Fritz stood there, hardly knowing what had happened; he had designed to win a heart, and he had got a piece of bread and butter; he attempted to say something, but his aunt gave him no time: "I know, my boy, what you would say; never mind, my child! But here,--if you will do me the favor,--here is a bottle of beer,--Habermann is back of our garden, sowing peas in the Pastor's field, take it to him, come along! and greet him from me. I know he will be glad to get some of the Stauenhagen burgomeister's beer." And with that she had him through the kitchen, and out of the back-door, and before she shut the door, she called to him, through the crack, "You will be too busy, Fritz, to visit us much at present, for seed-time is coming,--no, never mind, my boy, it is no matter,--but when you do come again, perhaps in the autumn, Louise will be seventeen then, and you mustn't talk such nonsense to her as you did to-day, she will be too sensible for such folly. So, my son, now eat your bread and butter." And she shut the door, and Fritz stood there, in one hand a great slice of bread and butter, in the other a bottle of beer! Fie! It was really infamous treatment on the part of his aunt! He was very angry, and at first had a great mind to throw the bread and butter through the kitchen-window, and send the beer-bottle after it, and he swore never to set foot in the parsonage again; but reflection is a man's best teacher, and he started at length, along the garden path, looking alternately at his bread and butter and his beer-bottle, and grumbling to himself: "The devil knows I am not hungry, and the old man is not on this side of the field. She only wanted to get rid of me. Just wait, though; you shall not succeed quite yet! I know when and where Louise goes out walking. She must be mine! Whatever opposes, she must be mine!" Then he sat down on the garden fence, and planned out his new campaign; but how angry he would have been if he had known that Louise was watching him, that very minute, from her chamber window! But he didn't know it, and as the bread and butter might have fallen into the dirt, if he had laid it down on the fence, he eat it up leisurely, and when he had finished it he said, "I laugh at my aunt, and I laugh at Marie Möller. Louise is an angel! She shall be mine! My relations do not approve of our love, it is evident. Good! Louise cannot be won without a struggle. I will--well, what shall I do?" And before he did anything else, he preferred to drink up the beer so he did that, and when he had finished it he went on, with fresh courage, across the field, and with every step he stamped into the soft-ploughed-ground the firm resolve: "She shall be mine!" and when the seed had sprung up, the old peasants in the region often stopped on their way, to look, and to say to each other: "The devil has been sowing thorns and thistles in old Inspector Habermann's peas."