CHAPTER XVIII.

How Witte's pint-pot was always running over; why the Town of Stemhagen had raised a fir-plantation; why neighbour Rickert rang the alarm-bell; and why the portrait of Julius Caesar always reminds me of my uncle Herse.

Rather less than half an hour afterwards, two waggons drove out of the Treptow Gate of Brandenburg towards Stemhagen. In the first were the elders, the Herr Rathsherr and the baker and the Miller, and, as a mark of respect, the valet-de-chambre; in the second sat, on the foremost sack, Fritz Besserdich and Luth, and on the hind sack, Fieka and Heinrich. Friedrich lay behind in the straw. After they had gone along some way, my uncle Herse began to talk:

"So we are out of his claws at last," said he.

"Yes, Herr Rathsherr," answered the Baker, "and we have to thank the Herr Amtshauptmann and our Burmeister and, above all, the Miller's Friedrich for it."

"That's according as you look at it, Witte," said my uncle. "For my