Regina by Hermann Sudermann — Read

The moon had risen and flooded the tranquil heath with its soft bluish radiance. Down in the marshes the alder-bushes were tipped with crowns of light, and the white, slender trunks of the birches which flanked the highway in interminable rows shone and shimmered, till the road seemed to stretch away and lose itself between hedges of burnished silver. Silence reigned everywhere. The last note of the birds' evening chorale had long since died away. Peace, the peace of well-being, peculiar to late summer, pervaded the wide-stretching level fields. Even the grasshopper in the ditch, and a fieldmouse scurrying in alarm through the tall blades of corn, hardly broke the stillness.

A traveller with staff and knapsack came along the road, gazing absently before him, evidently oblivious of the magic of the moon-lit landscape. It was the young lieutenant, on his way home to bury the father whose memory was held in such universal detestation. His host had put his best equipage at his disposal, but his comrade had firmly refused to accept the offer, and he had been obliged to content himself with accompanying his guest part of the way on foot. At parting he had solemnly affirmed that the compact of eternal friendship that they had entered into as brothers-in-arms after their first baptism of fire would hold good now and always, "the sins of the fathers" notwithstanding. Whenever he was in need of help and sympathy in the future, he might rely on the good-will of him and his neighbours.