Fritz Reuter

“ In every innocent French corporal he saw the Corsican monster, and if Luth, the Town Messenger, happened to get a blow in a peasants' row on Blue Monday, he made as much fuss as if the Duke of Mecklenburg himself had been struck.
"Hold your tongue, boy," he whispered impressively. "Do you want to scream out your sentence of death in the public market-place! I wouldn't give a groschen for the watchmaker's chance of life, for it is certain that the Miller and his Friedrich have murdered the French Chasseur." ”

“ When the battle of Leipzig was won, bonfires were lighted on the Owl Hill and the Windmill Hill, and the town was lighted up. There was no firing, it is true; for we had no cannon, but we had as much noise as if we had had a whole battery, for the Rathsherr Herse's adjutant, Hanning Heinz, and old Metz hit upon a splendid idea; they laid some hundred-weights of stone on a cart, and shot them with all their might against gouty old Kasper's gateway, so that they got a thunder as of real cannon, and the gateway lay in pieces. ”

“ The Miller stood there as if petrified. The Herr Amtshauptmann walked down the room again, and scratched his head; at last, he went up to the Miller, and laid his hand on his shoulder. "Miller Voss," said he, "I have always held you to be an honest man; but such honesty--in such circumstances! Why, you can hardly live from one day to another, and yet, from pure conscience, you give up a sum of money like that, coming nobody could have told from where!" ”

“ Were they tears of joy?--Who can tell?--Who can say where joy begins and sorrow ends? They are so wonderfully interwoven in the human heart; they are the warp and the woof, and happy is he who weaves them into a firm web. The tear which is born of sorrow has as much its woof of hope as the tear of joy its woof of fear. The past anguish about my father and the fear as to his future wove themselves into my mother's joyful feeling of thankfulness, and the tears which fell were not tears of pure joy. Does any tear of pure joy ever fall on this earth? ”

“ The latter lay stretched on the sofa, arrayed in the Herr Amtshauptmann's white cotton nightcap and flowered dressing-gown; and the rogue of a Miller had given him, instead of his sword, a long quill pen, which he silently waved about in the air, for he could not speak a word.
When Mamsell Westphalen got to the door and beheld this spectacle, she set her arms a-kimbo, as every right-thinking elderly person would naturally do under such circumstances, and asked: "Miller Voss, what is this? What do you call this? What do you mean by this?" ”

“ If I were where I ought to be, I should be in the presence of the King of Prussia, talking with the man. 'Your Majesty,' I should say, 'you are rather in difficulties, I think?' 'That I am, Herr Rathsherr,' he would say, 'money is devilish scarce just now.'--'Nothing else?' I say. 'That's a mere trifle. Only give me full power to do what I like'--licentia poetica that is called in Latin, Miller Voss,--'and a regiment of Grenadier Guards.'--'You shall have them, my dear Rathsherr,' says the King; and I have all the Jews from the whole of Prussia assembled in the palace-yard at Berlin. ”

“ My uncle had always plenty of ideas and generally they trotted about in his brain like pretty little blue-eyed children, and though they would often run about and tumble over each other in play at blind-man's-buff, and do all sorts of perverse things, yet they were always dressed in their Sunday best, and nice and neat for him to look at; but the thoughts which came to him at Witte's door were a parcel of ragged beggar children who would not be driven away, but stretched out their hands as it were, and cried with one voice: "Herr Rathsherr, Herr Rathsherr Herse, help the Miller. ”

“ Herr Colonel von Toll, everything was turned topsy-turvy in my room last night. Unfortunately I must put up with it as well as I can, but no one shall ever say of me that I lent a hand to overturn the laws of nature. And, though it's no Christian sleep that the old gentleman takes, still he is a gentleman, and can sleep like a gentleman, and do as he pleases. No king, no emperor--no, not even our Duke Friedrich Franz himself shall drag me into a conspiracy against the laws of this house. ”

“ It's the Herr Rathsherr," cried Fritz Sahlmann.
Mamsell Westphalen stood there like Lot's wife--only that she was perhaps stouter--and looked at the Rathsherr as if he were Sodom and Gomorrah.
"Merciful heavens! We are all wandering in the dark," she said in a feeble voice.
"It's very well for you to talk of wandering in the dark," sputtered my uncle Herse. ”

“ The Bailiff could get no other covering for himself than his own trowsers, Friedrich made himself look very fine in Fritz's Sunday coat, and my father, as the smallest, had to content himself with Hans's jacket, which of course the Bailiff did not wish, and made all sorts of excuses for. But when a person finds himself in safety after being in an unpleasant predicament, and in a dry place after being out in the rain, mirth readily gets the upper hand, and my father, on seeing himself in his costume, laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. ”

“ Then, Frau Amtshauptmann, then I thought--What is a pork sausage? And what is a human life? And in my terror, I took your property. He pushed in the pole, and I stuck a sausage on it.--Then he was called in by the Herr Amtshauptmann, and, as he clambered down, he said just loud enough for me to hear, that he had been chaffing me, and that it was all untrue. ”

“ In the room and in the corridor there is a fearful noise; the Colonel calls Herr Droi a deserter and marauder, the adjutant calls for the orderlies, the orderlies in haste and in scant apparel,--as if some one had fallen into the water and they wanted to jump in after him without wetting their trousers,--rush in from one side of the corridor, while from the other side advances Mamsell Westphalen with the cook and the housemaid. In her hand she has a large stable lantern, but otherwise she is not well off as to clothes. ”

“ Heinrich snatched it from him, sprang into the saddle, and threw him the bridle of the beautiful brown gelding: "The best one is not good enough for you, comrade," he said.
"But the Miller and Fieka," cried my uncle "won't you say good-bye then and----"
"It's all right," cried Friedrich. "Good-bye, Herr Rathsherr." And off they rode out at the Brandenburg Gate.
We children stood at the gate and watched them. "Those are no Frenchmen," said Hans Bank.
"They are our people," said Fritz Risch, and it seemed as if a pride in ourselves had suddenly sprung up. ”

“ Can we help it if he will live like a heathen? Leave off crying, we have a good conscience.' But Herr Droi it's very hard for me, a lone person, to sit here and listen to the storm raging round the Schloss, and the rain beating against the windows, and the owls hooting, and the winds whistling along the passages, as if all the evil spirits were let loose. ”

“ When Friedrich was gone, the old Herr turned round and said, laughing: "You have lost Fritz Sahlmann's sausage of this morning, Neiting; the Pinnow Bullfinch must have it, for, if this rascal of a Friedrich is to marry the Bailiff's Hanchen, we must first make him an honest man again."
"Yes," cried my father, and laid down an eight groschen piece on the table; "and here is the money which he took from the Frenchman." ”

“ Windmills I mean. Miller Voss; who ever said anything about watermills? Watermills lie in the ground and don't burn. And now, I ask you, has the Burmeister as much knowledge and courage to act in time of war as I have?"
"He's never said he would set mills on fire," said the baker, and looked at the Herr Rathsherr rather doubtfully as if he did not quite know whether he was in fun or earnest.
"My dear Witte, you look at me like a cow at a new gate. You are, no doubt astonished and thinking what does a Stemhagen Rathsherr like me, know of war and stratagems? ”

“ When joy sounds in our ears, as if, all at once two dozen trumpets had been blown close behind us, we feel as if our head and heart were split, and the most beautiful music becomes mere pain. No! I love joy when it comes like a singing bird in a cool wood, coming nearer and nearer from twig to twig, till at last it sings its song full in my ears from the nearest bush. ”

“ As the Miller was beginning to fume because Friedrich did not come, his wife said: "Father, never mind him; you are tired and wearied with the jolting of the waggon--come to bed; Fieka shall warm a little beer for you to drive out the night air."
"Mother," he answered, "you're right as usual, I am dreadfully tired, for money business is so wearying. Well, it's in order now--as good as in order at least--for the Herr Amtshauptmann said: 'Miller Voss, I shall not forget you.' I must be in again at Stemhagen early to-morrow morning." ”

“ I laid the Frenchman with my own hands under a beech-tree in the Stemhagen wood, and, if the night air hasn't been too cool for him, he'll be lying there now--still as a rat--for he was dead drunk."
"That he was," said the Miller.
Fieka looked first at Friedrich and then at her old father, who was listening to what Friedrich was saying, "Friedrich," she said, "how could I help thinking it. You are always talking about killing and murdering Frenchmen." And she put her apron up to her eyes, threw herself down on the bench behind the large, tile-covered stove, and began to cry bitterly. ”

“ I have spoken to the Herr Amtshauptmann, and he has promised to keep an eye on my property. I can let my Mill at Parchen any day, and I am going to sell my horse and waggon."
"Hurrah!" cried Friedrich, "your hand, comrade! Dumouriez! The very first morning, I said you had the making of a soldier in you."
"Yes, that's all very well," replied Heinrich. "I have got the will, but how about carrying it out?"
"When anyone has it in his mind to do something wrong, comrade," said Friedrich, "the Devil is always at hand to show him the way. And the Almighty will not do less. ”

“ The Colonel said that he had not the honour, but that he was almost freezing; that the orderlies were to remain with Herr Droi, for he must be a French deserter, and they were also to search for the French Chasseur to whom the helmet and sabre belonged.
Herr Droi now began again to lie, and Mamsell Westphalen felt quite ashamed of him and turned round in anger and said: "For shame, Herr Droi, to be stuffing the easy chair that ought to make you comfortable in your old age with wickedness, you're making a hard pillow for your conscience." ”

“ One cannot help pitying the old man. He avoided everybody, and worked alone in the mill and the stable, as hard as if he thought he could, in this one day, make good all the neglects of past years.
At last he was freed from his toil. My uncle Herse arrived,--but in the dress of a plain burgher to-day: "Good day, Voss; well, our affairs are all right."
But the Miller was not to be so easily satisfied to-day, and he said shortly: "Yes, for whoever thinks so, Herr Rathsherr." ”

“ I say, Witte, that we are coming. Ought not the burghers of a town like ours to erect a triumphal arch for their fellow-burghers and officers of state, who have suffered for the Fatherland, just as much as for a Duke?--But who is to do it? The old Amtshauptmann? The Burmeister? They won't be thinking of such a thing. Or do you think the old Rector, because he once made a thing of a 'transparency?' That was a fine thing!--Or old Metz? There's as much sense in his talk, baker Witte, as in a squirrel's tail.--Or old Zoch? He can blow his horn on the watch tower, nothing else.--Ah! ”

“ Run to Mamsell Westphalen, and ask her for an apple."
To my father he would say: "Well, friend, what do you think? Are not you glad that you have a son, boys are much better than girls; girls are always fretting and crying. Thank God, I have a boy too, my Joe.--What say you, eh!"
My father told my mother. "Do you know," said he, "what the old Amtshauptmann says? Boys are better than girls." Now, I was in the room at the time and overheard this, and of course I said to myself: "My godfather is always right, boys are better than girls, and every one should have his deserts." ”

“ What said old Captain von Restorp? 'Injury must be done to the enemy in every way!' Now, Miller Voss," and he pointed to the valise, "that would be an injury."
"Hold your tongue," said the Miller sharply, "the thing is settled. I'll have nothing to do with the money, I'll take it to the bailiwick,--and I wish I could take the Frenchman along with it. Fieka thinks some bad end will come of the business."
"As you please," said Friedrich, "Gee up," and he touched the horses with his whip. "Some listen to men, and some listen to women; for my part I don't hold by women's advice." ”

“ If any little Miss who reads this book should feel angry with me for beginning this chapter with a miller's man and not with a princess, she must remember that there could be no princesses at all, if there were no millers' men, and that sometimes a miller's man is of more value than a princess--for example, to me at this moment. For, if I want to catch the French chasseur, I must not send a princess, with a crinoline and satin shoes, through the Gülzow Wood in such weather and along such roads,--but a miller's man. And, best of all, the Miller's Friedrich. ”

“ Miller Voss, cursed be the shilling I steal from my neighbour, and cursed be the wheat, oats, or barley I cheat my master of; but in time of war it's quite different. The Turks and the French are the country's enemy, and the country's enemy is not better by a hair than the arch-enemy. ”

“ Otherwise, I wish for nothing but to retire to my former position of Stemhagen Rathsherr.'--'As you like,' says the King; 'but remember that whenever you may happen to come to Berlin, a place will be kept for you at my table.'--I make my bow, say 'Good day,' and go back again to Stemhagen."
"That's fine of you," said baker Witte. "But what is the good to us of all this grand military art? This time the thing has begun at the wrong end; you haven't got him, he has got you--and us into the bargain; and, if anyone is to be brought bound to the foot of the throne, it will be us. ”

“ And would not the French ask where you got the horse from? And how can you be sure that Friedrich will not tell?"
The Miller looked half taken aback and half angry, and was just going to burst out as people do when any one catches them in some stupid or dishonest act. They try to silence their conscience by bluster, as children in the dark try to keep away the ghosts by whistling and singing. But Fieka did not let the storm come; she flung her arms round her father, looked straight into his eyes, and cried--"Father! Father! Take the money to the bailiwick; give it to the Herr Amtshauptmann. ”

“ Are officials in your country appointed only to fleece people? Don't you stand by them when they are in difficulties and in the right? And is it not right for one to rid oneself of a rogue and vagabond by a few bottles of wine?"
Well, here was another hard hit for the French judge. "Rogue and vagabond" and a French chasseur were things that could in no way be coupled together, or rather should not be. The judge burst out in a torrent of invective.
The Herr Amtshauptmann remained unmoved, but went to the table and drew out of the Frenchman's valise one of the silver spoons. ”