When they were out in the yard Braesig stood still, and said:  “Look, Charles, did you ever see anything more like the desert of Sahara?  One heap of manure here and another there!  And look, that’s the drain old Joseph cut from the farm-yard to the village horse-pond.  And as for the roofs,” he continued, “they have enough straw to make new ones, but the old people think money expended on thatching sheer waste.  I come here often, and for two reasons; firstly because of my stomach, and secondly because of my heart.  I’ve always found that well-cooked food is not only pleasant to the taste, but also produces a wholesome exhilaration when followed by one of the little rages I generally get into here.  And I come here for the sake of your sister and the little round-heads.  I know that I am of use to her, for young Joseph just rolls on smoothly like the wheel of the coach that runs every winter from here to Rostock.  How I should like to have him as leader in a three-horse team, harnessed into a farm cart, and then drive him with my whip!” “Ah!” said Hawermann as they came to a field, “they’ve got very good wheat here.”  “Yes, it’s pretty fair, but what do you think they were going to have had there instead?  Rye!  And for what reason?  Simply because old Joseph had sown rye in that field every year for twenty-one years!” “Does their farm extend to the other side of the hill?” “No, Charles, it isn’t quite such a fat morsel as all that, like bacon fried in butter and eaten with a spoon!  No, no, the wheat on the top of the hill is mine.”  “Ah, well, it’s odd how soon one forgets.  Then your land comes down as far as this?” “Yes, Charles; Warnitz is a long narrow estate, it extends from here on the one side as far as Haunerwiem on the other.  Now stand still for a moment, I can show you the whole lie of the country from this point.  Where we are standing belongs to your brother-in-law, his land reaches from my wheat-field up there to the right, as far as that small clump of fir-trees to the left.  You see, Rexow is quite a small farm, there are only a few more acres belonging to it on the other side of the village.  To the right up there is Warnitz; and in front of us, where the fallow ground begins, is Puempelhagen; and down there to the left, behind the little clump of firs, is Guerlitz.”

“Then Warnitz is the largest!” “No, Charles, you’ve mistaken me there.  Puempelhagen is the best estate in the neighborhood, the wheat-land there produces forty-two loads, and that is eight more than Warnitz can show.  It would be a blessing if all the other places were like it.  The Councillor is a good man, and understands farming, but you see his profession obliges him to live in Schwerin, so he can’t attend to Puempelhagen.  He has had a good many bailiffs of one kind or another.  He came into the estate when everything was very dear, and there are a considerable number of apothecaries[7] on it, so that he must often feel in want of money,