The gendarme instinct gorged the bait in a jiffey, and rushed off in pursuit.
At two in the afternoon Johanna, bathed in perspiration from her protracted flight, had been concealed in the ice cold cellar. At nine in the evening the inhabitants of the farmhouse first ventured to release her from durance. They found her shaking in every limb from exhaustion and frost like a person in a violent ague. A little refreshment and some hot soup restored her for the time. After a short rest an old shepherd accompanied her, near midnight, to assist her in crossing the palisades and entering the town. With his help she found it an easy task, which says little for the vigilance of the French. Dawn was just stealing into the sky when the fugitive reached her mother’s house, with some difficulty succeeding in obtaining entrance without attracting the notice of the neighbours, and was finally at rest.
This last adventure, happening in the middle of July, was the termination of Johanna’s romantic trials. The French held the town until September, but were too much occupied in making head against the disasters which befel their arms in rapid succession to think of hunting up Johanna.
On September 18th General Tettenborn entered Lüneburg with a large force of Cossacks. Four days later the Russian commander heard of Johanna’s bravery, and caused her to be brought before him. Varnhagen von Ense, present at the interview, testifies:—“When the French again became masters of Lüneburg, she had been forced to go into hiding. Afterwards she was exposed to threats and dangers from the enemy, and even from many of her countrymen, until the remembrance of her daring gradually died away. But Tettenborn gave orders to seek Johanna, and invited her to his table, where he presented her to his guests as a worthy sister-in-arms. Her behaviour now was just as simply modest as it had previously been unaffectedly brave. That she might not be again exposed to vengeance or contumely, she was subsequently sent under favourable circumstances and with advantageous prospects to Berlin.”
The advantageous prospects consisted of the situation of companion to the lady of Major von Reiche, in whom the Maiden of Lüneburg found a warm friend and kind patroness. While in Berlin Johanna broke a blood-vessel, in consequence, said the physicians, of the shock to her constitution of the rapid change of temperature suffered during her escape upon the 13th July. She lay long at death’s door, but ultimately recovered, and accompanied Frau von Reiche to Paris in 1810.
Two years afterwards the Maiden of Lüneburg married Wilhelm Hindersin, a volunteer Jäger of good family, whose acquaintance she made at the house of her patroness. Their eldest son is the head of the Stettin bank, another a lithographer at St. Petersburg.
Twice subsequently the malady from which Johanna suffered in Berlin returned, leaving each time the seeds of disease, which ultimately developed into a disorder terminating fatally in 1842. Her husband died last year, and from his account the details of this little history have been compiled.
It is pleasant to reflect that the savour of noble deeds survives long after their doers have crumbled into dust. The body of Johanna Stegen is where the mortal remains of all of us will be in few or many years, but her immortal part—her memory—will go down to posterity as that of a brave-hearted, good woman, who risked her life for her country.
“BURN THIS LETTER AS SOON AS READ.”
I.
Burn this letter as soon as read.
Consider all I say, unsaid.
Think of me as a wilful boy
Inebriate with a golden joy;
Daring to tell thee all his heart;
Trembling at his fool-hardy part
Madly chasing a fierce desire
Through earth and water, air and fire.
Ready to tend thee day and night
As his endless, sole delight:—
Ready to throw his life away
To add to thine a single day.
II.
Burn this letter as soon as read.
Ne’er can its saying be unsaid.
Hate me,—if thy heart is fierce;
Mine with thine angry arrows pierce.
Trample me beneath thy scorn:
Wish that I had ne’er been born:
Bid me with a frown, to die,—
I will meet my destiny:
Or, if in a softer mood,
Banish me to solitude:
Only let me hear thy voice,
In my doom I will rejoice.
III.
Burn this letter as soon as read.
Think of me as one who’s dead:
Lying straight beneath the grass
O’er which happy mortals pass:
Nevermore to vex thy sight;
Nevermore to dim thy light.
When in Spring, with moonbeam flood,
Primroses fill all the wood,
(Then I met thee!)—think, when slow
Sets the sun, and birds sing low,
Of that eve my heart beguiled,
When I whispered,—and you smiled.
IV.
Burn this letter. Thou art proud;
High thy race above the crowd.
Careless thou of others’ pain:
They must love—and thou disdain.
Thou canst light the lamp which none
Quencheth but the churchyard stone.
In thy hand is all my fate;
Thou must yield me love or hate.
All my fate is in thy hand:—
But my words for ever stand.
I love! Wouldst thou that love gainsay,
Then thou must tear my life away!
