e farmer: 'leaves the girl to be seduced and to go on from bad
to worse, till her name's become a tap-room by-word, and she not yet
twenty; leaves the country to be overtaxed, and bullied with armaments,
and jockied into war--'

'War!' cried Otto.

'So they say, sir; those that watch their ongoings, say to war,'
asseverated Killian. 'Well, sir, that is very sad; it is a sad thing for
this poor, wicked girl to go down to hell with people's curses; it's a
sad thing for a tight little happy country to be misconducted; but
whoever may complain, I humbly conceive, sir, that this Otto cannot.
What he has worked for, that he has got; and may God have pity on his
soul, for a great and a silly sinner's!'

'He has broke his oath; then he is a perjurer. He takes the money and
leaves the work; why, then plainly he's a thief. A cuckold he was
before, and a fool by birth. Better me that!' cried Fritz, and snapped
his fingers.

'And now, sir, you will see a little,' continued the farmer, 'why we
think so poorly of this Prince Otto. There's such a thing as a man being
pious and honest in the private way; and there is such a thing, sir, as a
public virtue; but when a man has neither, the Lord lighten him! Even
this Gondremark, that Fritz here thinks so much of--'

'Ay,' interrupted Fritz, 'Gondremark's the man for me. I would we had
his like in Gerolstein.'

'He is a bad man,' said the old farmer, shaking his head; 'and there was
never good begun by the breach of God's commandments. But so far I will
go with you; he is a man that works for what he has.'

'I tell you he's the hope of Grunewald,' cried Fritz. 'He doesn't suit
some of your high-and-dry, old, ancient ideas; but he's a downright
modern man--a man of the new lights and the progress of the age. He does
some things wrong; so they all do; but he has the people's interests next
his heart; and you mark me--you, sir, who are a Liberal, and the enemy of
all their governments, you please to mark my words--the day will come in
Grunewald, when they take out that yellow-headed skulk of a Prince and
that dough-faced Messalina of a Princess, march 'em back foremost over
the borders, and proclaim the Baron Gondremark first President. I've
heard them say it in a speech. I was at a meeting once at Brandenau, and
the Mittwalden delegates spoke up for fifteen thousand. Fifteen
thousand, all brigaded, and each man with a medal round his neck to rally
by. That's all Gondrem