'This is wholly contrary to my wish,' exclaimed Oswald with surprise, as he perceived the nature of the document. 'I have laid down the sword forever!'
'That cannot be done with safety at present in any part of Europe, my dear Oswald,' said Goes. 'In these rough times a man must bear the sword, if he would not be compelled to bow his neck under it; nor is there any prospect that it will soon be otherwise. You have repeatedly shown, that you will never be able to reconcile yourself to the humble and submissive condition of a burgher. Whenever occasion has offered, you have unhesitatingly drawn that sword with which you have professedly wished to have nothing more to do. I most heartily rejoice at it, because of the evidence it affords that my blood flows in your veins; but at the same time it proves your unfitness for the counter and yard-stick. You must again serve,--it is required both for your honor and mine. To serve the emperor would be against your conscience. I have therefore sought out a service which, as matters now stand, cannot be objectionable to either of us. A permanent peace has been concluded between the emperor and the king of Denmark. Your new situation will lead you from Silesia to the land where your own faith, which is persecuted here, is openly and triumphantly professed. You will be spared the grief of being compelled to witness innumerable evils which you can have no power to remedy. All these considerations were well weighed by me before I applied in your name for the honorable appointment which you surely will not now reject.'
'You are right,' cried Oswald. 'You see farther than I do, and I gratefully receive the commission from your paternal hands.'
'My application alone would not have met with such ready success,' continued Goes. 'For that, you have to thank one whose friendship and patronage you literally conquered at Dessau,--the duke of Friedland. He wrote himself to Copenhagen in your behalf; and the mediator who brought about the treaty of Lubeck could hardly be refused so small a request by the king of Denmark.'
'Honor to the lion!' jocosely exclaimed Frau Rosen. 'Those large wild beasts generally have some generosity about them.'
'All is in readiness!' said the old Hussite host, entering the room and throwing open the doors.
'Give your arm to Faith, my son, and follow this man,' said Goes. The lovers looked at each other with some surprise, and obeyed the command. After them came the matron, supported by Goes and Fessel. The officers followed.
The procession entered directly among the rocks, and at length, magnificently gilded by the evening sun, the eventful mass of stone which had been detached and overthrown by the lightning, shone upon them with a far different and more friendly aspect than when it had last met their view. It was hung around with evergreens and adorned with flowery garlands; and upon the most conspicuous part of it a medallion had been cut out, with these words engraved upon it: 'The lightning of heaven here punished and warned.' Underneath was cut out the day of the month and the year. In front of the huge mass stood an altar, built of the fragments which were shivered from it when it fell. The old pastor of Huss's Rest waited at the altar, in his clerical robes and with opened book. On each side of him stood Fessel's children, holding wreaths of flowers.
'What can all this mean?' whispered Faith to Oswald, in sweet confusion, while the colonel placed the missing myrtle wreath upon her blond locks.
'Unite this pair in marriage, reverend father,' cried the colonel, with gushing tears, leading the lovers to the altar.