hasty temper, in endeavouring to set him on his
legs, broke one of them off. "Ah, thou worthless thing!" cried he
passionately, "thou art no use now to King or Kaiser, for thou art as
lame as Hans Joergle;" and as he spoke he opened the little pane of the
window, and flung the little figure into the street.

"Shame on thee, Carl!" said the old man reprovingly; "he would have done
for many a thing yet. The best scout we ever had on the Turkish frontier
was so lame, you couldn't think him able to walk. Besides, don't you
remember the Tyrol proverb?--

'Gott hat sein plan Fur Jedenmann:'

God has his plan For every man.

So never despise those who are unfit for thine own duties; mayhap, what
thou deemest imperfection, may fit them for something far above thee."

Oh, how Hans drank in these words! the grief that filled him, on the
insulting comparison of the child was now changed to gratitude, and
seizing the little soldier, his own sad emblem, he kissed it a hundred
times, and then placed it in his bosom.

Hanserl's mother was asleep when he reached home, so, creeping silently
to his bed, he lay down in his clothes, dreading lest he might awaken
her; and with what a happy heart did he lie down that night! How full
of gratitude and of love as he thought over the blessed words! How he
wished to remain awake all night long and think over them, fancying,
as he could do, the various destinies which, even to such as him, might
still fall! But sleep, that will not come when wooed, stole over him
as he lay, and in a deep, heavy slumber, he clasped the little wooden
figure in his hands.

The first effect of weariness over, Hans dreamed of all he had seen;
vague and confused images of the different objects passed and re-passed
before his mind, in that disorder and incoherency that belong to dreams.
The scene of the Vorsteher's house became mingled with the remembrance
of the Pontlatzer bridge, where, until nightfall, he had been watching
the Bavarian sentinel; and the curate's parlour beside its listening
group, had, now, a merry mob of children dancing around the Easter-tree,
under whose spreading branches a cavalry picquet were lying--the horses
grazing--while the men lay stretched before the watch-fires, smoking and
chattering.

The memory of the soldiers once touched upon, every other fled; and now
he could only think of the evolutions around Presburg: and he fancied
he saw the whole army defiling oyer the