der:

"Nothing of that sort, waiter! The little keg from the Wurzburger Stein
can't be empty yet. We'll find the bottom of it this evening. What do you
say, Captain?"

"Such an arrangement will lighten the keg and not specially burden us,"
replied the other. "Good-evening, Herr Wilhelm, punctuality adorns the
soldier. People are beginning to understand how much depends upon it. I
have posted the men, so that they can overlook the country in every
direction. I shall have them relieved from time to time, and at intervals
look after them myself. This is good liquor, Junker. All honor to the man
who melts his gold into such a fluid. The first glass must be a toast to
the Prince."

The three men touched their glasses, and soon after drank to the liberty
of Holland and the prosperity of the good city of Leyden. Then the
conversation took a lively turn, but duty was not forgotten, for at the
end of half an hour the captain rose to survey the horizon himself and
urge the sentinels to vigilant watchfulness.

When he returned, Wilhelm and Junker von Warmond were so engaged in eager
conversation, that they did not notice his entrance. The musician was
speaking of Italy, and Allertssohn heard him exclaim impetuously:

"Whoever has once seen that country can never forget it, and when I am
sitting on the house-top with my doves, my thoughts only too often fly
far away with them, and my eyes no longer see our broad, monotonous
plains and grey, misty sky."

"Oh! ho! Meister Wilhelm," interrupted the captain, throwing himself into
the arm-chair and stretching out his booted legs. "Oh! ho! This time I've
discovered the crack in your brain. Italy, always Italy! I know Italy
too, for I've been in Brescia, looking for good steel sword-blades for
the Prince and other nobles, I crossed the rugged Apennines and went to
Florence to see fine pieces of armor. From Livorno I went by sea to
Genoa, where I obtained chased gold and silverwork for shoulder-belts and
sheaths. Truth is truth the brown-skinned rascals can do fine work. But
the country--the country! Roland, my fore man--how any sensible man can
prefer it to ours is more than I understand."

"Holland is our mother," replied von Warmond. "As good sons we believe
her the best of women; yet we can admit, without shame, that there are
more beautiful ones in the world."

"Do you blow that trumpet too?" exclaimed the fencing-master, pushing his
glass angrily further upon the table. Did