My uncle Herse, what he was and what he did; and why Fritz
Sahlmann had to whistle.
When the watchmaker was led off to prison, Fritz Sahlmann must of
necessity go too, merely to see what would happen to the prisoner, and
whether he would escape; but, in this last he was disappointed. The
procession moved but slowly down to the Rathhaus, for they had to wind
their way through all the carts and waggons which had been ordered up
from the town and neighbouring villages for the transport of the
baggage and cannon, and were now collected in the courtyard and along
the road leading to the Schloss. They were surrounded by French
soldiers, that they might not escape, for our old peasants had got
wonderfully clever at that. The watchmaker marched along with his two
guards, through the crowd, as quiet and patient as a lamb; for though
at first he had been dreadfully frightened, and though the affair of
last night looked decidedly awkward, yet during the interview with the
adjutant, he had fallen into a state of apathy, in which he had seemed
to say--"Talk away as long as you like; you may go on talking all day
for what I care," and his answers had been few and far between. And,
though he was not one of those wild spirits that fly at once at
everything, he had been too long in the world, and had been in too many
scrapes before, to lose heart immediately now. He made up his mind for
whatever might come. "What's to be the end of this I wonder?" he
thought, as he was pushed in at the Rathhaus door.
"Fritz Sahlmann," said Rathsherr Herse, as the boy was about to return
to the Schloss, "what's the meaning of this?"
Fritz now related with immense importance all that had taken place
yesterday, how Droz had slept in Mamsell Westphalen's room and turned
everything, upside down; and how he himself had smashed the Herr
Amtshauptmann's pipes--he couldn't help it, though--it was Hanchen's
fault;--and how the Colonel had been going to run the Herr
Amtshauptmann through the body with his sword; and how Mamsell
Westphalen was sitting in the kitchen, like a picture of woe. But he
said nothing about the lump of ice.
Now, my uncle, the Rathsherr Herse, was an ardent patriot, but he kept
it a profound secret. And he had his reasons. For, as he whispered to
me many years afterwards when Buonaparte had long been dead, he
belonged at this time to the secret society of the "Tugendbund." And I
can believe it, for when he was in company he was always playing with a
long watch-chain made of light-coloured hair--and Aunt Herse's was
black--and he wore a large dangerous-looking iron ring on his finger,
with which he once struck Hoepner the locksmith's apprentice nearly
dead, when he was behaving rudely in court. "Fritz," he said to me
later on, "this light hair is that of an heroic virgin who had her head
shaven for the Fatherland in the year thirteen, and the iron ring cost
me my gold one. But don't talk of it; I don't like it spoken about." He
was rightly therefore much given to secrets about the time of this
story.
And it is possible, too, that his habit of looking at life from a
commanding point of view and seizing everything as a whole without
regard to details had something to do with his secret brotherhood, for
while my Father had to plague himself day and night with the smallest
squabbles and quarrels, in order that the government of the little town
might not lose what small amount of life it had, Rathsherr Herse
commanded Kutusoff to march to the right and Czeruitcheff to the left,
and praised York, and blamed Buelow because he didn't understand his
business; for he ought not to have gone to Berlin, he ought to have
marched to the right of Stemhagen and fallen on Buonaparte's flank.--In
short Uncle Herse was just the man to make a thunderstorm out of a
sunshower. In every innocent French corporal he saw the Corsican
monster, and if Luth, the Town Messenger, happened to get a blow in a
peasants' row on Blue Monday, he made as much fuss as if the Duke of
Mecklenburg himself had been struck.
"Hold your tongue, boy," he whispered impressively. "Do you want to
scream out your sentence of death in the public market-place! I
wouldn't give a groschen for the watchmaker's chance of life, for it is
certain that the Miller and his Friedrich have murdered the French
Chasseur."
"Not the Miller," interrupted Fritz, "the Miller was made up of brandy
and good-nature yesterday."
"Well, then, his Friedrich has. He's a Prussian. Do you know what a
Prussian is? Do you know what the meaning of Prussian is? Do you
know...? Blockhead! What are you staring at me for? Do you think
I'm going to tell you all my secrets? But what I was going to say
is--they'll send the old Amtshauptmann to Bayonne in France, where they
also sent Graf Ivenacker's white horse, Herodotus; and Mamsell
Westphalen--as far as I know the French laws--will simply be strung up,
and you, my lad, will get a good flogging for coming down here."
Fritz Sahlmann now saw a sad prospect before him, and made a wry face
accordingly.--
"But, Herr Rathsherr, not in a public place?" he asked.
"Wherever they can catch you. Though, if the matter is taken up in the
proper quarters, everything may still be made right.--Can you be
silent?"
Fritz Sahlmann replied that he could be most modestly silent.
"Well, then, come here, and put both your hands in your trowsers'
pockets, and whistle. That's it. And now look quite unconcerned as you
do in summer time when you are knocking down the apples from the tree
in the Schlossgarden, and you see Mamsell Westphalen coming. Yes that's
right. And now, observe every word that I say; go with this face and
with this look of child-like innocence through the French and peasants
up to the Schloss into the kitchen, and take Mamsell Westphalen aside
into a corner and then say to her just these words--'_help is near_.'
If she is not satisfied with this you can break to her gently what I
have told you about hanging, and, if she's at all frightened at that,
say she is to keep up her heart, for I, Rathsherr Herse, have taken the
matter in hand. But first of all, she must at once shut and bolt the
kitchen-door and the back-door leading to the garden, and she and the
two maids and you must each arm yourselves with weapons, and on no
account let any Frenchman in, and you must defend yourselves to the
last man till I come. I will go at once and will come through the
Schlossgarden to the back-door--I'll only get my cloak first for it's
raining desperately, and my pass-word will be '_All's well_' and my
war-cry 'York.' But no! She won't understand that. What do you say?
It's all the same--it's all the same. Well, my war-cry will be 'Pickled
pork.' She'll understand that. So when some one comes, and calls it
out, she is to open the back-door. Have you understood it all?"
"Yes, Herr Rathsherr."
"Well, then, now be off; and don't let anyone,--not even the Herr
Amtshauptmann--know a word about it."
Fritz went, and the Rathsherr too.
My uncle Herse had, of course, had the blue Rathsherr uniform with red
and gold collar made, as soon as he had become Rathsherr; and, as he
was a fine, tall man he was very fond of putting it on, in order to
command proper respect, whenever an opportunity presented itself, such
as, for example, when the fire-engines were to be tried, or when the
cows were first driven to pasture in the spring, or foreign troops were
quartered in the town. Then, too, when my father was sitting in his
grey coat at the court table writing till his fingers ached, Rathsherr
Herse would march up and down in front of the table, keeping up the
official pomp and dignity by the splendour of his appearance, and it
pleased him mightily when a Frenchman by mistake addressed him as
"Monsieur le Maire." My father had nothing to say against this, for
there was generally a good deal of disputing to be done, and he gave
this over, with the pomp and dignity, to the Rathsherr, taking the real
business upon himself. In this way, they had divided the work fairly
between them, and what with Rathsherr Susemihl, who on days when the
court was sitting performed the onerous duty of assessor, and what with
the zeal of Dohmstreich the Recorder, and the exertions of Luth the
Town Messenger, and the firemen who every month took out their engines
to try them, and Panner Hirsch, who used to drive the boys out of the
peas-fields, I should like to know where you could have found a town or
parish in better trim than my native town of Stemhagen. And all because
my uncle Herse was fond of wearing his uniform!
When my uncle Herse reached home, he looked in his clothes-closet for
his grey cloak,--for it was still pouring with rain,--and he caught
sight of his uniform. "Ah," thought he, "now, to-day will be a good
opportunity for me to put it on; and, who knows, perhaps it may be of
use in this enterprise." So he put it on, and also the fine cocked hat
that we boys used afterwards to make a boat of and sail on old
Nahmaker's pond. At this time it was in its best days, and, as the
Rathsherr stepped out at the door, he drew the cape of his cloak over
it so that it should not get wet; and then he looked like a French
General when he reconnoitres the enemy's post by night. "Well," he
said, "no one will know me now."
He went across the market-place, and then by a little roundabout way
across the timber yard, where Farmer Nahmaker was looking after his
horses, which the French had taken out of the stable and were now
driving away.
"Good morning, Herr Rathsherr," said the farmer, "what times these
are!"
"Hush!" said my uncle and went on.
Behind the timber-yard barns, Swerdfeger, the joiner, met him.
"Good morning, Herr Rathsherr."
"Hold your tongue!" said my uncle angrily, and went round outside the
Schlossgarden.
"Good morning, Herr Rathsherr," said the son of old Harloff the actor.
Smack! The boy had a blow with the back of the hand on his mouth.
"Blockhead! Don't you see that I do not wish to be known?"
So saying, he entered the Schloss-garden and said angrily: "The devil
take it! A public position lies on one as heavy as a curse."