_How I fed all the congregation--Item, how I journeyed to the
horse-fair at Gützkow, and what befell me there._
Next morning my daughter cut up the blessed bread, and sent to
every one in the village a good large piece. But as we saw that
our store would soon run low, we sent the maid with a truck, which
we bought of Adam Lempken, to Wolgast, to buy more bread, which
she did. _Item_, I gave notice throughout the parish that on
Sunday next I should administer the Blessed Sacrament, and in the
meantime I bought up all the large fish that the people of the
village had caught. And when the blessed Sunday was come I first
heard the confessions of the whole parish, and after that I
preached a sermon on Matt. xv. 32, "I have compassion on the
multitude ... for they have nothing to eat." I first applied the
same to spiritual food only, and there arose a great sighing from
both the men and the women, when, at the end, I pointed to the
altar whereon stood the blessed food for the soul, and repeated
the words, "I have compassion on the multitude ... for they have
nothing to eat." (_N.B._ The pewter cup I had borrowed at
Wolgast, and bought there a little earthenware plate for a paten
till such time as Master Bloom should have made ready the silver
cup and paten I had bespoke.) Thereupon as soon as I had
consecrated and administered the Blessed Sacrament, _item_,
led the closing hymn, and every one had silently prayed his "Our
Father" before going out of church, I came out of the confessional
again, and motioned the people to stay yet awhile, as the blessed
Saviour would feed not only their souls, but their bodies also,
seeing that He still had the same compassion on His people as of
old on the people at the Sea of Galilee, as they should presently
see. Then I went into the tower and fetched out two baskets which
the maid had bought at Wolgast, and which I had hidden there in
good time; set them down in front of the altar, and took off the
napkins with which they were covered, whereupon a very loud shout
arose, inasmuch as they saw one filled with broiled fish and the
other with bread, which we had put into them privately. Hereupon,
like our Saviour, I gave thanks and brake it, and gave it to the
churchwarden, Hinrich Seden, that he might distribute it among the
men, and to my daughter for the women. Whereupon I made
application of the text, "I have compassion on the multitude, for
they have nothing to eat," to the food of the body also; and
walking up and down in the church amid great outcries from all, I
exhorted them always to trust in God's mercy, to pray without
ceasing, to work diligently, and to consent to no sin. What was
left I made them gather up for their children and the old people
who were left at home.
After church, when I had scarce put off my surplice, Hinrich Seden
his squint-eyed wife came and impudently asked for more for her
husband's journey to Liepe; neither had she had anything for
herself, seeing she had not come to church. This angered me sore,
and I said to her, "Why wast thou not at church? Nevertheless, if
thou hadst come humbly to me thou shouldst have gotten somewhat
even now, but as thou comest impudently, I will give thee naught:
think on what thou didst to me and to my child." But she stood at
the door and glowered impudently about the room till my daughter
took her by the arm and led her out, saying, "Hear'st thou, thou
shall come back humbly before thou gett'st anything, but when thou
comest thus, thou also shall have thy share, for we will no longer
reckon with thee an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; let
the Lord do that if such be His will, but we will gladly forgive
thee!" Hereupon she at last went out at the door, muttering to
herself as she was wont; but she spat several times in the street,
as we saw from the window.
Soon after I made up my mind to take into my service a lad, near
upon twenty years of age, called Claus Neels, seeing that his
father, old Neels of Loddin, begged hard that I would do so,
besides which the lad pleased me well in manners and otherwise.
Then, as we had a good harvest this year, I resolved to buy me a
couple of horses forthwith, and to sow my field again; for
although it was now late in the year, I thought that the most
merciful God might bless the crop with increase if it seemed good
to Him.
Neither did I feel much care with respect to food for them,
inasmuch as there was a great plenty of hay in the neighbourhood,
seeing that all the cattle had been killed or driven away (as
related above). I therefore made up my mind to go in God's name
with my new ploughman to Gützkow, whither a great many Mecklenburg
horses were brought to the fair, seeing that times were not yet so
bad there as with us. [Footnote: The fief of Mecklenburg was given
by the Emperor to Wallenstein, who spared the country as much as
he could.] Meanwhile I went a few more times up the Streckelberg
with my daughter at night, and by moonlight, but found very
little; so that we began to think our luck had come to an end,
when, on the third night, we broke off some pieces of amber bigger
even than those the two Dutchmen had bought. These I resolved to
send to my wife's brother, Martin Behring, at Hamburg, seeing that
the schipper Wulff of Wolgast intends, as I am told, to sail
thither this very autumn, with pitch and wood for shipbuilding. I
accordingly packed it all up in a strong chest, which I carried
with me to Wolgast when I started with my man on my journey to
Gützkow. Of this journey I will only relate thus much, that there
were plenty of horses, and very few buyers in the market.
Wherefore I bought a pair of fine black horses for twenty florins
apiece; _item_, a cart for five florins; _item_,
twenty-five bushels of rye, which also came from Mecklenburg, at
one florin the bushel, whereas it is hardly to be had now at
Wolgast for love or money, and cost three florins or more the
bushel. I might therefore have made a good bargain in rye at
Gützkow if it had become my office, and had I not, moreover, been
afraid lest the robbers, who swarm in these evil times, should
take away my corn, and ill-use, and perchance murder me into the
bargain, as has happened to sundry people already. For, at this
time especially, such robberies were carried on after a strange
and frightful fashion on Strellin heath at Gützkow; but by God's
help it all came to light just as I journeyed thither with my
man-servant to the fair, and I will here tell how it happened.
Some months before a man had been broken on the wheel at Gützkow,
because, being tempted of Satan, he murdered a travelling workman.
The man, however, straightway began to walk after so fearful a
fashion, that in the evening and night-season he sprang down from
the wheel in his gallows dress whenever a cart passed by the
gallows, which stands hard by the road to Wolgast, and jumped up
behind the people, who in horror and dismay flogged on their
horses, and thereby made a great rattling on the log embankment
which leads beside the gallows into a little wood called the
Kraulin. And it was a strange thing that on the same night the
travellers were almost always robbed or murdered on Strellin
heath. Hereupon the magistrates had the man taken down from the
wheel, and buried under the gallows, in hopes of laying his ghost.
But it went on just as before, sitting at night snow-white on the
wheel, so that none durst any longer travel the road to Wolgast.
Until at last it happened that, at the time of the above-named
fair, young Rudiger von Nienkerken of Mellenthin, in Usedom, who
had been studying at Wittenberg and elsewhere, and was now on his
way home, came this road by night with his carriage. Just before,
at the inn, I myself had tried to persuade him to stop the night
at Gutzkow on account of the ghost, and to go on his journey with
me next morning, but he would not. Now as soon as this young lord
drove along the road, he also espied the apparition sitting on the
wheel, and scarcely had he passed the gallows when the ghost
jumped down and ran after him. The driver was horribly afraid, and
lashed on the horses as everybody else had done before, and they,
taking fright, galloped away over the log-road with a marvellous
clatter. Meanwhile, however, the young nobleman saw by the light
of the moon how that the apparition flattened a ball of horse-dung
whereon it trod, and straightway felt sure within himself that it
was no ghost. Whereupon he called to the driver to stop; and as
the man would not hearken to him, he sprung out of the carriage,
drew his rapier, and hastened to attack the ghost. When the ghost
saw this he would have turned and fled; but the young nobleman
gave him such a blow on the head with his fist that he fell upon
the ground with a loud wailing. _Summa:_ the young lord,
having called back his driver, dragged the ghost into the town
again, where he turned out to be a shoe-maker called Schwelm.
I also, on seeing such a great crowd, ran thither with many
others, to look at the fellow. He trembled like an aspen leaf; and
when he was roughly told to make a clean breast, whereby he might
peradventure save his own life, if it appeared that he had
murdered no one, he confessed that he had got his wife to make him
a gallows dress, which he had put on, and had sat on the wheel
before the dead man, when, from the darkness and the distance, no
one could see that the two were sitting there together; and this
he did more especially when he knew that a cart was going from the
town to Wolgast. When the cart came by, and he jumped down and ran
after it, all the people were so affrighted that they no longer
kept their eyes upon the gallows, but only on him, flogged the
horses, and galloped with much noise and clatter over the log
embankment. This was heard by his fellows in Strellin and
Dammbecke (two villages which are about three-fourths on the way),
who held themselves ready to unyoke the horses and to plunder the
travellers when they came up with them. That after the dead man
was buried he could play the ghost more easily still, &c. That
this was the whole truth, and that he himself had never in his
life robbed, still less murdered, any one; wherefore he begged to
be forgiven: that all the robberies and murders which had happened
had been done by his fellows alone. Ah, thou cunning knave! But I
heard afterwards that he and his fellows were broken on the wheel
together, as was but fair. And now to come back to my journey. The
young nobleman abode that night with me at the inn, and early next
morning we both set forth; and as we had grown into good
fellowship together, I got into his coach with him as he offered
me, so as to talk by the way, and my Claus drove behind us. I soon
found that he was a well-bred, honest, and learned gentleman,
seeing that he despised the wild student life, and was glad that
he had now done with their scandalous drinking-bouts: moreover, he
talked his Latin readily. I had therefore much pleasure with him
in the coach. However, at Wolgast the rope of the ferry-boat
broke, so that we were carried down the stream to Zeuzin,
[Footnote: Now Sauzin.] and at length we only got ashore with
great trouble. Meanwhile it grew late, and we did not get into
Coserow till nine, when I asked the young lord to abide the night
with me, which he agreed to do. We found my child sitting in the
chimney corner, making a petticoat for her little god-daughter out
of her own old clothes. She was greatly frighted, and changed
colour when she saw the young lord come in with me, and heard that
he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more
beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nering the
forest-ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me
aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her
little godchild having lain on it that morning; and she could no
wise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would
willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why
not? she blushed scarlet, and began to cry, and would not show
herself again the whole evening, so that the maid had to see to
everything, even to the putting white sheets on my child's bed for
the young lord, as she would not do it herself. I only tell this
to show how maidens are. For next morning she came into the room
with her red silk bodice, and the net on her hair, and the apron;
_summa,_ dressed in all the things I had bought her at
Wolgast, so that the young lord was amazed, and talked much with
her over the morning meal. Whereupon he took his leave, and
desired me to visit him at his castle.