Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 097.djvu/316

302 any seryice to him in trying to injure the pastor with the king, he therefore answered, most pathetically, "But the pastor was perfectly in the right; that could do you no harm?"

"Well, that's very true," the peasant replied, "especially as he's getting old, and can't carry on as he used; but I'm sure when his son soon takes his place—a fellow like a church steeple—he'll break all our bones for us. For that reason, if the matter was left to me, I wouldn't choose him for our clergyman; for if the patron is to beat us on workdays, and the pastor play the same game on Sundays, when will our backs find time to get well?"

Gündling now listened attentively, and his plan was soon formed, when he learned that the pastor's son would return from Halle in a few days to preach his trial sermon on the next Sunday, as the patron had promised him his father's living. He therefore quitted the peasant with a mocking smile, and made some pretext for visiting the sexton, to make further inquiries into the matter. The latter confirmed the story, and gave his opinion that the young master must be at least six feet two in height, and as straight as a poplar-tree.

"Wait!" Gündling murmured between his teeth, as soon as he again reached the street; "we will put a blue coat on the young fellow, and that will annoy that: vagabond preacher." He therefore returned to the château, where he looked up a captain of his acquaintance, whom he took on one side, with the hurried question, "How many fellows have you already got?"

To understand this question, our readers must know that the king, at every review, requested each commander of a company to present his new recruits to him. If the poor gentleman had less than three he fell into partial disgrace; and so each captain, about review time, which was close at hand, tried to procure a few young men by any method, legal or illegal, but especially those particularly tall, for the king had a peculiar delight in such soldiers.

"Woe is me! I've but one," the officer replied, "and he's only a journeyman tailor."

"Well, then," Gündling replied, "you can get a journeyman clergyman of six feet two."

"Well, that's no tremendous height, but still it's better than nothing."

The captain then requested an explanation, and both discussed the measures by which to get hold of the clergyman's son. They soon agreed that the officer should feign illness when the king departed. Gündling would remain with him as company: a few soldiers would be secretly procured from a neighbouring town, and the young candidate taken nolens volens by the ears, and transported to the next garrison.

In the meanwhile, the king and his suite followed the chase on the next day with their usual ardour. It so happened that two ladies in attendance on the queen, tortured by ennui, followed the windings of the stream, which led them from the nobleman's garden into the open fields. One of them, Wilhelmine von B, was a young and charming creature, and was evidently attempting to cheer her companion, who was silent, and not nearly so charming. In consequence there was a deal of laughing, which might have been heard at some distance off, and might have led to the conclusion that the old, though still ever new, story