"Spürrledter—how—is your spouse my old acquaintance, the corporal of Imperial horse?" said I with new astonishment, as that personage, on being thus compelled to show his face, doffed his white nightcap, and stood soldierly erect before me.
"I am sorry to see you here, corporal," said I; "for if Stralsund is taken, the Imperialists will hang you as surely as the sun is shining."
Had I been less of a soldier, I am certain that the recollection of the desperate love I had once made to Prudentia would have embarrassed me; but there was something as comical in the transformation of the wiry and ferocious old corporal of Reitres into a maker of sausages, as there was something melancholy in the change of the beautiful dancer into a plain-looking citizen's wife, with an enormous white coif, red skirt, and bunch of keys.
"And now, Herr Captain," said she with a business-like air, to cut short an unpleasant pause; "in what can we serve you?"
"By placing your best ham in the hands of this soldier," said I, hesitatingly.
She gave me a glance of mingled archness and sadness, and lifted down the ham, while I, who once would not have allowed her to pluck a flower unaided, stood stoically by.
"We have been so shamefully plundered, Mein Herr!" said old Spürrledter; "'tis only a day since Major Fritz, that tall cavalier with the short beard, and two yellow feathers in his hat, marched off with all our best and last Bologna sausages."
"And to-day," added Prudentia with something of her old air, "another insolent biped without feathers carried away our only fowl."
"For Heaven's sake, do not be alarmed, Fraü Spürrledter!" I replied hastily; "I am not foraging, as your corporal has no doubt done many a day. I require the provant; and must have it; but having no money, beg to leave these six links of pure gold, which are more than enough to pay for thrice my purchase. And now," I added, as the soldier marched off with it; "I trust, Fraü, you have not, as at Glückstadt, any acquaintances beyond the walls; for I am not now the fool I was in those days."
"Fool!—oh, how can you use a term so harsh? and I am not the pretty knave I was in those days either—oh no!" she added sadly and archly. "I beseech you not to think so, and not to discover to the marshal all I have done in other times—nor to say I am the sister of—of him you know. Ah! your eyes sparkle; and I believe with reason. If you can extend protection to my husband and myself, it will be a favour—yea, it will be a mercy, which we shall do our best to merit; for in a city surrounded by ferocious besiegers, and defended by desperate and starving soldiers of fortune, the situation of the poor citizens is not very enviable."