Part 12 (2/2)
”No, your excellency, only seven whole pipes, and eight broken ones.”
”You may ride to Neisse to-morrow, and buy a box of pipes. Now, give me one, and let the hussar and his son come in.”
CHAPTER X.
RECOLLECTIONS OF MECKLENBURG.
John, the footman, opened the door of the anteroom, and shouted in a loud and solemn voice, ”Your excellency, here is Hennemann, the hussar, and his son Christian!”
”Well, come in!” said Blucher, good-naturedly, puffing a cloud of smoke from his pipe.
An old man with silver-white hair, his bent form clad in the old and faded uniform of a hussar, and holding his old-fas.h.i.+oned shako in his hand, entered the room. He was followed by a young man, wearing the costume of a North-German farmer, his heavy yellow hair combed backward and fastened with a large round comb; his full, vigorous form dressed in a long blue cloth coat, reaching down almost to his feet, and lined with white flannel; under it he wore trousers of dark-green velvet that descended only to the knees, and joined there the blue-and-red stockings in which his legs were encased; his feet were armed with thick shoes, adorned with buckles, while their soles bristled with large nails.
”Where do you come from?” asked Blucher, fixing his eyes with a kind expression on the two men.
”From Rostock, your excellency,” said the old man, making a respectful obeisance.
”From Rostock?” asked Blucher, joyously. ”Why, that is my native city.”
”I know that very well, general,” said the old hussar, who vainly tried to hide his Low-German accent. ”All Rostock knows it, too, and every child there boasts of Blucher being our countryman.”
”Well,” said Blucher, smiling, ”then you come from Rostock. Do you live there?”
”Not exactly in Rostock, your excellency. My daughter Frederica is married to a tailor in Rostock, and I was with her for four weeks. I myself live at Polchow, a n.o.bleman's estate four miles from Rostock; I am there at the house of my eldest son.”
”Is that your eldest son?” asked Blucher, pointing with his clay pipe at the young man, who stood by the side of his aged father, and was turning his hat in his hand in an embarra.s.sed manner.
”No, sir, he is my youngest son, and it is just for his sake that I have come to you. Christian was a laborer in the service of our n.o.bleman at Polchow, and he desired to marry a girl with whom he had fallen in love. But the n.o.bleman would not permit it; he said Christian should wait some ten years until there was a house vacant in the village, and some of the old peasants had died. This drove him to despair; he wanted to commit suicide, and said he would die rather than be a day laborer on an estate in Mecklenburg, which is no better than being the n.o.bleman's slave.”
”Yes,” cried Christian, indignantly, ”that is true, general. A day laborer on an estate in Mecklenburg is a slave, that is all. The n.o.bleman owns him. If he wants to do so, he may disable him, nay, he may kill him. Such a laborer has no rights, no will, no property, no home, no country; he is not allowed to live anywhere but in his village: he cannot settle in any other place, and is not permitted to marry unless the n.o.bleman who owns the village gives his consent, nor can he ever be any thing else than what his father and grandfather were, that is to say, the n.o.bleman's laborers. And I do not wish to be such and do nothing else than putting the horses to the plough. I want to marry Frederica, and become a free man, and if that cannot be I will commit suicide.”
”Ahem! he has young blood,” said Blucher, well pleased and smiling, ”fresh Mecklenburgian blood. I like that! But you must not abuse Mecklenburg, Christian; I love Mecklenburg, because it is my native country.”
”It is a good country for n.o.blemen who have money,” said Christian, ”but for day laborers who have none it is a poor country. And that was the reason why I said to the old man, 'Vatting [Footnote: ”Vatting,” Low-German for ”papa.”], shall I commit suicide or run away and enlist.'”
”And I then said, 'Well, my son, in that case it will be better for you to enlist,'” added the old man, ”'and, moreover, you shall enlist under a good general. I will show you that my life is yet good for something; I will do for your sake what I have purposed to do all my lifetime: I will go to General Blucher, tell him whom I am, and ask him to reward my boy for what I did for him.'”
Blucher looked with a good-natured smile at the poor old man who stood before him in the faded and threadbare uniform of a private soldier.
”Well, my old friend,” he said, ”what have you done for me, then?”
The old man raised his head, and a solemn expression overspread his bronzed and furrowed countenance. ”General,” he said, gravely, ”it was I who took you prisoner in Mecklenburg in 1760, and to me, therefore, you are indebted for all your glory and happiness.”
Blucher covered his face with his hands, that the old man might not see his smile. ”It is just as Amelia told me it would be,” he said to himself. He then added aloud: ”Well, tell me the story, that I may see whether it was really you who took me prisoner.”
”It is a long story,” said the old man, sighing, ”and if I am to tell it, I must ask a favor of your excellency.”
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