ONCE AGAIN they passed under the yoke at the door, received the blows on their cheeks, and promised to obey the Master in all things. Krabat was not really attending. The singer’s eyes haunted him, yet they had looked only at the light of an Easter candle, and never saw Krabat.
“I’ll show myself to her another time,” he decided. “I want her to know it when she is looking at me.”
The last of the men had come back, the water was rushing down into the tailrace, and the mill began to grind. The Master herded his twelve men into the grinding room to set to work.
Krabat did what had to be done, feeling as though it were not really he dragging sacks from the granary, tipping grain into the hopper—a good deal of grain was spilled today—and gradually beginning to sweat. He heard the Master’s voice as if through a wall; it did not seem to concern him. A couple of times he collided with one of his companions by mistake, because his thoughts were so far away. Once he slipped on the bottom of the steps leading to the bin floor and hurt his knee; he hardly felt it, but rebalanced the sack that was threatening to slide off his shoulder, and climbed on up.
He was working like a horse; as time went on his feet grew heavy, he felt the sweat dripping from him, he had to strain to lift the heavy sacks, but he did not mind—none of it really seemed to matter. All that was happening at the mill that morning was the business of the old Krabat, the one who had sat all night under the wooden cross; the other Krabat, the one who had been to Schwarzkollm, was indifferent to it. He felt he was a stranger here; none of this had anything to do with him, and he did not understand it.
This time it was Vitko who shouted out in delight first, and gave the signal for general rejoicing.
Surprised, Krabat paused, then spat on his hands and made for the next sack. Juro dug him in the ribs.
“Stop, Krabat!”
Juro’s elbow caught him in the exact spot under the left shoulder where it would hurt most. Krabat was breathless for a moment, then he said, “Hey, Juro, you . . . idiot. . . . I’ll give you . . . one on the nose for that!” And now it was both Krabats speaking, gasping for breath.
They laughed and drank and ate the rich, golden-brown Easter cakes, and later on they danced.
Rum-tum-ti-tum,
The wheel went around,
And the miller was old,
And his wits not sound.
And as it chanced,
In the month of May,
He married him a young wife,
One fine day!
So around we go,
As the wheel goes around,
And the miller was old,
And his wits not sound!
They danced and sang, and Vitko bawled out the words of the songs as if he meant to outsing every one of them with his shrill, piping voice.
Later, Stashko turned to Andrush and asked him to tell them a story. “One of the tales of Big Hat, maybe?” he suggested.
“Very well,” said Andrush. “Just pass the wine!”
He took a long pull at his tankard before beginning his story.
“Well,” he began, “one day Big Hat came to the mill at Schleife, and you must know that the miller there was a shocking old skinflint—but now I come to think of it, Vitko may not know who Big Hat is at all . . .”
It turned out that Vitko didn’t know, and neither did Krabat.
“Then I must start by telling you about him,” said Andrush, and he promised the others to keep it short. “Well,” said he, “Big Hat is a journeyman miller, a Wend like us, and I believe he comes from somewhere near Spohla. He is tall, and he is thin, and so old that no one can say for sure just how old he is, but if you were to see him, you’d say he was about forty years old, no more. He wears a gold ring in his left ear, a small, thin ring—you hardly see it unless the sun happens to shine on it. But to make up for that, his hat is enormous, with a broad brim and a pointed crown, and that’s how he gets his name. It’s by that hat that folks recognize him . . . or else don’t recognize him, as you’re about to hear. Are you with me?”
Krabat and Vitko nodded.
“You must know, too, that Big Hat is a magician, perhaps the greatest magician there has ever been in Lusatia, and that’s saying something. None of us here knows half as much of the Art of Arts as Big Hat has in his little finger. Yet he has remained a journeyman all his life, not wanting to be a master miller or anything greater, like a bailiff or a justice, maybe, or a courtier even, though he easily could have been, if he had wanted. But there you are, he didn’t. And why not? Because he’s his own master, and so he means to remain, a free man going from mill to mill as it suits him in summertime, with no one to give him orders or take orders from him—that’s what he likes, and by heaven, that’s what I’d like too if I could choose!”
The miller’s men all agreed with Andrush. They would all have liked to live like Big Hat, every man his own master, with no need to dance to anyone’s tune; they felt that more than ever today, when they had just renewed their promises to the Master, and were bound to the mill in the fen of Kosel for another year.
“Come on, Andrush, your story!” cried Hanzo.
“Right you are, brother—I’ve been long enough getting started! Just hand me that jug again, and then listen . . .”
“Well,” said Andrush, “so Big Hat comes to the mill at Schleife, and he goes up to the miller, who, as I was saying, was the very worst skinflint you ever saw. That man grudged the very butter on the bread and the salt in the soup, and because of that he was always having trouble with his men, since none of them wanted to stay. As everyone knows, you can’t work well on poor food for long.
“So along comes Big Hat to this mill, asking for work.
“ ‘Work enough!’ says the miller, and he might have guessed who it was standing there, with the pointed hat and the ring in his ear. But the fact is that those who have to do with Big Hat only remember later what they should have noticed at once. The miller of Schleife didn’t notice, for one! So Big Hat hires himself out to this miller for three weeks.
“Well, there were two other men there, and an apprentice boy—thin as sticks, all three of them, with swollen legs from drinking so much water. There was plenty of water to be had at that mill, but that was the only thing the miller didn’t begrudge them. They were kept short of bread and even shorter of oatmeal, and there was no meat or bacon at all, only cheese sometimes, and now and then half a herring. The three of them worked like slaves, because they were poor fellows, and the miller had a paper they had signed saying they owed him money, so they couldn’t run away.
“Big Hat watched all this for a while. He heard the apprentice crying with hunger every evening until he fell asleep. He saw the two journeymen washing at the pump every morning, and they were so thin that the sun shone through them.
“Then one day, while they were eating their dinner—the mill was running on, for they had just tipped in some buckwheat, which was still being ground—in comes the master just as they’re drinking their soup. A thin brew, that soup, with nettles in it, and pigweed, and five or six caraway seeds, maybe even seven! This was Big Hat’s moment to tackle the miller.
“ ‘Hey there, master!’ says he, pointing to his soup bowl. ‘I’ve been here two weeks now, and I’ve had a chance to see what you give folks to eat at your mill. Come, now, don’t you think it’s rather poor? Try it yourself!’ And he offers him his spoon.
“Well, the miller acts as if he can’t make out what Big Hat is saying, on account of the noise of the mill; he just points to his ears, shakes his head and grins!
“But the grin was wiped off his face soon enough, for Big Hat knows a trick or two. Big Hat brings the flat of his hand down on the table, and all at once, click! the mill stands still. Quite still, too, with no clattering or rumbling as it runs down. The water is surging through the tailrace, beating against the paddles of the wheel, so it can’t be because of someone cranking the sluice down. Some part of the machinery must be stuck, and the miller’s praying it isn’t the cogwheel or the main shaft. Once he gets over his first fright, the miller is in great alarm. ‘Quick!’ cries he. ‘Quick! Boy, you go and close the sluice—the rest of us will go and see what’s wrong with the mill. But hurry, hurry, in heaven’s name!’
“ ‘No need for that,’ says Big Hat calmly, and this time he does the grinning.
“ ‘What?’ says the miller. ‘Why not?’
“ ‘Because it was I that stopped the mill.’
“ ‘Y-you?’
“ ‘I am Big Hat.’
“As if to order, a sunbeam falls through the window and flashes on a certain gold ring in a certain ear.
“ ‘You’re Big Hat?’
“The miller’s knees are knocking. He knows how Big Hat treats master millers who starve and plague their men. ‘Good heavens!’ he thinks. ‘How came I not to notice it when he asked for work? Have I been blind all this time?’
“Big Hat sends him to get paper and ink, and then he writes out what the miller is to give his men from now on.
· Half a pound of bread a day, good weight.
· Every morning, thick gruel made of wheat or millet, buckwheat or barley, cooked in milk, with sugar on Sundays and holidays.
· At dinnertime, plenty of meat and vegetables for everyone twice a week, and on the other days pease pudding, or beans and bacon, or roasted dumplings, or some other nourishing food, whatever is to be had, and plenty of it, with all the proper seasoning. . . .
“He wrote and wrote, and it was a long list, laying down exactly what the miller of Schleife was to give his men in the future. ‘Put your name to that,’ said Big Hat, when the list was done, ‘and swear to do as it says!’
“So, knowing he had no choice, the miller put his name to the paper and swore.
“Then Big Hat took the spell off the mill. Bang! went his hand on the table, and the mill was working again. He gave the list to one of the journeymen to keep, and he said to the miller—this time the miller could hear him quite clearly, in spite of the noise of the mill—‘Let’s be sure we understand each other, master! You’ve sworn a solemn oath; mind you don’t break that oath when I leave, or else—’ and click! the mill stood still again, with not a rattle or a clatter as it ran down, so that the miller was petrified with fright. ‘But,’ said Big Hat, ‘the mill will stand still forever then—no one will ever be able to get it going again! Just remember that!’ So saying, he set the mill working once more and went his way.
“Ever since then, folks say, the men who work at the mill in Schleife have lived off the fat of the land. They get properly fed, none of them goes hungry, and their legs are no longer swollen with water.”
The miller’s men all liked Andrush’s story. “Go on!” they demanded. “Tell us more! Have another drink, and then let’s hear some more about Big Hat!”
Andrush raised his tankard to his lips, to moisten his throat, and then he went on telling tales of Big Hat, and how he paid out the master millers in Bautzen and Sohrau, in Rumburg and Schluckenau, all for fun and to do the miller’s men good.
Krabat found himself thinking of their own master and his journey to Dresden to visit the Elector, and he wondered how it would be if Big Hat ever came to visit the master of the mill in the fen. If it came to a trial of strength between them, which of the two would win?