XIII.

A FORTUNATE MISFORTUNE.

"Augusta now relieved me of my household cares, and I devoted my time to the business of the village. We had been married about two years, when one night, arising from carelessness in a house, the whole village fell a prey to the flames. All help was vain. The peasants stood looking on, stupified and unable to move, while people from the neighbouring villages hastened to our aid.

"Only a few buildings remained. It was a great misfortune. The government hardly helped us at all; but still I hoped that good would arise out of this evil. I wrote to the government respecting the rebuilding of the village, and represented the possibility of avoiding such misfortunes in future, by obliging each landowner to build his house in the centre of his property. This could easily be done; and it was decided that the owners should exchange their land one with another, till that of each lay compact.

"The government sent commissioners to examine the case, and my proposition met with their approbation. But these exchanges were not made without trouble; and, after all was arranged, wood for building was wanting. There was none to be had for many miles; and now every one grumbled at not having bought the baron's wood ten years ago. I let what wood remained be cut down, and sold it at a very low price. I did not require ready money, but allowed two years' credit. I advanced a certain sum upon every house; the government did the same; and I collected subscriptions from the bathing visitors for the poorest of the peasants.

"In a twelvemonth the village was rebuilt, the houses apart from each other as you see: the bakehouses were separated from the dwellings; and close to every house is a well. I had a canal dug, and turned the waters of the various brooks therein, and thereby watered the waste lands and meadows, and thus increased the pasturage. The gardens and fields were well manured and attended to; for the owners were always on the spot, and did not need going here and there to look after their labourers. All were obliged to be economical, and the village inn was but little frequented. I forbade the landlord of my hotel to let the peasants have either wine or beer. The widow of the mayor, who still kept the old alehouse, was more angry with me than ever; but I attained my end. Had she followed my advice, she might have done well in the world; for my hotel was generally so full, that many guests had to seek rooms elsewhere; and I would have assisted her, had she not continued violent in her wrath against me.

"Now, certainly, a great number of the inhabitants are in debt

to me, but still they have paid off many of their old debts to each other. Our village is now the most flourishing in the whole country. We have no more lawsuits. Many of my former pupils are now fathers and mothers, and order and neatness reign in every house. I assemble all the peasants yearly; and those who have kept their houses, stables, clothes, &c. in the greatest order, and who have been most diligent in their husbandry, and most correct in their conduct, I release from the interest of the money I lent them. The three first peasants who could pay their debt to me, I excused entirely.”

XIV.

SUNDAY IN HARD.

Augusta interrupted us just here. She was blooming as a rose, her baby lay on her arm, another little one held her hand, and the elder ones followed her. The church bells sounded through the valley; we went together to the service of God; the gentle soft singing of the congregation was uncommonly pleasing to me, and the emotion which it caused was increased by the silver-haired curé who prayed at the altar, and afterwards, with a true knowledge of mankind, preached on the relation of this life to that hereafter.

After service was over, the people collected under the limetrees. The mayor spoke kindly to all, and, standing upon a bench, read and explained some government decrees, and obviated the objections which some raised to them. He then laid his hand upon me, and said, "An old and dear friend of my youth is come to visit me; and as I wish to give him pleasure, and to show him those young people who have particularly distinguished themselves by their good conduct, I invite them to a dance and supper at my house this evening." He then read a long list of names from a sheet of paper.

A general smile appeared on the faces of the villagers as they went away. The curé, a kind, good-tempered, lively man, the schoolmaster Lebrecht, and his wife, and the physician, accompanied us to the hotel, where dinner was prepared for us. I enjoyed myself amongst these excellent people; and I can never forget this dinner, nor the concert which followed it. Twentyfour men, women, and children, sang the choruses of Haydn, Handel, and Grann, with as much taste and correctness as I had ever heard at any concert in the city. Engelbert, Augusta, and their elder boys, joined the singers. The bath-house garden was the concert-room; and no spot could have been better chosen, for the distant wall of rocks sent back a magic sound, and the evening sun shed its golden rays over all. I was touched, and my tears flowed.

"And one man has done all this!" thought I; "and this man, surrounded by a world of his own creation, stands there as humble

and unassuming as the peasants around him." I could not resist, when the concert was over, pressing him to my bosom, and exclaiming, "Thou art one of the greatest on the earth, even in thy labourer's frock!" I now accompanied the party to the bathhouse, and danced with Augusta, and afterwards with many of the Hard maidens. Augusta had been the dancing-mistress to the whole village; and the good curé walked amongst the company, like a father amongst his children. We sat down to supper as chance directed: a young peasant girl was my neighbour, and interested me more than many a city belle with her conversation.

As soon as Kruz was recovered, and my carriage repaired, I left Hard. Engelbert would not let me pay at the hotel; he said I had been living in his house; and I consented at last to be his debtor. With what feelings I left Hard, I must leave to your imagination. I can never forget the impression made upon me by my visit to that happy village.

THE STORY OF FRITZ.

FRITZ KÖRNER was the son of a tailor at Brunswick, and his father, who was tolerably well to do in the world, proposed bringing Fritz up to his own business. But when the boy was about eight years of age, Körner, whose first wife was dead, took it into his head to marry another; and from the time the second Mrs Körner was placed at the head of the establishment, poor Fritz's comfort was at an end. She hated him; and, as she soon had a son of her own, she was jealous of him. Opportunities were not wanting to show her spite, and though the father wished to protect him, he could not; so, when he saw that the child's life would be rendered miserable, and his disposition be spoilt by injustice and severity, and by the contests and dissensions of which he was the subject and the witness, he resolved to send him from home, and let him learn his trade elsewhere.

He happened to have a distant relation in the same line of business at Bremen; and to this person he committed the child, with an injunction to treat him well, and make a good tailor of him. But Fritz had no aptitude for tailorship; nor, indeed, to speak the truth, did he appear to have an aptitude for anything at least for anything that was useful, or likely to be advantageous to himself. Not that he was altogether stupid, but that, either from indolence, or from not having found his vocation, his energies never seemed awakened; and he made no progress in his business, and very little in his learning.

The man with whom he was placed at Bremen was a violent

and unreflecting person, who, without seeking to ascertain the cause of the boy's deficiencies, had recourse to the scourge; and when he found flogging did nothing towards the development of Fritz's genius, he tried starving; and that not answering any better, he pronounced him a hopeless and incorrigible little blackguard, and reduced him to the capacity of errand-boy-an office much more to Fritz's fancy, and one, indeed, with which he would have been well contented, could it have lasted; but he knew too well that this declension was only a preliminary to his final dismissal, and that, in short, the only thing his master waited for was, to find some one travelling to Brunswick, on whom he could rely to conduct him safely to his father. All he wanted, he said, was to get rid of him, and wash his hands of the responsibility.

Affairs were in this position, when one day Fritz was sent to the other end of the city to fetch some cloth, which, being immediately wanted, he was urged to bring with all possible speed. He performed half his errand without delay; but on his way back, he happened to fall in with a troop of cuirassiers, whose brilliant attire, fine horses, and martial air, not to mention the attraction of the music by which they were accompanied, were all too much for Fritz's discretion; and, forgetful of the charge he had received, and the expectant tailors at home, he fell into the rear of the soldiers, and followed them in a direction exactly opposite to the one he should have taken. But, alas! at the corner of a street, when he least thought of it, who should he run against but his master! Fritz, whose eyes and ears were wholly engrossed by the brilliant cortège before him, was not at first aware that he had run foul of his enemy, till a sharp tug at one of his ears awakened his mind to the fact; but no sooner had he raised his eyes to the face of his dreaded master, than, seized with terror, he broke away, and taking to his heels, ran blindly forward, without considering whither he was going, till he reached the quay. But here his career was impeded.

Some vessels were just putting to sea, and there was such a concourse of people, and such a barricade of carts and wagons, that the road was almost blocked up. Concluding that his master was close at his heels, and that if he slackened his pace he should inevitably be overtaken, Fritz looked about for an expedient; and saw none but to leap into the nearest vessel and conceal himself, till he thought his pursuer had passed. What he was to do afterwards remained for future consideration. In he leaped, therefore, amongst several other persons, whom, had he paused to think, he might, from the similarity of their movements, have supposed to be also eluding the pursuit of a ferocious tailor. But Fritz thought not of them, he thought only of himself; and down he dived into the first hole he saw, and concealed himself behind a barrel.

When the poor boy had lain there for about half an hour, he

heard a great hubbub over his head, which led him to believe that his master had discovered his retreat, and was insisting on his being hunted up-a suspicion in which he was confirmed by frequently distinguishing, amidst the din, a voice that ever and anon cried, "Fritz!" He therefore only lay the closer; and whenever any one approached the place of his concealment, he scarcely ventured to breathe, lest he should be discovered. Presently, however, there was a new feature in the dilemma: the vessel began to move, and Fritz to suspect that, if he stayed where he was, he should be in for a voyage. This was more than he had reckoned upon, and he was just preparing to emerge, when his courage was quelled by the sound of "Fritz! Fritz!" which appeared to issue from the mouths of half-a-dozen people at once; so he slunk back in his hole, and suffered himself to be carried to sea.

The motion of the vessel, together with the darkness which surrounded him, and his previous fatigue and agitation, presently sent him to sleep; and thus for some hours he lay, oblivious of all his troubles. But at length an inward monitor awoke him—not his conscience, but his appetite. He found himself ravenous, but how to set about satisfying his hunger he could not tell. He listened; he heard the ropes and the spars straining, the water splashing against the sides of the vessel, and a heavy foot pacing the deck over his head, but no voice calling "Fritz."

He began to hope his master had given up the search, and quitted the vessel; so, urged by his stomach, he resolved to creep out, and see if he could lay his hands on something eatable. He found it more difficult to get out of his hole than he had done to get into it; however, he contrived to reach the deck, where he discovered it was night. There was a person pacing it from end to end, another at the helm, and two or three more in different directions; but their eyes being all directed seawards, Fritz had no difficulty in eluding their observation; so he crawled on to where he saw a light glimmering from a cabin below, where he found the means of allaying his hunger, after which he threw himself into an empty berth, and fell asleep. "Fritz! Fritz!"

"Here I am, sir," cried Fritz, starting from his pillow, and jumping clean out of the berth into the middle of the floor, on hearing himself called, before he had time to recollect where

he was.

"Here I am, sir!" echoed a man who was passing the door at the moment, and popped in his head to see from whom the announcement proceeded. "And pray who are you, now you are here?"

Fritz rubbed his eyes, and stared about him with such a bewildered air, that he looked very much as if he did not know who he was himself.