Napoleon And Blucher Part 12

"You made him win the money, Gebhard," she said, in a voice tremulous with emotion. "Oh, do not shake your head--tell me the truth! You made Leesten win, because you wished to preserve him from the necessity of accepting alms. You made him win, that his daughter might marry."

"Nonsense!" said Blucher, growlingly, "how could I make him win when he did not really win? He would have found it out, and, besides, I would have been a cheat."

"He did not find it out because you made him drink so much wine, and because he knows nothing about the game; and you are no cheat, because you intentionally made him win; on the contrary, you are a n.o.ble, magnanimous man whom Heaven must love. Oh, dear, dearest husband, tell me the truth; let me enjoy the happiness that I have guessed right! You did so intentionally, did you not? The cards did not bring so much good luck to Leesten, but Blucher did!"

"Hus.h.!.+ do not say that so loudly," exclaimed Blucher, looking anxiously around; "if any one should hear and repeat it, and Leesten should find out how the thing occurred, the fellow would return the money to me."

"Ah, now you have betrayed yourself--you have confessed that you lost the money intentionally," exclaimed Amelia, jubilantly. "Oh, thanks, thanks, my n.o.ble and generous friend!" She took his hands with pa.s.sionate tenderness, and pressed them to her lips.

"But, Amelia, what are you doing?" said Blucher, withdrawing his hands in confusion. "Why, you are weeping!"

"Oh, they are tears of joy," she said, nodding to him with a blissful smile--"tears which I am weeping for my glorious, dear Blucher!"

"Oh, you are too good," said Blucher, whose face suddenly grew gloomy. "I am nothing but an old, pensioned soldier--a rusty sword flung into a corner. I am an invalid whom they believe to be childish, because he thinks he might still be useful, and the fatherland might need him. But I tell you, Amelia, if I ever should become childish it would be on account of the course pursued toward me; why, I am dismissed from the service; I am refused any thing to do; I am desired to be idle, and the king has given me this accursed estate of Kunzendorf, not as a reward, nor from love, but to get rid of me, and because he is afraid of the French. When he gave it to me last spring, he wrote that I ought to set out for Kunzendorf immediately, and live and remain there, as it behooved every n.o.bleman, in the midst of my peasants. But his real object was to send me into exile; he did not wish me to remain in Berlin!"

"Well, he had to comply with the urgent recommendations of his ministers," said Madame von Blucher, smiling. "You know very well that all the ministers of the king, with the sole exception of Hardenberg, are friends of the French, and think that Prussia would be lost if she should not faithfully stand by France."

"They are traitors when they entertain such infamous sentiments,"

cried Blucher, wildly stamping with his foot; "they should hang the fellows who are so mean and cowardly as to think that Prussia would be lost if her mortal enemy did not condescend to sustain her. Ah, if the king had listened to me only once, we should have long since driven the French out of the country, and our poor soldiers would not freeze to death in Russia as auxiliaries of Bonaparte. When the danger is greatest, every thing must be risked in order to win every thing, and when a fellow tries to deceive and insult me, I do not consider much whether I had better endure him because may be weaker than he is, but, before he suspects it, I knock him down if I can.

You see, that is defending one's life; this is what the learned call philosophy. But, dearest Amelia, there is but one philosophy in life, and it is this: 'He who trusts in G.o.d and defends himself bravely will never miserably perish.' Now, the king and his ministers know only one-half of this philosophy, and that is the reason why the whole thing goes wrong. They mean to trust in G.o.d, even though, from their blind trust alone, all Prussia fall to ruins; but as for bravely defending themselves, that is what they do not understand. It is too much like old Blucher's way of doing things, and that is the reason why the learned gentlemen do not like it. Ah! Amelia, when I think of all the wretchedness of Prussia, and that I may have to die without having chastised Bonaparte--without having wrested from him, and flung into his face, the laurels of Jena, Eylau, and Friedland--ah, then I feel like sitting down and crying like a boy. But Heaven cannot be so cruel; it will not let me die before meeting Bonaparte on the field of battle, and avenging all our wrongs upon him. No, I trust I will not die before that-- and, after all, I am quite young! Only seventy years of age! My grandfather died in his ninetieth year, and my mother told me often enough that I looked exactly like my grandfather; I shall, therefore, reach my ninetieth year. I have still twenty years to live--twenty years, that is enough--" Just then the door opened, and a footman entered.

"Well, John," asked Blucher, "what is it? Why do you look so merry, my boy? I suppose you have good news for us, have you not?"

"I have, your excellency," said the footman. "There is an old man outside, an invalid, attended by a young fellow who, I believe, is his son. The two have come all the way from Pomerania, and want to see General von Blucher. He says he has important news for your excellency."

"Important news?" asked Blucher. "And he comes from Pomerania? John, I hope it will not be one who wants to tell me the same old story?"

"Your excellency, I believe that is what he comes for," said John, grinning.

"Amelia," exclaimed Blucher, bursting into loud laughter, "there is another fellow who wants to tell me that he took me prisoner fifty years since. I believe it is already the seventh rascal who says he was the man."

"The seventh who wants to get money from you and swindle you," said Madame von Blucher, smiling.

"No, I believe they do not exactly want to swindle me," said Blucher, "but I know they like to get a little money, and as they do not want to beg--"

"They come and lie," interrupted Amelia, smiling. "They know already that General Blucher gives a few louis d'ors to every one who comes and says, 'General, it was I who took you prisoner in Mecklenburg in 1760, and brought you to the Prussians. You, therefore, are indebted to me for all your glory and your happiness.'"

"Yes, it is true," said Blucher, laughing and smoothing his mustache. "That is what all six of them said. But one of them did take me prisoner, for the story is true, and if I turn away one of those who tell me the same thing, why, I might happen to hit precisely the man who took me, and that would be a great shame.

Therefore, it is better I imagine a whole squadron had taken me at that time, and give money to every one who comes to me for it. Even though he may not be the man, why, he is at least an old hussar, and I shall never turn an old hussar without a little present from my door." [Footnote: Blucher's own words.--Vide "Life of Prince Blucher of Wahlstatt, by Varnhagen von Ense," p. 6.]

"Well, I see you want to bid welcome to your seventh hero and conqueror," said Amelia, smiling. "Very well, I will quit the field and retire into my cabinet. Farewell, my friend, and when your hero has taken leave of you, I will await you." She nodded pleasantly to her husband, and left the room.

"Well, John," said Blucher, sitting down again on his easy-chair at the window, "now let the men come in. But first fill me a pipe. You must take a new one, for I broke the one I was smoking this morning."

John hastened to the elegant "pipe-board" which stood beside the fireplace, and took from it an oblong, plain wooden box; opening the lid, he drew a new, long clay pipe from it.

"How many pipes are in it yet?" asked Blucher, hastily. "A good lot, John?"

"No, your excellency, only seven whole pipes, and eight broken ones."

"You may ride to Neisse to-morrow, and buy a box of pipes. Now, give me one, and let the hussar and his son come in."

CHAPTER X.

RECOLLECTIONS OF MECKLENBURG.

John, the footman, opened the door of the anteroom, and shouted in a loud and solemn voice, "Your excellency, here is Hennemann, the hussar, and his son Christian!"

"Well, come in!" said Blucher, good-naturedly, puffing a cloud of smoke from his pipe.

An old man with silver-white hair, his bent form clad in the old and faded uniform of a hussar, and holding his old-fas.h.i.+oned shako in his hand, entered the room. He was followed by a young man, wearing the costume of a North-German farmer, his heavy yellow hair combed backward and fastened with a large round comb; his full, vigorous form dressed in a long blue cloth coat, reaching down almost to his feet, and lined with white flannel; under it he wore trousers of dark-green velvet that descended only to the knees, and joined there the blue-and-red stockings in which his legs were encased; his feet were armed with thick shoes, adorned with buckles, while their soles bristled with large nails.

"Where do you come from?" asked Blucher, fixing his eyes with a kind expression on the two men.

"From Rostock, your excellency," said the old man, making a respectful obeisance.

"From Rostock?" asked Blucher, joyously. "Why, that is my native city."

"I know that very well, general," said the old hussar, who vainly tried to hide his Low-German accent. "All Rostock knows it, too, and every child there boasts of Blucher being our countryman."

"Well," said Blucher, smiling, "then you come from Rostock. Do you live there?"

"Not exactly in Rostock, your excellency. My daughter Frederica is married to a tailor in Rostock, and I was with her for four weeks. I myself live at Polchow, a n.o.bleman's estate four miles from Rostock; I am there at the house of my eldest son."

"Is that your eldest son?" asked Blucher, pointing with his clay pipe at the young man, who stood by the side of his aged father, and was turning his hat in his hand in an embarra.s.sed manner.

"No, sir, he is my youngest son, and it is just for his sake that I have come to you. Christian was a laborer in the service of our n.o.bleman at Polchow, and he desired to marry a girl with whom he had fallen in love. But the n.o.bleman would not permit it; he said Christian should wait some ten years until there was a house vacant in the village, and some of the old peasants had died. This drove him to despair; he wanted to commit suicide, and said he would die rather than be a day laborer on an estate in Mecklenburg, which is no better than being the n.o.bleman's slave."

"Yes," cried Christian, indignantly, "that is true, general. A day laborer on an estate in Mecklenburg is a slave, that is all. The n.o.bleman owns him. If he wants to do so, he may disable him, nay, he may kill him. Such a laborer has no rights, no will, no property, no home, no country; he is not allowed to live anywhere but in his village: he cannot settle in any other place, and is not permitted to marry unless the n.o.bleman who owns the village gives his consent, nor can he ever be any thing else than what his father and grandfather were, that is to say, the n.o.bleman's laborers. And I do not wish to be such and do nothing else than putting the horses to the plough. I want to marry Frederica, and become a free man, and if that cannot be I will commit suicide."

"Ahem! he has young blood," said Blucher, well pleased and smiling, "fresh Mecklenburgian blood. I like that! But you must not abuse Mecklenburg, Christian; I love Mecklenburg, because it is my native country."

"It is a good country for n.o.blemen who have money," said Christian, "but for day laborers who have none it is a poor country. And that was the reason why I said to the old man, 'Vatting [Footnote: "Vatting," Low-German for "papa."], shall I commit suicide or run away and enlist.'"

"And I then said, 'Well, my son, in that case it will be better for you to enlist,'" added the old man, "'and, moreover, you shall enlist under a good general. I will show you that my life is yet good for something; I will do for your sake what I have purposed to do all my lifetime: I will go to General Blucher, tell him whom I am, and ask him to reward my boy for what I did for him.'"

Blucher looked with a good-natured smile at the poor old man who stood before him in the faded and threadbare uniform of a private soldier.

"Well, my old friend," he said, "what have you done for me, then?"

The old man raised his head, and a solemn expression overspread his bronzed and furrowed countenance. "General," he said, gravely, "it was I who took you prisoner in Mecklenburg in 1760, and to me, therefore, you are indebted for all your glory and happiness."

Blucher covered his face with his hands, that the old man might not see his smile. "It is just as Amelia told me it would be," he said to himself. He then added aloud: "Well, tell me the story, that I may see whether it was really you who took me prisoner."

"It is a long story," said the old man, sighing, "and if I am to tell it, I must ask a favor of your excellency."