ill be nothing but an obedient and submissive son?"
asked Burgsdorf in a cutting tone.

"Nothing further, Burgsdorf," replied Frederick William quietly. "May my
father yet live to rule long years in peace; I am still young, I am
learning and waiting."

"You are learning and waiting," cried Burgsdorf, beside himself, "and
meanwhile your land is going wholly to ruin; the people are hungry and in
despair; the noblemen are reduced to beggary or have, in their
desperation, gone over to Schwarzenberg--that is to say, to the
Emperor--who pays a rich annuity to each one who adheres faithfully to
him. And when your grace has waited and learned enough, then will come the
day when Count Schwarzenberg will hunt you from your heritage, even as he
has hunted the Margrave of Jaegerndorf; then will the Emperor give the Mark
Brandenburg away, as he has done with Jaegerndorf, and his favorite,
Schwarzenberg, is here ready to receive the welcome donation. He has
already ruled the Mark Brandenburg twenty years in the Emperor's name, why
should he not rule the Mark as its independent Sovereign? Oh, gracious
sir, it makes me raving mad just to think of it, and I can not believe
that you are in earnest, that you actually thrust from you myself and
those loyal to you, and will not enter into our plans. My dear Prince, I
have known you all your life. I have carried you in my arms as a little
boy; I have borne you under my cloak when you went with your mother to
Kuestrin; I have staked upon you all the hopes of my life; and it would be
a bitter grief to me to be obliged to think that you will have nothing to
do with me and all your friends."

"And think you, man," asked the Electoral Prince, "that it would be no
grief to my father if I should step forward as his adversary? Think you
that it would make for him a good name in history should the son present
himself as his father's enemy? No, Burgsdorf; I repeat it to you, I am
learning and waiting."

"And I? I have waited twenty years, to learn in this hour that all my
waiting has been in vain. The Mark is lost, and you, Electoral Prince,
with it. I shall tell your mother, I shall tell your friends, that you are
lost to us. Farewell, sir, and, if you will, go to Count Schwarzenberg and
tell him that I am a traitor and conspirator. I shall go back to Kuestrin,
and if I were not ashamed, I could weep over myself and you. No, I am not
ashamed; look, sir, at least you have constrained me."

And th