Black Forest Village Stories. Auerbach Berthold
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and see if that wouldn't make it straight.
He kept his word; for when his daughter married Zahn he filled a peck-measure with as many dollars as would go into it, stroked it as if it had been wheat, and said, "There! what's in it is yours." To keep up the joke, his daughter was told to set her foot upon it, and the peck of silver flourished on the wedding-table as one of the dishes.
With this money Zahn bought the manorial estate of the counts of Schleitheim, and built the fine house from which he took his nickname. Of nine children born to him, five lived, – three sons and two daughters. The youngest child was Vefela. She was so pretty and of such delicate frame that they used to call her, half in scorn and half in earnest, "the lady." Partly from pity and partly from malice, every one said in speaking of her that she was "marked," for she had inherited the short leg of her mother. This expression has an evil meaning: it is applied to humpbacks, to one-eyed and lame persons, as if to insinuate that God had marked them as dangerous and evil-disposed. Being too frequently treated with scorn and suspicion, these unfortunates are often bitter, crabbed, and deceitful: the prejudice against them provokes the very consequences afterward alleged in proof of its truth.
It was not that Vefela did harm to any one: she was kind and gentle to all. But the hatred felt by all the village against the manor-house farmer was transferred to his children.
For eighteen years the manor-house farmer carried on a lawsuit with the village commune. He claimed the seignorial rights of the estate. He had fifty votes in the election of the squire; and he drew the smoking-tithe, the chicken-tithe, the road-tithe, and a hundred other perquisites, which the farmers never paid without the greatest chagrin, grumbling, and quarrelling. Such is human nature! A count or a baron would have received all these taxes without much difficulty; but the farmer had to swallow a curse with every grain which was yielded by his fellows. For want of a better revenge, they mowed down the manor-house farmer's rye-fields at night while the corn was yet green. But this only made matters worse, for the manor-house farmer recovered his damages from the commune; and he employed a gamekeeper of his own, half of whose salary the villagers were bound to pay. So there was no end to petty disagreements.
A new lawyer having settled in the little town of Sulz, a lawsuit began between the manor-house farmer and the commune, in which paper enough was used up to cover acres of ground. Like a great portion of the Black Forest, the village then belonged to Austria. The "Landoogt" sat at Rottemburg, the court of appeals at Friburg in the Breisgau: an important case could be carried still further. In the complicated state of the higher tribunals, it was easy to keep a suit in a proper state of confusion to the day of judgment.
The quarrel between the manor-house farmer and the villagers grew in time into a standing feud between Baisingen and Nordstetten. When they met at markets or in towns, the Baisingers called the Nordstetters their subjects or copyholders, because a Baisingen man ruled over them. The Nordstetters, who went by the nickname of Peaky-mouths, never failed to retort. One sally provoked another: the badinage remained friendly for a time, but grew more and more bitter, and, before any one expected it, there was a declared state of war, and cudgellings were heard of on all sides. The first occurred at the Ergenzingen fair; and after that the two parties rarely met without a skirmish. They would travel for hours to a dance or a wedding, drink and dance quietly together for a while, and finally break into the real object of their visit, – the general shindy.
The manor-house farmer lived in the village as if it were a wilderness. None bade him the time of day; nobody came to see him. When he entered the inn, there was a general silence. It always seemed as if they had just been talking about him. He would lay his well-filled tobacco-pouch upon the table beside him; but the company would sooner have swallowed pebbles than asked the manor-house farmer for a pipeful of tobacco. At first he took great pains to disarm the general ill-will by kindness and courtesy, for he was a good man by nature, though a little rigid; but when he saw that his efforts were fruitless he began to despise them all, gave himself no more trouble about them, and only confirmed his determination to gain his point. He withdrew from all companionship of his own accord, hired men from Ahldorf to do his field-work, and even went to church at Horb every Sunday. He looked stately enough when on this errand. His broad shoulders and well-knit frame made him seem shorter than he really was; his three-cornered hat was set a little jauntily on the left side of his head, with the broad brim in front. The shadow thus flung on his face gave it an appearance of fierceness and austerity. The closely-ranged silver buttons on his collarless blue coat, and the round silver knobs on his red vest, jingled, as he walked, like a chime of little bells.
His wife and children-particularly the two daughters, Agatha and Vefela-suffered most under this state of things. They often sat together bewailing their lot and weeping, while their father was discussing his stoup of wine with his lawyer in town and did not return till late in the evening. They had become so much disliked that the very beggars were afraid to ask alms of them, for fear of offending their other patrons. In double secrecy, as well from their father as from their neighbors, they practised charity. Like thieves in the night, they would smuggle potatoes and flour into the garden, where the poor awaited them.
At last this was too much for Mrs. Zahn to bear: so she went to her father and told him all her troubles. Old Staufer was a quiet, careful man, who liked to be safe in whatever he did. First of all, therefore, he sent his peddler-in-ordinary and general adviser in the practical duties of his magisterial office, who was of course a Jew, and bore the name of Marem, to Nordstetten, directing him to inquire privately who were the actual ringleaders in carrying on the lawsuit, and to see whether the matter could not be settled. Marem did so, but with an eye to his private interests. He procured an acquaintance to spread the report that the manor-house farmer had succeeded in having an imperial commission appointed to come to Nordstetten and remain there until the matter was finally adjudicated, at the expense of the losing party. Then he went himself to the leading spirits, and told them that for a certain compensation he would bring about a compromise, though it would be no easy matter. Thus he secured a perquisite from both parties. But what is the use of all this fine manœuvring, when you have men to deal with who act like bears and spoil the most exact calculations with their savage ferocity?
Old Staufer now came to Nordstetten, and Marem with him. They went to the inn, accompanied by the manor-house farmer, "to meet the spokesmen of the village.
"Good-morning, squire," said the assembled guests to the three men as they entered, acting as if no one but old Staufer himself had come. The latter started at this, but called for two bottles of wine, filled his glass, and drank the health of the company, jingling his glass against the glasses of the others. But Ludwig the locksmith replied, "Thank you, but we can't drink. No offence, squire, but we never drink till after the bargain is made. What the rich gentlemen-farmers of Baisingen do is more than we can say."
The squire took his glass from his lips and sighed deeply. He then went to business with much calmness; dwelt upon the folly of throwing away one's dearly-bought earnings to "those blood-suckers," the lawyers, reminded the company that every lawsuit eat out of one's dish and skimmed the marrow-fat from one's soup, and concluded by saying that a little allowance here and a little allowance there would bring about a peace.
Each party now proposed a composition; but the two propositions were far apart. Marem did all he could to bring them nearer to each other. He took aside first the one and then the other, to whisper something into their ears. At length he took upon himself, in the teeth of objections made on both sides, to fix a sum. He pulled them all by the sleeves and coat-tails, and even tried to force their hands into each other.
After much wrangling, the manor-house farmer said, "Sooner than take such a beggar's bit as that, I'll make you a present of the whole, you starvelings!"
"Why, who spoke to you," said Ludwig the locksmith, "you straw-boots?"
"You'll never walk on straw as long as you live," replied the manor-house farmer. "I'll find such beds for you that you won't have straw enough under your heads to sleep on. And if I should be ruined, and my wife and child too, and not have a span of ground left, I'll not let you off another farthing. I'll have my rights, if I must go to the emperor himself. Mark my words." He gnashed his teeth as he rose, and all hope of a compromise was gone. At last he even quarrelled with his father-in-law, and went out, banging the door after him.
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