That winter was the dullest ever known in the little household of the
Gulden Strasse, and the coldest experienced for years in Lubeck--quiet
town of cold winters, situated as it is on the shores of the ice-bound
Baltic!
It was such bitter, inclement weather, with the thermometer going down
to zero and the snow freezing as it fell, that neither Madame Dort nor
old Lorischen went out of the house more than they could help; and, as
for Mouser, he lived and slept and miaow-wowed in close neighbourhood to
the stove in the parlour, not even the temptation of cream inducing him
to leave the protection of its enjoyable warmth. For him, the mice
might ravage the cupboards below the staircase, his whilom happy
hunting-ground, at their own sweet will; and the birds, rendered tame by
their privations, invade the sanctity of the balcony and the window-
sills, whereon at another season their lives would not be worth a
moment's purchase. He heeded them not now, nor did he, as of yore,
resent the intrusion of Burgher Jans' terrier, when that predatory
animal came prowling within the widow's tenement in company with his
master, who had not entirely ceased his periodic visits, in spite of
"the cold shoulder" invariably turned to him by Lorischen. Mouser
wasn't going to inconvenience himself for the best dog in Christendom;
so, on the advent of the terrier, he merely hopped from the front of the
stove to the top, where he frizzled his feet and fizzed at his enemy,
without risking the danger of catching an influenza, as he might
otherwise have done if he had sought refuge elsewhere out in the cold.
Aye, for it was cold; and many was the time, when, rubbing their
tingling fingers, both the widow and Lorischen pitied the hardships to
which poor Fritz was exposed in the field, almost feeling angry and
ashamed at themselves for being comfortable when he had to endure so
much--as they knew from all the accounts published in the newspapers of
the sufferings which the invading armies had to put up with, although
Fritz himself made light of his physical grievances.
At Christmas-tide they were sad enough at his absence, with the memory
of the lost Eric also to make that merry-making time for others doubly
miserable to them; but, on the dawn of the new year, their hopes began
to brighten with the receipt of every fresh piece of news from France
concerning the progress of the war.
"The end cannot be far off now," they said to one another in mutual
consolation, so as to cheer up each other's drooping spirits. "Surely
the campaign cannot last much longer!"
The last Sunday in the month came, and on this day Madame Dort and
Lorischen went to the Marien Kirche to service.
Previously they had been in the habit of attending the Dom Kirche, from
the fact of Eric's liking to see, first as a child and afterwards as a
growing boy, the great astronomical clock whose queer-looking eyes
rolled so very curiously with the swing of the pendulum backwards and
forwards each second; but, now, they went to the other house of God for
a different reason. It, too, had an eccentric clock, distinguished for
a procession of figures of the saints, which jerked themselves into
notice each hour above the dial; still it was not that which attracted
the widow there. The church was filled with large monumental figures
with white, outstretching wings, that hovered out into prominence above
the carvings of the old oak screens, black with age. These figures
appeared as if soaring up to the roof of the chancel; and Madame Dort
had a fancy, morbid it might have been, that she could pray better
there, surrounded as it were by guardian angels, whose protection she
invoked on behalf of her boy lost at sea, and that other, yet alive, who
was "in danger, necessity," and possibly "tribulation!"
After she and Lorischen had returned home from the Marien Kirche, the
day passed quietly and melancholy away; but the next morning broke more
cheerfully.
It was the 30th of January, 1871. Both the lone women at the little
house in the Gulden Strasse remembered that fact well; for, on the
morrow, the month from which they had expected such good tidings would
be up, and if they heard nothing before its close they must needs
despair.
Seeing that the morning broke bright and cheerily, with the sun shining
down through the frost-laden air, making the snow on the roofs look
crisper and causing the icicles from the eaves to glitter in its
scintillating rays, Lorischen determined to go to market, especially as
she had not been outside the doorway, except to go to church, since the
previous week.
She had not much to buy, it is true; but then she might have a gossip
with the neighbours and hear some news, perhaps--who knows?
Anything might have happened without the knowledge of herself or her
mistress, as no one, not even Burgher Jans, had been to visit them for
ever so long!
Clad, therefore, in her thick cloak and warm boots, with her wide, red-
knitted woollen shawl over her head and portly market-basket on arm,
Lorischen sallied out like the dove from the ark, hoping perchance to
bring back with her an olive branch of comfort; while the widow sat
herself down by the stove in the parlour with her needle, stitching away
at some new shirts she was engaged on to renew Fritz's wardrobe when he
came back. Seeing an opportunity for taking up a comfortable position,
Mouser jumped up at once into her lap as soon as the old nurse had left
the room, purring away with great complacency and watching in a lazy way
the movements of her busy fingers, blinking sleepily the while at the
glowing fire in front of him.
Lorischen had not been gone long when Madame Dort heard her bustling
back up the staircase without. She knew the old nurse's step well; but,
besides hers, she heard the tread of some one else, and then the noisy
bark of a dog. A sort of altercation between two voices followed, in
which the old nurse's angry accents were plainly perceptible; and next
there seemed a hurried scuffle just without the parlour door, which
suddenly burst open with a clatter, and two people entered the room.
They were Lorischen and Burgher Jans, who both tried to speak together,
the result being a confused jangle of tongues from which Madame Dort
could learn nothing.
"I say I was first!" squeaked the Burgher in a high treble key, which he
always adopted when excited beyond his usual placid mode of utterance.
"And I say it was me!" retorted the old nurse in her gruff tones, which
were much more like those of a man. "What right have you to try and
supplant the servant of the house, who specially went out about it, you
little meddlesome teetotum, I'd like to know, hey?"
"But I was first, I say! Madame Dort--"
"Don't listen to him, mistress," interposed Lorischen. "I've just--"
"There's news of--"
But, bang just then came Lorischen's market-basket against the side of
the little man's head, knocking his hat off and stopping his speech
abruptly; while the old nurse muttered savagely, "I wish it had been
your little turnip-top of a head instead of your hat, that I do!"
"Good people! good people!" exclaimed Madame Dort, rising to her feet
and dropping her needlework and Mouser--who rapidly jumped on to the top
of the stove out of the reach of Burgher Jans' terrier, which, of
course, had followed his master into the parlour and at once made a dart
at the cat as he tumbled on to the floor from the widow's lap. "Pray do
not make such a noise, and both speak at once! What is the matter that
you are so eager to tell me--good news, I trust, Lorischen, or you would
not have hurried back so soon?"
Madame Dort's voice trembled with anxiety, and tears of suspense stood
in her eyes.
"There," said Lorischen triumphantly to the Burgher, who remained silent
for the moment from the shock of the old nurse's attack. "You see for
yourself that my mistress wishes me to tell her."
"Oh, what is it--what have you heard?" cried the widow plaintively. "Do
not keep me in this agony any longer!"
And she sat down again nervously in her chair, gazing from one to the
other in mute entreaty and looking as if she were going to faint.
"There now, see what you've done!" said Lorischen, hastening to Madame
Dort's side. "I told you what it would be if you blurted it out like
that!"
Burgher Jans' eyes grew quite wide with astonishment beneath the broad
rims of his tortoise-shell spectacles, giving him more than ever the
appearance of an owl.
"Peace, woman!" he exclaimed. "I--"
"Yes, that's it, dear mistress," interrupted the old nurse, half
laughing, half crying, as she knelt down beside the widow's chair and
put her arm round her caressingly. "There's peace proclaimed at last,
and the dear young Herr will come home again to you now!"
"Peace?" repeated the widow, looking up with an anxious stare from one
to the other.
"Yes, peace, most worthy lady," said Burgher Jans pompously in his
ordinary bland voice; adding immediately afterwards for Lorischen's
especial benefit--"and I was the first to tell you of it, after all."
"Never mind," replied that worthy, too much overpowered with emotion at
the happiness of the widow to contest the point. "We both brought the
glad tidings together. Madame, dearest mistress, you are glad, are you
not?"
But Madame Dort was silent for the moment. Her eyes were closed, and
her lips moving in earnest prayer of thankfulness to Him who had heard
her prayers and granted the fervent wish of her heart at last.
"Is it really true?" she asked presently.
"Yes, well-born and most worthy lady," replied the little fat man, whom
Lorischen now allowed to speak without further interruption. "Our
Bismark signed an armistice with the French at Versailles on Saturday by
which Paris capitulates, the forts defending it being given over to our
soldiers, and the starving city allowed to be reprovisioned by the good
English, who have prepared ever so many train-loads of food to go in for
the use of the population."
"Ah, those good English!" chimed in Lorischen.
"You have reason to say that, dearest maiden," continued the Burgher,
bowing suavely to the old woman. "They subscribed, ah! more than a
million thalers for this purpose in London."
"And I suppose the war will now cease?" said Madame Dort.
"Most certainly, worthy lady," replied Burgher Jans. "The armistice is
to last for three weeks to enable the French to have an election of
members to an assembly which will decide whether the contest shall go on
any further; but there is no doubt, as their armies have all been
defeated and their resources exhausted, that hostilities will not be
again resumed. All parties are sick of fighting by this time!"
"So I should think," exclaimed Lorischen warmly. "It has been a bloody,
murdering work, that of the last six months!"
"Yes, but good for Germany," put in the little man in his bland way.
"Humph! much good, with widows left without their husbands and children
fatherless, and the stalwart sons that should have been the help of
their mothers made food for French powder and the chassepot! Besides, I
don't think the German states, Meinherr," added the old nurse more
politely than she usually addressed the Burgher, "will get much of the
plunder. Mark my words if Prussia does not take the lion's share!"
"You have reason, dearest maiden," answered the other, agreeing with his
old opponent for once. "I've no doubt that, like the poor Bavarians who
had to do the heaviest part of the fighting, we shall get only the kicks
and Prussia the halfpence!"
"That's more than likely," said Lorischen, much pleased at the
similarity of their sentiments; "and I suppose we can expect Herr Fritz
home soon now, eh?"
"Probably as soon as peace is regularly established; for then, our
troops will commence to evacuate France and march back to the Rhine,"
replied Burgher Jans,--"that Rhine whose banks they have so valiantly
defended."
"Ah, we'd better begin at once to prepare to receive our soldier lad,"
said the old nurse with much cheerfulness, as if she wished to set to
without a moment's delay at making things ready for Fritz; seeing which,
Burgher Jans took his departure, the widow and Lorischen both expressing
their thanks for the good news he had brought, and the old nurse
actually escorting him to the door in a most unusual fit of civility!
The definite treaty of peace between France and Germany was completed on
the 28th February, 1871, when it was ratified by the constituent
assembly sitting at Bordeaux, the conquered country surrendering two of
her richest provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, together with the fortresses
of Metz and Belfort--the strongest on the frontier--besides paying an
indemnity of no less a sum than five milliards of francs, some two
hundred millions of pounds in English money, to the victors!
It was a terrible price to pay for the war; for, in addition to these
sacrifices must be reckoned:-- 2,400 captured field guns; 120 eagles,
flags, and standards; 4,000 fortress guns; and 11,669 officers and
363,326 men taken prisoners in battle and interned in Germany--not
counting 170,000 men of the garrison of Paris who must be held to have
surrendered to their conquerors, although these were not led away
captive like the others, who were kept in durance until the first moiety
of their ransom was paid!
But, Prince Bismark over-reached himself in grinding down the country as
he did. He thought, that, by fixing such an enormous sum for the
indemnity, France would be under the heel of Germany for years to come,
as the Prussian troops were not to leave until the money was paid.
Instead of which, by a general and stupendous movement of her
population, inflamed by a praiseworthy spirit of patriotism, the five
milliards were paid within a year and the French soil clear of the
invader--this being the most wonderful thing connected with the war,
some persons think!
Meanwhile, Madame Dort's anxiety to behold her son again at home and his
earnest wish to the same effect had to await gratification.
The news of the armistice before Paris reached Lubeck on the 30th
January; but it was not until March that the German troops began to
evacuate their positions in front of the capital of France, and nearly
the end of the month before the last battalion turned its face homeward.
Before that wished-for end was reached, Fritz was terribly heart-sick
about Madaleine.
After a long silence, enduring for over a month, during which his mind
was torn by conflicting doubts and fears, he had received a short,
hurried note from her, telling him that she had been ill and was worried
by domestic circumstances. She did not know what would become of her,
she wrote, adding that he had better cease to think of her, although she
would always pray for his welfare.
That was all; but it wasn't a very agreeable collapse to the nice little
enchanted "castle in Spain" he had been diligently building up ever
since his meeting with Madaleine at Mezieres:-- it was a sad downfall to
the hopes he had of meeting her again!
Of course, he wrote to his mother, telling her of his misery; but she
could not console him much, save by exhorting him to live in hope, for
that all would come well in good time.
"Old people can't feel like young ones," thought Fritz. "She doesn't
know what I suffer in my heart."
And so time rolled on slowly enough for mother and son; he, counting the
days--sadly now, for his return was robbed of one of its chief
expectations; she, gladly, watching to clasp her firstborn in her arms
once more. Ample amends she thought this would be to her for all the
anxiety she had suffered since Fritz had left home the previous summer,
especially after her agonised fear of losing him!
Towards the close of March, the Hanoverian regiments returned to their
depot, Fritz being forwarded on to Lubeck.
As no one knew the precise day or hour when the train bearing him home
might be expected to arrive, of course there was no one specially
waiting at the railway station to welcome him back. Only the ordinary
curiosity-mongers amongst the townspeople were there; but these were
always on the watch for new-comers. They raised a sort of cheer when he
and his comrades belonging to the neighbourhood alighted from the
railway carriages; but, although the cheering was hearty, and Fritz and
the others joined in the popular Volkslieder that the townspeople
started, the young sub-lieutenant missed his mother's dear face and
Lorischen's friendly, wrinkled old countenance, both of whom, somehow or
other without any reason to warrant the assumption, he had thought would
have been there.
It was in a melancholy manner, therefore, that he took his way towards
the Gulden Strasse and the little house he had not seen for so long--
could it only have been barely nine months ago?
How small everything looked now, after his travels and experiences of
the busy towns and handsome cities of France which he had but so lately
passed through! All here seemed quiet, quaint, diminutive, old-
fashioned, like the resemblance to some antique picture, or the dream
city of a dream!
Presently, he is in the old familiar street of his youth. It seemed so
long and wide then; now, he can traverse its length in two strides, and
it is so narrow that the buildings on either side almost meet in the
middle.
But, the home-coming charm is on him; love draws him forward quickly
like a magnet! He sees his mother's house at the end of the street. He
is up the outside stairway with an agile bound.
With full heart, he bursts open the door, and, in a second, is within
the parlour. He hears his mother's cry of joy.
"My son, my son!" and she throws herself on his neck, as he clasps her
in a fond embrace, recollecting that once he never expected to have
lived to see her again.
And Lorischen, too, she comes forward with a handshake and a hug for the
boy she has nursed on her knee many a time in the years agone.
But, who is this besides?
"What! Madaleine?" exclaims Fritz.
"Yes, it is I," she replies demurely, a merry smile dancing on her face,
and a glad light in the bright blue eyes.
This was the surprise Madame Dort had prepared for Fritz--a pleasant
one, wasn't it, with which to welcome him home?