Part 33 (2/2)

”Well, never mind Mining, you are my little G.o.ddaughter; though that is all over now.”

”No, Herr Inspector!” cried Rudolph,--laying his hand on the old man's shoulder, ”no, dear, good Uncle Brasig, that is not over, that shall last as long as we live. I will be a farmer, and if I have the prospect of calling Mining my wife, and”--he was cunning enough to add--”and you will give me your valuable advice, the devil must be in it, if I cannot make a good one.”

”A confounded rascal!” said Brasig to himself, adding, aloud, ”Yes, you will be such a Latin farmer as Pistorius, and Praetorius, and Trebonius, and you will sit on the bank of the ditch and read that fellow's book, with the long t.i.tle, about oxygen and carbonic acid gas, and organisms, while the cursed farmboys are strewing manure, behind your back, in lumps as big as your hat-crown. Oh, I know you! I never knew but one man who had been to the great schools, and was worth anything afterward, and that was the young Herr yon Rambow, who was with Habermann.”

”Ah, Uncle Brasig,” said Mining, lifting her head, suddenly, and stroking the old man's cheeks, ”what Franz can do, Rudolph can do also.”

”No, Mining, that he can _not_! And why? Because he is a greyhound, and the other is a decided character!”

”Uncle Brasig,” said Rudolph, ”you are thinking of that stupid trick of mine, about the sermon; but Gottlieb had teased me so with his zeal for proselyting, I must play some little joke on him.”

”Ha, ha!” laughed Brasig, ”well, why not, it amused me, it amused me very much. So he wanted to convert you too, from fis.h.i.+ng, perhaps? Oh, he has been trying to convert somebody here, this afternoon, but Lining ran away from him; however, that is all right.”

”With Lining and Gottlieb?” asked Mining anxiously, ”and have you listened to that, too?”

”Of course I listened to it, it was on their account I perched myself in this confounded cherry-tree. But now come here Monsieur Rudolph.

Will you, all your life long, never again go into the pulpit and preach a sermon?”

”No, never again.”

”Will you get up at four o'clock in the morning, and three o'clock in the summer-time, and give out fodder grain?”

”Always, at the very hour.”

”Will you learn how to plough and harrow and mow properly, and to reap and bind sheaves, that is, with a band,--there is no art in using a rope?”

”Yes,” said Rudolph.

”Will you promise never to sit over the punch-bowl, at the Thurgovian ale-house, when your wagons are already gone, and then ride madly after them?”

”I will never do it,” said Rudolph.

”Will you also never in your life--Mining, see that beautiful larkspur, the blue, I mean, just bring it to me, and let me smell it--will you,”

he continued, when she was gone, ”never entangle yourself with the confounded farm-girls?”

”Herr Inspector, what do you take me for?” said Rudolph angrily, turning away.

”Come, come,” said Brasig, ”every business must be settled beforehand, and I give you warning: for every tear my little G.o.dchild sheds on your account I will give your neck a twist,” and he looked as fierce as if he were prepared to do it immediately.

”Thank you Mining,” said he, as she brought him the flower, and he smelled it, and stuck it in his b.u.t.tonhole.

”And now, come here, Mining, I will give you my blessing. No, you need not fall on your knees, since I am not one of your natural parents, but merely your G.o.dfather. And you, Monsieur Rudolph, I will stand by you this afternoon, when your father comes, and help you out of this clerical sc.r.a.pe. And now, come, both of you, we must go in. But I tell you, Rudolph, don't sit reading, by the ditches, but attend to the manure-strewing. You see there is a trick in it, the confounded farm-boys must take the fork, and then not throw it off directly, no!

they must first break it up three or four times with the fork, so that it gets well separated. A properly manured field ought to look as neat and fine as a velvet coverlid.”

With that, he went, with the others, out of the garden gate.

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