The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-11-06 00:00:00

1 36 3, % Obt k , :IRbZ. Okft,,,t4Ati 'nu ------------T:-----iun ,sea.side.;" -,ttet -‘4. Canteihmter ...by ----' - rature ;"• tette atL ele on ,c,m d n .Light illte E . ti 6z, „I' to ;441 ;.0 ern , n a the .Txohn-' qc..4,, a lld, tt ~,_l l, on • L . c. Paris ,,, a Pressor - -. ~, het :4Atori;;;lele 'entrtled giv es come ,extracts. e ek L ir) ~ We shall return to - -=-, the subjee,„ 1312 0T-ILEISI Ik th s JQ4 e th• ' It t 4 444 „ 1 116 • G 111 1.•iN AITERW.GE.] A t Si ui l nhabited littl e -street, called the A N ho h the '4 8 e,. 1v villa ge of Nordstetten, stands 4 11 % t. A t thr ee ' l ch, beside,a stable and a shed, th e to 'windows, partly patched with t i le ' l ll .4 I,),garret window han.a,shutter, head s 'Ll of gle hinge, and threatening to 1 4 ,I,Ot o ga rde the passers-by. fflchind . the . 11 1) ` 4 4 I t i wo b 'which, although small, is di- Yeop,' eo lh ?N e 31'7.a -hedgerow of withered thorns. !I'e tt - '„ 014 live d two brothers, who 'had kept A ''`- ar id bitter' enmity for fourteen has rtet hipß th -to w 4,1 garden, so also tin the house, 41 vided into two parts, from the b 1 t he little cellar. The trap-door ( lo ot , tel cm ad i l ,' ll the cellar below each of the PteL 4l 'l4 l . 4 , stoxes, shut off by 'atlas, 11 (I to . W 4 a tta lu k loc.ks were put on all the ottli the e at* of thieves were hourly ex.- " te b hg44 °th e , e onged to one brother, the th e e b eP_t a'a:_4?t a word was spoken in the ',44 1 rotb er - ceasio nt a oat h. ed ) arid a. muttered by 0, We re Ce nt , adv an .44 (so the brothers were te i ° " r ad hadeedand both ach e arlb years, were i elo r. ; and maxried, but his wife , ij ' 4 1 . % --'`'ehael had always remained e o i, i 'lrl'itt \s , " 4 che s t w te 4 (4 qti i e eil the b 44 the first cause of this 'tt t t i ktil q . ) r everyti r l i% therB . Upon the death of Por t . or t h,,, g had been divided be 'tq 1 , 4 1 011. ti sister, who was married tq c: "Ath L , C o) ; villag e , h a d already received evv qd declared h e h a d b ought the h t4 l Y l en t ekl 11 money, which he earned by it ?°I I the roads. He said that he p i , r , ° his mother, and at her death 1., wit]. -sse r , -Pert qhi Led , again. Michael, on the rr. 'oat as Conrad had always e etila ' te e, th e y ii ot yr , and been maintained by r an Possess any property of his t e . 4ffair airy quarrel between the t tt qe et ' 0 th e was referred to the bailiff, and 1 11 4 4441 th at court at florb ; and it was tk e e `thly, ' as they could not settle the the,,tvebet .everything in the house, in -1 th e 14 dispute, should be *sold by . Pro ceed 4 se r e Its e l f s shared between them. to co u p was put up for sale, but, as ' t 3 l Nee, . u be f oun d , th pit, the brothers were . 'Eq '4o* to b r eP,urchase th e i r own goo d s I. I N • their eos, and oth er thi ngs , b y qh e lii ore 0 Co nrad this w as a grea t gr i e f, 04 4 1 'e 41. e reeli ng than i s or di nar ily me t C ever 0-v a l ue y house many things an b eyond their market price ; N e l . h the recollections are attached to t h qlti lt r thi n w s orld at large can have -no ti e i d d l ;„ p ll ght to be preserved, and * N %% a Wur ' tl ir°lll generation to genera , their may remain unimpaired; 4 1r val ,,ii_eY pass into the hands of "; 118 a sacred inheritance, is Ni t ' re t , e coli,os eltrie,(llY shook his head, as these . Bed Ilia mind, when some old piece :„itt4l4l-11'lliture or other "was , knocke N it ilaild when his mothers hymn s ...\:,el.,,clasps and studs, was offered Pedlar to o k it in his hand to •SUPPEEMENT TO THE LIVERPOOL STANDAIW weigh the silver, the blood flew to his face, and `he bid for the book at any price. At last came .the turn for the chest to be sold. Michael hemmed aloud, looked at his brother with an air of defiance, and instantly bid a considerable sum. Conrad quickly bid a florin more, without raising his eyes, and all the while counting the buttons on his jacket. But Michael, looking boldly around, bid-still higher. No other person advanced more ; but out of bravado neither of the brothers would let the other have the thing in dispute : more- I over, each thought to himself that he should only have to pay the half, and so went on bidding higher and higher. At length the chest was knocked down to Conrad for eight-and-twenty florins, more than five times its worth. For the first time Conrad now raised his eyes, and his look was quite altered ; he cast a scorn ful glance at Michael, and, trembling with rage, exclaimed, " When you die, I'll make you a pre sent of the chest for a coffiin !" These were the last words he spoke to hiM for fourteen years. The story of the chest soon spread through the village, and became the subject of general raillery andjokes. When any one met Conrad, he re marked how shamefully Michael had behaved; and the former worked himself up by degrees into a fury. The two brothers were of very different dispositions, and each pursued his own way in life. Conrad kept a cow, which he used to yoke with his neighbour Christian's cow for field work ; whilst in his spare time he broke stones on the roads, for which he was paid six pence a day. He was very short-sighted and walked unsteadily ; and whenever he struck a spark to light his pipe, he held the tinder close to his nose, to make sure that it was alight ; so, throughout the village he went by the name of " Blind Conrandle." Michael was the very reverse of his brother ; he was tall and slim, and walked with a firm step, carrying himself with all the air of a peasant ; not that he was one exactly, but it,was useful to him in his trade to appear so. He dealt in old horses, and people have a much greater confi dence in a horse which they purchase from a fel low in a smock-frock. Michael had once been a farrier, but was unlucky in business ; so he either sold or let his fields, gave himself up to horse-dealing, and lived the life of a gentleman. He was a person of great importance throughout the country ; for a distance of six or eight — miles round he knew the exact state of all the stables, just as well as a statesman knows the statistics of foreign countries, and the position of different cabinets ; and as the latter learns the disposition of the people through the public journals, so Michael sounded the country folks, and got at his information in the public-houses. In every village, too, he had some idle fellow as his resi dent, with whom he held frequent secret con- ferences, and who in all cases of need used to despatch an _express—in his own person --to leg good luck, six florins." Conrad, short-sighted as he was, noticed his brother's scornful look, and worked away, banging' and splitting the stones till they flew right and left. We shall see, however, which got on best in. the world. Michael was a great favourite in the Village, for he could go on. telling tales from morning till night, and knew all the tricks and ways of the world. Of better things he certainly knew little ; for, though he occasionally went to church, he went, as too many do, without giving a thought to what he heard, and without bettering his life. Conrad, too, had his faults, foremost amongst which was his enmity to his brother, and the manner in which he showed this. When any one asked him,. " flow does your brother Michael go on ?" he only answered by making a sign with his hand under his chin, as much as to say, " Some day or other he will he hanged !" The folks were of course not sparing in putting this question, and a great shout always followed when they got Conrad' to give his usual reply. In other ways, too, the villagers excited the mutual enmity of the brothers, not exactly out of malice, but for idle fun. The brothers never remained together in the same room ; if they chanced to meet in the village inn, or in their sister's house, one of them in stantly hurried away. Nobody thought of recon ciliation between them, and, whenever two men quarrelled, it was a proverbial saying, " They lived like Michael and Conrad." At home the brother spoke not a word, nor did they ever look at one another when they met. Nevertheless, if either of them observed that the other was unwell and kept his bed, he would in stantly run to his sister, who lived at some dis tance, and say to her, "Go up, and see him ; I think somethinc , is the matter with him." And on his return home, he would move about and work quietly and without noise, so as not to dis turb the . other. But abroad, and among the neighbours, Michael and Conrad lived in perpe tual enmity, and no one imagined that a spark of affection still existed in their hearts. This state of things continued for fourteen years. Meanwhile, by constantly buying and selling, all the money which Michael gained from the sale of his two fields had slipped through his fingerS, he knew not how. But Conrad had bought'another field from a neighbour who was about to emigrate, and had paid nearly all the purchase-money. Michael now set up as a kind of agent or adviser to other people in making their bargains, and he calculated that, by the sale of another field, he should bring matters round, and set himself up in business again. "And there arose up a new king in Egypt." The vil lagers of Nordstetten might, in a peculiar mariner, apply this verse of Exodus to themselves. The old parson was dead ; he had been a good man, but had let things go their own way. His suc- _ _ . cessor, on the contrary, was a zealdui young man, who was for setting everything to rights ; and _ certainly he accomplished a great deal. One Sunday, after morning service, the peasants were sitting and chatting together on the timbers which lay near the village pump, and which were intended to build the new engine-house. Michael was one of the group ; he sat, with his ,elbows fixed on his knees, looking on the ground and. chewing a straw. Little Peter, the son of John the watchman, a boy of five years old, ran past, when one of the villagers called to the child, and said, putting his hand into his pocket, " Hon°, Peter ! here's a handful of nuts for you, if you. make a face like Conrad. What does Conrad do ?" The child shook his head, and was running off; for he was a sensible little urchin, and was afraid of Michael ; but they held him fast, till at last he Michael, a job tor which he merely demanded a bottle of wine. But Michael had also his secret agents, who instigated the stable-lads to acts of revolt ; and it generally happened that he had in his shed (which served him for a stable) some jaded old horse, which he tricked out for sale in a new campaign ; he coloured the hair over its eyes, filed its teeth, and though the poor beast could no longer eat anything else but bran, what cared he ! The next market-day he was sure to get rid of it for more than its worth. When Michael, on his way to market or re turn home, saw Conrad breaking stones on the road, he cast a look at him, half in_ pity half in scorn, and thought, " Poor devili breaking stones there from morning to night for sixpence a-day whilst I can earn, even with moderate at Las- 4- J yStV.