Debit and Credit by Gustav Freytag

Author:Gustav Freytag [Freytag, Gustav]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXVII.

On a cold October day, two men were seen driving through the latticed gate of the town of Rosmin on toward the plain, which stretched out before them monotonous and boundless. Anton sat wrapped in his fur coat, his hat low on his forehead, and at his side was young Sturm, in an old cavalry cloak, with his soldier's cap cocked cheerily on one side. In front of them a farm-servant, squatted on a heap of straw, flogged on the small horses. The wind swept the sand and straw from the stubble-fields, the road was a broad causeway without ditches or hedges, the horses had to wade alternately through puddles and deep sand. Yellow sand gleamed through the scanty herbage in all directions wherever a field-mouse had made her way to her nest or an active mole had done what he could to diversify the unbroken plain. Wherever the ground sank, stagnant water lodged, and there hollow willow-trees stretched their crippled arms in the air, their boughs flapping in the wind, and their faded leaves fluttering down into the muddy pool below. Here and there stood a small dwarf pine, a resting-place for the crows, who, scared by the passing carriage, flew loudly croaking over the travelers' heads. There was no house to be seen on the road, no pedestrian, and no conveyance of any kind.

Karl looked every now and then at his silent companion, and said at last, pointing to the horses, "How rough their coats are, and how pretty their gray mouse skins! I wonder how many of these beasties would go to make up my sergeant's horse! When I took leave of my father, the old man said, 'Perhaps I shall pay you a visit, little one, when they light the Christmas-tree.' 'You'll never be able,' said I. 'Why not?' asked he. 'You'll never trust yourself in any post-chaise.' Then the old boy cried, 'Oho! post-chaises are always of a stout build; I shall be sure to trust myself in one.' But now, Mr. Anton, I see that my father never can pay us a visit."

"Why not?"

"It is possible that he may reach Rosmin; but, as soon as he sees these horses and this road, he will instantly turn back. 'Shall I trust myself,' he'll say, 'in a district where sand runs between one's legs like water, and where mice are put into harness? The ground is not firm enough for me.'"

"The horses are not the worst things here," said Anton, absently. "Look! these go fast enough."

"Yes," replied Karl, "but they don't go like regular horses; they entangle their legs like two cats playing in a parsley-bed. And what things they have for shoes—regular webbed hoofs, I declare, which no blacksmith can ever fit."

"If we could only get on!" returned Anton; "the wind blows cold, and I am shivering in spite of my fur."

"You have slept but little the last few nights, sir," said Karl. "The wind blows here as if over a threshing-floor. The earth is not round hereabouts as elsewhere, but flat as a cake.

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