the workers.
'All this looks as if the Swedes were before the gates of Freiberg now,' said Rudorf, the younger journeyman; 'whereas the fact is, there isn't a sign to be seen of them anywhere. There does not seem to me to be any such tremendous hurry, that we can't even stop to have our dinners.'
'"Make hay while the sun shines,"' said Hillner, the elder journeyman. 'I can tell you Burgomaster Richzenhayn could not have done a wiser and better thing than to have plenty of wood brought in. It is as needful for the town as bread—indeed it is almost more needful. If it is not all wanted for palisadoes, chevaux-de-frise, covered ways, and galleries, we can always find a use for it in the stoves, and comfort ourselves with the warmth it will give us.'
'Hallo, you boy!' cried Rudorf, suddenly turning to Conrad the apprentice; 'look yonder how your step-father is enjoying his bread and bacon. Only see, too, what a fat bottle of beer he has got standing by him! Step across to him and ask him to give you a share of his good things, and to lend us his bottle for a minute or two.'
Conrad, who was busy sharpening a saw, looked up and answered with a sigh: 'I am glad enough to be out of his sight. If I went to him I should only get a sound thrashing instead of bread and bacon.'
The two journeymen were both watching Conrad's step-father, the town servant Jüchziger. As the lad spoke they saw the man leave his table, the stump of a fallen tree, and go across to a little girl who was busy picking up the scattered chips that lay about, and storing them in her long basket.
'You little thief!' he shouted angrily, 'I'll teach you to come here stealing wood.' He boxed the child's ears soundly, tore her basket off her back, emptied it, and crushed it under his foot.'
The little one began to cry, not so much on account of the blows she had received, as over her spoiled basket.
'What a burning shame!' said Conrad. 'It's our Dollie. Poor child, just look how she trembles!'
Without saying a word, Hillner, the senior journeyman, left his work. With his saw in his left hand, and his right fist tightly clenched, he strode up to the town servant, his angry face showing pretty plainly what was coming. As soon as he reached the offender, his hand unclenched to grasp Jüchziger by the collar. 'How dare you touch the child and destroy her basket?' he said, as he shook the astonished man roughly. 'Will you pay for that basket on the spot, hey?'
It must not be forgotten that a town servant often thinks himself a far greater man than even a town councillor. The bold and unexpected attack at first took Jüchziger by surprise, but when he had had time to take a good look at his assailant, and to see by his blue apron and general appearance that he was only a journeyman carpenter, all his rage came back at a bound, and he in his turn began to play the part of the offended person. He poured out a torrent of abuse on the journeyman, at the same time trying to collar the young man and pay him out in kind. By way of making up for the journeyman's superior strength, Jüchziger brought his official position into play, and called on the bystanders to come to his assistance. This step, however, only made matters worse for him. The deed he had been seen to do, the weeping child, the ruined basket, and the young carpenter's indignant story, all helped to rouse the popular anger against the offending town servant.
'What harm had the child done to you?' cried one. 'Are the sticks to lie here and rot, or be a welcome booty for the Swedes? Pray, how much could a child like that carry away? Does not the whole forest belong to us Freibergers, and shall not our own children pick up a basketful of sticks while we are slaving here without pay? Give the fellow a sound drubbing! Down with him, if he does not pay for the basket straight away!'
At these words fifty strong arms were raised threateningly, and Jüchziger saw that if he meant to save his skin it would be prudent to fetch out his purse and pay for the basket without loss of time.
'And a groschen1 for each of the cuffs he gave her,' shouted a voice from the crowd, and stingy Jüchziger had to obey this order too, which he did with a very bad grace. Dollie's tears dried up with wonderful quickness when she saw the shining silver really lying on her little palm, and she skipped merrily away to the town without either basket or wood.
While Hillner and Rudorf went quietly back to their work, Jüchziger kept a watchful eye on the former. As the tiger glares at his victim, but awaits impatiently the moment when he may safely spring upon it, so did the town servant promise himself to take a terrible revenge on the journeyman. As soon as the day's work was over, and the workers had reached the Peter Gate on their return home, he would have Hillner arrested by the guard and marched straight off to prison.
An unexpected incident hindered, for the time at all events, the execution of this promising scheme. The activity of the citizens in preparing to give the enemy a warm reception had by no means been confined to their day's work in the forest. Such buildings without the walls as had escaped in General Bannier's attack were now doomed to destruction. Thus it came about that the returning wood-cutters found a large number of people outside the Peter Gate, fetching the furniture out of their houses, and moving all their goods and chattels into the town as quickly as possible.
Two houses adjoining one another—one a handsome building and the other of humbler appearance—had already been stripped of windows, doors, roofing, and rafters, and busy hands were now at work tearing down the walls.
When Jüchziger so unmercifully destroyed Dollie's basket, he did not suspect that at that very moment the same fate was overtaking his wife's inheritance. For a moment the sight he now saw almost paralyzed him; then recovering his presence of mind, he hastened towards the scene of destruction, forgetful of all his plans for revenge.
But his angry protestations were of no avail; even his prayers were all in vain, which seemed to him very hard. The labourers went quietly and steadily on with their work, as though it were a thing that had to be done; and when Jüchziger laid his hand on one and another of them, with the idea of hindering them by force, he soon found himself repulsed in no very gentle fashion. While he stood in front of his little house wringing his hands, the very picture of misery and irresolution, a well-dressed man, of respectable appearance though he was covered with dust and bits, came out of the door of the larger mansion.
'Oh, my dear neighbour Löwe!' cried Jüchziger, 'advise me, stand by me, help me to send this rabble about their business! I only married the old blind woman because she owned this house, and now that there's no getting out of the bargain they are tearing my nest to pieces before my very eyes. Come, my dear neighbour, let us hasten at once to the burgomaster. You are a man of influence in the city, and your request added to mine will, even now, soon put a stop to this shocking business.'
'Our trouble would be all in vain,' replied Lowe quietly. 'These buildings are being pulled down by order of the burgomaster himself and of the town council; and quite right too, although I suffer a serious loss by it. "Private rights must always give place to public necessities." I was the first man to lay hands on my own house, and that makes it less hard for me to bear.'
In his heart Jüchziger cursed the good man for a fool, and turned away from him in a rage. 'If only Richzenhayn were not the acting burgomaster,' he said to himself. 'If Herr Jonas Schönleben were only at the head of affairs, he would be certain to listen to me. The cowardly blockheads! There is not a single Swedish plume to be seen round the whole horizon, and yet they must needs begin pulling down houses. But I will have ample compensation, or the whole town shall smart for it.'
'My poor, poor mother,' thought Conrad sorrowfully, as he watched the destruction of her little property. 'Father will make her pay dearly for all this that he is muttering and grumbling about there. Oh, whatever will become of her?'
Jüchziger lived with his wife in the town, and the elder men gave Conrad leave to run on ahead, that he might have time to tell his
A small German coin.
