up when any work was to be done; always willing to
oblige--ever ready to render any service in his power. Even the Bauer's
wife, a hard-natured, ill-thinking creature, in whom poverty had
heightened all the faults, nor taught one single lesson of kindliness to
others who were poor,--even she felt herself constrained to moderate the
rancour of her harshness, and would even at times vouchsafe a word or a
look of good humour to the little orphan boy. The Bauer himself, without
any great faults of character, had no sense of the fidelity of his
little follower. He thought that there was a compact between them,
which, as each fulfilled in his own way, there was no more to be said of
it. Gretchen more than made up for the coldness of her parents. The
little maiden, who knew by hard experience the severe lot to which Fritz
was bound, she felt her whole heart filled with gratitude and wonder
towards him. Wonder, indeed; for not alone did his services appear so
well performed, but they were so various and so numerous. He was every
where and at every thing; and it was like a proverb in the house--
"Fritz will do it." He found time for all; he neglected--stay, I am
wrong--poor little fellow, he did neglect something--something that was
more than all; but it was not his fault. Fritz never entered the village
church--he never said a prayer; he knew nothing of the Power that had
created him, and all that he saw around him. If he thought on these
things, it was with the vague indecision of a mind without guidance or
direction. Why, or how, and to what end, he and others like him, lived
or died, he could not, by any effort, conceive. Fritz was a bondman--as
much a slave as many who are carried away in chains across the seas, and
sold to strange masters. There was no bodily cruelty in his servitude;
he endured no greater hardships than poverty entails on millions; his
little sphere of duties was not too much for his strength; his humble
wants were met, but the darkest element of slavery was there! The daily
round of service over, no thought was taken of that purer part which in
the Peasant claims as high a destiny as in the Prince. The Sunday saw
him go forth with his flock to the mountain like any other day; and
though from some distant hill he could hear the tolling bell that called
the villagers to prayer, he knew not what it meant. The better dresses
and holiday attire suggested some notion of a fete-day; but as he knew
there were no f