"Oh, gentlemen!" said the woman, still calm but earnest, "surely you will wait. My husband is not yet here, nor our lawyer. I expect them both immediately." "What have we to do with either of them?" said the counsellor,[45] carelessly. "The matter is settled, and admits of no alteration." "The matter is not yet settled. The day is not yet over!" quickly replied the woman. "My good woman, I can make all allowance for your present mood, but do not cause useless delay. Let us go into the house and begin, _Herr Justizrath_." "A little patience, Mrs Oberhage," said the judge, still more blandly than before. They went into the house. The other officials followed them. The gendarmes remained outside. Meanwhile, a number of neighbours had arrived at the farm, their countenances expressing the warmest sympathy, mingled with feelings of rage and bitterness--feelings which they did not scruple to express in words, notwithstanding the presence of the gendarmes and men of law. "So it has come to earnest at last, gossip Oberhage," said an old peasant. "'Tis shame and scandal thus by main force to drive you from house and home." "Not yet, Father Hartmann!" said the woman, with great external calm. "You know we have sent in a memorial. So long as all is not lost, nothing is lost." "True enough, but don't be too sure. The world has grown very bad. Only see yonder false-hearted judge and insolent counsellor. They it is who have brought the whole misfortune upon you, and now they are not ashamed to come here and feast their eyes and ears with your lamentations." "Not with our lamentations!" said the woman, drawing herself up with a feeling of pride and courage which would have done honour to a queen. "It is God's truth," she continued, after a momentary pause, "that these two men have done their utmost to drive us from the farm, on which I and my husband, and my forefathers, have dwelt for now more than two hundred years." "Ay, ay," said the old peasant, "the little judge was heard to say, as much as ten years ago, that there were records in the office which would be your ruin if brought to light." "He said as much to my husband, that he might buy the papers of him. And when my husband would not, he came and tried it with me." "And when you sent him about his business, he went and plotted with the counsellor, who had then just arrived here from the capital, with an appointment to the chamber. That is a bad fellow, neighbour Oberhage. He has feeling for no man, nor for anything but fisc and taxes, impost and extortion. There is not a farm in the district on which he has not found means to lay new burthens. Day and night he rummages old records and registers, to find out new rights for the exchequer, and new means of oppressing the peasantry. And so he brought forward the old papers, by which he makes out that your farm is the property of the sovereign. The fat judge put him up to it."