"A robber?" repeated Hartmut, as his glance followed the heron who was
just disappearing behind the high tree tops. "Yes, of course, but how
fine it must be to live such a free robber's life up there in the air.
To descend like a flash for your booty and be up and off again where no
one can follow; that's a hunt that pays."

"Hartmut, I verily believe you'd take pleasure in such a wild, lawless
life," said Willibald, with the repugnance of a well-trained boy for
such sentiments.

His companion laughed, but it was the same bitter laugh without the
joyousness of youth in its sound.

"Well, if I had any such desire, they'd take it out of me at the
military academy. There obedience and discipline is the Alpha and Omega
of all things. Will, have you never wished that you had wings?"

"I, wings?" asked Will, whose whole attention was again directed to his
bait. "How ridiculous! Who would wish for impossibilities?"

"I only wish I had them," cried Hartmut excitedly. "I would I were one
of the falcons from whom we take our name. Then I would mount higher and
always higher in the blue sky towards the sun, and never come back
again."

"I believe you're crazy," answered his listener good-naturedly. "Well, I
wont catch anything, if I sit here all day, for the fish wont bite. I
must move to another place."