HOW THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE BLACK BROTHERS WAS INTERFERED WITH
BY SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE
In a secluded and mountainous part
of Stiria there was in old time a valley of the
most surprising and luxuriant fertility. It was
surrounded on all sides by steep and rocky mountains
rising into peaks which were always covered with snow
and from which a number of torrents descended in constant
cataracts. One of these fell westward over the
face of a crag so high that when the sun had set to
everything else, and all below was darkness, his beams
still shone full upon this waterfall, so that it looked
like a shower of gold. It was therefore called
by the people of the neighborhood the Golden River.
It was strange that none of these streams fell into
the valley itself. They all descended on the
other side of the mountains and wound away through
broad plains and by populous cities. But the
clouds were drawn so constantly to the snowy hills,
and rested so softly in the circular hollow, that
in time of drought and heat, when all the country round
was burned up, there was still rain in the little valley;
and its crops were so heavy, and its hay so high,
and its apples so red, and its grapes so blue, and
its wine so rich, and its honey so sweet, that it
was a marvel to everyone who beheld it and was commonly
called the Treasure Valley.
The whole of this little valley belonged
to three brothers, called Schwartz, Hans, and Gluck.
Schwartz and Hans, the two elder brothers, were very
ugly men, with overhanging eyebrows and small, dull
eyes which were always half shut, so that you couldn’t
see into them and always fancied they saw very
far into you. They lived by farming the
Treasure Valley, and very good farmers they were.
They killed everything that did not pay for its eating.
They shot the blackbirds because they pecked the
fruit, and killed the hedgehogs lest they should suck
the cows; they poisoned the crickets for eating the
crumbs in the kitchen, and smothered the cicadas which
used to sing all summer in the lime trees. They
worked their servants without any wages till they
would not work any more, and then quarreled with them
and turned them out of doors without paying them.
It would have been very odd if with such a farm and
such a system of farming they hadn’t got very
rich; and very rich they did get. They generally
contrived to keep their corn by them till it was very
dear, and then sell it for twice its value; they had
heaps of gold lying about on their floors, yet it
was never known that they had given so much as a penny
or a crust in charity; they never went to Mass, grumbled
perpetually at paying tithes, and were, in a word,
of so cruel and grinding a temper as to receive from
all those with whom they had any dealings the nickname
of the “Black Brothers.”
The youngest brother, Gluck, was as
completely opposed, in both appearance and character,
to his seniors as could possibly be imagined or desired.
He was not above twelve years old, fair, blue-eyed,
and kind in temper to every living thing. He
did not, of course, agree particularly well with his
brothers, or, rather, they did not agree with him.
He was usually appointed to the honorable office of
turnspit, when there was anything to roast, which was
not often, for, to do the brothers justice, they were
hardly less sparing upon themselves than upon other
people. At other times he used to clean the
shoes, floors, and sometimes the plates, occasionally
getting what was left on them, by way of encouragement,
and a wholesome quantity of dry blows by way of education.
Things went on in this manner for
a long time. At last came a very wet summer,
and everything went wrong in the country round.
The hay had hardly been got in when the haystacks
were floated bodily down to the sea by an inundation;
the vines were cut to pieces with the hail; the corn
was all killed by a black blight. Only in the
Treasure Valley, as usual, all was safe. As
it had rain when there was rain nowhere else, so it
had sun when there was sun nowhere else. Everybody
came to buy corn at the farm and went away pouring
malédictions on the Black Brothers. They
asked what they liked and got it, except from the poor
people, who could only beg, and several of whom were
starved at their very door without the slightest regard
or notice.
It was drawing towards winter, and
very cold weather, when one day the two elder brothers
had gone out, with their usual warning to little Gluck,
who was left to mind the roast, that he was to let
nobody in and give nothing out. Gluck sat down
quite close to the fire, for it was raining very hard
and the kitchen walls were by no means dry or comfortable-looking.
He turned and turned, and the roast got nice and
brown. “What a pity,” thought Gluck,
“my brothers never ask anybody to dinner.
I’m sure, when they’ve got such a nice
piece of mutton as this, and nobody else has got so
much as a piece of dry bread, it would do their hearts
good to have somebody to eat it with them.”
Just as he spoke there came a double
knock at the house door, yet heavy and dull, as though
the knocker had been tied up more like a
puff than a knock.
“It must be the wind,”
said Gluck; “nobody else would venture to knock
double knocks at our door.”
No, it wasn’t the wind; there
it came again very hard, and, what was particularly
astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry and
not to be in the least afraid of the consequences.
Gluck went to the window, opened it, and put his
head out to see who it was.
It was the most extraordinary-looking
little gentleman he had ever seen in his life.
He had a very large nose, slightly brass-colored;
his cheeks were very round and very red, and might
have warranted a supposition that he had been blowing
a refractory fire for the last eight-and-forty hours;
his eyes twinkled merrily through long, silky eyelashes;
his mustaches curled twice round like a corkscrew on
each side of his mouth; and his hair, of a curious
mixed pepper-and-salt color, descended far over his
shoulders. He was about four feet six in height
and wore a conical pointed cap of nearly the same altitude,
decorated with a black feather some three feet long.
His doublet was prolonged behind into something resembling
a violent exaggeration of what is now termed a “swallowtail,”
but was much obscured by the swelling folds of an
enormous black, glossy-looking cloak, which must have
been very much too long in calm weather, as the wind,
whistling round the old house, carried it clear out
from the wearer’s shoulders to about four times
his own length.
Gluck was so perfectly paralyzed by
the singular appearance of his visitor that he remained
fixed without uttering a word, until the old gentleman,
having performed another and a more energetic concerto
on the knocker, turned round to look after his flyaway
cloak. In so doing he caught sight of Gluck’s
little yellow head jammed in the window, with its
mouth and eyes very wide open indeed.
“Hollo!” said the little
gentleman; “that’s not the way to answer
the door. I’m wet; let me in.”
To do the little gentleman justice,
he was wet. His feather hung down between
his legs like a beaten puppy’s tail, dripping
like an umbrella, and from the ends of his mustaches
the water was running into his waistcoat pockets and
out again like a mill stream.
“I beg pardon, sir,” said
Gluck, “I’m very sorry, but, I really can’t.”
“Can’t what?” said the old gentleman.
“I can’t let you in, sir I
can’t, indeed; my brothers would beat me to
death, sir, if I thought of such a thing. What
do you want, sir?”
“Want?” said the old gentleman
petulantly. “I want fire and shelter,
and there’s your great fire there blazing, crackling,
and dancing on the walls with nobody to feel it.
Let me in, I say; I only want to warm myself.”
Gluck had had his head, by this time,
so long out of the window that he began to feel it
was really unpleasantly cold, and when he turned and
saw the beautiful fire rustling and roaring and throwing
long, bright tongues up the chimney, as if it were
licking its chops at the savory smell of the leg of
mutton, his heart melted within him that it should
be burning away for nothing. “He does look
very wet,” said little Gluck; “I’ll
just let him in for a quarter of an hour.”
Round he went to the door and opened it; and as the
little gentleman walked in, there came a gust of wind
through the house that made the old chimneys totter.
“That’s a good boy,”
said the little gentleman. “Never mind
your brothers. I’ll talk to them.”
“Pray, sir, don’t do any
such thing,” said Gluck. “I can’t
let you stay till they come; they’d be the death
of me.”
“Dear me,” said the old
gentleman, “I’m very sorry to hear that.
How long may I stay?”
“Only till the mutton’s
done, sir,” replied Gluck, “and it’s
very brown.”
Then the old gentleman walked into
the kitchen and sat himself down on the hob, with
the top of his cap accommodated up the chimney, for
it was a great deal too high for the roof.
“You’ll soon dry there,
sir,” said Gluck, and sat down again to turn
the mutton. But the old gentleman did not
dry there, but went on drip, drip, dripping among
the cinders, and the fire fizzed and sputtered and
began to look very black and uncomfortable. Never
was such a cloak; every fold in it ran like a gutter.
“I beg pardon, sir,” said
Gluck at length, after watching the water spreading
in long, quicksilver-like streams over the floor for
a quarter of an hour; “mayn’t I take your
cloak?”
“No, thank you,” said the old gentleman.
“Your cap, sir?”
“I am all right, thank you,” said the
old gentleman rather gruffly.
“But sir I’m
very sorry,” said Gluck hesitatingly, “but really,
sir you’re putting the
fire out.”
“It’ll take longer to do the mutton, then,”
replied his visitor dryly.
Gluck was very much puzzled by the
behavior of his guest; it was such a strange mixture
of coolness and humility. He turned away at the
string meditatively for another five minutes.
“That mutton looks very nice,”
said the old gentleman at length. “Can’t
you give me a little bit?”
“Impossible, sir,” said Gluck.
“I’m very hungry,”
continued the old gentleman. “I’ve
had nothing to eat yesterday nor to-day. They
surely couldn’t miss a bit from the knuckle!”
He spoke in so very melancholy a tone
that it quite melted Gluck’s heart. “They
promised me one slice to-day, sir,” said he;
“I can give you that, but not a bit more.”
“That’s a good boy,” said the old
gentleman again.
Then Gluck warmed a plate and sharpened
a knife. “I don’t care if I do get
beaten for it,” thought he. Just as he
had cut a large slice out of the mutton there came
a tremendous rap at the door. The old gentleman
jumped off the hob as if it had suddenly become inconveniently
warm. Gluck fitted the slice into the mutton
again, with desperate efforts at exactitude, and ran
to open the door.
“What did you keep us waiting
in the rain for?” said Schwartz, as he walked
in, throwing his umbrella in Gluck’s face.
“Aye! what for, indeed, you
little vagabond?” said Hans, administering an
educational box on the ear as he followed his brother
into the kitchen.
“Bless my soul!” said Schwartz when he
opened the door.
“Amen,” said the little
gentleman, who had taken his cap off and was standing
in the middle of the kitchen, bowing with the utmost
possible velocity.
“Who’s that?” said
Schwartz, catching up a rolling-pin and turning to
Gluck with a fierce frown.
“I don’t know, indeed,
brother,” said Gluck in great terror.
“How did he get in?” roared Schwartz.
“My dear brother,” said Gluck deprecatingly,
“he was so very wet!”
The rolling-pin was descending on
Gluck’s head, but, at the instant, the old gentleman
interposed his conical cap, on which it crashed with
a shock that shook the water out of it all over the
room. What was very odd, the rolling-pin no
sooner touched the cap than it flew out of Schwartz’s
hand, spinning like a straw in a high wind, and fell
into the corner at the further end of the room.
“Who are you, sir?” demanded
Schwartz, turning upon him. “What’s
your business?” snarled Hans.
“I’m a poor old man, sir,”
the little gentleman began very modestly, “and
I saw your fire through the window and begged shelter
for a quarter of an hour.”
“Have the goodness to walk out
again, then,” said Schwartz. “We’ve
quite enough water in our kitchen without making it
a drying house.”
“It is a cold day to turn an
old man out in, sir; look at my gray hairs.”
They hung down to his shoulders, as I told you before.
“Aye!” said Hans; “there
are enough of them to keep you warm. Walk!”
“I’m very, very hungry,
sir; couldn’t you spare me a bit of bread before
I go?”
“Bread, indeed!” said
Schwartz; “do you suppose we’ve nothing
to do with our bread but to give it to such red-nosed
fellows as you?”
“Why don’t you sell your
feather?” said Hans sneeringly. “Out
with you!”
“A little bit,” said the old gentleman.
“Be off!” said Schwartz.
“Pray, gentlemen.”
“Off, and be hanged!”
cried Hans, seizing him by the collar. But he
had no sooner touched the old gentleman’s collar
than away he went after the rolling-pin, spinning
round and round till he fell into the corner on the
top of it. Then Schwartz was very angry and ran
at the old gentleman to turn him out; but he also
had hardly touched him when away he went after Hans
and the rolling-pin, and hit his head against the
wall as he tumbled into the corner. And so there
they lay, all three.
Then the old gentleman spun himself
round with velocity in the opposite direction, continued
to spin until his long cloak was all wound neatly
about him, clapped his cap on his head, very much on
one side (for it could not stand upright without going
through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to
his corkscrew mustaches, and replied with perfect
coolness: “Gentlemen, I wish you a very
good morning. At twelve o’clock tonight
I’ll call again; after such a refusal of hospitality
as I have just experienced, you will not be surprised
if that visit is the last I ever pay you.”
“If ever I catch you here again,”
muttered Schwartz, coming, half frightened, out of
the corner but before he could finish his
sentence the old gentleman had shut the house door
behind him with a great bang, and there drove past
the window at the same instant a wreath of ragged
cloud that whirled and rolled away down the valley
in all manner of shapes, turning over and over in
the air and melting away at last in a gush of rain.
“A very pretty business, indeed,
Mr. Gluck!” said Schwartz. “Dish the
mutton, sir. If ever I catch you at such a trick
again bless me, why, the mutton’s
been cut!”
“You promised me one slice,
brother, you know,” said Gluck.
“Oh! and you were cutting it
hot, I suppose, and going to catch all the gravy.
It’ll be long before I promise you such a thing
again. Leave the room, sir; and have the kindness
to wait in the coal cellar till I call you.”
Gluck left the room melancholy enough.
The brothers ate as much mutton as they could, locked
the rest in the cupboard, and proceeded to get very
drunk after dinner.
Such a night as it was! Howling
wind and rushing rain, without intermission.
The brothers had just sense enough left to put up
all the shutters and double-bar the door before they
went to bed. They usually slept in the same
room. As the clock struck twelve they were both
awakened by a tremendous crash. Their door burst
open with a violence that shook the house from top
to bottom.
“What’s that?” cried Schwartz, starting
up in his bed.
“Only I,” said the little gentleman.
The two brothers sat up on their bolster
and stared into the darkness. The room was full
of water, and by a misty moonbeam, which found its
way through a hole in the shutter, they could see in
the midst of it an enormous foam globe, spinning round
and bobbing up and down like a cork, on which, as
on a most luxurious cushion, reclined the little old
gentleman, cap and all. There was plenty of room
for it now, for the roof was off.
“Sorry to incommode you,”
said their visitor ironically. “I’m
afraid your beds are dampish. Perhaps you had
better go to your brother’s room; I’ve
left the ceiling on there.”
They required no second admonition,
but rushed into Gluck’s room, wet through and
in an agony of terror.
“You’ll find my card on
the kitchen table,” the old gentleman called
after them. “Remember, the last visit.”
“Pray Heaven it may!”
said Schwartz, shuddering. And the foam globe
disappeared.
Dawn came at last, and the two brothers
looked out of Gluck’s little window in the morning.
The Treasure Valley was one mass of ruin and desolation.
The inundation had swept away trees, crops, and cattle,
and left in their stead a waste of red sand and gray
mud. The two brothers crept shivering and horror-struck
into the kitchen. The water had gutted the whole
first floor; corn, money, almost every movable thing,
had been swept away, and there was left only a small
white card on the kitchen table. On it, in large,
breezy, long-legged letters, were engraved the words:
SOUTH WEST WIND, ESQUIRE