.

Trudchen, seeing him idle, pushed her cold nose into his hand. Trudchen
just now was feeling clever and important. Was she not the mother of the
five most wonderful puppies in all Saxony? They swarmed about his legs,
pressing him with their little foolish heads. Ulrich stooped and picked
up one in each big hand. But this causing jealousy and heartburning,
laughing, he lay down upon a log. Then the whole five stormed over him,
biting his hair, trampling with their clumsy paws upon his face; till
suddenly they raced off in a body to attack a floating feather. Ulrich
sat up and watched them, the little rogues, the little foolish, helpless
things, that called for so much care. A mother thrush twittered above
his head. Ulrich rose and creeping on tiptoe, peeped into the nest. But
the mother bird, casting one glance towards him, went on with her work.
Whoever was afraid of Ulrich the wheelwright! The tiny murmuring insects
buzzed to and fro about his feet. An old man, passing to his evening
rest, gave him "good-day." A zephyr whispered something to the leaves,
at which they laughed, then passed upon his way. Here and there a shadow
crept out from its hiding-place.

"If only I could marry the whole village!" laughed Ulrich to himself.

But that, of course, is nonsense!

The spring that followed let loose the dogs of war again upon the
blood-stained land, for now all Germany, taught late by common suffering
forgetfulness of local rivalries, was rushing together in a mighty wave
that would sweep French feet for ever from their hold on German soil.
Ulrich, for whom the love of woman seemed not, would at least be the
lover of his country. He, too, would march among those brave stern
hearts that, stealing like a thousand rivulets from every German valley,
were flowing north and west to join the Prussian eagles.

But even love of country seemed denied to Ulrich of the dreamy eyes.
His wheelwright's business had called him to a town far off. He had been
walking all the day. Towards evening, passing the outskirts of a wood,
a feeble cry for help, sounding from the shadows, fell upon his ear.
Ulrich paused, and again from the sombre wood crept that weary cry of
pain. Ulrich ran and came at last to where, among the wild flowers and
the grass, lay prone five human figures. Two of them were of the German
Landwehr, the other three Frenchmen in the hated uniform of Napoleon's
famous scouts. It had been some unimportant "affair of out