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him if you give us money for it. You shall have it, said he. They ran hither and thither over the meadows. One said: it ran over here, another said: I saw it over there, but no-one found it. The ferryman was in haste, he did not want to wait for the dog. The Poor Man's blood boiled in his veins, he was greatly vexed, for although nobody would have given him a groschen for his wretched poodle, yet at that moment he would have given a fine heap of gold for the same. He asked the ferryman to wait, and himself ran through pastures and fields, whistling and calling with all his might, but nothing was to be seen or heard. He was already beginning to read its funeral oration, giving it up for lost, for how should such a tiny creature cross over the lake! Alas, poor little thing, my faithful companion, he murmured, for five days and with much care I have cherished you and fed you on this journey, and would willingly have shared my pleasures with you, but you had more vicissitudes to bear than I. At Münchweilen and Wädenschweil you were pursued by hostile cats and sadly scratched, in Winterthur and Zürich you were a pitiable detainee, you had to cringe at the end of a lead and under benches, you could not even see those fine cities or visit your brothers and sisters, and here you are fallen among thieves and murderers, and been stoned as if you were a criminal! Alas, perhaps one of these scoundrels has knocked out your brains or broken one of your legs, so that you have crept under a bush somewhere and must die in misery without help or comfort. Ah, if you had been at that moment a great bulldog or an English mastiff, and had chewed up those little bastards like Elisha's bears did to those who mocked at him

As he murmured this he made to turn back and run to the boat, when he saw the little creature crawling out from under a great thicket, trembling in every limb and so fearful that she hardly trusted her own master. How he rejoiced, childlike, over the poor wretched little dog, it would have made anyone laugh. He picked it up and sprang with it to the boat, as if he had found a great treasure, and now he let them push off from land with pleasure and satisfaction, indeed he was laughing at himself, yet he thought, how happy is the man who can rejoice at little things [...]." [Voellmy, v 3 pp 91-117]

The Chronik [p 352] adds that during the ferry crossing Bräker watched a pair of lovers and was reminded of his youth, because the girl was from Swabia, like Marianne in Rottweil.

Friends at Wädenschwil:

Wädenschwil, on the Lake of Zürich, was a small place but celebrated for the quantity and quality of its cultural activities. It was prosperous, with industries of weaving, spinning and tanning, though as in the Toggenburg the workers had a reputation for spending too much of their wages on drink and fine clothes. There had long been a tradition of music-making there, with a choir of young people and a military band. A school of music held concerts every Saturday. There was also a flourishing amateur theatre, which in 1790 was to perform well-known plays such as Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and Lessing's "Minna von Barnhelm".

The Crown Inn, kept by the Huber family, was a centre for commercial dealing, a venue for artistic performances and a forum for Enlightenment thinking and political discussion. There Bräker had access to newspapers which reported on the events in France, particularly the "Strasbourg Courier", which reported in German the proceedings of the French revolutionary government. One Georg Huber, probably of the same family, a fish merchant and ship-owner, brought the "Nachtbote aus Frankreich" [French night courier] every day. At The Crown events in France were discussed very freely, Voellmy says that even women were allowed to speak

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