"Where has she gone?" I thundered at her. "You must know, for you helped her off."
"Ay, that I did," screamed the old hag, "that I did; and may Satan fetch my soul for doing it! The thankless, worthless creature promised to take me with her, and now leaves me here with shame and abuse in this robber's den; but she'll live yet to come to it herself when he flings her out into the street, the----"
"Another word, woman, and I strike you to the floor," I cried, raising my fist threateningly.
The old woman burst into a screech of laughter. "Now _he_ begins!" she cried. "And didn't they make a fine fool of him, the stupid blockhead! Thought he was the man, to be sure, while the other one was with her every night. Lets himself be sent out of the way, for the other to come in his coach and carry off the pretty lady." And the old wretch burst again into a screech of horrible laughter.
"Be that as it may," I said, struggling to keep down the rage and anguish that were tearing my heart, "you have been rightly served, at all events; and if you do not want me to have you hounded off the place for a thief, as you are, you had better take yourself off at once."
"Oh, indeed!" screamed the hag, planting her arms a-kimbo, "he carries matters here with a high hand, to be sure! I a thief, indeed! I only want my money. I have had for this half-year no wages from the whole beggarly lot, the smuggling gang!"
She had received from me, during the two months of my stay at Zehrendorf, more than her whole year's service could amount to; and I had myself seen Herr von Zehren pay her wages but a few days before, and add a handsome present besides.
"Begone!" I said. "Leave the place this instant!"
The old woman caught up the hatchet, but she well knew that she could not intimidate me. So she retreated before me out of the room, and out of the house, screaming out all the time the vilest abuse and the most furious threats against Herr von Zehren, Constance, and myself. I closed the great gate after her with my own hands, and then looked for Hans, who was just coming out of the lodge, into which he had been taking old Christian.
Hans was deathly pale, and did not look at me as he came to my side. He had heard enough from old Christian to make it unnecessary for him to seek from me any further particulars of Constance's abduction; and he probably did not care to let me see how hard the blow had struck him, which hurled into the mire the image of his idolatry, and so cruelly destroyed his solitary illusion, the last glimmer of poetry in his cheerless life. I seized his hand and wrung it hard.