For such a speech Heinrich was not at all prepared after what had already passed. The blood mounted into _his_ face also, and he said sharply, that the Miller must say "yes" or "no," would he give him his daughter or not. The Miller turned round abruptly and looked out of window, and said "No." Heinrich also turned round, and went out of the room, and half an hour afterwards Friedrich drove into the yard with Heinrich's waggon; and, at his call, Heinrich and Fieka came out of the garden. Fieka looked very pale but also quite firm, and said: "Heinrich, what I have said I will keep to, and you too will keep to it."--He nodded his head, and pressed her hand, stepped up to the Miller's wife who was standing at the door, said a few parting words to her, got into the waggon, and drove slowly away. When he was some little distance from the Mill, he heard some one calling after him, and on turning round to look, he saw Friedrich coming towards him across the corner of a rye-field: "Where are you driving to, Heinrich?" "To Stemhagen." "Shall you stop the night there?" "Yes, I thought I would stay for the night at Baker Witte's, for I have something to speak to the Herr Amtshauptmann about." "I must say, that's a good idea of yours, Heinrich, and I have something to do at the Schloss this evening too; and, maybe, I shall have something to say to you, so don't drive off from Witte's till I come. I shall not be there till late, however, when everything is quiet here." Heinrich promised he would wait for him, and drove on again towards Stemhagen. On the road he met Baker Witte who was driving with corn to the Mill and said:--"Well, Heinrich, put up at my house, I shall be at home again by evening, and then we can have a bit of a chat together." Evening had long since set in, and the baker had been some time at home, but Heinrich was still up at the Schloss with the old Herr. Friedrich, too, had arrived and had gone up to the Schloss, and old Witte said to Strüwingken, "Something has happened at the Mill, you'll see. I don't think much of the Miller's wife sitting crying, for her tears run easily, but I don't at all like to see Fieka going about so quiet and saying nothing to all the fooleries and scoldings of the old Miller; and he has got one of those queer fits upon him this morning which you can make nothing of. When I asked him how soon I should come for the flour, he said he must first look at his lease; and when I said I wanted it next week, he said it was all the same to him, he should act according to his lease; and when I was driving away, he called out after me that, if anything strange should happen to the flour, I was only to go to Rathsherr Herse, and he would explain the matter to me,--that is if he thought proper." "Why he must be mad," said Strüwingken.