The Young Carpenters of Freiberg. Unknown
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Just look, Mistress Miller, there's a Swedish dragoon's bullet in the side of the truck; if you would lend me a chisel or a pair of pincers, I could get it out, and take it home in my pocket.'
While the woman was gone to fetch what he had asked for, Conrad carried the little coffin into the house.
'I know one thing,' he said to the miller's wife when she returned, 'our senior journeyman must be a very smart man; I should think he can almost hear the grass grow. If he had not been, my last hour would have come today. "Conrad Schmidt," he said to me before I started,—"Conrad Schmidt, in these days we must mind what we are about. You will perhaps meet some soldiers on the way to Erbisdorf, and if you do, I will tell you how to escape." If he had not told me what to do, they would have killed me to a certainty. But where is the poor little boy?'
The miller's wife stepped across to a corner of the room and drew back a large linen cloth from a bed, disclosing the body of a fine boy between eight and nine years old. He lay with closed eyes and little hands peacefully folded on his breast, so quiet that any one might have thought it was only sleep.
'We found him with his little hands folded just like that,' said the miller's wife, bursting into tears. 'His soul has gone to heaven, I am sure.'
'Ah! you can see he did not suffer much,' said Conrad softly, 'and that is something to be thankful for. Whether the two soldiers were Imperialists or Swedes, they might have tied the little fellow to a barn-door and practised at him with their pistols, or tortured him in fifty cruel ways, as they have often done to others. My mistress always says it is a happy thing for those who rest peacefully in their quiet graves. But what have you done with the bodies of the two wicked men?'
At this question a sudden change came over the miller's wife. A bright colour rose to her pale face, her eyes sparkled, and her hands clenched themselves tightly, as her trembling lips gave utterance to the words, 'They lie out there, behind the barn, waiting till the executioner comes to bury them.'
In the meantime the room had filled with country people, who had strolled into the mill on hearing that the child's coffin had arrived.
'H'm!' said the young carpenter; 'are you quite sure the dragoons I met will not come here and find that the two murderers were comrades of theirs? If they did, your brave deed might cost you dear.'
A smile was the woman's only reply, but a peasant answered for her: 'Dragoons, did you say, youngster? What countrymen were they?'
'Well,' replied Conrad, 'you can't always tell a bird by its feathers, especially if you don't happen to be a bird fancier. Whether they were Saxons, Imperialists, or Swedes, I do not know. The soldier that tried to kill me spoke good German, and he wore a blue doublet with bright yellow facings.'
'God help us!' cried the peasant. 'They are the Swedes, sure enough; I have known the blue doublets ever since 1639, the year they did so much harm to Erbisdorf, when General Bannier made his attack on Freiberg.'
'But come,' said Conrad, trying to rally his own courage, 'there's plenty of blue cloth and yellow facings in the world besides what is on Swedish uniforms; and as I told you before, that dragoon could swear in downright good German.'
'The Swedes! the Swedes!' was now heard from outside the house. 'The schoolmaster saw them from the top of the church tower.'
'The Swedes are coming!' was the general exclamation as every face turned pale. 'May heaven have mercy on us!' With this cry the frightened people rushed out of the room, leaving the terrified young apprentice and the miller's wife alone together. The latter did not appear to be much disturbed. She quietly counted out to the lad the price of the little coffin, and then turned away to lay her son's body in it. Conrad Schmidt hardly knew what he had better do. First of all he hid the money he had just received in one of his shoes, and then began to consider whether he should leave his hand-truck at the mill or take it back with him to Freiberg. His uncertainty did not last long. What the horse is to a horseman, that his truck is to a carpenter's apprentice. Neither the one nor the other will willingly part from his faithful companion except in great emergencies. Full of inward fears, but without showing any outward signs of panic, the youth set forth on his homeward way, a distance of six or eight miles.
CHAPTER II.
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