Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/142



About sunset I walked alone in the wood near the little town, where I fell in with some gipseys who had encamped round a fire for the night. When I returned back through the wood, I saw a handsome peasant-lad standing among the bushes, who bade me good evening in German. I asked him if this were his native tongue; he replied in the negative, and told me that he commonly spoke in the Wallacian language, but that he had learned German in the school. To judge by his dress he appeared very poor; but everything that he wore was so clean; his hair so smoothly combed; his eyes beamed with such an expression of happiness; there was something so thoughtful and so good in his countenance, as I rarely have seen in a child before. I asked him if he were intended for a soldier, and he replied, “Yes, we are all of us soldiers here, but I wish to be an officer, and therefore I learn everything that I can.” There was a something in his whole manner so innocent, so noble, that actually, if I had been rich, I