Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850», sayfa 16
THE DISASTERS OF A MAN WHO WOULDN’T TRUST HIS WIFE
A TALE OF A TAILOR
BY WM. HOWITT
There are a multitude of places in this wide world, that we never heard of since the day of creation, and that never would become known to a soul beyond their own ten miles of circumference, except to those universal discoverers, the tax-gatherers, were it not that some sparks of genius may suddenly kindle there, and carry their fame through all countries and all generations. This has been the case many times, and will be the case again. We are now destined to hear the sound of names that our fathers never dreamed of; and there are other spots, now basking in God’s blessed sunshine, of which the world knows and cares nothing, that shall, to our children, become places of worship, and pilgrimage. Something of this sort of glory was cast upon the little town of Rapps, in Bohemia, by the hero whose name stands conspicuously in this article, and whose pleasant adventures I flatter myself that I am destined to diffuse still further. HANS NADELTREIBER was the son of Mr. Strauss Nadeltreiber, who had, as well as his ancestors before him, for six generations, practiced, in the same little place, that most gentlemanly of all professions, a tailor – seeing that it was before all others, and was used and sanctioned by our father Adam.
Now Hans, from boyhood up, was a remarkable person. His father had known his share of troubles, and having two sons, both older than Hans, naturally looked in his old age to reap some comfort and assistance from their united labors. But the two elder sons successively had fled from the shop-board. One had gone for a soldier, and was shot; the other had learned the craft of a weaver, but being too fond of his pot, had broken his neck by falling into a quarry, as he went home one night from a carousal. Hans was left the sole staff for the old man to lean upon; and truly a worthy son he proved himself. He was as gentle as a dove, and as tender as a lamb. A cross word from his father, when he had made a cross stitch, would almost break his heart; but half a word of kindness revived him again – and he seldom went long without it; for the old man, though rendered rather testy and crabbed in his temper, by his many troubles and disappointments, was naturally of a loving, compassionate disposition, and, moreover, regarded Hans as the apple of his eye.
Hans was of a remarkably light, slender, active make, full of life and mettle. This moment he was on the board, stitching away with as much velocity as if he were working for a funeral or a wedding, at an hour’s notice; the next, he was dispatching his dinner at the same rate; and the third beheld him running, leaping, and playing, among his companions, as blithe as a young kid. If he had a fault, it was being too fond of his fiddle. This was his everlasting delight. One would have thought that his elbow had labor enough, with jerking his needle some thirty thousand times a day; but it was in him a sort of universal joint – it never seemed to know what weariness was. His fiddle stood always on the board in a corner by him, and no sooner had he ceased to brandish his needle, than he began to brandish his fiddlestick. If ever he could be said to be lazy, it was when his father was gone out to measure, or try on; and his fiddle being too strong a temptation for him, he would seize upon it, and labor at it with all his might, till he spied his father turning his next corner homeward. Nevertheless, with this trifling exception, he was a pattern of filial duty; and now the time was come that his father must die – his mother was dead long before; and he was left alone in the world with his riddle. The whole house, board, trade – what there was of it – all was his. When he came to take stock, and make an inventory – in his head – of what he was worth, it was by no means such as to endanger his entrance into heaven at the proper time. Naturally enough, he thought of the Scripture simile of the rich man, and the camel getting through the eye of a needle; but it did not frighten him. His father never had much beforehand, when he had the whole place to himself; and now, behold! another knight of the steel-bar had come from – nobody knew where – a place often talked of, yet still a terra incognita; had taken a great house opposite, hoisted a tremendous sign, and threatened to carry away every shred of Hans’s business.
In the depth of his trouble, he took to his fiddle, from his fiddle to his bed, and in his bed he had a dream – I thought we had done with these dreams! – in which he was assured, that could he once save the sum of fifty dollars, it would be the seed of a fortune; that he should flourish far beyond the scale of old Strauss; should drive his antagonist, in utter despair, from the ground; and should, in short, arrive eventually at no less a dignity than – Bürgermeister of Rapps!
Hans was, as I believe I have said, soon set up with the smallest spice of encouragement. He was, moreover, as light and nimble as a grasshopper, and, in his whole appearance, much such an animal, could it be made to stand on end. His dream, therefore, was enough. He vowed a vow of unconquerable might, and to it he went. Springing upon his board, he hummed a tune gayly:
There came the Hippopotamus,
A sort of river-bottom-horse,
Sneezing, snorting, blowing water
From his nostrils, and around him
Grazing up the grass – confound him!
Every mouthful a huge slaughter!
Beetle, grasshopper, and May-fly,
From his muzzle must away fly,
Or he swallowed them by legions,
His huge foot, it was a pillar;
When he drank, it was a swiller!
Soon a desert were those regions.
But the grasshoppers so gallant
Called to arms each nimble callant,
With their wings, and stings, and nippers,
Bee, and wasp, and hornet, awful;
Gave the villain such a jawful,
That he slipped away in slippers!
“Ha! ha! – slipped down into the mud that he emerged from!” cried Hans, and, seizing his fiddle, dashed off the Hippopotamus in a style that did him a world of good, and makes us wish that we had the musical notes of it. Then he fell to, and day and night he wrought. Work came; it was done. He wanted little – a crust of bread and a merry tune were enough for him. His money grew; the sum was nearly accomplished, when, returning one evening from carrying out some work – behold! his door was open! Behold! the lid of his pot where he deposited his treasure was off! The money was gone!
This was a terrible blow. Hans raised a vast commotion. He did not even fail to insinuate that it might be the interloper opposite – the Hippopotamus. Who so likely as he, who had his eye continually on Hans’s door? But no matter – the thief was clear off; and the only comfort he got from his neighbors, was being rated for his stinginess. “Ay,” said they, “this comes of living like a curmudgeon, in a great house by yourself, working your eyes out to hoard up money. What must a young man like you do with scraping up pots full of money, like a miser? It is a shame! – it is a sin! – it is a judgment! Nothing better could come of it. At all events, you might afford to have a light burning in the house. People are ever likely to rob you. They see a house as dark as an oven; they see nobody in it; they go in and steal; nobody can see them come out – and that is just it. But were there a light burning, they would always think there was somebody in. At all events, you might have a light.”
“There is something in that,” said Hans. He was not at all unreasonable: so he determined to have a light in future: and he fell to work again.
Bad as his luck had been, he resolved not to be cast down: he was as diligent and as thrifty as ever; and he resolved, when he became Bürgermeister of Rapps, to be especially severe on sneaking thieves, who crept into houses that were left to the care of Providence and the municipal authorities. A light was everlastingly burning in his window; and the people, as they passed in the morning, said, “This man must have a good business that requires him to be up thus early;” and they who passed in the evening, said, “This man must be making a fortune, for he is busy early and late.” At length Hans leaped down from his board with the work that was to complete his sum, a second time; went; returned, with the future Bürgermeister growing rapidly upon him; when, as he turned the corner of the street – men and mercies! – what a spectacle! His house was in a full burst of flame, illuminating, with a ruddy glow, half the town, and all the faces of the inhabitants, who were collected to witness the catastrophe. Money, fiddle, shop-board – all were consumed! and when poor Hans danced and capered, in the very ecstasy of his distraction – “Ay,” said his neighbors, “this comes of leaving a light in an empty house. It was just the thing to happen. Why don’t you get somebody to take care of things in your absence?”
Hans stood corrected; for, as I have said, he was soon touched to the quick, and though in his anger he did think it rather unkind that they, who advised the light, now prophesied after the event; when that was a little abated, he thought there was reason in what they now said. So, bating not a jot of his determination to save, and to be Bürgermeister of Rapps, he took the very next house, which luckily happened to be at liberty, and he got a journeyman. For a long time, his case appeared hard and hopeless. He had to pay three hundred per cent, for the piece of a table, two stools, and a couple of hags of hay, which he had procured of a Jew, and which, with an odd pot, and a wooden spoon or two, constituted all his furniture. Then, he had two mouths to feed instead of one wages to pay; and not much more work done than he could manage himself. But still – he had dreamed; and dreams, if they are genuine, fulfill themselves. The money grew – slowly, very slowly, but still it grew; and Hans pitched upon a secure place, as he thought, to conceal it in. Alas! poor Hans! He had often in his heart grumbled at the slowness of his Handwerks-Bursch, or journeyman; but the fellow’s eyes had been quick enough, and he proved himself a hand-work’s fellow to some purpose, by clearing out Hans’s hiding-place, and becoming a journeyman in earnest. The fellow was gone one morning; no great loss – but then the money was gone with him, which was a terrible loss.
This was more than Hans could bear. He was perfectly cast down, disheartened, and inconsolable. At first, he thought of running after the fellow; and, as he knew the scamp could not go far without a passport, and as Hans had gone the round of the country himself, in the three years of his Wandel-Jahre, as required by the worshipful guild of tailors, he did not doubt but that he should some day pounce upon the scoundrel. But then, in the mean time, who was to keep his trade together? There was the Hippopotamus watching opposite! No! it would not do! and his neighbor, coming in to condole with him, said – “Cheer up, man! there is nothing amiss yet. What signify a few dollars? You will soon get plenty more, with those nimble fingers of yours. You want only somebody to help you to keep them. You must get a wife! Journeymen were thieves from the first generation. You must get married!”
“Get married!” thought Hans. He was struck all on a heap at the very mention of it “Get married! What! fine clothes to go a-wooing in, and fine presents to go a-wooing with; and parson’s fees, and clerk’s fees; and wedding-dinner, and dancing, and drinking; and then, doctor’s fees, and nurse’s fees, and children without end! That is ruin!” thought Hans – “without end!” The fifty dollars and the Bürgermeistership – they might wait till doomsday.
“Well, that is good!” thought Hans, as he took a little more breath. “They first counseled me to get a light – then went house and all in a bonfire; next, I must get a journeyman – then went the money; and now they would have me bring more plagues upon me than Moses brought upon Egypt. Nay, nay!” thought Hans; “you’ll not catch me there, neither.”
Hans all this time was seated upon his shop-board, stitching, at an amazing rate, upon a garment which the rascally Wagner should have finished to order at six o’clock that morning, instead of decamping with his money; and, ever and anon, so far forgetting his loss in what appeared to him the ludicrousness of this advice, as freely to laugh out. All that day, the idea continued to run in his head; the next, it had lost much of its freshness; the third, it appeared not so odd as awful; the fourth, he began to ask himself whether it might be quite so momentous as his imagination had painted it; the fifth, he really thought it was not so bad neither; the sixth, it had so worked round in his head, that it had fairly got on the other side, and appeared clearly to have its advantages – children did not come scampering into the world all at once, like a flock of lambs into a meadow – a wife might help to gather, as well as spend – might possibly bring something of her own – ay! a new idea! – would be a perpetual watch and storekeeper in his absence – might speak a word of comfort, in trouble when even his fiddle was dumb; on the seventh – he was off! Whither?
Why, it so happened that in his “wander-years,” Hans had played his fiddle at many a dance – a very dangerous position; for his chin resting on “the merry bit of wood,” as the ancient Friend termed that instrument, and his head leaned on one side, he had had plenty of opportunity to watch the movements of plenty of fair maids in the dance, as well as occasionally to whirl them round in the everlasting waltz himself. Accordingly, Hans had left his heart many times, for a week or ten days or so, behind him, in many a town and dorf of Bohemia and Germany; but it always came after him and overtook him again, except on one occasion. Among the damsels of the Böhmer-Wald who had danced to the sound of his fiddle, there was a certain substantial bergman’s or master-miner’s daughter, who, having got into his head in some odd association with his fiddle, was continually coming up as he played his old airs, and could not be got out again, especially as he fancied that the comely and simple-hearted creature had a lurking fondness for both his music and himself.
Away he went: and he was right. The damsel made no objection to his overtures. Tall, stout, fresh, pleasant growth of the open air and the hills, as she was, she never dreamed of despising the little skipping tailor of Rapps, though he was shorter by the head than herself. She had heard his music, and evidently had danced after it. The fiddler and fiddle together filled up her ambition. But the old people! – they were in perfect hysterics of wrath and indignation. Their daughter! – with the exception of one brother, now absent on a visit to his uncle in Hungary, a great gold-miner in the Carpathian mountains, the sole remnant of an old, substantial house, which had fed their flocks and their herds on the hills for three generations, and now drew wealth from the heart of these hills themselves! It was death! poison! pestilence! The girl must be mad; the hop-o’-my-thumb scoundrel must carry witch-powder!
Nevertheless, as Hans and the damsel were agreed, every thing else – threats, denunciations, sarcasms, cuttings-off with a shilling, and loss of a ponderous dowry – all went for nothing. They were married, as some thousands were before them in just the like circumstances. But if the Bohemian maid was not mad, it must be confessed that Hans was rather so. He was monstrously exasperated at the contempt heaped by the heavy bergman on the future Bürgermeister of Rapps, and determined to show a little spirit. As his fiddle entered into all his schemes, he resolved to have music at his wedding; and no sooner did he and his bride issue from the church, than out broke the harmony which he had provided. The fiddle played merrily, “You’ll repent, repent, repent; you’ll repent, repent, repent;” and the bassoon answered, in surly tones, “And soon! and soon!” “I hope, my dear,” said the bride, “You don’t mean the words for us.” “No, love,” explained Hans, gallantly; “I don’t say ‘we,’ but ‘you’ – that is, certain haughty people on these hills that shall be nameless.” Then the music played till they reached the inn where they dined, and then set off in a handsome hired carriage for Rapps.
It is true, that there was little happiness in this affair to any one. The old people were full of anger, curses, and threats of total disownment. Hans’s pride was pricked, and perforated, till he was as sore as if he had been tattooed with his own needle; and his wife was completely drowned in sorrow at such a parting with her parents, and with no little sense of remorse for her disobedience. Nevertheless, they reached home; things began gradually to assume a more composed aspect. Hans loved his wife; she loved him; he was industrious, she was careful; and they trusted, in time, to bring her parents round, when they should see that they were doing well in the world.
Again the saving scheme began to haunt Hans; but he had one luckless notion, which was destined to cost him no little vexation. With the stock of the shop, he had inherited from his father a stock of old maxims, which, unluckily, had not got burnt in the fire with the rest of the patrimonial heritage. Among these was one, that a woman can not keep a secret. Acting on this creed, Hans not only never told his wife of the project of becoming Bürgermeister of Rapps, but he did not even give her reason to suppose that he laid up a shilling; and that she might not happen to stumble upon his money, he took care to carry it always about him. It was his delight, when he got into a quiet corner, or as he came along a retired lane, from his errands, to take it out and count it; and calculate when it would amount to this and that sum, and when the full sum would be really his own. Now, it happened one day, that having been a good deal absorbed in these speculations, he had loitered a precious piece of time away; and suddenly coming to himself, he set off, as was his wont, on a kind of easy trot, in which, his small, light form thrown forward, his pale, gray-eyed, earnest-looking visage thrown up toward the sky, and his long blue coat flying in a stream behind him, he cut one of the most extraordinary figures in the world; and checking his pace as he entered the town, he involuntarily clapped his hand on his pocket, and behold! his money was gone! It had slipped away through a hole it had worn. In the wildness and bitterness of his loss, he turned back, heartily cursing the spinner and the weaver of that most detestable piece of buckram that composed his breeches-pocket, for having put it together so villainously that it broke down with the carriage of a few dollars, halfpence, thimbles, balls of wax and thread, and a few other sundries, after the trifling wear of seven years, nine months, and nineteen days.
He was peering, step by step, after his lost treasure, when up came his wife, running like one wild, and telling him that he must come that instant; for the Ritter of Flachenflaps had brought in new liveries for all his servants, and threatened if he did not see Hans in five minutes, he would carry the work over to the other side of the street. There was a perplexity! The money was not to be found, and if it were found in the presence of his wife, he would regard it as no better than lost. He was therefore obliged to excuse his conduct, being caught in the act of poring after something, to tell, if not a lie, at least the very smallest part of the truth, and say that he had lost his thimble. The money was not found, and to make bad worse, he was in danger of losing a good job, and all the Ritter’s work forever, as a consequence.
Away he ran, therefore, groaning inwardly, at full speed, and, arriving out of breath, saw the Ritter’s carriage drawn up at his opponent’s door. Wormwood upon wormwood! His money was lost; his best customer was lost, and thrown into the jaws of the detested Hippopotamus. There he beheld him and his man in a prime bustle from day to day, while his own house was deserted. All people went where the Ritter went, of course. The Hippopotamus was now grazing and browsing through Hans’s richest meadows with a vengeance. He was flourishing out of all bounds. He had got a horse to ride out on and take orders, and to all appearance was likely to become Bürgermeister ten years before Hans had got ten dollars of his own.
It was too much for even his sanguine temperament; he sank down to the very depths of despair; his fiddle had lost its music; he could not abide to hear it; he sate moody and disconsolate, with a beard an inch long. His wife for some time hoped it would go off; but, seeing it come to this, she began to console and advise, to rouse his courage and his spirits. She told him it was that horse which gave the advantage to his neighbor. While he went trudging on foot, wearying himself, and wasting his time, people came, grew weary, and would not wait. She offered, therefore, to borrow her neighbor’s ass for him; and advised him to ride out daily a little way. It would look as though he had business in the country. It would look as if his time was precious; it would look well, and do his health good into the bargain. Hans liked her counsel; it sounded well – nay, exceedingly discreet. He always thought her a gem of a woman, but he never imagined her half so able. What a pity a woman could not be trusted with a secret! Were it not for that, she would be a helpmate past all reckoning.
The ass, however, was got: out rode Hans; looked amazingly hurried; and, being half-crazed with care, people thought he was half-crazed with stress of business. Work came in; things went flowingly on again; Hans blessed his stars; and as he grasped his cash, he every day stitched it into the crown of his cap, taking paper-money for the purpose. No more pots, no more hiding-holes, no more breeches-pockets for him; he put it under the guardianship of his own strong thread and dexterous needle; and all went on exceedingly well.
Accidents will, however, occur, if men will not trust their wives; and especially if they will not avoid awkward habits. Now, Hans had a strange habit of sticking his needles on his breeches-knees as he sat at work; and sometimes he would have half-a-dozen on each knee for half-a-dozen days. His wife often told him to take them out when he came down from his board, and often took them out herself; but it was of no use. He was just in this case one day as he rode out to take measure of a gentleman, about five miles off. The ass, to his thinking, was in a remarkably brisk mood. Off it went, without whip or spur, at a good active trot, and, not satisfied with trotting, soon fairly proceeded to a gallop. Hans was full of wonder at the beast. Commonly it tired his arm worse with thrashing it during his hour’s ride, than the exercise of his goose and sleeve-board did for a whole day; but now he was fain to pull it in. It was to no purpose; faster than ever it dashed on, prancing, running sideways, wincing, and beginning to show a most ugly temper. What, in the name of all Balaams, could possess the animal, he could not for his life conceive! The only chance of safety appeared to lie in clinging with both arms and legs to it, like a boa-constrictor to its victim, when, shy! – away it flew, as if it were driven by a legion of devils. In another moment, it stopped; down went its head, up went its infernal heels; and Hans found himself some ten yards off, in the middle of a pool. He escaped drowning, but the cap was gone; he had been foolish enough to stitch some dollars, in hard cash, recently received, into it along with his paper, and they sunk it, past recovery! He came home, dripping like a drowned mouse, with a most deplorable tale; but with no more knowledge of the cause of his disaster than the man in the moon, till he tore his fingers on the needles, in abstracting his wet clothes.
Fortune now seemed to have said, as plainly as she could speak, “Hans, confide in your wife. You see all your schemes without her fail. Open your heart to her – deal fairly, generously, and you will reap the merits of it.” It was all in vain – he had not yet come to his senses. Obstinate as a mule – he determined to try once more. But good-by to the ass! The only thing he resolved to mount was his shop board – that bore him well, and brought him continued good, could he only continue to keep it.
His wife, I said, came from the mountains; she, therefore, liked the sight of trees. Now, in Hans’s back-yard there was neither tree nor turf, so she got some tubs, and in them she planted a variety of fir-trees, which made a pleasant appearance, and gave a help to her imagination of the noble firs of her native scenes. In one of these tubs, Hans conceived the singular design of depositing his future treasure. “Nobody, will meddle with them,” he thought, so accordingly, from week to week, he concealed in one of them his acquisitions. It had gone on a long time. He had been out one day, collecting some of his debts – he had succeeded beyond his hopes, and came back exulting. The sum was saved; and, in the gladness of his heart, he bought his wife a new gown. He bounded into the house with the lightness of seventeen. His wife was not there – he looked into the back-yard. Saints and angels! what is that? He beheld his wife busy with the tubs. The trees were uprooted, and laid on the ground, and every particle of soil was thrown out of the tubs. In the delirium of consternation, he flew to ask what she had been doing.
“Oh! the trees, poor things, did not flourish; they looked sickly and pining; she determined to give them some soil more suitable to their natures; she had thrown the earth into the river, at the bottom of the yard.”
“And you have thrown into the river,” exclaimed Hans, frantically, “the hoarding of three years; the money which had cost me many a weary day – many an anxious night. The money which would have made our fortunes – in short, that would have made me Bürgermeister of Rapps.” Completely thrown off his guard, he betrayed his secret.
“Good gracious!” cried his wife, exceedingly alarmed; “why did you not tell me of it?”
“Ay, that is the question!” said he. And it was a question; for, spite of himself, it had occurred to his mind some dozens of times, and now it came so overwhelmingly, that even when he thought he treated it with contempt, it had fixed itself upon his better reason, and never left him till it had worked a most fortunate revolution. He said to himself, “Had I told my wife of it at the first, it could not possibly have happened worse; and it is very likely it would have happened better. For the future, then, be it so.”
Thereupon, he unfolded to her the whole history and mystery of his troubles, and his hopes. Now, Mrs. Hans Nadeltreiber had great cause to feel herself offended, most grievously offended; but she was not at all of a touchy temperament. She was a sweet, tender, patient, loving creature, who desired her husband’s honor and prosperity beyond any thing; so she sate down, and in the most mild, yet acute and able manner, laid down to him a plan of operations, and promised him such aids and succors, that, struck at once with shame, contrition, and admiration, he sprung up, clasped her to his heart, called her the very gem of womanhood, and skipped two or three times across the floor, like a man gone out of his senses. The truth is, however, he was but just come into them.
From this day, a new life was begun in Hans’s house. There he sat at his work; there sat his wife by his side; aiding and contriving with a woman’s wit, a woman’s love, and a woman’s adroitness. She was worth ten journeymen. Work never came in faster; never gave such satisfaction; never brought in so much money; nor, besides this, was there ever such harmony in the house, nor had they ever held such delectable discourse together. There was nothing to conceal. Hans’s thoughts flowed like a great stream; and when they grew a little wild and visionary, as they were apt to do, his wife smoothened and reduced them to sobriety, with such a delicate touch, that, so far from feeling offended, he was delighted beyond expression with her prudence. The fifty dollars were raised in almost no time; and, as if prognostic of its becoming the seed of a fortune, it came in most opportunely for purchasing a lot of cloth, which more than trebled its cost, and gave infinite satisfaction to his customers. Hans saw that the tide was rapidly rising with him, and his wife urged him to push on with it; to take a larger house; to get more hands; and to cut such a figure as should at once eclipse his rival. The thing was done; but as their capital was still found scanty enough for such an undertaking, Mrs. Nadeltreiber resolved to try what she could do to increase it.
I should have informed the reader, had not the current of Hans’s disasters ran too strong for me, that his wife’s parents were dead, and had died without giving her any token of reconciliation – a circumstance which, although it cut her to the heart, did not quite cast her down, feeling that she had done nothing but what a parent might forgive, being all of us creatures alike liable to error, demanding alike some little indulgence for our weaknesses and our fancies. Her brother was now sole representative of the family; and knowing the generosity of his nature, she determined to pay him a visit, although, for the first time since her marriage, in a condition very unfit for traveling. She went. Her brother received her with all his early affection. In his house was born her first child; and so much did she and her bantling win upon his heart, that when the time came that she must return, nothing would serve but he would take her himself. She had been so loud in Hans’s praise, that he determined to go and shake him by the hand. It would have done any one good to have seen this worthy mountaineer setting forth, seated in his neat, green-painted wicker wagon; his sister by his side, and the child snugly-bedded in his own corn-hopper at their feet. Thus did they go statelily, with his great black horse drawing them. It would have been equally pleasant to see him set down his charge at the door of Hans’s house, and behold with wonder that merry mannikin, all smiles and gesticulation, come forth to receive them. The contrast between Hans and his brother-in-law was truly amusing. He, a shadow-like homunculus, so light and dry, that any wind threatened to blow him before it; the bergman, with a countenance like the rising sun, the stature of a giant, and limbs like an elephant. Hans watched, with considerable anxiety, the experiment of his kinsman seating himself in a chair. The chair, however, stood firm; and the good man surveyed Hans, in return, with a curious and critical air, as if doubtful whether he must not hold him in contempt for the want of that solid matter of which he himself had too much. Hans’s good qualities, however, got the better of him. “The man’s a man, though,” said he to himself, very philosophically, “and as he is good to my sister, he shall know of it.” Hans delighted him every evening, by the powers of his violin; and the bergman, excessively fond of music, like most of his countrymen, declared that he might perform in the emperor’s orchestra, and find nobody there to beat him. When he took his leave, therefore, he seized one of Hans’s hands with a cordial gripe that was felt through every limb, and into the other he put a bag of one thousand rix dollars, saying, “My sister ought not to have come dowerless into a good husband’s house. This is properly her own: take it, and much good may it do you.”
