H

two dismounted gendarmes, without coat or cap, a broad placard fixed on his breast, inscribed with his name and his crime. I turned instantly towards the bed, dreading lest already the tramp of the marching men had reached the sick man's ear; but he was sleeping calmly, and breathing without effort of any kind.

The thought seized me to speak to the officer in command of the party, and I rushed down, and making my way through the crowd, approached the Staff as they were standing in the middle of the Platz. But my excited manner, my look of wild anxiety, and my little knowledge of the language, combined to make my appeal of little moment.

'If it be true, sir,' said a gruff old veteran, with a grisly beard, 'that he was an officer of the empire, the fire of a platoon can scarcely hurt his nerves.'

'Yes, but,' said I, 'there is a circumstance of his life which makes this tenfold more dangerous. I cannot explain it; I am not at liberty'

'I do not desire to learn your secrets, sir,' replied the old man rudely; 'stand back and suffer me to do my duty.'

I turned to the others, but they could give me neither advice nor assistance, and already the square was lined with soldiers, and the men of the 'death party' were ordered to stand out.

'Give me at least time enough to remove my friend to a distant chamber, if you will not do more,' said I, driven to madness; but no attention was paid to my words, and the muster-roll continued to be read out.

I rushed back to the inn, and up the stairs; but what was my horror to hear the sound of voices and the tramp of feet in the sick-room I had left in silence! As I entered, I saw the landlord and the servant, assisted by the doctor, endeavouring to hold down the baron on his bed, who with almost superhuman strength pushed them from him in his efforts to rise. His features were wild to insanity, and the

restless darting of his glistening eye showed that he was under the excitement of delirium.

'The effort may kill him,' whispered the doctor in my ear; this struggle may be his death.'

'Leave me free, sir!' shouted the sick man. 'Who dares to lay hands on me? Stand aside there! the peloton will take ground to the right,' continued he, raising his voice as if commanding on parade. Ground arms!'

Just at this instant the heavy clank of the firelocks was heard without, as though in obedience to his word. 'Hark!' said he, raising his hand-Not a word! silence in the ranks!' And in the deadly stillness we could now hear the sentence of death, as it was read aloud by the adjutant. A hoarse roll of the drum followed, and then the tramp of the party as they led forward the prisoner, to every step of which the sick man kept time with his hand. We did not dare to move; we knew not at what instant our resistance might be his death.

'Shoulder arms!' shouted out the officer from the Platz. "Take the orders from me!' cried Elgenheim wildly. 'This duty is mine; no man shall say I shrank from it.' 'Present arms! Fire!'

'Fire!' shouted Elgenheim, with a yell that rose above the roll of musketry; and then with a groan of agony, he cried out, 'There, there! it's over now!' and fell back dead into our arms.

Thus died the leader of the stormers at Elchingen-the man who carried the Hill of Asperne against an Austrian battery. He sleeps now in the little churchyard of the Marien Hülfe at Cassel.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE RAPACIOUS OFFICER

I LEFT Cassel with a heart far heavier than I had brought into it some weeks before. The poor fellow whose remains

I followed to the grave was ever in my thoughts, and all our pleasant rambles and our familiar intercourse were now shadowed by the gloom of his sad destiny. So must it ever be. He who seeks the happiness of his life upon the world's highways must learn to carry, as best he may, the weary load of trouble that 'flesh is heir to.' There must be storm for sunshine; and for the bright days and warm airs of summer he must feel the lowering skies and cutting winds of winter.

I set out on foot, muttering as I went the lines of poor Marguerite's song, which my own depression had brought to memory

'Mein Ruh ist hin.

Mein Herz ist schwer;

Ich finde sie nimmer, und nimmer mehr.'

The words recalled the Faust, the Faust the Brocken; and so I thought I could not do better than set out thither. I was already within three days' march of the Hartz, and besides, I should like to see Göttingen once more, and have a peep at my old friends there.

It was only as I reached Münden to breakfast that I remembered it was Sunday; and so when I had finished my meal I joined my host and his household to church. What a simplicity is there in the whole Protestantism of Germany! how striking is the contrast between the unpretending features of the Reformed and the gorgeous splendour of the Roman Catholic Church. The benches of oak, on which were seated the congregation, made no distinctions of class and rank; the little village authorities were mingled with the mere peasants; the Pastor's family sat nearest to the reading-desk-that was the only place distinguished from the others. The building, like most of its era, was plain and unornamented; some passages from Scripture were written on the walls in different places, but these were its only decoration.

As I sat awaiting the commencement of the service I could not avoid being struck by the marked difference of

feature observable in Protestant from what we see in Roman Catholic communities-not depending upon nationality, for Germany itself is an illustration in point. The gorgeous ceremonial of the Romish Church, its venerable architecture, its prestige of antiquity, its pealing organ, and its ceremonies all contribute to a certain exaltation of mind and fervour of sentiment that may readily be mistaken for true religious feeling. These things, connected and bound up with the most awful and impressive thoughts the mind of man is capable of, cannot fail to impress upon the features of the worshippers an expression of profound, heartfelt adoration, which poetises the most commonplace and elevates the tone of even the most vulgar faces. Retsch had not to go far for those figures of intense devotional character his works abound in; every chapel contained innumerable studies for his pencil. The features of the Protestant worshippers were calm, even to sternness; the eyes, not bent upon some great picture or some holy relic with wondering admiration, were downcast in meditation deep, or raised to heaven with thoughts already there. There was a holy and a solemn awe in every face, as though in the presence of Him and in His Temple the passions and warm feelings of man were an unclean offering; that to understand His truths and to apply His counsels a pure heart and a clear understanding were necessary-and these they brought. To look on their cold and steadfast faces you would say that Luther's own spirit, his very temperament, had descended to his followers. There was the same energy of character, the indomitable courage, the perseverance no obstacle could thwart, the determination no opposition could shake. The massive head, square and strong; the broad, bold forehead; the full eye; the wide nostril and the thick lip, at once the indication of energy, of passion, and of power-are seen throughout Saxony as the types of national feature.

The service of the Lutheran Church is most simple; and, like that of our Presbyterians at home, consists in a hymn,

a portion of Scripture read out, and, what is considered the greatest point of all, a sermon-half prayer, half dissertation-which concludes the whole. Even when the pastors are eloquent men, which they rarely are, I doubt much if German be a language well suited for pulpit oratory. There is an eternal involution of phrase, a complexity in the expression of even simple matters, which would for ever prevent those bold imaginative flights by which Bossuet and Massillon appealed to the hearts and minds of their hearers. Were a German to attempt this, his mysticism, the maladie du pays, would at once interfere, and render him unintelligible. The pulpit eloquence of Germany, so far as I have experience of it, more closely resembles the style of the preachers of the seventeenth century, when familiar illustrations were employed to convey such truths as rose above the humble level of ordinary intellects; having much of the grotesque quaintness our own Latimer possessed, without, unhappily, the warm glow of his rich imagination or the brilliant splendour of his descriptive talent. Still, the forcible earnestness and the strong energy of conviction are to be found in the German pulpit, and these, also, may be the heirlooms of the Doctor,' as the Saxons love to call the great reformer.

Some thoughts like this suggested a visit to the Wartburg, the scene of Luther's captivity; for such, although devised with friendly intent, his residence there was. And so abandoning the Brocken for the nonce, I started for Eisenach.

As you approach the town of Eisenach-for I'm not going to weary you with the whole road-you come upon a little glen in the forest, the Thüringer Wald, where the road is completely overshadowed, and even at noonday is almost like night. A little well, bubbling in a basin of rock, stands at the roadside, where an iron ladle chained to the stone, and a rude bench, proclaim that so much of thought has been bestowed on the wayfarer.

As you rest from the heat and fatigue of the day upon