And I do
not wish to be such and do nothing else than putting the horses to
the plough. I want to marry Frederica, and become a free man, and if
that cannot be I will commit suicide."
"Ahem! he has young blood," said Blucher, well pleased and smiling,
"fresh Mecklenburgian blood. I like that! But you must not abuse
Mecklenburg, Christian; I love Mecklenburg, because it is my native
country."
"It is a good country for noblemen who have money," said Christian,
"but for day laborers who have none it is a poor country. And that
was the reason why I said to the old man, 'Vatting [Footnote:
"Vatting," Low-German for "papa."], shall I commit suicide or run
away and enlist.'"
"And I then said, 'Well, my son, in that case it will be better for
you to enlist,'" added the old man, "'and, moreover, you shall
enlist under a good general. I will show you that my life is yet
good for something; I will do for your sake what I have purposed to
do all my lifetime: I will go to General Blucher, tell him whom I
am, and ask him to reward my boy for what I did for him.'"
Blucher looked with a good-natured smile at the poor old man who
stood before him in the faded and threadbare uniform of a private
soldier.
"Well, my old friend," he said, "what have you done for me, then?"
The old man raised his head, and a solemn expression overspread his
bronzed and furrowed countenance.
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