Tales from the German Volume II Part 7

At the head of the table, which had been beautifully adorned for the betrothal-feast, the red-bearded captain had seated himself in terrible majesty. Desiring, for the present, to appear unusually gracious, he had invited the heads of the family and their children to take places at the table. The hospitality so kindly extended to them in their own house by a stranger, imparted no especial pleasure to those invited.

The children had formed the heroic resolution of not eating a morsel, merely to show their dislike to the detestable red-beard. Fessel looked with a gloomy brow directly before him; while the faithful Katharine forced herself to introduce and sustain the conversation, that a want of occupation might not give the fiend leisure for evil thoughts. Four arquebusiers guarded the doors, and in every part of the house arose the boisterous songs of the converters, who were revelling with Fessel's choicest wines.

'We are satisfied,' said the captain; and, emptying his goblet, he took off his military cap, murmured some words in a low voice, crossed himself, again put on his cap, and then, with feigned affability asked: 'So, your mother-in-law left you last night, Herr Fessel?' and as the latter answered affirmatively, he further asked: 'And her daughter, little Faith,--did the good woman take her with her?'

'Certainly!' stammered Fessel, who was not altogether prepared for this close examination.

'Strange!' said the captain, extending his goblet to the lady of the house to be replenished. 'How a man's eyes may deceive him! As I was standing with the other officers before the house three hours since, I would have sworn that I saw the little Faith standing at that very window.'

'It was probably me whom you saw, captain,' interposed Katharine. 'You must have observed that I resemble my sister very nearly.'

'Possibly!' observed the captain with a still more hateful smile. 'You had, indeed, at that time, a rose-colored band in your blond hair, and now you have brown locks and a black plaited cap. However, that is not so very strange. Women's toilets often produce much greater transformations.'

At this moment a violent outcry was heard from without. Fessel hastened from the room, and soon returned with his eldest apprentice, who was profusely bleeding from a wound on the head.

'What is the matter?' asked the captain, addressing himself to the wounded man. 'How dare you thus disturb me while at table?'

'By your leave, captain!' said the apprentice, with confidence; 'your sergeant has robbed me of all the money I had about me, and then beat me over the head with his sword because I had no more to give him. It was proper that I should complain to you in order that you might take measures to punish the outrage.'

'You did not know how to behave yourself properly, my son,' said the captain. 'My people are always kind and harmless as children to all who are complaisant towards them, and give them every thing they desire. Go and have your wound dressed, and be more careful another time.'

'Is that all the satisfaction I am to get for my injuries?' asked the apprentice, irritated by the pain of his wound, and still more by the captain's contemptuous answer.

The captain's eyes flashed like two baneful meteors.

'Satisfaction!--injuries! How dare you, a d.a.m.ned heretic, use such words in my presence? vociferated he, starting from his seat. You ought to thank G.o.d that my sergeant did not cleave your head asunder. Pack yourself hence, if you do not wish that I should complete the work he began.'

He grasped his sword, the young man sprang beyond his reach, and Katharine, in soft and soothing tones, besought the savage to be pacified; but the last link of the chain, by which his natural brutality had hitherto been restrained, was now broken; the wild beast in human form was let loose, and yielded only to the most savage impulses.

'Do you suppose, vagabonds,' roared the fiend, 'that we have come here to keep strict discipline and to wait quietly for what you may please to dispense to us? We are come to chastise you for your heresy, which is a revolt alike against G.o.d and the emperor. We are come to convert you to the true faith; and if your stubbornness will not suffer our object to be accomplished by fair means, you are given over to us as a prize, with your property and lives, bodies and souls, to be tormented by us to our heart's content, until you are brought to repentance and an abandonment of your abominable opinions, or sink in despair.'

'No, captain,' cried Fessel, with manly firmness; 'that is not the will of our emperor, and I should consider it treasonable to believe your scandalous a.s.sertions. Nor was that the condition upon which we admitted you within our walls. From your colonel's own mouth have I heard quite a different speech, and I shall go and ask him if he is about to give the lie to his own words.'

'First go to your own chamber as an arrested prisoner,' said the captain, with a smile of contempt; 'until I have had you tried for your rebellious speech. Lead him forth!' commanded he to the guards. 'Lock him up, watch him sharply, and if he attempts to escape shoot him down.'

'Eternal justice, judge and avenge!' cried Fessel, as the soldiers dragged him away.

'Mercy!' implored his faithful wife, clasping the captain's knees; but the latter disengaged himself from her, put the children, who pressed around her, out of the room, drew Katharine to a window, and in a low voice said to her, 'you see that I can be either good or bad as you would have me. Upon you alone it depends how I shall further proceed.

Therefore answer me honestly and truly, where is your sister?'

'She fled last night,' answered Katharine, with calm firmness; 'to escape the horrors which threaten us. Whither, I do not consider it my duty to inform you.'

'This is fine!' exclaimed the captain, grinning like a Bengal tiger when his keeper compels him to show his teeth. 'I like to know how people feel towards me. I now go to my colonel, and you shall soon hear from me again.'

He departed, and the children, again rus.h.i.+ng in, embraced their mother with loud lamentation. Katharine sank upon her knees, and her children with her, and, raising their eyes and hands towards heaven, with a bleeding heart but nevertheless with confidence, the pious woman prayed in the words of the royal psalmist: 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?

and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in G.o.d; for I shall yet praise him for his countenance who is my help and my G.o.d.'

The boisterous sorrow of the children subsided into gentle weeping, and from every lip was heard the loud, believing, joyful, amen!'

CHAPTER VIII.

Some days later, Katharine was sitting with her children at the close of day and exerting herself to read by the fading twilight a letter of consolation which her imprisoned husband had thrown to little Ulrich.

The door was cautiously opened and a soldier in the Lichtenstein uniform hesitatingly entered.

'Do not be alarmed,' whispered he, as they shrunk from his approach. 'I am Dorn, and have smuggled myself into the house in this disguise, that I might bring you consolation and see for myself how you were situated.

Your mother and sister are in health and safety, and send kind greetings to you. Nor need you be anxious on your husband's account. I am certain that it is better for him to be in confinement than to be free and expose himself to the outrages to which every hour gives birth, and do things in moments of pa.s.sion and excitement which would only make matters worse. Should his situation become more critical, I shall always be near him.'

'In G.o.d's name, master Dorn, what is to be the end of all this?'

anxiously asked Katharine.

'A city full of catholics,' answered Dorn with a bitter smile. 'The count of Dohna has arrived to-day. That is a sufficient reason for fearing the worst. From a renegade, who expects to win the princ.i.p.ality of Breslau by his tyrannical fury, nothing is to be hoped.'

'Then G.o.d help us!' sobbed Katharine, wringing her hands.

'By means of our arms, if it cannot be otherwise,' said Dorn, with energy. 'I have carefully avoided encountering your worthy guest, because I well know that one of us must in that case remain dead upon the spot, and that would little help you in any event; but, if it becomes necessary, I will strike the devil to the earth and free you from him.'

'No,' anxiously entreated Katharine; 'no murder on our account.'

'That is man's work, dear lady,' said Dorn. 'No woman can reason upon the subject. Every one must act according to his conscience. It will be well for me and him if the necessity does not occur.'

A gentle and afterwards a more decided knock was heard at the door. A voice asked, 'are you alone, madam Fessel?' and directly the pale and bleeding face of parson Beer peered into the room.

'How pale you look! what has happened to you?' cried the frightened Katharine.

'My face bears the marks of the converting zeal of the imperial apostles,' answered the parson with suppressed anger. 'Most terribly do these Lichtensteins deal with the servants of the word. I have escaped with less injury than some of my brethren. Me they only misused and smote with their side arms, because I preached the truth to them with the sharp fire of the spirit which had come upon me. I heed it not, and even consider myself honored by the blows I received; one of which came near making me a martyr. My worthy a.s.sociate, Bartsch, was much more shamefully treated, and my blood boils and foams when I think of it.

That they hustled, abused and plundered him, might be pa.s.sed over; but the h.e.l.lish crew, adding to these outrages the most shameful scorn and mockery, compelled that man of G.o.d to dance before them; himself, his wife, and children to dance, like the infatuated Israelites before the golden calf. For which the reprobates will one day be compelled to dance to the howlings of d.a.m.ned spirits in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels!'

'How goes it with the poor citizens?' asked Dorn, for the purpose of diverting the attention of the zealot from the occurrences which had so excited his anger.

'As might be supposed, very badly,' answered the parson. 'The counter reformation may be said to have dated its commencement from the arrival of the terrible Dohna. The soldiers are quartered only upon the protestants, to whom they say, 'the moment you go and confess to the Dominican or Franciscan priests, and bring a certificate of the fact, that moment we will leave you and go elsewhere.' When the poor people have been thus oppressed until they can bear it no longer, they become frantic and repair to the priests for the certificate of confession.

The tormenting fiends then leave them and are distributed among such of their neighbors as yet hold to the true faith, and treat them in the same manner, until they, overcome by the weight of the burthen, also go, like Peter, and deny their lord and master in the churches of their adversaries. In this way we clergymen have each sixty men quartered upon us, and the aldermen the same number. Burgomaster Yunge has already over a hundred men to provide for, and if the apostacy extends much further, the last true believing christian of Schweidnitz will have the whole seven squadrons of converters collected in his own house.'

'Why do not the wretched people flee and abandon house and home, property and sustenance?' asked the excited Dorn.

'So they would have done, by thousands,' answered the parson; 'but the converters will not let them go. The citizens are kept prisoners in their city, and every householder is confined to his house. The gates are closed, and each family is guarded by those who are quartered upon it. In vain have some of our wealthiest citizens offered to give up all their property with the promise never to ask for it again; in vain have others sought death rather than a continuance of their sufferings. That is not the object of our oppressors, whose only answer to all our prayers is, 'you must embrace our faith.'

'I have heard enough,' cried Dorn, with bursting rage. 'Say no more, or, unable to restrain my wrath, I shall strike some of the hounds to the earth and thereby bring my life to a sudden end. Farewell, Frau Katharine,--I return to my hiding place; but shall not be far off, and most joyfully will I lay down my life, if need be, in defence of you and yours.'

He strode forth,--the parson stepped to the window, through which the bright moon was pouring its silver light, and, while watching Dorn's retreating steps, convulsively pressed his hands across his breast and gave frightful utterance to the following imprecation: 'Thy hand shall find all thine enemies, Thy right hand shall find them that hate thee.

Thou wilt melt them as in a furnace when thou lookest upon them; the Lord will consume them in his anger, fire shall devour them. Their seed wilt thou destroy from the face of the earth, and their names from among the children of men.'

'G.o.d preserve us, reverend sir,' interposed Katharine. 'How can you offer up such a horrible prayer? Rather should you remember and imitate the forgiving spirit of our Savior when he prayed; 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!'

'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,' he tremblingly repeated after her, his anger rebuked by the divine sentiment, and submissively raised his eyes toward the exhaustless source of love and mercy.