On February 15, 1763, twelve couriers galloped out of the courtyard
of Hubertsburgh, and, blowing their trumpets, rode hard in every
direction toward all the respective courts, announcing that the peace
treaty had been signed. A squadron of mounted messengers followed them,
proclaiming peace throughout the Roman Empire of the German nation.
The Seven Years’ War was over, and the fortress of Neideck could now
rest for generations to come. No more would the thunder of distant
cannon echo through the tower; nor need the schoolmaster fear for his
castle. He was thankful for peace; glad that they called it the peace
of Hubertsburgh, for that place, he thought, must be a little like
my own Neideck. And now Burg Balzer reigned supreme in Neideck; the
garrison did not return; the veterans’ quarters went to ruin; the roof
fell in. Philip rejoiced; to his mind ruins were unclaimed property.
“And,” thought he, “unclaimed property belongs to him who takes it!” It
seemed to him that the giant ruin was now his own. It may be that he
could not have borne the trials of his dry profession had it not been
for the mystic charm of his castle. It was his castle that made life
sweet to him. When the day was fine he kept school in the courtyard.
The elder-bush was in blossom; the blue sky floated above the crumbling
walls; the jackdaws circled above the towers; the sparrows twittered.
He was happy; the dreams of his childhood nested in his heart, and the
droning _a, b, c_ of the mischievous boys sounded to him like a spring
song.
Now and then he permitted the children to sing a hymn, and when the old
walls sent back the echoes the hymn was as full of meaning as a fugue,
and the days of old with their men of blood and iron rose before him,
while the discord in the shrill voices of the children ascended to the
skies like songs of praise. Of all hymns Philip loved best Luther’s
“_A mighty fortress is our God!_” When the hymn was ended, when the
last thin cry of the children had died away upon the air, Balzer would
explain to them that the stronghold, or fortress, was man’s best type
of the power and eternal protection of God; and that God’s fidelity to
man could not be represented better than by the image of a stronghold.
Once when an impertinent pupil reminded him that their own stronghold,
the fortress of Neideck, was going to ruin, and that new ravages were
visible every spring, Philip answered:
“If our stronghold shows weakness here and there, it does so that
we may see by the contrasting strength of its main walls and its
foundations that it was built for all eternity. That is why a
stronghold is a true image of the eternal being of God. It was in
strongholds that Luther worked; he wrote his hymn in the fortress of
Coburg and translated the Bible in the fortress of Wartburg.”
When the day was fine he took his flute, and played it as he went down
the east side of the mountain, followed by the children. Often the
teacher and his pupils wandered into the woods opposite the castle.
There Philip played his flute and the children sang and the echoes
answered, and there the schoolmaster told the stories of all the
strongholds in the country; not one of them was as remarkable as that
of Neideck!
On rainy days he kept school in the small dark lodge; the lessons were
then short, and when the children had gone home, Balzer would go down
into the dungeon or up into the watch-towers. The towers rose high
above the mass of stone and overlooked the country. A rotten bridge
stretched from the top of one tower to the top of the other. To reach
the first Philip had to go to an upper story of the adjoining building;
and to reach the second, where the tormented husband had cut his
throat, he was forced to cross this bridge. Balancing his thin body on
the decaying timbers, far above the broken roof of the castle, buffeted
by the tempest and in peril of his life, Burg Balzer would shout
strange and meaningless words, which he supposed were in the language
of the ancient Teutons: “_Heia, Weia, Weigala, Waia!_” In his mind he
was a warder of the far-off bygone days; the enemy was on its way to
Neideck, winding up through the ravines of the Dill Mountains, and his
cry was raised to warn the men within his castle. It was as difficult
to get back to reality as it was to climb the bridge!
* * * * *
Long before the war the schoolmaster had found some old straw and
fragments of a jug. Had the straw been the bed of the last prisoner
of the dungeon? and what of the jug? Balzer was tender-hearted, but it
would have pleased him to find proof that the man of his imagination
had starved to death on the straw, drinking his last, unwholesome draft
from the jug.
From brooding over his relics he went aloft, climbing from one roofless
room to another. In the “Hall of the Knights” he rested from his
efforts. Up there the arches had given way, and bits of stone and
clouds of lime-dust were sifted by the decaying joists. In the “Hall
of the Knights” he could fancy that he was exchanging opinions and
drinking wine with all the nobles of the ancient principality. From his
conference with the nobles he returned to his poor quarters, wet to the
skin, alternately shivering and burning with fever, and ate his crust
and sipped cold water and was content--far happier, perhaps, than the
knights had been over their bumpers.
Now and then, but not often, the pastor or some students and teachers
would visit the castle, and then Balzer was their guide. He knew the
story of every wall and of every crevice. If visitors gave him a few
kreutzers he was grateful. He would drop them in his little savings
bank, knowing that he should need money in accomplishing the work
appointed by destiny. One day when Mosenbruch, the learned compiler of
dictionaries, visited the castle, he disputed Balzer’s historical data;
after some discussion the savant said that no woman could save the
castle because there was no castle left to save. Philip was too angry
to answer. When Mosenbruch was ready to depart he offered his gift.
Philip rejected it. “I will not accept it,” he thought; “the money of
the castle fund must come to me from unstained hands, the hands of
people who respect the castle.”