These evolutions did not appear to command any particular admiration on the part of the Germans; pitying smiles were seen to pass over their countenances, and when at the command “Right-about-face!” half the company turned to the left, so that the soldiers of Altenet stood facing each other, they burst into a roar of laughter, which so aroused the wrath of Klaos Drehmans (who had spent some years at Sittard), that he stepped out of the ranks, and snorted defiance at the principal custom-house clerk as follows:—
“You! do you know what you are? you’re a regular nuisance!” while another member of the Altenet militia yelled at the top of his voice, quite at a loss for a worse epithet, “Oh! thou accursed Prussian of a Prussian!”
It was truly a triumphal march when the Republican army returned from this glorious campaign; the inhabitants uttered loud cries of joy, alternating with abuse of the cowardly Prussian lot.
Bloemstein stood, proudly defiant, in the full consciousness of his presidential dignity, on the “stoop” of his house. And when the standard-bearer had waved his flag three times over his head in the President’s honour, and then tossed it on high, the President smiled very genially, and waved back a salute with his hand, blowing thick clouds of smoke the while from his long German pipe, a proceeding which elicited thundering “hurrahs” from assembled Altenet.
The only Altenetters who had not been able to witness this sublime spectacle were Bloemstein’s wife and daughter; they had walked out to meet Dr Olthausen coming from Aix-la-Chapelle, and fell in with him near the village of Vaals.
After the usual salutations, Marieke related to her betrothed all the changes which had taken place in the government of Altenet, and also her father’s resolution to marry her to the Minister of the Interior. At this part of the story the mother clenched her fists, her eyes flashed fire, and she said, threateningly, “Just let the fellow come into our house, and I’ll make him repent his Affairs of the Interior.”
To the great surprise of both ladies, Olthausen did not appear to be angry; on the contrary, he began to laugh loudly, and seemed especially diverted by the story of the postage-stamps.
“We’ll have a regular good joke out of that,” he said, still laughing; “but I won’t come to dinner with you to-day.”
“Are you afraid of Bloemstein?” asked the mother. “Because you needn’t be; I shall be at dinner too.”
“No, I’m not afraid of him—only of laughing more than I ought.”