The Young Carpenters of Freiberg | Page 3

either oaths, spurring, or blows of his heavy whip, until the horse, still shying but obedient at last, went trembling past the truck. Then the rider turned the animal back once more, and did not rest until he had made it leap over the object of its terror. As it did so, one of its hind hoofs touched the lid of the truck and threw it back. The soldier turned in mid-career, saw the form of the apprentice, drew a pistol from his holster like lightning, and fired at him where he lay. At the report and flash the youth started up, and the bullet passed close by his hand, grazing the skin, and lodged in the side of the truck. Fortunately for him, the report of the pistol had such a startling effect on the already frightened horse, that the rider could no longer restrain it, and rode off at full speed after his comrades, leaving the apprentice to pursue his way to Erbisdorf in peace. On reaching the village, he directed his steps towards the mill, where he was received by a slender, pale little woman, not at all like the miller's wife he expected to see, for he had pictured the heroine of his story as a tall, strong woman, with a loud voice and great muscular arms. He soon found out his mistake, however, for at sight of the sorrowful burden he had brought, she cried out, 'What! must I lay my little Georgie to rest in such a thing as that? Why, my husband need not have sent to Freiberg for it. We could have made a prettier resting-place ourselves for my little son, and'--
'Please have patience,' interrupted the apprentice, 'and do not despise our work before you have examined it. But first, would you be so good as to give me a bit of sopped bread to tie on my hand; it begins to burn and smart pretty badly. 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