"Your highness, you are more than welcome to us—you have been longed for by us, and we thank God from the depths of our souls that he has finally given you back to us. All had already abandoned hope of your return to us. All really believed that you would forsake us in our wretchedness and want, and would never more return to the unhappy Mark of Brandenburg. But here you are at last, my dearest young sir, and blessed be your coming and your staying."
"I thank you, colonel, thank you with my whole heart for your good wishes," said Frederick William kindly; "and trust me, my dear colonel, I know how to treasure them, and will never forget you for these. You are one of the faithful ones, on whom our house can count in evil as in good days, and on whom an Elector of Brandenburg would never call in vain, if he had need of him."
"Call upon us, most gracious sir," said the colonel briskly and joyfully—"call all your faithful ones, and you shall see they will all come, for they are only waiting for your summons."
The Electoral Prince smilingly shook his head. "I am not the Elector of
Brandenburg, and I have not the right to summon you."
"You shall and must be Elector of Brandenburg, and that you may be so, you must gather your faithful ones around you."
"I do not understand you," said the Electoral Prince slowly. "Whether I will ever be Elector of Brandenburg, God only can decide, for in his hands lies my father's life as well as my own. May the day be far distant when I enter upon the succession—may my venerated father for long years to come rule his land in peace and tranquillity. I long not to grasp the reins of government, for I know very well that I am yet much too young to guide them with wisdom and prudence."
"You will not understand me, your highness," cried the colonel impatiently, and his red swollen face glowed with a brighter hue. "But I must still try to make you understand, for to that very end have I been sent hither by your friends; they have chosen me as spokesman for them all, and therefore I must speak, if your highness will grant me leave so to do."
"Speak, my dear colonel, speak, and may God enlighten my heart, that I may rightly understand you! Let us sit down, colonel, and now let us hear what is the matter."
"This is the matter, your highness, the Mark of Brandenburg is lost to you, if you do not seize it now with swift, determined hand. You do not believe me, sir; you shake your head incredulously and smile. Ah! I see plainly, that you have been suffered to remain in great darkness as regards the situation of affairs here, and you know very little of our sufferings and our distresses. You know not that poverty and want prevail throughout the whole land; that the peasant, the burgher, the nobleman, all classes of the people, in short, are equally oppressed; that trade and commerce lie prostrate; and the aim of each one is only how he may prolong a wretched existence from day to day."
"Nevertheless, my dear colonel, I know that. I saw enough solitary, ruined villages, waste and empty towns, uncultivated and ravaged fields on my journey hither to prove to me what the poor inhabitants of the Mark have had to suffer in these evil days of war."