“Oh, you don’t mean it!” she replied indifferently.

“The scoundrels!” continued the clerk.  “They ruin everything; if only they had a little regard at least for the young trees; but they go after little oaks of the thickness of my arm, too small even to make oars of!  It looks as if loss on the part of other people were just as gratifying to them as gain on their own part!”

“It’s a shame!” said Margaret.

The clerk had finished his milk, but still he did not go.  He seemed to have something on his mind.  “Have you heard nothing about Brandes?” he asked suddenly.

“Nothing; he never enters this house.”

“Then you don’t know what has happened to him?”

“Why, what?” asked Margaret, agitated.

“He is dead!”

“Dead!” she cried.  “What, dead?  For God’s sake!  Why, only this morning he passed by here, perfectly well, with his gun on his back!”

“He is dead,” repeated the clerk, eyeing her sharply, “killed by the ‘Blue Smocks.’  The body was brought into the village fifteen minutes ago.”

Margaret clasped her hands.  “God in Heaven, do not judge him!  He did not know what he was doing!”

“Him!” cried the clerk—­“the cursed murderer you mean?”

A heavy groan came from the bedroom.  Margaret hurried there and the clerk followed her.  Frederick was sitting upright in bed, with his face buried in his hands, and moaning like one dying.  “Frederick, how do you feel?” asked his mother.

“How do you feel?” repeated the clerk.

“Oh, my body, my head!” he wailed.

“What’s the matter with him?” inquired the clerk.

“Oh, God knows,” she replied; “he came home with the cows as early as four o’clock because he felt sick.”  “Frederick, Frederick, answer me!  Shall I go for the doctor?”

“No, no,” he groaned; “it is only the colic; I’ll be better soon.”  He lay down again; his face twitched convulsively with pain; then his color returned.  “Go,” he said, feebly; “I must sleep; then it will pass away.”

“Mistress Mergel,” asked the clerk earnestly, “are you sure that Frederick came home at four and did not go away again?”

She stared in his face.  “Ask any child on the street.  And go away?—­I wish to God he could!”

“Didn’t he tell you anything about Brandes?”

“In the name of God, yes—­that Brandes had reviled him in the woods and reproached him with our poverty, the rascal!  But God forgive me, he is dead!  Go!” she continued; “have you come to insult honest people?  Go!”

She turned to her son again, as the clerk went out.  “Frederick, how do you feel?” asked his mother.  “Did you hear?  Terrible, terrible—­without confession or absolution!”

“Mother, mother, for God’s sake, let me sleep.  I can stand no more!”

At this moment John Nobody entered the room; tall and thin like a bean-pole, but ragged and shy, as we had seen him five years before.  His face was even paler than usual.  “Frederick,” he stuttered, “you are to come to your Uncle immediately; he has work for you; without delay, now!”