by Johann Hebel
were here before you, yesterday and the day before, and they found it and took the lot.’ The Chasseurs saw how things looked in the garden, found everything just as the man said, and not one of them thought the money might be lying under the pile of earth, but each of them gazed into the empty hole and thought: ‘If only I’d been here earlier!’ ‘And if only they hadn’t ruined the wallflowers, and the chard as well!’ said the farmer, and so he fooled them and all those who came after them, and so it was that he saved the whole family of archdukes, the Emperor Francis, the Emperor Joseph, the Empress Maria Theresa, and Leopold the First, the Most Blessed of All, and kept them safe in their own country.
A Report from Turkey
There is justice in Turkey. A merchant’s man was overtaken on his journey by night and fatigue, tied his horse laden with precious goods to a tree not far from a guardhouse, lay down under the shelter of the tree and went to sleep. Early next day he was woken by the morning air and the quails calling. He had slept well, but his horse had gone.
So he rushed off to the governor of the province, Prince Carosman Oglu he was called and he was staying nearby, and complained that he had been robbed. The prince cut the hearing short: ‘So close to the guardhouse! Why didn’t you ride on another fifty yards, then you would have been safe! It’s your own stupid fault!’ But then the merchant’s man said, ‘O just prince, should I have feared to sleep in the open in a land where you rule?’ That pleased the Prince Carosman, and it annoyed him too. ‘Drink a little glass of Turkish brandy tonight,’ he said to the merchant’s man, ‘and sleep under the same tree again.’ The man did just as he was told. The next morning when he was woken by the morning air and the quails calling he had slept well again, for the horse was standing there tethered at his side together with all the precious goods, and in the tree hung a dead man, the thief, who never saw the sun rise again.
They do say there are trees enough in most parts, big ones and little ones.
How One Day Freddy Tinder Escaped from Prison and Came Safely over the Border
One day Freddy Tinder had found his own way out of prison, thinking, ‘I’ll not wake the jailor this early,’ and arrest warrants were already flying down all the roads ahead of him when in the evening, still unchallenged, he reached a little town on the border. When the sentry there ordered him to stop and to state who he was, his name and his business, Freddy asked him boldly, ‘Do you speak Polish?’ The sentry said, ‘I know a bit of foreign lingo all right. But I don’t know that I’ve come across any Polish among it yet.’ ‘In that case,’ said Freddy, ‘we’ll have difficulties understanding each other.’ Was there an officer or sergeant at the gate? The sentry fetched the guard commander, telling him there was a Pole at the barrier with whom he had communication problems. The commander came out, but at once apologized that he didn’t know much Polish either. ‘There’s not much traffic in these parts,’ he said, ‘and I don’t suppose there’s anyone in the whole place who could act as interpreter.’ ‘If I’d known that,’ said Freddy, and looked at the watch which he had found on a coat rack on his way there, ‘I would have gone on for another hour or two to the next town.
The moon rises at nine.’ The officer at the gate said, ‘In the circumstances it would almost be better if you went straight through without stopping, it isn’t a large town,’ and was glad to get rid of him. So it was that Freddy went safely in by the gate. He stayed in the town no longer than was needed to teach a lesson or two to a goose that was late going home. ‘You geese,’ he said, ‘never do as you are told! When evening comes you belong inside or with someone to keep a good eye on you!’ And so he grabbed it firmly by the neck and as cool as you please thrust it under the coat that he had likewise borrowed from an unknown benefactor on the way. But when he came to the gate at the other end of town, again he didn’t trust them to keep the peace. The soldier inside was stirring. Freddy, three steps from the guard post, called out boldly, ‘Who goes there!’ The soldier, all good nature, replied, ‘Friend!’ So it was that Freddy came safely out the other side of the town and over the border.
The Cosy Sentry Box
This sentry box had the usual round openings to look out through on both sides, and they were rather big ones, so that the recruit standing inside found it was just a bit too draughty. So when he had been stood down he asked the corporal if it wouldn’t be better to nail them up with a couple of boards. The corporal scratched his beard and said, ‘No, that’s not on, because of the winter! It’s greatcoats outside in winter, shirt-sleeve order in summer.’ So the next time he was on sentry duty the recruit pushed his arms out through the holes and said he was beginning to like a soldier’s life, seeing as they were concerned for a fellow’s comfort after all.
The Lightest Death Sentence
People have said it’s the guillotine. But it isn’t, you know! A man who had done much for his country and was highly thought of by its ruler was sentenced to death for a crime he’d committed in a fit of passion. Petitions or prayers were no use. But since he was otherwise highly regarded by the ruler, he, the prince, let him choose how he would like to die: he was to die in whatever way he chose. So the chief secretary came to him in prison: ‘The prince has determined to show you mercy. If you wish to be put to death on the wheel you shall be put on the wheel; if you wish to be hanged he will have you hanged – there are already two up on the gallows but everybody knows there’s room for three at a time. If, however, you would rather take rat poison there is some at the chemist’s. For whatever kind of death you choose the prince says it shall be yours. But, as you know, die you must!’ The criminal replied, ‘If I really must die, then death on the wheel can be bent to suit one’s taste, and hanging can be turned to suit one’s inclination if the wind lends a hand. But you haven’t got the point! For my part I have always thought that death from old age is the easiest way, and since the prince leaves the choice to me I’ll choose it and no other!’ And that was his final decision, he wouldn’t be talked out of it. So they had to let him go free and live on until he died of old age. For the prince said, ‘I gave my word and I’ll not break it.’
This little story comes from our mother-in-law who doesn’t like to let anyone die if she can possibly help it.
The Strange Gent
A tailor in town had let his needles get a little rusty and the blades of his scissors stick together for a few years, so now he kept body and soul together as best he could. ‘Neighbour,’ the wig-maker said to him, ‘You like to take things easy, but perhaps you’ll carry a new wig in its box to the deacon at Brassenheim? It’s very light and he will make the walk worth your while.’ ‘All right then,’ says the tailor, ‘Besides, it’s fair time in Brassenheim. Lend me the clothes that gentleman roaming around on horseback left in pawn with you, the one who pulled a fast one on you, and I’ ll cut a good figure at the fair!’
Now our assistant has this good habit, that if he knows there’s a fair less than three hours away and he’s been well paid by Your Family Friend, then he spends good money at the stalls that sell the latest ditties and fine Jew’s harps from Damascus. So our assistant was sat down in the Green Man at Brassenheim trying
out the songs – song number one, ‘A Little Lamb was Drinking’, number two, ‘A Fine Young Stag is Bounding’, number three, ‘There is No Finer Life’, and testing the harps. All at once in came the tailor in a red coat, deerskin trousers, half boots with tassels on them, and a pair of spurs. The landlord doffed his cap politely, the customers too, and mine-host asked him, ‘Has the lad put your horse in the stable, sir?’ ‘My thoroughbred Norman, the piebald?’ said the tailor. ‘I left him au cerf, at the Stag’s Head. I’ve just come to try your wine. I’m the famous Adelstan, on my travels collecting facts about men and wine. Move aside!’ he says to our assistant. Aha! thought the assistant, here’s another fellow who believes rudeness is a mark of quality. I wouldn’t mind betting he isn’t far from home! When the tailor flung his switch down across the table and cl
eared his throat like a camel and viewed the company through a burning glass, and the assistant
with it, the assistant got slowly to his feet and said something quietly in the landlord’s ear. A man from Ehningen, hearing him, said, ‘You’re on the right track all right! I saw him washing his boots by the stream and cutting himself a switch. He came here on foot.’ A scissors-sharpener said, ‘I think I know him, he used to be a tailor. He doesn’t work any more and runs errands for others.’ Now the landlord went out for a minute and then came back. ‘It seems we can’t have a fair here without an accident,’ he said as he came in again. ‘The bailiffs are out looking in all the inns for a gent in a red coat who galloped through the villages earlier today and rode down a child and killed it.’ All the customers were looking at Sir Adelstan, and he was scared and blurted out, ‘My coat isn’t red, it’s brown!’ But the man from Ehningen said, ‘It’s red all right, yet your face has changed colour, it’s gone white, and there’s a sudden shower of sweat on it! Own up, you didn’t come on horseback!’ ‘But he did ride here
all right!’ said the landlord, ‘I’ve just tethered his mount outside. It broke loose from the Stag’s Head and was looking for him. Your fine steed does have his mane under his chin, doesn’t he, and cloven hoofs, and when he bleats wouldn’t you just take him for a horse? Pay for your wine now, and ride properly on your way back home!’ But when the tailor stepped outside and saw the animal that the landlord had tied up by the door he wouldn’t get on its back, instead he left the village on Shanks’s pony, with those at the inn jeering after him horribly.
Remember: You must never pretend to be more than you are or what you can hope to keep up, for the future will tell.
Field Marshal Suvorov
The piece about Suvorov obeying his own orders went down well with you, good readers. Many good things could be said about him.
If an important person is not arrogant but deigns to speak to ordinary folk and sometimes behaves as if he were one of them, then we approve and call him a man of the people. Suvorov was in a position to pin many shining decorations on his breast, he could choose from many diamond rings to put on his fingers and take a pinch of snuff from several gold snuffboxes. After all, he was victorious in Poland and Turkey wasn’t he, a Russian field marshal and prince, at the head of 300,000 men? Few could compare with him! But for all that he was a man of the people.
When he didn’t have to he didn’t wear a general’s uniform but whatever he pleased. Sometimes he had only one boot on when he gave his orders. His stocking was rolled down on the other leg and his breeches flapped loose. He had a gammy knee, you see.
Often he was even less well dressed. In the morning, no matter how cold it was, he rose from his bed or the straw and walked out of his tent in his birthday suit and had a couple of buckets of cold water poured over him to freshen him up.
He had no valet or heyduck, just a manservant, no carriage and no special mount. He took any old horse to ride into battle.
He ate what the common soldiers ate. It was no great joy to be invited to dine with him! He would often visit the common soldiers in their tents and behave like one of them.
If on the march, or in camp or wherever, he was moved to do what others go behind a tree or a hedge to do, he made no fuss. Those who hadn’t seen such a thing before were welcome to watch.
On great occasions, when he stood arrayed in his fine marshal’s uniform covered in medals and insignia, and whatever bit of him you looked at was all gleaming and jingling with gold and silver, he behaved like a farmer who keeps himself clean and throws away what a fine gentleman puts in his pocket. He blew his nose with his fingers, wiped them on his sleeve, and straight away took another pinch from his gold snuffbox.
That’s how he was, the General, Prince Italyski Suvorov.*
A Stallholder is Duped
A rouble is a silver coin in Russia, worth a bit less than two guilders, whereas an imperial is a gold coin and worth ten roubles. So you can get a rouble for an imperial, for instance if you lose nine roubles at cards, but you can’t get an imperial for a rouble. Yet a cunning soldier in Moscow said, ‘Want to bet? Tomorrow at the fair I’ll get me an imperial for a rouble.’ The next day long rows of stalls were set out at the fair, the people were already standing at all the booths, admiring or finding fault, making bids and haggling, the crowd was walking up and down and the boys were saying hello to the girls, when up came the soldier with a rouble in his hand. ‘Whose is this rouble? Is it yours?’ he asked all the stallkeepers in turn. One of them who wasn’t doing much business looked on for some time and then thought: if that money’s too hot for you to hold I can warm to it! ‘Over here, musketeer, it’s my rouble!’ The soldier said, ‘If you hadn’t shouted I would never have found you in the crowd,’ and he handed him the rouble. The trader turned it one way and the other and tested its ring; it was a good one all right, and he put it
in his purse. ‘Now give me back my imperial, please!’ said the musketeer. The trader said, ‘I don’t have any imperial of yours, I owe you nothing. You can have this stupid rouble back if you’re playing a trick on me!’ But the musketeer said, ‘Hand over my imperial, this is no joke, I’m serious and can easily fetch a constable!’ One thing led to another, a polite word to a defiant one, defiance to insults, and a crowd gathered around the stall like bees round a honey pot. Then something was burrowing its way through the throng. ‘What’s going on here?’ said the police sergeant who had pushed through the crowd with his men. ‘I said, what’s all this?’ The stallkeeper couldn’t say much, but the musketeer had a good story to tell.
Less than a quarter of an hour before, he said, he had bought this and that from this man for one rouble. But when it came to paying he could find only a double imperial, nothing smaller, one his godfather had given him when he was enlisted. So he gave him the imperial until he came back with a rouble. When he came back with the rouble he couldn’t find the right stall, so he asked at all the booths, ‘Who do I owe a rouble?’ And this man said it was him, and it was too, and he took the rouble but pretended he didn’t have his imperial. ‘Now will you agree to give it back?’ The police sergeant questioned those around and they said: Yes, the musketeer asked at all the stalls whose rouble it was and this man said it was his, and took it too, and tested it to see if it was genuine. When the police sergeant heard that, he settled the matter: ‘You’ve got your rouble, so give this soldier his imperial or we’ll close down your stall and nail it up with you inside and leave you to starve to death!’ Thus the police officer, and the trader it was who had to give the musketeer an imperial for a rouble.
Remember: Other people’s property can eat into your own just as fresh snow swallows up the old.
An Officer’s Wife is Saved
Things sometimes have to get pretty violent and bloody before you can recognize a noble frame of mind where you don’t expect it.
In the Tyrol things were pretty violent and bloody during the last war.* They had just murdered a Bavarian staff officer, and their swords and dung forks were wet with blood as they pushed into the room where his wife was, weeping with her child in her lap, telling God of her grief, and they were going to murder her too. ‘Oh yes,’ screamed one of them in his rage, and he was the worst of the lot, ‘you’re done for now, and that brat of yours there has Bavarian blood in its veins too! You will die within the hour, first that little devil of yours and then you! Give her an hour,’ he said to the others, ‘to say her prayers; she is a Christian and a Catholic.’
But a quarter of an hour later she was praying alone when he came back and said, ‘Lady, it’s me again, but please, don’t be afraid and don’t be angry at what I said, I meant well by you. Let me take your child under my cloak so I can smuggle him away to my mother’s, and you yourself put on these things here,’ and with that he took them out from under his cloak, ‘and so help me God and Our Lady, I’ll see if I can save you too!’ When he had taken the child to safety and came back she wa
s ready dressed in the Tyrolean man’s clothes. He pulled the broad hat well down over her face, put her braces to rights and placed a dung fork in her hand just as if she were a rebel in mine-host Hofer’s lifeguards and halberdiers. ‘Now then, in God’s name,’ he said, ‘follow me, and put your feet down firmly as you leave, and push your shoulders back and your elbows out!’ As they went down the
stairs together the others were coming up again. ‘Have you done for her already, Joe?’ one asked him. But he said, ‘No, she locked the door and was saying her prayers. She may be finished by now. When I peeped through the keyhole she was just getting to her feet.’ So as he went down the stairs with her the others pushed up past them, and while they banged and hammered at the locked door and were bawling, ‘Have you done? We’ll kick the door in if you don’t hurry up!’ into the empty room, he took her to his mother’s and gave her back her child, and the baby boy smiled, and she wept and pressed him fervently against her cheek and to her breast. So happily and with God’s help the noble Tyrolean had saved her from the hands of her murderers, and later he led her through the night by secret paths till they found a Bavarian picket just as the sun was rising.
Andreas Hofer
During the last war when the French and the Austrians had their work cut out dealing with each other in the region of the Tyrol, the Tyroleans thought, ‘There’s good fishing to be had in troubled waters.’ They didn’t want to be Bavarian any longer.* Many heads make for many opinions, sometimes none at all. When it came to it they themselves didn’t really know what they wanted. But now the bells were ringing the alarm in every valley. From every mountain the marksmen came down with their carbines. Young and old, men and women reached for their weapons. The Bavarians and the French had a hard time of it, especially in the narrow passes when rocks rained down on them the size of small houses. The rebels’ fortunes varied from encounter to encounter. They took Innsbruck, the capital of the Tyrol, then had to abandon it; they won it back again, and yet couldn’t keep it. Monstrous cruel things were done, and not only to the Bavarian officials and citizens, but to their fellow countrymen too. Like it or lump it! Anyone who refused to go along with them put his life at risk – Harry the gamekeeper could tell you all about that if he were still alive! In the end, when many a fine village and town lay in ashes, many a man of means was made a beggar, many a thoughtless and crazed fellow had lost his life, and when every village, almost every home, had its corpses, its wounds and its misery, then finally they said to themselves that being Bavarian was after all better than they had at first thought, and they submitted once more. You can’t tell until you’ve tried it! Only a few madcaps preferred to be shot or hanged a bit first – Andreas Hofer, for instance.