They passed on, and soon reached the village, guided by Staps to the parsonage.
The clergyman joyfully received the officers; his wife prepared her best rooms for them, and pledged herself, like her husband, to protect them at the risk of her life, if French soldiers should arrive, and search the house for wounded Prussians.
"Now you are safe, and I can go," said Frederick Staps, when he was again alone with his friends, their host having withdrawn to prepare every thing that was necessary for the comfort of his guests. "I cannot stay here any longer, for I have promised my father to proceed without delay to Leipsic, and I must keep my pledge to him, as I shall keep it to you. Farewell, friends; may God protect you, and may your deeds fill the world with your glory, so that the poor merchant's apprentice in Leipsic may also hear of it!"
"The poor merchant's apprentice is also a soldier of our grand army of the future," said Schill; "we have enlisted him, and he will go and fulfil his duty to his fatherland."
"Yes, you may depend on it he will do his duty," exclaimed Staps, "and you will hear of him one day. Farewell, and, please God! we shall meet again!"
"Yes, we shall meet again," said the two officers, cordially shaking hands with the youth, and taking leave of him.
Staps left the room hastily. When he turned round once more at the door, and greeted the friends with a nod, they saw that his eyes were filled with tears.
The clergyman's wife now entered to serve up the dinner she herself had prepared, and there was added a bottle of old Hock from the wine-cellar.
"In the first place, however," said the clergyman to Schill, "I must see and dress your arm, sir; I am quite experienced in dressing wounds, having taken lessons in surgery in order to assist our poor peasants in case of injuries, and render it unnecessary for them to pay large doctors' bills. Let me, therefore, be your surgeon, too."
Schill gratefully accepted his kind offer, and after his wife had brought every thing necessary for dressing a wound, the clergyman examined Schill's arm, and removed the coagulated blood from it.