Caroline Kegel brought in the post-bag, and stood about as if she wanted to find something to do in the room. At last she opened the bag, and taking out a letter, laid it on the table beside her mistress. Then she hung about again, and asked: "If you please ma'am, shall I light the candles?"--"No, never mind." Still Caroline did not go, she said: "If you please, ma'am, you told us we wer'n't to repeat any gossip to you, but ...."--"What is it?" asked Frida, startled out of her reverie. "The Gürlitz labourers have chased away Mr. Pomuchelskopp, his wife and two daughters."--"You don't mean to say so!" cried Frida. "Yes, and all of our labourers are down stairs in the yard, and wish to speak to you."--"Do they want to chase us away too?" asked Frida, drawing herself up proudly. "No, no! my dear, dear lady," cried Caroline, throwing herself on her knees and bursting into tears; "there's no talk of anything so dreadful, and my old father says that he'll be the death of the first who dares to speak of such a thing. They only say that Mr. von Rambow won't listen to them, and so they want to speak to you, for they have great confidence in you."--"Where is Triddelfitz?"--"Lor, ma'am, he's going about amongst them talking to them, but they won't hear a word he says, they say they have nothing to do with him, and must speak to you."--"Come," said Frida, and she went down stairs.
"What do you want with me?" she asked as she stepped out at the door, before which the labourers were all collected. Fred Flegel, the carpenter, came forward, and said: "Madam, we have come to you, for we're all of one mind. We told the master about it some time ago, but he wouldn't attend to us. The squire was affronted with us for saying it; but you see we have no confidence in Mr. Triddelfitz, he is too young and doesn't know enough, and we thought perhaps you could help us if you would be so very kind. We are not so impertinent as to ask for more than we have, indeed we're quite satisfied with what we've got, and we get all we ought, though never at the right time so that our wives sometimes find it difficult to manage."--"Yes," interrupted Päsel, "and last year, which was a year of famine, the rye was all sold, and, Madam, you see I always have my wages paid in kind, so when I couldn't get the rye, how could I live; and when I didn't get it, I was told to be patient. Yes, to be patient! Then there was the potato disease! So how could one live?"--"Madam," said a white-haired old man, "I won't speak of food, for we never really starved; but I am an old man and I was sometimes kept standing so long in the marl pit pouring water over the marl, that I couldn't straighten myself in the evening, nor sleep at night from pain, and it might have been so easily managed better. We were used to other ways when Mr. Hawermann was here, but now we're ordered about by folk that don't know what work is."--"Yes, Madam," resumed the carpenter, "that's why we've come to ask you to let us have a bailiff put over us who knows what ought to be done, either Mr. Hawermann or another as good; one who will listen to us quietly when we've got anything to say, who will not abuse us when we don't deserve it, and who will not use his stick to our children when they are doing their work, as Mr. Triddelfitz was in the habit of doing."--"That must never happen again," cried Frida.--"Well, Madam, he has given up doing that now. It must be six months ago that I made bold to speak to him seriously about it one day when I was alone with him, and he has never done it since. I wish that the squire would only see that it would be for his own advantage if he got a good bailiff, for he understands nothing about farming himself, and then the wind wouldn't blow all the grain out of a field of wheat from leaving it standing too long, as was the case last year, nor would the people talk of him as they do now. And, Madam, there's a great deal of talk just now. It's said that he's going to sell the estate to Mr. Pomuchelskopp, but we won't have him for our master."--"No," they all exclaimed, "we won't have him."--"A fellow whom his own labourers have turned out."--"We needn't have him."