“I suppose you see nothing of the Prince?” inquired Otto.
“No,” said the young man, speaking for the first time, “nor want to.”
“Why so? is he so much disliked?” asked Otto.
“Not what you might call disliked,” replied the old gentleman, “but despised, sir.”
“Indeed,” said the Prince, somewhat faintly.
“Yes, sir, despised,” nodded Killian, filling a long pipe, “and, to my way of thinking, justly despised. Here is a man with great opportunities, and what does he do with them? He hunts, and he dresses very prettily—which is a thing to be ashamed of in a man—and he acts plays; and if he does aught else, the news of it has not come here.”
“Yet these are all innocent,” said Otto. “What would you have him do—make war?”
“No, sir,” replied the old man. “But here it is; I have been fifty years upon this River Farm, and wrought in it, day in, day out; I have ploughed and sowed and reaped, and risen early, and waked late; and this is the upshot: that all these years it has supported me and my family; and been the best friend that ever I had, set aside my wife; and now, when my time comes, I leave it a better farm than when I found it. So it is, if a man works hearty in the order of nature, he gets bread and he receives comfort, and whatever he touches breeds. And it humbly appears to me, if that Prince was to labour on his throne, as I have laboured and wrought in my farm, he would find both an increase and a blessing.”
“I believe with you, sir,” Otto said; “and yet the parallel is inexact. For the farmer’s life is natural and simple; but the prince’s is both artificial and complicated. It is easy to do right in the one, and exceedingly difficult not to do wrong in the other. If your crop is blighted, you can take off your bonnet and say, ‘God’s will be done’; but if the prince meets with a reverse, he may have to blame himself for the attempt. And perhaps, if all the kings in Europe were to confine themselves to innocent amusement, the subjects would be the better off.”
“Ay,” said the young man Fritz, “you are in the right of it there. That was a true word spoken. And I see you are like me, a good patriot and an enemy to princes.”
Otto was somewhat abashed at this deduction, and he made haste to change his ground. “But,” said he, “you surprise me by what you say of this Prince Otto. I have heard him, I must own, more favourably painted. I was told he was, in his heart, a good fellow, and the enemy of no one but himself.”
“And so he is, sir,” said the girl, “a very handsome, pleasant prince; and we know some who would shed their blood for him.”
“Oh! Kuno!” said Fritz. “An ignoramus!”
“Ay, Kuno, to be sure,” quavered the old farmer. “Well, since this gentleman is a stranger to these parts, and curious about the Prince, I do believe that story might divert him. This Kuno, you must know, sir, is one of the hunt servants, and a most ignorant, intemperate man: a right Grünewalder, as we say in Gerolstein. We know him well, in this house; for he has come as far as here after his stray dogs; and I make all welcome, sir, without account of state or nation. And, indeed, between Gerolstein and Grünewald the peace has held so long that the roads stand open like my door; and a man will make no more of the frontier than the very birds themselves.”
“Ay,” said Otto, “it has been a long peace—a peace of centuries.”
“Centuries, as you say,” returned Killian; “the more the pity that it should not be forever. Well, sir, this Kuno was one day in fault, and Otto, who has a quick temper, up with his whip and thrashed him, they do say, soundly. Kuno took it as best he could, but at last he broke out, and dared the Prince to throw his whip away and wrestle like a man; for we are all great at wrestling in these parts, and it’s so that we generally settle our disputes. Well, sir, the Prince did so; and, being a weakly creature, found the tables turned; for the man whom he had just been thrashing like a negro slave, lifted him with a back grip and threw him heels overhead.”
“He broke his bridle-arm,” cried Fritz—“and some say his nose. Serve him right, say I! Man to man, which is the better at that?”
“And then?” asked Otto.
“Oh, then Kuno carried him home; and they were the best of friends from that day forth. I don’t say it’s a discreditable story, you observe,” continued Mr. Gottesheim; “but it’s droll, and that’s the fact. A man should think before he strikes; for, as my nephew says, man to man was the old valuation.”
“Now, if you were to ask me,” said Otto, “I should perhaps surprise you. I think it was the Prince that conquered.”
“And, sir,
