"So the Englishman has been told; but he will not submit. He has
papers," he says, "and wishes to speak with the Major or the Lieutenant
who is upon duty."
Fernow glanced at his watch. "Very well," he said, "I will come; I
must, in any event, now go to the village. It is a very unpleasant
duty," he added, turning to the surgeon, "I must send back harmless
travellers whom perhaps important business urges forward, but the
orders are strict and cannot be evaded."
"Unpleasant, do you call it?" laughed the surgeon. "It gives me great
satisfaction to show these arrogant sons of Albion who, with their
impudence and blasé manners, spread themselves over our whole Rhine
country, who is lord and master here. In their own land, unfortunately,
we have never ventured it."
"Are you going with me to the village!"
"No, I am going back to the castle. I leave you alone to manage your
Englishmen and your triumph; for the latter that priggish volunteer,
that E., has already cared. He snatched your poem from me to read to
his comrades. And listen, Walter, when you have gone your rounds, come
for half an hour at least, to our quarters. You are falling past rescue
in the esteem of our captain, who alone refuses to recognize in you a
future celebrity,--you do not drink enough for him."
With a laughing adieu, the surgeon returned to the castle, while Fernow
started for the village. Frederic stamped on behind not taking his eyes
for a moment from his master. But these eyes had an entirely changed
expression. Once they had gazed at the professor, only with the anxiety
one shows in guarding a sick, helpless child that may easily come to
harm; now there lay a silent awe, a boundless admiration in the glance
which followed the slightest motion of the "Lieutenant." The devotion
of the faithful servant had withstood more than a fiery trial; it had
become proverbial in the company.
At the entrance of the village, before an inn, halted two carriages
which had arrived, one after the other. The first, which had come a
quarter of an hour soonest, had been first ordered back, but its
occupants would not submit to the necessity imposed upon them.
Unfortunately, he understood no German, the soldiers no English, and
they were obliged to carry on their conversation in the most execrable
French--a very difficult and tedious proceeding. But the stranger, who
resorted to his papers, had at last succeeded in obtaining a promise
that his case should be laid before the proper officer, and still
excited by the conversation, with grim forehead and contracted
eyebrows, he had just entered the door of the inn, when the second
carriage drove up. A gentleman stepped from it and approached the
house. The eyes of the two met, and an expression of surprise broke at
the same moment from the lips of each.
"Mr. Atkins!"
"Henry!"
"How come you here?" asked Alison, who was first to recover from his
astonishment.
"I came from N. And you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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