Part 5

The tramp had pricked up his ears at Michel’s story, and eyed him sharply with a side glance. “Money lost is nothing lost,” he said, when the other had finished. “It happens so that we two can now become equally rich. Do you see the poplar tree yonder?” He pointed to a very tall tree, which grew a few steps farther down the road.

“Certainly! What of it?”

“Do you see the magpie’s nest in the highest boughs?”

Michel searched for a while with his eyes, and said, “Yes, I see that, too.”

“Well, then, the magpie has stolen a large gold chain, set with diamonds, somewhere. I saw her just now as she carried the jewel to her nest. It is lying there still. I wanted to climb up at once and take it away; but I have rheumatism in all my bones from sleeping on the ground so many nights, and I can’t manage climbing. But it will be child’s play for you. So up with you at once, and fetch the treasure out of the nest.”

“Child’s play—that’s saying a great deal,” muttered Michel, measuring with his eye the height of the tree. “And besides, the chain doesn’t belong to us. We must give it back to the owner.”

“Of course,” cried the tramp. “Do I look like a thief? But, at any rate, we can demand the reward, and that is something.”

Michel hesitated no longer. He took off his knapsack, rested his stick against the pear tree, and was beginning to climb the poplar.

“Hold on,” said the tramp, “that won’t do. You must take off your coat and boots, too, or you’ll never get to the top.”

Michel knew that this was true. He pulled off his handsome new boots, removed his nice cloth coat, folded them neatly according to his custom, laid both beside his knapsack, and said: “Take good care of them for me. I have nothing else in the world.”

“Depend upon it, Brother, depend upon it,” cried the barefooted tramp, rubbing his dirty hands together with a grin.

Michel began to climb the tall poplar. He was strong and skilful, but it was a hard piece of work. At last, however, he reached the nest, and peered in with the greatest curiosity. There were four half-fledged magpies, which made a great outcry, flapped their wings violently, and pecked his hand with their yellow beaks, as he felt for the necklace, but there was no sign of a gold chain. He found a safe seat in a forked branch, and called down: “Holloa—you must have dreamed about a gold chain; there’s nothing here but downy feathers—no necklace.”

As he received no answer, he parted the branches and looked down. To his horror, he saw that the tramp had disappeared, and with him his knapsack, staff, boots, and coat. Gazing into the distance, he discovered him with all the stolen clothes on running along the road far away. “Stop thief!” shouted Michel at the top of his lungs, slipping and jumping down the tree so fast that he ran the risk of breaking his neck. But no living soul was in sight, no one heard his calls for help, no one stopped the flying thief, and it was useless to follow him, for he had a long start, and a bend in the road soon hid him from Michel’s sight.

There stood poor Michel, now barefoot and in his shirt sleeves, with nothing left, not even the cane and hymn-book which his brother-in-law had given him, or the underclothes which his mother had packed in the knapsack. He did not know what to do. Should he go on, or simply turn back and again enter the service of his master, the farmer? But he was too much ashamed to go home in such a plight, after just starting out into the world with such proud hopes, so he determined to try to get work as he was.

He walked sadly on until he came to a broad and tolerably swift stream, across which was a ford. When he went down the bank and was preparing to roll up his trousers and step into the water, he suddenly heard loud weeping, as if from a child. He looked around in surprise, but saw nothing. Yet the crying did not stop, and Michel had too kind a heart not to wish to find the cause of the trouble. He followed the sounds, which seemed to come from a thick clump of willows, and after some searching, discovered a queer little man, with a gray beard, who was trying to hide from him in the moss. Taking up the tiny creature carefully, that he might not hurt him, he said kindly: “Don’t be afraid, I will do you no harm. What is the matter, that you are grieving so? Tell me whether I can help you?”

The little man hastily took from a case which hung on his back a pair of horn spectacles, with round blue glasses, as big as he was himself, held them before his eyes, for he could not put them on because his nose was far too small, and gazed intently at Michel. The examination seemed to satisfy him. He folded up the spectacles, put them carefully back in the case again, and said in a weak little voice: “I must cross the river, and I can’t, for it is too deep.”

Michel’s curiosity was roused, and he asked, “What have you to seek on the other side?”

“It would be too long a story to tell you,” replied the little man. “In a few words, I can give only this: I belong to a race of dwarfs, which, until now, lived in this neighborhood. But men have grown too wicked, and we cannot stay here any longer. My people have gone and taken their boats with them. I was delayed because I wanted to help a poor woman, who has been kind to me, in gathering some healing herbs. They have left me behind all alone, and now I don’t know what will become of me.”

“It seems to me,” said Michel, “that your dwarf brothers are at least as wicked as men, since they did not trouble themselves about you.”

“It is my own fault,” wailed the dwarf; “a whole nation cannot wait for one person.”

“Shall I carry you across the water?” asked Michel.

“Ah, if you only would do it! Then I should be saved, for on the other shore I could overtake my people.”

“Come then, little fellow,” said Michel, rolled up his trousers above his knees, took the dwarf in his hand, and waded carefully through the roaring river. When he had reached the opposite bank, he asked the little man: “Shall I carry you farther? You are not heavy.”

“No,” replied the dwarf, hastily, “just put me on the ground, I can find my way alone now.”

Michel obeyed the dwarf’s wish. The little fellow took from his back the case with the spectacles, laid it in Michel’s hand, and said: “I want to show you my gratitude. We dwarfs have no money. But I will give you these spectacles. When you put them on, you can read the thoughts of men in their heads. You already know how useful that is.”

Michel hesitated to accept the gift. “You will need them yourself,” he said.

“Take them, take them,” replied the dwarf, “we are going to a distant country, where we shall live among ourselves. We dwarfs say what we think, and think what we say. There we shall no longer need the spectacles for reading thoughts. I thank you. Farewell.”

Before Michel knew it, the dwarf had vanished, and Michel, who would gladly have talked with him a little longer, searched for him in vain. So he put the blue spectacles into his pocket, and continued his way in a very sorrowful mood. After walking some time, he came to a field of turnips separated from the road by a fence. Before this fence several men, who looked like field laborers, were standing, and behind it a stout man, with the perspiration streaming down his face, was digging up the turnips. The workmen appeared to be laughing at the fat fellow, and the fat fellow was toiling as if he wanted to vent his rage on the earth and the turnips. Michel, curious to see what was going on, stopped, and the fat man called: “Holloa! do you want to earn a penny instead of staring at these gaping idlers? Then come. There is work enough here for every man.”

Michel noticed that the laborers looked at him angrily, and he thought, “something is wrong here.” It occurred to him that this was a good chance to try the dwarf’s spectacles, and he put them on his nose. The glasses were scarcely before his eyes when the heads of the people appeared to become as transparent as crystal, and he could read their thoughts as plainly as in a book of clear, large type.

In the fat man’s head he read: “You seem to be a strong fellow, and very poor; come, work for me, I will pay you as little as possible, and this gang, which refuses to work for my wages, and leaves me in the lurch in the middle of the harvest, will pull long faces. The rascals will probably break your bones because you are spoiling their game, but that’s your affair, not mine.”

Michel was troubled and turned to the laborers, who were closing round him threateningly. There he read: “What! Does a tramp like you mean to work cheaper here, and serve the rich skinflint for a song? We had brought him to a point where he would be obliged to add a little, and now you cross our plans, and help the rich extortioner against us. May—”

Michel knew enough. “If there is plenty of work here for everybody,” he said to the fat man, “then these people have more right to it than I.” With these words he turned to go.

“Idler!” shouted the fat man, furiously.

“What!” Michel answered, “you want to rob me of my day’s work, and yet call me an idler? For shame, you penny-squeezer!”

The laborers burst into a loud laugh, and one held out his hand to him: “Clasp hands, you are a good fellow. Come and drink a glass of beer with us.”

“Willingly,” replied Michel, and they all left the fat man standing in his turnip field, and went on together until they came to an inn by the roadside, which they entered. On the way they told him that they were engaged in a struggle about wages with the fat man, who was the richest landowner in the neighborhood, and Michel answered that he needed the day’s wages greatly, but he would not take the bread out of their mouths. They now made him tell them how it happened that he was wandering about the world barefoot, and in his shirt sleeves, and pitied him for having been twice outwitted by rascals. So they offered to get him a coat and boots on credit, and obtain work in the neighborhood. Michel was greatly delighted over it, the more so, as he saw through his blue spectacles that their thoughts were sincere, and they meant honestly by him.

In the tavern the laborers ordered food and drink to be set before Michel, and clothed him out of the landlord’s chests and trunks, so that he no longer looked like a tramp. When he was fitted out and had eaten, he glanced around the room. In one corner he saw at a table three fellows, who sat there silently, pledging each other from time to time in large glasses of brandy. One had squint eyes, the second a nose twisted completely on one side, the third was disfigured by a hare-lip. They looked so evil, that Michel was horrified, and quickly seized the dwarf’s spectacles. He was curious to learn what kind of thoughts lurked behind such ugly faces. What he read in their heads made him shudder. They were all three thinking of nothing except that that night they would break into an old castle near the inn, murder the old countess, her young daughter, and two maid-servants, who were living there alone, while the old count was in attendance at court, and steal all their gold and silver. Behind these thoughts, which he saw with terrible distinctness, he read others a little less clearly. The squint-eyed man was imagining how he would stab the women with his dagger, while they knelt before him begging for mercy. The crooked-nosed man fancied he had a pile of gold, into which he was plunging his blood-stained hands. The hare-lipped man meant to attack his two comrades in their sleep, after the crime had been committed, kill them, and rob them of their share of the booty.

Michel asked himself in horror what he could do to prevent the crime and deliver the wicked fellows to punishment. Tell the laborers what he read in the heads of the three monsters? They would not believe him and perhaps think he was crazy. Go to the police and denounce the scoundrels? But how could he prove what they meant to do? If they denied it, he would stand there like a simpleton, and the police would perhaps take him for a rascal who wanted to fool them. After thinking over the matter for a long time, it seemed to him that he could do nothing except deal with the three rogues all alone.

He agreed to meet the laborers the next morning, at the same inn, to go with them to a place to work, took leave of them, and hurried off in the direction that he supposed the castle stood. After questioning all the shepherds and market women he met on the way, he at last reached a thick forest, and there, in a clearing, was the old castle with its solid walls and small windows.

He knocked at the heavy oak door until it slowly opened a little, and in the crack appeared an aged maid-servant, who asked what he wanted. He begged to see the countess, for whom he had an important message.

He was kept waiting a long while outside the door, but at last the maid came back and sulkily invited him to follow her. Michel went behind her to a little tower room, where the old countess received him. Beside her sat her daughter, a young girl, as beautiful as an angel, whose blue eyes were as friendly as the bright day. Michel felt his heart grow as warm as if sunbeams had entered it, and he could not make up his mind to frighten this lovely creature by his story. He told the countess that he must speak to her alone, and, after a little hesitation, she sent her daughter and the servant out and ordered Michel to deliver his message at once.

“Your ladyship,” he said, “three murderers intend to attack your castle to-night, kill you all, and steal your treasures.” Seeing her turn pale, he added quickly: “Have no fear, I will remain to defend you and, so long as I have a drop of blood in my body, no one shall harm a hair of your heads.”

“One against three—” sighed the countess, anxiously.

“I would fight with five, if I only had weapons.”

“There is no lack of arms here,” said the countess. “But would it not be wiser for us to fly to the city at once?”

“The road is long, it is almost dark, and the forest is not safe,” replied Michel. “Besides, your flight would not prevent the robbery of the castle.”

The countess saw this. She was naturally a brave woman, and Michel’s presence somewhat soothed her. She gave him from her husband’s weapons a gun, two pistols, and a dagger, ordered a dainty supper to be served for him, sent her daughter and the two maids to bed early, and then kept watch with him in the castle hall. No persuasion from Michel could induce her to go into her tower and protect herself behind locks and bolts. “If I am warned, I can defend myself,” she said firmly, and so it was settled. Just before midnight the countess and Michel, who were listening behind the oak door, heard soft, stealing steps approaching and whispering voices consulting about the best way of breaking into the castle. Various plans were refused, and at last they agreed that the most nimble robber should climb, by projecting stones, to a window on the second story, fasten a rope wound about his waist to the cross-bars, and drag the others up.

“Now we have the rascals,” Michel whispered into the countess’s ear, and ran before her up the stairs into the room whose window the scoundrel meant to enter. With his gun ready to fire, he waited in the dark until a head appeared above the sill, and then pressed the trigger. A flash, a report, a shriek, a fall, followed one another in an instant. The two robbers who had remained below saw, with terror, their comrade drop at their feet, and turned to fly. Michel and the countess fired at the same time, and saw both fall.

“Hurrah!” shouted Michel, joyously, and, without listening to the countess’s warning, he ran down the stairs, seized a lantern, unbolted the door, and rushed out. At the foot of the castle wall he saw the man with a crooked nose lying with a broken skull, and the one with a hare-lip had a bleeding wound in his breast. The squint-eyed man was not dead. He had received a bullet in the leg, and had fallen, but rose again, and was limping off. Michel pursued him like the wind. But the vagabond suddenly turned and struck fiercely at him with a knife. Michel fired a pistol which stretched the murderer in the grass; then he, too, with the blade in his breast, fell to the earth.

Meanwhile the countess’s daughter and the two maids, roused from their sleep by the firing, came hurrying down. The countess called to them that the danger was over, and all four carried the wounded Michel into the castle, without heeding the three ruffians, who lay dead or senseless.

Michel, too, became unconscious after the four women had laid him on a couch. When he came to himself again, many hours had passed since the adventure of the night. A maid had brought a doctor from the city at dawn, and now the count, who had been informed by a messenger of what had happened, also arrived. Michel heard the doctor tell the count that he would recover, and the countess speak with the highest praise of his courage, to which they all owed their lives. He wanted to raise himself and say that he did not deserve so much honor, but they all ordered him in the same breath to say nothing and keep quiet.

It was many days before Michel’s wound healed. The countess and her daughter nursed him tenderly, and he was always happy whenever he saw the lovely girl beside his bed. His eyes rested constantly upon her, and when they met hers, a faint flush mounted into her cheeks. He longed to know what was passing through her little head, and asked for his blue spectacles. The countess and her daughter wondered at this desire, and wished to know what use he could have for blue spectacles in a darkened sick room. But he only repeated the request, until they yielded and brought the spectacles. He hastily seized them, put them on with trembling hands, and gazed with all his soul at the white brow of the young countess. He read: “Why does he stare at me so strangely? Has the poor young fellow gone crazy?” And beyond were many half-distinct thoughts, which were something like, “That would be a great pity, for he is such a dear, brave fellow, and I am so fond of him that I wish he would stay here with me till the end of my life.”

When he had read this, tears filled his eyes. He took off the glasses, which were dimmed, and did not utter a word. But when the countess left him alone with her daughter, he suddenly seized the lovely girl’s hand and said in a trembling voice: “Beautiful Countess, I am only a poor peasant boy, but I love you very, very dearly, and I know that you love me, too, so I dare to ask you, Will you be my wife?”

“Yes, I will,” she answered softly, sinking into his arms. So the countess found the young couple when she entered. At first she was very angry, and would not consent to have her only daughter marry a peasant lad. But the young lady said: “I will have him or no one. And if you will not let me marry him, it will break my heart.” Then, whether willing or not, the mother was obliged to consent, and even beg the count to give his blessing to the union. Michel was now almost well, so he was again allowed to talk, and the count inquired how he had discovered the plans of the three murderers, two of whom were dead and buried, and the third lay wounded in prison. Michel did not wish to have any secrets from his future father-in-law. He told him about his meeting with the dwarf, who had given him the blue spectacles, and what power these spectacles possessed. The count wanted to try their wonderful magic himself, and was convinced that Michel had not attempted to deceive him.

“You must show the dwarf’s spectacles to the king,” said the count and, when Michel was allowed to rise, he took him to court with him and presented him to the king, who heard his story with amazement. He, too, put on the spectacles, and looked a long while at the courtiers who surrounded his throne.

“Your most gracious Majesty, I will gladly give you the dwarf’s spectacles, if you will accept them from me.”

The king slowly shook his head, took them off, and returned them to Michel. “No,” he said, “I do not want them. I would rather not be compelled to read the thoughts of men. It does not give happiness. I will even try to forget what I have read. I will appoint you the chief judge of my kingdom. Then you can apply the dwarf’s spectacles to a useful purpose.”

Michel was now a person of importance, whom even a count would willingly accept for a son-in-law. He brought his mother from the carpenter’s home in the village, married the beautiful young countess, moved into a splendid palace in the capital, and performed his duties as chief justice, with the blue spectacles on his nose.

Nobody among the people knew their power, but soon all trembled before it. For through them Michel read the truth in the head of the most hardened criminal and most skilful sharper; no lie could stand before him, and no injustice remained concealed. No innocent person was condemned, and no guilty one escaped punishment; henceforward law and justice reigned throughout the kingdom. Michel was feared by the bad, honored by the good, and praised by all as the wisest man in the whole country, and so it remained to the end of his long life.

THE GOLDEN BEETLE THAT WENT ON HIS TRAVELS