"With the dagger?" asked Schill. "The dagger is the weapon of assassins."
"Was Moeros an assassin because he wanted to stab Dionysius the tyrant?" asked the youth. "Was he not rather a generous and high-minded man, whom our great Schiller deemed worthy of becoming the hero of one of his finest poems? When the fatherland is in danger, every weapon is sacred, and every way lawful which a bold heart desires to pursue, to deliver the country."
"Well, I see already that your heart will choose the right, and not shrink back from dangers," said Pückler, kindly. "But, in the first place, tell us which way you are now going to take, that we may know whether we shall be allowed to accompany you or not."
"I come from Erfurt, where my parents are living," said the young man; "last night I was at Weimar, and now I am going to do what I have sworn a solemn oath to my father to do. I am on my way to Leipsic."
"And may I inquire what you are going to do in Leipsic?"
The young man was silent, and a flaming blush mantled for a moment his delicate, innocent face. "According to my father's wishes, I shall become there a merchant's apprentice," he said, in a low and embarrassed voice.
"What! Feeling so generous an enthusiasm for the fatherland and its soldiers, you want to become a merchant?" asked Schill, in surprise.
The youth raised his blue eyes to him; they were filled with tears.
"I am ordered to become a merchant," he said in a low voice. "My father is a pious preacher, and hates and detests warfare; he says it is sinful for men to raise their weapons against their brethren, as though they were wild beasts, against which you cannot defend yourself but by killing them. My mother, in former days, became familiar with the horrors of war; she fears, therefore, lest her only son should fall prey to them, and wishes to protect him from such a fate. With bitter tears, with folded hands, nay, almost on her knees, she implored me to desist from my purpose of becoming a soldier, and not to break her heart with grief and anguish. My mother begged and wept, my father scolded and threatened, and thus I was obliged to yield and be a dutiful son. Three days ago my father administered the sacrament to me, and I swore an oath to him at the altar to remain faithful to the avocation he had selected for me, and never to become a soldier!"
He paused, and the tears which had filled his eyes rolled like pearls over his cheeks.