wedding, the two men parted in the best of
humor; and the latter with his bulging angularities, his swelled-up,
protruding coat-tails, and with the amphora bobbing back and forth at
his left side, made a remarkable spectacle as he walked away.

The peasants wished their adviser a good morning, promised to bear his
advice in mind, and departed, each one to his own farmstead. The
Justice, who, dealing with all the people who had come to him in the
course of an hour, had successfully handled everything undertaken, first
took the newly-acquired document of recognition to the room where he
kept the sword of Charles the Great, and then went with the servant to
the granary to measure out oats for the horses.

CHAPTER III

THE OBERHOF

"Westphalia formerly consisted of individual estates, each one of which
had its own free possessor. Several such estates constituted a
Bauerschaft (peasant community), which, as a rule, bore the name of the
oldest estate. It lay in the original character of the peasant
communities that the oldest estate should also stand first in rank and
come to be the most aristocratic, and here from time to time the
children, grandchildren and house-inmates, ceasing work for a few days,
came together and feasted. The beginning, or else the end, of the summer
was the usual time for this event, and then every estate-owner brought
along with him for the feast some of the fruits which he himself had
raised, and perhaps a calf or lamb as well. Then all sorts of matters
were discussed, opinions were exchanged, marriages performed, deaths
made known, and then the son, as the succeeding head of his father's
estate, was sure to make his first appearance in the company with fuller
hands and a choicer animal. Disagreements were unavoidable on these
days of joy, and in the event of one, the father, as the head of the
oldest estate, stepped in and, with the approval of the rest, put an end
to the quarrel. If during the previous year any of the estate-owners had
disagreed about some matter, both of them brought forward their
grievances before the next gathering, and both were satisfied with
whatever decision their fellows deemed right and just. After all the
eatables had been devoured, and the tree set aside for the occasion had
been burned up, the feast, or the gathering, came to an end. Each one
returned home, related the events of the occasion to the waiting members
of his household, and came to be a living and