"Thank you kindly, Frau Pastorin. There is reason in all things. One must be angry sometimes, to be sure; but better after dinner than before. I had better go and work in the marl-pit; but Christian would do well not to come back today with his full cart to the marl-pit. So good-bye, once more." And with that he went off. CHAPTER VI. Habermann heard nothing of this occurrence. His child said nothing to him about it, only treated him with increased tenderness and reverence, if that were possible, as if with her greater love to make up to him the wrong which had been done him. Frau Nüssler, who had heard the whole story from her little girls, could not find it in her heart to say a word to her brother which could grieve him, or make him suspicious of others. The Pastor and his wife had the same reason for silence, and also the wish that the whole matter should be forgotten by Louise. Jochen Nüssler said nothing of consequence, and Bräsig also held his peace, that is toward Habermann. It happened, however, through his feeling of injury at this self-restraint, and the attack of gout,--which came as he said it would the next day,--that he excited the whole neighborhood against Pomuchelskopp; and as the latter made no special efforts towards friendship and sociability, it was not long before his intercourse with his neighbors was like my wife's kitchen floor at Pentecost, so naked and bare was he left in this respect. Pomuchelskopp looked upon social intercourse as a garden merely, in which he could plant his pride-beans; whether the garden gave him shade, or produced flowers, was of little importance to him provided that he had room for himself and what belonged to him to spread and grow. He had come into Mecklenburg, in the first place, because he could buy Gurlitz at a good bargain; but, secondly because he had a vague idea of his future prospects as a landlord. "Häuhning," said he to his wife, "here in Pomerania, every body rules us, and the landrath says, 'It shall be so and so,' but in Mecklenburg we shall be law-givers ourselves, I among others. And I have heard it is customary there for rich burghers, who live like the nobility, to become ennobled in time. Think, Küking, how it would seem to be called 'my gracious lady von Pomuchelskopp!' but one must not throw himself away!"