his half-closed lids the sunshine shining on steel scabbards.

"What does he want?" asked the officer in command of the
garrison, whose staff all this bright and martial array was. He
was riding out from the barracks to an inspection on the
Rudolfplatz. He was a young man, and had little children himself,
and was half amused, half touched, to see the tiny figure of the
little dusty boy.

"I want to build a monastery, like Findelkind of Arlberg, and
to help the poor," said our Findelkind, valorously, though his
heart was beating like that of a little mouse caught in a trap;
for the horses were trampling up the dust around him, and the
orderly's grip was hard.

The officers laughed aloud; and indeed he looked a poor little
scrap of a figure, very ill able to help even himself.

"Why do you laugh?" cried Findelkind, losing his terror in his
indignation, and inspired with the courage which a great
earnestness always gives. "You should not laugh. If you were true
knights, you would not laugh; you would fight for me. I am
little, I know,--I am very little,--but he was no bigger than I;
and see what great things he did. But the soldiers were good in
those days; they did not laugh and use bad words--"

And Findelkind, on whose shoulder the orderly's hold was still
fast, faced the horses, which looked to him as huge as
Martinswand, and the swords, which he little doubted were to be
sheathed in his heart.