"If he wants his son, let him take him," said the other.
"How, take him?" said the old man, bewildered.
"Certainly," answered the soldier. "There he is waiting for you." And he pointed to the corpse in the corner.
The father approached the body, knelt on one knee and raised his son's head.
"Then they have killed him?" he asked the soldiers.
"No, indeed, he died of his own accord."
The father kissed the corpse on the forehead.
"These are unhappy days," he said, "in which fathers bury their children."
Then he went down, called a street porter, sent him for three of his mates, mounted again to the ante-chamber and showing them the body:
"Take my son," he said, "and bear him to my house." The men took the body on their shoulders and bore him to a barrow. The father walked before it bare-headed and pale, his eyes bathed in tears; and to all who questioned him about this strange procession, carrying a dead man through the town without a priest, replied: "It is my son, Councillor Fischer, whom the Prussians have killed." And thus the news spread over Frankfort.