"Miller Voss," said my uncle, "I will help you out of the bog. I will send for Itzig to-morrow--and then observe how servile he will be, for I know something about him,--a secret!--that does not concern anybody else;--but it's nothing very good you may be sure.--The fellow shall give you time till Easter, and I will be surety for you; and I'll come out to-morrow, and look through all your papers and take the matter into my own hands. For, look here," and as he spoke he drew out the seal at the end of his watch-chain, "I am appointed to do such things. Here it stands. Perhaps you can't easily read Latin backwards?" The Miller said he could not read it either backwards or forwards.--"Well, it does not matter. Here it stands: _Not. Pub. Im. Cæs_., that's to say, I'm Notarius Publicus, and _Im. Cæs_. means--I can be consulted in every lawsuit. So, Miller, I'll help you.--But upon one condition only: that you tell no one of my being surety for you, or of our agreement,--above all not the Herr Amtshauptmann. The affair must remain a profound secret." The Miller promised. In one way things were going on in the second waggon in the same manner as in the first. On the front sack the voices were very loud, and on the hind sack, on which Heinrich and Fieka were sitting, they were very low. I need not tell what they were saying to each other, for Friedrich, you know, was lying close behind them in the straw, and heard every word they said, and he will come out with it in good time. About three hours after this, that young rascal Fritz Sahlmann was running through the streets of the good town of Stemhagen, shouting--"They are coming! They are coming!"--He had been watching for a couple of hours on the Windmill-hill, and, during that time, the Herr Amtshauptmann had rung his bell seven times for him, and had, at last, come down to my mother out of sheer vexation. "They are coming!" cried the young wretch. "Is it true, boy?" asked old Rickert the bell-ringer. "Yes, neighbour Rickert, they are just at the bridge." And old Rickert said to himself: "It can't be helped: I must do my duty;" went to the bell-tower, and as he could not manage the whole peal, rang the alarm bell. At that sound all were on foot, and at their house-doors. "They are coming!"--"Who is coming?"--"The Rathsherr, and baker Witte, and the Miller, and all the others." "Hurrah!" shouted Shoemaker Bank waving his arm in the air,--forgetting he had got a boot on it. "Hurrah!" cried Locksmith Tröpner, rushing into the street with his leathern apron on. "But let us have everything quiet and orderly, good people"--and he knocked the jug out of Frau Stahl's hand, which she was carrying down from the Schloss. "Hurrah!" cried Herr Droi, running out into the street with his bearskin on, but otherwise in plain clothes; and behind him trooped his little French children and shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" as the Rathsherr passed through the crowd in the first waggon.