“Because I would like to do something towards healing up your wound; I mean the wound in there.” Holt stood motionless before the stranger and looked at him. “I thank you, sir; there is no remedy for me; I am doomed!” “Still, I will assist you. Follow me.” “Who are you, sir, if I may ask the question?” “I am a man whom Providence seems to have chosen to rescue the prey from the jaws of a usurer. Come along with us, and fear nothing.” “Very well, I will go in the name of God! I do not precisely know your object, and you are a stranger to me. But your countenance looks innocent and kind, therefore I will go with you.” They passed through alleys and streets. “Do you often visit that tavern?” inquired Seraphin. “Not six times in a year,” answered Holt. “Sometimes of a Sunday I drink half a glass of wine, that’s all. I am poor, and have to be saving. I would not have gone to the tavern to‐day but that I wanted to get rid of my feelings of misery.” “I overheard your story,” rejoined Seraphin. “Shund’s treatment of you was inhuman. He behaved towards you like a trickish devil.” “That he did! And I am ruined together with my family,” replied the poor man dejectedly. “Take my advice, and never abuse Shund. You know how respectable he has suddenly got to be, how many influential friends he has. You can easily perceive that one cannot say anything unfavorable of such a man without great risk, no matter were it true ten times over.” “I am not given to disputing,” replied Holt. “But it stirred the bile within me to hear him extolled, and it broke out. Oh! I have learned to suffer in silence. I haven’t time to think of other matters. After God, my business and my family were my only care. I attended to my occupation faithfully and quietly as long as I had any to attend to, but now I haven’t any to take care of. O God! it is hard. It will bring me to the grave.” “You are a land cultivator?” “Yes, sir.” “Shund intends to have you sold out?” “Yes; immediately after the election he intends to complete my ruin.” “How much money would you need in order with industry to get along?” “A great deal of money, a great deal—at least a thousand florins. I have given him a mortgage for a thousand florins on my house and what was left to me. A thousand florins would suffice to help me out of trouble. I might save my little cottage, my two cows, and a field. I might then plough and sow for other people. I could get along and subsist honestly. But as I told you, nothing less than a thousand florins would do; and where am I to get so much money? You see there is no hope for me, no help for me. I am doomed!” “The mortgaged property is considerable,” said Gerlach. “A house, even though a small one, moreover, a field, a barn, a garden, all these together are surely worth a much higher price. Could you not borrow a thousand florins on it and pay off the usurer?”