He might have kept silence, now, and it would have been quite as well; but she had touched unwittingly upon his favorite province, that of agriculture, and he must needs show her that he knew something of it, so he added: "But that must all be altered. We are lacking in intelligence, we don't know how to make the most of our soil. See! yonder there, over the hill, where the wheat is growing, that belongs to Pumpelhagen, wait a couple of years, and we will have all sorts of commercial products growing here, and bringing us three times the profit." And he began to harvest his hemp and hops and oil-seeds, and anise and cummin, and sprinkled among them, like an intelligent farmer, lucerne and esparcet also, "to keep his cattle in good condition," and while he was among the dyer's weeds, and selling his red madder, and blue woad, and yellow weld for a good price, and well in the saddle on his high horse, up shot a living example of all these bright colors, close by the turn, on this side of Gurlitz, who was also on a high horse, that is the gray pony. This was Fritz Triddelsitz, who went up like a complete rainbow, and disappeared like a shooting star. "What was that?" cried Frida, and Axel called "Hallo! hallo!" But Fritz never looked round, he must carry tidings to the gate-of-honor, and he had barely time, as he galloped through Gurlitz, to call out to Pomuchelskopp, who stood in his door, "They are coming! They will be in Gurlitz in five minutes!" and Pomuchelskopp called over the garden fence, toward the arbor: "Come, Malchen and Salchen! It is time now!" And Malchen and Salchen threw down the landscape paintings they were embroidering, among the nettles by the arbor, and tied on their straw hats, and fastened themselves one on each side, to Father Pomuchelskopp's elbows, and Father Pomuchelskopp said, "Now don't look round, for pity's sake, for it must appear as if we had just gone out walking, for all I care, to see the beauties of nature." But misfortune was impending. As Muchel and his young ladies stepped out of the door, and Axel rode slowly through the village, while his young wife asked him "who was that lovely girl, who just greeted us?" and he replied that it was Louise Habermann, his inspector's daughter, and the house where she stood was the parsonage, the devil of housekeeping possessed old Häuning to come out, in her white kerchief and old black merino sacque,--for it still held together, and was plenty good enough,--to feed the little turkeys with malt grains. When she saw Pomuchelskopp walking off with his two daughters, she thought it a great piece of impertinence for her Muchel to go off without her; she wiped her hands on the old black merino, and hastened after, black and white, stiff and straight, as if one of the old, mouldering tombstones, in the church-yard near by, had taken a fancy to go walking for pleasure. "Muchel!" she called after her husband.