care," cried Bräsig.--"That's just what I say, Sir; but--don't be angry with me--I don't believe that they'll take him there even, for you see he has money to buy himself off, though indeed there are his papers against him. If the king sees from his papers that he has to wear an iron ring round his neck, and that that's the reason he wears such a large handkerchief round his throat, he won't let him buy himself off."--"Ah, then you see you'll have to keep him," said Bräsig.--"Yes, of course that'll be the way of it; we'd have to keep him because he'd be given into our charge. Tche!" he said to the horse and then they drove on at a slow trot through the village of Gürlitz, Bräsig thinking deeply.--What a strange world it is! he thought. A fellow who is well known to be a rascal has the power to take the good name from an honourable man, and the world believes the evil speaking of the bad man, while it turns a deaf ear to the asseverations of him whom he calumniated. Bräsig believed, from what he had heard of the stories Gustavus had been telling that Pomuchelskopp was doing his utmost to spread evil reports of Hawermann.--"It's scand'lous," he said to himself as he got out of the carriage at Mrs. Behrens' door in Rahnstädt, "but wait Samuel! I've got the better of you once in preventing you having the glebe, and I'll get the better of you again. But first of all I'll have the law of you for likening me to a 'crow'." CHAPTER II. New year's day 1846 had come with all its pleasures. The Rahnstädt people congratulated themselves on the cold weather outside, and on their warm rooms. There was a great deal of sledging in the morning, and many salt herrings were eaten because of Sylvester, Eve. Amongst the young people there was much talking of this and that thing they had noticed at the ball on the previous evening, and the fathers and mothers talked, not of what had happened at the ball, but of what was going on in the world. The story of the quarrel between Hawermann and Mr. von Rambow was one of the chief subjects of conversation at all the dinner tables in the town. As every house has its own style of cookery, every house spices its gossip to suit its own palate, and Slus'uhr and David added the one pepper and the other garlic to make the Pümpelhagen dish of scandal more appetising. So it came to pass that in Rahnstädt and its neighbourhood the story was now so highly seasoned that it satisfied all who partook of it, more especially as each individual had thrown into it some of his favourite spice. It was said that Hawermann had been cheating the young squire and his late father for years, and had amassed such a large fortune that he had impoverished Mr. von Rambow; that he had got possession of half of the money stolen by the labourer Regel, for which reason he had assisted the thief to escape, and had at the same time provided the man with an estate pass to help him on his way.