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Page 15
I also, on seeing such a great crowd, ran thither with many others to
look at the fellow. He trembled like an aspen leaf; and when he was
roughly told to make a clean breast, whereby he might peradventure save
his own life, if it appeared that he had murdered no one, he confessed
that he had got his wife to make him a gallows' dress, which he had
put on, and had sat on the wheel before the dead man, when, from the
darkness and the distance, no one could see that the two were sitting
there together; and this he did more especially when he knew that a
cart was going from the town to Wolgast. When the cart came by, and he
jumped down and ran after it, all the people were so affrighted that
they no longer kept their eyes upon the gallows, but only on him,
flogged the horses, and galloped with much noise and clatter over the
log embankment. This was heard by his fellows in Strellin and Dammbecke
(two villages which are about three-fourths on the way), who held
themselves ready to unyoke the horses and to plunder the travellers
when they came up with them. That after the dead man was buried he
could play the ghost more easily still, etc. That this was the whole
truth, and that he himself had never in his life robbed, still less
murdered, any one; wherefore he begged to be forgiven: that all the
robberies and murders which had happened had been done by his fellows
alone. Ah, thou cunning knave! But I heard afterwards that he and his
fellows were broken on the wheel together, as was but fair.
And now to come back to my journey. The young nobleman abode that night
with me at the inn, and early next morning we both set forth; and as we
had grown into good-fellowship together, I got into his coach with him,
as he offered me, so as to talk by the way, and my Claus drove behind
us. I soon found that he was a well-bred, honest, and learned gentleman,
seeing that he despised the wild student life, and was glad that he had
now done with their scandalous drinking-bouts: moreover, he talked his
Latin readily. I had therefore much pleasure with him in the coach.
However, at Wolgast the rope of the ferry-boat broke, so that we were
carried down the stream to Zeuzin, and at length we only got ashore with
great trouble. Meanwhile it grew late, and we did not get into Coserow
till nine, when I asked the young lord to abide the night with me, which
he agreed to do. We found my child sitting in the chimney-corner, making
a petticoat for her little god-daughter out of her own old clothes. She
was greatly frighted, and changed colour when she saw the young lord
come in with me, and heard that he was to lie there that night, seeing
that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from
old Zabel Nehring the forest ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore
she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her
little god-child having lain on it that morning; and she could nowise
put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in
by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet
and began to cry, and would not show herself again the whole evening, so
that the maid had to see to everything, even to the putting white sheets
on my child's bed for the young lord, as she would not do it herself. I
only tell this to show how maidens are. For next morning she came into
the room with her red silk bodice, and the net on her hair, and the
apron; _summa_, dressed in all the things I had bought her at Wolgast,
so that the young lord was amazed, and talked much with her over the
morning meal. Whereupon he took his leave, and desired me to visit him
at his castle.
[Illustration: The Gallows Ghost]
_The Twelfth Chapter_
WHAT FURTHER JOY AND SORROW BEFELL US:
_ITEM_, HOW WITTICH APPELMANN RODE TO DAMEROW TO THE WOLFHUNT, AND WHAT HE
PROPOSED TO MY DAUGHTER
The Lord blessed my parish wonderfully this winter, inasmuch as not only a
great quantity of fish were caught and sold in all the villages, but in
Coserow they even killed four seals: _item_, the great storm of the 12th
of December threw a goodly quantity of amber on the shore, so that many
found amber, although no very large pieces, and they began to buy cows and
sheep from Liepe and other places, as I myself also bought two cows;
_item_, my grain which I had sown, half on my own field and half on old
Paasch's, sprang up bravely and gladly, as the Lord had till _datum_
bestowed on us an open winter; but so soon as it had shot up a finger's
length, we found it one morning again torn up and ruined, and this time
also by the devil's doings, since now, as before, not the smallest trace
of oxen or of horses was to be seen in the field. May the righteous God,
however, reward it, as indeed he already has done. Amen.
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