The whole mob, now including women and children, surged after him down the road. As he reached the parsonage garden, whose white walls blazed in the rays of the mid-day sun, he was aware of an aching sensation at his heart, that rose in a lump to his throat. His last hope rested in the hands of the old pastor. Would he too spurn him from his threshold? But at this moment that was not his only anxiety. How could he help feeling anxious as to what _her_ reception of him would be, she in whose power it was to exalt him from the mire of shame and misery into a world of peace and purity. If she saw him in his present condition, dirty and dishevelled, with this escort of hooting ruffians behind him, would she not recoil in horror? And she did. A terrified hand threw back the glass door of the veranda. It was she--it must be she! For a moment he saw the glimmer of a white, slender figure; saw her raise an arm, as if to wave off the approach of him and the mob: and then, before Boleslav could give one questioning, imploring look at the beloved features, she vanished with a faint cry of alarm. There was a mist before his eyes. Half stunned, he went up the steps of the veranda, closed the door behind him, and awaited the next turn in the course of events. The Schrandeners blockaded the veranda, and some flattened their noses against the glass in order to see better what passed within. A pane fell out; one of them had pushed his neighbour through it, whereupon the revered voice of the old pastor was heard raised in remonstrance. He appeared on the veranda flourishing a thick, notched walking-stick. His white hair blew about his lofty temples. The nostrils of his hawk-like nose dilated furiously as if they snorted battle. Beneath the snow-white shaggy projecting brows his eyes glowed like fiery torches. Such was the venerable Pastor Götz, who, in the March of the year 1813, had gone from house to house, holding the big cross from the altar in his hand, followed by a drummer, and had beaten up recruits for the holy war. And had he not been left fainting by the roadside on the march to Königsberg, in all probability he would have accompanied his soldier-parishioners into the field of action. The Schrandeners stood in no little dread of his discipline, and no sooner did they catch sight of his formidable stick than they retreated quickly from the windows, and tried to regain the garden gate. "You hell-hounds, craven sheep!" he shouted from the glass door. "Come to God's house on Sunday and I'll give you a dressing." Then turning on Boleslav, he measured him from head to foot with a scowling glance. His eye rested on the military cap he held in his hand. "You were in the campaign?" he asked. "Yes." "If it were not for the cross I see on the brim of your cap, I should ask was it for or against Prussia?"