“They must return to their flag,” he cried, in a commanding voice “With your blood you must wash the shame from your brows, and from ours. If God preserves your lives, and you redeem your honor as brave soldiers of the King of Prussia, then and then only we will receive you as our sons and welcome you to our arms.”
“So shall it be!” cried the men and the women, and the maidens murmured their acquiescence.
The old man stepped from the bench and walked forward slowly to the other side of the square where the twelve young men were standing gazing at him with terrified faces.
“Return!” cried the old man, stretching his arm toward them—“return to the flag of your king; we want no deserters amongst us; away with you!”
“Away with you!” cried the men—“away from our village!”
The children, influenced by their parents, cried out with shrill voices: “Away from our village—away!”
The youths were at first stunned, and gazed with staring eyes at the crowd of angry faces and flashing eyes which menaced them, then seized with terror, they fled.
“Away with you! away with the deserters!” was thundered after them. “Away with you!” cried their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends.
This fearful cry sounded to them like the peal of the last judgment. With trembling knees, and faces pale as death, they rushed down the principal street of the village. The crowd started after them, and like the howling of a storm, shouted behind them: “Away with you!—away with the deserters!”
On they ran, as if pursued by furies, farther, farther down the street, but the villagers still chased them. Once only Charles Henry dared to look around at the pursuers. It was a fearful sight. At the head of the rest he saw his old father, with his pale face, his white hair flying in the wind; raising his arms threateningly toward him, he cried out in a thundering voice: “Away with you!—away with the deserters!”