ain that you are not from
hereabouts! But the truth is, that the whole princely family and Court
are rips and rascals, not one to mend another. They live, sir, in
idleness and--what most commonly follows it--corruption. The Princess
has a lover; a Baron, as he calls himself, from East Prussia; and the
Prince is so little of a man, sir, that he holds the candle. Nor is that
the worst of it, for this foreigner and his paramour are suffered to
transact the state affairs, while the Prince takes the salary and leaves
all things to go to wrack. There will follow upon this some manifest
judgment which, though I am old, I may survive to see."

"Good man, you are in the wrong about Gondremark," said Fritz, showing a
greatly increased animation; "but for all the rest, you speak the God's
truth like a good patriot. As for the Prince, if he would take and
strangle his wife, I would forgive him yet."

"Nay, Fritz," said the old man, "that would be to add iniquity to evil.
For you perceive, sir," he continued, once more addressing himself to
the unfortunate Prince, "this Otto has himself to thank for these
disorders. He has his young wife, and his principality, and he has sworn
to cherish both."

"Sworn at the altar!" echoed Fritz. "But put your faith in princes!"

"Well, sir, he leaves them both to an adventurer from East Prussia,"
pursued the farmer: "leaves the girl to be seduced and to go on from bad
to worse, till her name's become a tap-room by-word, and she not yet
twenty; leaves the country to be overtaxed, and bullied with armaments,
and jockied into war----"

"War!" cried Otto.

"So they say, sir; those that watch their ongoings, say to war,"
asseverated Killian. "Well, sir, that is very sad; it is a sad thing for
this poor, wicked girl to go down to hell with people's curses; it's a
sad thing for a tight little happy country to be misconducted; but
whoever may complain, I humbly conceive, sir, that this Otto cannot.
What he has worked for, that he has got; and may God have pity on his
soul, for a great and a silly sinner's!"

"He has broke his oath; then he is a perjurer. He takes the money and
leaves the work; why, then plainly he's a thief. A cuckold he was
before, and a fool by birth. Better me that!" cried Fritz, and snapped
his fingers.

"And now, sir, you will see a little," continued the farmer, "why we
think so poorly of this Prince Otto. There's such a thing as a man being
pious and honest in the private