In the Year '13: A Tale of Mecklenburg LifeReuter, Fritz
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In the Year '13: A Tale of Mecklenburg Life
Reuter, Fritz
Mecklenburg (Germany : Region) -- Fiction
But in two hearts care found no place; love had entered into them with
its princely company of Secret Wishes and Hope and Trust; and the
Secret Wishes flew through the whole household of the heart and into
all its recesses, like active bridesmaids,--pushed aside all that stood
in the way, and wiped the dust from table and chair, and cleaned the
windows, so that one could see far out into the beautiful country
called Life; and they spread the table in the bright room, and made the
bed in the quiet room, and hung fresh garlands of flowers and
evergreens over windows and door, and beautiful pictures on the walls.
And Hope lit her thousand wax-lights, and then sat down quietly in a
corner as if it had not been at all she who had done this, but her
step-sister, Reality. And Trust stood at the door and let no one in who
had not on a wedding-garment; and she said to Care, when she asked
after Fieka: "Begone, the old Miller will dance at her wedding;" and to
Doubt, when she asked after Heinrich: "Go thy way, it is all right."
CHAPTER XVI.
Why I send the Miller's Friedrich and not a princess through the
Gülzow Wood; why Friedrich called the Bailiff Besserdich,
"Father-in-law;" how he "decoyed the dog from behind the
stove;" and how Luth, the messenger, could not help laughing at
his own Burmeister.
If any little Miss who reads this book should feel angry with me for
beginning this chapter with a miller's man and not with a princess, she
must remember that there could be no princesses at all, if there were
no millers' men, and that sometimes a miller's man is of more value
than a princess--for example, to me at this moment. For, if I want to
catch the French chasseur, I must not send a princess, with a crinoline
and satin shoes, through the Gülzow Wood in such weather and along such
roads,--but a miller's man. And, best of all, the Miller's Friedrich.
"Dumouriez!" said Friedrich, as he followed the chasseur's track, "if
the Frenchman is to be found between here and Gripswold, I'll have
him."
Friedrich traced the chasseur through the Stemhagen Wood, and through
the Gülzow Wood, and at last reached the Gülzow road; but there he came
to a standstill--an owl would have been puzzled; there was nothing to
serve as a guide. Had the fellow turned to the right or to the left?
For a while Friedrich stood there--like Matz Fots of Dresden; but soon
a bright thought flashed across him, and he said to himself,--"If the
rascal has taken the road to Stemhagen, it must have been through sheer
stupidity. No, the fellow has gone towards Gülzow." And he went that
way accordingly.
At Gülzow, Freier, an old peasant, was standing by his hedge, throwing
stones, as big round as the brim of your hat, into the holes in the
road. In some places in Mecklenburg this is what they call "mending the
roads."
"Good morning, Freier; have you seen a Frenchman pass by here this
morning?" said Friedrich.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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