short, I bought an estate for 6000 thalers,
but soon discovered that I had exposed myself to the lightning, in
avoiding the thunder, and that my good friend with his prophecy had
shot very near the mark. For when I had scarcely half settled myself, a
certain _Junker_, Vogelbach, with a couple of his associates, were the
first to victimise me, as they call it. He lived about half a mile off;
not that he had any property of his own, for he only rented a peasant's
farm worth about 100 Imperial thalers, and spent his life, like others
of the same sort, in '_Krippenreiterei_.' How he maintained his wife
and child I know not, but only that I frequently saw his wife with a
cart and two ragged children on the estate of opulent nobles,
collecting corn, bread, cheese, butter, and the like. They generally
came once a month to beg all such articles of me. This Vogelbach was,
as has been mentioned, the first who, with two of his associates, came
to have a 'housewarming.' The first and second time they behaved
themselves with some degree of discretion, wherefore I put before them
what was best in the house. But this, in their opinion, was abundantly
balanced by the honour of the noble brotherhood into which they had
admitted me, and at last they could no longer refrain from their shabby
tricks. 'It would become you, brother _Kretschmer_,' he began one day
that he had filled himself with beer and brandy up to the eyes. But I
made him remember these words by an unexpected box on the ear in such a
sort that the good fellow was tumbled over into the middle of the room
with his stool. My groom, a robust man who had been a soldier, and whom
I had taken chiefly as a guardian spirit for the like cases of need,
when he saw this, seized the other Junker W. by the collar, so that he
could not stir. 'What,' said he, 'you villain, is it not enough for you
to come here so constantly, to fill your hungry body and to fatten your
meagre carcass? Do you choose to give my master this _Deo gratias_? The
devil take me if one of you stir; I will so trim his Junker jacket,
that there shall be a blue fringe on his bare back for six weeks.' 'We
have nothing to do with these quarrels,' answered the two; 'if brother
Vogelbach has begun one, he will know how to carry it out like a true
cavalier.' The latter had meanwhile picked himself up, and was about to
seize his sword. 'Keep your miserable blood-drawer in its scabbard,' I
said, 'or I will assuredly stick the