When they arrived at Gürlitz and told their accomplice how Mrs. von Rambow had received them, Pomuchelskopp got into a great state of mind: "Bless me! How _could_ you!" he said to David. "Whoever heard of anyone coming plump out with a thing like that? You ought to have told her the truth in such a round about way that she'd have been made wretched and anxious, instead of telling her everything plainly at once. Hang it! I'd got the affair into such good train, and now you'll see that she'll make him as obstinate as herself, and so the estate won't be sold till the term when Moses' money is due."--"And then of course you'll buy it," said Slus'uhr.--"No, no, it'll cost too much then, and yet it lies into my place so nicely!"--The worthy gentleman having made his moan, now proceeded to hold council with the two others, and they gave him very good advice as to how he should act so as to make sure of winning the game. There was another meeting of council on the Gürlitz estate, and this time it was in the house of Rührdanz, the weaver. That morning a number of labourers and labourers' wives assembled in Rührdanz's kitchen where they talked neither passionately nor foolhardily, but thoughtfully and with deliberation, but at the same time with dangerous determination.--"What do you say, brother?" asked one.--"Nay, what can be said, but that he must go, he's a monster in human form. Well, Rührdanz, and you?"--"You're right, I quite agree with you. But, lads, you'll see that they'll bring him back to us. If we could only get papers from the government forbidding his return ...."--"Bother you and your stupid papers," cried a tall masculine looking woman who was sitting near the stove. "When you come home from Rahnstädt in the evening with your heads full of brandy, you think you'll get everything your own way, but very soon your courage melts away like the starch out of a bit of linen when you put it in the wash tub. What, I've got to send my little girls through the country side begging for food! I can tell you this, I've had no bread in the house for the last three days that hasn't been given the children out of charity."--"Things have grown a little better lately," remarked old father Brinkmann.--"Yes," answered Willgans, "but from fear, not from good will. Let's go up to the house each armed with a stout cudgel, and teach him the will of God in this matter, then let's lead him quietly over to the other side of the Gürlitz boundary, go a good bit along the road with him, and then tell him to be off."--"What?" cried Mrs. Kapphingst, "do you intend to let off that demon of a woman, his wife, who nearly beat my daughter to death because of the chicken that the hawk carried off?"--"And the two eldest daughters," said a young woman, "who plagued us out of our lives when we worked at the manor house; those girls looked like angels of mercy when they were in the parlour talking to their guests, but