ng said to his coachman [the far-famed
Pfund]: 'Is this Dolgelin?' 'Yes, your Majesty!'--'I stay here.'
'No,' said Pfund; 'The sun is not down yet. We can get on very well
to Muncheberg to-night [ten miles ahead, and a Town too, perfidious
Pfund!]--and then to-morrow we are much earlier in Potsdam.' 'NA,
HM,--well, if it must be so!'--

"And therewith they set to changing horses. The peasants who were
standing far off, quite silent, with reverently bared heads, came
softly nearer, and looked eagerly at the King. An old Gingerbread-woman
(SOMMELFRAU) of Lebbenichen [always knew her afterwards] took me in her
arm, and held me aloft close to the coach-window. I was now at farthest
an ell from the King; and I felt as if I were looking in the face of God
Almighty (ES WAR MIR ALS OB ICH DEN LIEBEN GOTT ANSAHE). He was gazing
steadily out before him," into the glowing West, "through the front
window. He had on an old three-cornered regimental hat, and had put the
hindward straight flap of it foremost, undoing the loop, so that this
flap hung down in front, and screened him from the sun. The hat-strings
(HUT-CORDONS," trimmings of silver or gold cord) "had got torn loose,
and were fluttering about on this down-hanging front flap; the white
feather in the hat was tattered and dirty; the plain blue uniform, with
red cuffs, red collar and gold shoulder-bands [epaulettes WITHOUT
bush at the end], was old and dusty, the yellow waistcoat covered with
snuff;--for the rest, he had black-velvet breeches [and, of course, the
perpetual BOOTS, of which he would allow no polishing or blacking, still
less any change for new ones while they would hang together]. I thought
always he would speak to me. The old woman could not long hold me up;
and so she set me down again. Then the King looked at the Clergyman,
beckoned him near, and asked, Whose child it was? (Herr von Marwitz of
Friedersdorf's.)--'Is that the General?' 'No, the Chamberlain.' The King
made no answer: he could not bear Chamberlains, whom he considered as
idle fellows. The new horses were yoked; away they went. All day the
peasants had been talking of the King, how he would bring this and that
into order, and pull everybody over the coals who was not agreeable to
them.

"Afterwards it turned out that all Clergymen were in the habit of giving
10 thalers to the coachman Pfund, when the King lodged with them: the
former Clergyman of Dolgelin had regularly done it; but the new one,