How Witte the baker was drawn into the conspiracy through his
meerschaum pipe; why Mamsell Westphalen regarded the Herr
Amtshauptmann as a white dove and Hanchen Besserdich as an angel;
and what she thought of the French Judge.
If there was confusion up at the Schloss, there was still greater
confusion down in the town. To be sure one cannot expect the quiet of a
churchyard when a troop of soldiers is quartered in a little town, and
the peasants of the neighbourhood and the townspeople are called
together, by roll of drum, to help with hand and horse; when misery and
woe cry aloud and complain on the one hand, and insolence struts about
unpunished on the other.
But, in 1806, when Murat, Bernadotte and Davoust were pursuing old
Bluecher--and he showed them his teeth at Speck and Waaren--when that
famous proclamation: "Order is every citizen's first duty," came from
Berlin, it was certainly quieter than now; for it was then only a
question of command and obedience. At that time "Messieurs les
Francais" levied contributions and plundered to their heart's content;
and the people crouched down, one behind another; and meanness and
baseness were seen on every side, for every one thought of himself and
of his own interest; like Meister Kaehler of Malchin who said to his
wife and children: "I must save myself. You can stay here. If the
French come----" and he ran off to the brink of the Eller and hid
himself among the reeds.--Everything was foul and reeking from top to
bottom.
The times changed. Distress teaches men to pray, but it also teaches
them to defend themselves. Schill and the Duke of Brunswick started
forth; the whole of Low Germany began to stir; no one knew where the
movement came from; no one knew where it would lead to.
Schill marched straight through Mecklenburg to Stralsund. By
Buonaparte's command the Mecklenburgers resisted his passage at
Damgoren and Tribsees. They were beaten, for they fought wretchedly. A
whole company of tall Mecklenburg grenadiers were taken prisoners by
one of Schill's Hussars. "Boys," he cried to them, "are you already
prisoners." "No," said their brave corporal, "no one has said anything
to us." "Well then, come along with me." And they went along with him.
Was it cowardice? Was it fear? Whoever saw my fellow-countrymen in 1813
and in 1814; whoever has heard anything of the Strelitz regiment of
Hussars, will judge otherwise. No, it was not cowardice; it was
unwillingness to fight against that which, in their secret hearts, they
hoped and longed for. A movement was beginning in Mecklenburg; and when
Prussia broke forth, Mecklenburg was the first state in Germany that
followed its example. Thus it was and thus it must ever be.
And times changed again. Providence had stripped the French of their
shining snake-skin during their winter in Russia, He, who before had
gone about like a master, now came back like a beggar, and implored
pity from the Germans; and this noble gift of God's, pity, was stronger
than our bitter hatred. No one would raise his hand against him whom
God had stricken--pity made us forget his offences. Hardly however was
the stiff and frozen snake thawed again in his warm German bed, than
his sting once more appeared, and oppression began anew. But the
spectre in Germany had become a shadow, and the shadow had got flesh
and bone, and had got a name, and the name was shouted out in the
streets. "Down with the man-butcher!"--that was the war-cry.
But the war-cry was no passing cry. Not a pack of ragged young
fellows--not the orators of the streets first took it up. No! the best
and wisest met together; not for conspiracy with knife and poison, but
for confederacy with hand and deed against committed wrong; the elders
spoke, the young ones got the weapons. Not in the open street did the
first fire shoot up to heaven--we Low Germans suffer no bonfires to be
lit in our streets; but each one lighted a fire at his own hearth, and
neighbour came to neighbour and warmed himself at its glow. Not from a
fire made of fir-wood and straw, that leaves behind it only a heap of
ashes, did the smoke rise towards the sky--we Low Germans are a hard
wood that burns slowly, but that gives out heat; and in those days the
whole of Low Germany was one huge charcoal furnace, that smouldered and
glowed--quiet and silent--till the charcoal was one red-hot mass; and,
when it was free from smoke and flame, we threw our iron into the
glowing embers, and forged our weapons by its heat. And hatred of the
French was the whetstone on which we sharpened them. What followed is
known to every child; or, if there is one to whom it is not known, it
is the duty of his father to impress it upon him, so that he may never
forget it.
In our parts, too, the charcoal-furnace smouldered and smoked, and the
French scented it in the air; they felt, at every step, that the ground
on which they marched shook beneath their feet like a quicksand. They
had to learn that the officials and magistrates, formerly so humble,
were beginning to oppose and assert themselves; they saw that the
townspeople and peasants were becoming refractory, and they laid their
hands still more heavily on the country. This was not the best way to
soothe the rebellious spirit; the people became more and more
fractious, the commands of the French were purposely misunderstood, and
where things had gone smoothly before, there was now a mere mockery of
obedience. The people defended themselves by all manner of devices, and
the French, who must assuredly have felt that their rule was soon
coming to an end, carried off all they could get. The soldier knew that
his officer was doing no better.
But when their rule actually ended, they were far from expecting an
open revolt. If, however, they could have read what was written on all
faces--for example, on the face of Witte the baker, who, after putting
the Miller's horse and cart into his barn, was now leaning over his
half-door smoking his tobacco-pipe, and spitting, and looking, with his
teeth set, in the direction of the French--they would have taken care
not to bend the bow too far. At any rate, the Frenchman who at that
moment passed by the baker and snatched the silver-topped meerschaum
pipe out of his mouth, and, in his insolence, walked on quietly smoking
it as if nothing had happened; at any rate he would have made off a
little faster. For the baker had scarcely felt it snatched from his
mouth, when he rushed out at the door, picked up a stone as big as his
fist, and hurled it with such force at the Frenchman, that, striking
him at the back of the neck, it levelled him with the ground.
And, when the Herr Amtshauptmann arrived with his troop of women at the
market-place, a fight was going on between the baker's assistants and
the French, and the French and the neighbours, with weapons both sharp
and blunt, which was not stopped till an officer came and separated
them.
The baker was dragged off to the Rathhaus with a broken head, for
having dared to raise his hand against "la grande nation;" and whatever
he might say as to the "grande nation's" having raised its hand against
his pipe, it was of no use--they dragged him along all the same.
At the Rathhaus the French judge was sitting hearing Miller Voss's case
about the lost Frenchman; the valise with the money was lying on the
table; the colonel, von Toll, and my father as Burmeister, were
present. My father had told the story as far as he knew it quite
truthfully, only he had been silent as to the watchmaker having
frightened the French chasseurs away at his command; for he thought,
"Why should I mention it? The watchmaker will tell it himself, or, if
he does not, it will come out in Mamsell Westphalen's evidence." But
with the Miller things were going badly; he, of all those who were
concerned, was the last who had seen the Frenchman; he had wanted to
take the Frenchman to the mill with him, and the fellow was no longer
to be found. What spoke well for him was, that he had been very drunk
at the time, that he had delivered up the money of his own accord, and
that he had at once said that the chasseur's horse was in the baker's
stable. When he had done this, and guessed from my father's questions
that the fact of his having been drunk might be of use to him, he made
the very most of it, and to all questions he only replied that he knew
nothing further, for he had been dead drunk; but if they chose to ask
Friedrich, he would know all about it.
So stood the matter, when the fight with Witte the baker began out in
the market-place. My father was just rushing out at the door to set
things to rights, when Witte was dragged in. He still exchanged
occasional blows with his guards, mingling "_bougres_" and "_sacres_"
with "rogues and vagabonds." His entrance into the court did not
increase its stillness; he cursed, he swore, and my father had enough
to do, only to get him a little quieter.
"My pipe, Herr Burmeister! It was a legacy from my father. And to have
it snatched out of my mouth before my very eyes! Am I a Stemhagen
burgher or not?"
The French chattered and jabbered away together; Colonel von Toll had
gone out, and the judge commanded that the baker should be bound,
thrown into a waggon and taken along with the army. What more should be
done with him would easily be determined; he had raised his hand
against the French, that was quite enough.
Then my father stepped up to the Judge and explained that the baker was
a well-conducted man, that he had always borne his share of the burden
of the war-taxes and levies, and that he had not attacked the French
power but had only attacked a thief; or did the French regard a
silver-topped pipe as contribution of war?
This exasperated the Frenchman; he snorted at my father, and gave him
to understand that he himself was not by any means too safe.
My father was a brave man, and, when he once saw that a thing was
right, he was as obstinate as only a real Mecklenburger can be. He
knew, he said, that no honest man was now safe in his own country; but,
for his part, he held it to be his duty to stand by his fellow-citizens
in a just cause, and he would do so even if there were so many French
in the country that one could feed the pigs with them.
The judge foamed with rage, and sputtered out the command to arrest my
father at once and lead him out of the room.
As this command was about to be carried out, old Witte sprang towards
the judge shouting, "thieves and villains;" and Miller Voss too was
ready in a moment to aid with fist and tongue. At this moment Colonel
von Toll came back again; and, when he had learned what was the meaning
of the tumult, he said that the baker was in the right about the pipe;
he had himself inquired into the matter, but that it was quite a
secondary affair. This baker was the same man who had got the
chasseur's horse standing in his stable, and it seemed to him that
there had been a conspiracy to commit a murder,--and, as he said that,
he looked very sharply at my father--and the truth must come out, he
would pledge his life; and, if it could not be got out here, he knew a
place where it could--and that place was Stettin.
My father, Miller Voss, and the baker were now told to go out, and were
placed under guard in another room, and the Herr Amtshauptmann was
called up. The old Herr came in at the door, with his stick in his
hand, as upright and stately as befits a chief magistrate and a good
conscience. One of the French wanted to shut the door after him, but
that would not do--Mamsell Westphalen forced her way in, and, in her
broad wake, followed Hanchen and Corlin; for, as they said, they "did
not want to stay outside to be stared at by those horrid Frenchmen;"
and Mamsell Westphalen said as she squeezed through, "Pardong Monsoo
Frenchmen, where Herr Amtshauptmann is, I must be too; he is my
protector." When the old Herr entered, the colonel turned round and
looked out of the window.
The judge now asked the Herr Amtshauptmann, through the interpreter,
who he was and what was his name.
"I am chief magistrate here in the bailiwick of Stemhagen, and my name
is Joseph Weber;" and he laid his hat and stick on a chair.
At the name of Joseph Weber, the French colonel turned half round, and
looked at the Amtshauptmann as if he were going to ask him some
question; but he seemed to give it up again, and looked out at the
window once more. It was now signified to the Herr Amtshauptmann that
he should take a seat.
"I thank you," he said, "but I did not come here to take my ease, and I
am not enough accustomed to giving evidence to be able to do so
sitting." He then, on being questioned, related how the chasseur had
first come to him, and everything that he knew about it. And he ended
his speech by saying that, if it was to be reckoned as a sin that the
Miller had drunk down the chasseur, he himself must bear the blame of
it, for it was at his request that the Miller had done it, and the
Miller was his subordinate.
At this the judge began to laugh scornfully; the idea that the
Burmeister should interfere on behalf of his baker, and the
Amtshauptmann on behalf of his miller, seemed too ludicrous.
"And you laugh at that?" said the old Herr calmly, as if he were
dealing with Fritz Sahlmann. "Is not that the custom in France? Are
officials in your country appointed only to fleece people? Don't you
stand by them when they are in difficulties and in the right? And is it
not right for one to rid oneself of a rogue and vagabond by a few
bottles of wine?"
Well, here was another hard hit for the French judge. "Rogue and
vagabond" and a French chasseur were things that could in no way be
coupled together, or rather should not be. The judge burst out in a
torrent of invective.
The Herr Amtshauptmann remained unmoved, but went to the table and drew
out of the Frenchman's valise one of the silver spoons. This he held up
to the judge and said,--"Do you see this crest? I know it, and I know
the people to whom it belongs. They are not people who would sell their
silver spoons; and besides, according to my ideas, an honest soldier
has something else to do than to be bargaining for silver spoons."
There was not much to be said against this, so the judge cleverly
shifted his ground, and asked the Amtshauptmann how the watchmaker had
come to be wearing a French uniform, and what he had been doing up at
the Schloss at night?
"There you ask me too much," said the Herr Amtshauptmann; "I did not
tell him to come, I only just saw him for a moment when the Miller was
taking the chasseur away with him; and his spending the night at the
Schloss was against my knowledge and against my will."
The judge soon saw that he could not make much of the Herr
Amtshauptmann; he broke off the interview and told the old gentleman he
could go, but that he must not leave the Rathhaus.
"Very well," said he, and he turned to leave. "Good day, then, till the
matter is settled."
As the Amtshauptmann was about to take his hat and stick, he found the
French colonel, who had left the window and was standing close by him,
intently engaged in scanning the names which had been cut in the stick
in Weber's student days. He looked as eager and as curious as if he
were seeking his number in the newspaper advertisements to see whether
he had drawn the great lottery prize.
The Herr Amtshauptmann looked at him for one moment, then made him a
deep bow,--"By your leave, Herr Colonel, my stick."
The Colonel started and looked rather confused, then handed him the
stick, and, as the old Herr went out of the room, he followed him.
Mamsell Westphalen also wanted to follow, and Hanchen and Corlin were
preparing to go too, when "Halte, halte!" cried the Judge;--and they
who did not get out, were the three women.
Many a time afterwards did Mamsell Westphalen relate this trial and
what she had felt during it, but she always began in the same
way,--that it had been as if she were standing in the Stemhagen belfry,
and all the bells, great and small, were ringing in her ears, and, when
the Herr Amtshauptmann went away from her, it was as if a white dove
had flown away from the belfry and she must follow him to life or
death; but the fellow whom they nick-named a judge had held her fast by
the skirt of her gown. "And, Frau Meister," she would then add, "I have
seen many a dozen of judges in my life, and they were all bad enough,
but such a gallows-bird as this French Judge I never did see. For, look
you Frau Meister, he had on a yellow livery and 'gallows' was plainly
written in his face."
It was with Mamsell Westphalen as with many honest souls who have a
great terror of danger that threatens in the distance, but who are no
sooner in the middle of it than they play with it; being like gnats,
which cannot bear smoke but are attracted by fire. When she saw that
the bridge behind her was broken away, and that she was going to be put
on oath, she set her arms a-kimbo, walked forward and stood on the same
place on which the Amtshauptmann had stood. "For," she said afterwards,
"I had seen that he had stood proudly there, and his spirit came over
me."
The Judge now asked what she knew of the watchmaker.
"I know nothing about him except that he speaks broken German, that,
for bread, he says '_doo pang_' and for wine, '_doo vang_;' that's all
I know."
How was it that he was in a French uniform?
"I don't know how he gets into it and I don't know how he gets out of
it again. I suppose he does like all other men."
Why had he come up to the Schloss last night?
"A great many people come to the Schloss--all honest people, except
those whom the gensdarmes bring,--and if I am to bother myself with
what they all want, the duke had better make me Amtshauptmann, and the
Herr Amtshauptmann can then look after the kitchen."
Why had not the watchmaker gone home?
"Because the weather was so bad that one could not have had the heart
to drive a dog out of the house, much less a Christian. I hold the man
for a Christian, though he's not too good a one, for, as I have heard
say, he goes hunting hares by night--and why doesn't he go in the
daytime like other folk?--and then he uses a stool with one leg, which
he straps on to himself behind, and every other Christian sits on a
stool with three legs; and he wanted to mislead our Corlin into this
outlandish mode for milking, but she told him plainly that if that
was the fashion in his country, he might run about with the stool
tied to him if he liked, but she was not going to make herself the
laughing-stock of the place."
But why had she hidden the watchmaker with her in her room?
At this Mamsell Westphalen was silent, the blood rushed into her face
at the impertinence of the French fellow; that was the very question
that had driven her into flight up in the garret. But while in her
distress she was seeking for an answer, help came. Hanchen Besserdich
and Corlin pressed forward to her side and burst out "Those are lies;
those are foul lies!" They would take their oath of it. Their Mamsell
had slept with them; and they should tell the Herr Amtshaup-mann.
The noise became dreadful, and scarcely had the Judge succeeded in
restoring quiet, when they broke out again, and at last the Judge
ordered them all three to be turned out.
"Frau Meister," said Mamsell Westphalen afterwards to the weaver's
wife, "you know I've always been against Hanchen Besserdich's sharp
tongue, but no angel could have helped me better at that moment than
she with her chatter. Frau Meister, Man must not despise what, at
times, is disagreeable to him; who knows of what use it may not be. And
a sharp tongue is one of those things. That's what I say and that's
what I hold to. And I shan't forget the girl."