"Hans," he said, "you had better go to the Forest House. Annchen——"
"Ja wohl, Otto." The old man rose resolutely. "We go that way, you know, and when I show our friend here the way, I'll go down and take the news to old Weyland."
Then off he started with the soldier, plunging into talk of the King of Prussia and Napoleon.
Frau Schmelze shook her head.
"I hope, Otto," she said, "that nothing has happened."
The farmer looked serious.
"I thought, of course, Hans had gone home, or I should have sent Ulrich."
"Hans?" A look expressed Frau Schmelze's opinion of Frederick the Great's old soldier, and she returned to her labours.
"A good man is our King, there is no better," the soldier meanwhile was saying. "He and our good Angel, the Queen, have the love of all their people. He is upright, and saving, and truly religious, but, ach Himmel, if he were only not so uncertain! Nobody, not even Stein, steady himself as a rock, can make him know what he wants to do and at once to do it. 'To-morrow,' he says, 'let us wait.' It is always so, nicht? Now, take this war. He delayed and delayed, letting Napoleon insult him over and over. The army grew feeble from want of exercise, and our generals too old for service. Blücher is the only one worth counting. Then, too," he continued, "Frederick William the Second is unlucky. Look at his wretched boyhood. He was born unlucky. And now he has made a mistake about this war, nicht wahr? For eight years when our neighbours needed us he wouldn't fight, and now when we are at it ourselves there is no one to help us."
"The Russians," put in Hans, "the Czar Alexander is our ally. Did you not hear how he and our King—I am a Prussian, you know—swore an oath of friendship at midnight at the tomb of Frederick the Great, the Queen being witness?"