Black Forest Village Stories. Auerbach Berthold
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thinking of the chambers hung in black, and the skull and bones with which her imagination garnished the thought of courts and judges. If her playmate Agatha, the tailor's daughter, had not come to sleep with her, she would have died of fear. At the first dawn of morning she went to the press and took out her Sunday gear. Agatha had to dress her, for she trembled so much that she could not tie a string. She looked at herself sadly in her broken glass. It seemed as if she were forced to go to a funeral in holiday garb.
Michael the wagoner accompanied his daughter, for it would not do to let the child go alone. In the court-house he took off his hat, stroked his short hair, and drew his face into an expression of smiling humility as he stood, scraping the floor with his feet, before the unopened door. He rested his hawthorn stick against the wall, took off his three-cornered hat, pressed it to his breast with his left hand, bent his head humbly, and knocked at the door. It opened. "What do you want?" inquired a gruff voice.
"I am Michael the wagoner, and this is my daughter Eva, and she is very much afraid; so I thought I would ask whether I might come in to court with her."
"No," was the rude answer; and the door was slammed in his face so heavily that he staggered some steps backward. He had no opportunity of advancing his other argument, – that in strictness he ought to appear before court and not Eva, as the house before which the May-pole was belonged to him.
With both hands folded upon his hawthorn stick, and his chin resting upon his hands, Michael the wagoner sat beside his daughter in the entry, and looked at the stone floor, which seemed almost as void of sympathy as the face of the official. "If Buchmaier was at home," he muttered, "they would strike up another tune." Eva could not speak a word: she only coughed once or twice into her neatly-ironed handkerchief.
Summoned at last, she rose quickly. Neither spoke, but, after a mute, parting look, Eva disappeared behind the door. At the door she stood still: the judge was not there, but the clerk sat playing with his pen, while the two "assessors" whispered softly to each other. Eva shook and trembled in every limb: the silence lasted ten minutes, which, to the poor girl, seemed half an eternity. At last the clink of spurs announced the judge's arrival. Eva seemed to find favor in his eyes, for he tucked her chin, stroked her burning cheeks, and said, "Sit down." Eva obeyed, just seating herself on the very edge of the stool. After going through the customary catechism of name, station, age, and so on, the judge asked, -
"Well, who put up your May-polo?"
"How can I know, your honor?"
"Didn't you drop the rope out of the dormer-window to tie it with?"
"No, your honor."
"And don't you know who is your sweetheart?"
Eva began to weep aloud. It was dreadful to deny; and yet she could not confess it. In America such a question would have had no other result than a reprimand from the bench to the counsel putting it. But so defenceless is the condition of parties and witnesses where justice hides in corners, that the judge even went further, and said, -
"It's no use to deny it: Mat is your sweetheart, and you're going to get married very soon."
Eva remembered that four weeks later they intended to ask that same court for permission to get married, – an indispensable formula under the code of that happy country. If she denied it now, she thought they would refuse to give her the "papers" and the "acceptance," and, besides, it was against her conscience to say "No." Her heart beat quickly; a certain feeling of pride arose within her; a consciousness of superiority to all the ills that flesh is heir to pervaded her being: she forgot the papers and the judge, and only thought of Mat. The last tear dropped from her lids; her eyes brightened; she arose quickly, looked around as if in triumph, and said, "Yes: I'll never have any one but him."
"So Mat put up your May-pole?"
"It may be, but of course I couldn't be by, and that night I was-" Here the tears choked her utterance again. It was well for the poor girl that she held her hands before her eyes, and could not see the smiles of the men of justice.
"Confess, now, he put up your May-pole, and nobody else."
"How can I know?"
By all sorts of cross-questions, and the oily assurance that the punishment would be but slight, the judge at last wormed the confession from her. The minutes were now read to her in fine book-German and in connected periods: of her tears and sufferings not a word was written. Eva was astonished to find that she had said so much and such fine things; but she signed the minutes unhesitatingly, only too glad to get away at any price. As the door closed behind her and the latch fell into the socket, she stood still, with folded hands, as if chained to the ground; a heavy sigh escaped her, and she almost feared the earth would open under her feet, for she now reflected, for the first time, how much harm she might have done to her beloved. Clinging to the balusters, she came slowly down the stone steps, and looked for her father, who was keeping up his spirits with a stoup of wine at the Lamb Tavern: she took her seat by his side, but said nothing, nor brought a drop to her lips.
Mat was now called up again, and Eva's confession read to him. He stamped his foot and gnashed his teeth. These gestures were immediately recorded as the basis of a confession, and, after sufficient baiting, Mat found himself completely caught: like game in a net, his desperate efforts to disengage himself only entangled him still further.
Being asked where he had got the tree, Mat first said that he had taken it out of the Dettensee wood, – which was in the duchy of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and therefore under another sovereignty and jurisdiction. But, when another investigation and a report to the court at Haigerloch was talked of, he at last confessed that he had taken it out of his own wood, – "by the Pond," – and that it was a tree which would have been marked for felling in two or three days by the forester.
In consideration of these extenuating circumstances, Mat was fined ten rix-dollars for having taken a tree out of his own wood before it was marked.
Up at the stile where Mat had torn off a sprig the day before, he met Eva and her father, who were coming up the hill-slope. He would have passed on without a greeting; but Eva ran up to him and cried, huskily, "Don't sulk, Mat: I'll give you my cross and my garnets if they make you pay a fine. Thank the Lord, you're not locked up any more."
After some altercation, Mat gave in: hand in hand with Eva he walked through the village, and received kind congratulations from all he met.
This is the story of the May-pole before Michael the wagoner's house: on the wedding-day it was decked with red ribbons. The heavens and the earth seemed to like it better than the good government or the vigilant police, for it unaccountably took root and sent forth new branches. To this day it graces the house of the happy couple as a living emblem of their constant love.
2
This story is connected with another, of more general interest. The prevalence at this time of the wicked custom of putting up May-poles, as well as other offences against the peace and dignity of the forests, induced the judge to issue an ordinance which had long hovered at the nib of his pen. From immemorial times it has been the custom of the peasantry of the Black Forest to carry a little axe in their left hand whenever they go abroad. Only the "men" – that is, the married men-do so; and it is a badge which distinguishes them from the "boys," or unmarried young fellows. It is said to be a remnant of the ancient time when every one bore arms.
On Whitsunday the following ordinance was found on the blackboard nailed in front of the town-house of every village in the presidency: -
"It having been found that many offences against the forest are occasioned by the improper practice of carrying axes, the public are hereby notified, -
"That from this day forth every person found upon the road or in the woods with an axe shall be held to give the gamekeeper or ranger accurate information of the purpose for which he has the axe with him; and, if he fails to do so, he shall be punished by a fine of one rix-dollar: upon a repetition of the offence he shall be fined three rix-dollars: and, upon a further repetition, with imprisonment for not less than one and not more than four weeks.
A crowd of farmers flocked