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Title: The Young Carpenters of Freiberg

Author: Anonymous

Release date: August 21, 2006 [eBook #19097]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Al Haines


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THE YOUNG CARPENTERS OF FREIBERG.

A Tale of the Thirty Years' War.

Translated from the German by

J. Latchmore, Jun.







[Frontispiece: 'She seized the robber unexpectedly by the legs, and
tipped him head first into the mighty chest.']



Edinburgh:
William Oliphant & Co.
1880.




CONTENTS.

CHAP.

    I. THE MILLER'S WIFE OF ERBISDORF
   II. THE FAMILY AT HOME
  III. PRIVATE RIGHTS MUST GIVE PLACE TO PUBLIC NECESSITIES
   IV. THE ENEMY BEFORE THE TOWN
    V. THE SOWER OF TARES
   VI. THE SECOND ASSAULT
  VII. CONRAD UNDER THE WINDOW-SEAT
 VIII. ORDINARY INCIDENTS OF A SIEGE
   IX. DIVERSE HUMAN HEARTS
    X. WAR OFTEN OPPOSES THE TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY
   XI. HISTORICAL
  XII. TREACHERY AND DELIVERANCE




ILLUSTRATIONS


'She seized the robber unexpectedly by the legs, and tipped him head
first into the mighty chest.' . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

Conrad recognized an old comrade, John Hillner.

Promise me that I shall have an honourable burial; and let the lads
say, "A good journey to thee, old comrade!"

Nothing but the moustache on the pale face indicated the warlike
calling of the man who now addressed Conrad.




THE YOUNG CARPENTERS OF FREIBERG.


CHAPTER I.

THE MILLER'S WIFE OF ERBISDORF.

The ancient and free mountain city of Freiberg lies only about
five-and-twenty miles south-west of Dresden, yet has a far more severe
climate than the Saxon capital--a fact that may be understood if we
remember that the road which leads from Dresden to Freiberg is up hill
almost all the way.  The Saxon Erzgebirge must not be pictured as a
chain of separate mountains, with peaks rising one behind the other and
closing in the horizon.  Hills and valleys lie mingled, assuming such
long, wave-like forms that in some parts of the district it is
difficult to fancy oneself in a mountain-land at all.  Immediately
around Freiberg the landscape takes the form of a wide table-land,
which has an upward slope only on the south-west of the city, so that
from a short distance but little is seen of the town save the tops of
its towers and a confused glimpse of house-roofs.  In former days it
was the residence of the Duke of Saxony, and before the Thirty Years'
War contained 32,000 inhabitants, a number which has now dwindled to
19,000.  Its ancient fortifications, which of late years have been
rapidly giving place to modern improvements, consisted of a double line
of walls, guarded by towers, pierced by strongly-fortified gates, and
surrounded by a deep and wide moat.  The ramparts were built of
quarried stone, which, though much harder than sandstone, was far more
difficult to bind together with mortar.  In view of this fact, we may
well be surprised that a place so weakly fortified was able for two
long months to withstand the vehement siege operations of the whole
Swedish army--an army so brave and so highly trained in the art of war,
that it had subdued many far stronger fortresses.  Yet so it was: how
the thing came about, and what an important part young Conrad, the
carpenter's apprentice, played in these great events, will be found
narrated in the following pages.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

On the 1st of November in the year 1642, a carpenter's apprentice,
Conrad Schmidt by name, passed out at the Erbis Gate of Freiberg,
pushing before him a covered hand-truck.  This contained a piece of
carpenter's work that always tells its own sad story--a little child's
coffin.  As the truck with its sorrowful burden jolted along over the
rough pavement, the sentry stepped forward from the gate, and asked
inquisitively, 'What have you there, youngster, and where are you off
to?'

'Only a child's coffin for the mill at Erbisdorf.'

'What! has the plague been gleaning among the little brood down there?'

'The plague!' repeated Conrad, bringing his truck to a stand.  'Well,
yes, something like it.  Now-a-days the soldiers are the worst plague,
and it was one of them that put an end to the miller's little son.'

'What do you mean by that, boy?'

'Why, Master Prieme,' replied the youth, 'are you the only man in
Freiberg who has not heard the cruel story?'

'How should I know anything about it?' answered the citizen.  'I only
came home from Dresden late last night, and I had to mount guard early
this morning.  What has happened to the miller's son?'

'The day before yesterday, in the afternoon,' said the lad, 'a soldier
came to the mill at Erbisdorf and demanded quarters for himself and a
woman that he said was his wife.  With the soldiers it is always a word
and a blow, so the miller yielded, and by way of putting his guest into
a good humour, took him straight down to the cellar and gave him a
draught of strong beer.  Meantime the miller's wife stayed with the
woman, who, as soon as the coast was clear, declared herself to be a
soldier in disguise, and threatened her hostess with instant death
unless she fetched out all her jewels and valuables on the spot.  The
poor woman accordingly had to open her great linen chest, in the bottom
of which her little store of silver was hidden, and in this the ruffian
began to rummage.  Just when he had almost emptied it, and was stooping
to reach the last articles from the bottom, a happy thought came into
the brave woman's mind.  She seized the robber unexpectedly by the legs
and tipped him head first into the mighty chest; then she slammed down
the lid and had the hasp fastened in a second.'

''Pon my word,' laughed the sentry, 'that was a smart stroke of
business.  How the two-legged mouse must have kicked about inside his
trap!  And how did things go on after that, my lad?'

'The miller's little son stood by, and his mother, as the quickest way
out of the difficulty, told him to run down to the cellar and whisper
to his father to come and bind the robber.  On his way the poor little
fellow met the other villain, who had got rid of his host by some
excuse, and was now coming up-stairs to help his comrade.  Well, the
sight of the boy running towards him made him suspicious, so he stopped
him and took him back with him into the mill.  When the soldier reached
the room where he had left his comrade, he found that the miller's wife
had bolted the door, and refused to open it; so he threatened to kill
her child, and when the frightened woman persisted in keeping him out,
he was as good, or at least as bad, as his word.  Then the murderer
tried to force his way into the house through the mill-wheel, but the
miller's wife set the wheel going, and the fellow'--

'Just so--was flattened like a pancake,' said the sentry.  'She is
something like a brave woman!'

'And when they opened the chest they found 'that the robber inside was
suffocated,' said Conrad, taking up the handle of his truck again.

'Well, he received the due reward of his deeds,' said Master Prieme
gravely.  'But to which side did the two men belong?  They must have
been either Swedes or Imperialists.'

'They were just soldiers,' said the youth, 'and when you've said that,
you've said all.  Whether they were Saxons, or Swedes, or Imperialists,
it all comes to the same thing.  They change about from one master to
another, but they are all alike in tormenting the unhappy people.'

'That's all the fault of this dreadful war,' muttered Prieme.  'It has
been going on now for over twenty-four years.  The soldiers are getting
so used to killing people, that they do it even when there are no
enemies for them to kill.'

Conrad hurried on his way.  He had not yet reached the village of
Erbisdorf, when his quick eye caught the glitter of a troop of cavalry
coming in the distance.  In those days an unarmed person was always
afraid to meet soldiers.  Conrad, however, fortunately for him, knew
what he was to do if he met any troopers on the road.  He opened his
truck, took out the little coffin, and put it into a shallow dry ditch
by the roadside; then wheeling the truck hastily to the edge of the
road, got into it, and pulled the lid over himself as he lay.  He had
not long to wait before the trampling of many horse-hoofs warned him
that the troopers were approaching.  The men did not take much notice
of his truck, but some of the horses were frightened at it.  Several of
them shied, and their riders urged them on at a rapid trot.  The last
man alone could not get his horse to pass it.  The animal reared and
threatened to fall backwards on its rider, who appeared to be in a
towering passion.  He rode back a short distance, and used all the arts
of his horsemanship to reduce his refractory steed to obedience.  The
man did not spare either oaths, spurring, or blows of his heavy whip,
until the horse, still shying but obedient at last, went trembling past
the truck.  Then the rider turned the animal back once more, and did
not rest until he had made it leap over the object of its terror.  As
it did so, one of its hind hoofs touched the lid of the truck and threw
it back.  The soldier turned in mid-career, saw the form of the
apprentice, drew a pistol from his holster like lightning, and fired at
him where he lay.  At the report and flash the youth started up, and
the bullet passed close by his hand, grazing the skin, and lodged in
the side of the truck.  Fortunately for him, the report of the pistol
had such a startling effect on the already frightened horse, that the
rider could no longer restrain it, and rode off at full speed after his
comrades, leaving the apprentice to pursue his way to Erbisdorf in
peace.  On reaching the village, he directed his steps towards the
mill, where he was received by a slender, pale little woman, not at all
like the miller's wife he expected to see, for he had pictured the
heroine of his story as a tall, strong woman, with a loud voice and
great muscular arms.  He soon found out his mistake, however, for at
sight of the sorrowful burden he had brought, she cried out, 'What!
must I lay my little Georgie to rest in such a thing as that?  Why, my
husband need not have sent to Freiberg for it.  We could have made a
prettier resting-place ourselves for my little son, and'--

'Please have patience,' interrupted the apprentice, 'and do not despise
our work before you have examined it.  But first, would you be so good
as to give me a bit of sopped bread to tie on my hand; it begins to
burn and smart pretty badly.  Just look, Mistress Miller, there's a
Swedish dragoon's bullet in the side of the truck; if you would lend me
a chisel or a pair of pincers, I could get it out, and take it home in
my pocket.'

While the woman was gone to fetch what he had asked for, Conrad carried
the little coffin into the house.

'I know one thing,' he said to the miller's wife when she returned,
'our senior journeyman must be a very smart man; I should think he can
almost hear the grass grow.  If he had not been, my last hour would
have come today.  "Conrad Schmidt," he said to me before I
started,--"Conrad Schmidt, in these days we must mind what we are
about.  You will perhaps meet some soldiers on the way to Erbisdorf,
and if you do, I will tell you how to escape."  If he had not told me
what to do, they would have killed me to a certainty.  But where is the
poor little boy?'

The miller's wife stepped across to a corner of the room and drew back
a large linen cloth from a bed, disclosing the body of a fine boy
between eight and nine years old.  He lay with closed eyes and little
hands peacefully folded on his breast, so quiet that any one might have
thought it was only sleep.

'We found him with his little hands folded just like that,' said the
miller's wife, bursting into tears.  'His soul has gone to heaven, I am
sure.'

'Ah! you can see he did not suffer much,' said Conrad softly, 'and that
is something to be thankful for.  Whether the two soldiers were
Imperialists or Swedes, they might have tied the little fellow to a
barn-door and practised at him with their pistols, or tortured him in
fifty cruel ways, as they have often done to others.  My mistress
always says it is a happy thing for those who rest peacefully in their
quiet graves.  But what have you done with the bodies of the two wicked
men?'

At this question a sudden change came over the miller's wife.  A bright
colour rose to her pale face, her eyes sparkled, and her hands clenched
themselves tightly, as her trembling lips gave utterance to the words,
'They lie out there, behind the barn, waiting till the executioner
comes to bury them.'

In the meantime the room had filled with country people, who had
strolled into the mill on hearing that the child's coffin had arrived.

'H'm!' said the young carpenter; 'are you quite sure the dragoons I met
will not come here and find that the two murderers were comrades of
theirs?  If they did, your brave deed might cost you dear.'

A smile was the woman's only reply, but a peasant answered for her:
'Dragoons, did you say, youngster?  What countrymen were they?'

'Well,' replied Conrad, 'you can't always tell a bird by its feathers,
especially if you don't happen to be a bird fancier.  Whether they were
Saxons, Imperialists, or Swedes, I do not know.  The soldier that tried
to kill me spoke good German, and he wore a blue doublet with bright
yellow facings.'

'God help us!' cried the peasant.  'They are the Swedes, sure enough; I
have known the blue doublets ever since 1639, the year they did so much
harm to Erbisdorf, when General Bannier made his attack on Freiberg.'

'But come,' said Conrad, trying to rally his own courage, 'there's
plenty of blue cloth and yellow facings in the world besides what is on
Swedish uniforms; and as I told you before, that dragoon could swear in
downright good German.'

'The Swedes! the Swedes!' was now heard from outside the house.  'The
schoolmaster saw them from the top of the church tower.'

'The Swedes are coming!' was the general exclamation as every face
turned pale.  'May heaven have mercy on us!'  With this cry the
frightened people rushed out of the room, leaving the terrified young
apprentice and the miller's wife alone together.  The latter did not
appear to be much disturbed.  She quietly counted out to the lad the
price of the little coffin, and then turned away to lay her son's body
in it.  Conrad Schmidt hardly knew what he had better do.  First of all
he hid the money he had just received in one of his shoes, and then
began to consider whether he should leave his hand-truck at the mill or
take it back with him to Freiberg.  His uncertainty did not last long.
What the horse is to a horseman, that his truck is to a carpenter's
apprentice.  Neither the one nor the other will willingly part from his
faithful companion except in great emergencies.  Full of inward fears,
but without showing any outward signs of panic, the youth set forth on
his homeward way, a distance of six or eight miles.




CHAPTER II.

THE FAMILY AT HOME.

Conrad reached the town without any further adventure, and found it in
a state of high excitement.  The drawbridges before the gates were up,
and the city walls and towers swarmed with armed men.  'The Swedes have
been seen,' was the general outcry, and the mere sound of the words had
been enough to throw the whole place into a ferment.  To the number of
about six hundred, the Swedes had appeared and opened a parley with the
town, demanding supplies, and when--as was only to be expected--their
demands were refused, they had drawn off and retired to the
neighbourhood of Wilsdruf.  As soon as ever Conrad reached home, which
he did at last, pushing his truck before him and hobbling along in a
very lame fashion over the rough pavement, he took off the shoe he had
turned into a money-box.

'I thought so,' he cried.  'I was sure those hard gulden would raise
blisters.  But I say, mistress, that's a great deal better than coming
home without any money at all.  I can tell you I have had a narrow
escape.  Just look here; this scratch on my left hand was done by a
Swedish bullet aimed at my heart.  I have lots of news to tell you
about my journey.'

And then all the people of the house gathered eagerly round to listen
while he told his adventures.  Many an accomplished story-teller has
had less attentive listeners than those who hung on the lips of this
humble carpenter's apprentice, transformed into a sort of hero by a
sudden and unexpected accident.  Out of doors it was already growing
dark, as the cold November wind swept past the house, driving a few
flakes of snow before it.  But in the comfortable livingroom that
adjoined the workshop, the little company sat cozily enough round the
warm stove, listening eagerly to the lad who had seen the dreadful
Swedes, and, wonder of wonders! lived to tell the tale.

'As I lay hidden there in the truck,' said Conrad in conclusion, 'and
heard the soldiers coming like the noise of a great hail-storm, I
almost gave myself up for lost; and when the cover was dashed back,
like a starling falling out of a spout, I thought my last hour was
come.'

'That would not have been so very bad,' said the younger journeyman,
'if one only had to suffer death and nothing worse.  But these Swedes
torture people as the very headsman himself would be ashamed to do.  My
father died by the dreadful "Swedish Drink," and then they took my
eldest brother, and--ah! it's too horrible to talk about.'

'They hang people up by the feet,' said a miner who was present, 'and
light fires under them to make them tell where their treasures are
hidden.  They make their way into the very bowels of the earth, so that
the miners themselves are not safe from them.  When wicked General
Bannier was here three years ago, we hid ourselves from the Swedes,
with our wives and children, in the mines.  To hinder them from
following us, we lighted fires at the bottom of the shafts, and put all
kinds of pungent things in them, that sent up a thick, stifling smoke
through every cranny and crevice.  What followed?  While I was sitting
by the fire putting on more fuel,--I had sent my wife and children
farther into the mine to be out of the reek,--something suddenly came
plunging down through the smoke-cloud, and I was astounded to see my
dog, this very Turk here, drop upon me with his four legs all tied
together and fastened to a cord.  His tongue was hanging out, and only
a faint quiver or two told me he was not quite dead.  What did the
cruel Swedes do that for?  They wanted to try whether the smoke was so
bad that human beings would die coming through it, and they let my dog
down first to see.'

'Well, and what happened after that, neighbour Roller?' asked the
carpenter's young widow, as the speaker paused.

'You must excuse me for a minute or two, neighbours,' replied Roller.
'You know we miners are often rather short of breath.'  While he was
silent all sat waiting.

'That Turk did not die,' he went on at last, 'you can all see for
yourselves, for here he is, and in very good company too.  The animal
happily came down just far enough for me to cut him loose from the
cord.  By way of encouraging his tormentors to come down after him, I
threw my mining leather, my shoes, and even my miner's coat, on to the
fire, and they sent up such a pother of smoke that the Swedes gave it
up as a bad job, for that time at all events.  I am only a poor miner,
but I never repented giving up my mining leather, my shoes, and my
coat, to save that dog's life.'

'Come to me, Conrad, my son,' said a gentle woman's voice.  'Give me
your hand, and let me feel sure that I have you still, and that you
have really and truly escaped from the dreadful Swedes.'

The apprentice drew near to the speaker, who occupied the place of
honour in the armchair, and the upper part of whose face was hidden by
a large green shade.  As he gave his right hand to his blind mother, a
little girl, who sat on a stool at the woman's feet, gently took the
left hand that the Swedish bullet had wounded.

'Does it hurt, poor Conrad?' asked the child earnestly.

'No, little Dollie,' replied the youth.  'The scratch on my hand isn't
nearly so bad as the blisters the hard gulden have made on my feet.'

'Ah!' cried Dollie, with a shudder; 'but how it would have hurt you if
the Swedes had caught you!'

'Dollie is quite right,' said the mistress of the house.  'My late
husband used to say the Swedes came from the same place where the Turks
and the Tartars live, and that that was why they were so cruel.'

The elder journeyman, a young man who had been sitting by with his head
resting on his hand, apparently uninterested in what was passing, at
this point broke into the conversation rather suddenly.  'Have the
Imperialists been one bit less cruel than the Swedes?  Have they not
tortured people too?'

'It is perfectly true,' said the miner.  'The Swedes and the
Imperialists are both tarred with the same brush.  For plundering,
murdering, and burning, there is not a pin to choose between them.'

'And that,' said the elder journeyman, 'is just because this long, long
war has given us a new sort of men--men in whom desperate greediness
takes the place of a heart, and whose conscience has been replaced by
an empty purse, to fill which is their one object in life.  Their
general is their god, and they follow him or desert him just according
as he leads them to victory and plunder, or to defeat.  They march from
country to country, selling their services to whichever side they think
will give them the richest booty.  Swedes!  I can assure you, there is
not a Swede left in the Swedish army, or, at all events, very few.  The
men the great Gustavus Adolphus brought over the Baltic Sea are gone
long ago, and those who have taken their places will sell both soul and
body any day to the highest bidder.'

'Yes,' interrupted the apprentice, 'that's just what I say.  The Swedes
are no more Swedes than I am; else how could I have understood the
oaths of the Swedish dragoon that fired at me to-day?  He swore in good
round German, and it was one of the most wonderful oaths I ever heard.
He said'--

The journeyman sprang up hastily, and put his hand before the lad's
mouth.  'Silence!' he cried earnestly.  'Do not repeat the oath you
heard to any one.  When a man has once heard a wicked thing, it sticks
in his memory for years.  It is the good things we find so hard to
remember.  But to return to the Swedes.  Their anger against us is not
altogether without excuse.  After our Elector had actually begged for
an alliance with them, to protect him against the Emperor's
tyranny,--after Gustavus Adolphus had fought for us Saxons, bled for
us, won battles for us,--the Elector deserted his new ally as suddenly
as he had joined him, just because fortune frowned on him in one or two
battles.  He did more than desert him; he threw himself again into the
arms of the Emperor, whom he had good reason to know for his worst
enemy.  For this ingratitude'--

'Come, come, young fellow!' cried the miner, frowning.  'I shall have
to serve you as you did the boy just now.  What!  You take on yourself
to blame our illustrious Elector and his court!  Pray, do you get
better lessons in statesmanship over the glue-pot and vice than what
our Elector and his princely council can teach you?  You are forgetting
that you live in the faithful mountain city of Freiberg--a city that is
proud of being loyal to its prince without any grumbling or asking why
and wherefore.  "Fear God! honour the king! do right and fear no man!"
That's what the Bible says.'

'I will be prudent and hold my peace,' said the young journeyman
quietly.  'Yet even over the glue-pot and vice thoughts come to a man
that cannot easily be got rid of.'

There followed a pause in the conversation, which lasted until Dollie,
the miner's little daughter, turned to the apprentice with the
question, 'Were the Swedes so very ugly?  Had they got horns on their
heads, or only one eye each, like the giants in the "Seven-leagued
Boots," who used to eat little boys and girls?  And oh, perhaps they
had dreadful, great mouths, with rows of sharp teeth in them!'

In spite of their terrors, none of those present could restrain their
laughter at the child's artless fears.

'I only had one look at the Swede as he leaped his horse over me,' said
Conrad; 'and he looked just like anybody else, only that he had black
hair and a fierce red moustache, just like'--and he broke off abruptly,
and stared at the elder journeyman, then went on: 'Yes, such a long
moustache that he could have tied it in a knot behind his head.'

'What!' stammered the journeyman, turning pale; 'black hair and a red
moustache?'

'Yes,' replied Conrad; 'it looked so uncommonly odd, that it was the
only thing I noticed about him.'

The journeyman sat silent for the rest of the evening.  When the
company had dispersed, he turned to the lad and said: 'My boy, now tell
me the oath you heard the--the Swede use.'

Conrad looked at his companion in astonishment, and saw signs of some
deep emotion on his face.  'But,' he objected, 'only a little while ago
you said I was not to let any one hear the oath, and now'--

'You are quite right,' replied the journeyman.  'Hold fast by what I
told you.  But if you write down the words on this piece of paper for
me it will hurt no one.  I have a good reason for wanting to see them.
Can you write?'

'I should just think I could,' said Conrad, half offended by the
question.  He wrote the words down, and noticed that as soon as the
journeyman had read them he became even paler than before, and muttered
something between his set teeth.




CHAPTER III.

PRIVATE RIGHTS MUST GIVE PLACE TO PUBLIC NECESSITIES.

On the 9th of November 1642, the forest of Freiberg presented a scene
of the busiest activity.  Several hundred men were at work, and many a
great pine and fir tree bowed its lofty head beneath the stroke of axe
and saw, to fall at last crashing to earth.  The wood-cutters from the
mines vied with those from the city--joiners, carpenters, wheelwrights,
and coopers--in thinning the dense masses of beautiful forest trees as
rapidly as possible.  Burghers and others, aided by the gaunt-looking
mining people, with earth-stained clothes and red night-caps on their
heads, were loading the long heavy trunks upon drays that stood in
readiness, and driving them off with all speed towards the town.  The
wind blew sharp and cool, yet no one complained of the cold; on the
contrary, the large drops that tell of honest toil stood out on many a
swarthy brow.  The household of Mistress Blüthgen, the carpenter's
young widow, whose acquaintance we made in the last chapter, were all
among the workers.

'All this looks as if the Swedes were before the gates of Freiberg
now,' said Rudorf, the younger journeyman; 'whereas the fact is, there
isn't a sign to be seen of them anywhere.  There does not seem to me to
be any such tremendous hurry, that we can't even stop to have our
dinners.'

'"Make hay while the sun shines,"' said Hillner, the elder journeyman.
'I can tell you Burgomaster Richzenhayn could not have done a wiser and
better thing than to have plenty of wood brought in.  It is as needful
for the town as bread--indeed it is almost more needful.  If it is not
all wanted for palisadoes, _chevaux-de-frise_, covered ways, and
galleries, we can always find a use for it in the stoves, and comfort
ourselves with the warmth it will give us.'

'Hallo, you boy!' cried Rudorf, suddenly turning to Conrad the
apprentice; 'look yonder how your step-father is enjoying his bread and
bacon.  Only see, too, what a fat bottle of beer he has got standing by
him!  Step across to him and ask him to give you a share of his good
things, and to lend us his bottle for a minute or two.'

Conrad, who was busy sharpening a saw, looked up and answered with a
sigh: 'I am glad enough to be out of his sight.  If I went to him I
should only get a sound thrashing instead of bread and bacon.'

The two journeymen were both watching Conrad's step-father, the town
servant Jüchziger.  As the lad spoke they saw the man leave his table,
the stump of a fallen tree, and go across to a little girl who was busy
picking up the scattered chips that lay about, and storing them in her
long basket.

'You little thief!' he shouted angrily, 'I'll teach you to come here
stealing wood.'  He boxed the child's ears soundly, tore her basket off
her back, emptied it, and crushed it under his foot.'

The little one began to cry, not so much on account of the blows she
had received, as over her spoiled basket.

'What a burning shame!' said Conrad.  'It's our Dollie.  Poor child,
just look how she trembles!'

Without saying a word, Hillner, the senior journeyman, left his work.
With his saw in his left hand, and his right fist tightly clenched, he
strode up to the town servant, his angry face showing pretty plainly
what was coming.  As soon as he reached the offender, his hand
unclenched to grasp Jüchziger by the collar.  'How dare you touch the
child and destroy her basket?' he said, as he shook the astonished man
roughly.  'Will you pay for that basket on the spot, hey?'

It must not be forgotten that a town servant often thinks himself a far
greater man than even a town councillor.  The bold and unexpected
attack at first took Jüchziger by surprise, but when he had had time to
take a good look at his assailant, and to see by his blue apron and
general appearance that he was only a journeyman carpenter, all his
rage came back at a bound, and he in his turn began to play the part of
the offended person.  He poured out a torrent of abuse on the
journeyman, at the same time trying to collar the young man and pay him
out in kind.  By way of making up for the journeyman's superior
strength, Jüchziger brought his official position into play, and called
on the bystanders to come to his assistance.  This step, however, only
made matters worse for him.  The deed he had been seen to do, the
weeping child, the ruined basket, and the young carpenter's indignant
story, all helped to rouse the popular anger against the offending town
servant.

'What harm had the child done to you?' cried one.  'Are the sticks to
lie here and rot, or be a welcome booty for the Swedes?  Pray, how much
could a child like that carry away?  Does not the whole forest belong
to us Freibergers, and shall not our own children pick up a basketful
of sticks while we are slaving here without pay?  Give the fellow a
sound drubbing!  Down with him, if he does not pay for the basket
straight away!'

At these words fifty strong arms were raised threateningly, and
Jüchziger saw that if he meant to save his skin it would be prudent to
fetch out his purse and pay for the basket without loss of time.

'And a groschen[1] for each of the cuffs he gave her,' shouted a voice
from the crowd, and stingy Jüchziger had to obey this order too, which
he did with a very bad grace.  Dollie's tears dried up with wonderful
quickness when she saw the shining silver really lying on her little
palm, and she skipped merrily away to the town without either basket or
wood.

While Hillner and Rudorf went quietly back to their work, Jüchziger
kept a watchful eye on the former.  As the tiger glares at his victim,
but awaits impatiently the moment when he may safely spring upon it, so
did the town servant promise himself to take a terrible revenge on the
journeyman.  As soon as the day's work was over, and the workers had
reached the Peter Gate on their return home, he would have Hillner
arrested by the guard and marched straight off to prison.

An unexpected incident hindered, for the time at all events, the
execution of this promising scheme.  The activity of the citizens in
preparing to give the enemy a warm reception had by no means been
confined to their day's work in the forest.  Such buildings without the
walls as had escaped in General Bannier's attack were now doomed to
destruction.  Thus it came about that the returning wood-cutters found
a large number of people outside the Peter Gate, fetching the furniture
out of their houses, and moving all their goods and chattels into the
town as quickly as possible.

Two houses adjoining one another--one a handsome building and the other
of humbler appearance--had already been stripped of windows, doors,
roofing, and rafters, and busy hands were now at work tearing down the
walls.

When Jüchziger so unmercifully destroyed Dollie's basket, he did not
suspect that at that very moment the same fate was overtaking his
wife's inheritance.  For a moment the sight he now saw almost paralyzed
him; then recovering his presence of mind, he hastened towards the
scene of destruction, forgetful of all his plans for revenge.

But his angry protestations were of no avail; even his prayers were all
in vain, which seemed to him very hard.  The labourers went quietly and
steadily on with their work, as though it were a thing that had to be
done; and when Jüchziger laid his hand on one and another of them, with
the idea of hindering them by force, he soon found himself repulsed in
no very gentle fashion.  While he stood in front of his little house
wringing his hands, the very picture of misery and irresolution, a
well-dressed man, of respectable appearance though he was covered with
dust and bits, came out of the door of the larger mansion.

'Oh, my dear neighbour Löwe!' cried Jüchziger, 'advise me, stand by me,
help me to send this rabble about their business!  I only married the
old blind woman because she owned this house, and now that there's no
getting out of the bargain they are tearing my nest to pieces before my
very eyes.  Come, my dear neighbour, let us hasten at once to the
burgomaster.  You are a man of influence in the city, and your request
added to mine will, even now, soon put a stop to this shocking
business.'

'Our trouble would be all in vain,' replied Lowe quietly.  'These
buildings are being pulled down by order of the burgomaster himself and
of the town council; and quite right too, although I suffer a serious
loss by it.  "Private rights must always give place to public
necessities."  I was the first man to lay hands on my own house, and
that makes it less hard for me to bear.'

In his heart Jüchziger cursed the good man for a fool, and turned away
from him in a rage.  'If only Richzenhayn were not the acting
burgomaster,' he said to himself.  'If Herr Jonas Schönleben were only
at the head of affairs, he would be certain to listen to me.  The
cowardly blockheads!  There is not a single Swedish plume to be seen
round the whole horizon, and yet they must needs begin pulling down
houses.  But I will have ample compensation, or the whole town shall
smart for it.'

'My poor, poor mother,' thought Conrad sorrowfully, as he watched the
destruction of her little property.  'Father will make her pay dearly
for all this that he is muttering and grumbling about there.  Oh,
whatever will become of her?'

Jüchziger lived with his wife in the town, and the elder men gave
Conrad leave to run on ahead, that he might have time to tell his
mother about the destruction of her house, and prepare her for the
outburst of passion she might expect when her husband reached home.

The citizens of Freiberg were preparing at all points for the expected
siege.  All the corn, hay, and straw stored at their farms in readiness
for the coming winter was brought into the city, and every care was
taken betimes that there should be no danger of famine; for experience
teaches that more strongholds have been conquered by hunger than by
hard fighting.  The fear that the Swedes inspired in the city increased
when it became known that Leipzig and Pleissenburg had fallen into
their hands on November 28, and that Silberstadt was their next
destination.  It was a fortunate circumstance that armies in those days
could not move so quickly as they can now.  Thanks to this fact,
Freiberg had time to make all due preparation for the enemy's
reception.  John George II., 'the father of his people,' was not remiss
in caring for the mountain city.  He sent Lieutenant-Colonel George
Hermann von Schweinitz, a brave and experienced commander, with three
companies of infantry and one of dragoons, to conduct the defence.
These troops mustered only two hundred and ninety men all told; yet
this little band, aided by the citizens, gloriously held at bay for two
long months an entire Swedish army of eight brigades, with a hundred
and nine pieces of artillery.

Hillner, the journeyman carpenter, was still a free man; for Jüchziger
had determined to find some other way of satisfying his thirst for
vengeance, and had therefore laid aside his schemes till a more
convenient season.  In spite of the dark and doubtful future, busy life
reigned in the workshop of the carpenter's widow, as it re-echoed once
again to the din of tools wielded by the two journeymen and the
apprentice.  One day--it was the 4th of December in the memorable year
1642--the hollow roll of drums was heard coming down the street, and
the senior journeyman, laying his plane on the bench, crossed the
workshop to look out at the window facing the street.  Having done so,
he at once left the workroom and went out to the street door, followed
by his two comrades, to watch the entrance of the regular soldiers, who
were just marching into the town.

There were, as has already been said, only two hundred and ninety men,
yet the mere sight of them awakened joyful and reassuring feelings in
the breasts of all who saw them.  The roll of the drums in itself had
an inspiriting effect.  As the townspeople gazed at the long, level
lines, and heard the heavy, regular tramp beneath which the very
pavement seemed to shake; as they saw each bronzed face with its look
of stedfastness and assured courage, the open iron helmet on the head,
the breastplate covered by a military coat reaching to the knees and
allowing the body free play from the hips, the halberd grasped in the
strong right hand, and the shield in the left, bearing the Saxon
coat-of-arms,--as these various points were noted and remarked on, each
moment brought fresh courage to hearts that had been almost ready to
despond.  In all ages there have been jealousies and strife between the
military and the respectable burgher class, and Freiberg was no
exception to this rule.  But to-day the soldiers were welcomed with
loud and joyful shouts, which they, fully conscious of their own value,
acknowledged by friendly nods as they passed along the streets.

Conrad Schmidt, standing beside the miner's little daughter Dollie,
watched the warlike procession with the curious eyes of youth.  From
time to time he stole a glance at the senior journeyman, observing his
movements with surprise and some amusement.  The young man had taken
off his blue apron, and held it rolled up in his left hand, while his
right grasped the carpenter's square, exactly as the soldiers held
their halberds.  His whole bearing was changed; he had become
positively warlike; his eyes flashed, and his feet rose and fell in
measured time, as though he could hardly restrain himself from marching
off at the sound of the drum.  Conrad laughed and shook his head
merrily, but kept back a speech he had been on the point of making when
he saw the change in his old friend.

'I was right after all,' he said to himself.  'If he were just to let
his beard grow, he would be exactly like'--  His sentence was left
unfinished, for at this moment he heard his mistress' voice reproving
them for neglecting their duty, and they all hastened back into the
workshop.

The commandant made it his first business to inspect the condition of
the fortifications, strengthening them wherever that was possible, and
obstructing the approaches in every way that could offer impediments to
an enemy's successful advance.  The approach of the foe was plainly
indicated by the number of country people who now poured steadily into
the town, seeking shelter behind the city walls for their household
goods, their wives, children, and cattle.  Long trains of waggons and
droves of animals, accompanied by men, and beasts of burden bearing
heavy loads, were making their way towards the gates of Freiberg; and
the city authorities thought themselves bound in honour not to repulse
these suppliants for shelter, but rather to make their town what every
such town ought to be in time of war, a true city of refuge for all
needy ones.  Moreover, many strong arms would be wanted to defend the
widespreading ramparts; and the former siege by General Bannier had
proved how well the country people could fight in defence of their
liberties.

'Hallo! ho there!' shouted a powerful voice one afternoon late in
December, beneath the window of Mistress Blüthgen, the carpenter's
widow, and the brawny hand of a burly countryman knocked so vigorously
on the window itself that the glass shivered under the blow.  'Can't
you make room in your house for a small family?  I have always been a
regular customer of yours, and many is the gulden I have spent with
you.'

At this abrupt demand, journeymen and apprentice hastened to the
window.  Six asses, each laden with a heavy sack of flour, stood before
the door of the house lazily turning their long ears backward and
forward, as though they felt quite sure of finding comfortable quarters
there.  Farther down the street was a heavily-loaded waggon with two
powerful brown horses.  In the waggon, almost buried among beds and
other household gear, sat a woman with a baby in her arms.  Four cows,
in charge of a servant-maid, were lowing behind the waggon, and a dozen
sheep stood bleating round them.  Mistress Blüthgen did not take many
seconds to settle with her would-be lodger, whose calling in life was
shown by the floury state of his clothes.

'That is the miller from Erbisdorf,' said Conrad, and at a sign from
his mistress hastened to open the yard gates, that the fugitives might
put their various possessions under cover.  Willing hands were soon at
work unloading and stowing away the goods, and before long the miller,
leaving his wife established in her new home, set off with his waggon
to return to Erbisdorf and fetch the rest of his possessions.

'Praise be to God!' cried Mistress Blüthgen joyfully.  'We shall not
starve now, even if the Swedes do come.  God grant they may neither
take the town, nor set it on fire over our heads with their shells.'

'We must all do our best to prevent it,' said Hillner boldly.  'God
gave us strong arms and brave hearts for that very purpose.'



[1] A small German coin.




CHAPTER IV.

THE ENEMY BEFORE THE TOWN.

The tower of St. Peter's Church rises high into the air above all the
other buildings of Freiberg.  In those early days church-towers were
too often used for purposes with which religion had but little to do.
Grim cannon sometimes stood there, not to fire harmless salutes on days
of public rejoicing, but more often to be loaded with deadly missiles
and fired at an enemy.  Thus it happened that one of these instruments
of death had been planted in the highest chamber of the St. Peter's
Tower at Freiberg.  Round this cannon, on December 27, 1642, stood
Burgomaster Jonas Schönleben and several others, among whom were
Hillner the journeyman, and the town servant Jüchziger.  Winter had
come in all its might, and the cold, particularly up here in the windy
tower, was very severe, while snow lay deep over all the surrounding
landscape.  The eyes of those present were intently gazing beyond the
town, to where, on the hill above the Hospital Church, many cavalry
soldiers could be seen moving about and beginning to take up their
positions.  There had been a good deal of doubt expressed in the town
as to whether the Swedish commander really meant to undertake a siege
up there among the mountains at such an inclement season, with snow
lying thickly on the frozen ground.  The appearance of these horsemen
and their business-like movements seemed to set such doubts at rest
once for all.

'Respected Herr Burgomaster,' began Jüchziger, 'in my humble opinion
those soldiers are not Swedes at all, but Imperialists who have reached
us from Bohemia before the enemy had time to come up.  I should think
Marshal Piccolomini has sent them to frighten the Swedes into leaving
the city alone.'

'What we ardently wish we soon believe,' and Jüchziger's speech found
favour with the Burgomaster no less than with his other hearers.
Hillner alone said respectfully but firmly, 'Herr Burgomaster, they are
Swedes beyond the possibility of doubt.  I know them well; they are
Diedemann's dragoons.'

'And how may you happen to know that, young man?' asked Schönleben
gloomily.

'Because--well, in fact, because I once served among the Swedes
myself,' replied Hillner.

'What!' cried Schönleben in astonishment; 'you a Swede, and here in
Freiberg!'

'I crave your pardon, Herr Burgomaster,' returned Hillner.  'By this
time very few in the Swedish army are really Swedes at all; they are
men gathered in from all nations--not a few of them from Saxony itself.
Many a citizen and countryman too has been driven by starvation to take
up the hard life of a soldier just to get the means of keeping body and
soul together.  Others have been dragged by force into the Swedish
ranks, as I was.  I only served one year, the year in which General
Bannier laid siege to Freiberg.  I was wounded in the course of that
siege, taken prisoner, and brought into the city, and being recognised
for a Saxon born and bred, I was allowed to return to my trade.  I am
just about to become a master carpenter, and have already applied to be
enrolled among the citizens.'

'Your name?'

'John Hillner of Struppen, near Pirna.  Might I entreat your worship's
gracious influence on my behalf?'

'I am not yet acting-Burgomaster,' replied Schönleben rather shortly.
'You must make your application to my brother in office, Burgomaster
Richzenhayn.'

'But your worship will be in office in two or three days,' persisted
Hillner, in a tone of entreaty.  'And when you are so, let me beg you
kindly to remember my request.'

'I'll take good care to see all about that,' muttered Jüchziger to
himself.  'And thank you, Master Shavings, for giving me a handle to
catch hold of you by.'

Hillner's practised eye had not deceived him.  The cavalry, between
seven and eight hundred in number, proved to belong to the enemy, and
sharply attacking the Saxon dragoons sent out to observe them,
compelled them to retire within the fortifications.  Upon this the
commandant at once made all necessary preparations for defending the
town.  Two companies of infantry, under Captain von Arnim, had charge
of the Peter Gate; Major Müffel, with his own men and some others,
mounted guard at the Erbis and Donat Gates; Captain Badehorn, with the
City Guard, garrisoned the Electoral Castle and the Kreuz Gate,
together with the works and space that lay between.  The remaining
citizens were told off to defend the posterns and walls, in which task
they were assisted by companies of country-people and journeymen of the
various city guilds armed in all haste.  Some of these auxiliaries also
waited, drawn up in their ranks before the town hall, ready to march at
a moment's notice to any specially threatened point.  To the brave and
faithful miners were assigned the most dangerous duties of all, such as
extinguishing the fires caused by shells, repairing the defences
wherever the enemy might destroy them, counter-working such mines as
should be directed against the town, and making sorties to destroy the
enemy's trenches and siege-works.  When all the inhabitants capable of
bearing arms had been thus told off to their several duties, the old
men, women, and children were requested to observe the appointed hours
for prayer, and ask help from the Almighty in the city's time of need.

Marshal Torstenson appeared before Freiberg on December 29.  He at once
took possession of the Hospital Church and a mansion near it, both of
these buildings lying at some little distance outside the Peter Gate;
here he planted a battery of artillery, the guns of which were levelled
at the St. Peter's Tower.  Before commencing hostilities, however, the
Swedish marshal sent a trumpeter to the town to inquire whether the
commandant intended to defend the place, what was his name, and whether
he knew him, Torstenson.  The intrepid commandant returned for answer
that his name was George Hermann von Schweinitz, and that he hoped the
marshal would spend no more time in asking questions, but set at once
to work, when he trusted to find him a right valiant soldier.

On the same day an extraordinary surprise befell Conrad Schmidt.  He
was setting things straight in the workshop, which now stood silent and
deserted, when he heard heavy footsteps approaching, and behold, in
marched an armed man whom he seemed to know and yet not to know.  The
visitor wore a broad cocked hat with a little bunch of feathers at the
side, and a short tunic of green cloth, the collar and edges of which
were thickly laced with gold brocade wherever the broad sword-belt girt
round his body permitted them to be seen.  From left shoulder to right
hip hung the bandolier or cartridge-belt, which was adorned with many
golden tufts, and partly hid the lion of the Freiberg city arms
embroidered on his breast.  Tight breeches of green cloth reached to
the ankles, where they were met by high shoes slashed on the inner
side, and fitting much more neatly to the foot than do the shoes worn
in the present day.  A long gun with a large old-fashioned German lock,
and a curved sabre, completed the equipment of the soldier, in whom
Conrad recognised first a member of the city guard known as the
'Defensioners,' and then his old comrade, John Hillner.

[Illustration: Conrad recognised an old comrade, John Hillner.]

'Do I look better now,' asked the newly-fledged soldier, 'than in my
blue apron and coloured jerkin, in the days when I handled the plane
and square?'

'Whoever could have guessed,' cried Conrad, heedless of the question,
'that you would be made a Defensioner!  But are you a citizen, and do
you know your drill?  The Defensioners never admit a man unless he is a
citizen and knows his exercises.'

'I know my drill all right enough,' replied John, 'and I daresay I
shall get my certificate of citizenship.  Your own eyes can tell you
whether I am a Defensioner or not.'

'And you have got a beard coming too,' said Conrad, laughing.  'It's
only a little one yet, but anybody can see that it is a beard.  Hallo!
Why, I declare you look uncommonly like that Swede who shot'--

Hillner's face darkened suddenly, as he interrupted Conrad with the
abrupt question, 'Is the mistress in the house?'

'Here she comes,' said Conrad, pointing to the living-room door,
through which the young widow was just entering the workshop.  What
wonders a uniform can work!  Mistress Blüthgen coloured with pleasure
when she saw her foreman in his new dress, asked how he was in very
friendly tones, and sent the apprentice to fetch some refreshments for
him.

On his way to the cellar Conrad said to himself: 'So at last he has let
his beard grow, and he always used to shave it all off and hide every
scrap of the hair.  Bah! I knew long enough ago that it was as red as
the beard of that ugly Swede who tried to shoot me.  It's an uncommonly
odd thing; coal-black hair and a red beard!'

When the lad reached the living-room again, he found the entire
household, including the miller and his wife, with little Dollie and
her father, gathered round the gaily dressed young guardsman.

'How do matters look as to the Swedes?' asked the miller.

'The marshal has sent a messenger to ask our commandant a question or
two, and has had his answer.'

'And what were the questions and answers?'

The roar of cannon followed close on the words, and the women and
children huddled together in alarm.

'You may give a pretty good guess by that what they were,' replied
Hillner.  'That's Marshal Torstenson's way of telling us how he likes
his answer.'

The thunder of the guns was heard again.  While all were gazing in the
direction whence the reports seemed to come, they saw a flash issue
from the side of St. Peter's Tower, followed in a few seconds by a loud
report.

'There you have question and answer again,' said Hillner.  This
exchange of shots had not gone on for very long, however, before the
fire of the Swedes destroyed the topmost parapet of the tower.  The gun
planted there was silenced, and had to be moved down to a lower
chamber.  By way of covering this movement, the garrison opened a heavy
fire with cannon and double arquebuses on the Swedes, who had ventured
rather nearer to the town than was quite prudent.

'Now I must be off,' said John suddenly.  'The game has begun, and I
must go and take my share in it.  May God keep you all!  Good-bye!'

As he hastened away the assembled household watched his retreating
figure with very various feelings.

The next day, December 31, in spite of the snow and the heavy fire of
the garrison, the Swedes opened their entrenchments before the Peter
Gate, and planted three mortars there, which threw great stones,
shells, and hundred-and-fifty pound shot into the town.

Thus closed the old year 1642, and the new year was not destined to
open upon brighter or more joyful prospects.




CHAPTER V.

THE SOWER OF TARES.

The 1st of January, 1643, had hardly dawned, when the town servant
Jüchziger presented himself before the new acting-Burgomaster, Herr
Jonas Schönleben.

'Respected Herr Burgomaster,' he began humbly, 'permit the most
unworthy of all your servants to be first in wishing you a happy new
year, and congratulating you on the honour you have now attained.  The
new year promises to be a very hard one, and your new office will be
harder still.  I thank God that in these difficult times we are so
happy as to have your worship for our Burgomaster.'

'I am obliged to you, Jüchziger,' replied Schönleben feelingly.  'I am
obliged to you for all your kind wishes.  Yes, these are indeed hard
times in which I undertake the management of public business.  The care
of more than sixty thousand souls is laid on me at a time when even a
Solomon would have had need of all his wisdom.  This thought has been
much in my mind, and last night I followed the wise king's example,--I
commended myself earnestly to God, praying Him to teach me the right,
and then to give me strength and courage to do it.'

'To maintain the right with strength and courage against all comers,
against friends as well as foes,' said Jüchziger.  'For, alas! how many
are there who would be only too glad to interfere with your worship's
rights as Burgomaster, and put all your wise intentions aside to carry
out their own selfish schemes,--men who would be only too glad, in a
word, to leave you the mere name of acting-Burgomaster, and nothing
more.  I am quite sure it is your worship's kindly heart that has made
you give ear to them until misfortune is hanging over the town, and the
citizens and the rest are all bemoaning themselves, while your
worship's false friends raise their heads like snakes, as they are, to
sting you the moment your worship's back is turned.'

Schönleben stood silent, gazing thoughtfully on the ground.

'Did either your worship or any of our other worthy magistrates give
orders for every armed journeyman to receive a gulden a week and two
pounds of bread a day?' continued Jüchziger in an injured tone; 'or
that on this very New Year's Day, eight hundred Freiberg citizens
should tear up the pavement in the streets of their own city to protect
the houses from the Swedish cannon?  Do you know, respected Herr
Burgomaster, that that young Swedish turncoat who was so impudent to
you in the St. Peter's Tower, and demanded to be made a citizen, has
been admitted by the commandant into the City Guard, contrary to all
custom and right?  Who will guarantee that the pretended Saxon is not
really a spy, plotting to betray the city into the hands of the Swedes
the first chance he gets?'

'Is this really so?' asked Schönleben with displeasure.

'If you doubt my word, your worship can easily see for yourself,'
replied Jüchziger.  'The fellow struts about the streets every day in
his Defensioner's uniform, until he nearly runs himself off his legs.'

'Tell Badehorn, the captain of the City Guard, to meet me here in an
hour's time,' said Schönleben angrily; 'and bid him be ready to explain
why he has admitted a stranger among his men in this irregular way.'

'The soldier,' continued Jüchziger, 'risks nothing in war but just his
life.  The citizen risks a great deal more, for he has a wife and
children, hearth and home.  When a town is taken, the soldiers are
either made prisoners of war or allowed to march out unhurt; it is into
the citizen's house that the enemy comes, to ill-use his wife,
children, and servants.  These Swedes now are pressing the siege of our
town so hard that we cannot possibly hold out for long.  They say that
even if Torstenson offers us fair terms, the commandant means to refuse
them without even asking your worship anything about it, and so to give
the town up to be stormed and pillaged.  Now I, in my humble way,
should have thought your worship's voice ought to count for something
in this matter.  Your worship knows what is for the good of the town a
great deal better than a soldier of fortune that has only been here a
few weeks.'

The Burgomaster made no reply.  His thoughtful air, however, as he
stood absently drumming on the window-pane, showed that the
mischief-maker had not spoken in vain.  By way of striking while the
iron was hot, Jüchziger continued: 'As I was on my way to your
worship's house this morning, I saw the Herr Burgomaster Richzenhayn
going to call on the commandant, no doubt meaning to offer him a new
year's greeting.  Are you going to do the same, most noble sir, or
don't you think a Burgomaster of the free city of Freiberg--which, with
refugees, now counts over sixty thousand souls--is at least as good a
man as the commander of two hundred and ninety soldiers?'

Schönleben clasped his hands behind his back, and paced slowly and
thoughtfully up and down his room.

If any reader mentally charges the author with exaggeration here, he
does him an injustice.  The writer has had many opportunities of
knowing officials, both of high and low degree, who were, quite
unconsciously to themselves, tools in the hands of their servants, the
latter being permitted a freedom of speech that would never have been
tolerated in equals.  Such servants have always had the knack of making
themselves indispensable, while preserving an outward appearance of the
deepest humility; and thus it has often come to pass that a lord has
been made to discharge a shaft aimed by his humble vassal.

When Jüchziger's crafty eye saw that the arrow he had thus been
pointing was, so to speak, ready to be loosed from the bow, he adroitly
changed the subject of conversation to something that lay much nearer
his heart.

'You are aware, respected Herr Burgomaster,' he began again in a
wheedling tone, 'that when I entered on my office I married the widow
of Schmidt, my predecessor.  I did it partly out of compassion for the
poor woman, and partly to save the town the expense of keeping her and
her son, who is now a boy of fourteen years old.  My wife, a woman five
years older than myself, all at once went stone blind, so that now I am
forced to have a servant to wait on her.  I had the good fortune to
apprentice the boy to Mistress Blüthgen, the carpenter's widow, but his
mother has petted and pampered him until he is a good-for-nothing, lazy
young rascal.  And now that the workshops are closed and the craftsmen
and journeymen all take their turn at military duty, the boy's mistress
threatens to send him home and put me to the expense of keeping
him,--me that scarcely knows which way to turn for bread to feed my
wife and her servant!  The worst of it is that all my wife's little
property, a small house outside the Peter Gate, has been levelled with
the ground by order of Burgomaster Richzenhayn, and I have never had a
single kreuzer[1] for my loss.  The house was worth three hundred and
fifty gulden.[2]  Gracious Herr Burgomaster, take me and my small
family under your powerful protection, help me to get proper
compensation for my house, and I shall be your grateful servant all the
days of my life.'

'My dear Jüchziger,' interposed Schönleben, 'be assured I will do all I
can.  The times are so bad that the town will want all its strength,
and all its money, to defend itself against the Swedes, and we shall
have to leave our private interests in the background for a while; but
I will see that you suffer no actual want through this misfortune.'

Jüchziger concealed the disappointment he felt on hearing these words,
thanked the Burgomaster for his kind intentions, and took his leave.

'Do not forget to send Badehorn here!' Schönleben called after him as
he went out.  In a comparatively short time he made his appearance
again.

'Captain Badehorn presents his respectful compliments to the Herr
Burgomaster, and begs to inform his worship that he cannot have the
honour of waiting on him at the time mentioned.'  Here Jüchziger
discreetly paused.

'And why not?' asked Schönleben, starting up.  'Are the ties of
obedience that bind citizen to magistrate broken already?'

'He cannot come,' continued Jüchziger, 'because the orders of
Commandant von Schweinitz forbid it.  They are every instant expecting
an attack to be made by the Swedes, and the commandant has ordered
every man to remain at his post.'

'Ah, of course!  That is quite a different thing,' said Schönleben, as
his angry brow grew smooth again.  'Badehorn could not act otherwise,
and it becomes my duty to go and see him if I want my question
answered.'

When Burgomaster Schönleben left his house somewhat later in the day,
the death-like stillness that reigned throughout the usually busy city
weighed on his spirit.  Not a clock was striking, not a bell rang out
its joyful peal in welcome to the new year.  Only at long intervals did
he see a human being pass along the street, and then it was in fear and
haste.  On the other hand, as he went on his way, he saw at various
points large bodies of men standing silent in their ranks, waiting the
call of duty and the word of command.  Here were the vigorous
journeymen of the different trades, and the stalwart country-people;
there the trusty miners, some with nondescript weapons, others armed
with pick-axes, mattocks, and long guns, or provided with ladders and
great buckets of water, in readiness for an alarm of fire.  In the
streets adjoining the Erbis and Kreuz Gates, bustling activity was the
order of the day.  Hundreds of tireless workers were tearing up the
paving of the roadways, while women and children carried away the
stones, and piled them against the houses.  Not a creature complained
of the cold, though it was by no means small.

As Schönleben drew near to the city wall and the Kreuz Gate, one
helmeted head after another came into view, rising above the
battlements, and there was a certain comfortable sense of security in
the knowledge that they were the heads of the armed citizens mounting
guard.  Men standing still feel the cold severely, and accordingly huge
fires had been built in some of the sheltered corners, round which the
armed burghers stood chatting, each with his firelock ready to hand.

On inquiring for Captain Badehorn, Schönleben was told that the captain
had been summoned by the commandant, and that the lieutenant of the
City Guard, Peter Schmohl, had command of the Defensioners in the
absence of his superior officer.  Schönleben tried to make out the
Swedish deserter among the Defensioners present, but was obliged to
return home without having done so.  Hardly had he turned his back on
the fortifications, when the Swedish cannon opened fire on the Peter
Gate and the neighbouring defensive works.  After firing a score of
shots, however, Torstenson sent to the commandant, demanding the
surrender of the town.  He had, he said, paraded his army and fired a
salute in his honour; should any further resistance be offered, he
would the next day attack the town more vigorously, and destroy it.
The commandant sent a polite but firm refusal, and on the following day
Torstenson fulfilled the first part of his threat by opening a terrible
fire against the town.  In six hours his artillery discharged over
thirteen hundred shots, by which the Peter Gate, the adjoining tower,
and a portion of the city wall were all severely injured, while many
shells, and a perfect hailstorm of large stones, passed over the
ramparts into the town itself.  Then the enemy drew near with flying
colours, bringing ladders, for the purpose of scaling the ramparts.  By
way of rendering their task easier, they exploded their first mines,
which, however, did not accomplish all that was expected from them.

Meantime the besieged, on their part, were by no means idle.  To
prevent the storming of the breach at the Peter Gate, two cannon were
planted in Peter Street, the gaps in the ramparts were hastily
repaired, the bastions and inner defences of the gate itself were
strengthened, while large quantities of hand-grenades and other
ammunition were laid in readiness.  Thus prepared, the citizens
confidently awaited the threatened attack, which, however, did not take
place, partly, it was supposed, because of a violent snow-storm that
came on, and partly through the failure of the mines.  Scarcely had the
Swedish troops withdrawn in the evening, when the besieged made a
sortie, in which the miners cleared the moat of the rubbish that
encumbered it, and picked up a considerable number of cannon-balls,
which they carried into the town as valuable booty.

The Swedes maintained their fire throughout the whole of that evening,
and far into the night, to prevent the Freibergers from rebuilding
their fortifications; in the course of this firing a miner and a
forester were killed in the city, and several others among the
defenders severely wounded.  On the next day, January 3d, the firing
was renewed with heavy siege-guns in addition to the lighter pieces,
and a second mine was sprung, making a breach seventy feet wide in the
city wall.  As soon as this result had been achieved, the Swedes, to
the number of two hundred, delivered their first assault against the
Peter Gate.  The fighting, however, only lasted about a quarter of an
hour, and ended in the complete repulse of the besiegers.

During the lull that followed, Jüchziger arrived at the house of
Burgomaster Schönleben, to announce that Colonel von Schweinitz wished
to speak with him, and requested his worship to come to him at once for
that purpose.

Jüchziger's tone and look were carefully calculated to provoke the
Burgomaster's pride, and Schönleben made a sign for the messenger to
withdraw.  'Am I his slave?' he broke out angrily, as soon as the man
was out of hearing.  'Have I not every bit as good a right to send for
him as he has to send for me?  I will soon let him know which of us has
the best right to command here!'

But when the first heat of his anger had spent itself, quieter thoughts
began to prevail.

Schönleben was at heart far too noble and conscientious a man to
sacrifice the welfare of a great city, entrusted to his keeping, to a
sense of his own offended dignity.  'One must not be too particular,'
he said to himself, 'about an affront from a rough old soldier; after
all, he may wish to speak about some matter of importance.  At all
events, I will just go and hear what he has to say.'

With thoughts like these working in his mind, Schönleben betook himself
to the commandant, who laughed boisterously as he shook hands with his
visitor, and began at once with: 'Torstenson has already sent a third
time to demand the surrender of the city, as if he thought he had
knocked us into a cocked hat by that assault we repulsed so easily.  He
has been kind enough, too, to remind me that Breisach, Regensburg,
Gross-Glogau, and Leipzig have all been besieged and taken by the
Swedes, and to add that it is quite out of the question for a badly
fortified place like Freiberg to withstand his power.  We are not to
count on any assistance, and if I reject his present kind offers he
will take the place by storm, and will not spare even the babe at its
mother's breast.'

'And what answer do you propose to send to all this, Herr Colonel?'
asked Schönleben.  'I suppose you sent for me to see what my opinion
might be?'

'Not a bit of it, my dear Schönleben, I assure you,' replied von
Schweinitz, laughing.  'The Swede has received his answer some time
since, and there was not the smallest need to trouble you in any way
about the matter.  The enemy has received from me, take my word for it,
the only possible answer a soldier could send to such a demand, and I
now want to consult with you about pushing matters a little farther.'

'But,' said Schönleben in an offended tone, 'I should have thought that
as acting-Burgomaster I ought at least to have had a word to say where
the weal or woe of the thousands of families under my care was at
stake.  Pray, what is to happen when you and your soldiers are all
killed, the citizens and other combatants worn out with their excessive
duties in this bitter weather, the walls destroyed, the gates taken by
storm, and the Swede bursts in at last to put his threats into
execution?'

'What!' cried Schweinitz, astounded by this sudden outburst.  'Is it
the Burgomaster of the loyal city of Freiberg I hear speaking such
words as these?'

'Undoubtedly it is,' replied Schönleben; 'and when Leipzig chose of her
own free will to open her gates to the Swedish forces, she was not
branded as disloyal.  I am not speaking now of surrender, but of my
absolute right to have at least one word in all that concerns Freiberg.'

'Listen to me, Herr Schönleben,' said Schweinitz roughly, 'and hear my
fixed determination.  Our illustrious prince and lord, John George of
Saxony, has entrusted to me, George Hermann von Schweinitz, the defence
of this city of Freiberg, with orders to hold it to the last man.  That
being so, I stand in no need of advice from you, either now or at any
other time.  As commandant, I am here to give orders, and you are here
to obey them.  Whoever talks to me of surrender shall be considered a
traitor to his country, and treated accordingly.  Basta!'[3]  And
Schweinitz emphasized the close of his speech by a thundering blow of
his fist on the table before him, and turned his back on the
Burgomaster in high dudgeon.  Schönleben himself, as he took his
departure and returned home, was quite as angry a man as the indignant
warrior.

'God is my witness,' said the Burgomaster to himself, when, somewhat
later, he was thinking the matter over more quietly, 'that neither
cowardice nor disloyalty to my prince made me speak as I did.  But when
I think that the town may yet share the awful fate that befell
Magdeburg, then indeed I set the well-being of my thousands of
fellow-citizens far above my own reputation for valour.  Alas! who can
give my fearful heart any assurance about these things?'



[1] A small German copper coin.

[2] A gulden is now worth about two shillings English.

[3] Enough.




CHAPTER VI.

THE SECOND ASSAULT.

On the following day Burgomaster Schönleben took his way to the
council-chamber, which now, indeed, fully deserved its name.  Both
before and after the commencement of the siege, the magistrates had
enough to do in devising necessary plans, even had not their time been
fully occupied in carrying their plans into execution.  Among other
duties, they had to arrange for the accommodation of the wounded, the
burial of the dead, and the bodily needs both of those who were
defending the city and their families; while not neglecting, on the
other hand, to guard against a wasteful use of the provisions, to
preserve the strictest order in the city, and to arrange for many other
things beside.

Schönleben did not give his fellow councillors the slightest hint about
his quarrel with the commandant, but took care quietly to make out
their several opinions, and he did not find one man among them who,
either from fear of the Swedes or from personal inclination, was
disposed to support his views.

After quitting the council-chamber, he could not help noticing, as he
passed along the ranks of the auxiliary troops in front of the town
hall, what an eager and even restless desire was manifest among them to
be led against the enemy.  He betook himself to the cathedral, where
the church-superintendent, Dr. Paul Glaser himself, was conducting the
daily service, and heard this aged servant of the Lord encourage his
great audience to a brave resistance against the foe, and patient
endurance of such trouble as the siege might bring.  'Call to mind, my
brethren,' the good man was saying, 'what was done by the children of
Israel when the wicked King Antiochus and his soldiers troubled them,
and each one had to take refuge in the caverns and rocky clefts of the
mountains.  My hearers, Antiochus and his fierce soldiery did not
torture the Jews of old one whit more unmercifully than these Swedes
have tortured our Saxon brothers and sisters.  And it is vain for you
to think that you, at least, will escape torture and death by resigning
yourselves into their hands; for their hearts are like the nether
mill-stone, and they find an evil pleasure in hearkening to the groans
of those who perish under their torments.  Therefore defend yourselves,
as did the Jews in the days of the Maccabees!  And let not strong men
alone bear their share in the work, but do you aged men, you women and
children, aid with all your feeble might.  Think of the brave women of
the ancient days!  And while you think of them, do not forget that in
our very midst there dwells to-day a brave woman who has had to defend
hearth and home against a murderous foe; not less truly a woman because
this hard task was assigned to her, or because she was found, in the
hour of need, capable of discharging it.  While we pray to God that
such terrible work may never fall to our lot, we cannot but honour this
our brave, and now, alas! our bereaved sister.'

As it happened, the miller's wife from Erbisdorf was herself present
among the worshippers, without the clergyman's knowledge.  As the
glances of those around turned naturally towards her where she sat, she
endured their friendly scrutiny with blushing cheeks and downcast eyes.

The preacher's words had produced a deep effect in the mind of the
worthy Burgomaster.  'If a Christian minister,' said he to himself,
'sees it his duty on this special occasion to encourage the weak, that
they may make a valorous deface, surely I, who rule over strong men,
should be the last to think of surrendering into an enemy's hands the
city entrusted to my care.'

The thunder of the Swedish cannon, as it echoed and re-echoed through
the lofty carved-work of the cathedral roof, made the Burgomaster too
ill at ease to stay longer in the church.  On reaching the open air, he
found that the enemy had never yet poured in so heavy a fire as that of
to-day.  'By it every building was shaken,' says the chronicle, 'and
there was as great alarm in the town as if heaven and earth had been
rolled together.'

This time the enemy did not content himself with merely letting his
heavy guns play against the walls and gates, especially the Peter Gate,
but used his mortars to pour large quantities of stones, balls, and
shells directly into the town itself.

The sights and sounds that saluted Schönleben almost put his
newly-formed resolutions to flight.  He hastened back to the
market-place.

'The enemy is pressing hard on the Meissen and Erbis Gates,' shouted a
breathless messenger, sent in haste to summon assistance from the town
hall, and immediately detachments of the auxiliaries drawn up there
started at the double to strengthen the threatened points.  As they
went they uttered loud shouts of joy, and clashed their weapons till
the market-place rang again.

The crash of bursting shells could now be distinctly heard above the
thunder of the artillery, but happily most of these deadly missiles
fell in the more open spaces and did but little harm.  The miners were
acquitting themselves of their dangerous duties courageously and well
under the able leadership of their brave captain, George Frederick von
Schomberg, and the master miner, Andreas Baumann.  Whenever a column of
smoke rose, or shells fell on a house, or the fearful cry of 'fire' was
heard, their aid was speedily at hand.  Beneath a continuous shower of
stones and bullets they climbed upon roofs, handed buckets of water,
and extinguished flames, heeding neither fire, choking vapour, nor
falling rafters.  Like boys playing at ball, they sprang on the
smouldering shells the moment they touched the ground, and
extinguishing the fusee, rendered them harmless before they had time to
do their fatal work of death and destruction.

As Schönleben turned the corner by the butchers' stalls, some ponderous
iron object fell with a heavy thud just in front of him, sank into the
earth, and disappeared.  At the same moment, two young people came out
of a neighbouring house and ran across the street to the newly-made
hole; they were Conrad Schmidt and Dollie.  Close at their heels
followed a man in a dusty coat, the miller of Erbisdorf.

'Out of the way directly!' he shouted to the thoughtless youngsters.
'Do you both want to be killed?  This is no child's plaything.'  So
saying, he carefully poured into the hole a large bucketful of water he
had brought with him, and then set about digging out the expected shell.

'Well, upon my word!' he cried, in a tone of such astonishment that the
Burgomaster paused in curiosity.  'How long have they used bombs with
iron rings to catch hold of them by?  Why, as sure as I'm here, it is
nothing in the world but a lumbering old iron hundred-weight, that the
Swedes must have stolen out of some good Saxon's shop to batter our
heads in Freiberg with.'  While the worthy miller was still expressing
his astonishment over this new kind of missile, Dollie's father, the
miner Roller, appeared coming down the street, grasping some heavy
object with both hands.  When he recognised the Burgomaster, he let his
burden drop on the ground, and proceeded respectfully to remove his hat.

'What have you got there?' cried the miller, who was near enough to
hear Roller's salutation of the magistrate.  'A blacksmith's anvil?'

'The end of one, at all events,' replied Roller.  Then, turning to
Schönleben, he added, 'Only half a yard more, respected Herr
Burgomaster, and my poor head would have been shattered by this same
anvil.  But it tells a welcome story too; for if the Swedes have to use
things like these to feed their cannon with, they must be running
pretty short of ammunition.'

'That seems to contradict you,' said Schönleben pleasantly, indicating
the tremendous noise of the cannonade that filled the air on all sides.

'Ah, but it's beginning to slacken now, respected Herr Burgomaster,'
shouted the miller joyfully the next minute.  'Don't you hear that the
siege-guns have ceased firing?'

Roller looked thoughtfully up at St. Peter's Tower, from which a
blood-red flag now floated in the air.  In a moment, from all the
hitherto silent towers and steeples, the bells clashed out an alarm.

'That is the signal of an attempt to storm,' said the Burgomaster; then
concealing his own agitation as best he might, he hastened from the
spot.

'A storm!' said Dollie wonderingly to Conrad.  'But there are no
clouds, and no wind; how could there be a storm?'  At this point the
questioner was sent into the house by the miller, who followed her
himself as soon as he had put the iron weight and the anvil away in a
place of safety.  Roller, although not on duty, hastened off to join
his comrades at their work, and Conrad betook himself with all speed to
the home where he knew his poor mother was left alone in her blindness.

The minister had just brought his service to a close, and was leaving
the church; but on hearing the clang of the alarm-bells, he turned back
into the sacred building with the women and children, who poured into
it to beseech divine help in this new and pressing danger.  Just as
Schönleben was passing by the church door, such a frightful and furious
shout arose at the Peter Gate as almost to curdle the Burgomaster's
blood in his veins.  This terrible shout was uttered by the Swedes,
who, two brigades strong, with flying colours and rolling drums, were
now advancing with their storming-ladders towards the moat before the
Peter Gate.  The determined energy with which the advance was made was
as great as the noise of the battle-cry.  The besieged watched the
enemy's approach with stedfast and unshaken courage.  They tightened
their belts, and each man prepared his weapons to give the foe a warm
reception.

'Always bellowing, you Swedish oxen!' shouted a soldier jestingly.  'Do
you expect to frighten us with your noise, or do you think the walls of
Freiberg are going to fall down like those of Jericho?'

A well-aimed cross fire was now poured into the ranks of the besiegers,
as, in dense masses, they filled the moat and struggled to mount the
breach.  A murderous fight then began, in which neither side would
yield an inch.  Although successive volleys of balls decimated the
Swedish ranks, their losses did not in the least deter them from
pursuing their object with the most supreme indifference to death.
Fresh men continually took the place of those that fell, and the forces
of the besieged being thus either divided or broken, the Erbis and
Meissen Gates were both assaulted at once.  The storming-ladders of the
Swedes, a hundred times hurled back into the moat, were as often
replanted against the walls; and although every man who had as yet
succeeded in setting foot on the ramparts had paid for his success with
his life, others were continually ready to follow the same example.

While the enemy kept up their furious battle-cry, the besieged, on
their side, did not fail to encourage one another with joyful shouts.
There were even some rash spirits, who, deserting the sheltering
breastworks, sprang into the breach, and saluted the dense ranks of the
enemy with 'morning-stars'[1] and heavy broadswords.  During this
attack, which lasted a full hour, the Swedish fire was steadily
maintained against gates, walls, and towers, occasionally even against
the breach itself, where it inflicted some loss on besiegers as well as
besieged.  The former, under the command of Generals Wrangel and
Mortainne, were led by these officers in person to storm the breach.
Field-Marshal Torstenson, a martyr to gout, could only sit at the
window of his quarters in the hospital, directing the attack, and
chafing inwardly at its continued want of success.  While the battle
still raged round the Peter, Meissen, and Erbis Gates, and the Swedes
fancied the Freibergers a prey to anxiety and fear, the undismayed
miners made a sortie through the Donat Gate, destroyed the Swedish
siege-works that lay in that quarter, slew a number of the enemy, and
returned into the city, bringing with them several prisoners.

The general fight was still raging; the shout of battle, the thunder of
the guns, the confused din of the storming-parties, and the showers of
great stones and shot still filled the air, as the Burgomaster,
agitated by growing anxiety, and unable to find rest anywhere, turned
his uneasy steps towards the Peter Gate, the most threatened point of
all.  It must be remembered that to a brave man like Schönleben it was
a far harder task to stand by, a mere spectator of this important
battle, than it would have been to take an active share in its turmoil
and danger.  To him the assault on the gates, which had perhaps lasted
an hour, appeared to have been going on for ever, while those who were
actually engaged in the strife would have sworn it had been an affair
of a few minutes at the most.

In no small danger of his life, the Burgomaster forced his way, through
a storm of bullets and falling masonry, into the strong tower that
protected the Peter Gate.  Having at last succeeded in ascending the
narrow stone stairs and reaching the vaulted guard-room, he was able to
make out indistinctly, through the smoke and dust that filled the room,
the forms of a number of men who were keeping up an incessant and
almost deafening fire on the enemy through the narrow loop-holes with
which the thick walls were pierced.

'They fly!' shouted one of these marksmen in a stentorian voice.
'Hurrah!  Now to give them something to help them on their way.'  So
saying, he lighted one hand-grenade after another, and hurled them with
all his force through the loop-hole.  'Now, here with the double
arquebuses!  Dippolt, have you loaded them all?'  As he spoke, he
seized one of the pieces that stood in readiness, and fired it after
the flying Swedes.

The face was so blackened with gunpowder and smoke as to be almost
unrecognisable, but Schönleben knew the voice at once for that of the
brave Commandant von Schweinitz, who thus both by word and action
encouraged his men to do their utmost against the enemy.

Hastily turning round, and catching sight as he did so of the
Burgomaster's face, the soldier frankly stepped up to the new-comer and
shook him kindly by the hand, saying in a hearty tone:

'So you are here, Burgomaster!  There,' and he pushed the visitor
good-humouredly towards a loop-hole; 'have a look at the vagabonds
showing us their heels.  They'll not carry more than a third of their
storming-ladders back with them.  So, now you have come, you can help
us make merry, Schönleben.  I feel so pleased I scarcely know how to
contain myself.'

A great shout of joy rose from the ranks of the besieged at sight of
the flying Swedes.

'Right, my children!' cried their commander.  'Shout "Victory" to your
heart's content.  Schönleben, I am proud of commanding your
Freibergers.  They have behaved like veteran and brave soldiers.  I
must give the palm to your City Guard, who have held the most dangerous
post, the one at the breach by the Kreuz Gate, with such calm
determination that the Swedes never once set foot on the ramparts.
Victory, victory!' he shouted, as the jubilant cry rose again from the
ranks below.

Then Schönleben spoke out honestly and heartily.  'Colonel von
Schweinitz,' he said, 'I trust you will pardon the speech I made to you
not long since; it might well annoy you.  Henceforth I say with you,
"Welcome death rather than surrender to the Swedes!"'

'Why, what is all this about?' said Schweinitz heartily; 'I was every
bit as much to blame as you were.  I'm a rough soldier that doesn't
stop to pick his words.  You mustn't take too much notice of my
speaking out a bit hastily now and then.'

While the two worthy men were making up their quarrel, Schönleben
noticed that the skirt of the other's coat was smeared with blood.

'You are wounded,' cried the Burgomaster in alarm.

'I had not noticed it,' answered Schweinitz carelessly, looking down at
the splash of blood on his coat.  'Possibly a chip of masonry or some
ball that has glanced aside may have grazed my hip.  The Swedes have
paid for it dearly enough, anyhow.'

With a brightened and almost joyful heart Schönleben took leave of the
commandant.  As the former left the tower and gate, he saw the besieged
clambering down into the city moat to make prisoners the wounded Swedes
who lay there, and to bring in the firelocks, pikes, and
scaling-ladders the enemy had left behind.  At the same time, men were
set busily to work to repair and rebuild the walls and other defensive
works that had suffered injury.  The bells were silent, and the
glorious words of the Te Deum--'We praise Thee, O God! we acknowledge
Thee to be the Lord'--could be plainly heard as they sounded solemnly
forth from the various churches,--words in which the Burgomaster joined
with a most devout and thankful heart.



[1] The mediaeval 'morning-star' was a heavy war-club thickly studded
with short iron spikes.




CHAPTER VII.

CONRAD UNDER THE WINDOW-SEAT.

It was early in the afternoon, yet the long winter night already lay
dark over the city of Freiberg.  At intervals the gloom was lighted up
for a few minutes by the lurid glare of some burning house set on fire
by a hostile shell, and as quickly extinguished by the prompt
watchfulness and energy of the fire-brigade, whose members had to
struggle against a strong wind that by fanning the flames made them
doubly dangerous.  The streets were almost deserted.  Only now and then
might some wayfarer be dimly descried stealing along, keeping close in
to the houses so as to gain some slight protection from the falling
stones and cannon-balls.  Among these wayfarers was Conrad Schmidt,
hastening from his mistress' house to his mother's distant dwelling.
When he had reached his destination, and made sure that his dreaded
stepfather was away, he entered the living-room.  To his great surprise
it was dark and cheerless, and his blind mother sat alone in the midst
of it shivering with cold.  By way of warming herself, she had taken
the sleek tabby cat into her lap and folded her chilled hands over
pussy's warm fur.  The whole scene sent a pang through the boy's warm
and loving heart.

'But, my dearest mother!' he cried, 'has not Hannah got back yet from
her parents'?  Let me go and call her.'

The woman shook her head sorrowfully.  'Hannah is never coming back,'
she said.  'Your stepfather has turned her off because she was no use
now and ate so much.'

The boy clasped his hands.  'No use now!' he repeated.  'Now! when he
is away himself all day and most of the night too,--when the lives even
of people who have their eyesight are in danger,--when the blind need
help more than ever!  Oh, my poor, dear mother!'

'If it were not for the leaving you and dear old pussy here that
Jüchziger has many a time threatened to kill,' sobbed the blind woman,
'I would rather die--die by some Swedish bullet!  Why should I wish to
live?  When your father comes home he beats me if he finds the room
cold, and do what I will I can't make the fire burn in the stove.  The
tinder will not light, though I have often struck the flint and steel
together till I made my poor hands quite sore.  No one lives in the
house but ourselves, so I cannot get my lamp lighted, and if I take it
across the street to a neighbour's, the wind blows it out again before
I get back.'

Conrad set energetically to work, and very soon a brisk fire was
crackling in the great stove that stood at one end of the room, gaily
ornamented with its long rows of coloured Dutch tiles.  He placed his
mother carefully in a warm corner, sat down beside her, and then began:
'Rudorf the journeyman is in bed at our house with a broken leg.  It's
not at all dangerous, and he gets his gulden of pay and his allowance
of bread regularly every week.  I only wish I was a journeyman, then I
could go and fight and earn some money for you.  And Hillner the
Defensioner has got on first-rate; the officers all like him, and the
governor himself talks to him ever so often.  Our mistress loves to see
him come into the house, and I'm sure she will marry him as soon as the
siege is over, and he is made a citizen and a master carpenter.  But
then we can't even begin to guess when the siege will be over, for
these Swedes keep attacking the town worse than ever.  You would think
they might have been satisfied with knocking ever so many of our houses
to pieces, but now, what with their new batteries, and their new
trenches, and nobody knows how many fascines'--

'Alas, alas!' interrupted Mistress Jüchziger.  'What does a poor blind
woman like me know about such dreadful things?  Have you a morsel of
bread in your pocket, my dear boy?  Pussy and I have had nothing to eat
since early this morning.'

'My poor mother,' cried her warm-hearted son, 'and has it come to
this--that in our own Freiberg, where not even a beggar is allowed to
starve, the good and honoured wife of the town servant himself cannot
get enough to eat?'

'Your father locks everything up as if I was a thief,' said the woman,
'and he has been out ever since mid-day, so we couldn't get anything.'

'Here, dear mother,' cried Conrad, 'take this.  I always take good care
now-a-days to have a crust of bread in my pocket.  I only wish I could
give you something nice to eat with it, but that's all I have.'

The woman broke off a morsel for the expectant cat before beginning to
satisfy her own hunger.  'Puss is only a dumb creature,' she said by
way of excuse, 'but she is as faithful as many Christians, and a good
deal kinder than your stepfather.'

'Yes, mother,' replied Conrad, 'so she is.  All he wanted was your
little house, and now that's gone he is just showing us what he really
is.'

'It was for your sake I promised to be his wife,' said the woman, 'that
there might be somebody to look after you when I am gone.'

'I know, I know!' said Conrad.  'And how very kind and sweet-spoken he
always used to be to me while he was courting you!'

'He is coming!' said the woman in sudden terror.  'I can hear his step.
Quick, hide yourself!'

There was let into the wall of the room, just below the window, a seat,
from which, in order to conceal household articles laid there, a low
curtain had been hung, thus making a sort of rude cupboard.  Conrad
crept behind this curtain with all speed, just as his mother succeeded
in hiding her crust of bread in her pocket.  Immediately afterwards
Jüchziger entered the room without a word of greeting to his wife.  He
threw his hat on the seat beneath which his stepson was crouching, and
said angrily: 'It's a dog's life now-a-days.  On one's legs day and
night, always in danger, and never a kreuzer[1] by way of reward.  All
for the fatherland, forsooth, say the patriots!  I am my own
fatherland, and I keep my patriotism in my purse.  Ever since the fat
citizens and journeymen took to cutting about the streets with their
pop-guns, they are all grown such big men that if one of them happens
to set eyes on you, you must jump out of his way like a bewitched frog.
Wife!  Wife, I say!  Here's a batzen.[2]  Run across to Seiler's and
fetch me a herring.  I begin to feel horribly hungry.'

The blind woman stood for some seconds like one astounded by such an
unusual order.  Conrad was on the point of creeping out from his
hiding-place at all hazards, to go himself and fetch what was wanted.
He was only restrained by the thought that if he did, he would be very
likely to bring on his mother something a great deal worse than just
having to go across the street for a herring.

'Well, what's the matter now?' shouted Jüchziger, bringing his fist
down with a thundering crash on the table.  'Are you going, or am I to
start you?'

The blind woman had hardly groped her way out at the door, before
Jüchziger went on:

'Can't some Swedish bullet or falling stone rid me of this blind witch?
Nothing turns out as I want it to.  Here are Schweinitz and Schönleben
the best of friends again, and all the trouble I've been at with them
just so much labour lost.  And then there's that brazen-faced
journeyman I haven't paid off yet for his impudence in the forest; it
seems as though I am not to get a hold on him.  And never a kreuzer
have I seen the colour of, to pay me for my house they pulled down.
All right!  It may turn out that what Freiberg won't pay for, the
Swedes will.  I have to look after the prisoners, so I shall stand a
first-rate chance to kill two birds with one stone,--do the business of
the conceited Defensioner, and help myself to my money at the same
time.  What, you ugly beast, are you there?'

This closing remark was addressed to the cat, which Jüchziger now spied
sitting by the curtain, behind which Conrad was playing the part of an
unwilling listener.  His stepfather picked up the heavy boot-jack, and
hurled it at the cat; it missed her, but struck Conrad so sharply on
the shin, that though the thick curtain broke the full force of the
blow, the lad could hardly suppress a cry of pain.  When, a little
later, he saw his stepfather go into the inner room to hang up his
great-coat, the boy ventured out, and, creeping on tip-toe across the
living-room, managed to escape unobserved into the street.  Just
outside the door he met his mother returning, carrying the herring in
her left hand, while with the right she groped her way along by the
houses.

'Oh, mother,' he said, in a low, earnest voice, 'don't stay a minute
longer!  My mistress' house has lots of visitors in it, but I'm sure
they would find a corner for you somewhere.  And you and puss wouldn't
be nearly so hungry if you lived with us as you are here.'

'It cannot be, my son,' replied the blind woman.  'A true wife does not
leave her husband.  If I were to do so, the other women would point the
finger of scorn at me and call me names; and quite right, too.  If I
can do nothing else, I will at least take my good name with me down to
the grave, and God grant it may be soon.'  So saying, she hastened into
the house, lest she should anger her husband by keeping him waiting.

Conrad took his way homeward with a heart overflowing with respect for
his mother.  On his way he met Dollie, carefully carrying in her hand a
bundle wrapped in a cloth.

'Wherever are you off to so late as this, Dollie?' he asked in
astonishment.  'Are you not afraid to go along the dark streets with
all the shot and shell flying about?'

'Oh, I've got used to them a long time ago!' said the little one very
composedly.  'I always think it doesn't seem nice when the town is
quiet now.'

Conrad had to confess that she was right, for people certainly do
become accustomed to everything, even to the greatest danger.

'I am taking father some warm soup, because he is on duty to-night,'
Dollie went on; 'then he won't feel the dark night so cold.'

'But why does not your mother take it?' asked Conrad.

'Oh, she isn't at home,' answered Dollie.  'She had to go with a great
many more women to fetch water from the Münzbach,[3] and carry it right
into the upper town.  The Swedes have done something to the water-pipes
there, and there is no more water.  Only think! if a fire were to
begin, and they couldn't put it out!  And for fear the water should
freeze in the buckets, the women have to carry it in the little
brewers' coppers, and keep the fires burning under it too!'

'I will go with you,' said Conrad; and the little maiden, though
professing to be so brave, seemed by no means sorry to have a companion.

At last the two succeeded in reaching the neighbourhood of the Peter
Gate, where a detachment of miners were acting as auxiliaries to the
regular troops.  Here, as at the other threatened points, soldiers,
citizens, and journeymen were all actively engaged.  Such parts of the
fortifications as had been either injured or destroyed by the enemy's
artillery-fire and mines, were now being hastily repaired.  The Peter
Gate and the barbican in front of it showed unmistakeable signs of the
enemy's efforts to force an entrance into the town,--heaps of stones,
and yawning holes and pits, alternated with covered galleries,
_chevaux-de-frise_, uprooted palisadoes, and other works which the
Freibergers were in hot haste trying to strengthen.  The steady
industry of so many hundred busy hands in the cold and darkness of that
winter night must have struck an onlooker with surprise; but probably
his surprise would have been even more excited by the unusual silence
in which such heavy work was being done.  That they might not attract
the enemy's attention and so draw down an attack, the besieged were
using the miners' dark lanterns, which open only on one side, instead
of such torches or other lights as would generally be employed.  From
the top of the city wall and gate, these lanterns now shone down like
the glimmering fires of innumerable glowworms, while, through the dusky
twilight, lit up by their flickering rays, the soft white snowflakes
fell steadily and quietly.  The dim light and the falling snow combined
to transform the brave defenders into so many ghost-like shapes.  One
such weird figure could be descried, leaning silent and motionless
against the parapet at the top of the tower, his heavy double arquebuse
by his side.  No part of the man stirred save the restless eyes, and
they wandered incessantly to and fro, striving to make out the
movements of the enemy.  The miners, busy constructing a new moat just
within the battered Peter Gate, looked, as they glided about, more like
mountain-gnomes than human beings.  If one of these same human gnomes,
with weather-beaten, swarthy face and wrinkled forehead framed in its
snowy hood, had suddenly stepped out into the circle of light cast by
one of the dark lanterns, people would have been strongly tempted to
declare they had seen a ghost.

Up there on the Hospital Mountain, where the enemy's headquarters lay,
great watch-fires were blazing through the thick, snow-laden air.  Now
and then the glare of a mortar shone suddenly out, followed after a few
seconds by the thundering explosion.  Then a fiery curve traced itself
against the sky, the end of which advanced hissing towards the city,
and at last burst somewhere among the houses.  Such was the picture
that presented itself to the eyes of the two children when they reached
the Peter Gate on that dark winter's night.



[1] A small German coin worth about a farthing English.

[2] A small German coin equal to four kreuzers.

[3] The river that flows through Freiberg.




CHAPTER VIII.

ORDINARY INCIDENTS OF A SIEGE.

'Dear Wahle,' said Dollie to a miner, who, with the assistance of
several others, was carrying a great palisade past the spot where the
children stood, 'please have you seen anything of my father?  I've
brought him a can of warm soup.'

'Warm soup!' said the man jocosely; 'why, the enemy cook enough of that
for us, only they warm us in rather a different way.  Well, child, your
father is down in the moat with a lot of other men, bringing in wood
that the enemy had piled up ready to burn us out.  When they found
their cannon could not knock a hole through at the Peter Gate here,
they thought they would have a try what fire could do.'

'It looks,' said another, 'very much as if the enemy read their Bibles.
Wasn't that what Abimelech did when he couldn't get round the people of
Sichem any other way?'

'Ah, but when he tried it again at another place,' laughed Wahle, 'a
woman dropped a stone on his head from the top of the tower, and that
finished him.'

'May the same fate soon overtake Torstenson!' said a third.

'Oh, he'll never venture up here,' said Wahle.  'Don't you know the
gout has him in tight grips? why, he can't even stir out of his
arm-chair.  His people have to play cat's paw for him, and burn their
fingers just when he bids them.'

'I just wish,' said the other, 'that Torstenson might go into such a
rage at not taking the town, that the gout might rise into his body.
Then he would die, and a good thing for us!'

'Come, come!' said Wahle more seriously; 'we ought not to wish even our
enemies such evil as that.'

The words were hardly uttered when a dozen musket-shots rang out from
without the wall that surrounded the moat.  Several balls whistled over
the heads of the two children, and the miner who had just been rebuked
fell with a cry of, 'Oh, I am killed!'

His comrades laid down the palisade they were carrying, picked up the
wounded man, and bore him into the nearest covered way, where they laid
him for the time in a sheltered corner.  The two children, more
frightened at the sight of the man's fall than at their own danger,
were quite at a loss which way to go next.  In another moment, however,
Dollie forgot all her trouble as she caught sight of her father coming
towards her, his arquebuse in his hand.

'You here, little one!' he cried, and hastily drew the children with
him into the gallery, behind the protecting walls of which the
combatants found shelter from the enemy's fire.  'A queer kind of
supper,' he said, as he hastily gulped down the contents of the can.
'One hardly has time even to say, "Grant, O Lord, what I partake!"  And
yet I ought to be thankful, too, that I am here to drink my soup at
all.  How many miners, citizens, peasants, soldiers, and even young
children, has this siege cost us already!  St. Peter's churchyard is
getting too small to hold them all.'

'Yes, father,' said Dollie.  'And poor Hofmann the woodcutter will
never be able to eat any more soup.  He fell down quite close by us as
if a thunderbolt had hit him.'

'Hofmann!' said Roller hastily; 'your god-father, child, and my old
friend?  But,' he went on, 'who is that lying in yon dark corner?'

He rose and went across in that direction.  As he did so, he caught the
sound of a groan, and a feeble voice murmured: 'Ah, merciful Father, do
not let the arch-enemy prevail against me, or what will become of my
three boys, all of them stampers at the Prince's Shaft.  If I must die,
do Thou take under Thy care my wife and my four poor girls.  They are
at the coppersmith's house in the Erbis Street.'

'What is it?' said Roller, turning his dark lantern so that its light
fell for a moment on the dying man's pale face.

Hofmann lifted his failing eyes towards the approaching figure, and
said in a broken voice, and with long pauses between: 'Comrade, there
is a cold Swedish bullet rankling in my vitals.  Promise me, old
friend, that I shall have an honourable burial; not in this shabby
miner's dress, but in my new uniform.  And when they lay me in my last
resting-place, let the lads say: "A good journey to thee, old comrade!"'

[Illustration: 'Promise me that I shall have an honourable burial; and
let the lads say, "A good journey to thee, old comrade!"']

'A good journey to thee, old comrade,' responded Roller heartily, as
Hofmann, putting his hand to his side, stopped abruptly.

Conrad and Dollie both followed Roller's example, as he folded his
hands on his breast and began to repeat the simple words of the 'Our
Father' over the dying man.  The hollow roar of the Swedish siege-guns
outside, and the constant dull thud of the cannon-balls striking the
great earthwork that covered the gallery, formed a strange contrast to
the solemn little service within, beside one whose spirit was taking
its flight.

'You have come at a most unfortunate time, children,' said Roller, when
all was over.  'You had better stay here till things are quieter
outside, for the stones and bullets strike just anybody at random, and
make no difference between big and little.  I will tell you when it is
safe for you to go; stay here till I come back.'

As Roller turned to go, he felt his leg suddenly clasped in Dollie's
little arms.  'Oh, do stay here with us, dear father!' sobbed the
child.  'Something might happen to you like what happened to poor
Hofmann there.  And then mother and I couldn't live any longer--indeed
we couldn't; we should be quite sure to die.'

But Roller gently loosened the little maiden's hold, saying kindly as
he did so; 'Dollie must be quiet and good, and God will take care of
father.  We do not know whether we are safer in here or out under the
clear sky; but the great God, our heavenly Father, can take care of us
wherever we are.  Whether I am at work in the deep mine, or in front of
the Swedish guns, or sitting quietly at home with you and dear mother,
death might come to me if it was God's will, and it will never come
until it is His will.  Dollie must try to remember this, and think that
her dear father is doing his duty.'

When he was gone, Dollie said sadly: 'The hateful war!  Why ever do the
stupid soldiers make it?  I am sure they would all rather sit by their
stoves at home, or else stop in bed, than come to Freiberg and make us
all so unhappy.'

Conrad thought for a minute or two, and then said: 'Yes, war is a very
funny thing; the people who begin it never have any of the trouble.
And then it soon gets so big they don't know what to do, because they
can't stop it.  My mistress says this war was begun because of
religion, and they've been fighting for twenty-three years, longer than
I can remember.  I daresay they want to drive religion out of the world
altogether, for I don't think anybody can ever expect to make people
good by firing off cannons at them.  Our schoolmaster says it's like
cutting a man's head off to cure him of the toothache.  But oh, Dollie,
I sometimes feel so sad you can't think.  You have a good father to
love you and take care of you, and be very sorry when anything hurts
you; but nothing in the world would make my stepfather happier than for
some one to go and tell him I was dead.  I always have to hide like a
wicked thief when he comes, and I'm sure it is a great deal worse for
poor mother than it is for me.  Nobody but God knows how father uses
her, and I daren't go and protect her.'

'Listen!' said Dollie anxiously.  'Hofmann is coming to life again down
there in the corner.  I can hear him breathing.'

Both children listened.

'That noise isn't Hofmann,' said Conrad.  'It comes out of the ground.'
He laid himself down and listened again, with his ear close to the
earth.  'I think it's the Swedes digging some more mines,' he said at
last.

'What are they?' said Dollie.  'Like father's?'

'Oh dear, no!' replied the boy, proud to show off what he knew.  'Long
passages they dig through the ground till they get underneath the city
wall, or else one of the gates.  Then the Swedes put a great box full
of gunpowder in the end of the passage, and set light to it, and
then--bang! they blow everything all up into the air together.'

'Oh, do come away directly,' said Dollie in a fright, 'or else we shall
all be blown up.'

'Have you forgotten what your father told us?' asked the boy.

'Oh, no indeed!' said Dollie; 'but whatever shall we do?  Oh, if father
or mother would only come!'

Conrad ventured to one of the loop-holes to look out; it was but
little, however, that he could discern in the thick darkness outside.
Here and there he saw the gleam of a light or the flash of a weapon; at
times some dark mass seemed to move before his eyes, or his ears were
saluted by a mysterious sound, then all was silent again.  Suddenly, on
the side that lay open towards the town, two men entered the covered
gallery, which was just at that moment untenanted by soldiers.

'As I tell you, Schönleben,' said a deep bass voice, 'the lad is dearer
to me than almost any other in the City Guard.  Cool, steady, and
brave, experienced too as an old soldier, I have chosen him for these
reasons to report to me from time to time how things go at the Castle
and the Kreuz Gate.  But I thank you all the same for your information,
though what the prisoners say, especially about an old comrade, is not
always to be trusted.  Still, I will have the lad closely watched, and
if there's the least sign of anything amiss, put him where he can do no
further mischief.'

The commandant, for it was he, followed by the Burgomaster, stepped to
the loop-hole from which Conrad had hastily withdrawn.

'This is our weak point,' continued Schweinitz--'the point at which the
enemy would like to strike; but they shall find it a hard nut to crack
yet, though gate and tower are little better than ruins.  Ah! my
friend, give me the devotion and bravery of the Freibergers before any
number of bastions, if I am to hold the foe at bay.  As things stand,
our hopes of a speedy raising of the siege grow side by side with the
progress of the Swedes.  I would willingly have more certain news.  I
say, Schönleben, couldn't you find me some trustworthy messenger that I
could send to the imperial marshal?'

The entrance of a man into the gallery cut short the answer.

'Well, Hillner, what is it?' asked Schweinitz.

'Your excellency,' replied the Defensioner, saluting, 'it is thought
advisable, in order to strike with greater effect at the enemy's works
before the Peter Gate, to open new loop-holes in the lower part of the
Wetter Tower, those in the upper storey having been rendered useless by
the enemy's fire.'

'Good!' said Schweinitz; and then, turning away from the messenger, he
spoke aside with the Burgomaster.

Meantime Conrad sidled up to his former fellow-workman.  'Do stop with
us now you have come,' he said, catching hold of the Defensioner's
coat.  'The Swedes are digging another mine; just listen at them
hammering.  I guess we and this old wooden box shall all go flying up
into the air together pretty soon.'

As Hillner laid his ear to the ground to listen, Roller entered with
several pieces of wood under his arm.

'Now you two can go,' he said to Dollie and Conrad; 'it's quieter now.
And here are a few sticks I've brought in out of the moat; take them
home; when I come I'll bring some more.'

'Roller,' called the Burgomaster, 'you are exactly the man I wanted.
Come to me as soon as you go off duty, we have something to say to you.'

'Very good, respected Herr Burgomaster,' replied Roller, and then
accompanied his little daughter out of the gallery to see her safely
started on her homeward way.  'Why, where is Conrad Schmidt loitering?'
he asked in surprise.

The boy was standing by his friend the Defensioner, who now sprang up
from the ground and hastened to his commanding officer.  'Your
excellency!' he cried, 'down in that corner the Swedes can be
distinctly heard tunnelling through the earth.  They are almost under
the gallery now.'

'Quick, then, to countermine them!' said Schweinitz, and immediately
left the gallery to give the necessary orders.  Then began a severe
subterranean battle.  Both sides made desperate exertions in the
attempt to get the upper hand, and for very plain reasons the
Freibergers did their utmost to steal a march on the enemy.  Although
the ground was frozen so hard that it had first to be thawed by the use
of fire, two hours had not passed away before the untiring energy of
the miners had driven a heading of tolerable length, the foremost man
in which stood Roller.

'We too may yet find that this is our last day,' said Roller composedly
to the man working behind him.  'Every man's day is coming, whether he
likes it or not.  And besides, if the Swedes can give up their lives
for mere money, cannot we do as much for fatherland, and wife and
child?  Therefore to work with a will!  So long as we can hear the
Swedes tunnelling, there is no need to light the match.'

'Now the sounds have ceased,' he muttered to himself after a short
interval.  'It will soon be all over with us.'  And he picked and
shovelled away with redoubled energy, lest his comrades should abate
their efforts on noticing that the Swedes had ceased work.

'The earth gets loose and spongy,' he said a little later.  'We must be
approaching the Swedish mine.  Now then for water, and hot water first
of all, so as to get through the earth the quicker!'

Some of the miners went above ground and passed a long trough through
the heading.  This they sloped and kept constantly filled with water,
which rushed gurgling down at the lower end, for the purpose of
drowning the Swedish mine.  Among those busy bringing the water in
firemen's buckets and other utensils, was the miller of Erbisdorf, who
had harnessed a team of his donkeys into a large sledge, loaded with
steaming hot water.

'Slow and steady wins the race,' was his greeting to Roller, as he
pointed to his long-eared friends.  'Our wives are brewing away yonder
as though they had their coppers full of good wort instead of water out
of the Münzbach.  Well, the Swedish tipplers are quite welcome to have
it all in their mine.'

As Roller and the miller were just in the act of lifting the heavy cask
from the sledge to the trough, a dull report was heard under the earth.
The ground quivered, then opened, and a red stream of fire gushed
forth, accompanied by clouds of smoke and stones.  The Swedes had
observed the presence of an unusual number of people at this point, and
had exploded an already prepared mine.  There was one loud, involuntary
cry from those injured by the explosion, then all was still.

The dead might try to make their way out of the grave itself with as
good hope of success as there was for the imprisoned Freibergers to
force a passage through the mass of _débris_ that covered them; indeed,
they could never have done it had not many stout arms and willing
hearts aided in their desperate toil.

'Thirteen men and four beasts of burden!' sorrowfully exclaimed Roller,
who had himself escaped destruction as though by a miracle.  'And my
brave old comrade, the miller of Erbisdorf, gone at last.  We two were
carrying the very same cask of water, yet here am I, while he is gone.
Ah, it is indeed true, "The one shall be taken and the other left."'

'I say, neighbour Roller!' cried a muffled voice that seemed to come
from the depths of the earth, 'help me on to my legs again, for mercy's
sake.  Here are clods, and stones, and bits of wood jamming me in on
all sides; and here's a donkey's head, and I declare he's trying to
prick his ears!'

With Roller's help the worthy miller was soon landed once more on
_terra firma_.  He found himself severely shaken and bruised, but not
otherwise injured, and begged his comrade to see him safe home.
Although his body was in pain, his spirit was by no means cast down.
When he learned that besides killing three men and severely wounding
five others, the exploded mine had cost the lives of two of his
donkeys, he remarked: 'Ah, ha!  Then they too have died for their
fatherland, and will sleep in the temple of fame.  I can tell you one
thing, though; if the flour does choke us millers up a bit, I'd ten
times rather have to do with that than with your Freiberg earth.
There's something so big and massive about everything belonging to war,
you very soon get enough of it.  What will my Anna Maria say when she
sees her husband brought home like a flattened pancake?'

As soon as Roller had seen his friend safely housed, and had made
himself presentable, he hastened back to the Peter Gate, which seemed,
as he approached it, to be all in flames.  The wood and twigs the
Swedes had piled against the defensive works before the bastion, had
been set on fire.  The rising flames cast a dreadful glare around,
destroyed several of the works in question, and set fire to parts of
the tower above the gate, which, falling into the covered gallery in
rear of the bastion, threatened to set that too in a blaze.  The
besieged were able to avert this last calamity by the steady use of
water, though the enemy pressed them hard all the time with
artillery-fire and hand-grenades.

'The Swedes have set all the elements to work against us,' said Roller
to himself.  'They have cut off our water supply, made war on us under
the earth, tried to blow us up into the air, and now they turn against
us the might of fire.  And side by side with these great powers of
nature stalks the pale phantom of death.'




CHAPTER IX.

DIVERSE HUMAN HEARTS.

'The miner Roller waits without, respected Herr Burgomaster!' announced
Jüchziger, the town servant.

'Bid him come in,' said Schönleben.  'Yes, colonel,' he continued,
turning to Schweinitz, who was with him; 'I assure you, if confidence
may be put in any human being, you may trust this man.  He is brave,
faithful, and yet shrewd.  He will come back as surely as a dove
returns to its young.  You may send him without hesitation.'

'Would you like to earn three ducats, my good fellow?' Schweinitz asked
Roller as the latter entered the room.

'How, your excellency?' inquired the miner.

'You are to take despatches from us to Marshal Piccolomini in Bohemia,
lay our condition before him in full, and get him to hasten to our
assistance.  The service is not without some danger, for you will have
to make your way twice through the enemy's lines, and die rather than
betray your secret.'

'So I should suppose,' replied Roller dryly.

'Well, what do you say? are you willing to do it, or not?' inquired
Schönleben and Schweinitz together.

'This is no question of a reward,' said Roller.  'You command, and I
obey.'

'You are a fine fellow,' said Schönleben heartily; 'and I will myself
give you a couple of ducats extra if you do your business
satisfactorily.'

'I crave your pardon, respected Herr Burgomaster!' replied Roller, 'I
do not sell my life for silver or gold, for if so I should take sides
with friend or foe, according to which would give me the highest pay.
But it seems to me that we all make up, as it were, one body in what we
have to do, to defend town, wife and child, from the enemy.  Very well,
then; you are the head, and I am one of the least members, that has to
do just what the head bids it.  That is what I believe, and I try to
fight bravely and do my duty because I believe it.'

Schweinitz shook the brave miner heartily by the hand, saying: 'With
men like you I can hold the mountain-city for a long time indeed, but
we must not neglect means that may help rid us of the enemy.  Come with
me, my good fellow, while I make out your papers.'

The same day several children, with Roller's Dollie among them, were
crouching round the air-holes of the cellar under the town hall.  'Oh,
we do so want to see the Swedish prisoners!' said the child to Conrad,
who happened to be passing on the way to his mother's house.  'One of
them has such a dreadful great beard,' Dollie continued; 'I am sure he
must be General Wrangel's bagpiper.  Only think, if he had his pipes
here, he could play to us!  Just peep in there; sometimes one of them
comes to the window and looks up at us.'

Conrad complied with the child's wish, kneeling down beside her.
Suddenly a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice he always
dreaded to hear said, this time, however, in very friendly tones:
'Hallo, Conrad, and what may you be doing here?'

It was into the face of his stepfather that the startled boy stared as
he rose hastily to his feet.

'Come along, my son,' said Jüchziger very blandly.  'I have something
to tell you.'  So saying, he drew the boy aside into the passageway of
the town hall.  'Listen to me,' he went on good-humouredly; 'I want you
to do something for your mother.'

'For my mother!' said Conrad cheerfully.  'Oh yes; I shall be so glad
to do it!'

'And for you and me at the same time,' said Jüchziger.  'I just want
you to go out to our house beyond the Peter Gate.'

'But it's pulled down,' objected Conrad.

'Yes, of course, I know that; but the cellar is there still, and in one
corner of that cellar your mother buried a little box with all sorts of
precious things in it.  I want you to go and dig it up, and bring it to
me.'

'But the Swedes are all round out there.  They will be sure to kill me,
and take the box; they are most tremendous thieves.'

'You needn't trouble yourself about that.  I take care of the Swedish
prisoners, and one of them has given me a safe-conduct' (he pronounced
this word very carefully),--'a safe-conduct that I shall give to you.
You are only to get it out if you meet a Swede, and then they'll not
only not hurt a hair of your head, but be very kind indeed to you.  But
you must be sure and not let another soul see the safe-conduct, or else
it will all be of no use.'

'Why did mother never say anything about the box?' asked Conrad.

'H'm!' said Jüchziger; 'she--well--she--in fact, she didn't quite trust
me, I'm sorry to say, and wanted to keep all the things in it for you.
But now she sees how wrong that was, and she has confessed all about it
to me.  I don't want the box for myself; all I want is to see it out of
danger.'

'But how can I get out?' asked Conrad again.  'Nobody may leave the
town.'

'In about an hour's time there is to be a sortie from the Donat Gate,
and you can manage to creep out with the men.  Roller the miner is
going out with them as well; he and Wahle are going all the way to
General Piccolomini in Bohemia, but on no account show the safe-conduct
to him.'

'I should like just to run home to mother,' said Conrad, 'to tell her
about the box, and say good-bye to her.'

'Now would you really be so unkind to a poor, frightened, blind woman
as that?' said his stepfather.  'Why, there's Roller; he has not even
told his wife, though he is going all the way to Bohemia, and you want
to make your mother unhappy because you're going a few yards outside
the city wall.'

'It is quite true, stepfather,' said Conrad with a sigh.  'So give me
my safe-conduct, and tell me how I am to get into the town again.'

'You can easily do that.  You will only have to creep up the bed of the
Münzbach.  No one will take any notice of a slight youth like you.'

Conrad then received from his stepfather a folded and sealed paper, on
which was written in large letters the word 'Safe-Conduct.'

Underneath were several more words, but as they were all in Swedish the
boy could make nothing out of them.  When he had taken leave of
Jüchziger, the latter muttered to himself: 'Either the Swedes will put
an end to him, or else he will do my errand and never be a bit the
wiser himself.  It will be a good day's work for me whichever way it
goes.'

According to his stepfather's orders, Conrad hid the safe-conduct in
his breast.  He did not understand exactly what the thing was, but this
mystery only made him think all the more highly of it, and filled his
mind with a sort of confidence that his dangerous errand rendered
highly useful.  When he found himself really outside the gate, and
heard the tumult of battle all around him, his heart beat thick and
fast.  The men who made the sortie threw themselves at once on the
enemy's advanced works, shot or cut down such Swedes as were in them,
set fire to the wooden barricades and some detached houses that the
Swedes had used against the town, and destroyed everything belonging to
the enemy on which they could lay their hands.  As soon as the foe
showed signs of bringing up men in force, the Freibergers fell back
fighting, and carried off their booty into the town.

Then Conrad found himself in a desperate fix.  From the ramparts of the
town a steady fire was being poured on the advancing Swedes, who
returned it with interest, so that the lad, finding himself between two
fires, did not know which way to turn, and at last, in his
bewilderment, started to run straight across country.  Suddenly,
without any warning, he went head over heels into a cutting about six
feet deep that crossed his line of march, and proved to be neither more
nor less than one of the trenches by which the Swedish sharp-shooters
got so close up to the town.

As soon as Conrad had somewhat recovered from his sudden plunge, he
began to look about him with much astonishment.  The pathway in which
he stood was so narrow he could easily touch both its sides at once by
simply stretching out his arms.  As he started to hurry along it, he
stumbled on the dead bodies of several soldiers, some of which looked
so dreadful that he turned about and ran as hard as he could go in the
opposite direction.  As he rounded a sharp corner, he ran into an
enemy, who seemed as much surprised as himself at the unexpected
meeting, and uttered a sudden cry of alarm.  This enemy, however, was
armed, and heaved up his 'morning-star'[1] for a tremendous blow.

Conrad, in his terror, sprang back several steps, and drawing his paper
from his breast, called out: 'Stop!  I've got a safe-conduct.'

At these words the man let his weapon sink, and stood staring at the
boy, who was again cautiously approaching him holding out the paper.

'Why, bless me!' said the man at last, 'isn't this Conrad Schmidt from
the Erbis Street?'

'What! is it you, Master Prieme?' said Conrad joyfully.

'What are--at least, how came you here?' asked Prieme.

'I came out with the sortie,' said Conrad.

'So did I,' grumbled Prieme.  'In the heat of battle I struck too hard
at a Swede, just on the edge of this abominable ditch, and then my foot
slipped and down I came into it myself, and the detestable thing's so
deep there is no getting out again.  Perhaps, with your help, I can
manage to climb out.'

The attempt was made and proved a failure, while the continuous firing
above their heads hinted that it would be much safer to keep out of the
upper world for a time.

'So it seems I only came out of the town to tumble into this ditch,'
grumbled Prieme again.  'If the Swedes put in an appearance, things
will pretty soon begin to look ugly for me.'

'Just you keep close to me,' said Conrad patronizingly.  'I've got a
safe-conduct.'

'Where is it?' asked Prieme, looking at him in astonishment.  'I can't
see one.'

'Here it is all right,' said Conrad producing it.  'Can you read?'

'What stupid rubbish!' muttered Prieme.  'Now, how can a scrap of paper
like that be a safe-conduct?  Why, a safe-conduct is a sort of thing
that even the most savage enemy is forced to respect.  Why, who told
you such a pack of nonsense as that?'

Either because his tumble had muddled his brains, or for some other
reason best known to himself, Conrad straightway cast all his
stepfather's cautions to the winds, and told neighbour Prieme the whole
story of the safe-conduct and why he was there.

'This seems to me rather serious,' said the worthy citizen, speaking
half to himself.  'To be sure your stepfather is, in a manner of
speaking, a bit of a magistrate; but then we all know how people we
should never have expected--why, there was the Burgomaster of Bautzen
was loaded into a cannon and fired off for trying to betray his native
city to the enemy.  At all events, Jüchziger can have no right to
correspond with the Swedes without the commandant's knowledge.  So give
me that thing over here directly.'

Conrad protested against the abrupt demand, and, suddenly calling to
mind his stepfather's forgotten orders, made a frantic attempt to hide
the safe-conduct in his breast again.  Master Prieme's strong arm would
soon have gained the day, however, and deprived the boy of his paper,
had not the arrival of a troop of the enemy put a sudend [Transcriber's
note: sudden?] stop to their altercation.

Master Prieme, taken with a weapon in his hand, was made a prisoner of
war; and Conrad Schmidt, loudly calling attention to his safe-conduct,
was at once marched off to the enemy's headquarters.

Here he had a first-rate opportunity to make nearer acquaintance with
the dreaded Swedes.  He was led about from one point to another.  He
saw the batteries, mortars, and siege-guns that were destroying his
native town; he saw whole regiments of Swedes; but to his immense
consolation he did not see any of those men who tortured people and
slaughtered little children.  In front of Marshal Torstenson's quarters
a huge cask of wine was being unloaded, a task in which several
peasants were forced to render unwilling aid.  When their work was
done, however, they got off with nothing worse than a few cuffs.  He
saw, indeed, plenty of great beards and many dark-looking faces of very
scowling aspect, for the Swedes were encamped before Freiberg in no
rose-garden; but after all he could not make out any very great
difference between the Swedish and Saxon fighting-men.

'I can see one thing very plainly,' said Conrad to himself, 'soldiers
are all as much alike as one egg is like another.  One wears a grey
coat, another a red one, and another a green one, and that's about all
the difference between them.'

He was suddenly interrupted in the midst of his reflections by the
approach of a trooper, who came towards him with some appearance of
curiosity, and with a single glance of his piercing eyes threw the
boy's whole soul into a state of panic fear.

'God be with me!' murmured Conrad.  'That's the fierce Swede with the
red beard again.  I am sure he is taking out a pistol now to make sure
of getting a good aim at me this time!'

Happily, his fears were not of long duration, for a sudden call in good
German of, 'Hillner, the major wants you,' relieved him of the Swede's
presence.  'Hillner!' whispered Conrad to himself.  'I wonder whether
everybody with black hair and a red beard is called Hillner.'

The lad was now summoned to appear before Field-Marshal Torstenson.
This was worse than his worst expectations; for was not this man the
cause of all the trouble, the scourge that with its thousand lashes was
tormenting the Saxon land?  Conrad stepped trembling into the hall of
the Bergwald Hospital, where he found a group of superior officers
gathered round their general, who sat by a window with Conrad's
safe-conduct in his hand.  This, then, was the man whose hand played
with the lives and property of so many thousand people.  From just
inside the door where he had to stand, Conrad stared with beating heart
at the dreadful man who had conquered great armies, plundered and
wasted whole countries, taken strongholds by storm, and was now
conquered himself.  For a shaft was quivering in his flesh that he
could by no means draw out; his foot was, so to speak, stung by a
glowing needle that could never be cooled, and that no medicine could
heal.  In the olden times men were laid on the torture-bench that they
might be forced to confess their evil deeds; and God Himself sometimes
uses pain to bring a sinner to repentance, when he has turned a deaf
ear to all the voices of conscience and religion.

Torstenson, a man scarcely forty years of age, was seated in an
arm-chair.  He had no remedies to oppose to the grinding foe in his
foot but patience and a bandage of coarse hemp.  But such is mankind
that this great general, who had at his disposal the lives of thousands
of his fellow-creatures, could not control his own desires; for near
him stood a table on which among other things was a bottle of wine and
a large goblet partly filled, to which he betook himself from time to
time.  The contents of the 'safe-conduct' did not seem to afford him
much consolation, for he threw it angrily on the table.

'That is my last weapon,' he said to one of the officers.  'The town
must and shall be mine, this week, this very day, and without the help
of a scoundrel, too!'

'Your excellency!' said the attendant physician warningly, as he saw
the general's gaze turn again towards the goblet.

'Ah, doctor,' said the marshal peevishly; 'take my word for it, it was
not the wine, but those six months in the damp dungeon at Ingolstadt
that gave me the gout.  Bring that youth forward.'

Conrad trembled as he was led before the general, though that officer
looked, to his boyish eyes, more like a woman than a stalwart
fighting-man.  His tall body was enveloped in a great, shaggy fur coat
right down to the feet, and a white nightcap covered his head.  Nothing
but the moustache on the pale face indicated the warlike calling of the
man who now addressed Conrad.

[Illustration: Nothing but the mustache on the pale face indicated the
warlike calling of the man who now addressed Conrad.]

'How many people have come to live in your town on account of the
siege?'

'Oh, they might be somewhere in the sixties,' replied Conrad, carefully
conformable to truth.

'Are you starving in Freiberg?'

'My mother and her cat sometimes, nobody else.  And then that is all my
stepfather's fault, because he will keep the bread cupboard locked up.'

'Do the citizens and soldiers hold together still?  Are they not
getting down-hearted?'

'Oh, well, at first there were a few squabbles.  The Herr Burgomaster
had a tiff with the Herr Commandant, but now they are just like
brothers; all their quarrels are over, and they are in first-rate
spirits.'

'Can you tell me how many men there are left in Freiberg capable of
bearing arms?'

'Why, gracious sir,' said Conrad, 'it isn't only the men!  Everybody
that's got arms and legs does a bit of fighting.  And there are nearly
sixty thousand of us.  Why, only yesterday evening the miller's donkeys
helped to spoil your mine.'

The smile which at this sally passed across Torstenson's pale and
suffering face gave Conrad a sudden courage; he knelt before the
general, and began in a pleading tone, that grew bolder as he warmed
with his subject: 'Gracious Field-Marshal, I pray of you, for Christ's
sake, to leave off firing at our dear old town.  Why should we be the
people you are so angry with, and why did you choose us out?  The whole
wide world lies open before you, and I am sure there are many strong
cities in Germany you could easily take if you would just attack them.
Do you expect to seize many lumps or bars of silver in Freiberg?  They
are all gone long ago in this never-ending war, and there's nothing
left but rubbish and stones.  And I can tell you another thing, noble
sir, and that is that you will never conquer the town--no, not if you
and all your soldiers were to stand on your heads!'

'Silence, boy!' cried an officer angrily.

'Let the lad chatter,' said Torstenson.  'His talk helps to pass away
the time.  And pray,' he continued, turning to Conrad, 'who is to blame
for your trouble but yourselves?  Have I not many times offered the
town pardon on favourable terms?'

'Yes,' returned Conrad, hesitating; 'but--with permission--people know
what your excellency's pardon is like.  Inside the town there, they say
they would rather die than accept your excellency's pardon.'

Perhaps it was a fresh twinge of the gout that distorted Torstenson's
face.  He made a hasty sign to the boy to withdraw, which he was
nothing loth to do, although assisted on his way by a cuff or two from
the indignant attendants.

The bad temper of great men seldom passes away without producing some
effect on those who surround them.  The tortures Torstenson suffered
found an outlet in giving orders for a general assault on the works of
the city, especially on the Peter Gate.  The firing of the double and
single arquebuses began again, the mortars joined in with their short,
sharp roar, and soon the earth shook and the air vibrated with the
frightful din.

Conrad had taken refuge in a corner of the hospital wall.  When,
towards evening, there came a lull in the firing, he could hear, from
the breach by the Peter Gate, the jubilant tones of a hymn that touched
him to the heart.  'Jesus, my Redeemer, lives,' sounded through the
wintry air, chanted by the deep voices of earnest men, and Conrad, in
his corner, joined in softly.  And the Swedes, too, awed by the holy
sounds, stood like statues, facing the singers; the sword rested in its
sheath, the bullet in the arquebuse, and the shell in the mortar.  In
years that were gone, the Swedes themselves used to sing like that as
they marched to battle, and now they stood and joined in spirit in the
service that Dr. Bartholomew Sperling was holding with the defenders of
the threatened breach.  But when the prayer was ended, the furies of
war raised their blood-red banners again, in mournful contrast to the
scene that had just taken place, and the dreadful game that is played
with human lives for the stakes began once more.

The whole night through did the firing continue.  Early on February 4,
1643, at about six in the morning, the Swedes exploded two mines, one
of which laid open the barbican, while the other hurled pieces of
woodwork far over the roofs of the houses, shattering the gallery
within the barbican, and destroying those who were defending it.  In
the confusion that arose, the Swedes, a reserve of whom had been held
in readiness, immediately seized the barbican, mounted from it to the
gate-tower, which was now commanded by their artillery, and placed
sharp-shooters in it, who at once opened a galling fire with double
arquebuses, hand-grenades, and stones on the occupants of the nearest
posts held by the defenders.  By way of covering themselves from this
fire, the besieged at once constructed a new battery on the upper
cistern in the Peter Street.  From this they were soon able to open
fire upon the new Swedish breastwork on the tower at the Peter Gate,
the result being the enemy's speedy and enforced retirement into one of
the lower and less exposed rooms of the gate-tower.  Yet the Swedes had
this time undoubtedly gained an important advantage, and the position
of the city was becoming every hour more critical.  But, in spite of
all, neither courage nor resolution had as yet begun to fail.



[1] See note on page 87.




CHAPTER X.

WAR OFTEN OPPOSES THE TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY.

Conrad was detained for three days in the Swedish camp.  It was on an
overcast, rainy evening that he at length received permission to
return.  He hastened to reach the Münzbach, which flows into the town
in two streams between the Erbis and Donat Gates.  In the year 1297, an
enemy had made treacherous use of this river to enter and plunder the
town; and the points of its entrance and exit had from that time been
guarded against surprise by strong towers, beneath the arched
foundations of which the river now flowed.  It was towards the tower of
exit that Conrad made the best of his way.

The sentries either did not see the boy approaching through the gloom,
or did not consider him dangerous, for he succeeded in creeping
unhindered beneath the vaulted archway that spanned the river.  All
soon grew quite dark around him as he waded on, and he found himself
obliged to make his hands do the work of eyes.  He had not proceeded
far in this fashion, when he suddenly found further progress barred by
a strong iron grating reaching down into the bed of the river and up to
the stonework above his head.  How was he to pass this unexpected
obstacle?  He cautiously rapped and felt the bars one by one, until, to
his great delight, he found that the last bar could be quite easily
pushed aside, thus leaving an opening through which the slender lad
found but little difficulty in forcing his body.  As he came to each of
the two similar gratings that barred his way farther up the tunnel, he
found the same course practicable.  He continued to follow the
subterranean bed of the stream for some distance farther, until it
emerged into the open air again in a tanner's yard, and Conrad could
leave the wet path he had followed so long.  He did not let the grass
grow under his feet, and very soon was listening cautiously at his
mother's door.  Hearing no sound, he stepped on tiptoe into the room.
No one was to be seen, though a lamp was burning on the table.  He
crept across to the door of the bedroom, and thought he heard sounds of
breathing.  As he opened the door, a feeble ray of light streamed
through the crevice, and he saw his mother lying in bed, with the
faithful cat sitting beside her as her only companion.  Puss,
recognising the boy, began to purr and wave her tail, but the blind
woman seemed to be stupefied by the burning heat of fever.

'Mother! mother!' cried Conrad, at first softly, then louder; at last
he ventured to pull the sleeve of her night-dress.

The blind woman sat up suddenly.  'What is it?' she cried.  'Who is
calling me?'

'It is I, mother,' said Conrad, with chattering teeth; for by this time
the cold seemed to have spread from his wet feet all over his body.

'And have you come for me at last, my darling child?' said his mother,
in tones of rapture.  'How often have I prayed that God would send you
to take me home to the mansions of the blest!  I come, my son; I come!'

'Why, how funny you talk, mother!' said Conrad.  'I only wanted to ask
you for a pair of clean stockings, because mine have got so wet wading
along the Münzbach.  I have only just come in from the Swedish camp,
and I've brought you the box you buried in our old cellar.'

'Swedish camp!--box!--cellar!' repeated the bewildered woman, as though
she were still in a dream.  'Have you not been dead these three days?
And is not this your spirit, that a poor blind woman cannot even see?'

'Why, mother, whatever are you thinking about?' cried Conrad, laughing
in spite of his cold feet.  'Here, catch hold of me, feel me; I'm flesh
and blood.  Did not father tell you he had sent me off to the Swedes to
get this box?  They didn't do me one bit of harm; they didn't even
starve me.  But they would not let me go and dig in our cellar; they
said that was not work for stupid boys.  So they did all the digging,
and brought me the box all right; and, considering what a lot of
thieves they are, I think that was almost a miracle.  I say, mother,
whatever did you put in the box?  It's all nailed up so tight I
couldn't open it.'

He placed a case about fifteen inches long, by six inches broad and
high, in his mother's hands.  The blind woman felt it all over in
wonder.

'I don't know anything about any box,' she said.  'And I'm sure I never
had anything to bury.'

'Perhaps Master Prieme was right after all, then,' said Conrad.

'Who is this talking in here?' cried Jüchziger, coming suddenly into
the room.  'Ha! is it you, you young good-for-nothing?  Where have you
sprung from?  Quick now, confess, or I'll warm you soundly.'

'Well, I'm sure I'm cold enough, father,' said Conrad, with a feeble
attempt at a joke; 'and it was on your business, too, that I got so
cold.  Is that all the thanks I am to have for bringing you the box all
safe and sound?'

'What! is that true?  You're a very fine fellow.  Give it me here,
quick!' cried Jüchziger in a tone full of joy.

'But,' said his wife, 'I never buried a box with treasure in it.  What
can we have to do with this?'

'Oh, I had a dream the other night,' answered Jüchziger, 'as life-like
a dream as if I had really been standing in the cellar of our old
house.  And see here, my dream has come true, and no mistake about it.
A little mountain-troll dressed, in grey stood before me in my dream,
and said, "Let your son, Conrad Schmidt, dig here in this corner of the
cellar.  He is a Sunday's bairn and will have good luck."'

'But I didn't dig for it,' said Conrad.  'The Swedes did it for me.'

'It all comes to the same thing,' said Jüchziger, 'so long as we have
the box.  Do you know, my son, what there is inside it?'

'How should I?  See how it's all nailed and screwed up!'

'Have you brought back the safe-conduct?'

'Oh yes; I forgot that.  One of the Swedish officers tied the paper
over my heart and under my left arm.  I was not to let a soul see it,
he said, except the one from whom I first had it, and that was you, you
know, father.  But I'm sure it's a different letter, and it's
uncommonly heavy.'

'Give it me here this instant,' said Jüchziger, scarcely trying to
conceal his joy.  'It will be nothing but right if the Swedes have sent
their poor prisoners a ducat or two that they may get me to buy them a
few things.  But mind you, don't say a word about it to a living soul;
for if you do, the money will all be taken from them, and I shall be
punished for my kindness into the bargain.'

Conrad handed the paper over to his step-father, who put it straight
into his pocket without stopping to examine it.  'You need not go back
to your mistress now,' he said, when the packet was safely stowed away.
'Much better stay here and attend to your sick mother.  The good woman
is in sore need of all the care and help you can give her.'

Conrad was not too bewildered by all his adventures to suspect some
hidden meaning in his step-father's very sudden kindness.  As he
thought about the story of the box and the safe-conduct, it seemed to
him to grow more and more suspicious, and he longed for some friend
with whom he could talk the whole thing over.

He could not relieve his mind to his sick mother, that was clear, for
she was far more helpless than himself.  Master Prieme was a prisoner
of war; Roller was gone.  Who was there left that he could trust, but
his comrade the Defensioner?  Yet how could he get at Hillner, with his
step-father watching him as a cat watches a mouse, scarcely permitting
him even to cross the threshold of the house.

Meantime, the enemy had hauled a cannon up into the tower over the
Peter Gate, which was soon scattering death among the defenders.  The
besieged also suffered severe loss from the fire of two heavy guns
planted close beside the town moat, near the Peter Gate, and covering
the next tower, that which guarded the Kreuz Gate.  The Freibergers, on
their part, were by no means backward in doing their utmost to harass
the Swedes.  Behind each defensive work as it was shot down, a new one
arose.  Trenches, palisadoes, covered ways, counter-mines, and
batteries were all used as means of defence; the houses adjoining
threatened spots were turned into strongholds, and pierced for
sharp-shooters, who shot every Swede that showed himself within range.
The commandant was at all points where fighting was going on, ordering
and encouraging his men both by word and example.

On the second morning after the night of Conrad's return, Schweinitz
approached the Defensioner Hillner where he stood at a loop-hole in the
tower at the Kreuz Gate.  Hillner respectfully made way for his
superior officer, who wished to look out.

'Just see that impudent rascal!' cried the commandant, after a few
moments' survey.  'He is riding his horse right up to the city moat in
sheer bravado.  Quick, Defensioner, and show the fellow that there are
men in here.  Put a bullet through his head.'

Alert and willing, Hillner at once placed the muzzle of his piece in
the loop-hole.  Just as he had covered the Swede, however, he lowered
his weapon and turned pale.

'What's the matter?' cried Schweinitz.  'Why do you tremble?  Are you
hurt?  Here, then, give me your weapon.  I will chastise the insolent
scoundrel myself.'  As he spoke, Schweinitz grasped at the arquebuse,
on which Hillner's hand closed like a vice.

'So please your excellency and my gracious commandant,' said the
Defensioner in a tone of entreaty, 'do whatever you please with my
life, but I cannot shoot the man out yonder; neither can I give you my
weapon for you to do it.'

'What!' shouted Schweinitz.  'I, your general, command it.  That
weapon, instantly, or--you know the penalty that attaches to
insubordination.  Loose it, I tell you!'

'I know well,' replied the young man, 'what penalty belongs to
insubordination; but ought I not to obey God rather than man?'

'No, a thousand times!' cried Schweinitz, his face aflame with rage.
'In war, God's command counts for nothing, and the general's for
everything.  What will happen next, if a soldier is to stand and argue
instead of obeying the orders of his superior officer?  The soldier is
a mere machine at the absolute will and disposal of his officer, and
must do whatever that officer commands--must kill father, son, or
brother whenever he receives orders to do so.  This is what war
demands, and the morality of your catechisms has no place in it.  War
puts its trust in the strong arm, the sword, and the fire-lock alone.
Speak, fellow! why would you not shoot that Swede?'

'Many of the enemy have already met their death by my hand during the
past few weeks,' replied Hillner quietly; 'and only against one have I
refused to raise my weapon, for that one was--my father;--an unnatural
father, it is true, who deceived my poor mother, and shamefully
deserted her, and made me fight against my fatherland,--but yet, in
spite of all, my father.  His blood flows in my veins; but for him I
should never have existed.  So I say again, let me die rather than kill
him.'

'We can easily manage that,' said Schweinitz angrily.  'All such talk
as this in war-time is so much rubbish.  Bah!  While I stand here
debating with a traitor, the villain yonder has prudently taken himself
out of range.'  Defensioner, you will give me your weapons, both
firelock and sabre.  You are my prisoner.  Ha!  Schönleben doubtless
had sound reasons for warning me against you.'

His step-father's absence and his mother's quiet slumber having given
Conrad the opportunity he wanted, he was on the way to his mistress'
house to find his friend Hillner, when he saw the Defensioner coming
along the street, closely surrounded by the guard, and followed by a
crowd of curious people.  The boy stared in astonishment at hearing the
ugly word 'traitor' applied to his old comrade, and did not fully
recover himself until he caught sight of his step-father marching with
a joyful face close beside the prisoner, on the way to lock him up in
one of the strongest cells at the town hall.

When the news of Hillner's arrest reached Mistress Blüthgen's house,
where it produced great excitement, the miller, who had not yet fully
recovered, remarked dryly to the women:

'Seems to me as though our Defensioner must have acted rather like one
of my donkeys.  He could have obeyed the commandant's order, aimed his
weapon, and fired over the Swede's head.  He had it all in his own
hands.'

'No,' said his wife, showing, what was very unlike her, the deepest
emotion, 'Hillner was right not to lift his hand against his father,
even in pretence.  What marksman in the whole wide world can say where
his bullet shall go, when it is once out of his gun and flying towards
a mark that some mischievous sprite may shift at any moment.  And to
kill his father!  Fie!  I would rather see Hillner hanged, an innocent
man, than do such a deed.'

These words of the miller's brave wife made deep and lasting impression
on Conrad, who stood by and heard them.  Though Jüchziger was a cruel
stepfather, a hard struggle had been going on in the boy's mind as to
whether it was his duty to bring a terrible suspicion on that father by
telling all he knew.  He now determined to let his secret remain locked
up in his own heart.




CHAPTER XI.

HISTORICAL.

While the scene narrated in our last chapter was being enacted, another
and more joyous one was taking place at the Donat Gate.  Three men, two
of them miners, suddenly appeared running towards the gate, and making
eager signs to the sentries in the barbican with the view of obtaining
speedy admission.  This being at once granted, the little party turned
out to consist of the two miners, Roller and Wahle, sent some days
before on a special mission, together with Master Prieme, who had
fortunately succeeded in making his escape.  Roller and his comrade
brought letters and advices from Marshal Piccolomini; these, addressed
to the commandant and the town authorities, and written at Brix on
February 5th, promised that within six, or at longest eight days, the
imperial army should be seen on the mountain beyond the city, advancing
to free Freiberg, by the blessing of God, from the presence of the foe.
The marshal further announced that as he approached he would set fire
to a house or two in the village of Leichtenberg on the Mulda, so that
by midnight his advance should be known in the city; and that
immediately on reaching the mountain, where the enemy would doubtless
discover his presence, he would fire six guns morning and evening, and
three more as he actually began his march down towards the city.  Thus
the garrison would have timely notice of the arrival of help.

Piccolomini's despatch to Schönleben ran as follows:--

'To our trusty, best, and right well-beloved Burgomaster, Herr Jonas
Schönleben,--Be it known that I have kept the messengers by me, that
their bodily eyes might see my army set forward on its march, and that
thus they might take assured news thereof into the good city of
Freiberg.  And inasmuch as I shall in few days arrive before Freiberg
with such army (whereof the enemy neither have knowledge nor can
conceive aught aright), and so, with the help of Almighty God, shall
relieve the city, I hereby beseech the said noble Burgomaster to do his
utmost, with aid of all and sundry those brave and honourable burghers
by whom he is at this present sustained, to maintain and defend the
said post until my arrival; and to that end to encourage and hearten
all men, as hitherto hath been so notably done by him, that they may
not make surcease for so few days of that stedfast toil and bravery
which they have heretofore shown.  May God have all in his keeping!'

The receipt of these cheering messages revived the spirits of the
besieged--a service the more necessary because the enemy, getting word
that a hostile army was on the march, made strenuous efforts to gain
possession of the town.  The fortifications, many of which were now
little more than heaps of rubbish, were still obstinately defended by
the unconquerable bravery of the besieged.  Pieces of both the outer
and inner walls, twenty and thirty ells in length, had been destroyed
by mines and artillery-fire, and their downfall had in many places
choked up the moat.  Some of the barbicans before the gates were in the
enemy's possession, and even the Peter Gate itself.  The towers that
guarded the town resembled ancient ruins; and the defensive works were
now chiefly represented by wooden galleries, palisadoes, piles of
gabions, and the walls of half-destroyed houses, behind which, however,
the besieged found shelter, from which they still kept up a vigorous
fire.  The underground war, too, was still hotly maintained; and when,
as often happened, the hostile sappers heard the sounds of each other's
voices, emulation still excited them to struggle as if for life and
death.

On February 14th the Swedes attempted to storm two of the defenders'
positions, and advanced to the assault with loud shouts and in
considerable force.  A few bold soldiers, indeed, succeeded in making
good their entrance into one of the towers; but the besieged, in
expectation of this attack, had filled the inside of the tower with
wood and other combustibles.  Fire was set to these materials, and to
the gallery adjoining the tower, and thus the enemy was compelled to
withdraw.  Meantime, behind the burning ruin, the citizens constructed
a new defensive work, and both here and in the breach offered so brave
a resistance, that the foe, after repeated attempts, was once more
baffled and compelled to fall back.

In the evening of the same day Roller appeared at home with his head
bound up.

'It is nothing!' he assured his alarmed family.  'A Swedish bullet
glanced aside and grazed my temple; that is all.  But you, my dear
people--ah! you may lift up your heads to look whether your day of
deliverance is coming; you may gaze towards the Liechtenberg, and try
to make out the beacon fire our deliverers were to kindle.  Not six or
even eight, but _nine_ whole days have gone by, and no helpers have
made their appearance!  "Put not your trust in man," was as true a word
as was ever spoken!'

This was the first time Roller had ever given way to repining before
the women.  The next day, February 15th, the Friebergers, wishful to
gain time, resolved on asking Marshal Torstenson for an armistice,
hoping to use that opportunity of smuggling two or three persons
unobserved out of the city, and so sending word to Dresden of
Freiberg's desperate straits.

On pretence of discussing the proposed armistice, three Swedish
colonels appeared by consent of the besieged on the top of the tower at
the Peter Gate.  They made good use of their eyes to learn all that
could be learned about the condition of the defence, and found it still
such as to inspire them with all due respect.  When this result had
been satisfactorily achieved, the armistice was formally refused, the
battle being at once renewed; and at two o'clock in the afternoon of
the same day, the city was once more summoned to surrender.  The prompt
refusal of this demand provoked renewed efforts on the part of the
besiegers to gain possession of the hard-pressed city.

Matters stood at this desperate pass, when, on the evening of the same
day, the shout of 'Fire!' sounded through the streets of Freiberg.  It
was no alarm, but a genuine cry of joy.

'Fire! fire!' exclaimed Mistress Blüthgen, as with a beaming face she
came rushing into the living-room, where the disabled miller and his
wife, Roller, with bandaged head, surrounded by his family, and the
remaining members of the household were all assembled.  'Fire over the
Liechtenberg at last!' she cried again, throwing her arms, as she
spoke, round the neck of the miller's wife.

'Fire over the Liechtenberg!' rang along the narrow street outside.
All who could, now climbed out on to the roof of the house to see the
long-desired sight for themselves.  If, at the beginning of the siege,
a magnificent rainbow had been hailed as an omen of good, the
Freibergers now gazed at the red glow on the distant horizon as at a
beacon-light that surely could not deceive them.

'It seems to me,' said Roller, pushing back the bandage that covered
his ear, 'it seems to me as though I heard firing as well.'

The dull roar of cannon, several times repeated, was now plainly heard
from the far-off height.

'It is they! it is our deliverers!' cried all, as their joy broke out
afresh.

Confidence and hope work wonders.  They nerved the courage of these
distressed Freibergers, until the most faint-hearted among them rose
into a hero.  Let the Swedes renew their assault on the next day as
fiercely as they pleased; let them summon the town three times over to
surrender, and make all their preparations for a final attack; nothing
could now take away the joyful assurance of immediate relief.  On the
previous day, a mine had torn down a large piece of the main city wall,
twenty yards in length, near the Peter Gate, and so shattered the great
flanking tower at that point that its downfall seemed every moment
imminent.  In spite of a heavy fire, the Freibergers made good use of
the night in preparing trenches, thickly studded with palisadoes, close
behind the main wall, in throwing up great piles of branches and trunks
of trees in the new breach, and doubling the number of men at the
points chiefly threatened.  Having made these preparations, they
confidently awaited the onset of the enemy, whose numerous forces were
now steadily drawing nearer and nearer to the city.

Who would not have trembled for Freiberg at sight of that veteran army,
trained in long and stormy years of battle, and led by a renowned
general, bent on destroying the city and putting all its
inhabitants--men and women, old and young--to the sword?  Ambition and
shame alike stimulated the Swedish general, as he thought how this
insignificant country town had so long thwarted all his best efforts.
His men, on the other hand, were inspired by thirst for plunder and a
burning desire to avenge all the toils and troubles they had endured
amid the severities of that bitter winter.

On the side of the Swedes were many thousand veteran men-at-arms, a
commander well known to fame, over a hundred pieces of artillery, and
free access to the whole country around, furnishing constant fresh
supplies both of men and the necessaries of war.  On the side of the
Saxons was a little band of three hundred soldiers, a leader of whom
renown as yet had scarcely heard, an untrained crowd of peaceful
citizens and country-people, and last, though not least, the
true-hearted miners.  These, with the help of a few cannon and a
limited supply of ammunition, were holding shattered heaps of ruins
against an unwearied foe.  But the Freibergers threw into the scale on
their side, loyalty to their prince, love for fatherland, for hearth,
and home, and liberty; and thus the balance weighed in their favour.

With thoughts like these present in many minds, passed away the
daylight hours of that memorable 16th of February, and the night
appointed for the general assault came down at last.  Eight captains,
each with a hundred and twenty men, a company of seventy or eighty
picked men with hand-grenades, and as many more with axes, were told
off to make the first attack, their advance being supported by four
thousand men of the main storming party.  In the evening, Torstenson
had, by a great effort, ridden quite round the town, marking out the
points to be specially attacked, assigning his troops their respective
places, and ordering several new batteries to be placed in position.
As Wallenstein once before Stralsund, so now Torstenson before
Freiberg, swore to take the city, even though it were under the special
protection of Heaven itself.

The besieged were aware, both through their prisoners and by other
means of information, that the most desperate of all their struggles
awaited them to-night, and they did not attempt to conceal from
themselves the terrible peril in which they stood.  They spent a social
hour at home with wife and children, took what might well prove a final
farewell, and then each man went forth to his dangerous post with the
stedfast determination to die rather than yield.  And among those ranks
of silent, resolute men in the deadly breach, was seen the reverend
figure of good Master Spelling, in his preacher's robe, the book of the
Holy Gospels in his hand.

'My beloved brethren in Christ!' he cried; 'if we live we live unto the
Lord, and if we die we die unto the Lord; whether we live, therefore,
or die, we are the Lord's.  Yea, the Lord is our strength and our
shield; and though we wander through the valley of the shadow of death,
we will fear no evil, for His right hand hath holden us up that we
should not fall.  The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to
all that call upon Him in truth.  He will hear their cry and will save
them.  "Call upon me," saith He, "in the day of trouble; I will deliver
thee, and thou shalt glorify me."  Put your trust in the Lord, not in
the Imperialists, and not in your own might.  Think who it was that
broke the power of Sennacherib before Jerusalem, when a hundred and
eighty thousand of Israel's foes perished in a single night!  The Lord
our God!  And His power is not lessened since that day, neither is His
glory dimmed.  Three men once sang in the midst of the burning fiery
furnace.  Cannot we, too, lift our feeble voices to God where we stand
in the deadly breach?  Let "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" be our shout of
victory when the foe comes on against us; and let us, ere we part,
chant together the jubilant words, "Jesus lives; I shall live also.  O
Death! where is thy sting?"'

So they sang, and their voices sounded far out into the night; they
knelt, and their pastor invoked God's blessing on them for the
approaching battle,--for victory, if so it might be, or for a happy and
joyous entrance into the better land.




CHAPTER XII.

TREACHERY AND DELIVERANCE.

With the exception of babes and very young children, no one in Freiberg
slept that night.  All were wakeful and astir.  Men stood armed for
battle in their places on the city walls; women and children prayed in
the churches; mothers watched with anxious hearts over slumbering
little ones, not knowing when the dreaded Swedes might burst in to
slaughter all alike.

'Stay with me, my son,' Mistress Jüchziger begged of Conrad.  'Do not
let your poor blind mother be left to meet the Swedes alone.  At least,
let us die together.'

Conrad obeyed like a dutiful son, though staying in the house to-night
was a task most irksome to his adventurous spirit, which urged him
forth into the busy turmoil where the brave citizens were making ready
to fight for all they held dear.

Jüchziger, too, seemed a stranger to peace and quietness of spirit,
though for a very different reason.  He was seen first in one place and
then in another, in different parts of the city.  At last he hastened
through the streets towards his own house, but took special care to
avoid the churches and the praying people.  After entering the
living-room of his home, he moved restlessly about the apartment,
alternately taking up and laying down various trifling objects.  At
last, towards ten at night, he started forth with the Swedish
treasure-box under his arm, and did not return.

'Whatever can there be in that box!' said Conrad after a time to his
mother, who, though still an invalid, could not rest for anxiety, and
had exchanged her bed for an easy-chair by the stove.  'It is nailed
and screwed up still, as tight as ever, unless I am mistaken.'

Before the mother could reply, the door was suddenly opened from
without, and Master Prieme, fully armed, entered the room.

'Where is Jüchziger?' he said instantly.  'He is to come at once to the
Burgomaster.'

'He went out a little while ago,' replied Conrad, 'and did not leave
word where he was going.'

'What! you here, boy!' cried Prieme, in evident surprise.  'Ha!  And
how did you get out of the Swedes' hands and into the town again?  How
about that safe-conduct and that precious buried box?  The whole thing
looked very suspicious, very suspicious indeed.'

Conrad found himself in a great difficulty.  Should he make a clean
breast of it, and perhaps get his step-father into dreadful trouble?
He at first hesitated, and then stammered--

'Well--the--the Swedes--let me go in three days.'

'And the box?  What about that?'

'Oh--well,' stammered Conrad, incapable of telling a lie, 'the box?  I
got that too.'

'Dug it out of the cellar?'

'No; not that.  The Swedes dug it up, and gave it me; and then'--

'That's false!' cried Prieme.  'Sooner get blood out of a post than a
box worth keeping out of the clutches of a Swede.  What was in it?'

'I'm sure I don't know.  It was nailed up so tight; and my step-father
wouldn't let me even peep into it.  I don't think it has ever been
opened.'

'Just like Jüchziger! a regular downright skinflint!  And how did you
get into the town again?  Who let you in across the moat and through
the gate?'

Conrad was by this time nearer crying than laughing.  He looked
imploringly at his questioner, remained silent, and then, when further
pressed, stammered out--

'Along the Münzbach--under the water-tower.'

'That's sheer nonsense!' cried Prieme again.  'Three gratings of the
toughest hammered iron are firmly fixed across the way.  Don't lie to
me, boy, or I'll break every bone in your body.'

'But I did, indeed I did,' persisted Conrad.  'In all the gratings one
bar was eaten away by rust or something, so that I could easily push
them on one side and creep through.'

Prieme turned pale.  'Merciful heaven!' he cried; 'this means
treachery.  Quick to give the alarm!  Perhaps we may even yet save the
city.'

'Oh, please do be reasonable, Master Prieme!' pleaded Conrad, seizing
the man by the arm as he was hastening away.  'It has been exactly like
that for several days now, and no harm has come of it.  Pray don't give
an alarm, or the end of it will be you'll get my step-father into a
mess, and then what is to become of me?'

'Such talk is all no use,' answered Prieme, 'no use at all; not even if
Jüchziger were your real father, which he isn't.'

'But only think what all the people in the town would say if I got my
step-father into trouble.  Didn't everybody except the governor praise
Hillner when he wouldn't shoot at his father?'

'That's a totally different thing,' said Prieme impatiently; 'then it
was only one Swede, and it didn't much matter whether he lived or died.
But, boy, if many thousand innocent people are about to perish through
one man's knavish trick, ought we not to bring the traitor to justice,
ay, though he be father, brother, or son?  Look at that dear, good
woman, your blind mother!  Do you want the Swedes to get in and
slaughter her?  Are you going to let sixty thousand brave men and women
perish, and all our toils and struggles be in vain, just to save one
villain from the punishment he deserves?'

'Oh, dear me, whatever shall I do?  No, indeed, neighbour Prieme,' said
Conrad, in great distress.  'But I'm sure I don't know anything at all
about my step-father, except that he'--

'Jüchziger is to come instantly to the Burgomaster,' cried a well-known
voice, as the door of the living-room opened, and Roller's bandaged
head appeared.

'Yes,' said Prieme in a tone of vexation; 'but the bird has flown, and
even now I am busy with his brood.  Good woman, cannot you give us some
information about your husband?'

'Nothing more,' said Mistress Jüchziger, 'than this, that about an hour
ago, while Conrad was gone out of the room, my husband was burning
something over the lamp.  At first I thought it was only tinder, but
there was a sudden noise at the room door, and I fancied I heard my
husband hastily crumple up a piece of paper, and throw it either under
the window-seat or the cupboard.  No one entered as my husband seemed
to expect; it was only the cat scratching to be let in.'

'You here!' cried Roller to his dog, which had followed him in, and
which now went open-mouthed at the cat, she in her turn retiring under
the cupboard, a safe refuge into which the dog could not follow her.
'You here!' said Roller again.  'Get out, Turk!'

Turk had planted himself in front of the cupboard, and was now
scratching vigorously with his fore-paws at the unhappy cat's
hiding-place.  As he did so, he threw out a ball of paper rolled
closely together, which the sharp-sighted Prieme instantly picked up
and unfolded.  It was a fragment of a written sheet, partly burned, and
in several places quite illegible.

In a state of the highest excitement, Prieme brought the paper into the
lamp-light, and with trembling lips read as follows:--

'To rouse the prisoners singly and without being observed . . . in
conjunction with forty of our bravest soldiers under Captain . . . into
the city . . . as soon as the petard sent herewith has done its work
and the tower is destroyed, the corps held in readiness will make an
attack on that point, which you will powerfully support with the men
placed under your guidance.  At the same time the storm on all the
other positions . . .  The fifty ducats required to make up the sum
named shall'--

A loud report sounding at this moment through the air, and overpowering
the noise of the artillery, cut short the further reading of the paper.

'There goes the water-tower!' groaned Prieme.  'The Swedish petard you
brought in as such a precious treasure, boy, has indeed done its work.
Can't you hear the shouts of the enemy's storming-party?  But,' he went
on with a sudden outburst of enthusiasm, 'do not let them think they
will get into the town, for all that!  I would drive them out headlong
with the help of only women and children, though we had no weapons but
stones and fire-brands.'  So saying, he rushed forth into the night.

Mistress Jüchziger wrung her hands, and her son seemed almost stunned
by all these untoward events.  But prudent Roller said quietly,

'Would God have let this rascally trick be found out when it was too
late?  Let us at least do all we can; and first, to examine the town
hall, find out about the prisoners, and see whether Jüchziger is there.'

'Mother, do let me go too,' pleaded Conrad; 'just to learn the truth,
and bring you word back.'

He hastened away with Roller to the cellars under the town hall.  They
found the garrison was gone, every man being now needed to confront the
enemy at the fortifications.  As the two groped their way through the
dark rooms, Conrad's foot struck against something that gave forth a
metallic clink.  It was the bunch of keys that Jüchziger had thrown
away after liberating the Swedish prisoners.  Just as they made this
alarming discovery, they heard a loud knocking at one of the inner
doors.

'The Swedish prisoners have fled!' shouted Hillner's voice.  'Look out
for treachery!'

'Roller,' said Conrad, 'let Hillner out.  He is quite innocent.  Why,
it was my step-father and no one else that made the Burgomaster and the
governor suspect him.  If any one can help to put a stop to this
business, I am sure it is my old comrade.  See, here are the keys all
ready.'

'I will promise you faithfully,' said Hillner from within, 'to place
myself under arrest again the instant the danger is over.'

'In the name of God, then, and may He guide us aright!' said Roller,
opening the door.  'And now, to put all on the hazard of one bold
stroke.'

The three friends immediately set off at a rapid pace for the lower
town.  Whatever persons they met on the way, whether men or women, were
pressed into the service, and the little company armed itself as best
it might in the hurry of the moment.  The women, for the most part,
could hit on nothing better than to fill their aprons as they went with
stones from the street pavements.  The men, with Conrad among them,
threw the light of their torches from both sides at once under the
vaulted arches that spanned the Münzbach, and were longer or shorter
according as their position required.  As soon as it was ascertained
that the way was clear at one point, the little party went on instantly
to the next.  Roller and Conrad soon made out, to their great relief,
that the water-tower was still standing.  They were by this time
approaching it, and just as they reached the last tunnel, the one
through which the Münzbach leaves the city, at the point where it flows
away under the street below the water-tower, a youth announced that he
had descried the forms of several men creeping through the darkness of
the archway.

Whilst two of their number went off at once to alarm the garrison of
the water-tower and the men on the neighbouring fortifications, the
rest of the courageous little band took post around the vaulted
entrance of the tunnel, in readiness to give the enemy a warm
reception.  This arrangement was not completed without some noise; and,
as a consequence, a head appeared from beneath the archway to see what
was going on outside.  It was the head of the treacherous town servant;
and Roller promptly dealt it so severe a blow with a stout cudgel, that
its owner instantly drew back with a yell of pain.  Some minutes of
ominous silence then passed, in which the enemy were doubtless busy
taking counsel as to what should be done next.  Then they suddenly
burst forth with loud shouts and wild uproar.  Though one and another
of their number dropped beneath the shower of stones with which they
were greeted, they did not even pause, but pressed furiously forward
against their antagonists.

'Light the petard!' shouted a terrible voice from beneath the archway,
at the sound of which Hillner's arm seemed involuntarily to lose its
power.  Immediately afterwards a Swede made his appearance, whose
murderous eyes and bushy red beard were plainly visible in the
torchlight.

'Father!' cried Hillner sadly; and his strong right arm fell
mechanically at his side, while the left was extended imploringly, as
though to shield him from his father's uplifted sword.

A frightful oath was the answer, the one that Conrad heard on the
Erbisdorf road, and, by his comrade's wish, wrote down on paper; and
the oath was at once followed up by a desperate cut.  The young man's
wounded hand fell helpless; and a second blow his father levelled at
him must undoubtedly have been at once fatal, had not a well-aimed
stone struck the Swede in the face at the critical moment and made him
stagger back.  Before he could recover himself, a musket-ball struck
him in the chest, and he fell to rise no more.  This fortunate shot,
with a volley of others that now greeted the Swedes, was fired by a
party of men approaching at a rapid pace under the leadership of Master
Prieme.

'We wanted to snatch a laurel from your wreath,' was his hasty greeting
to Hillner, who, after his father's fall, was once more, with his
uninjured hand, doing vigorous work against the enemy.

The foe, attacked in rear by the garrison of the water-tower, were
gradually compelled to give way before the superior force of the
Freibergers, and were at length driven back beneath the arched vault of
the Münzbach, a retreat into which the Saxon bullets followed them,
rapidly thinning their ranks.

'Yield, you dogs!' shouted Prieme, fearful, and not without good
reason, that they might even now explode the petard.

Thereupon arose a short, sharp contest among the entrapped Swedes, in
which the smaller and more courageous section wished to fire the petard
already sunk in the foundations of the water-tower, and bury all in the
ruins; while the other party did their utmost to prevent this design
from being put into execution.  The less bold majority gained the day,
and announced their intention to yield themselves up as prisoners of
war.  Jüchziger had received his reward.  His body, with a severe wound
on the head, was found lying trampled down by the feet of the Swedish
soldiers into the waters of the Münzbach; and the dangerous petard was
discovered sunk into a hole prepared with much toil and secrecy by
Jüchziger in the strong arch on which the tower stood.

The fight was hardly over when the commandant appeared, come to see
what was going on.

'I trust,' said Hillner respectfully, 'that your excellency will pardon
my being here, instead of under arrest where I was placed.  I shall now
hasten to give myself up again.  But that I am at least no traitor to
my fatherland, this wounded hand may surely bear witness.'

'My dear Defensioner,' replied Schweinitz heartily, 'the enemy may
commence their grand assault at any moment.  There is no time now to
examine into your affair.  For the present you are liberated on parole.
Be of good courage, and get your wound attended to the very first
thing.'

With these words, the commandant, finding his presence no longer
necessary, hastened away.

The firing on both sides continued till midnight.  Then the Freibergers
heard loud sounds of confusion and disturbance and much shouting in the
Swedish camp; but the dreaded general assault was still unaccountably
delayed.

Between two and three o'clock on the morning of February 17th, there
arrived at the city moat an Imperialist soldier, who had been taken
prisoner by the Swedes before Leipzig, and had now made his escape.  On
being admitted into the town, he announced that the enemy were making
hasty preparations for departure, that the military stores were already
loaded, and that he himself had been employed with others in removing
the charges from the Swedish mines.  This joyful and unexpected news
passed rapidly from mouth to mouth, and put the whole city in a
ferment.  Hope turned to glad certainty, when, at break of day, the
enemy's army, with its artillery and baggage-waggons, was seen marching
away from the city, and taking the road towards Klein-Waltersdorf;
although four or five hundred Swedish dragoons still held the Hospital
Church, whence they fired on the town and on all who issued from it.
The Freibergers, instead of abandoning themselves to the transports of
an excessive joy, re-occupied the Peter Gate without delay, and made a
sortie in which they set fire to the enemy's batteries and advanced
works.

By about seven in the morning, when the Swedes had finally evacuated
the Hospital Church itself, Imperialists began to arrive before the
city, in small numbers at first, which, however, rapidly increased.
Their officers were astounded at sight of the ramparts and
fortifications, which in many places were almost level with the earth.
Their colonel asked as a particular favour that he might be permitted
to ride his horse into the city over the principal breach by the Peter
Gate.  This was readily granted by the commandant, and as easily
accomplished by the gallant officer.  Meantime the prudent Freibergers
had not in the least relaxed their diligence in filling up the enemy's
trenches and destroying their batteries, while repairing their own
barbicans and moat, building the former up with gabions, and
strengthening the latter with a stout wooden parapet.

On the 18th of February, Field-Marshal Piccolomini himself entered
Freiberg, and highly commended the courageous and unexampled defence
that had been made by a town so slightly fortified.  The Emperor and
the Elector did not fail to distribute weighty gold chains of office,
patents of nobility, badges of honour, and similar acknowledgments to
the commandant, the Burgomaster, and the city; and Freiberg's fame was
heard far and wide through Europe.  Its inhabitants attributed the
glory of their successful defence to God alone; and just as on the 17th
of February 1643, there went up from all the churches of Freiberg, and
from every lip, the devout and thankful song, 'Lord our God, to Thee
our praises,' so has it been on each anniversary since, as each year
has brought round afresh the mountain city's day of joy and
thanksgiving.

It has never been fully known whether the approach of the Imperial
army, or the failure of the treachery they had planned, or the brave
and desperate resistance of the besieged citizens, caused the Swedes at
last to abandon their idea of a general assault.  But one thing is
certain, that the brave Defensioner Hillner was fully cleared of blame
by both Commandant von Schweinitz and Burgomaster Schönleben.  Nor was
it long before he was made a free citizen and a master-craftsman, and
that without any cost to himself.

'My son,' said Schweinitz to the newly made master-carpenter, 'you may
take my word for it, that in war a soldier must have a heart like a
flint, and often say things very different from what he feels.  You did
quite right not to fire at your own father, and had I been in your
place, I should very likely have done the same myself.  Now that the
enemy is safe out of the way, I may tell you so freely.  God grant the
foe may never return.'

Nor was it long before his young widowed mistress gave her hand in
marriage to her _quondam_ journeyman, and never had the smallest cause
to repent the gift.  She kept one secret, and one only, from her
husband; she never told him that the hand he had asked and won was the
hand that had, at exactly the right moment, thrown the stone which was
the means of saving his life.  The miller's family, after their return
to Erbisdorf, kept up their friendship for the city home where they had
received so hospitable a welcome.  Conrad Schmidt, under Hillner's
watchful care, grew up into a famous carpenter.  When in later years
he, too, became a master-craftsman, he rebuilt his mother's house
outside the Peter Gate, making it more beautiful than it had ever been
before.  To this new home he brought his old playmate Dollie as his
wife, and she lovingly and carefully tended her husband's blind mother
so long as Mistress Jüchziger needed her ministrations.  Roller and
Prieme, and all those who have played their parts so bravely in our
story, lived for many a year as well-to-do citizens; and in the long
winter evenings they delighted to tell one another rousing stories of
the events that happened during that memorable siege.


Freiberg has never been besieged again; yet what the artillery and
mines of the warlike foe failed to accomplish, has been brought about
long since by the genial beams of golden peace.

Freiberg's strong gates and barbicans, her towers, walls, and moats,
have, for the most part, passed away.  Where once the cannon thundered,
roses and jessamines now fill lovely gardens with their rich perfume;
where the blood of Saxon burgher and Swedish trooper was once shed in
savage strife, the air now rings with the laughter of happy children;
and no trace is ever seen of those who fought so bravely for their
beloved city more than two hundred years ago.  Yet their memory will
never die; it lives on through the ages, and strong and pure, like
Freiberg's native silver, shall endure the story of their faithfulness
to prince and fatherland.





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