The village authorities had no coronets wherewith to grace his head, and in place thereof they put a thimble on his finger and a needle in his hand. Greatness could hardly have begun with smaller pretensions. The boy was apprenticed to a tailor, and a very excellent tailor he made.
But what he did not make was money. In his village he could acquire little cash and no fame. The boy was ambitious, and he declared that he would walk to Berlin, and build wide-skirted coats for the army generals. The villagers thought him mad; and the melancholy sexton’s laughing daughter ceased to laugh when the handsome lad spoke of his resolve. He was not to be turned from his resolution by Katinka the fair; and so, with a light bundle, a lighter heart, and a purse lighter than all, he kissed his Ariadne, with the easy air of a dragoon leaving garrison, and with hope in his heart, turned his face towards Berlin.
He walked on uninterruptedly until he reached the banks of the Elbe; there he found the waters out, and his purse in the same condition. And yet not in the same condition; for the waters had overflowed, and his purse had not. He had reckoned upon fording the stream, but if he would cross he must needs ferry it. The Styx itself is not to be traversed without a fee, and in that respect the Elbe was like the Styx. Charon was inflexible. Dörfling solicited aid from a group of young officers. Like Lieutenant Perry, he was called “a fool for his pains.” The police standing near, finding him penniless, deemed him disreputable. They asked for his papers; and when one little official, a mere starveling, read aloud that the stalwart lad was only a tailor, the crowd pushed him aside with contempt, and bade him stand out of the way of better men.
One of the officers nevertheless approached him, with more of a seductive than a contemptuous look about him. “At your age,” said he, “a handsome fellow like yourself should have handsome clothes to help his looks, and a well-furnished purse to give dignity to his clothes. If you want to starve, by all means continue tailoring; but if you would become a man, and a gay one too, throw away that accursed bundle of rags, and cross the ferry in a better service.”
“Well,” said Dörfling, “here have I been dreaming of nothing more than sewing button-holes in Berlin, and now have I a prospect of a marshal’s bâton. It’s a long road however from a recruit’s barracks to a marshal’s saddle. I doubt I had better stick to the needle.”
The fact however was that he had little or no doubt about the matter. He did not fling his bundle away, as he was enjoined to do. He turned its contents into a knapsack that was offered to him, and in five minutes he was crossing the ferry, a recruited soldier in the service of the Elector of Brandenburg. He was quick-witted, docile, and zealous; and the handsome and able recruit was not only speedily noticed, but he made himself worthy of the observation devoted to him. He performed every duty of his station without a demur; was the first on parade after réveillé, and the last in the military class of instruction as long as teaching was going on there. That he was the neatest man of his corps was his least merit, for his old habit helped him to keep tidiness in his new. Therewith was his good humour unimpeachable and unruffled. Like all truly brave men, he was of a sunny disposition, loved children and music, and, if he had a somewhat dangerous tongue and rather too winning ways on some occasions, why the Fräuleins never complained of either; and if they who were the most concerned did not, I do not know that any one else has a right to reproach him.
Promotion was rapid, and with promotion he gained celebrity. He was talked about near other watchfires than those of Brandenburg, and in other camps than the one in which the once private soldier now served as captain. His merit may be judged of when I say that the great Count Thurn solicited his co-operation; and that, under that renowned leader, the ex-tailor in epaulettes fought like a lion at Prague, and won golden opinions, not only from friends who witnessed, but from foes who suffered by his bravery.
He was not a mere fire-eater; he had a clear head as well as a heavy hand, and was as apt in planning enterprises sure of success, as he was ready to serve in the enterprises projected by others. There was a spice of Major Dalgetty about him too. He loved, next to a good cause, touching which the major was indifferent, good living; and knowing that he should find the one, and hoping to enjoy the other, under the banner of the great Gustavus, he served as “General-Major” in the Swedish army, in 1642, and never once sheathed his sword during the Thirty Years’ War.
At that time he certainly possessed the advantage of shedding his blood on the righteous side of the quarrel; but, as for good living, why, if by that be meant light diet, he had that daily. Visionary theories he said he could endure well enough, but visionary dinners were an abhorrence. It often happened that in his own quarters there was not even the vision of a dinner: in that case he had no objection to head a species of razzia, and carry off the supplies from the commissariat of the enemy. On one of these occasions the hungry foragers encountered strong opposition, and in the struggle which ensued Dörfling’s lieutenant was shot dead by an arquebusier. He was the most nearly famished of the lot, and had contended for the meal with all the ardour which appetite can give. “Young Naumann is dead,” remarked an aide to Dörfling. “Poor fellow!” rejoined Dörfling, “he would have cared for it less had it only been after he had dined.”
The swiftly slain got but scanty epitaphs and shallow graves in those times; and if any mourned the loss of the lieutenant, they found consolation in the fact that his absence from the mess left one share more to be divided among the hungry members. They drank out of the enemies’ flasks to the memory of their ill-fated comrade, who had perished before dinner; and that done, they hurried to a work the issues of which prevented several of them from ever again seeing supper-time. Dörfling however was not among the missing. He was ever active, happy, and energetic; most at home where the fire was thickest and the fray hottest, and too busy to be unhappy, until the Peace of Westphalia, which put so many notched swords that need never have been drawn back into their scabbards, and laid down temporary arrangements, which might have been permanent had the parties concerned used reason before resorting to ramrods.