Part 60 (1/2)

When the motherless child was weeping her heart out over some trouble that had possessed her, even when she was quite a big school-girl, he would take her in his arms and carry her up and down the room, consoling and comforting her, till the wild sobbing ceased at last. She was now nearly twenty years of age; but the old method might still be effective. Unresisting she let him take her in his arms, and leaned her face against her father's cheek; bright tears ran down from his own eyes as he whispered to her over and over again: ”Yes, cry, my little girl; cry, Mariechen!”

And the first great sorrow of the woman calmed itself, even as had the school-girl's trivial griefs. The colonel carried his daughter tenderly to her room and laid her down on the sofa. With a shy gesture she buried her face in the cus.h.i.+on. Once more the father's hand pa.s.sed lightly over her brow, then he went out on tip-toe. Time must be the physician that would heal this wound.

Falkenhein listened for a second at the door: Mariechen was still weeping; but he could hope that the tempest would subside. That tearful outburst, uncontrolled as it was, showed still the unruly grief of a child. The blow that strikes deepest into the heart and embitters a whole life-time is otherwise met and parried, with a grim, silent, enduring pain. Traces of such pain he had seen in Reimers' hopeless eyes; for his child he might expect a cure.

The best thing would be to take Marie away into entirely new surroundings.

As usual, each year during the partridge-shooting, the colonel one day received an invitation to join the royal party. At breakfast the old king asked him: ”Well, Falkenhein, what do you say? That longlegged Friesen in the War Office has obtained command of the Lusatian brigade.

How would you like to be chief of the department?”

The colonel hesitated with his answer.

”I know quite well,” the old gentleman went on, ”that you have a disinclination for anything that smells of the office, even though fifteen hundred others would lick their lips over it.”

”Your Majesty is very good,” said Falkenhein. ”I will do whatever your Majesty desires.”

The king looked at him searchingly.

”Really?” he said.

”Certainly, your Majesty. Only, if you will allow me to say so, not for too long a period!”

”Very well, very well!--till you get the command of my household brigade.”

His Majesty was holding in his hand a silver cup full of corn-brandy.

”Your health, Falkenhein!” he said. ”I look forward to having you by me at court.”

The appointment was gazetted after the manuvres on October 1.

There was certainly no officer in the regiment, even excepting Captain Guntz and Senior-lieutenant Reimers, who did not hear of Falkenhein's prospective departure with real regret. But that did not last long; some one's departure must always be taking place in military life. How else would room be made for successors? And besides, without this appointment in the War Office, the colonel would in any case have obtained his brigade in another two years, and the regiment would have had to do without him. It was much more important now for the officers to know who was to be their new chief.

Major Mohbrinck was appointed to command the regiment; he had hitherto commanded the mounted division of the artillery guard. He was an unknown quant.i.ty in the Eastern Division, for he belonged to a different army-corps; but military gossip gave a not very favourable account of him.

Little Dr. von Froben received from an old chum of his, who was in the mounted division, a telegram which ran thus: ”Hymn No. 521.” The hymn indicated is the translation of the Ambrosian hymn of praise, commencing: ”Lord G.o.d, we praise thee; Lord G.o.d, we thank thee.”

Well, this was a piece of subaltern wit.

It was more significant that Captain von Wegstetten had a letter from his brother-in-law, the head of the first mounted battery, also written in a remarkably Ambrosian vein. ”I can tell you”--it ran--”we two heads of batteries thank G.o.d on our knees that we are rid of Mohbrinck. My joy thereat is no doubt damped somewhat by my brotherly sympathy for you in having now to put up with that scourge of G.o.d. However--you can keep calm, as I might have done. We sit too tight in our places for him; thanks to our favourable relations with the powers that be.

Mohbrinck only seeks out absolutely defenceless victims whereon to prove his capacity. He considers it a commander's chief task in time of peace 'to purify the army from all incapable people.' In confidence, he should himself have been purified away first of all. As those who know a.s.sert, he has always from the first made it his business to shove aside any one who stood in front of him. We of the cavalry heartily wish never to set eyes on him again.”

Mohbrinck arrived.

He was overflowing with graciousness, and expressed his sense of ”his good fortune in having to devote his poor efforts (supported of course by such able a.s.sistants) to so excellently trained a regiment.”

The speech with which he greeted the regiment held the happy mean between theatrical gush and a sermon. It was adorned with pompous imagery, and contained numerous eulogiums of the reigning family.

”Christian humility” and ”G.o.d's a.s.sistance” played a great part therein, and it dealt rude thrusts at those who waged war in secret upon the sup-porters of throne and altar. The acidulated vituperative voice of the major gave the whole performance an indescribably comical effect; the bold artillerymen, standing at attention, got stiff necks, aching knees, and dizzy heads from listening so long to these flowers of speech.