ep
voices a song newly composed in honour of the Emperor Charles to the air,
"Cheer up, ye gallant soldiers all!"

The couple so skilled in music stopped, and Barbara's heart beat quicker
as she listened to the words which the fair-haired young trooper close
beside her was singing in an especially clear voice:

"Cheer up, ye gallant soldiers all!
Be blithe and bold of mind
With faith on God we'll loudly call,
Then on our ruler kind.
His name is worthy of our praise,
Since to the throne God doth him raise;
So we will glorify him, too,
And render the obedience due.
Of an imperial race he came,
To this broad empire heir;
Carolus is his noble name,
God-sent its crown to wear.
Mehrer is his just title grand,
The sovereign of many a land
Which God hath given to his care
His name rings on the air!"

[Mehrer--The increaser, an ancient title of the German emperors]

How much pleasure this song afforded Barbara, although it praised the man
whom she thought she hated; and when the third verse began with the
words,

"So goodly is the life he leads
Within this earthly vale,"

oh, how gladly she would have joined in!

That could not be, but she sang with them in her heart, for she had long
since caught the tune, and how intently the soldiers would have listened
if it had been possible for her to raise her voice as usual! Amid the
singing of all these men her clear, bell-like tones would have risen like
the lark soaring from the grain field, and what a storm of applause would
have greeted her from these rough throats!

Grief for the lost happiness of pouring forth her feelings in melody
seized upon her more deeply than for a long time. She would fain have
glided quietly away to escape the cause of this fresh sorrow. But Gombert
was listening to the young soldier's song with interest, so Barbara
continued to hear the young warrior as, with evident enthusiasm, he sang
the verse:

"Patient and tolerant is he,
Nor vengeance seeks, nor blood;
E'en though he errs, as well may be,
His heart is ever good."

She, too, had deemed this heart so, but now she knew better. Yet it
pleased her that the fair-haired soldier so readily believed the poet
and, obeying a hasty impulse, she put her hand into the pouch