Chapter VII: How the Hunter Lives at the Oberhof

Several days passed at the Oberhof in the usual quiet, monotonous way. Still no word came from old Jochem, regarding either himself or the escaped adventurer; and a mild anxiety gradually began, after a while, to steal over his young master. For nowadays time is so regulated and so enmeshes us that nobody, no matter how free and independent he may be, can long endure an existence which does not offer him some occupation or social relation to fall back on.

As much as he could, to be sure, the Hunter associated with the Justice, and the man's originality continued to attract him just as strongly as it had done on the first day of their acquaintance. But the old man was occupied the greater part of the time with matters pertaining to his household, and then he had, too, a great many things to discuss with outsiders, since every day people dropped in at the farm to solicit his help or advice. On these occasions the Hunter noticed that the Justice, in the truest sense of the word, never did anything gratis. For neighbors, relatives, and friends he was ready to do anything, but they had always to do something for him in return, even were it only an errand in a neighboring peasant community, or some other small service of this kind.

Every day something was fired at, but regularly missed; so that the old man, who invariably hit his mark, no matter what he aimed at, began to look with astonishment upon these futile efforts. It was a fortunate thing for our Hunter that the nearest estate-owner happened at that time to be away on a trip with his family and servants, otherwise the professional gunners up on the "Open Tribunal" would probably have caught him sooner or later.

At noon on the following day the Hunter heard a noise under his window; he looked out and saw that a number of men were standing in front of the house. Just then the Justice, dressed in his Sunday clothes, stepped out of the door, and at the same time a two-horse wagon drew up opposite by the oak grove. In the wagon was a man in black robes, apparently a clergyman; he was sitting among several baskets, in some of which fowls seemed to be fluttering. A little behind him sat a woman in _bourgeois_ dress, who was holding another basket rigidly in her lap. In front by the horses stood a peasant with the whip, his arm resting on the neck of one of the animals. Beside him was a maid, also holding a basket, covered with a snow-white napkin, under her arm. A man in a wide brown overcoat, whose thoughtful gait and solemn face made it at once unmistakably evident that he was a sexton, walked with dignity from the wagon to the house, placed himself in front of the Justice, lifted his hat, and recited the following verses:

Before your gate you now may see
The Sexton and the Dominie,
The Sexton's wife, the house-maid too,
Who've come to get what is their due,
By custom old from this domain,
The hens, the eggs, the cheeses twain;
So tell us then without delay
If you are all prepared to pay.

While listening to this little recitation the Justice had respectfully removed his hat. Afterwards he approached the wagon, bowed to the clergyman, reverently helped him to alight, and then stood off at one side with him and held a conversation, which the Hunter could not overhear, about various matters. In the meantime the woman with the basket had also stepped down and taken a position beside the Sexton, the peasant and the maid, and behind the two chief persons, as if for a procession.

The Hunter, in order to ascertain the significance of this scene, went downstairs and observed that the entrance-hall was sprinkled with white sand, and the best room, adjacent to it, decorated with green branches. Inside, also dressed up in her Sunday best, sat the daughter; she was spinning as if she meant to turn out an entire skein of yarn that very day. She looked very red and did not glance up from her work. He entered the room and was just about to obtain his information from her, when the procession of strangers, including the Justice, crossed the threshold of the entrance-hall. At the head marched the clergyman, behind him the Sexton, then the peasant, then the maid, then the Sexton's wife, and finally the Justice, each one marching alone. The clergyman approached the daughter, who had not yet glanced up from her spinning-wheel, addressed her with a friendly greeting, and said:

"Quite right, Miss! When the bride-to-be makes her wheel go so industriously beforehand, her sweetheart may hope and expect to have full chests and boxes afterwards. When is the wedding to be?"

"A week from Thursday, your reverence, if it is permissible," replied the bride, turning, if possible, even redder than before. She humbly kissed the clergyman's hand--the latter was still a youngish man--took his hat and cane from him, and handed him, by way of welcome, a refreshing drink. The others, after they had formed a circle around the bride, and had likewise remembered her with a handshake and an expression of good will, also partook of the refreshing beverage; thereupon they left the room and went into the entrance-hall. The clergyman, however, continued to discuss the affairs of the community with the Justice, who, with his hat in his hand all the time, stood before him in reverential posture.

The young Hunter, who, unnoticed by the others, had been watching the scene from a corner of the room, would have liked to greet the clergyman before now, but he felt that it would be rude to break in upon the conversation between the strangers and the inmates of the house, a conversation which, in spite of the rusticity of the scene, had yet an air of diplomatic ceremony. For in the clergyman he recognized, with joyful astonishment, a former academic acquaintance.

The Justice now left the room for a moment, and the Hunter went over to the Pastor and greeted him by name. The clergyman started and passed his hand across his eyes, but he, likewise, at once recognized the other and was no less happy to see him.

"But," he added to the first words of greeting, "this is no place nor time for a talk. Come along with me afterwards when I drive away from the farm--then we can have a chat together. I am a public character here and stand under the constraint of a most imperious ceremonial. We cannot take any notice of each other, and you too, in a passive sort of way, must conform to the ritual. Above all things don't laugh at anything that you see--that would offend the good people extremely. These old established customs, strange as they may seem, always have, nevertheless, their venerable side."

"Have no fear," replied the Hunter. "But I should like to know--"

"Everything afterwards!" whispered the clergyman, glancing toward the door, which the Justice was just then re-entering. He retreated from the Hunter just as from a stranger.

The Justice and his daughter themselves brought in the food and laid it on the table, which had been set in this room. There were chicken soup, a dish of French beans and a long sausage, roast pork and plums, butter, bread, and cheese, and, in addition, a bottle of wine. All this was put on the table at the same time. The peasant too had left the horses and come into the room. When everything was steaming on the table, which had been laid for only two persons, the Justice politely invited the clergyman to seat himself, and the latter, after saying grace, sat down, as did likewise, a short distance away from him, the peasant.

"Do I not eat here too?" inquired the Hunter.

"Nay, God forbid!" answered the Justice, and the bride looked at him from one side in amazement. "Only the Diaconus and the Colonus eat here--you sit at the table with the Sexton outside."

The Hunter went into another room, opposite, after observing to his surprise that the Justice and his daughter themselves attended to the serving of this first and most aristocratic table. In the other room he found the Sexton, his wife, and the maid, all standing around a table which had been laid there, and impatiently awaiting, as it seemed, the arrival of their fourth companion. The same eatables were steaming on this table, except that the butter and cheese were missing and beer took the place of the wine. The Sexton stepped with dignity to the head seat and, keeping his eyes on the dishes, recited aloud the following verses:

The birds that fly, the beasts that crawl,
For man's behoof God made them all;
Chicken soup, beans, pork, plums and veal,
Are gifts divine--Lord bless the meal!

Thereupon the company sat down, with the Sexton at the head of the table. The latter did not for a moment forget his solemn dignity, nor his wife her basket, which she put down close beside her. The Pastor's maid, on the other hand, had unassumingly set hers aside. During the meal, which was piled up on the dishes in veritable mountains, not a word was spoken. The Sexton gravely devoured portions that might be called enormous, while his wife was not a great way behind him. Here again it was the maid who showed herself to be most modest. As for the Hunter, he confined his attention almost entirely to looking on; for the day's ceremonies were not to his liking.

After the meal was over the Sexton, smirking solemnly, said to the two maids who had waited on the table:

"Now, if it please God, we will receive our legitimate dues and the good-will accompanying them."

The maids, who had already cleared off the table, then went out. The Sexton sat down on a chair in the middle of the room, while the two women, his wife and the maid, took seats on either side of him, putting the newly-opened baskets down in front of them. After the expectation which the faces of the three expressed had lasted for several minutes, the two maids re-entered, accompanied by their master, the Justice. The first was holding aloft a roomy basket of wickerwork, in which some hens were anxiously clucking and flapping their wings. She put it down in front of the Sexton, who glanced into it and counted:

"One, two, three, four, five, six--it is all right."

Thereupon the second maid counted out from a large piece of cloth into a basket in front of the Pastor's maid, three score eggs and six round cheeses, not without the Sexton's carefully counting them all over after her. After this was done, the Sexton said:

"So then the Pastor is provided for, and now comes the Sexton."

Thereupon thirteen eggs and a single cheese were put into the basket in front of his wife, who tested the freshness of each egg by shaking and smelling it, and rejected two. After this proceeding the Sexton stood up and said to the Justice:

"How is it, Justice, about the second cheese which the Sexton still has the right to expect from the farm?"

"You yourself know, Sexton, that the right to the second cheese has never been recognized by the Oberhof," replied the Justice. "This alleged second cheese was due from the Baumann estate, which more than a hundred years ago was united under one hand with the Oberhof. Later on, the two were again divided, and the Oberhof is obligated for only one cheese."

The Sexton's ruddy brown face took on the deepest wrinkles that it was capable of producing, and divided itself into several pensive sections of a square, roundish or angular shape. He said:

"Where is the Baumann estate? It was split up and went to pieces in the times of disturbance. Is the Sexton's office to be the loser on that account? It should not be so! Nevertheless, expressly reserving each and every right in the matter of the second cheese due from the Oberhof, and contested now for a hundred years, I hereby receive and accept one cheese. In accordance with which the legitimate dues of the Oberhof to both Pastor and Sexton are paid, and now comes the good-will."

The latter consisted of freshly-baked rolls, six of which were laid in the Pastor's basket and two in the Sexton's. With that the entire ceremony was concluded. The Sexton came closer to the Justice, and recited the following third effusion:

I find the six hens all correct,
The cheeses too without defect;
The eggs delivered are freshly laid,
And all the dues were promptly paid.
And so the Lord preserve your farm
From famine, fire, and other harm!
He is beloved of God and man
Who pays his debts as best he can.

After that the Justice made a deep bow as a sign of thanks. The Sexton's wife and the maid carried the baskets out and packed them in the wagon. At the same time the Hunter saw a maid carrying some dishes and plates out of the room in which the clergyman had eaten, into the entrance-hall, where she washed them before the eyes of the latter, who had stepped up to the threshold of the room. After she had finished this washing she approached the clergyman, who drew a small coin out of a piece of paper and gave it to her.

In the meanwhile the Sexton was drinking his coffee with relish, and when a cup was brought for the Hunter too, he sat down with it beside the Sexton.

"I am a stranger here," said the young man, "and do not entirely understand the customs which I have been witnessing today. Will you, sir, be good enough to explain them to me? Is it obligatory for the peasants to supply the Pastor with these products of nature?"

"It is obligatory as far as the hens, eggs and cheeses are concerned, but not the rolls. They represent merely goodwill, but have always been paid without objection," replied the Sexton with great seriousness. "Three peasant communities are affiliated with the diaconate or head pastorate in the city, and part of the Pastor's and Sexton's income is derived from these dues, which are collected every year from the various farms. In order to do this collecting, as has been done every year since time immemorial, we make annually two trips or rounds, namely, this short summer trip, and then a long winter trip, shortly after Advent. On the summer trip the hens, eggs and cheeses come due, one farm paying so much, another so much. The first item, namely, the hens, is payable, however, only _pro Diaconatu_, the Sexton having to content himself with eggs and cheese only. In the winter, corn, barley, oats and rye fall due; we come then with two carts, because one would not hold all the sacks. Thus twice a year we go the rounds of the three communities."

"And where do you go from here?" asked the Hunter.

"Straight home," answered the Sexton. "This community is the last of the three, and this Oberhof is the last farm in this community where the customary dues are collected."

The Sexton was then called away, for the horses were hitched to the cart, and the clergyman, with cordial handshakes and good wishes, was taking leave of the Justice and his daughter, who were now standing before him with the same air of friendly reverence that they had shown for him during all the other proceedings of the day.

The procession now went rocking off between corn fields and high hedges along another road than the one it had come by. The peasant, with the whip in his hand, went on foot in front of the horses, and the cart rolled heavily along behind him. In addition to the two women, the Sexton now sat in among the baskets with a feather pillow propped against his stomach for protection. The Hunter, who had modestly stood back during the preparations for departure, now, when the wagon had advanced a short distance, hurried after it with hasty steps. He found the Pastor, who had also remained behind his accumulation of property, waiting for him in a pleasant spot under some trees. Here, unrestrained by the ceremonial of the Oberhof, they embraced each other, and the Pastor said, laughing:

"I'll wager this is something you never expected--to discover in your former acquaintance, who used to conduct his young Swedish Count so neatly about on the slippery ground of science and elegant life in the big city, a figure who must remind you of the Reverend Lopez in Fletcher's _Spanish Curate_. As for the proceedings which you have witnessed today, it was absolutely necessary for me to go through with them in person; my entire relation with the people would be broken if I manifested any squeamishness about participating in the old custom. My predecessor in office, who was not a native of these parts, was ashamed of these regular trips and refused downright to have anything to do with them. What was the result? He got himself into serious difficulties with these rural parishes, which even had an influence on the decadence of school and church affairs. He had finally to petition for his transference, and I immediately made up my mind, when I received my appointment, that I would adapt myself in all things to the customs of the place. In pursuance of this policy I have so far got along very well, and the appearance of dependency which these trips give me, far from damaging my prestige, rather enhances and secures it."

"How could it be otherwise?" cried the Hunter. "I must confess to you that during the entire ceremony, in spite of the comical atmosphere which your Sexton spread over it, I was really touched and the feeling never once left me. Somehow I saw on the one hand, in your acceptance of these most simple and material gifts, and, on the other, in the reverence with which they were bestowed, the most pious and unpretending symbol of the church, which must have its daily bread in order to exist, and of the faithful who supply her earthly needs in the humble conviction that by so doing they will gain something of high and eternal value. Hence on neither the one side nor the other does a sense of servitude arise, but rather on both sides there is a deep feeling of the most perfect mutuality."

"I am glad," said the Pastor, pressing the Hunter's hand, "that you so regard it, since another person would perhaps have made fun of the whole business. For that reason--I can now own up to it--I was at first not at all pleased to have you appear so unexpectedly as a witness of those scenes."

"God forbid that I should make fun of anything that I have seen in this country!" replied the Hunter. "I now rejoice that a mad freak brought me here to these woods and fields, for otherwise I should probably never have learned to know the region; for it has very little reputation abroad, and there is, in fact, nothing here to attract exhausted and surfeited tourists. But the feeling has gripped me here even more strongly than in my own home--this is soil which an unmixed race has trod for more than a thousand years! And the idea of the immortality of the people was wafted toward me in the rustling of these oaks and of this surrounding vegetation in an almost, I might say, tangible form."

A long conversation resulted from this remark, which was carried on alternately by both the Hunter and the Pastor, as they walked slowly along behind the cart.

When they took leave of each other the young Suabian was obliged to make his friend a promise that he would visit him for a few days in the city. After that they separated and went off in opposite directions.