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Page 64
I honour your memory, Uncle Christian! I do indeed!"
Having delivered myself of these deep feelings, and many more which I
cannot enter into now, I got on horseback and rode off to Lauterbach.
Strange, is it not, how the Spirit of Avarice, hitherto quite a stranger
to me, came to make my acquaintance?
"Caspar!" he whispered, "now you are a rich man! Hitherto vain shadows
have filled your mind. A man must be a fool to follow glory. There is
nothing solid but acres, and buildings, and crown-pieces, put out in
safe mortgages. Fling aside all your vain delusions! Enlarge your
boundaries, round off your estate, heap up money, and then you will be
honoured and respected! You will be a burgomaster as your uncle was
before you, and the country folks, when they see you coming a mile off,
will pull off their hats, and say--'Here is Monsieur Caspar H�as, the
richest man and the biggest _herr_ in the country.'"
These notions kept passing and repassing in my mind like the figures in a
magic-lantern, with grave and measured step. The whole thing seemed to me
perfectly reasonable.
It was the middle of July. The lark was warbling in the sky. The crops
were waving in the plain, the gentle breezes carried on them the soft cry
of the quail and the partridge amongst the standing wheat; the foliage
was glancing in the sunshine, and the Lauter ran its course beneath the
willows; but what was all that to me, the great burgomaster? I puffed up
my cheeks and rounded off my figure in anticipation of the portly
appearance I was to present, and repeated to myself those delightful
observations--
"This is Monsieur Caspar H�as; he is a very rich man! He is the first
_herr_ in the country! Get on, Blitz!"
And the nag trotted forward.
I was anxious to try on my uncle's three-cornered hat and scarlet
waistcoat. "If they fit me," I said, "what is the use of buying?"
About four in the afternoon the village of Lauterbach appeared at the end
of the valley, and very proud I felt as I surveyed the tall and handsome
house of the late Christian H�as, my future abode, the centre of my
property, real and speculative. I admired its situation by the long dusty
road, its vast roof of grey shingle, the sheds and barns covering with
their broad expanse the wagons, the carts, and the crops; behind, the
poultry-yard, then the little garden, the orchard, the vineyards up the
hill, the green meadows farther off.
I chuckled with delight over all these comforts and luxuries.
As I went down the principal street the old women with nose and chin
nearly meeting at the extremity, the bare-pated children with ragged
hair, the men in their otter-skin caps, and silver-chained pipes in their
mouths, all gaze upon me, and respectfully salute me--
"Good day, Monsieur Caspar! How do you do, Monsieur H�as?"
And all the small windows were filled with wondering faces. I am at home
now; I seem as if I had always been a great landowner at Lauterbach, and
a notable. My kapellmeister's life seems a dream, a thing of the past, my
enthusiastic fondness for music a youthful folly! How money does modify
men's views of things!
And now I draw bridle before the house of the village notary, Monsieur
Becker. He has my title-deeds under his care, and is to hand them over to
me. I fasten my horse to the ring at the door, I run up the steps, and
the ancient scribe, with his bald head very respectfully uncovered, and
his long spare figure clad in a green dressing-gown with full skirts,
advances alone to receive me.
"Monsieur Caspar H�as, I have the honour to salute you."
"Your servant, Monsieur Becker."
"Pray walk in, Monsieur H�as."
"After you, sir, after you."
We cross the vestibule, and I find at the end of a small, neat, and
well-aired room a table nicely and comfortably laid, and sitting by it
a young maiden rosy and fresh-coloured, the very picture of modesty and
propriety.
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