As soon as Joseph had got over his labours of receiving the company, and Mr. and Mrs. Behrens had arrived and had spoken to the twins, Mrs. Nüssler took her brother aside and told him how the farm had been paying that year; Mr. Behrens entered into conversation with Mr. von Rambow; his wife talked to the little girl about their Christmas presents; Joseph seated himself in his old corner by the stove and said nothing, and Bräsig went about from one group to another, his feet and legs incased in seal-skin boots that came up as high as his waist, as though Christmas were come again and he were going to act Ruklas[10] to frighten the children.--The sun shone in at the window and gilded the steam that curled from the coffee-pot, and the thin cloud of smoke from the clergyman's pipe, reminding one of the light fleecy clouds which float upon the summer sky, but a black wintry storm-cloud rose from behind the stove, for Joseph was sitting there smoking as though for a wager.--Fortunately for those present, his wife had taken the precaution of emptying his tobacco-pouch of the twist he kept there, and of putting a very mild kind of tobacco in its place, but he had been so long accustomed to the hard work of smoking the coarse native tobacco he was in the habit of using, that he thought the same exertion was necessary with the mild foreign tobacco he had now in his pipe. Outside the house black clouds were gathering on the horizon, but no one in the cosy parlour was troubled by thoughts of a coming storm. Mrs. Nüssler's parlour-maid now came in, and telling her mistress that a carter had just brought a box from the apothecary in Rahnstädt, asked where it was to be put.--"Good heavens!" cried Mrs. Behrens, "it will be Fred's clothes. My dear pastor, you will see that my brother-in-law has been so foolish as to let the boy ride again, and on that wild sorrel horse too that no one else has ever ridden!"--"You needn't be anxious, Mrs. Behrens," said Hawermann with a half laugh he could not suppress, "the sorrel isn't so bad as you think."--"Oh, but Hawermann, when he was riding to Pümpelhagen before, I saw how the horse stood still and refused to move."--"Ah," said Bräsig "the mere obstinacy shown by the beast is nothing, the danger is, that when the young rascal conquers, the horse generally starts forward suddenly, and then the rider is apt to lose his balance and tumble off."--But little Mrs. Behrens was not to be comforted by what Bräsig told her, she opened the window and asked the carter whether Fred was riding, and whether the horse was wild.--"As quiet as a lamb," was the answer, "and if he lets the horse alone, it'll let him alone. He isn't far off now."--That was a pleasant piece of news, and Mrs. Behrens seated herself on the sofa again with a sigh of relief, saying: "Ah me, I always tremble for my sister's sake when I see that boy. He's continually getting into some stupid scrape or other."--"You may depend upon that," said Bräsig.