Although unaware how much more formidable the task before them had
become, the peasants were disheartened by their defeat, and even the
boldest hesitated at the thought of again attacking foes so formidably
posted. None of those who had returned were able to explain what was the
obstacle which had checked their advance. All that they could tell was,
that those before them had fallen, in some cases even before they were
touched by the spears of the defenders. This mystery added to the dread
which the assault of so difficult a position naturally inspired, and
some hours were spent in discussing how the next attack should be made.
Many indeed were strongly in favour of remaining quietly around the
tower and starving its defenders into surrendering.
Others advocated an attempt to stifle them by heaping green wood and
damp straw round the tower; but the more timid pointed out that
many would be killed in carrying out the task by the firearms of the
besieged, and that even were the combustibles placed in position and
lighted the success of the experiment would be by no means certain,
as the besieged might stuff up all the orifices, or at the worst might
obtain sufficient fresh air on the top of the tower to enable them to
breathe.
“You are forgetting,” one of the peasants exclaimed, “the powder wagon
which broke down as Count Tilly retreated from the Lech. Did we not
carry off the powder barrels and hide them, partly to prevent them
falling into the hands of these accursed Swedes, partly because the
powder would last us for years for hunting the wolf and wild boar? We
have only to stow these inside the tower to blow it into the air.”
The idea was seized with shouts of acclamation. Most of the peasants who
had assisted in carrying off the contents of the wagon were present, and
these started instantly to dig up the barrels which they had taken as
their share of the booty. The shouts of satisfaction and the departure
of forty or fifty men at full speed in various directions did not pass
unnoticed by the garrison of the tower.
“They have got a plan of some sort,” Malcolm said; “what it is I have no
idea, but they certainly seem confident about it. Look at those fellows
throwing up their caps and waving their arms. I do not see how we can be
attacked, but I do not like these signs of confidence on their part,
for they know now how strong our position is. It seems to me that we are
impregnable except against artillery.”
Unable to repress his uneasiness Malcolm wandered from window to window
watching attentively what was going on without, but keeping himself as
far back as possible from the loopholes; for the men with muskets kept
up a dropping fire at the openings, and although their aim was poor,
bullets occasionally passed in and flattened themselves against the
opposite walls.
“There is a man returning,” he said in about half an hour; “he is
carrying something on his shoulder, but I cannot see what it is.”
In another ten minutes the man had reached the group of peasants
standing two or three hundred yards from the church, and was greeted
with cheers and waving of hats.
“Good heavens!” Malcolm exclaimed suddenly, “it is a barrel of powder.
They must have stripped some broken down ammunition wagon. This is a
danger indeed.”
The men grasped their weapons and rose to their feet at the news,
prepared to take any steps which their young officer might command,
for his promptitude and ingenuity had inspired them with unbounded
confidence in him.
“We must at all hazards,” he said after a few minutes thought, “prevent
them from storing these barrels below. Remove the barricade of bodies
and then carry the door down the stairs. We must fix it again on the
bottom steps. The bottom stair is but a foot or two inside the doorway;
if you place it there it will hinder their rushing up to attack you, and
your pikes, as you stand above it, will prevent any from placing their
barrels inside.
“I will take my place at the loophole as before. We cannot prevent their
crawling round from behind as they did to light the faggots; but if they
pile them outside, they may blow in a hole in the wall of the tower, but
it is possible that even then it may not fall. Two will be sufficient to
hold the stairs, at any rate for the present. Do you, Cameron, take
your place on the tower, and drop stones over on any who may try to make
their way round from behind; even if you do no harm you will make them
careful and delay the operation, and every hour now is of consequence.”
Malcolm's instructions were carried out, and all was in readiness
before the peasants, some of whom had to go considerable distances, had
returned with the powder.
The lesson of the previous evening had evidently not been lost upon the
peasants, for Malcolm saw a tall man who was acting as their leader wave
his hand, and those who had brought the powder started to make a detour
round the church. Malcolm, finding that no movement was being made
towards the front, and that at present he could do nothing from his
loophole, ran up to the top of the tower and took his place by the
soldier who was lying down on the roof and looking over the edge.
Presently the first of the peasants appeared round the corner of the
main building, and dashed rapidly across to the angle of the tower. Two
heavy stones were dropped, but he had passed on long before they had
reached the bottom. Man after man followed, and Malcolm, seeing that he
could do nothing to stop them, again ran down. As he did so he heard a
scream of agony. The leading peasants had reached the doorway, but as
they dashed in to place their barrels of powder they were run through
and through by the spears of the pikemen. They fell half in and half out
of the doorway, and the barrels rolled some distance away. Those behind
them stopped panic stricken at their sudden fall. Several of them
dropped their barrels and fled, while others ran round the angle of the
tower again, coming in violent contact with those following them; all
then hurried round behind the church. Malcolm stamped his feet with
vexation.
“What a fool I am,” he muttered, “not to have thought of a sortie! If
we had all held ourselves in readiness to spring out, we might have cut
down the whole of them; at any rate none would have got off with their
barrels.”
This unexpected failure greatly damped the spirit of the peasants, and
there was much consultation among them before any fresh move was made.
As he saw that they were fully occupied, and paying no heed to the
tower, Malcolm said to his men:
“I am going outside; prepare to help me up over the door again quickly
if necessary.”
Leaving his sword behind him, he took a leap from the step above the
inclined plane and landed at the bottom, and at once threw himself down
outside. With his dagger he removed the hoops of one of the barrels, and
scattered the contents thickly along the front of the tower. None of the
peasants perceived him, for there were many bodies lying round the
foot of the tower; and even had any looked that way they would not have
noticed that one prone figure had been added to the number.
Crawling cautiously along Malcolm pushed two other barrels before him,
and opening them as before, spread the contents of one upon the ground
near the side of the tower, and the other by the hinder face. The thick
black layer on the snow would have told its tale instantly to a soldier,
but Malcolm had little fear of the peasants in their haste paying
attention to it. When his task was completed he crawled back again
to the door and laid a train from the foot of the slide to the powder
without.
“I will remain here,” he said, “for the present. Do one of you take your
place in the belfry. Tell Cameron to shout down to you what is passing
behind, and do you run instantly down the stairs to tell me.”
The peasants advanced next time accompanied by a strong force of their
armed comrades. As before they came round from behind, intending to
stack their barrels in the angle there. As the bearers of the first two
or three powder barrels came round the corner Cameron shouted the news,
and the soldier below ran down to Malcolm, who fired his pistol into
the train. A broad flash of fire rose round the tower followed
instantaneously by two heavy explosions. There was silence for an
instant, and then a chorus of shrieks and yells.
The powder barrels borne by the two first men had exploded, their heads
having been knocked in previously to admit of their ignition. Some
thirty of the peasants were killed or terribly mutilated by the
explosion, and the rest took to their heels in terror, leaving their
wounded comrades on the ground.
The echoes of the explosion had scarce died away when a shout of terror
broke from the main body of peasants, and Malcolm saw them flying in
all directions. An instant afterwards the ringing sound of the Swedish
trumpets was heard, and a squadron of horse galloped down full speed.
The peasants attempted no resistance, but fled in all directions, hotly
pursued by the Swedes, who broke up into small parties and followed
the fugitives cross the country cutting down great numbers of them. The
Swedish leader at once rode up to the foot of the tower, where Malcolm
had already sallied out.
“I am glad indeed I am in time, Captain Graheme; we have ridden without
drawing rein since your messenger arrived at four o'clock this morning.”
“Thanks indeed, Captain Burgh,” Malcolm replied. “Your coming is most
welcome; though I think we have given the peasants so hot a lesson that
they would not have attacked us again, and by tightening our waistbelts
we could have held on for another three or four days.”
“I see that you have punished them heavily,” the Swedish officer said,
looking round at the bodies; “but what was the explosion I heard?”
“You will see its signs behind the tower,” Malcolm said as he led the
way there. “They tried to blow us up, but burnt their own fingers.”
The scene behind the tower was ghastly. Some thirty peasants lay with
their clothes completely burned from their bodies, the greater portion
of them dead, but some still writhing in agony. Malcolm uttered an
exclamation of horror.
“It were a kindness to put these wretches out of their misery,” the
Swede said, and dismounting he passed his sword through the bodies of
the writhing men. “You know I am in favour of carrying on the war as
mercifully as may be,” he continued turning to Malcolm, “for we have
talked the matter over before now; and God forbid that I should strike
a fallen foe; but these poor wretches were beyond help, and it is true
mercy to end their sufferings.”
“They have had a heavy lesson,” Malcolm said; “there are eleven more
dead up in the belfry, which they tried to carry by storm, and a dozen
at least crushed by stones.
“You and your three men have indeed given a good account of yourselves,”
Captain Burgh exclaimed; “but while I am talking you are fasting. Here
is a bottle of wine, a cold chicken, and a manchet of bread which I put
in my wallet on starting; let us breakfast, for though I do not pretend
to have been fasting as you have, the morning ride has given me an
appetite. I see your fellows are hard at work already on the viands
which my orderly brought for them in his havresack; but first let us
move away to the tree over yonder, for verily the scent of blood and of
roasted flesh is enough to take away one's appetite, little squeamish as
these wars have taught us to be.”
Captain Burgh asked no questions until Malcolm had finished his meal. “I
have plenty more food,” he said, “for we have brought three led horses
well laden; but it were better that you eat no more at present, tis ill
overloading a fasting stomach. My men will not be back from the pursuit
for a couple of hours yet, for they will not draw rein so long as their
horses can gallop, so excited are they over the tales of the horrible
cruelties which have been perpetrated on all our men who have fallen
into the hands of the peasants, so now you can tell me in full the tale
of your adventures. I had no time to ask any questions of your sergeant,
for we were called up and sent off five minutes after he arrived with
the news that you with three men were beleaguered here by a party of
peasants.”
Malcolm related the whole incidents which had befallen him since he had
been suddenly felled and made captive by the women in the hut in the
village. The Swede laughed over this part of the adventure.
“To think,” he said, “of you, a dashing captain of the Green Brigade,
being made captive by a couple of old women. There is more than one
gallant Scot, if reports be true, has fallen a captive to German
maidens, but of another sort; to be taken prisoner and hid in a straw
yard is too good.”
“It was no laughing matter, I can tell you,” Malcolm said, “though
doubtless it will serve as a standing jest against me for a long time;
however, I am so thankful I have got out of the scrape that those may
laugh who will.”
When Malcolm finished his story Captain Burgh said: “You have managed
marvellously well indeed, Graheme, and can well afford to put up with a
little laughter anent that matter of the women, for in truth there
are few who would with three men have held a post against four or five
hundred, as you have done--ay, and fairly defeated them before I came on
the scene. That thought of yours of laying the door upon the stairs
was a masterly one, and you rarely met and defeated every device of the
enemy.
“Now, if you will, I will mount this stronghold of yours with you, and
see exactly how it stands, for I shall have to tell the tale a score of
times at least when I get back to camp, and I can do it all the better
after I have seen for myself the various features of the place.”
By the time they had mounted the top of the tower and Captain Burgh had
fully satisfied himself as to the details of the defence the troopers
began to return. Their horses were far too fatigued with the long ride
from the camp and the subsequent pursuit to be able to travel farther.
Fires were accordingly lit, rations distributed, and a halt ordered till
the following morning, when, at daybreak, they returned to the Lech.
Two days later Malcolm and his men marched forward with a brigade
which was advancing to reinforce the army under Gustavus, and reached
Ingolstadt on the day when the king raised the siege, and accompanied
him on his march to Munich.
Malcolm on rejoining was greeted with great pleasure by his comrades,
who had made up their minds that he had in some way fallen a victim to
the peasants. The noncommissioned officers and men of his party had been
severely reprimanded for leaving the village without finding him. In
their defence they declared that they had searched every house and shed,
and, having found no sign of him, or of any struggle having taken place,
they supposed that he must have returned alone. But their excuses were
not held to be valid, the idea of Malcolm having left his men without
orders being so preposterous that it was held it should never have been
entertained for a moment by them.
“I shall never be anxious about you again,” Nigel Graheme said, when
Malcolm finished the narrative of his adventures to the officers of his
regiment as they sat round the campfire on the evening when he rejoined
them. “This is the third or fourth time that I have given you up for
dead. Whatever happens in the future, I shall refuse to believe the
possibility of any harm having come to you, and shall be sure that
sooner or later you will walk quietly into camp with a fresh batch of
adventures to tell us. Whoever of us may be doomed to lay our bones in
this German soil, it will not be you. Some good fairy has distinctly
taken charge of you, and there is no saying what brilliant destiny may
await you.”
“But he must keep clear of the petticoats, Graheme,” Colonel Munro
laughed; “evidently danger lurks for him there, and if he is caught
napping again some Delilah will assuredly crop the hair of this young
Samson of ours.”
“There was not much of Delilah in that fury who felled me with a mallet,
colonel,” Malcolm laughed; “however, I will be careful in future, and
will not give them a chance.”
“Ah! it may come in another form next time, Malcolm,” Munro said; “this
time it was an old woman, next time it may be a young one. Beware, my
boy! they are far the most dangerous, innocent though they may look.”
A laugh ran round the circle.
“Forewarned forearmed, colonel,” Malcolm said sturdily, “I will be on
my guard against every female creature, young or old, in future. But
I don't think that in this affair the woman has had much to boast
about--she and her friends had best have left me alone.”
“That is so, Malcolm,” the colonel said warmly. “You have borne yourself
well and bravely, and you have got an old head on those young shoulders
of yours. You are as full of plans and stratagems as if you had been
a campaigner for the last half century; and no man, even in the Green
Brigade, no, not Hepburn himself, could have held that church tower more
ably than you did. It will be a good tale to tell the king as we ride
on the march tomorrow, for he loves a gallant deed, and the more so when
there is prudence and good strategy as well as bravery. He has more than
once asked if you have been getting into any new adventures, and seemed
almost surprised when I told him that you were doing your duty with your
company. He evidently regards it as your special mission to get into
harebrained scrapes. He regards you, in fact, as a pedagogue might view
the pickle of the school.”
There was a general laugh at Malcolm's expense.
“I don't know how it is I am always getting into scrapes,” the lad said
half ruefully when the laugh subsided. “I am sure I don't want to get
into them, colonel, and really I have never gone out of my way to do so,
unless you call my march to help the Count of Mansfeld going out of my
way. All the other things have come to me without any fault of my own.”
“Quite so, Graheme,” the colonel said smiling; “that's always the excuse
of the boy who gets into scrapes. The question is, Why do these things
always happen to you and to nobody else? If you can explain that your
whole case is made out. But don't take it seriously, Malcolm,” he
continued, seeing that the lad looked really crestfallen.
“You know I am only laughing, and there is not a man here, including
myself, who does not envy you a little for the numerous adventures which
have fallen to your lot, and for the courage and wisdom which you have
shown in extricating yourself from them.”
“And now, please, will you tell me, colonel,” Malcolm said more
cheerfully, “why we are turning our backs upon Ingolstadt and are
marching away without taking it? I have been away for ten days, you
know, and it is a mystery to me why we are leaving the only enemy
between us and Vienna, after having beaten him so heartily a fortnight
since, without making an effort to rout him thoroughly.”
“Maximilian's position is a very strong one, my lad, and covered as he
is by the guns of Ingolstadt it would be even a harder task to dislodge
him than it was to cross the Lech in his teeth. But you are wrong; his
is not the only army which stands between us and Vienna. No sooner
is old Tilly dead than a greater than Tilly appears to oppose us.
Wallenstein is in the field again. It has been known that he has for
some time been negotiating with the emperor, who has been imploring him
to forgive the slight that was passed upon him before, and to again take
the field.
“Wallenstein, knowing that the game was in his hands, and that the
emperor must finally agree to any terms which he chose to dictate, has,
while he has been negotiating, been collecting an army; and when the
emperor finally agreed to his conditions, that he was at the conclusion
of the peace to be assured a royal title and the fief of a sovereign
state, he had an army ready to his hand, and is now on the point of
entering Bohemia with 40,000 men.”
“What his plans may be we cannot yet say, but at any rate it would
not do to be delaying here and leaving Germany open to Wallenstein to
operate as he will. It was a stern day at Leipzig, but, mark my words,
it will be sterner still when we meet Wallenstein; for, great captain as
Tilly undoubtedly was, Wallenstein is far greater, and Europe will hold
its breath when Gustavus and he, the two greatest captains of the age,
meet in a pitched battle.”
At Munich the regiments of Munro and Spynie were quartered in the
magnificent Electoral Palace, where they fared sumptuously and enjoyed
not a little their comfortable quarters and the stores of old wines in
the cellar. Sir John Hepburn was appointed military governor of Munich.
In the arsenal armour, arms, and clothing sufficient for 10,000 infantry
were found, and a hundred and forty pieces of cannon were discovered
buried beneath the floors of the palace. Their carriages were ready in
the arsenal, and they were soon put in order for battle. For three
weeks the army remained at Munich, Gustavus waiting to see what course
Wallenstein was taking. The Imperialist general had entered Bohemia,
had driven thence, with scarcely an effort, Arnheim and the Saxons, and
formed a junction near Eger with the remnants of the army which had been
beaten on the Lech; then, leaving a strong garrison in Ratisbon, he had
marched on with an army of sixty thousand men.
He saw that his best plan to force Gustavus to loose his hold of
Bavaria was to march on some important point lying between him and North
Germany. He therefore selected a place which Gustavus could not abandon,
and so would be obliged to leave Bavaria garrisoned only by a force
insufficient to withstand the attacks of Pappenheim, who had collected
a considerable army for the recovery of the territories of Maximilian.
Such a point was Nuremberg, the greatest and strongest of the free
cities, and which had been the first to open its gates to Gustavus. The
Swedish king could hardly abandon this friendly city to the assaults of
the Imperialists, and indeed its fall would have been followed by the
general defection from his cause of all that part of Germany, and he
would have found himself isolated and cut off from the North.
As soon as Gustavus perceived that Nuremberg was the point towards
which Wallenstein was moving, he hastened at once from Munich to the
assistance of the threatened city. The forces at his disposal had been
weakened by the despatch of Marshal Horn to the Lower Palatinate, and
by the garrisons left in the Bavarian cities, and he had but 17,000 men
disposable to meet the 60,000 with whom Wallenstein was advancing. He
did not hesitate, however, but sent off messengers at once to direct
the corps in Swabia under General Banner, Prince William of Weimar, and
General Ruthven, to join him, if possible, before Nuremberg.
Marching with all haste he arrived at Nuremberg before Wallenstein
reached it, and prepared at once for the defence of the city. He first
called together the principal citizens of Nuremberg and explained to
them his position. He showed them that were he to fall back with his
army he should be able to effect a junction with the troops under
his generals, and would ere long be in a position to offer battle to
Wallenstein upon more equal terms, but that were he to do so he would be
forced to abandon the city to the vengeance of the Imperialists. He told
them that did he remain before the city he must to a great extent be
dependent upon them for food and supplies, as he would be beleaguered
by Wallenstein, and should be unable to draw food and forage from the
surrounding country; he could therefore only maintain himself by the aid
of the cordial goodwill and assistance of the citizens.
The people of Nuremberg were true to the side they had chosen, and
placed the whole of their resources at his disposal. Gustavus at once
set his army to work to form a position in which he could confront the
overwhelming forces of the enemy. Round the city, at a distance of about
thirteen hundred yards from it, he dug a ditch, nowhere less than twelve
feet wide and eight deep, but, where most exposed to an attack, eighteen
feet wide and twelve deep. Within the circuit of this ditch he erected
eight large forts and connected them with a long and thick earthen
parapet strengthened with bastions. On the ramparts and forts three
hundred cannon, for the most part supplied by the city of Nuremberg,
were placed in position. As the camp between the ramparts and the town
was traversed by the river Pegnitz numerous bridges were thrown across
it, so that the whole force could concentrate on either side in case of
attack. So vigorously did the army, assisted by the citizens, labour at
these works, that they were completed in fourteen days after Gustavus
reached Nuremberg.
It was on the 19th of June that the Swedish army arrived there, and on
the 30th Wallenstein and Maximilian of Bavaria appeared before it
with the intention of making an immediate assault. The works, however,
although not yet quite completed, were so formidable that Wallenstein
saw at once that the success of an assault upon them would be extremely
doubtful, and, in spite of the earnest entreaties of Maximilian to lead
his army to the assault, he decided to reduce the place by starvation.
This method appeared at once easy and certain. The whole of the
surrounding country belonged to the Bishop of Bamberg, who was devoted
to the Imperialist cause, and he possessed all the towns, and strong
places in the circle of country around Nuremberg. Wallenstein had
brought with him vast stores of provisions, and could draw upon the
surrounding country for the further maintenance of his army. It was only
necessary then to place himself in a position where the Swedes could not
attack him with a hope of success.
Such a position lay at a distance of three miles from Nuremberg, where
there was a wooded hill known as the Alte Veste. Round this Wallenstein
threw up a circle of defences, consisting of a ditch behind which was an
interlacement of forest trees, baggage wagons, and gabions, forming an
almost insurpassable obstacle to an attacking force. Within this circle
he encamped his army, formed into eight divisions, each about seven
thousand strong, while two considerable bodies of troops in the diocese
of Bamberg and the Upper Palatinate prepared to oppose any forces
approaching to the aid of Nuremberg, and the Croats, horse and foot,
scoured the country day and night to prevent any supplies entering the
city. Having thus adopted every means for starving out the beleaguered
army and city, Wallenstein calmly awaited the result.