The roar of cannon followed close on the words, and the women and children huddled together in alarm.

'You may give a pretty good guess by that what they were,' replied Hillner. 'That's Marshal Torstenson's way of telling us how he likes his answer.'

The thunder of the guns was heard again. While all were gazing in the direction whence the reports seemed to come, they saw a flash issue from the side of St. Peter's Tower, followed in a few seconds by a loud report.

'There you have question and answer again,' said Hillner. This exchange of shots had not gone on for very long, however, before the fire of the Swedes destroyed the topmost parapet of the tower. The gun planted there was silenced, and had to be moved down to a lower chamber. By way of covering this movement, the garrison opened a heavy fire with cannon and double arquebuses on the Swedes, who had ventured rather nearer to the town than was quite prudent.

'Now I must be off,' said John suddenly. 'The game has begun, and I must go and take my share in it. May G.o.d keep you all! Good-bye!'

As he hastened away the a.s.sembled household watched his retreating figure with very various feelings.

The next day, December 31, in spite of the snow and the heavy fire of the garrison, the Swedes opened their entrenchments before the Peter Gate, and planted three mortars there, which threw great stones, sh.e.l.ls, and hundred-and-fifty pound shot into the town.

Thus closed the old year 1642, and the new year was not destined to open upon brighter or more joyful prospects.

CHAPTER V.

THE SOWER OF TARES.

The 1st of January, 1643, had hardly dawned, when the town servant Juchziger presented himself before the new acting-Burgomaster, Herr Jonas Schonleben.

'Respected Herr Burgomaster,' he began humbly, 'permit the most unworthy of all your servants to be first in wishing you a happy new year, and congratulating you on the honour you have now attained. The new year promises to be a very hard one, and your new office will be harder still. I thank G.o.d that in these difficult times we are so happy as to have your worship for our Burgomaster.'

'I am obliged to you, Juchziger,' replied Schonleben feelingly. 'I am obliged to you for all your kind wishes. Yes, these are indeed hard times in which I undertake the management of public business. The care of more than sixty thousand souls is laid on me at a time when even a Solomon would have had need of all his wisdom. This thought has been much in my mind, and last night I followed the wise king's example,--I commended myself earnestly to G.o.d, praying Him to teach me the right, and then to give me strength and courage to do it.'

'To maintain the right with strength and courage against all comers, against friends as well as foes,' said Juchziger. 'For, alas! how many are there who would be only too glad to interfere with your worship's rights as Burgomaster, and put all your wise intentions aside to carry out their own selfish schemes,--men who would be only too glad, in a word, to leave you the mere name of acting-Burgomaster, and nothing more. I am quite sure it is your worship's kindly heart that has made you give ear to them until misfortune is hanging over the town, and the citizens and the rest are all bemoaning themselves, while your worship's false friends raise their heads like snakes, as they are, to sting you the moment your worship's back is turned.'

Schonleben stood silent, gazing thoughtfully on the ground.

'Did either your worship or any of our other worthy magistrates give orders for every armed journeyman to receive a gulden a week and two pounds of bread a day?' continued Juchziger in an injured tone; 'or that on this very New Year's Day, eight hundred Freiberg citizens should tear up the pavement in the streets of their own city to protect the houses from the Swedish cannon? Do you know, respected Herr Burgomaster, that that young Swedish turncoat who was so impudent to you in the St. Peter's Tower, and demanded to be made a citizen, has been admitted by the commandant into the City Guard, contrary to all custom and right? Who will guarantee that the pretended Saxon is not really a spy, plotting to betray the city into the hands of the Swedes the first chance he gets?'

'Is this really so?' asked Schonleben with displeasure.

'If you doubt my word, your worship can easily see for yourself,'

replied Juchziger. 'The fellow struts about the streets every day in his Defensioner's uniform, until he nearly runs himself off his legs.'

'Tell Badehorn, the captain of the City Guard, to meet me here in an hour's time,' said Schonleben angrily; 'and bid him be ready to explain why he has admitted a stranger among his men in this irregular way.'

'The soldier,' continued Juchziger, 'risks nothing in war but just his life. The citizen risks a great deal more, for he has a wife and children, hearth and home. When a town is taken, the soldiers are either made prisoners of war or allowed to march out unhurt; it is into the citizen's house that the enemy comes, to ill-use his wife, children, and servants. These Swedes now are pressing the siege of our town so hard that we cannot possibly hold out for long. They say that even if Torstenson offers us fair terms, the commandant means to refuse them without even asking your worship anything about it, and so to give the town up to be stormed and pillaged. Now I, in my humble way, should have thought your worship's voice ought to count for something in this matter. Your worship knows what is for the good of the town a great deal better than a soldier of fortune that has only been here a few weeks.'

The Burgomaster made no reply. His thoughtful air, however, as he stood absently drumming on the window-pane, showed that the mischief-maker had not spoken in vain. By way of striking while the iron was hot, Juchziger continued: 'As I was on my way to your worship's house this morning, I saw the Herr Burgomaster Richzenhayn going to call on the commandant, no doubt meaning to offer him a new year's greeting. Are you going to do the same, most n.o.ble sir, or don't you think a Burgomaster of the free city of Freiberg--which, with refugees, now counts over sixty thousand souls--is at least as good a man as the commander of two hundred and ninety soldiers?'

Schonleben clasped his hands behind his back, and paced slowly and thoughtfully up and down his room.

If any reader mentally charges the author with exaggeration here, he does him an injustice. The writer has had many opportunities of knowing officials, both of high and low degree, who were, quite unconsciously to themselves, tools in the hands of their servants, the latter being permitted a freedom of speech that would never have been tolerated in equals. Such servants have always had the knack of making themselves indispensable, while preserving an outward appearance of the deepest humility; and thus it has often come to pa.s.s that a lord has been made to discharge a shaft aimed by his humble va.s.sal.

When Juchziger's crafty eye saw that the arrow he had thus been pointing was, so to speak, ready to be loosed from the bow, he adroitly changed the subject of conversation to something that lay much nearer his heart.

'You are aware, respected Herr Burgomaster,' he began again in a wheedling tone, 'that when I entered on my office I married the widow of Schmidt, my predecessor. I did it partly out of compa.s.sion for the poor woman, and partly to save the town the expense of keeping her and her son, who is now a boy of fourteen years old. My wife, a woman five years older than myself, all at once went stone blind, so that now I am forced to have a servant to wait on her. I had the good fortune to apprentice the boy to Mistress Bluthgen, the carpenter's widow, but his mother has petted and pampered him until he is a good-for-nothing, lazy young rascal. And now that the workshops are closed and the craftsmen and journeymen all take their turn at military duty, the boy's mistress threatens to send him home and put me to the expense of keeping him,--me that scarcely knows which way to turn for bread to feed my wife and her servant! The worst of it is that all my wife's little property, a small house outside the Peter Gate, has been levelled with the ground by order of Burgomaster Richzenhayn, and I have never had a single kreuzer[1] for my loss. The house was worth three hundred and fifty gulden.[2] Gracious Herr Burgomaster, take me and my small family under your powerful protection, help me to get proper compensation for my house, and I shall be your grateful servant all the days of my life.'

'My dear Juchziger,' interposed Schonleben, 'be a.s.sured I will do all I can. The times are so bad that the town will want all its strength, and all its money, to defend itself against the Swedes, and we shall have to leave our private interests in the background for a while; but I will see that you suffer no actual want through this misfortune.'

Juchziger concealed the disappointment he felt on hearing these words, thanked the Burgomaster for his kind intentions, and took his leave.

'Do not forget to send Badehorn here!' Schonleben called after him as he went out. In a comparatively short time he made his appearance again.

'Captain Badehorn presents his respectful compliments to the Herr Burgomaster, and begs to inform his worship that he cannot have the honour of waiting on him at the time mentioned.' Here Juchziger discreetly paused.

'And why not?' asked Schonleben, starting up. 'Are the ties of obedience that bind citizen to magistrate broken already?'

'He cannot come,' continued Juchziger, 'because the orders of Commandant von Schweinitz forbid it. They are every instant expecting an attack to be made by the Swedes, and the commandant has ordered every man to remain at his post.'

'Ah, of course! That is quite a different thing,' said Schonleben, as his angry brow grew smooth again. 'Badehorn could not act otherwise, and it becomes my duty to go and see him if I want my question answered.'

When Burgomaster Schonleben left his house somewhat later in the day, the death-like stillness that reigned throughout the usually busy city weighed on his spirit. Not a clock was striking, not a bell rang out its joyful peal in welcome to the new year. Only at long intervals did he see a human being pa.s.s along the street, and then it was in fear and haste. On the other hand, as he went on his way, he saw at various points large bodies of men standing silent in their ranks, waiting the call of duty and the word of command. Here were the vigorous journeymen of the different trades, and the stalwart country-people; there the trusty miners, some with nondescript weapons, others armed with pick-axes, mattocks, and long guns, or provided with ladders and great buckets of water, in readiness for an alarm of fire. In the streets adjoining the Erbis and Kreuz Gates, bustling activity was the order of the day. Hundreds of tireless workers were tearing up the paving of the roadways, while women and children carried away the stones, and piled them against the houses. Not a creature complained of the cold, though it was by no means small.

As Schonleben drew near to the city wall and the Kreuz Gate, one helmeted head after another came into view, rising above the battlements, and there was a certain comfortable sense of security in the knowledge that they were the heads of the armed citizens mounting guard. Men standing still feel the cold severely, and accordingly huge fires had been built in some of the sheltered corners, round which the armed burghers stood chatting, each with his firelock ready to hand.

On inquiring for Captain Badehorn, Schonleben was told that the captain had been summoned by the commandant, and that the lieutenant of the City Guard, Peter Schmohl, had command of the Defensioners in the absence of his superior officer. Schonleben tried to make out the Swedish deserter among the Defensioners present, but was obliged to return home without having done so. Hardly had he turned his back on the fortifications, when the Swedish cannon opened fire on the Peter Gate and the neighbouring defensive works. After firing a score of shots, however, Torstenson sent to the commandant, demanding the surrender of the town. He had, he said, paraded his army and fired a salute in his honour; should any further resistance be offered, he would the next day attack the town more vigorously, and destroy it.

The commandant sent a polite but firm refusal, and on the following day Torstenson fulfilled the first part of his threat by opening a terrible fire against the town. In six hours his artillery discharged over thirteen hundred shots, by which the Peter Gate, the adjoining tower, and a portion of the city wall were all severely injured, while many sh.e.l.ls, and a perfect hailstorm of large stones, pa.s.sed over the ramparts into the town itself. Then the enemy drew near with flying colours, bringing ladders, for the purpose of scaling the ramparts. By way of rendering their task easier, they exploded their first mines, which, however, did not accomplish all that was expected from them.

Meantime the besieged, on their part, were by no means idle. To prevent the storming of the breach at the Peter Gate, two cannon were planted in Peter Street, the gaps in the ramparts were hastily repaired, the bastions and inner defences of the gate itself were strengthened, while large quant.i.ties of hand-grenades and other ammunition were laid in readiness. Thus prepared, the citizens confidently awaited the threatened attack, which, however, did not take place, partly, it was supposed, because of a violent snow-storm that came on, and partly through the failure of the mines. Scarcely had the Swedish troops withdrawn in the evening, when the besieged made a sortie, in which the miners cleared the moat of the rubbish that enc.u.mbered it, and picked up a considerable number of cannon-b.a.l.l.s, which they carried into the town as valuable booty.

The Swedes maintained their fire throughout the whole of that evening, and far into the night, to prevent the Freibergers from rebuilding their fortifications; in the course of this firing a miner and a forester were killed in the city, and several others among the defenders severely wounded. On the next day, January 3d, the firing was renewed with heavy siege-guns in addition to the lighter pieces, and a second mine was sprung, making a breach seventy feet wide in the city wall. As soon as this result had been achieved, the Swedes, to the number of two hundred, delivered their first a.s.sault against the Peter Gate. The fighting, however, only lasted about a quarter of an hour, and ended in the complete repulse of the besiegers.

During the lull that followed, Juchziger arrived at the house of Burgomaster Schonleben, to announce that Colonel von Schweinitz wished to speak with him, and requested his worship to come to him at once for that purpose.

Juchziger's tone and look were carefully calculated to provoke the Burgomaster's pride, and Schonleben made a sign for the messenger to withdraw. 'Am I his slave?' he broke out angrily, as soon as the man was out of hearing. 'Have I not every bit as good a right to send for him as he has to send for me? I will soon let him know which of us has the best right to command here!'

But when the first heat of his anger had spent itself, quieter thoughts began to prevail.

Schonleben was at heart far too n.o.ble and conscientious a man to sacrifice the welfare of a great city, entrusted to his keeping, to a sense of his own offended dignity. 'One must not be too particular,'

he said to himself, 'about an affront from a rough old soldier; after all, he may wish to speak about some matter of importance. At all events, I will just go and hear what he has to say.'

With thoughts like these working in his mind, Schonleben betook himself to the commandant, who laughed boisterously as he shook hands with his visitor, and began at once with: 'Torstenson has already sent a third time to demand the surrender of the city, as if he thought he had knocked us into a c.o.c.ked hat by that a.s.sault we repulsed so easily. He has been kind enough, too, to remind me that Breisach, Regensburg, Gross-Glogau, and Leipzig have all been besieged and taken by the Swedes, and to add that it is quite out of the question for a badly fortified place like Freiberg to withstand his power. We are not to count on any a.s.sistance, and if I reject his present kind offers he will take the place by storm, and will not spare even the babe at its mother's breast.'

'And what answer do you propose to send to all this, Herr Colonel?'

asked Schonleben. 'I suppose you sent for me to see what my opinion might be?'

'Not a bit of it, my dear Schonleben, I a.s.sure you,' replied von Schweinitz, laughing. 'The Swede has received his answer some time since, and there was not the smallest need to trouble you in any way about the matter. The enemy has received from me, take my word for it, the only possible answer a soldier could send to such a demand, and I now want to consult with you about pushing matters a little farther.'

'But,' said Schonleben in an offended tone, 'I should have thought that as acting-Burgomaster I ought at least to have had a word to say where the weal or woe of the thousands of families under my care was at stake. Pray, what is to happen when you and your soldiers are all killed, the citizens and other combatants worn out with their excessive duties in this bitter weather, the walls destroyed, the gates taken by storm, and the Swede bursts in at last to put his threats into execution?'

'What!' cried Schweinitz, astounded by this sudden outburst. 'Is it the Burgomaster of the loyal city of Freiberg I hear speaking such words as these?'