When the young girl’s slender and graceful form had disappeared behind the last walnut-trees at the farther end of the orchard, the peasants broached the subject which had brought them to the Justice.  The building of a new road, which was to establish a connection with the main highway, threatened, if the idea were carried out, to deprive them of a few strips of their land over which it was necessary to lay the new road.  Against this loss, although the project would redound to the advantage of all the surrounding peasantry, they were anxious to protect themselves; and how to avert it was the question about which they were anxious to secure the advice of the owner of the Oberhof.

“Good day!  How are you?” called out a voice, well known in this locality.  A pedestrian, a man in respectable attire, but covered with dust from his gray gaiters to his green, visored cap, had entered through the gate and approached the table, unnoticed at first by the conversers.

“Ah, Mr. Schmitz, so we see you too, once more, eh?” said the old peasant very cordially, and he had the servant bring the fatigued man the best there was in the wine-cellar.  The peasants politely moved closer together to make room for the new arrival.  They insisted upon his sitting down, and he lowered himself into a chair with great care and deliberation, so as not to break what he was carrying.  And this procedure was indeed very necessary, for the man was loaded down like an express-wagon, and the outlines of his form resembled a conglomeration of bundles tied together.  Not only did his coat-pockets, which were crammed full of all sorts of round, square and oblong objects, bulge out from his body in an astonishing manner, but also his breast and side pockets, which were used for the same purpose, protruded in a manifold variety of swellings and eminences, which stuck out all the more sharply as the Collector, in order not to lose any of his treasures, had, in spite of the summer heat, buttoned his coat tightly together.  Even the inside of his cap had been obliged to serve for the storing of several smaller articles, and had acquired from its contents the shape and semblance of a watermelon.  He sipped, with manifest relish, the good wine that was put before him, and his elderly countenance, bloated and reddened with heat and fatigue, gradually acquired its natural color and form again.

“Been doing good business, Mr. Schmitz?” inquired the Justice, smiling.  “Judging from appearances, one might think so.”

“Oh, fairly good,” replied the Collector.  “There is a rich blessing hidden in the dear earth.  It not only brings forth corn and vegetables constantly and untiringly—­an alert searcher may secure a harvest of antiquities from it all the time, no matter how much other people have scratched and dug for them.  So I have once more taken my little trip through the country, and this time I got as far as the border of the Sieg valley.  I am on my way back now and intend to go on as far as the city today.  But I had to stop over a while at your place on the way, Justice, in order to rest myself a bit, for I am certainly tired.”