had just bought. The Justice, giving the latter a farewell pat, said "It always grieves one to sell a creature which one has raised, but who can do otherwise?--Now behave well, little brownie!"
he added, giving the animal a hearty slap on her round, glossy haunches. In the meantime the horse-dealer had mounted. With his gaunt figure, his short riding-jacket under the broad-brimmed, varnished hat, his yellow breeches over his lean thighs, his high leather boots, his large, heavy spurs, and his whip, he looked like a highwayman. He rode away cursing and swearing, without saying good-by, leading the brown mare by a halter. He never once glanced back at the farm-house, but the mare several times bent her neck around and emitted a doleful neigh, as if complaining because her good days were now over. The Justice remained standing with the laborer, his arms set akimbo, until the two horses had pa.s.sed out of sight through the orchard. Then the man said: "The animal is grieving."
"Why shouldn"t she?" replied the Justice. "Aren"t we grieving too? Come up to the granary--we"ll measure the oats."
CHAPTER II
ADVICE AND SYMPATHY
As he turned around toward the house with the laborer, he saw that the place under the linden had already been reoccupied by new guests. The latter, however, had a very dissimilar appearance. For three or four peasants, his nearest neighbors, were sitting there, and beside them sat a young girl, as beautiful as a picture. This beautiful girl was the blond Lisbeth, who had pa.s.sed the night at the Oberhof.
I shall not venture to describe her beauty; it would only result in telling of her red cheeks and blue eyes, and these things, fresh as they may be in reality, have become somewhat stale when put down in black and white.
The Justice, without paying any attention to his long-haired neighbors in blouses, approached his charming guest and said:
"Well, did you sleep all right, my little miss?" "Splendidly!" replied Lisbeth.
"What"s the matter with your finger?--you have it bandaged," inquired the old man.
"Nothing," answered the young girl, blushing. She wanted to change the subject, but the Justice would not allow himself to be diverted; grasping her hand, the one with the bandaged finger, he said: "It"s nothing serious, is it?"
"Nothing worth talking about," answered Lisbeth. "Yesterday evening when I was helping your daughter with her sewing, the needle p.r.i.c.ked my finger and it bled a little. That is all."
"Oho!" exclaimed the Justice, smirking. "And I notice that it is the ring-finger too! That augurs something good. You doubtless know that when an unmarried girl helps an engaged one to sew her bridal linen, and in doing it p.r.i.c.ks her ring-finger, it means that she herself is to become engaged in the same year? Well, you have my best wishes for a nice lover!"
The peasants laughed, but the blond Lisbeth did not allow herself to be disconcerted; she cried out joyfully: "And do you know my motto? It runs:
As far as G.o.d on lily fair And raven young bestows his care, Thus far runs my land; And, therefore, he who seeks my hand Must have four horses to his carriage Before I"ll give myself in marriage.
"And," broke in the Justice--
And he must catch me like a mouse, And hook me like a fish, And shoot me like a roe.
The report of a gun rang out nearby. "See, my little miss, it"s coming true!"
"Now, Judge, make an end of your frivolous talk," said the young girl.
"I have called to get your advice, and so give it to me now without any more foolish nonsense." The Justice settled himself in an att.i.tude of dignity, ready to talk and listen. Lisbeth drew forth a little writing-tablet and read off the names of the peasants among whom she had been going around during the past few days for the purpose of collecting back-rent due her foster-father. Then she told the Justice how they had refused to pay their debts and what their excuses had been. One claimed to have paid up long ago, another said that he had only recently come into the farm, a third knew nothing about the matter, a fourth had pretended that he couldn"t hear well, and so forth and so forth; so that the poor girl, like a little bird flying about in the winter in search of food and not finding a single grain of corn, had been turned away empty-handed from one door after another. But any one who thinks that these futile efforts had plunged her into grief is mistaken, for nothing greatly disturbed her and she related the story of her irksome wanderings with a cheerful smile.
The Justice wrote down on the table with chalk several of the names mentioned, and, when she had reached the end of her list, said: