Fritz and Eric

  CHAPTER EIGHT.

  THE "LITTLE FAT MAN."

  "Hullo! What fails with the well-born and most worthy lady, her to makein such pitiable plight?" inquired Burgher Jans, poking his little roundface into the parlour of the house in the Gulden Strasse, just asLorischen, bending over her mistress, was endeavouring to raise her onto the sofa, where she would be better enabled to apply restoratives inorder to bring her to.

  The old nurse was glad of any assistance in the emergency; and, even thefat little Burgher, disliked as he was by her, as a rule, with aninveterate hatred, was better than nobody!

  "Madame has fainted," she said. "Help me to lift her up, and I'll beobliged to you, worshipful Herr."

  "Yes, so, right gladly will I do it, dearest maiden," replied BurgherJans politely, with his usual sweeping bow, taking off his hat anddepositing it on an adjacent chair, while he lent a hand to raise thepoor lady and place her on the couch.

  This done, he espied the letter that had caused the commotion, whichMadame Dort still held tightly clutched in her hand when she fell; andhe tried to pull it away from her rigid fingers. "Ha, what have wehere?" he said.

  "You just leave that alone!" snapped out Lorischen. "Pray take yourselfoff, with your wanting to spy into other people's business! If I were aman I'd be ashamed of being so curious, I would. Burgher Jans, I'llthank you to withdraw; I wish to attend to my mistress."

  "I will obey your behests, dearest maiden," blandly replied the littleman, taking his hat from the chair and backing towards the door,although casting the while most covetous eyes on the mysterious letter,which he would have cheerfully given a thaler to have been allowed toperuse. "I will return anon to inquire how the gracious lady is afterher indisposition, and--"

  "If you are not out of the room before I count five," exclaimed the oldnurse, angrily interrupting him, "I declare I'll pitch this footstool atyour little round turnip-top of a head, that I will. One--two--three--"

  "Why, whatever is the matter, Lorischen?" interposed Madame Dort,opening her eyes at this juncture, while the old nurse yet stood withthe footstool raised in her uplifted hands facing the door, half in andhalf out of which peered the tortoise-shell spectacles of the little fatburgher. "Who is there?"

  The poor lady spoke very faintly, and did not seem to know where she wasat first, her gaze wandering round the room.

  Lorischen quickly put down the heavy missile with which she wasthreatening Burgher Jans; and he, taking advantage of this suspension ofhostilities, at once advanced again within the apartment, although stillkeeping his hand on the door so as to be ready to beat a retreat in afresh emergency, should the old nurse attempt to renew the interruptedfray.

  "High, well-born, and most gracious madame," said he obsequiously. "Itis me, only me!"

  "Hein!" grunted Lorischen. "A nice `me' it is--a little, inquisitive,meddlesome morsel of a man!"

  "Oh, Meinherr Burgher Jans," said Madame Dort, rising up from the sofa."I'm glad to see you; I wanted to ask you something. I--"

  Just at that moment she caught sight of the letter she held between herfingers, when she recollected all at once the news she had received, ofwhich she had been for the time oblivious.

  "Ah, poor Fritz!" she exclaimed, bursting into a fit of weeping. "Myson, my firstborn, I shall never see him more!"

  "Why, what have you heard, gracious lady?" said Burgher Jans, abandoninghis refuge by the door, and coming forwards into the centre of the room."No bad news, I trust, from the young and well-born Herr?"

  "Read," said the widow, extending the letter in her hand towards him;"read for yourself and see."

  His owlish eyes all expanded with delight through the tortoise-shellspectacles, the fat little man eagerly took hold of the rustling pieceof paper and unfolded it, his hands trembling with nervous anxiety toknow what the missive contained--and which he had been all along burningwith curiosity to find out.

  Lorischen actually snorted with indignation.

  "There, just see that!" she grumbled through her set teeth, opening andclenching her fingers together convulsively, as if she would like tosnatch the letter away from him--when, perhaps, she would have expressedher feelings pretty forcibly in the way of scratches on the Burgher'sbeaming face: "there, I wouldn't have let him see it if he had gone downon his bended knees for it--no, not if I had died first!"

  The widow continued to sob in her handkerchief; while the Burgherappeared to gloat over the delicate angular handwriting of the letter,as if he were learning it by heart and spelling out every word--he tookso long over it.

  "Ah, it is bad, gracious lady," he said at length; "but, still, not sobad as it might otherwise be."

  Madame Dort raised her tear-stained face, looking at the little roanquestioningly; while Lorischen, who in her longing to hear about Fritzhad not quitted the apartment, according to her usual custom whenBurgher Jans was in it, drew nearer, resting her impulsive fingers onthe table, so as not to alarm that worthy unnecessarily and make himstop speaking.

  The Burgher felt himself a person of importance, on account of hisopinion being consulted; so he drew himself up to his full height--justfive feet one inch!

  "The letter only says, most worthy and gracious lady,--and you, dearestmaiden," he proceeded--with a special bow to Lorischen, which thelatter, sad to relate, only received with a grimace from her tightlydrawn spinster lips--"that the young and well-born Herr is merelygrievously wounded, and not, thanks be to Providence, that he is--heis--he is--"

  "Why don't you say `dead' at once, and not beat about the bush in thatstupid way?" interposed the old nurse, who detested the little man'shemming and hawing over matters which she was in the habit of blurtingout roughly without demur.

  "No, I like not the ugly word," suavely expostulated the Burgher. "Thegreat-to-come-for-all-of-us can be better expressed than that! But, toresume my argument, dearest maiden and most gracious lady, this documentdoes not state that the dear son of the house has shaken off this mortalcoil entirely as yet."

  "I'd like to shake off yours, and you with it!" said Lorischen angrily,under her breath--"for a word-weaving, pedantic little fool!"

  "You mean that there is hope?" asked Madame Dort, looking a bit lesstearful, her grief having nearly exhausted itself.

  "Most decidedly, dear lady," said the Burgher. "Does not the letter sayso in plain and very-much-nicely-written characters?"

  "But, all such painful communications are generally worded, if thewriters have a tender heart, so as to break bad news as gently aspossible," answered the widow, wishing to have the faint sanguinesuspicion of hope that was stealing over her confirmed by the other'sopinion.

  "Just so," said Burgher Jans authoritatively. "You have reason in yourstatement; still, dear lady, by what I can gather from this letter, Ishould think that the Frau or Fraulein Vogelstein who signs it wishes toprepare you for the worst, but yet intimates at the same time that thereis room to hope for the best."

  "Ah, I'm glad you say so," exclaimed the widow joyfully. "Now I read itover, I believe the same; but at first, I thought, in my hurried glanceover it, that Fritz was slain, the writer only pretending he was stillalive, in order to prepare me for his loss. He is not dead, thank God!That is everything; for, whilst there is life, there's hope, eh?"

  "Most decidedly, gracious lady," responded the little man with effusion."If ever I under the down-pressing weight of despondency lie, so I untomyself much comfort make by that happy consolation!"

  Madame Dort experienced such relief from the cheering aspect in whichthe Burgher's explanation had enabled her now to look upon the news ofFritz's wound, that her natural feelings of hospitality, which had beendormant for the while, asserted themselves in favour of her timelyvisitor, who in spite of his curiosity had certainly done her much goodin banishing all the ill effects of her fainting fit.

  "Will you not have a glass of lager, Herr Jans?" said she.

  "Mein Gott, yes," promptly returned the little man. "Much talking make
sone dry, and beer is good for the stomach."

  "Lorischen, get the Burgher some lager bier," ordered Madame Dort, onher invitation being accepted, the old nurse proceeding to execute thecommand with very ill grace.

  "The Lord only knows when he'll leave now, once he starts guzzling beerin the parlour! That Burgher Jans is getting to be a positive nuisanceto us; and I shall be glad when our poor wounded Fritz comes home, ifonly to stop his coming here so frequently--the gossipping little time-server, with his bowing and scraping and calling me his `dearestmaiden,' indeed--I'd `maiden' him if I had the chance!"

  Lorischen was much exasperated, and so she grumbled to herself as shesallied out of the room.

  However, much to her relief, the "fat little man" did not make a longstay on this occasion, for he took his leave soon after swallowing thebeer. He was anxious to make a round of visits amongst hisacquaintances, to retail the news that Fritz was wounded and lying in ahospital at Mezieres, near Metz, for he had read it himself in theletter, you know! He likewise informed his hearers, although he had notso impressed the widow, that they would probably never see the youngclerk of Herr Grosschnapper again in Lubeck, as his case was sodesperate that he was not expected to live! His story otherwise,probably, would have been far less interesting to scandal-mongers, asthey would have thus lost the opportunity of settling all the affairs ofthe widow and considering whom she would marry again. Of course, theynow decided, that, as she had as good as lost both her sons and had anice little property of her own, besides being comparatively not old, soto speak, and not very plain, she would naturally seek another partnerto console herself in her solitude--Burgher Jans getting much quizzed onthis point, with sly allusions as to his being the widow's best friend!

  Some days after Madaleine Vogelstein's first letter, Madame Dortreceived a second, telling her that the ball had been extracted from herson's wound, but fever had come on, making him very weak and prostrate;although, as his good constitution had enabled him to survive thepainful operation, he would probably pull through this second ordeal.

  The widow again grew down-hearted at this intelligence, and it was asmuch as Burgher Jans could do, with all his plausibility, to make herhopeful; while Lorischen, her old superstitious fears and belief inMouser's prophetic miaow-wowing again revived, did all her best tonegative the fat little man's praiseworthy efforts at cheering. Eversince the Burgher had been elected a confidant of Madaleine's originalcommunication, he had made a point of calling every day in the GuldenStrasse, with his, to the old nurse, sickening and stereotypedinquiry--"Any news yet?" until the field post brought the next despatch,when, as he now naturally expected and wished, the letter was given himto read.

  "He seems bent on hanging up his hat in our lobby here!" Lorischenwould say spitefully, on the widow seeking to excuse the little man'spertinacity in visiting her. "Much he cares whether poor Master Fritzgets well or ill; he takes more interest in somebody else, I think!"

  "Oh, Lorischen!" Madame Dort would remonstrate. "How can you say suchthings?"

  "It is `Oh, mistress!' it strikes me," the other would retort. "I wishthe young master were only here!"

  "And so do I heartily," said Madame Dort, at the end of one of thesedaily skirmishes between the two on the same subject. "We agree on thatpoint, at all events!" and she sighed heavily. The old servant was soprivileged a person that she did not like to speak harshly to her,although she did not at all relish Lorischen's frequent allusions as tothe real object of the Burgher's visits, and her surmises as to what theneighbours would think about them. Madame Dort put up with Lorischen'sinnuendoes in silence, but still, she did not look pleased.

  "Ach Himmel, dear mistress!" pleaded the offender, "never mind mywaspish old tongue. I am always saying what I shouldn't; but thatlittle fat man does irritate me with his hypocritical, oily smile andsmooth way--calling me his `dearest maiden,' indeed!"

  "Why, don't you see, Lorischen, that it is you really whom he comes hereafter, although you treat him so cruelly!" said the widow, smiling.

  This was more than the old spinster could bear.

  "What, me!" she exclaimed, with withering scorn. "Himmel, if I thoughtthat, I would soon scratch his chubby face for him--me, indeed!" and sheretreated from the room in high dudgeon.

  Bye-and-bye, there came another letter from the now familiarcorrespondent, saying that Fritz was really recovering at last; and, ohwhat happiness! the mother's heart was rejoiced by the sight of a fewawkwardly scrawled lines at the end. It was a postscript from her sonhimself!

  The almost indecipherable words were only "Love to Mutterchen, from herown Fritz," but they were more precious to her than the lengthiestepistle from any one else.

  "Any news?" asked Burgher Jans of Lorischen soon afterwards, when hecame to the house to make his stereotyped inquiry.

  "Yes," said the old nurse, instead of replying with her usual negative.

  "Indeed!" exclaimed the little man. "The noble, well-born young Herr isnot worse, I hope?" and he tried to hide his abnormally bland expressionwith a sympathetic look of deep concern; but he failed miserably in theattempt. His full-moon face could not help beaming with a self-satisfied complacency which it was impossible to subdue; indeed, hewould have been unable to disguise this appearance of smiling, even ifhe had been at a funeral and was, mentally, plunged in the deepest woe--if that were possible for him to be!

  "No, not worse," answered Lorischen. "He is--"

  "Not dead, I trust?" said Burgher Jans, interrupting her before shecould finish her sentence, and using in his hurry the very word to whichhe had objected before.

  "No, he is not dead," retorted the old nurse, with a triumphant ring inher voice. "And, if you were expecting that, I only hope you aredisappointed, that's all! He is getting better, for he has written tothe mistress himself; and, what is more, he's coming home to send you tothe right-about, Burgher Jans, and stop your coming here any more. Doyou hear that, eh?"

  "My dearest maiden," commenced to stammer out the little fat man,woefully taken aback by this outburst, "I--I--don't know what you mean."

  "Ah, but I do," returned Lorischen, not feeling any the more amiablydisposed towards him by his addressing her in that way after what MadameDort had said about his calling especially to see her. "I know what Imean; and what I mean to say now, is, that my mistress told me to sayshe was engaged when you came, should you call to-day, and that she isunable to see you, there! Good-morning, Burgher Jans; good-morning,most worshipful Herr!"

  So saying, she slammed the door in the poor little man's face, leavinghim without, cogitating the reason for this summary dismissal of him bythe widow; albeit Lorischen, in order to indulge her own feelings ofdislike, had somewhat exaggerated a casual remark made by her mistress--that she did not wish to be interrupted after the receipt of the goodnews about Fritz, as she wanted to answer the letter at once!