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“I go, gracious master,” said Axel most respectfully. “I know you are safe for some time to come, and I carry with me the delightful satisfaction of having so far contributed to your safety. Remember sometimes, kindly, your faithful servant;” and, shaking heartily the hand which the baron offered him, he went to the stable to pack up his knapsack.

Absorbed in secret dreams, Tugendreich stood in a grotto in the garden, and did not even hear the drums of a company of Tiefenbach’s regiment which was entering the castle, when suddenly Axel stood before her with the knapsack on his back. “Your father has dismissed me from his service,” he said, with emotion, “but I shall never quit yours, sweet Fraeulein. You shall soon hear of me.” With tears in his eyes, he offered a forget-me-not, which she could not refuse accepting from the hand that still showed the scar from the descent into the shaft. “But,” continued he, recollecting himself, “this keepsake will soon be destroyed, therefore take another of a solid material from my own native country.” And, taking out a Swedish copper dollar, he broke it with gigantic strength, offered one-half to the Fraeulein, and said, “He who shall bring you the other half will come from me.” Before Tugendreich was aware how she had got the burning kiss which glowed upon her lips he had vanished, and Talander stood before her like a personified lecture. He was on the point of delivering it, when the baron, who was somewhat wearied by the first impetuous demands of his new guest, approached in a gloomy mood, and asked, astonished and peevishly, “What was the meaning of the flower which the Fraeulein was still affectionately contemplating?”

“I was just disputing with the good magister about it,” replied she, with genuine female composure, whilst she wiped away her last tears. “Being my instructor in botany, he thinks he can make me believe anything. Only think, he maintains that this is the Myosotis palustris, or mouse-ear, and it is evidently the Veronica chamaedrys, or germander, which moreover rhymes with Talander. Am I not right, dear father?” So saying, she bounded away out of the garden, to cast, if possible, one more look from the tower after her departing favourite, whilst Talander raised his hands in utter astonishment at the consummate ingenuity which his timid pupil so readily displayed.

* * * * *

The calamities of war which the large armies marching to and fro brought upon the country did not press with particular weight upon the inhabitants of the castle. For this they were indebted to the colonel who was quartered within it with his company. But it soon became evident that his services were not altogether disinterested, for he daily made nearer and more evident advances towards the beautiful daughter of the house, and ventured many a time to storm her heart with tender, chivalrous courtesy. His noble demeanour and manly beauty, in addition to his high rank as a soldier, his birth and his fortune, powerfully supported his suit. But an invincible antagonist was in Tugendreich’s heart; the image of poor Axel and the half-copper dollar were to her a more precious treasure than the rich necklace which Baron Grotta ordered from Dresden, and which she was forced to accept by the command of her father. A dim foreboding seemed to tell the proud colonel what rival he had to contend with, and the recollection of the handsome insolent groom and the scene with the spur began to assume the shape of a suspicion which produced ill humour. This was expressed in many contemptuous observations concerning low-born persons, and his scorn at their desire to force their way into the upper classes daily wearied the patience of old Talander, who entertained very high notions of his own worth as a man. When it happened upon one occasion that the colonel in his presence boasted rather too complacently to the Fraeulein of his hereditary privileges, the old man commenced reading a passage from a poem which an old collegian had sent him from Halle, running thus:[3]