The Schrandeners blockaded the veranda, and some flattened their noses against the glass in order to see better what passed within. A pane fell out; one of them had pushed his neighbour through it, whereupon the revered voice of the old pastor was heard raised in remonstrance. He appeared on the veranda flourishing a thick, notched walking-stick. His white hair blew about his lofty temples. The nostrils of his hawk-like nose dilated furiously as if they snorted battle. Beneath the snow-white shaggy projecting brows his eyes glowed like fiery torches. Such was the venerable Pastor Götz, who, in the March of the year 1813, had gone from house to house, holding the big cross from the altar in his hand, followed by a drummer, and had beaten up recruits for the holy war. And had he not been left fainting by the roadside on the march to Königsberg, in all probability he would have accompanied his soldier-parishioners into the field of action.
The Schrandeners stood in no little dread of his discipline, and no sooner did they catch sight of his formidable stick than they retreated quickly from the windows, and tried to regain the garden gate.
"You hell-hounds, craven sheep!" he shouted from the glass door. "Come to God's house on Sunday and I'll give you a dressing."
Then turning on Boleslav, he measured him from head to foot with a scowling glance. His eye rested on the military cap he held in his hand.
"You were in the campaign?" he asked.
"Yes."
"If it were not for the cross I see on the brim of your cap, I should ask was it for or against Prussia?"
Boleslav, whose thoughts had followed the fleeting vision of light he had seen on the veranda, at first did not understand him; then he met the insinuation with signs of passionate resentment. But the old pastor was not the man to be easily intimidated, and while they both glowered at each other, he cried--
"Boleslav von Schranden, am I, or am I not, justified in cherishing such a suspicion?"
Then Boleslav's eyes fell before the condemnation in those of his former master. He opened the door of his study, where between the book-shelves hung pipe-racks and fire-arms, and said--