The Young Carpenters of Freiberg | Page 5

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 up my mining leather, my shoes, and my coat, to

save that dog's life.'
'Come to me, Conrad, my son,' said a gentle woman's voice. 'Give me
your hand, and let me feel sure that I have you still, and that you have
really and truly escaped from the dreadful Swedes.'
The apprentice drew near to the speaker, who occupied the place of
honour in the armchair, and the upper part of whose face was hidden by
a large green shade. As he gave his right hand to his blind mother, a
little girl, who sat on a stool at the woman's feet, gently took the left
hand that the Swedish bullet had wounded.
'Does it hurt, poor Conrad?' asked the child earnestly.
'No, little Dollie,' replied the youth. 'The scratch on my hand isn't
nearly so bad as the blisters the hard gulden have made on my feet.'
'Ah!' cried Dollie, with a shudder; 'but how it would have hurt you if
the Swedes had caught you!'
'Dollie is quite right,' said the mistress of the house. 'My late husband
used to say the Swedes came from the same place where the Turks and
the Tartars live, and that that was why they were so cruel.'
The elder journeyman, a young man who had been sitting by with his
head resting on his hand, apparently uninterested in what was passing,
at this point broke into the conversation rather suddenly. 'Have the
Imperialists been one bit less cruel than the Swedes? Have they not
tortured people too?'
'It is perfectly true,' said the miner. 'The Swedes and the Imperialists
are both tarred with the same brush. For plundering, murdering, and
burning, there is not a pin to choose between them.'
'And that,' said the elder journeyman, 'is just because this long, long
war has given us a new sort of men--men in whom desperate greediness
takes the place of a heart, and whose conscience has been replaced by
an empty purse, to fill which is their one object in life. Their general is

their god, and they follow him or desert him just according as he leads
them to victory and plunder, or to defeat. They march from country to
country, selling their services to whichever side they think will give
them the richest booty. Swedes! I can assure you,