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.