Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales/Legends of Rubezahl/The Fourth Legend

by Johann Karl August Musäus

For other English-language translations of this work, see Legenden von Rübezahl: Vierte Legende.

 

Legend the Fourth.

T

HOUGH the Gnome’s protegé took the greatest care to keep secret the true source of his opulence, in order to save his patron the visits of importunate suitors, yet, after a time, the thing became known all over the neighbourhood. When a woman has once got any secret of her husband’s at her tongue’s end, however important to be preserved, the lightest breeze in the world will burst it, as easily as a soap-bubble. First, Veit’s better-half told the matter, of course in the strictest confidence, to an immensely discreet female neighbour; this immensely discreet neighbour, in turn, whispered it to a gossip of her own; the gossip communicated it to her godfather, the village barber, who related it to all his customers; so that in a very short time indeed it was known to the whole village, the whole district. Forthwith, every broken trader, every idle vagabond in the place, pricked up his ears, and started off, troops of them, to the mountains, thinking they had nothing to do but to bawl “Rubezahl! Rubezahl!” and he would come and hand them over a hundred dollars a-piece, as had happened to Veit. The Gnome not taking any notice of their studied insults, the next thing was to get spades and mattocks, and set to work digging all over his territory, in search of the great copper of dollars. Rubezahl let them fag away as much as they liked, amused, indeed, at the folly of these blockheads, whom he deemed quite beneath his anger. Now and then, for the better sport, when some treasure-seeker, eager to get ahead of his competitors, would come in the night-time to dig, he would cause a small bluish flame to spring out of the earth, in a particular spot; the dupe would run up to this, thinking all his hopes about to be realized, and after working away like a horse for three or four hours, till he was ready to drop, would come to an old iron-bound box. Oh! how his heart would beat! Ay, he knew what he was about; all the other fellows were fools! Then, oh! how hard would he labour in dragging the treasure home! And oh! how difficult ’twas to keep his fingers from breaking it open until the nine days enjoined by custom in such cases to be first passed over had expired; and oh! with what palpitations of the heart would he force the lid on the tenth day; and oh! how very miserable would he look when he found nothing in the treasure-chest but stones and clods of earth! But, nothing deterred, the vagabonds persisted in coming, bawling “Rubezahl! Rubezahl!” and digging away like mad. At last the Gnome quite lost all patience, and drove every ragamuffin that presented himself from his domain with a storm of stones. Even poor innocent travellers, now and then, got so mauled, when the Gnome was out of humour, thinking of the way in which he had been annoyed, that nobody, for a long time, ventured over the mountain without fear and trembling; and, during several generations, the name of Rubezahl was never heard in the mountains.

One day, years and years after Veit was dead and gone, the Gnome, while lying in the sun under the hedge of his garden, saw coming that way a young woman whose appearance struck him: she had an infant at her breast; another child, about a year older, was riding pick-a-back; she led a third by the hand; and a fourth, carrying a basket, and dragging a rake after him, walked on before her. They were going to collect dead leaves and boughs for fuel. “These mothers,” thought Rubezahl, “are excellent creatures. Here is a poor thing dragging about four children, and attending to her work at the same time, without grumbling at it, and presently she’ll have to carry a heavy basket into the bargain. These are the joys of wedded love, are they? Poor thing! She has paid dearly for her whistle!” These reflections put the well-natured Gnome in so benevolent a frame of mind that he resolved to get into conversation with the young woman, and see if he could be of service to her. Meantime, setting her children on the grass, she had begun to collect leaves and dead branches, and was getting on bravely with her work, when the infant, getting weary of his situation, began to cry. The mother instantly ran to him, danced and tossed him for awhile, playing at the same time with the other children, and then, soothing him off to sleep, once more returned to her fuel-picking. In a few minutes the gnats again awoke the little sleepers, who all set up a tune. The mother, far from expressing the least impatience, ran to gather wild strawberries for the bigger children, and quieted the youngest by giving it the breast. These maternal attentions strongly affected the Gnome. By-and-bye, the little fellow who had been carried pick-a-back became perfectly untractable, stormed and roared, and when his mother offered him strawberries, threw them away, and only bawled the louder. The poor woman at last grew impatient. “Rubezahl!” cried she, “come here and eat up this noisy boy.” The Gnome immediately assumed his wonted form of a collier, and jumping over the hedge, said: “Here I am; what dost thou want?” The woman was at first terribly frightened at this apparition, but being naturally stout-hearted, she soon collected herself, and answered undauntedly: “I only called you to make my children quiet; now that they are so, I do not need your services; but I thank you kindly for your ready attention.”—“Knowest thou
RUBEZAHL AND LISA. not,” returned the Gnome, “that people never call upon me thus with impunity? I take thee at thy word; give me that little squaller, that I may eat him; ’tis long since I’ve come across such a delicate morsel.” So saying, he stretched forth his great rough black hand, as if to lay hold of the child. As the anxious hen, when she sees the devouring fox enter the farm-yard, and make his way towards her tender darlings, dashes, regardless of all disparity of strength, at the cruel enemy of her race, so this alarmed mother, forgetting everything but the safety of her threatened child, rushed at the collier, and clawing with one hand his long beard, and clinching the other, cried: “Monster! ere thou touch my child thou shalt tear out my heart.” Rubezahl, who had by no means anticipated so fierce an assault, hastily drew back, and, after his first astonishment, burst out into a hearty laugh; he had been deceived ere now by a woman; but to be beaten by one!—faith, that was too good! “Don’t be in a passion,” said he good-humouredly; “I am not a cannibal, as thou art so ready to believe, and mean no harm to either thee or thy children; on the contrary, I am willing to serve you all. I like this boy; leave him with me; I will bring him up like a nobleman; he shall be clothed in satin and velvet; shall have money enough, when he grows up, to support you all comfortably; and, meantime, I’ll give thee a hundred crowns down.”

“Ha!” said the mother, with a pleased smile, though still keeping on her guard, “so the little monkey pleases you, does he? Ay, he is indeed a darling. Thanking you just the same, I would not part with him for all the treasures in the world.”

“Silly woman,” returned Rubezahl;” “hast thou not three other children to wear thee out day and night, and leave thee ever poor and miserable? Why, thou canst barely keep life in them as ’tis.”

“True,” replied the woman, “but I am their mother, and must do my duty by them; besides, though children are the cause of much pain and anxiety, they are also a source of great pleasure.”

“A mighty pleasure, truly,” sneered the Gnome, “to drag the cubs about with thee all day, and have them keep thee awake half the night; to be worn out with their teasing and crying, and have to provide them with food, when the food thou’st got is hardly enough for thyself.”

“Ah, sir, there is much truth in this, but then you know not a mother’s pleasures; the dimpled smile of her infant, the first words its pretty mouth utters, in broken accents, richly reward her for all her cares. See this little fellow, how he hangs about me, and kisses me, the coaxing young rogue! Ah, my dear children, would that I had a hundred hands to lead you about, and to labour for you!”

“And has thy husband no hands to labour with?” asked Rubezahl.

“Hands! ay, that he has, and stirring ones too, as I sometimes find to my cost.”

“How!” cried the Gnome indignantly, “does thy husband dare lift his hand against such a wife as thou? I’ll twist the rascal’s neck round.”

“You’ll have enough to do, if you undertake to twist the neck of every husband who beats his wife. Men are a sad set, but I married for better, for worse, and I must go through with it as well as I can.”

“But if thou knew’st that men are a sad set, ’twas surely a foolish thing in thee to marry?”

“Very likely; but Stephen was a brisk, well-looking young man, in a good way of business, I a poor girl, without a farthing. He came and asked me to marry him, gave me, for earnest, a wild man’s thaler, and the bargain was concluded; he took away the thaler afterwards, but the wild man still remains to me.”

“Perhaps,” said the Spirit, laughingly, “thou mad’st him wild by thy perverse humours?”

“Ah, whatever perverse humours I might have had, he has long since beaten out of me. Moreover, Stephen is a mere skin-flint; if I ask him but for a groat, he storms, rages, and makes as much noise in the house, as they say you sometimes do in your mountains, and reproaches me with my want of fortune, and I must bear it all in silence. If I had only had a dower, I’d have brought the house down about his ears long ago.”

“What is thy husband’s occupation?”

“He is a glass pedler, a hard and harassing business enough. He tramps it about from town to town, with a heavy load all the year round; should any of his glass be broken on the way, I and the poor children suffer for it—but, after all, love’s blows break no bones.”

“What! canst thou still love a husband who thus ill-treats thee?”

“And why not? Is he not the father of my children? And when my boys are grown up, they will well compensate me for it all.”

“A sorry hope, that the children’s gratitude will make up for their parents’ cares and sacrifices! These same consolatory youths will wring from thee thy last farthing, when, at the pleasure of the emperor, they are sent off to his armies, and then be sabred by the Turks.”

“That as it happens; if they are slain, they will die like brave men, for their king, and their native land; but why must they needs be killed? Why may they not return home laden with booty, and make their old parents easy and comfortable for the remainder of their days?”

The Gnome, without pursuing the subject, repeated his offer as to the child; but the mother, deigning him no reply, and having now filled her basket, fastened the little brawler upon the top of it, and Rubezahl seeing this, turned away, as if about to depart. But as the load was too heavy for the woman to lift, she called him back:

“As I have called you,” said she, boldly trusting in his good-natured looks, “I pray you to help me up with my basket, and if you are disposed to go a trifle further, give your little favourite a halfpenny to buy himself a roll; to-morrow his father returns home, and will bring us some white bread from Bohemia, where he has been trading.”

“I will help thee up with thy basket,” said Rubezahl, suiting the action to the word, “but if thou wilt not give me the boy, not a farthing of my money shall he have.”

“As you please,” said the woman, and took her departure.

The farther she went the heavier she found the basket, so that, after awhile, almost sinking under her load, she was fain to stop every few yards to take breath, There seemed something decidedly wrong here: Rubezahl, thought she, is at his tricks; he has no doubt thrust a great stone or two under the leaves; she accordingly rested the basket on a shelving part of the rock, and turned out its contents, but no stone was there. Then putting back half the leaves into the basket, and tying as many of the remainder in her apron as it would hold ,she proceeded on her way; but in a few minutes she found her load as heavy as ever, and was obliged still further to lighten it, to her extreme surprise, for many and many a time had she carried it, piled up with similar loads, and never felt any such fatigue as this. She got home, however, at last, and notwithstanding her weariness, did what work there was to be done, threw the leaves to the goat and kids, gave her children their supper, such as it was, got them to sleep, said her prayers, and then went to bed and fell fast asleep.

The morning sun, and still more the uproar of her nursling, who was bawling for his breakfast, roused the active housewife to her daily work. Having attended to the baby, she ran to the goat’s stable with her milk-pail. Oh! what a terrible sight presented itself; the goat, the main source of nourishment for the children, lay stiff and lifeless on the ground. The kids too, their eyes rolling horribly, their tongues hanging out, and gasping convulsively, were evidently on the eve of death. Never had such a disaster befallen the poor woman since she had been a housekeeper. Quite stunned by the blow, she sank down on a truss of straw, and covering her tearful eyes with her apron, that she might not see the last agonies of the poor kids, she sobbed: “Miserable wretch that I am, what will become of me, what will that hardhearted man say when he comes home? I have now lost everything on earth that it had pleased heaven to bestow on me. But no,” she immediately went on, blushing, and almost shuddering at what she had said, “these poor things, though I loved them, are not all on earth that God has given me; have I not still Stephen and my children? Let me learn to do without the good things of this world, so long as my husband and children remain to me. The dear baby, I myself can still nourish; and for the three others, there is water in the well. Stephen will storm, he will beat me; well, it wont be for the first time, and will be soon over. I have no negligence to reproach myself with. In a few weeks the harvest will come on, and I shall pick up a little money by reaping, and in the winter I will spin till midnight; by degrees I shall scrape together enough to buy another goat, and then some kids will follow in due time.”

These reflections restored her courage, and she dried up her tears. As she now looked once more at the departed goat and kids, she saw at her feet a leaf that glittered and shone as bright as pure gold; she picked it up, and finding it also as solid and heavy as pure gold, ran off with it to her neighbour, the Jewess, who, after a close scrutiny, pronounced it to be really and truly pure gold, and gave her two double dollars for it, down on the nail. The loss of the goat and kids was forgotten in a moment; never in her life before had the poor woman been possessed of so much money all at once. Off she ran to the baker’s, and bought a quantity of rolls and cracknels; then to the butcher’s, and bought a leg of mutton for Stephen’s supper, when he should come home in the evening, weary and hungry. After these and some other purchases she hastened home, full of delight at the treat she was about to give her children, who, when they saw her enter the cottage, all three scrambled round her, little expecting, however, so satisfactory a supplement to their meagre breakfast. Oh! how they danced and shouted when she showed them the nice rolls and the cracknels, and with what a true mother’s joy did she distribute them among the hungry little ones. Her next care was to remove the dead animals out of sight, so as to keep the knowledge of this sad misfortune as long as possible from her ill-tempered husband. Imagine her astonishment, when, on looking casually into the manger, she saw there a whole heap of gold leaves. Had the good woman been acquainted with the Popular Tales of the Greeks, she might, without inspiration, have divined that her cattle had died of King Midas’s indigestion. As it was, instinct served instead of learning, and having hastily sharpened the kitchen knife, she opened the goat and the kids, and found in the stomach of the former a lump of gold as big as a golden pippin, and other lumps proportioned to their size in the stomachs of the kids.

Her riches now seemed to her immense, immeasurable; but, of course, with the accession of wealth came its cares; she got uneasy, anxious; her heart palpitated; she did not know whether to lock up the gold in her box, or to bury it in the cellar; she was afraid of thieves and treasure-seekers, yet she did not want the miserly Stephen all at once to know about the matter. And a very judicious precaution on her part, since the extreme probabilities were, that the grasping niggard would take possession of the whole treasure, and she and her children be not a whit the better for it. After meditating the point a long while, she remained as undecided as ever. At last, a thought struck her.

The priest of the village was the protector of all oppressed wives; a man who, as well as from duty as from an honourable desire to defend the weaker side, never failed to interfere very decidedly whenever any tyrannical parishioner of his was wretch enough to beat and maltreat his better-half; by dint of actual penances of a light nature, and the threat of heavier ecclesiastical punishment, in case of continued disobedience of his exhortations to peace and union, the good priest had restored conjugal quiet to many a house; even the surly Stephen had been fain, more than once, at his remonstrance, to make an effort and be less morose to his wife. To him, therefore, the anxious woman now repaired, related to him without reserve her adventure with Rubezahl, explained to him her anxious uncertainty how most safely to dispose of the treasure, so that neither Stephen nor any one else should for the present be at all aware of its extent; and finally, as an undeniable proof of the truth of what she had been stating, showed him the treasure itself, which she had brought at her back in a sack. The good priest crossed himself over and over again, as the wonderful narration proceeded, and crossed himself more than ever when he saw the heap of gold. He then, after cordially congratulating his parishioner on her happy change of fortune, began to pull his night-cap to and fro on his forehead, by way of rubbing up his ideas, so as to discover the best possible expedient for securing to her the quiet possession of her treasure, without any noise or talk about the singular manner in which she had acquired it, and at the same time without allowing the avaricious Stephen to put his clutches upon it.

After considering awhile: “Listen, my daughter,” said he; “I have thought of a capital plan; we will weigh this gold, which I will then get converted into money, and take charge of for thee. I will then write in Italian a letter, which shall announce to thee that thy brother, who, we will say, many years ago went to the Indies to seek his fortune, has just died at Venice on his return home, and has left thee all his money, on condition that the priest of thy parish shall have the management of it for thy sole use and benefit, uncontrolled by any other person whatever. For myself, I require neither reward nor thanks; but thou wilt, I am sure, feel, that to Holy Church thou owest thy gratitude for the blessing which Heaven has thus bestowed upon thee.” The worthy woman was delighted with this plan, and readily promised to give a rich surplice for mass; the priest then weighed the gold with the most scrupulous precision, and having safely deposited it for the present in the church-chest, its happy owner took her leave, and returned home with a light heart.

Rubezahl was no less a defender of the fair than was the priest of Kirsdorf, but with a difference; the latter professing a general attachment, of course of a purely virtuous and benevolent character, for the whole sex, without any especial predilection for one more than another, which profession he had so uniformly acted up to, that not even the breath of scandal had brought suspicion upon his conduct; whereas the other, though he had a general antipathy to women, on account of having been outwitted by one of them, was not indisposed, now and then, to do a kindness to any particular member of the sex in whom he conceived an interest. In the present instance, in exact proportion to the good-will for herself and her children with which the exemplary conduct of the hard-working, enduring villager had inspired the Gnome, was his desire to visit with condign punishment the niggardly brute at whose hands she suffered such sore oppression. He determined forthwith to play him a trick that should at once horribly distress and discomfit him, and place him in such a position that his wife should have completely the upperhand of him, and, if she still desired to do so, pull the house about his ears, as she said. With this intent he mounted a tearing east wind, and dashed off over hill and valley in the direction of Bohemia, and wherever, on highroad or bye-road, he descried a traveller with a pack, down he dropped behind him, and his all-piercing eyes investigated the nature of the man’s load. As luck would have it, he came across no one carrying glass, or ten to one, even though it had not been the man he sought, the poor wretch’s stock would have been smashed to atoms, Rubezahl’s anger involving, for the time, all glass-pedlers in his just indignation against their unworthy brother Stephen.

At length, while soaring above the mountain itself, his infallible eye detected the object of his search. It was towards the hour of vespers that he saw, coming along the road, a stout active pedestrian, bearing on his shoulders a heavy pack, the sound from which, at every step, indicated that it was filled with glass-ware. The Gnome, on catching sight of him, laughed in his sleeve, and prepared for a master-stroke. Stephen, puffing and blowing, had nearly reached the top of the mountain; but one more rising ground passed and he would begin the descent, at the bottom of which was his home. He increased his speed as well as he could, but the ascent was steep and his burden heavy. More than once was he fain to stop and rest awhile, propping up his load meantime with his knotty stick, to ease its weight, and wiping off the perspiration, which ran in big drops from his forehead. Collecting all his strength, he at length reached the summit of the mountain, along which a smooth straight path led to the descent. Midway on this lay a great fir-tree, beside the stump whence the saw had severed it, and the top of which, left about half-breast high, was as round and smooth as a table, while all around it grew flowering grasses and odoriferous herbs. The whole aspect of the place was so excessively alluring to the way-worn, heavily laden traveller, it seemed so peculiarly adapted for a resting-place, that, depositing his pack on the stump’s broad surface, he lay down in the soft grass.

Here, stretched out at his ease, he began to estimate how much net profit his wares would bring him this time, and the result of a close calculation was, that by not expending a single penny at home, and by making his poor industrious wife furnish, not only herself and the children, but him also, with clothes and food by her own exertions, he should clear enough, at the approaching fair of Schmiedeberg, to purchase an ass, and load it with goods for a new journey; and he already anticipated, with great satisfaction, how very comfortable it would be to have merely to walk by the side of a laden donkey, instead of carrying the donkey’s load on his own shoulders. The thought was so exhilarating, that he already saw in imagination a piled-up jackass by his side.

“Once I have got the ass,” he went on, “I shall soon be able to exchange it for a horse; the horse once in the stable, I shall soon get wherewithal to purchase an acre to grow oats for him; the one acre may, ere long, be made two, the two swell into four, and in time become a snug farm, and then I shan’t mind buying Lisa a new gown.”

He had just arrived at this stage of his airdrawn fortunes when much the same misadventure befel him that happened to Arabian Alnaschar, and to the aspiring milkmaid nearer home. He did not, ’tis true, kick down his own basket, but ’twas done quite as effectually for him by Rubezahl, who, bestriding, invisible to mortal ken, his whirlwind, dashed round the fir trunk, whizz! whirr! and down went the basket, and smash, crash, went Master Stephen’s stock in trade all to atoms. The disappointed schemer was himself knocked down by the blast; as he came to, he heard a loud horse-laugh in the distance, which the echoes insultingly repeated all round him. It was clear to the wretched pedler that this must be the work of some malicious spirit; the sudden rush of wind, in such calm weather, was perfectly unnatural; and he was confirmed in his impression when, on turning round, he found that tree and trunk had utterly disappeared. Unable to control himself, he began to rave at the unseen author of all this mischief. “Rubezahl, vile wretch!” he furiously exclaimed, “what have I done to thee that thou should’st rob me of the bit of bread, I had earned by the sweat of my brow? I am an undone man for life!” He then went to work calling the Gnome all the names he could set his tongue to, in pure desperation. “Devil!” cried he, “since thou hast bereft me of all I had in the world, come and finish thy work; come and strangle me.” And sooth to say, the poor wretch at that moment valued his life no more than he did his broken glass; but Rubezahl, who was looking on, highly amused, at a little distance, would not oblige him to this extent, and allowed himself to be neither seen nor heard. The only thing that remained for the bankrupt pedler to do—for he was determined not to carry the empty basket home—was to collect the broken fragments, and take them to the glass-house, where he thought they would perhaps give him in exchange a few beer glasses with which to recommence business. With feelings resembling those of a merchant whose one vessel, with all its crew and all its cargo, the greedy ocean has engulfed, Stephen slowly descended the mountain, bending, not as before, under profitable glass, but under heavy thoughts, mingled with a hundred speculations as to whether there were not yet some means, and what, of making a tolerable start once more with something better than half a dozen beer glasses. By-and-bye he bethought him of the goats; but Lisa loved them almost as much as her children, and would not consent to part with them; it was only by stratagem he could get them quietly from her. Stephen laid his plan accordingly. So far from letting her know what a loss he had sustained, he would not go home at all this time, but waiting till midnight, would steal into the stable, carry off the goats, take them to Schmiedeberg, and selling them at the fair, purchase a new stock of wares with the money; then, on his return home, he proposed getting up a furious quarrel with his wife for having, as he would insist, lost the goats, or suffered them to be stolen by her gross negligence; or, he would add, for aught he knew, she had sold them and wasted the money; and in this way, he calculated, he should get rid of the whole difficulty.

Full of this notable device, the worthy man slunk into a copse adjoining the village, and there waited with terrible impatience for midnight to come, so that he might go and rob himself. As the clock struck twelve he left his hiding-place like a thief, scaled the low wall of his own yard, and went on tip-toe, and with a palpitating heart—for he trembled lest his wife should catch him at his tricks—across to the stable. Much to his wonder, he found the door open; but he was glad of the circumstance, as strengthening the case he proposed to make out against his poor wife. On entering the stable, however, he found everything at sixes and sevens; not a living creature was there, goat or kid. He was perfectly overwhelmed. Some thief had been beforehand with him. Misfortunes, says the proverb, never come singly. Seeing his last resource for replacing his lost stock in trade thus fail him, he lay down among the straw, plunged in the most bitter grief.

On her return home from the Priest’s, the active Lisa set to work, in the best possible humour, to make every preparation for giving her husband a good supper, to which she had also invited the worthy Priest, who had promised, for his part, to bring with him a pitcher of his own wine, the pleasant influence of which he calculated would enable Stephen to hear, with less annoyance and irritation than might otherwise be the case, the conditions restricting the use and enjoyment of the inheritance his wife had so fortunately and unexpectedly succeeded to. Lisa, as the day closed in, was every moment at the window, looking out for Stephen; as the evening itself closed in, she grew impatient and uneasy, and running to the end of the village, strained her eyes in the direction he would come in; but no Stephen could she see. ’Twas late at night ere, having long since dismissed the Priest, who duly made his appearance at the appointed time, she retired supperless to bed, a prey to the most painful anxiety. Hour after hour passed, but sleep came not to relieve her tearful eyes; at last, towards morning, she fell into a disturbed doze. Poor Stephen, meanwhile, was passing his time in horribly discomforted, physically and mentally, in the stable; he was altogether in so dejected, so abject a state of mind, that he had not the courage to go and knock at his own door. At last, at daylight, feeling that sooner or later the thing must be done, he crept across the yard, and tapping softly at the window, said, in the mildest of tones: “Open the door, my dear wife; it is I.” The moment Lisa heard his voice, she jumped out of bed, and running to the door, threw it open, and clasped her husband joyfully round the neck. Responding with the most chilling coldness to these conjugal caresses, he put down his basket, and in the most doleful dumps, threw himself into the chimney corner. When Lisa saw what a miserable plight he was in, it went to her very heart. “What vexes thee, dear Stephen?” she asked tenderly; “what is the matter?” He at first made no other answer than sighs and groans; but Lisa pressed him so closely to explain the source of his grief, that feeling it out of his power to resist her affectionate entreaties, he at length related his disaster. When she learned that ’twas Rubezahl who had played this prank upon her husband, she readily divined the benevolent intention which had actuated him, and the whole affair then struck her in so ludicrous a light, that she burst into a hearty laugh. Had Stephen been in his usual temper of mind, Lisa would have found that laughing at him was no laughing matter; but depressed in spirit as he now was, he passed over this apparent levity, and anxiously inquired for the goats. Lisa laughed all the more heartily when she found her lord and master had been poking about and getting nothing for his pains. “What are my goats to thee?” replied she; “thou hast not even mentioned the children. As to the goats, they’re out in the meadow. There, don’t disturb thyself any more about the trick Rubezahl played thee; who knows but he may yet fully indemnify thee for all thou hast lost?”—“I shall have to wait long enough for that,” said Stephen, in a deplorable tone.—“Long looked-for comes at last,” returned Lisa. “Come, pluck up thy spirits, Stephen; though thou hast lost thy glass, and I, to tell thee the truth, my goats, we have still four healthy children, and four strong arms to get a home for them and ourselves.”—“God help us!” cried Stephen, disconsolately; “if the goats are lost thou hadst better throw the children into the river at once, for I can do nothing for them!”—“Well, I can,” said Lisa.

At this moment the friendly Priest, who in his anxiety about Lisa and her family, had got up early and come to see whether Stephen was returned, entered the room; having listened outside, he had heard the whole conversation, and forthwith proceeded to address to Stephen a long homily on the text, “Avarice is the root of all evil.” Having sufficiently taken him to task on this head, and expounded the right use of riches, he gradually informed him that Lisa had succeeded to a valuable property. Taking from his pocket the Italian letter, he translated it word for word, and informed Stephen that he, being the actual priest of Kirsdorf named in the letter, had entered upon his office accordingly, as trustee of the property, for the sole use and benefit of Lisa and her children; and that he had already received the full amount of the inheritance, and placed it in safe hands.

Stephen all this while stood stock still, with his mouth open, giving no signs of life, except that whenever the Priest, on naming the Most Serene Republic of Venice, respectfully raised his cap, he bowed too, as it were unconsciously. When he came to himself, the first thing he did was to clasp “his dear wife” in his arms, vowing such tenderness and devotion and undying love, as she had never heard of since he was courting her, years ago. And although Lisa knew pretty well what the meaning of all this was, yet, like a sensible woman, she took it in good part, and seemed to believe every word he said. From that hour Stephen was the most attentive, the most tractable of husbands, the most loving of fathers, the most active and managing of farmers; want of industry, indeed, had never been his failing.

The honest Priest converted by degrees the golden leaves into current coin, with which he purchased a considerable farm, whereon Stephen and Lisa lived happily for the remainder of their days. The balance he placed out on mortgage, and attended to the pecuniary interests of his ward as conscientiously as he did to those of his own church, accepting no other recompense for his services than a surplice, which, however, Lisa had made so fine that an archbishop would not have disdained to wear it.

The excellent mother enjoyed unmixed satisfaction equally from the conduct and from the prosperity of her children. Rubezahl’s favourite became a brave officer, and served many years in the thirty years’ war, under Wallenstein, with the highest reputation and honour.