What decision they came to over his future he was never to know, for even before the short interview had elapsed, his former life already lay behind him like a nightmare, and he stood in the street and reflected through which of the city-gates he should wander out into the wide world. Finally, the goal of his travels proved to be a small property in a remote corner of Lithuania, where he found rest in hard work, and an opportunity of fitting himself for the duties of a landed proprietor. Years went by. For him they meant unremitting labour for his daily bread--a struggle for existence full of hardships, which, however, could be engaged in without shame, or any wounding of his _amour propre_. For now he no longer bore the abhorred name of his fathers. If at the same time he only could have cast off, like a soiled garment, the host of bitter recollections with which it was associated, he would have been happier. But consciousness of the infamy that clung to the discarded name remained ever present. Love for his country, which hitherto had only slumbered in his heart, now bounded into full life. The passion of patriotism grew and grew, till it became a tormenting demon which scourged him with scorpions, drove the blood from his face, the sleep from his eyes, and heaped the guilt of Prussia's misfortunes on his shoulders. Only once during this time did news of his home reach him. That was when he read in a Königsberg news-sheet that Schranden Castle, which had enjoyed such an unenviable notoriety in the winter of 1807, had been burned down with all its outlying buildings. Then he had folded his hands, and a sound had escaped his lips like a prayer of thanksgiving. Expiation! expiation! must be the watchword of his soul. But as yet nothing could be expiated. Still the unhappy Fatherland lay crushed beneath the heel of the dictator. Then came the downfall of the Great Army on the snow-covered plains of Eastern Europe, and the rising of Prussia quickly followed. Now the hour had come. His hour! He would die--give his life for the Fatherland, and expiate his father's sin with his own blood. In the volunteer Jäger Baumgart, who rode into Königsberg on the 5th of March 1813, no one recognised the youthful Baron von Schranden, who, just five years before, had fled from the town unable to face the dishonour brought upon his name; and there were many now hailing him with shouts and cheers of welcome, who then would have driven him out with stones and brickbats. He attached himself to a cluster of intrepid sons of the soil, from whose mouths the dialect of his lost home fell familiarly and musically on his ear. He became their friend and their leader, till suddenly a well-known face cropped up in the camp, the sight of which immediately drove Lieutenant Baumgart out of it. Felix Merckel, he knew too well, would not have hesitated to betray him to his comrades, and to inform them who it was that led them to battle.