re, lying so near the borders; and the river there is all
good Gruenewald water, every drop of it. Yes, sir, a fine state. A man of
Gruenewald 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 Gruenewald 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