ut never alone, never without supervision and control. We are always
and eternally in the service, even in recreation hours. O how I hate it,
this service, and the whole slavish life."

"But Hartmut, what if your father heard you?"

"Oh, then he would punish me again as he always does. He has nothing
else for me but force and punishment, all for my own good--that goes
without saying."

He threw himself full length on the grass, but hard as the words
sounded, there was a tremor in his tone which told of pain and passion.
The young heir only shook his head soberly while he put a new bait on
his hook and for a few minutes there was perfect silence.

Then suddenly something black swooped down like a flash of lightning
from the height above them into the water, and a second later rose again
in the air with the slippery, glittering prey in its beak.

"Bravo, that was a good catch!" cried Hartmut, rising. But Will spoke
angrily.

"The wretched robber robs our whole pond. I will speak to the forester
and tell him to fill him full of lead."

"A robber?" repeated Hartmut, as his glance followed the heron who was
just disappearing behind the high tree tops. "Yes, of course, but how
fine it must be to live such a free robber's life up there in the air.
To descend like a flash for your booty and be up and off again where no
one can follow; that's a hunt that pays."

"Hartmut, I verily believe you'd take pleasure in such a wild, lawless
life," said Willibald, with the repugnance of a well-trained boy for
such sentiments.

His companion laughed, but it was the same bitter laugh without the
joyousness of youth in its sound.

"Well, if I had any such desire, they'd take it out of me at the
military academy. There obedience and discipline is the Alpha and Omega
of all things. Will, have you never wished that you had wings?"

"I, wings?" asked Will, whose whole attention was again directed to his
bait. "How ridiculous! Who would wish for impossibilities?"

"I only wish I had them," cried Hartmut excitedly. "I would I were one
of the falcons from whom we take our name. Then I would mount higher and
always higher in the blue sky towards the sun, and never come back
again."

"I believe you're crazy," answered his listener good-naturedly. "Well, I
wont catch anything, if I sit here all day, for the fish wont bite. I
must move to another place."

With that he gathered up his fishing tackle and crossed to the other
side of the