My uncle Herse's corps of sharp shooters had laid their twenty-one fowling pieces on the shelf, and he had turned them into a corps of musicians, and his having taught them in time of war all to fire off at once, came to be of great use now, for they struck up with their fiddles and flutes, and clarionettes exactly together quite naturally. In the evenings, they used to serenade us, and I can hum the tune to this day, for they always played the same piece, and my uncle told me afterwards that it was variations upon the beautiful air: "Cousin Michael was here last night." When the battle of Leipzig was won, bonfires were lighted on the Owl Hill and the Windmill Hill, and the town was lighted up. There was no firing, it is true; for we had no cannon, but we had as much noise as if we had had a whole battery, for the Rathsherr Herse's adjutant, Hanning Heinz, and old Metz hit upon a splendid idea; they laid some hundred-weights of stone on a cart, and shot them with all their might against gouty old Kasper's gateway, so that they got a thunder as of real cannon, and the gateway lay in pieces. And what joy and delight it was, when one mother could tell another: "Neighbour, my Joe was there too, and he's written that he got off safe." Heinrich had written, and Friedrich had sent greetings to everyone, and when this was known in Stemhagen, it passed from mouth to mouth: "Ay, our old Friedrich! Just think of it! He's a brave fellow." Everybody talked about Friedrich, and so it happened that the story gradually got about in Stemhagen that the corporal, Friedrich Schult, had really won the battle of Leipzig: he had told his Colonel, Warburg, how the thing ought to be done, and the Colonel had told it to old Blücher's Adjutant, and old Blücher's Adjutant had told it to old Blücher, and old Blücher had said "Friedrich Schult is right."