^•;f;;'K'i;,..;;:;c.;::: ii J I iiiiifciiiiir LIBRARY UNIVERSli V OF CALIFORUm RIVERSIDE JORN UHL THE WORKS OF GUSTAV FRENSSEN JORN UHL, cloth, i2mo, I1.50 (Two Hundredth Thousand^ DIE DREI GETREUEN (The Three Faithful) (/« Press) (^Sixtieth Thousand) DIE SANDGRAFIN {in Press) {Twenty -fifth Thousand) DANA ESTES & CO., Publishers Estes Press Boston, Mass. f fiA/i/in/iAj xj jv^ ir^TiT^^ JORN UHL By GUSTAV FRENSSEN Translated by V. S. DELMER BOSTON ^ DANA ESTES & COMPANY ^ PUBLISHERS LONDON * ARCHIBALD CON- STABLE & COMPANY, LTD. * 1905 Copyright, igoj By Dana Estes & Company Entered at Stationers' Hall All rights reserved JORN UHL First printing, April, igo^ Second printing, May, igoj Third printifig, July, igo§ COLONIAL PRESS Electrotyped and Printed by C. H . Simonds (Sr* Ce. Boston', Mass., U.S.A. PREFATORY NOTE GusTAVE Frenssen, the author of " Jorn Uhl," was born in the remote village of Barlt, in Holstein, North Germany, on October 19, 1863. His father is a carpenter in this village, and, according to the church register, the Frenssen family has lived there as long as ever such records have been kept in the parish. In spite of his father's humble circumstances, Gustave Frenssen managed to attend the Latin School at the neigh- boring town of Husum, and in due time became a student of theology. He heard courses of lectures at various universities, passed the necessary examinations, and finally, after long years of waiting, was appointed to the care of souls in the little Lutheran pastorate of Hemme in Holstein. Here within sound of the North Sea, and under the mossy thatch of the old- fashioned manse, he wrote his first two books, " Die Sandgrafin ' and " Die Jrei Getreuen." These two novels remained almost unknown until after the publication of "JdrnUhl" in 1902. This book took Germany by storm. Its author, much to his own surprise, ** awoke one morning to find himself famous." All Germany was asking who he was and where he lived. His homespun and drowsy congregation of rustics suddenly found themselves elbowed out of their little kirk every Sabbath to make room for the curious literary pilgrims that flocked there from all parts of the country to see this man who had so vi PREFATORY NOTE touched the heart of Germany, and the piles of letters that the village postman every day brought to the manse were almost a scandal in the simple hamlet. But Frenssen's books had aroused much hostility among the orthodox church party, and in 1903 the poet-preacher gave up his pastorate and retired to the beloved and homely Holstein village of his youth, henceforth a free man, to devote himself to literature. Little need here be said about the fierce battles of criticism that have raged around this book. The admirers of the French novel smile condescendingly at what they dub its " deliciously superannuated " style, looking upon its author as a kind of Richardson born by some freak of anachronism into the age of Ibsen and Hauptmann. " But," answer Frenssen's admirers, *' this book has sprung from the deep consciousness of modern Germany and utters the longings, thoughts, and aspirations of the German heart in a way that no other modern book has done. It is a living book ; it is a book so throbbing with real life, passion, and poetry, that we overlook in it those epic liberties of narrative on account of which your pedantic critics so damn it." Jorn Uhl, the peasant hero of this book, might stand for a great part of modern Germany, and that by no means the worse part. If Germany has anywhere a claim to autoch- thonous art in her modern literature, it is here. The book has, moreover, appealed to modern Germany in somewhat the same way as Dickens appealed to the England of his day, and it is the first time that this can be said of any German novel. That the impression made on the English reader will be eoually strong is of course hardly to be expected ; yet the translator hopes that the English version of the book will not only prove interesting as a picture of a homelier and, if you will, less pampered culture than that of England, but that it will stand even in a translation as a book of real human worth, as a PREFATORY NOTE vii sincere criticism of life, and a poet's interpretation of the life of man and the wonder of the universe of God. A word of warning ought, perhaps, to be addressed to English readers of the book. After the tragic notes struck in the opening chapter there is a sudden and unexpected change to an altogether different key, which to many will no doubt prove disconcerting. The big effects are only reached toward the middle of the book, and needless to say a thorough enjoyment of them, even of the Tolstoi-like picture of the battle of Grave- lotte, presupposes an acquaintance with all the foregoing chapters. A second reading will reconcile us to much that at first glance seemed arbitrary and inartistic in the development of the story It is indeed, as if Frenssen wantonly turns from the theory that a novel should be drama written out in full, and claims the liberties of an epic poet in the treatment of his subject. One further remark may be permitted. For good or ill^ throughout the whole book there run punning allusions to the names of the two Frisian families that play a part in the story — the Uhls and the Grays. It must be born in mind, therefore, that Uhl = owl, and Gray = crow. Although the Low German dialect is used but very sparsely in the original, the Doric note being chiefly felt in the general style — the primitive use of the tenses, for example — the translator has nevertheless taken the liberty of employing Scotch expressions here and there to suggest the provincial and rustic atmosphere of the story. f. s. d. Berlin, tgo^. • • JORN UHL CHAPTER I. In this book we are going to speak about Life, and Life's travail and trouble. Not the sort of trouble that mine host Jan Tortsen made for himself when he promised to set a wonderful Eider fish before his guests and couldn't keep his word, and then took it so to heart that he grew crazy and had to go into the madhouse. Not the sort of trouble, either, that that rich farmer's son went to, who, for all his stupidity, managed to learn to play ducks and drakes with his father's crown pieces to such good purpose, that he got through the whole of his inher- itance in a single month. No, but of that sort of trouble shall we speak which old Mother Whitehead had in mind, when she came to tell of her eight children, — how three of them lie in the churchyard, and one in the deep North Sea, and how the other four live far away in America, and two of them haven't written to her for years and years. And of that labor and travail will we speak that filled Geert Dose's soul with its anguish, when, on the third day after Gravelotte, he could not yet come to die, in spite of that fearful wound in his back. But while we have in mind to tell of such things, things that many will say are sad and dreary, we nevertheless go about the writing of this book with a heart full of cheerfulness, although our face be earnest and our lips compressed. For we hope to show in every nook and corner of it that all the labor and trouble the people in it go through are not gone through in vain. WIeten Penn, head maid servant at Uhl Farm, had been say- ing that a great gathering of folk would take place there this winter. II 12 JORNUHL " But the strange thing about it is," she said, " that the people will come as though to some gay festival, and will go hence as though from a great funeral." So spoke Wieten Penn. Her mind was of a strange, medi- tative cast, and she went by the name of Wieten " Klook," or " Canny " Wieten. Klaus Uhl, the big, stalwart marsh farmer, was standing in the doorway in his shirt-sleeves, and looking away out over the marshes awaiting his guests. A self-satisfied smile lit up the shining good-humored face, for he was thinking of the jollifica- tion and the card-playing to come, and the punch-drinking, and all the spicy jokes they would crack that night. His slight little wife, with her worn, pale face, had just sat down in the chair that stood near the big white porcelain stove, and her eyes went wandering over the great rooms all made fine and gay for the guests. She was now expecting the birth of her fifth child, and was weary with the many things she had had to do. The three eldest lads — big fellows who were soon to be con- firmed — Vv'cre standing there, long-limbed and ungainly, near one of the card-tables. Their heads were narrow, and covered with flaxen hair, and they had a peculiar domineering look about them. The youths had taken up a pack of cards that lay on the table, and were arguing in high, loud tones, with now and again an oath, about the rules of the game ; at last one of them snatched the pack out of the hands of Hans, the youngest, call- ing him a young blockhead. The door opened and the little three-year-old Jiirgen came running up to his mother. " Mother, they're coming; I can see their carts." " Mother," said Hans, who wanted to revenge himself on some one for the affront he had just suffered, " Jorn looks quite different from the rest of us, doesn't he? Why, he looks just like you with that long face and those sunken eyes of his." She stroked the little fellow's short-cropped flaxen head. " He's bonnie enough for me,'' she said. The little lad laid his hands in her lap, and looked up into her face. " I say, mother, Hinnerk says I'm soon going to get either a little brother or a little sister. I want a sister. When is she coming? As soon as she comes, you'll have to tell me at once, won't you, mumsie? " JORN UH L 13 The two big brothers went on with their game, nudging each other and laughing. " And what do you think, mother? The stable-boy says that last night the horses couldn't sleep. He couldn't stand their stamping and fright, he says, and got up to see what it was. And when he came into the stable there they were all standing with their heads lifted, and at the far end of the barn there was a clanking noise, as if some one was dragging a chain. And that stupid Wieten Klook has heard about it, and of course wants to make out that there's something in it. Now I'd just like to know what it is that's in it." "Oh! for sure there's something in it," laughed Hinnerk. *' You just wait and see! There'll be another horse coming into the stable, and then the oats will be a bit scarcer. Do you see? That's what's in it." They cast a sly glance at their mother, and went out nudging each other and trying to stifle their laughter. And now she was alone with little Jiirgen, who had quietly seated himself by her side. " It is not a good thing," she said, softly, to herself, " to hap- pen after so many years. The others are grown so big and knowing. They are hard-hearted like their father, and have the same hard way of speaking. They begrudge the little being its life, even before it is born." Her eyes wandered over the tables and the piles of plates and shimmering glasses, and through the rooms with all their gaudy, half-rustic, half-townish finery. And she felt in her heart, not for the first time, that she was out of keeping with all this brave show and all this big, noisy house; and her longing soul took flight and flew far away over the marshes and the stunted dry heather, and home to the old farm on the moors. Yes. yes. That was the place for her. There had been four of them under that long, low, thatched roof, that stood midway between the moor and the forest: her father and mother, her brother Thicss, and herself. And father and mother had been such queer, droll creatures, and had roguishly bantered and teased each other their whole life long. On Fridays, when the father came home from market driving his lean-ribbed horses, he used to stand up in his cart while still a good distance off, and threaten her with the whip, shouting out: "Now, for goodness' sake, little woman, do be sensible for once! Inside, I say, not out here in public! " But the little 14 JORN UHL woman had never grown " sensible," in spite of the fact that she was over forty. Directly he set foot on the ground, outside there, right in public, so that a man at work on the Haze Moor once saw them, she would throw her arms around his neck and hug and kiss him as if there were no one else in the whole wide world. And then the gaunt little man, with his small, finely cut weaver's face, would just laugh outright. They had never had an angry word, and had always been as loving and cheery as a pair of swallows in springtime. . . . They had both been dead now for many a day. And her brother dwelt there behind the Haze Wood alone. He was unmarried, and had his father's small features and the same droll and kindly ways. But she herself had left the lean heaths of her home and gone down into the fat marsh-lands while still a mere girl, and had become the wife of Klaus Uhl. And now chains had been heard clanking in the stable. " The three bigger boys will be able to look after themselves. They've already begun to go their own ways, like foals that leave their mother and forget her." But what about little Jvirgen and the child whose coming she was expecting? ..." Wieten must stay by the little ones." The carts were coming nearer: a string of three or four of them, one after the other, were seen approaching along the road. The sturdy Danish horses kept tossing and lowering their heads, and every time they tossed them the steam rose from their nostrils, and every time they lowered them they made the silver on their harness glisten in the clear air. That was the clan of the Uhls ; they came up once a year at this time and fore- gathered under the old rooftree of their fathers to celebrate the Uhlfest. They were not far off now, and Klaus Uhl, with a smile on his face, was just about to go down into the stable-yard that lay below the house, when a clattering, old-fashioned cart that had come from the direction of the village drove up. "The deuce! who ever expected to see you here, brother- m-lavv : Thiess Thiessen pulled up and laughed. " My old turnout's hardly grand enough for the company that's coming, eh? Neither am I, for that matter, but I'm off again directly. I've been buying a couple of calves in the village, and thought I'd just look in and see my sister and little Jorn." JORNUHL 15 The little man was down from his high cart with a tremen- dous jump, and led his horses slowly and deliberately into the barn ; then he went in to where his sister was. She was sitting in the back room with little Jorn, and was delighted to see him. " Come," she said, " and sit down a little while. Here we're quite safe. Yes, Thiess! safe from the grand big Uhls!" she laughed. " Come, sit up to the table. And how are the cows getting on? Have you got the big black bullock as leader? Now just tell me all about everything at home, just as if you'd brought the whole Haze farm with you." She asked and he answered. They had a good comfortable chat, while from the front room ever and anon came the noise of heavy footsteps and people talking, and the clatter of crockery. " I'll just look in and see how they're getting on in the kitchen and in the stable. And Wieten can get me a bite to eat, and the man can show me the calves and foals. I am going to take Jorn along with me. But you must stay here, sister." He took the little fellow by the hand and went out. In the kitchen doorway a thick-set little youngster brushed against his knees. " That's a Cray, I'll be bound," said Thiess. " You can tell it by his big red head." " It's Fiete Cray," said Jiirgen. " He always plays with me." " Oh ! then of course he'll have to come and sup with us, too," said Thiess, perching himself on the kitchen table. They gave him a plateful of meat ; and Thiess Thiessen took it between his knees, and the two children sat beside him. " Is this your boy, Trina Cray? " said he. The woman turned her hot face from the fireplace toward him. " Yes," she said, " he's the fifth. I've had six." " Quite enough mouths at the manger, Trina, for a laboring man \\ ho has to make heather brooms and brushes to keep him- self going in winter." " Oh, well," said the woman, " I get all kinds of things given to me at the farm here to keep the pot boiling." " You don't go home empty-handed then, eh? " II No, not I ! " "Who's responsible for that, Trina?" " Your sister, Thiess Thiessen." " Does me good to hear it, lass; does me good to hear it." i6 JORNUHL " I say, J5rn, did you see," cried Fiete Cray, " what a dip my mother just made into the dripping? A lump as big as my fist!" " Trina, that lad has great notions in his head. He's a real Cray; mark my words, he won't end his days under the thatch roof where he lives now." " He'll have to go out to service and be a farm-laborer in summer, like his father before him, and then make brushes to keep himself in winter." " Who can tell ? " said Wieten. "Ha! ha! now isn't that Wieten all over!" said Thiess Thiessen. " But take care what you're saying, Wieten. Prophesy him something good while you're about it. He has sharp eyes in that round headpiece of his, and a lively fancy, too, I should say. Wieten Penn was as a rule reserved and taciturn. But she liked having a talk with Thiess Thiessen; for he was full of such a grave inquisitiveness about everything. " Strange things can happen to a man," she said, reflectively. " Once on a time one of the Wentorf Crays left his father's house — a working- man's child he was — and came to the Little People who live underground beneath the pines on Haze Heath. They loaded him with gold, and then led him forth again, and he came back to Wentorf. It seemed to him as if it was only yesterday that he had left home. But people told him he'd been away for forty jears. And he could not but believe they spoke the truth. For w^hen he looked in the glass, he saw that his hair had all turned gray. And, what's more, he died soon afterward. Theodor Storm, who always thought he knew better than 1, used to say to me: This story is meant to show how a man can go away into strange lands, and be so taken up with the fret and fever of life and gold-getting that he can never get back his true peace of mind till it's too late and his life is past. But that's just nonsense. It's simply a story that really happened to some one. " Jorn ! " shouted Fiete Cray. " Just look! there goes another lump. I say, Jorn, the king . . . why, the king can eat drip- ping the whole day long." " Laddie," said Thiess Thiessen, "just bide still! You say something, Jorn." " I know a rhyme," said Jorn: JORN UHL 17 ♦"Stork, Stork, Mister, Bring me a little sister, Stork, or bring the t'other. Bring me a little brother.' " "Let's sing it all together," proposed Thiess; so they sang it and kicked their heels against the kitchen table, without noticing the while that Wieten had pricked up her ears and then left the room, and also that the kitchen maid was sent off on a message. It was not till Wieten Penn went over to Trina Cray, who was busy at the fireplace, and the latter clasped her hands together over her breast in the way anxious women are wont to do, that Thiess Thiessen noticed there was something the matter. "What ails ye, lassies?" he asked. "Is anything wrong, Wieten ? " " The stork's here, Thiess, and is standing outside on the chimney-top! " "Wha-at!" cried Thiess. He stared at Wieten Penn, his eyes wide with astonishment. " Do you mean to say the stork has come? "... With a bound he was down from the kitchen table; he tore the door open that led into the yard, and rushed away out into the stable. In two minutes he came back with his thin gray-brown old overcoat on, and his foxskin cap with its ear-lappets pulled down over his forehead. " Take good care of my sister, both of ye," he said, hurriedly. " Do you hear? Take good care of her. And I won't look too close at a crown piece or so between ye, in spite of turf and calves being so cheap this year." " Won't you wait, Thiess, and hear how things go? " " No! no! Give her my love, lass. . . . I've harnessed up and the cart's waiting. . . . I . . . couldna bear the sight of it. ... I wish her luck, wish her luck ! " and he was off. As he walked across the floor of the hall they saw him shaking his head, whether at the world, his sister, or himself, who can say? and the sound of his heavy trampling steps died away over the big dusky room. The guests had been eating and drinking, and were now sit- ting at the card-tables. Big, homely faces the picture of health, and some of them proud and handsome enough. The three i8 JORNUHL Uhl lads were standing behind the card-players, looking at the cards; sometimes they were good-humoredly asked for their advice, and would nod knowingly, and join in the laughter, or fill up the punch-glasses afresh for the guests. The players began to grow noisy in their mirth, and to tell each other jokes and stories in the midst of their game, and to play more or less recklessly. Little piles of silver coin were pushed backwards and forwards across the table amid shouts of laughter and curses. There were three or four of the men, however, who remained quiet and sober. These were the real gamblers, and they had made up their minds not to go home with empty pockets. Each of them sat at a different table, for they could win nothing from each other. Two of them were by nature shrewd and level-headed men ; they are still living in their pretty, old-fashioned farmhouses under the lindens in the Marner Marsh, but two of them were crafty and bad by nature. They looked into the hands of their careless neighbors, and cheated right and left. One of them, later on, fell into the hands of Hamburg magsmen, who were still sharper and more unprincipled than himself; and the other is now an old man of eighty, and half-blind. He still plays Six-and-sixty for half- pence, in his son's cowshed with the stable-boy, and gets cheated to his heart's content. The reckless ones well knew that they were playing with cheats, but of course they were much too grand and good-hu- mored and offhand to make a fuss about it. One of them who had lost pretty heavily could not help remarking, " Look here, now, your eyes are a bit too sharp." But they would soon begin laughing again, and go on with their game. Speech-making was scarcely the strong point of the company. They left " spouting," as they called it, to the minister and the schoolmaster. Klaus Uhl, who in his youth had paid a flying visit to a grammar school, was the only one of them who used to hold forth now and then, and was even noted for the jovial bonhomie of his speeches. He began by asking the company to excuse his wife for not having put in an appearance, adding that she had now gone to bed ; but they were not to let that disturb them, but to look to it that each of them went home with a good handful of crown-pieces in his pocket. " That's not so easy, Uhl," they laughed. " And, what's more, as I'm your host you shouldn't grudge JORN UHL 19 me a share of the luck myself. You eat my meat and you drink my wine, and in my house you always get your fill of good vic- tuals and good liquor. As you know, I'm just expecting my fifth child." At this they threw their great broad shoulders back in their chairs, and there was a chorus of shouts and boisterous laughter. " Well, your acres are broad enough, and you've plenty of money put by . . . and wheat's going up. . . . Let the young- sters go to college, and as for Jorn, why, he must be our Provost." Klaus Uhl laughed, and clinked glasses with his guests. Alick, the eldest son, whose head was muddled with punch, was smiling vacantly to himself. Then Hinnerk, the second eldest, left the room with unsteady steps, and came back carrying little Jiirgen, whom he had brought from his warm bed. He held him aloft, and said, " Look, here's the Provost." He wanted to amuse the guests and make fun of the little lad, this late- born interloper. But they all rose to their feet with tipsy enthusiasm, laughing and shouting, " And a bonnie little chap he is." The child, roused out of his fresh sleep, was poking his little fists into his eyes and looking around him, dazed and bewildered. " He shall be our Provost one of these days," they cried. . . . " Here's to his health! Here's to the health of the Provost! " Hans, the third eldest, came in from the passage with drowsy, sleepy face, and approached his father from behind. " They want to know whether you'll come to mother for a minute," he asked. Uhl paid no heed to the question, and the lad went slouching out again. " My guests are perfectly right," said Klaus Uhl, and he looked across the table with a knowing tv\ inkle in his eyes. " It stands to reason, I can buy farms for all my youngsters when they're old enough to look after them. But I've had a pretty good schooling myself, and have had quite enough Latin knocked into me to know that book-learning is a mighty fine thing. So I thank you for your good wishes, friends. I'll do what I can, and little Jiirgen shall be the first son of a farmer to sit in the house of the Provost. We farmers can well expect — gad ! I say we can well expect and demand that one of our own class shall govern us one day or other; and if we can 20 JORNUHL demand that, then I'd like to know what family has a better right than the Uhls to give us a governor." Again the door opened, and again Hans stood there. He stopped in the doorway, and called loudly through the noise: " Father, mother says you must come to her." " Don't interrupt me just at present, boy. ... By and by. ... As I was saying, he'll have an easy time of it in his youth, always plenty of money in his pocket, and so on ; and then he'll be smart and good-looking, and have his head screwed on the right way. Faith ! he wouldn't be the son of his father if he didn't. And, what's more, he'll take life easy, just as I do. He'll never know what care is, I tell you. Come, friends, let's drink a health to the Provost. Here's to Jorn Uhl." " Here's to the health of the Provost." " The health of the Provost." " Father, the woman that's with mother says that we must have the horse and trap in readiness." That startled them. " Horse and trap? . . . Why! what's the matter now?" " Has something gone wrong? " asked one. " Come, let's put the cards away," said another. " It's already after eleven." " Come, friends, I'm off," said another. " Wait a minute, I'm with you," said another. " Don't go yet awhile, friends," said Klaus Uhl. " It's noth- ing but a woman's nervousness." " No, we must be . . ." " No, it's time to be jogging." A few still continued talking about their game, regretting that it had been broken up so suddenly and unexpectedly. " I think I'll just look in at ' The Wheatsheaf ' on the way home for a little while." " So will I. D'you know what? We'll just step down to the inn together. We can go on foot, and let our carts come on afterward." " I'm devilish sorry that I can't come with you, friends, devilish sorry," said Klaus Uhl. "If you come with us we won't get home before daybreak for a certainty." One of them went up to him and grasped his hand, saying: JORN U H L 21 " No, don't come with us; it's better you should stay at home with your wife." He went into his wife's room, and found her fairly well. The people around the bed were saying that they hoped to be able to manage now without the doctor's help. Then he went back to the front room and listened through the door, that was still open as the guests had left it. Through the stillness of the night you could hear in the distance their loud shouts and their laughing answers. Once more he went slowly back through the great room, and again returned. Finally he took his cap down from the peg where it hung. It was as though a strong man were taking him by the shoulders and thrusting him out. He passed through the doorway and followed the others. He never wore an overcoat when walking. He had so much vigor and warm blood in him that he did not need it. Immediately afterward Alick and Hinnerk entered the serv- ants' room with a full punch-bowl. As a rule, they liked to play the master, and were at constant strife with the servants on the farm ; but on a day like this they assumed a condescend- ing sort of good fellowship, and would fain have hobnobbed even with the servants. The head ploughman on the farm, an old gray-headed man, had seen the last conveyance off, and now came in. He let himself drop stiffly into a seat, and drained the glass that they set before him. The stable-boy was hacking at the wooden table with his knife, and anon trying to wrest a coin from the fist of little Fiete Cray. One of the guests had given it to the lad. The boy had fallen fast asleep, with his head on the table, and was holding the money tightly clenched in his hand, and only murmured occasionally in his sleep, " Leave me alone, Jorn! " drawing his hand back. The dairymaid now came Into the room. At other times she was gay and sprightly enough, but now she seemed quite dazed, and her eyes were staring wide with fright. " Is it true about the noise in the stables last night, Dietrich? " The man nodded. " I can't help it, Jule," he said. " I heard it right enough myself, but what it means, I don't know." " I can't bear to be in the room there with Wieten. She's white as a sheet, and will have it that something dreadful is going to happen to-night. I won't stay here any longer — not another hour will I stay on the farm if things go wrong." 22 JORNUHL She took hold of the edge of the table, for her knees were trembling, and let herself drop into a chair. " Hallo! " said Hinnerk, " now just stop that croaking, you. Let's eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die, as the parson says." He pushed a full glass of punch toward the girl, but his hand was so unsteady that he spilt it, and had to fill it up afresh. " Come nearer to me, Jule." " Thank you for nothing," said the girl ; " at other times you're too proud to know me. I'll have nothing to do with you, and as for your punch, you can keep it for yourself." Alick looked up at her tipsily. "You sha'n't laugh at me, I tell you; I'm master in this house." "You master; you're nothing at all," said Jule Geerts. " You're nothing more than a stupid lout." "What! you hussy! I'll make you pay for that! " " What did Wieten say to you, Dietrich ? She has been see- ing lighted tapers, hasn't she? Do you really think it's true? " She looked at the man with wide eyes full of fear. He made a wTy face. He was '* keeping company," as the servants say, with Wieten Penn, and had half a mind to marry her, but it worried him that people should say of her that she could see into the future and knew the signs of coming trouble. "What has she been seeing?" asked the girl for the second time. She was shuddering with fear already, and knew that her terror would only be increased, but she could not help wanting to hear it. " A week ago to-night, about nine o'clock, when she had just come back from the village, she saw the shine of lights in the big room. They weren't arranged as they generally are when there's card-playing going on there, but higher, as if they were placed around a coffin, and each candle had a kind of reddish halo around it. She didn't dare to look in, but you may be sure she put two and two together — and there you have the whole story." "Stuff and nonsense! All stuff and nonsense!" said Hin- nerk, wagging his head tipsily from side to side. Suddenly they heard doors being hastily opened. Jule Geerts started up and shrieked. She remained a nervous woman for the rest of her life, it is said, even after she had had children JORNUHL 23 of her own ; and as they grew big and the aihnents of age began to trouble her, she always would have it that the pains in her back were caused by that night, and the fright she got when Trina Cray's white face appeared there in the doorway. " She looked just like a ghost," she would say. " Dietrich, harness up quick, and go for the doctor! " "Clear out!" cried Hinnerk. "You and your youngster, away with \-ou both from the farm!" He gave the little fellow a rough push so that he awoke. " The poorest woman in the land is not so utterly deserted as your mother this night." Dietrich was already outside. Jule Geerts crept away shiver- ing after him. Steps were heard hurrying hither and thither. There was commotion throughout the whole house. In the kitchen the smouldering fire was blown into a blaze. In the big hall the light of the lantern flew like a great red bird backwards and forwards, as if wildly seeking some outlet of escape. Now it would flutter up and down the wooden walls of the stable, and anon fly away over the horses, so that they became restive. Now it leapt up to the great rafters of the roof, and now again went rushing up and down the high-piled hay-sheaves. In the stables the chains of frightened animals were rattling. They heard the big door being dashed open, and the wheels of a vehicle whirling away out into the snowy night. The sick woman turned her head from side to side uneasily, listening and asking for her husband. " Strangers have to help me in my hour of need. . . . Are the children asleep? Has little Jorn been put to bed? So his father says he's to be Provost, does he? No, let him first grow up an honest and sober man — w-hether Provost or ploughman, it won't matter." She had received her first three boys from her husband, im- passively, as his gift, and so they had taken after their father. Then ten years passed by, in which she had drifted farther and farther apart from him, and learned her lesson of self- reliance. She had gradually ceased to look at Life and Human- ity through the eyes of her big, loud-voiced husband. Slowly and hesitatingly, but, as time went on, more and more clearly, she had come to see that her own world and her own way of looking at things was infinitely more beautiful, clearer, and 24 JORNUHL purer than her husband's. The four people who had once dwelt over there beliind the Haze on the quiet moorland farm — ah! what good and happy lives they had led there; but as for these, who were living here on the Uhl lands, they all seemed like lost souls wandering forlorn in some trackless wilderness. She no longer had power to prevent it. She had allowed the man at her side to have the upper hand too long. She could not even hope to make her own three children any different from what they were, they had grown so far beyond her control. But, after all, she had come at last to her rights. For once more she had borne a child, this time a small, delicate-featured boy, and it was no w^onder she had laughed so proudly and happily to herself w^hen her husband, as he looked at the child, was forced to exclaim : " He's a Thiessen all over! " And this one, that was to come into the world to-night, was also a Thiessen ; that she was sure of. And it is a difficult thing for a Thiessen to make his way through the world. They are an odd and meditative folk. " The three eldest boys know how to use their elbows. They will make their way in the world, but my heart is sore for the two little ones if I have to die." She tried to fold her hands, and prayed in deep and bitter anguish that her life might be spared, entreating this thing of God, till the beads of sw^eat stood thick upon her forehead. " Tell Wieten to come to me," she said. The young woman came close to the bedside. " Wieten, I may be ill for a very long time, and perhaps I may never get over it. H you would only promise me to stay here on the farm, Wieten Penn. ... I believe it will be better for you, too, never to marry. Don't worry about the big lads, — you wouldn't be able to manage them in any case, — but look after my little ones for me, Wieten. Tell my husband that I have asked this thing of you, and that I begged him to let you have your way with my two youngest children, if I died." Wieten Penn, whom they called " Wieten Klook," had fore- seen the coming of many a thing. She had foreseen the hour of joy and the hour of sorrow, but not such a request as this. No one can explain, not even she herself, how she came to de- termine her whole future with such swift decision in those few moments. JORNUHL 25 " I will look after the children," she said, " as true as I stand here. V'ou may trust them to me. Mistress Uhl." She left the bedside and went into the kitchen and stood by the fireside awhile, silent and motionless. Then Dietrich came in and said to her in his simple, dry way: " \ ou don't need to stand by the fire all night long. The farm lads are all sitting in the front room; come and sit with us awhile." She shook her head. " No! It can never come to anything between us, Dietrich," she said. " Let me go my way in peace, and leave me alone." Then he went out of the kitchen on tiptoe; and shook his head at the world for awhile. Rut he soon consoled himself, and has remained a bachelor all his days. Then the sudden noise of wheels driving up was heard. The doctor crossed the hall, examined the patient, and made his preparations. He came back to the kitchen once more, and inquired where the husband was. " He's down at ' The Wheatsheaf,' " said Fiete Cray, " play- ing cards. We've sent for him twice, but he won't take any notice." The doctor scowled, muttering the names of certain animals. Nobody had ever before called the great, proud, jovial man by such names. Then he wrote three words on a piece of paper and sent one of the maids to the inn with it. " Run," he said. In the dim light of the big hall, as she was taking her shawl down from the peg, Jule Geerts read the word " operation." Then, shivering and weeping, she rushed off, and kept look- ing behind her as though evil spirits were pursuing her. Toward morning all was over. The grooms, pale and speech- less, were cleaning down the sweat-covered horses in the stables. Wieten Penn was standing near the fireplace with her hand raised to her head. As she gazed into the glowing embers, she saw nothing but live flames there, for her eyes were full of tears. Jule Geerts was sitting near the wash-trough, quite motion- less. She felt afraid of Wieten and of every dark corner in the house, but most of all was she afraid of the little dead woman, lying inside there so still and quiet. The doctor had said to Uhl, 26 JORNUHL " Had I been sent for an hour earlier perhaps I could have been of use. Why wasn't I sent for sooner? " Tiien Klaus Uhl gnashed his teeth and cried out like a wild beast. He lay wailing beside her bed and crying, " Mother! Mother! " As wife she had meant but little more to him than that. She was the mother of his children, and that was all. He had always called her by this name, " Mother." His chil- dren's need cried aloud to him in that one word. VVieten stood in the next room, holding the new-born child in her arms. " A wee little lass, but strong for all that," said Trina Cray. " One can see already that it has its mother's face, and even her dark hair." " It doesn't cry," said Wieten; "surely it's not dead." " Give it to me for a moment," and Trina Cray took the baby and gave it two or three slaps with the palm of her hand. Then the child uttered a cry. " Shall we lay it in my bed ? " asked Wieten. " I have made my room warm. Jorn is lying there already." They crossed over to Wieten's room, and found little Jorn quietly asleep in bed. He lay cuddled together like a hedge- hog, all rolled up in a ball. The small face was almost hidden, but one could see his head with its bristly, flaxen hair. And near him lay Fiete Cray, sleeping in his clothes. He had drawn the blanket a little over to his side, and was curled up comfort- ably. " The sleepyhead! " said Trina. " Has he stayed here, too? " "Just leave him where he is," said Wieten; " I'll put the little maid at the other end." And so the children slept that night in one bed — the two boys at the head of it, and the little baby girl at their feet. CHAPTER II. JuRGEN was the name of the brfstly-haired youngster, and the little girl's name was Elsabe. That was what the minister had put in the baptismal register; but the baptismal register speaks aristocratic High German, while all the people amongst whom these children lived speak Low German, and so they call him Jorn, and the little girl in the cradle they call Elsbe. And these are the names they still go by to-day, Jorn and Elsbe Uhl. In little Jorn Uhl's eyes the house he lived in seemed a great vast place. When the child stood in the big hall, or trotted through the barn, he could see gloomy, mysterious corners everywhere. Nor did he believe that it came to an end any- where; for him the hall was as big as the whole world. And the grown-up people who come in, now through this door, now through that, are always doing such wonderful things, and with such grave faces, and so soberly, without screaming or skipping about or weeping or anything! It is simply mar- vellous! They are all different from him. Only little Snap, who runs along beside him through the huge room, is at all like him. They have their meals together, and sleep curled up close to each other, and from time to time — that is to say, every Saturday — Wieten puts them both into the big wash-tub together, and souses them up to their ears in water. They are all so different from him, the horses and the human beings and the cows. He and Snap are the only two creatures that are exactly alike. Once, indeed, he and Snap were in hopes that they had got hold of a real comrade. It was a foal that was grazing near its mother in a neighboring paddock. They could both tell at a glance that the mother was another of those strange, gra\e, grown-up creatures, but in the foal they saw signs of a philosophy something like their own. But when Snap came rather too near the foal it kicked out. My! how 27 28 JORNUHL it kicked. Howling, they both made for the barn-door as fast as their legs would cany them. There they stood gazing with terrified eyes at the foal, both barking. At least, that is how Jorn expressed it. He never said, " Wieten has been scolding," but " Wieten has been barking," so close was his fellowship with his comrade Snap. There was not a soul on the whole farm to take Jorn by the hand and explain things to him. Wieten had no time, and the others had no inclination. And perhaps it was just as well that it was so, for now it was a case of Robinson Crusoe. " Up with you, and explore the country, and discover land and water and tools and food for yourself! " One sunny day he and Snap were out hunting in the old moat, with loud halloos, trying to catch a water-rat that was swim- ming there. They were both pulled out of the water half- drowned, and both got a thrashing from Wieten, and were both put to bed together, and barked and bellowed themselves to sleep. That was one of their voyages of discovery. Then again, neither of them knew what a cellar was. They both thought it was a kind of bottomless pit, with great lizards for beams and uprights. One day, when they had laid a wager as to who would reach the other end of the hall first, and had started off with a rush, there suddenly rose a threatening voice out of the earth in front of them — great beet roots flew^ up right and left. With their accustomed unanimity they flung themselves at the man's head that appeared in the opening. Later on, howling and barking, they sat together near the ladder that stood in the stable, and told each other about the dreadful things they had seen. And so, between them, they thoroughly explored their farm- house realm, and gained considerable experience. But one day this close relation between Jorn and his comrade underwent a sudden change. Up to this time they used to go together, three or four times a day, into the back room, to stroke the little girl that lay there in the cradle or sat up in a chair, Snap wagging his tail at her. And then they would run out again, and trouble themselves no further about the child. But one beautiful, sunny day, when Jorn had come back with Snap from a run in the meadows, what was their surprise to J O R N U H L 29 see this same little girl standing in front of the kitchen door, gazing around her with wondering eyes. Never were two creatures more taken aback than Snap and Jorn Uhl. To think that such a thing was possible! They took the wee mite between them, and went with her along the road to a place where there was beautiful clayey water in the wheel-ruts. There they began to dig moats and build dikes. From this time on Snap began to wane in importance. Jorn now played all day long with this little sister of his. The dog became less and less of a comrade and more and more of a mere plaything. The little girl became acquainted with her surroundings much more quickly than her brother had done. He had only had Snap for a guide, and Snap was at best but an uncertain and unreliable leader. But the brother knew everything and could do ever\'thing. He led little Elsbe over the whole house, and into the bakehouse, and out to the barn, and even out over the stile into the meadows where the calves could be seen playing about. And one day he said : " Come, Elsbe, let's go and climb up Ringelshorn." He took her by the hand. Snap ran on ahead, barking, and so they went along the road till the old hill-land rose up before them. "Now for it!" Up they go, toiling and panting. The pathway leads steep up through the heather. They have to take a rest on the way. Then an idea strikes Jorn. He will tie the piece of yarn that he always carries in his pocket to Snap's collar, and Snap will have to pull them up the hill. So they go on higher and higher. Now a sand-hole, now heather again, now high thickets of broom, which they can hold on to. Then they rest awhile. At last they are at the top, and are just going to cry " Hal- loo " through their hands, when the East Wind, that they had not noticed at all while they were down below, catches hold of them. Up there on the heath he has free play. He rumples the little girl's hair and blows her skirts up, and pushes her rudely, and often topples her over. Jorn makes a dash to help her to her feet again, but Snap misunderstands it all. He is so stupid. He thinks they want to climb down again, and springs away down-hill. That's how it is that Jorn gets entan- gled in the cord, and the three tumble and roll head over heels down the slope, till they find themselves lying in a heap in a sand-hole at the bottom. And up above stands the East Wind so JORNUHL with his cheeks puffed out, bending over the edge of the hill, roaring with laughter at them. " Well," says Jorn, after they have howled for a bit, " that was a nice piece of work, wasn't it? " They climb the hill again, but the dog refuses to go with them. They coax him, they appeal to his sense of honor, they threaten him with hunger, and pelt him with sand and lumps of earth. He understands it all perfectly well, for he wags his tail, and shivers and barks pitifully for forgiveness. But he hasn't pluck enough. " Let him be, Elsbe, he's a regular cowardly custard." They sit down on the hilltop, in the cold wind, among the heather, and look for awhile quietly down on the broad, flat marsh-land and the Uhl buildings at their feet. " I say, Jorn," says Elsbe, " why haven't we got a mother? Everybody but us has a mother. What does a mother have to do, Jorn? " " What do you mean, Elsbe? " " Why, I mean with a child." " Oh! she goes like this all the time, to and fro, to and fro, holding it in her arms ; and then she says, ' ]VIy dear little one, my little pops ! ' and all that sort of thing. I saw one yesterday as I was fetching Hinnerk's boots from the shoemaker's." " But no mother ought to stay dead. Ought she? " " She doesn't, either, only when people don't look after her." "Who didn't look after her?" " Why, father didn't, nor the others either. There were a whole lot of people in the house, eating and drinking, and they just thought of nothing else but eating and drinking." "Father too?" " Yes." " Do you know for certain, Jorn ? " " Yes. Fiete Cray told me so." Elsbe keeps kicking the earth up with her foot, and is so in- tent on her thoughts that she can hardly get her words out. "Are vou quite, quite sure? As true as I stand here?" " Yes." "Why didn't he look after her, then?" Jorn springs a little way down, into the heather, and says out loud, with his face turned away: " Because he was drunk! " JORNUHL 31 Neither knew exactly what the word meant, but at home they had often heard their brothers use such expressions as " The drunken lout," or, " You were blind drunk, too, yester- day." They felt it was something dreadful, and spoke no further about it. Presently Jorn said: "Do you know what, Elsbe? To-night in bed, when Wieten comes to us, let's both say together, ' Mother Klook! ' " " Yes, and if Fiete Cray comes, we'll say to him, ' Father Cray! And then they climbed down Ringelshorn from mound to mound, holding on by the heather. As they grow older the evening brings with it a new kind of life for them. They may now stay up for two whole hours after supper. And they sit in Wieten's little room, round the square table, and all the four sides of it are occupied. At one side sits Wieten, Jorn at another, at the third side sits Elsbe, and at the fourth, between Jorn and Elsbe, sits Fiete Cray. During the day Fiete Cray cannot come. He has to go tramping far away among the marsh villages, selling brushes and heather-brooms and curry-combs. He has his wares in a little cart drawn by dogs. But of an evening he comes over to the Uhl for awhile. He comes every evening. In the winter he is blue with the cold, and in the summer rather tired ; but he's always in good spirits. In winter it is particularly cosy and sociable among this little company. It always begins in the same way: Wieten lays a pile of stockings and balls of wool and mending on the table, puts the lamp in the middle, and pushes her mending to one side. Then she sets a great hunch of bread and raw bacon before Fiete Cray, who clutches at it hungrily. Jorn Uhl has never for- gotten that swift, eager clutch, and the thin, frozen, boyish hand that was not always too clean. One of the brothers comes in — Hans, or perhaps Alick. " Fiete, you must come and play cards with us ; we want a fourth man." But Jorn and Elsbe cry " No! No! " and hold him fast. Then Hans goes up to the table and says, threateningly: ** If vou don't come with me, I'll tell father how you're fed 32 JORNUHL up here every night, my young gourmand. Your proper place is in the servants' room." And then Wieten will give a sharp look over her spectacles at the gawky, half-grown youth, and point to the door. " Off with you! This is my part of the house; and if I find you here again, I'll tell your father where you were last night, you young good-for-nothing. You'll be the worst of the whole lot yet ! " And sometimes she'll raise her hand darkly. " I know all about 3'ou and your brothers. The time will come when you'll seek your bread among the stubble of the fields." Then he laughs and goes out with a curse, and they have peace once more. " And now Fiete must tell us about his day's doings! " says Jorn. " No! " says the little girl, with a grand air of self-im- portance; "first Wieten shall tell a story, and then I'll tell you one, and then Fiete shall tell his." " All right, then; fire away! " There sits Wieten, turning over the pile of mending, stretch- ing her hand out now and again for this and that piece of cotton, drawing the thread across holes that gape in the stockings, and telling one tale to-day and another to-morrow. And so it goes on. For example, it is Wieten 's turn: " When I was in Schenefeld, the farmer's wife used to tell us this story. ' There was once a peasant,' she used to say, ' who had taken a two years' lease of a piece of land from the devil, and the devil said to the peasant, " You will farm the land, but we'll let the dice decide which of us is to have what grows above the ground there, and which of us is to have what grows beneath it." Well, they started throwing dice, and, of course, the devil made the highest throw, and so he was to have everything that grew in the field above ground. So off went the peasant and sowed a crop of beet root, and when autumn came, what did the devil get, think you? why, nothing but the leaves. Very well ! Next year they cast the dice once more. This time the devil naturally took care to get fewer points, and so he was to have all that grew beneath the earth. Off went the peasant and sowed the land with nothing but wheat. And when autumn came, what did the devil get, think you? why, nothing but the roots. " ' Then, of course, he abused the peasant to his heart's con- J O R N U H L 33 tent; and at last he said, "To-morrow I'll come again, and you and I will have a scratching-niatch." Then the poor peasant got very frightened. But his wife noticed that he sat all day with his head on his hands, looking very worried and downhearted, so she said to him, " What are you brooding over, husband ? " "'So he told her all about it, and said, "To-morrow I've got to scratch with the devil.' But his wife said, " Just be easy, and don't go worrying about ft. I'll manage him for you." " ' Well, now, what was to bo done? She sits herself down and waits, and pretends to he in a great rage. After awhile along comes the devil ri;^ht enough, and, says he, " What's the matter with you, little woman? " says he. " ' " Oh, deary me, Mr. Devil," says she, " just look at this here great scar in my beautiful oak table. My husband says he's got a scratching-match with another man to-day, and so he's been trying his nails here, and has torn off this great piece with his little finger-nail." " ' The devil gave a look toward the door, and said, " Where is he away to now? " W^here is he? " said the woman. " Oh! he's just gone round to the smithy to get his nails sharpened up a bit." Then the devil stole quietly out, and made off as fast as ever his legs would carry him.' " During this story Fiete Cray and little Elsbe sat quite still, devouring Wieten with their eyes. Jcirn was paying no atten- tion. He was trying to stand one ball of wool on top of another, and kept on trying and trying, and heaved a great sigh of relief when he finally succeeded. " My word, if he had come," said Elsbe, " what a scratching the peasant would have given him! Like this! " and she clawed the table with her fingers and tried to look terribly fierce. " There's not much in those devil stories," said Fiete Cray ; " but the little Earth Men, they're the sort of people I like to hear about. They're real good and kind, too. They've made many a man rich for his whole life. But the queer thing about them is that I've never yet set eyes on one of them — not a single one. Many's the time I've come through the Heath alone with my dogs, and on past the Wodansberg. And often 34 JORNUHL I've left my cart standing while I stole quietly into the wood, but I've never seen anything." " They live in the Wodansberg," said Eisbe. " I don't believe it," said Jorn. " Oh, 30U believe nothing at all," said Wieten. " Once," said Fiete, " it was dreadfully hot, so I left the dogs standing in the shade with the cart, not far from the Wodans- berg, where the path turns off to Tunkmoor. I went a little way into the wood, and lay down on some dry leaves, not far from a big hazel-bush, and there I must have fallen asleep. Suddenly I was wakened up by a rustling among the leaves, and just as I'd got my eyes open it seemed to me that three or four little people, a bit bigger than squirrels, ran oft and hid them- selves in the hazels; and a moment afterward I heard voices in the bushes. It sounded as if they were saying, 'Sleepyhead! sleepyhead ! ' I sat up and looked around me, and turned all the leaves over, but not a sign of gold was to be seen." Wieten looked at him distrustfully. Fiete Cray's stories always caused her a certain amount of uneasiness. He invariably contrived to give them such a practical turn — that was charac- teristic of the Grays. He was not content that such and such a devil should be out-devilled, or that some man or other, in olden times, should have got a share of hidden treasure, but he himself, Fiete Cray, was always expecting to get hold of money in this way. He lay under every bush and lurked behind every tree, expecting the glittering gold to appear. Jorn looks up doubtfully from his play, and says, suspiciously: " They were squirrels, of course ; and as for what you heard, it was nothing more than some field-mice squeaking." Fiete Cray shook his head disdainfully. "If only I knew," he said, " how they could be got at." " The woman in Schenefeld," said Wieten, " where I was in service when I was young, she used to say that the fairies had all taken their bag and baggage, and wives and children, and had wandered off together into another country." " Is that it? " said Fiete. " Where did they go to, then? " " Well, I can't exactly say. I fancy they moved to the Vaalermoor and round about Milstermarsh. Maybe they even crossed the Elbe. But Theodor Storm alw^ays made out that they had come to Dittmarsh," JORN UHL 35 " Theodor Storm! You're always talking about him; who is he? " " Who is he? He used to say he was a student. He often used to visit us at Schenefeld — he and a man called Miillen- hoff. They wasted God's precious hours, lolling about in all the villages, and were happiest when listening to some old story or other. lliey had their eye on me in particular, because they knew that my mistress had a store of such tales; but she wouldn't tell them any, and so they came to me. Every eve- ning, when I went to the reed paddock to milk the cows, the two of them would be standing there waiting to hear stories. And while I was talking they'd go and drink half a bucket of the milk." " What did they have to talk about, Wieten?" " I've told you already. They thought they knew everything better than I did. There wasn't a single old saw that Storm couldn't give you in some different way, and he used to tell all these stories differently from what I do. He used to say he was going to write a book about them. Many a time I've called him a young blockhead, and left him standing where he was, and marched off, milk-pails and all." Fiete Cray looked knowingly at her through his half-shut eyes. " What was his idea about where the little Earth Men are? " "What was his idea? What's that got to do with me? I don't care a snap for him and his ideas. My mistress in Schene- feld used to tell the story this way : ' One night the ferryman at the Hohner Ferry was called up out of his bed, but when he gets outside he can't see a living soul, so he thinks he must have been dreaming, and goes back to bed. Presently some sand or earth is thrown against his window, so up he gets again and goes out, and there, from his house down to the water's edge, the ground was nothing but a mass of tiny, little gray people. One of them, with a long beard, says to the ferryman he must put them across the Eider, as they couldn't stand the noise of the church folks' singing and the pealing of the church-bells any longer. So they were going to emigrate to the Marsh-land. There were no churches there in those days. The ferryman let go the ropes, and they all came trooping down to the ferry-boat — men and women and children, beds and pots and pans, and dishes of silver and gold ; all thronging on one another's heels, till the boat was packed full. And so it 36 JORNUHL went on the whole night long, to and fro, load after load, and they never seemed to come to an end. When at last they were all over, and the ferryman was on the return journey, he looked back and saw that the field on the other side was full of thou- sands of lights. They had all lit their little lanterns, and were moving on toward the west. " ' But next morning, when he went down to the ferry, what does he see lying on the edge of the jetty but thousands of little gold farthings. Each of the little men had laid his fare down there.' " Storm used to maintain that they had knocked at the window, but I said they threw sand against it. We had a great argument on that point. So I left him standing where he was, and took no notice of what he called out after me." "What did he call out, Wieten?" asked Elsbe. " He wanted to tease me, and so he kept on singing out, ' Don't waggle like that! Don't waggle so, I tell you! ' But when one has a yoke to carry, with two great big full pails of milk, and the yoke and pails both bound with brass-work, it's little wonder if one gets a heavy tread." " Where is this man Storm now? " asked Fiete. " Where is Storm ? I fancy he said he wanted to become Provost. He a Provost! He's never come to anything! " " Hasn't he written the book, either? " " What, he? He was that lazy, that once he lay the whole afternoon, stretched full length in the meadows, from one milk- ing-time to the next, and said he did it because the wood looked so fine in early leaf. It's safe to say that he's never written a book, and hasn't become Provost, either." " Jorn isn't listening at all! " said little Elsbe, and gave him a poke. " Jorn, listen, I tell you! " "Just look!" said Jorn. He had built a bridge from the work-basket to the table with three pairs of scissors and Wieten's spectacle-case, and was pressing his hand down on it to show how strong it was, and looked around at the others with pride in his eyes. " I say, Wieten, what did Storm have to say about our Gold- soot?^ Did he say the same as you, or something different?" " I can see," she said, as she looked sharply at Fiete Cray, " you believe Storm sooner than me. You're always after some- ' Low German soot — a spring, a well. JORN UHL 37 thing new. As to the Goldsoot, I knew nothing about it in those days. I first heard of it after I had come here and seen it." Fiete Cray leaned his head on his hand and gazed at Wieten. His round, boyish eyes, that generally looked out on the world so archly and impudently, were now dreamy and far away. The Goldsoot lay not far from the village in a hollow on the edge of the Geest. It was his one great, secret hope. " I say, Wieten, do tell us it over again! " "Will you believe me or that lanky Holsteiner?" " Oh, you," said Fiete Cray, and struck the table with his fist. " Well, just listen, then. It was like this. It's said that here in the neighborhood there once lived a very rich man, who died without having any children. But one dark night, before his death, he went to the hollow near the Geest slope, and threw all his money into the well. Now they say that if one pokes about it with a stick, it has a hollow sound, and some even say that if you look down into it you can sometimes see a little gray man sitting there, wearing a cocked hat. That's so. And once upon a time three men started ofif in the night, and without making a sound they dug down in the well, till suddenly they came upon a big copper kettle. Then they laid a crowbar across the hole, and fixed ropes through the handles of the kettle, and wanted straightway to pull it up. Presently a huge load of hay drawn by six gray mice came up from the marsh and galloped past them, tearing away up toward Ringelshorn. They shut their teeth together and didn't say a word, but kept on pulling. At last they had the kettle almost at the top, when a gray man on an old gray mare came by, riding up from the marsh. He bade them a good evening, but they managed to keep cool, and didn't utter a word. Then he pulled up his mare, and asked them whether he had a chance of catching up with tlie load of hay. Then one of them got angry, and said : * llie devil ! It's old cloven-hoof.' At the same moment the crowbar broke, and down fell the kettle to the bottom of the well, and the gray man vanished." "Fiete got some gold from the witch lately," said Elsbe; " you know, the witch that lives in the Hooper firs." She felt In her pocket and produced a shining coin, and laid It on the table in front of them. Fiete Cray stared at the money, and then turned slowly around, like a criminal some one takes by the shoulders, and looked Wieten in the eyes. 38 JORNUHL She raised her hand, and said : "If you carry on with any more nonsense, you'll feel these stockings about jour ears, and good-by to your bread and butter, once and for all." He fixed his eyes on the table in front of him, and was for a moment crushed and silent. Then he began to show Elsbe the contents of his pockets. Soon they begged him to show them some of his tricks. Jorn pushed all his toys aside, string and scissors and bits of wood, and said : "Now for them, Fiete! " "A trick?" said Fiete Cray; and while his quick fingers were still working under the table, two bright-colored pebbles, that he had found as he came along by the sand-pit, began to fly backwards and forwards over the corner of the table. " And now another! " "Another trick?" said Fiete. He held up his empty hands, and put them under the table again, and directly afterward a little gray animal with a long tail slipped, jump, jump, over the corner of the table toward Elsbe, so that the little thing drew back with a frightened face. But as it began jumping across for the second time, Jorn stretched his hand out for it, and held it up, laughing and saying: " It's only Elsbe's old pocket-handkerchief! " " Well," said Wieten, " we've seen enough tricks for one evening. Now off to bed with you! " Without further ado the three went into the corner where the bed stood, and the two little Uhls began to undress them- selves; and Fiete had to help little Elsbe to undo her clothes and to take off her stockings for her, and relate the while all that had happened during his day's travels — whether the big dog had been on the farm, and whether any one had given him any dinner, and whether the boys in the marsh villages had teased his dogs and pelted him with stones. He told them with repressed rage in his voice how the boys in the marsh had again refused to let him go by in peace. "Couldn't you defend yourself?" said Elsbe. "No; they were just coming out of school, and suddenly they stood in a ring around my cart." " Were they Uhls? " asked Jorn. JORNUHL 39 " Of course, every man Jack of them — from Dickhusen and Neudeich, and all about there." " Couldn't you make a run for it? " asked Elsbe. " The reins had got tangled, and so the dogs couldn't get away." " What did you do then? Did they hit you? " " They didn't dare come right up to me, because my dogs would have sprung on them. They'd have bitten them, I can tell you, if they'd touched me. But, all the same, it was pretty bad for me; the stones were just Hying about my head." " Poor old Fiete. Whatever did you do? " " I suddenly thought of a plan. ' Boys,' I said, ' did you ever hear that story about the owls and the crows? '^ " ' No,' they said. " So I said : * Well, listen, then. There were once four crows that sat in an ash-tree, near an old farm-house. It wasn't long before the owl that lived there looked out of his door under the eaves of the loft, and said to them: " ' " Good day to you." " ' " Good day," answered the crows. " ' " Have you got any spare time? " asked the owl. " Then I can put you in the w ay of earning an honest penny." " ' " Right you are! " answered the four, for the snow was lying old and thick over the whole country, and there wasn't much to be earned. " ' " My old comrade, old Tom Malkin, is dead," said the owl. " Now, I was thinking you might carry him to his grave. When my old friend was alive, he often used to say to me: 'Jan Owl,' he u ould say, ' you must give me a decent burial. A respectable life deserves a respectable funeral,' he used to say, for he was a highly cultivated man. Now, look here, you four have good black coats on, and are honest people — " " ' " Come along, then," said the crows, and crept in through the owl-hole after him one by one. " ' Now, it was pretty dark in the loft, and the thatched roof was low, but they could see old Tom IVIalkin where he lay. He was lying in the hay, stretched at full length, without a move in him. The owl took up his post at his friend's head, ' The pun on the Uhls and the Grays (the owls and the crows), which lends point to this story in the original, must be taken for granted by the English reader. It recurs throughout the book. — Translator's Note. 40 JORNUHL and the crows hopped along, all askew, just as they do in windy weather among the young wheat. Many's the mouse we've caught in this loft together, old Tom, that you well know," said the owl. " We've always been good friends, and many's the spree we've had with one another. But that's all past and gone now. Oh, Tom! Tom, old fellow! How you'd rejoice, and what a spring you'd make, if you were only alive and I said to you, ' Tom, four stupid black crows are standing round you.' " Then up sprang the tom-cat, and there was a crow-hunt, the likes of which you've never seen. " ' The first, he lost an eye, The second lost a leg, The third, he got his coat all torn, And the fourth flew out of the owlet's hole. And that's me,' I said. I'd got my ropes straight, so I jumped on my cart and of^ I went." " Well," said Wieten, " and now go home, Fiete." Then Fiete Cray stole out of the kitchen door and away down the path, and crept into his father's humble cottage. And then Wieten, too, goes to bed. Toward midnight, or a little later, the father and the big brothers come home from their wild carousing in some inn. But the children have been asleep these three hours. CHAPTER III. When Dominie Peters cast his eye over the hundred children of St. Mariendonn sitting there at his feet in two rows of benches, — the boys on the right, the girls on the left, — and when about three in the afternoon it began to grow dusk, as it always does in winter, then, 1 say, it used to strike the old schoolmaster that there were two distinct sorts of human beings at the Donn. The roof of thatch drooped like tired and heavy eyelids over the windows, and the light came through into the schoolroom in slanting meagre rays. In this silent slanting twilight you could spy, here and there among the children, a sprinkling of round red heads, with freckles so intense and hair so fiery red that they seemed to emit a kind of light. And this halo-gleam of hair grew brighter, and this dull sheen more vivid, when these eyes, shrewd and quick, or furtive and restless, began their play; it was like so many kittens gambolling in sunshine. Those were the Grays and their kin. But you also saw scattered among the round red heads others not so numerous — bo\'s and girls with narrow faces and fair skin, and with hair as fair as fields of rye just before the reap- ing; faces of strong and often noble lineaments, with steady, clear, proud eyes. When one of these light-haired children left his seat, his gait revealed a small, well-knit frame, full of lithe- ness and strength. Those were the Uhls and their kin. Pastor Petrus Momme Lobedanz, who had the care of souls in St. Mariendonn some hundred and fifty years back, used to w^onder even in his day at this marked distinction. For on the last pages of a baptismal register, which he had filled with names, he has written down certain thoughts and observations as follows: "The little thorps that are built along the sides and on the slopes of the Geest are nearly all called by the name of Donn. In order to distinguish them one from another, however, cer- 41 1.2 JORNUHL tain of the thorps are called after the wealthy villages which lie in front of them ; others, again, whose existence dates further back, and which have a church of their own, are called after Catholic saints. Thus this village is called St. Mariendonn. " To the right and left of the village the dune rises steep and unbroken, covered thick with heath and bracken, but at the spot where the village stands it is all scooped and hollowed out. It is as if multitudes of children had been playing there, and had undermined the sand-hills. It is the Grays who have thus, in the course of centuries, burrowed and scooped out this mighty sand-hill, and have built their dwellings into it and worn it down. For the Grays are a restless race. " And since the land where they dwell is so light and sandy that sometimes in dry weather their gardens are blown like driven snow against their house-walls, and they are thus pre- vented from gaining sustenance from the soil, and since, more- over, they have little opportunity and still less inclination for steady work as hired laborers, they have come to be a race of wandering pedlars and dealers, known in all the country-side. " Every Monday morning, when the sun rises, I stand on the Ringelshorn and look over toward St. Mariendonn, and watch the Grays taking flight. Some, with bundles and baskets on their shoulders, wander up toward the villages on the Geest. With backs bent double you see them plunging the long staff on which they lean into the sand in front of them. Others go down into the marsh villages with their little carts drawn by dogs. The wealthiest among them will harness some stiff- jointed, rough-haired jade of a horse to a ramshackle cart, and disappear. Toward the end of the week they all fly home to their nests again, and have always sold out their wares, nay, have mostly purchased something fresh into the bargain. One, who went out with haberdashery, comes back with a spavined horse ; another, whose cart departed stiff with the bristles of brushes, returns with a load of basket-willows; a third, who drove down to the Watt to the crab-fishing, has got hold of an old chest from some one on his way through some marsh thorp or other. " But they are sturdy folk, and I won't hear anything said against them. I have been intimate friends with many a one of them, and am so still with some. I won't hear them run down ; JORNUHL 43 for I myself, on the side of my grandmother, who was a Nuttel- mann by birth, have Cray blood in me. " 'Tis said of them, I confess, that away from home they're not such strict and God-fearing folk in their dealings as they are at home among themselves on Sundays. Here in their own village, especially, they are honest, sober people enough, and even pique themselves on their fear of God and their regular church-going; and they will boast to me of their lively interest in God's word. But I, alas! I am but a weak man, and do not like to tell the boaster straight to his face: * Man! don't you know that the whole country-side has a saying, " As honest as a Cray on Sunday? " Folk about here say that a Donn Cray has never yet been known to buy hay and oats for his horse; they just let their beasties graze in lonely spots by the roadside and in the pasture- lands, while they themselves are taking their noonday nap be- neath the roof of their wagon. And when a Cray is summoned before a court, it's always a court outside his own parish, and he is always the accused and never the accuser. But when such a one comes to me, to get his baptismal certificate in order to prove his identity before the court, and I ask him what it is he's accused of, he is sure to allege either the maliciousness or the error of the accuser as the cause of all the trouble. " And when the accused doesn't come home after the trial, but mysteriously vanishes for several weeks, as if the earth had swallowed him up, and I meet his wife at church and I ask her, 'Antj' Katrien, where is your husband?' then she'll look me straight in the face, and say, ' Oh, he's just away to Hamburg, minister, doing a little shopping! ' Then my weak nature shows itself again, and I don't venture to say anything to her. In the marshes, though, they have a jest about a man serving his time in gaol, and say of such a one: 'Oh, he's just away to Hamburg doing a little shopping! ' " These are things that weigh heavy upon my heart, et animi semper