Memorials and Other Papers, vol 2 | Page 3

cheerfulness; but his

features expressed anxiety, and his manner was hurried. Whether he
had not observed the officer overlooking them, or thought that the
importance of the communications which he had to make transcended
all common restraints of caution, there was little time to judge; so it
was, at any rate, that, without lowering his voice, he entered abruptly
upon his business.
"Friends! I have seen the accursed Holkerstein; I have penetrated
within his fortress. With my own eyes I have viewed and numbered his
vile assassins. They are in strength triple the utmost amount of our
friends. Without help from us, our kinsmen are lost. Scarce one of us
but will lose a dear friend before three nights are over, should
Klosterheim not resolutely do her duty."
"She shall, she shall!" exclaimed a multitude of voices.
"Then, friends, it must be speedily; never was there more call for
sudden resolution. Perhaps, before to-morrow's sun shall set, the sword
of this detested robber will be at their throats. For he has some
intelligence (whence I know not, nor how much) of their approach.
Neither think that Holkerstein is a man acquainted with any touch of
mercy or relenting. Where no ransom is to be had, he is in those
circumstances that he will and must deliver himself from the burden of
prisoners by a general massacre. Infants even will not be spared."
Many women had by this time flocked to the outer ring of the listening
audience. And, perhaps, for their ears in particular it was that the young
stranger urged these last circumstances; adding,
"Will you look down tamely from your city walls upon such another
massacre of the innocents as we have once before witnessed?"
"Cursed be Holkerstein!" said a multitude of voices.
"And cursed be those that openly or secretly support him!" added one
of the students, looking earnestly at the officer.
"Amen!" said the officer, in a solemn tone, and looking round him with

the aspect of one who will not suppose himself to have been included
in the suspicion.
"And, friends, remember this," pursued the popular favorite; "whilst
you are discharging the first duties of Christians and brave men to those
who are now throwing themselves upon the hospitality of your city,
you will also be acquitting yourselves of a great debt to the emperor."
"Softly, young gentleman, softly," interrupted the officer; "his serene
highness, my liege lord and yours, governs here, and the emperor has
no part in our allegiance. For debts, what the city owes to the emperor
she will pay. But men and horses, I take it--"
"Are precisely the coin which the time demands; these will best please
the emperor, and, perhaps, will suit the circumstances of the city. But,
leaving the emperor's rights as a question for lawyers, you, sir, are a
soldier,--I question not, a brave one,--will you advise his highness the
Landgrave to look down from the castle windows upon a vile marauder,
stripping or murdering the innocent people who are throwing
themselves upon the hospitality of this ancient city?"
"Ay, sir, that will I, be you well assured--the Landgrave is my
sovereign--"
"Since when? Since Thursday week, I think; for so long it is since your
tertia [Footnote: An old Walloon designation for a battalion.] first
entered Klosterheim. But in that as you will, and if it be a point of
honor with you gentlemen Walloons to look on whilst women and
children are butchered. For such a purpose no man is my sovereign; and
as to the Landgrave in particular--"
"Nor ours, nor ours!" shouted a tumult of voices, which drowned the
young student's words about the Landgrave, though apparently part of
them reached the officer. He looked round in quest of some military
comrades who might support him in the voye du fait, to which, at this
point, his passion prompted him. But, seeing none, he exclaimed,
"Citizens, press not this matter too far--and you, young man, especially,
forbear,--you tread upon the brink of treason!"

A shout of derision threw back his words.
"Of treason, I say," he repeated, furiously; "and such wild behavior it is
(and I say it with pain) that perhaps even now is driving his highness to
place your city under martial law."
"Martial law! did you hear that?" ran along from mouth to mouth.
"Martial law, gentlemen, I say; how will you relish the little articles of
that code? The provost marshal makes short leave-takings. Two fathom
of rope, and any of these pleasant old balconies which I see around me
(pointing, as he spoke, to the antique galleries of wood which ran round
the middle stories in the Convent of St. Peter), with a confessor, or
none, as the provost's breakfast may chance to allow, have cut short, to
my knowledge, the