"Ach Himmel," groaned Hans, splashing and stumbling, "but your mother will scold, little one! But what could your poor grandfather do? I find it good that a man hear the war news and, talking with the soldiers, I forgot the hour."
"Never mind, dear grandfather," came the little voice out of the fog. "Mother will be in bed and we will slip in, oh, so lightly, just like a kitty, and she won't hear a sound."
Bettina took care of her grandfather like an old woman, her father always said, and so she tried to speak very bravely.
She might talk bravely; talking is easy enough even for little Bettinas; but to feel bravely is quite a different thing and, deep down in her heart, Bettina was frightened to coldness.
Willy had told her the story of the Erl King who gets children who are out on wild nights. He promises them toys and all sorts of playthings, and then when they listen he clasps them in his arms until they are frozen and dead. And this King has two daughters and they call out through the storm.
Would he get her, this Erl King?
Little Bettina shivered all over.
From over towards Jena she surely heard a tramp, and sometimes she seemed to see the waving of the Erl King's mantle in the fog.
But her grandfather kept on with his talking.
"Ja, ja," he said, "we'll beat them, we'll beat them. We'll give the French a lesson this time, our soldiers all promise it. And that Corsican—we'll teach him, too. Why not? We Prussians are three to the French one, and soldiers of Frederick the Great to boot. Ja wohl, little one, we'll have a famous victory!"