One morning, it was early in August, I was sitting in the bow-window of the library and looking out through the open window. From this point was a long view over the surrounding country. I thought I saw from a distance a troop of cavalry moving along the high road in our direction.
“Prussians coming for quarters,” was my first thought. I adjusted a telescope which stood in the bow, and looked towards the point in question. Right; it was a troop of about ten riders with waving black and white little flags on the points of their lances. And among them a man on foot, in hunting costume. Why was he walking in this way between the horses? A prisoner? The glass was not powerful enough. I could not make out whether the man I took for a prisoner might not be one of our own foresters.
Still it was right to warn the inhabitants of the château of the fate impending over them. I hastily left the library to look for papa and Aunt Mary. I found both in the drawing-room. “The Prussians are coming, the Prussians are coming,” I announced to them breathlessly. One is always glad to be able to be the first to communicate important tidings.
“Devil take them,” was my father’s rather inhospitable exclamation, while Aunt Mary hit on the right thing to do, as she said: “I will immediately give Frau Walter her orders for the necessary preparations.”
“And where is Otto?” I asked. “Someone must acquaint him, and warn him not to let his hatred of the Prussians peep out anyhow, and not to be uncivil to the guests.”
“Otto is not at home,” replied my father. “He went out early today after the partridges. You should have seen him, how well his hunting-dress sat on him. He grows a fine fellow. My delight is in him.”
Meanwhile the house filled with noise. Hasty steps were heard, and excited voices.
“They are come already—those windbags,” muttered my father.
The door was dashed open, and Franz, the valet de chambre, rushed in.
“The Prussians—the Prussians,” he shouted, in the same tone as one calls “Fire, fire!”
“Well, they won’t eat us,” growled my father.
“But they are bringing a man with them—a man from Grumitz,” the man went on in a trembling voice. “I do not know who it is. He has fired on them; and who would not like to fire on such a scum? But it is all over with him.”
Now one heard the tramp of horses and tumult of voices together. We went down to the ground floor and looked through the windows which opened out into the courtyard. At that moment the Uhlans came riding in, and in their midst, with pale, defiant face, Otto, my brother.
My father uttered a shriek and hurried down the steps. My heart stood still. The scene before us was horrible. If Otto had really fired at the Prussian soldiers, which seemed very like him—I dared not think of the conclusion.
I had not the courage to go after my father. Consolation and assistance in all sorrows I always sought from Frederick only. So I collected myself in order to betake myself to Frederick’s room. But before I got there, my father came back again and Otto after him. By their bearing I saw that the danger was over. The hearing of the matter had given the following result: The shot had been discharged accidentally. When the Uhlans came riding on, Otto wanted to see them close, ran across the field, stumbled, fell down into a ditch, and in doing so discharged his gun. At the first moment the statement of the young sportsman was doubted by the men. They took him in their midst and brought him to the château as their prisoner. But when it came out that the young gentleman was the son of General Althaus, and was himself a military student, they accepted his explanation.
“The son of a soldier, and himself a future soldier, might well fire on hostile soldiers in honourable fight, but not in time of truce, and not like an assassin.” On this speech of my father’s the Prussian subaltern had set the young man free.
“And are you really innocent?” I asked Otto. “For from your hatred of the Prussians it would not surprise me if—”
He shook his head.
“I shall, I trust, have plenty of opportunities in the course of my life to fire at a few of them; but not from behind, not without exposing my heart, too, to their bullets.”
“Bravo, my boy!” cried my father, delighted by these words.
I could not share his delight. All these phrases, in which life, whether one’s own or another’s, is tossed about so contemptuously and so boastfully, have a repellent tone for me. But I was glad at heart that the matter had passed over thus. How horrible would it have been for my poor father if these men had shot down the presumed malefactor without more ado! In that case the unhappy war by which our house had hitherto been spared would have yet plunged it into misery.
The detachment in question had come in the regular way to take up quarters. Schloss Grumitz had been selected as the habitation of two colonels and six officers of the Prussian army. The men were to be lodged in the village. Two men were to be set as sentinels in the courtyard
