A	»	B	»	C	»	D	»	E
F	»	G	»	H	»	I	»	J
K	»	L	»	M	»	N	»	O
P	»		R	»	S	»		T
U	»		V	»	W	»		Z

William James Stillman - "The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II"

Various - "The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII."

May Sinclair - "The Three Sisters"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890"

Nicholas Brealey Buys Davies-Black
Moreover Technologies - Premier purveyor of real-time news and RSS feeds from across the Web

Gray Gets New Ingram Role; Lovett Heading Ingram Digital
Ad - Get Info for Book Publishing from 14 search engines in 1.

PW Morning Report, January 6, 2009">The PW Morning Report, January 6, 2009
We have been looking for ways to fuel additional growth, said Chuck Dresner, v-p, associate publisher of NB North America, which has offices in Boston, Mass. Davies-Black has built up an excellent publishing program and a recognized brand in some of the

The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. by Various

V >> Various >> The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII.




After he had again looked into the fire for a few moments, but not long
enough to cause his bright, sharp eyes to blink, he quickly thrust the
tongs into it, lifted out the red-hot piece of iron, laid it on the
anvil, pounded it with the hammer so that the sparks flew in all
directions, clapped the still glowing piece of iron down on the broken
place in the tire, hammered and welded it fast with two heavy blows, and
then drove the nails into their places, which was easily done, as the
iron was still soft and pliable.

A few very sharp and powerful blows gave the inserted piece its
finishing touch. The Justice kicked away the stones with which he had
made the wheel fast, seized the wagon by its tongue in order to test the
mended tire, and in spite of its weight hauled it without exertion
diagonally across the yard, so that the hens, geese and ducks, which had
been quietly sunning themselves, flew, with loud cries, before the
rattling vehicle, and a couple of pigs jumped up, grunting, from their
mud-holes.

Two men, the one a horse-dealer, the other a tax-collector or receiver,
who were sitting at a table beneath the large linden in front of the
house and imbibing their drink, had been watching the work of the robust
old man.

"It must be true!" one of them, the horse-dealer, called out. "You would
have made an excellent blacksmith, Judge!"

The Justice washed his hands and face in a pail of water which was
standing beside the anvil, poured the water into the fire to extinguish
it, and said:

"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 quantity 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-class cabinet."

"You are wrong there," said the Justice, who had overheard the latter
remark and who, having taken off his leather apron, now emerged from the
shed in a smock-frock of white linen and sat down at the table with the
two men.

[Illustration: The Master of the Oberhof]

A maid brought a glass 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-class
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? God
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 dickering 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 nobody'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
passed 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 God 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 surpass many a
nobleman'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 pass 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 documents 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
passed 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 passed 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 pricked 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 pricks 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 God 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 attitude 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:

"As far as the others are concerned, they do not live with us and I have
no authority over them. If they are base enough to refuse to do their
duty and to meet their obligations, then simply strike out the names of
the scamps, for you can never get anything out of a peasant by a
law-suit. But as against those who live in our precinct, I will help you
to secure your rights. We still have means of accomplishing that."

"Oho, Squire!" said one of the peasants to him, half-aloud. "You talk as
if you always carried the rope around with you in your coat-sleeve. When
is the secret court to be held?"

"Be still, tree-warden!" interrupted the old man with earnestness.
"Sneering remarks like that might get you into trouble!"

The man addressed was disconcerted; he cast down his eyes and made no
reply. Lisbeth thanked the old man for his offer of help, and inquired
about the roads and paths to the other peasants whose names she still
had left on her writing-tablet. The Justice pointed out to her the
shortest way to the nearest farm, which led across the Priests' Meadow,
past the three mills and over the Holle Hills. When she had put on her
straw hat, taken her staff, expressed her thanks for the hospitality
shown her, and had thus made herself ready to leave, he begged her to
make her arrangements such that on her return she could stay for the
wedding and a day thereafter. He hoped that he would be able to give her
by that time definite assurance in regard to the rents, or, perhaps,
even to give her the money itself to take home with her.

When the young girl's slender and graceful form had disappeared behind
the last walnut-trees at the farther end of the orchard, the peasants
broached the subject which had brought them to the Justice. The building
of a new road, which was to establish a connection with the main
highway, threatened, if the idea were carried out, to deprive them of a
few strips of their land over which it was necessary to lay the new
road. Against this loss, although the project would redound to the
advantage of all the surrounding peasantry, they were anxious to protect
themselves; and how to avert it was the question about which they were
anxious to secure the advice of the owner of the Oberhof.

"Good day! How are you?" called out a voice, well known in this
locality. A pedestrian, a man in respectable attire, but covered with
dust from his gray gaiters to his green, visored cap, had entered
through the gate and approached the table, unnoticed at first by the
conversers.

"Ah, Mr. Schmitz, so we see you too, once more, eh?" said the old
peasant very cordially, and he had the servant bring the fatigued man
the best there was in the wine-cellar. The peasants politely moved
closer together to make room for the new arrival. They insisted upon
his sitting down, and he lowered himself into a chair with great care
and deliberation, so as not to break what he was carrying. And this
procedure was indeed very necessary, for the man was loaded down like an
express-wagon, and the outlines of his form resembled a conglomeration
of bundles tied together. Not only did his coat-pockets, which were
crammed full of all sorts of round, square and oblong objects, bulge out
from his body in an astonishing manner, but also his breast and side
pockets, which were used for the same purpose, protruded in a manifold
variety of swellings and eminences, which stuck out all the more sharply
as the Collector, in order not to lose any of his treasures, had, in
spite of the summer heat, buttoned his coat tightly together. Even the
inside of his cap had been obliged to serve for the storing of several
smaller articles, and had acquired from its contents the shape and
semblance of a watermelon. He sipped, with manifest relish, the good
wine that was put before him, and his elderly countenance, bloated and
reddened with heat and fatigue, gradually acquired its natural color and
form again.

"Been doing good business, Mr. Schmitz?" inquired the Justice, smiling.
"Judging from appearances, one might think so."

"Oh, fairly good," replied the Collector. "There is a rich blessing
hidden in the dear earth. It not only brings forth corn and vegetables
constantly and untiringly--an alert searcher may secure a harvest of
antiquities from it all the time, no matter how much other people have
scratched and dug for them. So I have once more taken my little trip
through the country, and this time I got as far as the border of the
Sieg valley. I am on my way back now and intend to go on as far as the
city today. But I had to stop over a while at your place on the way,
Justice, in order to rest myself a bit, for I am certainly tired."

"What are you bringing with you?" asked the Justice.

The Collector tapped gently and affectionately on all the swellings and
protuberances of his various pockets, and said:

"Oh, well, some very nice things--all sorts of curiosities. A
battle-axe, a pair of thunderbolts, some heathen rings--beautiful things
all covered with green rust--ash-urns, tear-bottles, three idols and a
pair of valuable lamps." He struck the nape of his neck with the back of
his hand and continued: "And I also have here with me a perfectly
preserved piece of bronze--I had no other place to put it, so I tied it
fast here on my back under my coat. Well, it will probably not look
amiss, once it is all cleaned up and given its proper place."

The peasants displayed some curiosity to see a few of the articles, but
old Schmitz declared himself unable to satisfy it, because the
antiquities were so carefully packed and put away with such ingenious
use of every bit of space that it would be difficult, if it were once
taken out, to get the entire load back in again. The Justice said
something into the servant's ear, and the latter went into the house. In
the meanwhile the Collector told in detail all about the places where he
had come across the various acquisitions; then he moved his chair nearer
to his host and said confidentially:

"But what is by far the most important discovery of this trip--I have
now really found the actual place where Hermann defeated Varus!"

"You don't mean it?" replied the Justice, pushing his cap back and
forth.

"They have all been on the wrong track--Clostermeier, Schmid, and
whatever the names of the other people may be who have written about
it!" cried the Collector ardently. "They have always thought that Varus
withdrew in the direction of Aliso--the exact situation of which no man
has ever discovered--well, anyway, in a northerly direction, and in
accordance with that theory the battle is supposed to have taken place
between the sources of the Lippe and the Ems, near Detmold, Lippspring,
Paderborn, and God knows where else!"

The Justice said: "I think that Varus had to try with all his might to
reach the Rhine, and that he could have done only by gaining the open
country. The battle is said to have lasted three days, and in that
length of time you can march a good distance. Hence I am rather of the
opinion that the attack in the mountains which surround our plain did
not take place very far from here."

"Wrong, wrong, Justice!" cried the Collector. "Here below everything was
occupied and blocked up by the Cherusci, Catti, and Sigambri. No the
battle was much farther south, near the region of the Ruhr, not far from
Arnsberg. Varus had to push his way through the mountains, he had no
egress anywhere, and his mind was bent on reaching the middle Rhine,
whither the road leads diagonally across Sauerland. That is what I have
always thought, and now I have discovered the most unmistakable evidence
of it. Close by the Ruhr I found the bronze and bought the three idols,
and a man from the village told me that hardly an hour's walk from there
was a place in the woods among the mountains where an enormous quantity
of bones were piled up in the sand and gravel. Ha! I exclaimed, the day
is beginning to break. I went out there with a few peasants, had them
excavate a little, and, behold! we came across bones to my heart's
content. So that is the place where Germanicus had the remnants of the
Roman legions buried six years after the battle of Teutoburg Wood, when
he directed his last expeditions against Hermann. And I have therefore
discovered the right battlefield."