Prince Otto | Page 6

for the farther end
was raised by a long step above the nearer, and the blazing fire and the
white supper-table seemed to stand upon a dais. All around were dark,
brass-mounted cabinets and cupboards; dark shelves carrying ancient
country crockery; guns and antlers and broadside ballads on the wall; a
tall old clock with roses on the dial; and down in one corner the
comfortable promise of a wine barrel. It was homely, elegant, and
quaint.
A powerful youth hurried out to attend on the grey mare; and when Mr.
Killian Gottesheim had presented him to his daughter Ottilia, Otto
followed to the stable as became, not perhaps the Prince, but the good
horseman. When he returned, a smoking omelette and some slices of
home-cured ham were waiting him; these were followed by a ragout
and a cheese; and it was not until his guest had entirely satisfied his
hunger, and the whole party drew about the fire over the wine jug, that
Killian Gottesheim's elaborate courtesy permitted him to address a
question to the Prince.
'You have perhaps ridden far, sir?' he inquired.
'I have, as you say, ridden far,' replied Otto; 'and, as you have seen, I
was prepared to do justice to your daughters cookery.'
'Possibly, sir, from the direction of Brandenau?' continued Killian.
'Precisely: and I should have slept to-night, had I not wandered, in
Mittwalden,' answered the Prince, weaving in a patch of truth,
according to the habit of all liars.
'Business leads you to Mittwalden?' was the next question.
'Mere curiosity,' said Otto. 'I have never yet visited the principality of
Grunewald.'
'A pleasant state, sir,' piped the old man, nodding, 'a very pleasant state,
and a fine race, both pines and people. We reckon ourselves part
Grunewalders here, lying so near the borders; and the river there is all
good Grunewald water, every drop of it. Yes, sir, a fine state. A man of
Grunewald now will swing me an axe over his head that many a man of
Gerolstein could hardly lift; and the pines, why, deary me, there must
be more pines in that little state, sir, than people in this whole big world.
'Tis twenty years now since I crossed the marshes, for we grow
home-keepers in old age; but I mind it as if it was yesterday. Up and

down, the road keeps right on from here to Mittwalden; and nothing all
the way but the good green pine-trees, big and little, and water-power!
water-power at every step, sir. We once sold a bit of forest, up there
beside the high-road; and the sight of minted money that we got for it
has set me ciphering ever since what all the pines in Grunewald would
amount to.'
'I suppose you see nothing of the Prince?' inquired Otto.
'No,' said the young man, speaking for the first time, 'nor want to.'
'Why so? is he so much disliked?' asked Otto.
'Not what you might call disliked,' replied the old gentleman, 'but
despised, sir.'
'Indeed,' said the Prince, somewhat faintly.
'Yes, sir, despised,' nodded Killian, filling a long pipe, 'and, to my way
of thinking, justly despised. Here is a man with great opportunities, and
what does he do with them? He hunts, and he dresses very prettily -
which is a thing to be ashamed of in a man - and he acts plays; and if he
does aught else, the news of it has not come here.'
'Yet these are all innocent,' said Otto. 'What would you have him do -
make war?'
'No, sir,' replied the old man. 'But here it is; I have been fifty years
upon this River Farm, and wrought in it, day in, day out; I have
ploughed and sowed and reaped, and risen early, and waked late; and
this is the upshot: that all these years it has supported me and my
family; and been the best friend that ever I had, set aside my wife; and
now, when my time comes, I leave it a better farm than when I found it.
So it is, if a man works hearty in the order of nature, he gets bread and
he receives comfort, and whatever he touches breeds. And it humbly
appears to me, if that Prince was to labour on his throne, as I have
laboured and wrought in my farm, he would find both an increase and a
blessing.'
'I believe with you, sir,' Otto said; 'and yet the parallel is inexact. For
the farmer's life is natural and simple; but the prince's is both artificial
and complicated. It is easy to do right in the one, and exceedingly
difficult not to do wrong in the other. If your crop is blighted, you can
take off your bonnet and say, "God's