has seized the ring-dove, then darts down and beats off the captor, that he may secure for himself the prize,—­so Schoenfeld, not uninformed of what was going on, stood ready to pounce upon the suitor who should gain Katrine’s favor, and sweep the last rival out of the way.  An officer in the king’s service appeared in the village to draw the conscripts for the army, and the young men trembled like penned-up sheep at the entrance of the blood-stained butcher, not knowing who would be seized for the shambles.  The officer had apparently been a friend and companion of Schoenfeld’s in former days, and passed some time at his house.  It was perhaps only a coincidence, but it struck the neighbors as very odd at least, that Carl Proch was the first man drawn for the army.  He had no money to hire a substitute, and there was no alternative; he must serve his three years.  This last blow was too much for his poor mother.  Worn down by her constant assiduity in nursing him, and overcome by the sense of utter desolation, she sunk into her grave, and was buried on the very day that Carl, with the other recruits, was marched off.

What new torture the betrothed Katrine felt is not to be told.  Three years were to her an eternity; and her imagination called up such visions of danger from wounds, privations, and disease, that she parted from her lover as though it were forever.  The miller found that the light and the melody of his house were gone.  Katrine was silent and sorrowful; her frame wasted and her step grew feeble.  To all his offers of condolence she made no reply, except to remind him how with tears she had besought his interference in Carl’s behalf.  She would not be comforted.  The father little knew the feeling she possessed; he had thought that her attachment to her rustic lover was only a girlish fancy, and that she would speedily forget him; but now her despairing look frightened him.  To the neighbors, who looked inquisitively as he sat by the mill-door, smoking, he complained of the quality of his tobacco, vowing that it made his eyes so tender that they watered upon the slightest whiff.

For six months Schoenfeld wisely kept away; that period, he thought, would be long enough to efface any recollection of the absent soldier.  Then he presented himself, and, in his usual imperious way, offered his hand to Katrine.  The miller was inclined to favor his suit.  In wealth and position Schoenfeld was first in the village; he would be a powerful ally, and a very disagreeable enemy.  In fact, Rauchen really feared to refuse the demand; and he plied his daughter with such argument as he could command, hoping to move her to accept the offer.  Katrine, however, was convinced of the truth of her former suspicion, that Carl was a victim of Schoenfeld’s craft; and her rejection of his proposal was pointed with an indignation which she took no pains to conceal.  The old scar showed strangely white in his purple face, as he left the mill, vowing vengeance for the affront.