This fancy of ancestry pleased Stephen. He thought of the forefathers of those whom he knew, who dwelt north of Market Street. Many, though this generation of the French might know it not, had bled at Calais and at Agincourt, had followed the court of France in clumsy coaches to Blois and Amboise, or lived in hovels under the castle walls. Others had charged after the Black Prince at Poitiers, and fought as serf or noble. in the war of the Roses; had been hatters or tailors in Cromwell's armies, or else had sacrificed lands and fortunes for Charles Stuart. These English had toiled, slow but resistless, over the misty Blue Ridge after Boone and Harrod to this old St. Louis of the French, their enemies, whose fur traders and missionaries had long followed the veins of the vast western wilderness. And now, on to the structure builded by these two, comes Germany to be welded, to strengthen or to weaken.
Richter put down his pipe on the table.
“Stephen,” he said suddenly, “you do not share the prejudice against us here?”
Stephen flushed. He thought of some vigorous words that Miss Puss Russell had used on the subject of the Dutch.
“No,” said he, emphatically.
“I am glad,” answered Richter, with a note of sadness, in his voice. “Do not despise us before you know more of us. We are still feudal in Germany—of the Middle Ages. The peasant is a serf. He is compelled to serve the lord of the land every year with so much labor of his hands. The small farmers, the 'Gross' and 'Mittel Bauern', we call them, are also mortgaged to the nobles who tyrannize our Vaterland. Our merchants are little merchants—shopkeepers, you would say. My poor father, an educated man, was such. They fought our revolution.”
“And now,” said Stephen, “why do they not keep their hold?”
Richter sighed.
“We were unused to ruling,” he answered. “We knew not how to act—what to do. You must remember that we were not trained to govern ourselves, as are you of the English race, from children. Those who have been for centuries ground under heel do not make practical parliamentarians. No; your heritage is liberty—you Americans and English; and we Germans must desert our native land to partake of it.”
“And was it not hard to leave?” asked Stephen, gently.