to bed.

CHAPTER III.

The _reveille_ was sounded. The soldiers marched off, and nearly the
whole town, young and old, followed them on their way. When I saw these
merry men, and thought in how short a time so many of them would lie
down in death, I became oppressed with the thought that I had raised my
voice for war. But this feeling soon passed away. We are acting in
self-defence, and this will bring about a happy ending, for we shall no
longer have to live in dread of the insolence and presumption of our
neighbors.

The soldiers sang as they marched along, and up by the newspaper-tree
sat Carl's mother, looking at them passing by. Marie stood at her side,
but the old woman motioned her away, and when I asked her to return
home with us, she said:

"I have seen the thousands and thousands of mothers, who bore them all
in pain, and have cared for and raised them, floating in the air over
their heads. O my Carl! Have you heard nothing of him yet?"

We found it difficult to get her back to the village. Marie walked
along at her side, and said:

"Do you know what I should like to be?"

"What?"

"Do you hear the hawk that is circling in the air over the hill-top?
Alas, you cannot hear him, but you can see him. Like him, I should wish
to fly, and I would fly to Charles and back again, and tell you
everything."

The village and the country round about had been in an uproar; but now
that the troops had left, everything was wonderfully quiet. Rothfuss
was right; for if we had not seen the occasional remains of a
camp-fire, we would not have known that the soldiers had been there.
The old meadow farmer, who had been pensioned off by his son, and whom
the departure of the troops had aroused, sat at his door, and seemed to
enjoy watching the little pigs that were disporting themselves in the
gutter.

A little coach stood before him, in which lay a child that he had to
feed with milk; for his son wanted to get all he could from his father.
He thought of nothing but the increase of his property, and acted
meanly towards his father. He made him presents of the cheapest kind of
tobacco, so that he should not buy an expensive sort; but the old man
saw through the trick, and gave the tobacco money away, so that his son
should not inherit it.

I gladly avoided all intercourse with these people.

As I approached the house, the old man beckoned to me to come to him,
and, like a child,