"What do you wish to do?" asked Scharnhorst.
"I wish to pursue him!" exclaimed Blucher, vainly trying to disengage himself from the hands of his wife and the general. "Let me go—do not detain me! I must pursue him—I must take him prisoner! If he has fled from his army, he must return to France, and if he wants to return to France, he must pass through Germany. Let me go! He must not be permitted to escape from Germany!"
"But he has already escaped," said Scharnhorst, smiling.
"What! Passed through Germany?" asked Blucher. "And no one has tried to arrest him?"
"No one knew that he was there. He left his army on the 6th of December; attended only by Caulaincourt and his Mameluke Roustan, recognized by no one, expected by no one, he sped in fabulous haste in an unpretending sleigh through the whole of Poland and Prussia. Only after he set out was it known at the places where he stopped that he had been there. He travelled as swiftly as the storm. On the 6th of December he was at Wilna, on the 10th of December at Warsaw, and in the night of the 14th of December suddenly a plain sleigh stopped in front of the residence of M. Serra, French ambassador at Dresden: two footmen were seated on the box, and in the sleigh itself there were two gentlemen, wrapped in furred robes, and so much benumbed by the cold that they had to be lifted out. These two gentlemen were the Emperor Napoleon and Caulaincourt. Napoleon had an interview with the King of Saxony the same night, and, continuing his journey, reached Erfurt on the 15th, and—"
"And to-day is already the 17th of December," said Blucher, sighing; "he will, therefore, be beyond the Rhine. And I must allow him to escape! I am unable to detain him! Oh, that the little satisfaction had been granted me of capturing Napoleon! Well, it has been decreed that this should not be; but one thing at least is settled. Napoleon has been deserted by his former good luck; Dame Fortune, who always was seated in his triumphal car, has alighted from it, and now we may hope to see her soon restored to her old place on the top of the Brandenburg gate at Berlin. Hurrah, my friend! we are going to rise; I feel it in my bones, and the time has come when old Blucher will again be permitted to be a man, and will no longer be required to draw his nightcap over his ears."
"Yes, the time has come when Prussia needs her valiant Blucher," said Scharnhorst, tenderly laying his arm on Blucher's. "Now raise your head, general—now prepare for action, for Blucher must henceforth be ready at a moment's notice to obey the call of Prussia, and place himself at the head of her brave sons, who are so eager for the fray."
"Yes, yes, we shall have war now," exclaimed Blucher. "Soon the drums will roll, and the cannon boom—soon Blucher will no longer be a childish and decrepit old man whom wiseacres think they can mock and laugh at—soon Blucher will once more be a man who, sword in hand, will shout to his troops, 'Forward!—charge the enemy!' Great Heaven, Scharnhorst, and I have not even dressed becomingly—I still wear a miserable civilian's coat! Suppose war should break out to- day, and they should come and call me to the army? Why, Blucher would have to hang his head in shame, and acknowledge that he was not ready!—John! John!—my uniform! Come to my bedroom, John! I want to dress!—to put on my uniform!"
Fifteen minutes afterward Blucher returned to the sitting-room, where his wife was gayly chatting with Scharnhorst. He was not now the sick, suffering old man whom we saw this morning sitting on the easy-chair at the window, but he was once more a fiery soldier and a hero. His head was proudly erect, his eyes were flashing, a proud smile was playing round his lips; his broad-shouldered form was clothed in the uniform of a Prussian general; orders were glittering on his breast, and the long rattling sword hung at his left side.
Blucher approached his wife and General Scharnhorst with dignified steps, and, giving his hands to both, said in a grave and solemn voice, "The time for delay, impatience, and folly, is past. With this uniform I have become a new man. I am no longer an impatient septuagenarian, cursing and killing flies on the wall because he has no one else on whom to vent his wrath; but I am a soldier standing composedly at his post, and waiting for the hour when he will be able to destroy his enemy. Come, my friends,—come with me!"