The two gentlemen were soon busily engaged talking of farming matters, such as horse-breeding, and the price of corn. The afternoon would have passed innocently and peacefully, if Daniel Sadenwater had not brought in the post-bag. Alick opened it, and found a letter for Hawermann. He would at once have given it to Daniel, but he saw his own crest on the envelope, and on looking more closely, he discovered that it was addressed in his cousin's hand-writing. "Is that confounded plot still going on behind my back?" he exclaimed, as he threw the letter to Daniel, almost hitting him in the face with it: "Take that to the bailiff."--Daniel went away looking rather dazed, and Pomuchelskopp asked Alick sympathisingly what had put him out.--"Isn't it enough to make any one angry to see how that idiotic cousin of mine has allowed himself to be caught in the toils laid for him by that old rascal and his daughter, and how obstinate he is in carrying on that foolish love-affair?"--"Oh," said Muchel, "I thought that was over long ago. I was told that your cousin had broken off all connection with these people as soon as he heard what every one was saying about them."--"What is it?" asked Alick.--"Oh, what is said about your bailiff and the labourer, Kegel--isn't that the man's name--and the three hundred pounds."--"Tell me, what do people say?"--"You know. I think that was why you gave the old fellow the sack."--"I don't understand. Tell me what you mean."--"Everyone knows it. It is said that Hawermann and the labourer had made a compact together. That Hawermann let the labourer escape, and that he got half of the money for doing so. That he gave him an estate-pass, which enabled him to get an engagement as ordinary seaman at Wismar."--Alick paced the room with long strides: "It isn't possible! He can't have deceived me so shamefully!"--"Ah, people even go so far as to say that he and the labourer had arranged about the theft from the very first, but I don't believe that."--"Why not? What was the old sinner talking secretly to the woman for? What made him take such a prominent part then, when he is generally so very retiring."--"If there had been anything in that," said Pomuchelskopp, "the mayor of Rahnstädt would surely have noticed it"--"The mayor! I have very little confidence in his judgment. They make out now that the wife of a poor weaver was the thief who stole the money from the labourer on the public road. And why? Because she tried to get change for a Danish double Louis d'or which she had found. She declared that she had found it, nothing would make her change her story, and so the wise mayor of Rahnstädt had to set her free."--"Yes," answered Muchel, "and the man who saw the Louis d'or was Kurz, the shopkeeper, and he is a relation of Hawermann's I think."--"I'd give another hundred pounds with pleasure," cried Alick, "if I could only get to the bottom of this villany."--"It would be difficult