"Well, then, let us be off," cried Friedrich, and he took hold of the bridle of the lame horse.
Heinrich snatched it from him, sprang into the saddle, and threw him the bridle of the beautiful brown gelding: "The best one is not good enough for you, comrade," he said.
"But the Miller and Fieka," cried my uncle "won't you say good-bye then and----"
"It's all right," cried Friedrich. "Good-bye, Herr Rathsherr." And off they rode out at the Brandenburg Gate.
We children stood at the gate and watched them. "Those are no Frenchmen," said Hans Bank.
"They are our people," said Fritz Risch, and it seemed as if a pride in ourselves had suddenly sprung up.
"God grant they may come back again!" said old Father Richart.
* * *
They did come back again. In a year and a day, and again a year and a day, a spring had burst forth for Germany. Battles had been fought, blood had flowed on hill and dale; but the rain had washed it away, and the sun had dried it up and the earth had let grass grow over it, and the wounds of the human heart were bound up by Hope with a balm called "Freedom." Many of the wounds broke open afterwards. It was perhaps not the real Heaven-sent balm. But, in this beautiful springtime, nobody was thinking of that future, and in my little native-town the gardens and fields were green and blooming, and men's anxious hearts heaved with the breath of relief, for over the world lay peace.
My uncle Herse's corps of sharp shooters had laid their twenty-one fowling pieces on the shelf, and he had turned them into a corps of musicians, and his having taught them in time of war all to fire off at once, came to be of great use now, for they struck up with their fiddles and flutes, and clarionettes exactly together quite naturally. In the evenings, they used to serenade us, and I can hum the tune to this day, for they always played the same piece, and my uncle told me afterwards that it was variations upon the beautiful air: "Cousin Michael was here last night."