AT THE FOREST HOUSE
Hans worked hard all night and into the next morning, and then, feeling
the need of food and finding none in overcrowded Jena, with an "Auf
wiedersehen" to his comrades, he departed for the farmhouse.
Frau Schmelze stood in the doorway.
"Morning, Hans!" she called. "Come in, come in, here is coffee!"
Bustling about, she prepared him a meal in the living room.
On the sofa lay a man in Prussian uniform.
"He staggered in last night," she explained. "His hand was cut and
bleeding. I bound it up for him and he fell asleep there, though,
goodness knows, it was dangerous enough with the French tearing by every
moment!" She poured out coffee. "Ach Himmel, Hans!" she cried, "but war
is dreadful! All night the cannon and the screaming."
Then suddenly she turned on him, glancing at his tumbled hair and face
stained and dirty.
"Hans," she said, "have you been all night in Jena?"
The old man nodded.
Frau Schmelze frowned in disapproval.
"Cousin," she said, "are you sure about Annchen? All night there were
soldiers that way. It would be dreadful if she were alone with the
little ones, nicht wahr? We thought you were there."
"Alone?" Hans put down his coffee cup in surprise. "I sent her word to
go to her father-in-law's."
The truth was, he had forgotten everything but the battle.
"Why should she, cousin, have stayed on in the Forest House?"
Frau Schmelze was silent; it was not her business to remind Hans Lange
that he had a daughter exactly like him.
"So," she answered after a moment, "so. Perhaps you know best, but----"
Then she went to the soldier whom the talking had awakened. In her hand
was a cup of the good, steaming hot coffee.
"Ah," said the man, "a thousand thanks!" and he drained the cup,
smacking his thin lips as he finished.
"It makes a man over." And rising stiffly he tottered to the table and
sank in a chair beside Hans. "You have news of the battle, my friend?"
Hans nodded.
"Napoleon is in Jena," he answered shortly.
"And the army?"
Hans snapped his fingers.
"Gone like a bubble," he said. Then he told of the night and the flying
of the soldiers, of the crossing and recrossing of lines, of the racing
of the riderless horses, and the entrance of Napoleon into Jena.
The soldier's head sank low; he left his second cup of coffee untasted.
"No one can stand against the French Emperor," he said.
"Ach, nein," agreed Frau Schmelze.
"Perhaps the English," volunteered Hans, cutting huge mouthfuls of bread
and grey sausage.
The Prussian flushed and his lip curled.
"The good God helping me," he said, "here is one Prussian who will never
give up his fighting until they sign peace, or death steps in."
"Bravo!" cried Herr Schmelze, coming in at the door. "If there were more
who felt that way, Jena this morning would not be Napoleon's. The
Fatherland is full of indifference, nicht wahr?"
"The Germans are asleep," said the soldier, "the whole nation is
dreaming."
Herr Schmelze smiled drily.
"There was something loud enough to wake them, yesterday, nicht wahr?"
And he looked at the other two and laughed sarcastically.
As for Hans, he moved uneasily.
"That a man must grow too old to fight," he said. Then he offered to
show the soldier the way towards Erfurt, where the remainder of the army
was gathering.
Frau Schmelze put down her work and whispered in the ear of her husband.
He nodded.
"Hans," he said, "you had better go to the Forest House. Annchen----"
"Ja wohl, Otto." The old man rose resolutely. "We go that way, you know,
and when I show our friend here the way, I'll go down and take the news
to old Weyland."
Then off he started with the soldier, plunging into talk of the King of
Prussia and Napoleon.
Frau Schmelze shook her head.
"I hope, Otto," she said, "that nothing has happened."
The farmer looked serious.
"I thought, of course, Hans had gone home, or I should have sent
Ulrich."
"Hans?" A look expressed Frau Schmelze's opinion of Frederick the
Great's old soldier, and she returned to her labours.
"A good man is our King, there is no better," the soldier meanwhile was
saying. "He and our good Angel, the Queen, have the love of all their
people. He is upright, and saving, and truly religious, but, ach Himmel,
if he were only not so uncertain! Nobody, not even Stein, steady himself
as a rock, can make him know what he wants to do and at once to do it.
'To-morrow,' he says, 'let us wait.' It is always so, nicht? Now, take
this war. He delayed and delayed, letting Napoleon insult him over and
over. The army grew feeble from want of exercise, and our generals too
old for service. Bluecher is the only one worth counting. Then, too," he
continued, "Frederick William the Second is unlucky. Look at his
wretched boyhood. He was born unlucky. And now he has made a mistake
about this war, nicht wahr? For eight years when our neighbours needed
us he wouldn't fight, and now when we are at it ourselves there is no
one to help us."
"The Russians," put in Hans, "the Czar Alexander is our ally. Did you
not hear how he and our King--I am a Prussian, you know--swore an oath
of friendship at midnight at the tomb of Frederick the Great, the Queen
being witness?"
The soldier nodded.
"Ja, ja," he said, "if Russia will help," he spread out his hand, "that
will be entirely another affair. But who knows? That little Emperor of
the French may twist any number of Czars round his finger, but hark!" He
listened eagerly. "What was that? A child?"
There was a sound as of a baby wailing wretchedly. Hans looked uneasy.
Could it be that his Anna--but, no--he had sent her word, and certainly
she had obeyed him. It was only some peasant with her baby. Presently
they left the wood and before them stood the little grey Forest House
with its red roof and garden.
Hans started and called out an exclamation. Pine needles were scattered
everywhere as if feet, running, had disturbed the forest carpet. The
garden gate stood open. A rosebush, broken, had fallen across the path.
On the path, too, were dark drops which made both men shudder. The
chickens, not yet freed from their night quarters, clucked impatiently,
unmilked cows bellowed in pain, and Schneider and Schnip, the dogs,
howled long and mournfully. And yet, in spite of the noise, the place
seemed wrapped in a quiet most horrible.
"Mein Gott!" The soldier looked at Hans, who, gazing steadily before
him, pushed open the unlatched door of the hall.
A cold little nose touched his hand as he entered. It was "Little
Brother," Bettina's pet fawn, whose eyes seemed to speak most
mournfully.
The hall was that of a Forest House, its walls ornamented with antlers
of deer, guns and sticks on the racks, and, in the corner against one
wall, a highly carved oak press, and, opposite, Frau Weyland's spinning
wheel. But Hans and the soldier took no note of furniture, for a stream,
a dark stream, was flowing from one door to the other, its source being
the living room.
"Gott im Himmel!" cried the soldier. "It is blood!" Then he pushed open
the door, Hans and the little fawn following.
There was the room as Hans knew it, with its sofa, its square table, its
geraniums in the windows, its tall white porcelain stove, and its one
picture of the Herr Jesus blessing the children.
A candle, smoking dismally about the socket, filled the room with a
horrid odour. On the table stood the remains of supper, half eaten. But
the two men looked at none of these things, nor took note of the little
quivering fawn, whose eyes seemed to long to explain the whole story.
It was at the floor both gazed in horror.
"May the good God have pity," said the soldier softly.
Before them lay three bodies, the first in the uniform of a French
soldier, the second, the young Prussian officer Hans had seen flying,
and the third----
Hans fell on his knees and took his daughter's golden head in his arms.
"Annchen!" he cried, "Annchen! Speak to me, my Annchen!"
But Frau Weyland was never again to laugh at his forgetfulness, never
again to smile her "Ja, ja, dear father!" never to tease him about his
battles.
The story was easy to read; the position of the bodies told it. The
Prussian had fled to the Forest House for refuge, the Frenchman had
fired from the doorway, Frau Weyland, hastily rising, had received one
bullet.
As for the Frenchman, a sword thrust had finished him. Doubtless he had
received it in the battle and he had bled while running. At all events,
it was a loss of blood which had killed him.
Old Hans was almost crazy. With his daughter's head on his knees, he
kept begging God to forgive him.
"She was all I had," he told the soldier, "and I thought she was with
her husband's father. Herr Jesus, forgive me, forgive me."
Then, presently, as is the habit of certain people, he found comfort in
blaming someone else. He flew into a wild fury against Napoleon; he
cursed him; he cried out vengeance against him, and he swore that as
long as he had a drop of blood in his veins he would struggle to
overthrow him. The soldier paid no heed. With his unhurt hand he had
been feeling the heart of the young Prussian.
"Get water, old man," he interrupted. "Quick! Quick! The Herr Lieutenant
still lives!"
Hans, laying down the head of his daughter, drew from his pocket a
flask.
"It is brandy," he said. "They gave it to me for the wounded in Jena."
The soldier poured some drops down the officer's throat. He ordered Hans
to fling open doors and windows and they made the poor fellow more
comfortable.
Then they covered the dead with sheets from the sleeping room beds.
"Ach Himmel!" cried Hans suddenly. "The children!"
He ran into the garden. Above the noise of the animals sounded the
distant wail of a babe. Following the sound, Hans came upon Bettina,
little Hans, and baby August.
They had hidden in the forest, Bettina holding the baby wrapped in her
mother's shawl.
"Grandfather, oh, grandfather," and she burst into sobs, "he cries so, I
can't stop him."
"Mother, I want mother!" screamed little Hans, while the baby's wails
were incessant.
Bearing August in his arms, Hans and Bettina at his side, the old man
appeared again in the kitchen of the farmhouse.
"Gott im Himmel!" cried Frau Schmelze, wringing her hands and weeping.
"I knew it! I knew it! You need not tell me. Conrad, husband! Ulrich!
Come! Quick! It is Anna! Our dear, dear Anna!"
As for Hans, he went on like a madman, railing at Napoleon and blaming
the French. Only Bettina could quiet him.
No, he would not stay there with the children. He would return to the
Forest House where he had left the soldier.
So the farmer went with him, and Ulrich fetched Kaspar's father.
Hans insisted that he would nurse the wounded Prussian.
"Let him alone," said the soldier, who announced that he must march on
towards Erfurt. "It will take his mind off his trouble."
"The children will stay here for the present," insisted Frau Schmelze
when Hans reappeared that evening.
He nodded.
"Ja wohl, Lotte," he said, and then he railed so at Napoleon that she
was sure his grief had crazed him.
She kept her thoughts to herself until that night, when she and her
husband lay under their featherbeds. Then she expressed the opinion she
had been suppressing all day.
"It's all very well laying everything on Napoleon," she said. "He is a
monster, an upstart, a villain, but Hans should have gone home to poor
Anna. She should have obeyed and gone to Weyland's, you say? That is
just like you, Otto, taking up for Hans Lange because he is a man, but
Anna, poor woman, was not much given to obeying her father; you know
that, husband, as well as I do, nicht? She was Hans, all over, doing
what she pleased and obeying no one." Then the good woman, who truly had
loved her cousin, wet her pillow with tears.
The farmer grieved, also. Why not? He, too, had liked Anna, and there
were those little children, but he was a man and his thoughts were on
the battle. He had learned at Jena that Napoleon was that evening to
enter Weimar. Who knew what would happen?
The Duke was the ally of the King of Prussia, and Napoleon was not
likely to forget it.
"Our poor country," and he sighed, remembering his meadows and how the
soldiers had tramped over them.
He was sinking to sleep when Ulrich returned from Jena, where he had
gone after supper.
"Father! Mother!" he called. "Wake up! Wake up! There is news of a
battle at Auerstaedt!"
The farmer pulled back the bed curtains and sprang from his bed.
"A battle at Auerstaedt! Impossible!"
But Ulrich nodded, having hurried until he was quite breathless.
"Ja, ja, father," he panted, "the whole Prussian army is annihilated!
They fought at Auerstaedt at exactly the same time the battle took place
at Jena."
"Ach Himmel, Ulrich, I cannot believe it!" cried the farmer, his face
red with excitement.
"Ja wohl, father," Ulrich insisted. "Davoust led the French, the King of
Prussia the Germans. They fought all day and neither the King nor the
Emperor heard the cannons of the other."
"There has never been such a thing in the history of the world, Ulrich.
Two battles at once, here in Thuringia. Impossible!"
But Ulrich knew what he was talking about.
"Ja wohl, father," he said, "I heard it in Jena. All the generals are
dead or wounded. The King is no one knows where. Horses were twice shot
from under him, and they say he fought like a hero. Napoleon's soldiers
are ordered to capture the Queen, and Davoust is pursuing towards
Erfurt. Down in Jena they say Napoleon will march at once on Berlin."
Frau Schmelze's voice came from between the bed curtains.
"War is terrible," she said. "Ach Gott, but it is awful!"
"Ja wohl, mother," agreed Ulrich. "All is lost, everything, and Napoleon
is our master!" Then he told how the sky was red toward Weimar and how
he had heard the Duchess had refused to fly and had taken scores of
people into the castle.
Then he lowered his voice, which trembled.
"Mother," he said, "I have bad news for Hans Lange. Kaspar was among
those who died, to-day, in the hospital in Jena. They brought him in
after Hans had left them."
And so, behind the white horse of the Emperor, Death marched into
Thuringia.
Poor Bettina!
Napoleon had robbed her of her father and mother, and the old Barbarossa
still slept on in his cave, the ravens cawing and circling.