THE HUNTER HIRES OUT AS POACHER
He asked the young man, before he promised him quarters, whether he was
a lover of hunting, as his green suit, gun and hunting-bag seemed to
indicate. The latter replied that, as far back as he could remember, he
had always had a passion amounting to real madness for deer-shooting; in
saying which, to be sure, he concealed the fact that, with the exception
of a sparrow, a crow, and a cat, no creature of God had ever fallen
victim to his powder and lead. This was in reality the case. He could
not live without firing a few times a day at something, but he regularly
missed his aim; in his eighteenth year he had killed a sparrow, in his
twentieth a crow, and in his twenty-fourth a cat. And that was all.
After the Justice had received his guest's affirmative answer, he came
out with his proposition, which was, namely, that the Hunter should
every day lie out in the fields a few hours and keep off the wild
animals, which were causing a great deal of injury to his corn fields,
especially those lying on the slope at the foot of the hills.
"Yonder in the mountains," said the old peasant, "the noblemen have
their great hunting-ranges. The creatures have already in past years
eaten up and trampled down enough of my crops, but this is the first
year that it has become serious. The reason is, that the young count
over there is an ardent hunter and has enlarged his stock of game, so
that his stags and roes come out of the forest like sheep and completely
ruin the product of my toil and sweat. I myself do not understand the
business, and I don't like to turn it over to my men because it gives
them an easy chance, under the pretext of lying in wait, to become
disorderly. Consequently the beasts have now and then worked enough
havoc to make a man's heart ache. Your coming now is, therefore, very
opportune, and if for these two weeks before harvest you will keep the
creatures out of my corn for me, we'll call that payment for your room
and board."
"What? I a poacher? I a game thief?" cried the man, and he laughed so
loudly and heartily that the Justice could not help joining in. Still
laughing, the latter ran his hand over the fine cloth of which his
guest's clothing was made.
"That is just why I want you to do it," he said, "because with you there
will be no particular danger even if you are caught. You will know how
to get yourself out of it better than one of these poor farm laborers.
Flies get caught in a cobweb, but wasps flit straight through them. But
what kind of a crime is it anyway to protect your own property against
monsters that eat it up and ruin it?" he cried, the laugh on his face
suddenly changing into an expression of the most fervent anger. The
veins in his brow swelled up, the blood in his cheeks turned deep
crimson, and the whites of his eyes became bloodshot; one might have
taken fright at the sight of the old man.
"You are right, father, there is nothing more unreasonable than the
so-called hunting privileges," said the Hunter, in order to pacify him.
"For that reason I will take upon myself the sin of violating the game
laws of the local nobility in the interest of your estate, although by
so doing I shall really be--"
He was going to add something more, but suddenly broke off and passed
over to other indifferent matters.
But any one who thinks that the conversation between this Westphalian
justice and the Suabian hunter ran as smoothly as my pen has written it
down, is mistaken. On the contrary, it was frequently necessary for them
to repeat several times before a barely sufficient understanding came
about between them. Now and then they were even compelled to resort to
making signs with their fingers. For in all his life the Justice had
never heard _ch_ pronounced after _s_; furthermore he brought all his
sounds up out of his gullet, or, if you will, out of his throat. In the
Hunter, on the other hand, the divine gift which distinguishes us from
beasts was located between his front teeth and his lips, whence the
sounds broke forth in a wonderful sonorous gravity and fulness and a
buzzing sibilancy. But through these strange husks the young man and the
old one soon learned to like each other. Inasmuch as both were men of
full-weight, sterling stuff they could not fail to understand each
other's inmost nature.