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.