The Young Carpenters of Freiberg | Page 6

Swedish dragoon that fired at me to-day? He swore in good round German, and it was one of the most wonderful oaths I ever heard. He said'--
The journeyman sprang up hastily, and put his hand before the lad's mouth. 'Silence!' he cried earnestly. 'Do not repeat the oath you heard to any one. When a man has once heard a wicked thing, it sticks in his memory for years. It is the good things we find so hard to remember. But to return to the Swedes. Their anger against us is not altogether without excuse. After our Elector had actually begged for an alliance with them, to protect him against the Emperor's tyranny,--after Gustavus Adolphus had fought for us Saxons, bled for us, won battles for us,--the Elector deserted his new ally as suddenly as he had joined him, just because fortune frowned on him in one or two battles. He did more than desert him; he threw himself again into the arms of the Emperor, whom he had good reason to know for his worst enemy. For this ingratitude'--
'Come, come, young fellow!' cried the miner, frowning. 'I shall have to serve you as you did the boy just now. What! You take on yourself to blame our illustrious Elector and his court! Pray, do you get better lessons in statesmanship over the glue-pot and vice than what our Elector and his princely council can teach you? You are forgetting that you live in the faithful mountain city of Freiberg--a city that is proud of being loyal to its prince without any grumbling or asking why and wherefore. "Fear God! honour the king! do right and fear no man!" That's what the Bible says.'
'I will be prudent and hold my peace,' said the young journeyman quietly. 'Yet even over the glue-pot and vice thoughts come to a man that cannot easily be got rid of.'
There followed a pause in the conversation, which lasted until Dollie, the miner's little daughter, turned to the apprentice with the question, 'Were the Swedes so very ugly? Had they got horns on their heads, or only one eye each, like the giants in the "Seven-leagued Boots," who used to eat little boys and girls? And oh, perhaps they had dreadful, great mouths, with rows of sharp teeth in them!'
In spite of their terrors, none of those present could restrain their laughter at the child's artless fears.
'I only had one look at the Swede as he leaped his horse over me,' said Conrad; 'and he looked just like anybody else, only that he had black hair and a fierce red moustache, just like'--and he broke off abruptly, and stared at the elder journeyman, then went on: 'Yes, such a long moustache that he could have tied it in a knot behind his head.'
'What!' stammered the journeyman, turning pale; 'black hair and a red moustache?'
'Yes,' replied Conrad; 'it looked so uncommonly odd, that it was the only thing I noticed about him.'
The journeyman sat silent for the rest of the evening. When the company had dispersed, he turned to the lad and said: 'My boy, now tell me the oath you heard the--the Swede use.'
Conrad looked at his companion in astonishment, and saw signs of some deep emotion on his face. 'But,' he objected, 'only a little while ago you said I was not to let any one hear the oath, and now'--
'You are quite right,' replied the journeyman. 'Hold fast by what I told you. But if you write down the words on this piece of paper for me it will hurt no one. I have a good reason for wanting to see them. Can you write?'
'I should just think I could,' said Conrad, half offended by the question. He wrote the words down, and noticed that as soon as the journeyman had read them he became even paler than before, and muttered something between his set teeth.
CHAPTER III.
PRIVATE RIGHTS MUST GIVE PLACE TO PUBLIC NECESSITIES.
On the 9th of November 1642, the forest of Freiberg presented a scene of the busiest activity. Several hundred men were at work, and many a great pine and fir tree bowed its lofty head beneath the stroke of axe and saw, to fall at last crashing to earth. The wood-cutters from the mines vied with those from the city--joiners, carpenters, wheelwrights, and coopers--in thinning the dense masses of beautiful forest trees as rapidly as possible. Burghers and others, aided by the gaunt-looking mining people, with earth-stained clothes and red night-caps on their heads, were loading the long heavy trunks upon drays that stood in readiness, and driving them off with all speed towards the town. The wind blew sharp and cool, yet no one complained of the cold; on the contrary, the large drops that tell of honest toil stood