[1] A small German coin.
The tower of St. Peter's Church rises high into the air above all the other buildings of Freiberg. In those early days church-towers were too often used for purposes with which religion had but little to do. Grim cannon sometimes stood there, not to fire harmless salutes on days of public rejoicing, but more often to be loaded with deadly missiles and fired at an enemy. Thus it happened that one of these instruments of death had been planted in the highest chamber of the St. Peter's Tower at Freiberg. Round this cannon, on December 27, 1642, stood Burgomaster Jonas Schönleben and several others, among whom were Hillner the journeyman, and the town servant Jüchziger. Winter had come in all its might, and the cold, particularly up here in the windy tower, was very severe, while snow lay deep over all the surrounding landscape. The eyes of those present were intently gazing beyond the town, to where, on the hill above the Hospital Church, many cavalry soldiers could be seen moving about and beginning to take up their positions. There had been a good deal of doubt expressed in the town as to whether the Swedish commander really meant to undertake a siege up there among the mountains at such an inclement season, with snow lying thickly on the frozen ground. The appearance of these horsemen and their business-like movements seemed to set such doubts at rest once for all.
'Respected Herr Burgomaster,' began Jüchziger, 'in my humble opinion those soldiers are not Swedes at all, but Imperialists who have reached us from Bohemia before the enemy had time to come up. I should think Marshal Piccolomini has sent them to frighten the Swedes into leaving the city alone.'
'What we ardently wish we soon believe,' and Jüchziger's speech found favour with the Burgomaster no less than with his other hearers. Hillner alone said respectfully but firmly, 'Herr Burgomaster, they are Swedes beyond the possibility of doubt. I know them well; they are Diedemann's dragoons.'
'And how may you happen to know that, young man?' asked Schönleben gloomily.
'Because—well, in fact, because I once served among the Swedes myself,' replied Hillner.
'What!' cried Schönleben in astonishment; 'you a Swede, and here in Freiberg!'
'I crave your pardon, Herr Burgomaster,' returned Hillner. 'By this time very few in the Swedish army are really Swedes at all; they are men gathered in from all nations—not a few of them from Saxony itself. Many a citizen and countryman too has been driven by starvation to take up the hard life of a soldier just to get the means of keeping body and soul together. Others have been dragged by force into the Swedish ranks, as I was. I only served one year, the year in which General Bannier laid siege to Freiberg. I was wounded in the course of that siege, taken prisoner, and brought into the city, and being recognised for a Saxon born and bred, I was allowed to return to my trade. I am just about to become a master carpenter, and have already applied to be enrolled among the citizens.'
'Your name?'
'John Hillner of Struppen, near Pirna. Might I entreat your worship's gracious influence on my behalf?'
'I am not yet acting-Burgomaster,' replied Schönleben rather shortly. 'You must make your application to my brother in office, Burgomaster Richzenhayn.'
'But your worship will be in office in two or three days,' persisted Hillner, in a tone of entreaty. 'And when you are so, let me beg you kindly to remember my request.'
'I'll take good care to see all about that,' muttered Jüchziger to himself. 'And thank you, Master Shavings, for giving me a handle to catch hold of you by.'
Hillner's practised eye had not deceived him. The cavalry, between seven and eight hundred in number, proved to belong to the enemy, and sharply attacking the Saxon dragoons sent out to observe them, compelled them to retire within the fortifications. Upon this the commandant at once made all necessary preparations for defending the town. Two companies of infantry, under Captain von Arnim, had charge of the Peter Gate; Major Müffel, with his own men and some others, mounted guard at the Erbis and Donat Gates; Captain Badehorn, with the City Guard, garrisoned the Electoral Castle and the Kreuz Gate, together with the works and space that lay between. The remaining citizens were told off to defend the posterns and walls, in which task they were assisted by companies of country-people and journeymen of the various city guilds armed in all haste. Some of these auxiliaries also waited, drawn up in their ranks before the town hall, ready to march at a moment's notice to any specially threatened point. To the brave and faithful miners were assigned the most dangerous duties of all, such as extinguishing the fires caused by shells, repairing the defences wherever the enemy might destroy them, counter-working such mines as should be directed against the town, and making sorties to destroy the enemy's trenches and siege-works. When all the inhabitants capable of bearing arms had been thus told off to their several duties, the old men, women, and children were requested to observe the appointed hours for prayer, and ask help from the Almighty in the city's time of need.
Marshal Torstenson appeared before Freiberg on December 29. He at once took possession of the Hospital Church and a mansion near it, both of these buildings lying at some little distance outside the Peter Gate; here he planted a battery of artillery, the guns of which were levelled at the St. Peter's Tower. Before commencing hostilities, however, the Swedish marshal sent a trumpeter to the town to inquire whether the commandant intended to defend the place, what was his name, and whether he knew him, Torstenson. The intrepid commandant returned for answer that his name was George Hermann von Schweinitz, and that he hoped the marshal would spend no more time in asking questions, but set at once to work, when he trusted to find him a right valiant soldier.
On the same day an extraordinary surprise befell Conrad Schmidt. He was setting things straight in the workshop, which now stood silent and deserted, when he heard heavy footsteps approaching, and behold, in marched an armed man whom he seemed to know and yet not to know. The visitor wore a broad cocked hat with a little bunch of feathers at the side, and a short tunic of green cloth, the collar and edges of which were thickly laced with gold brocade wherever the broad sword-belt girt round his body permitted them to be seen. From left shoulder to right hip hung the bandolier or cartridge-belt, which was adorned with many golden tufts, and partly hid the lion of the Freiberg city arms embroidered on his breast. Tight breeches of green cloth reached to the ankles, where they were met by high shoes slashed on the inner side, and fitting much more neatly to the foot than do the shoes worn in the present day. A long gun with a large old-fashioned German lock, and a curved sabre, completed the equipment of the soldier, in whom Conrad recognised first a member of the city guard known as the 'Defensioners,' and then his old comrade, John Hillner.
Conrad recognised an old comrade, John Hillner.[Illustration: Conrad recognised an old comrade, John Hillner.]
Conrad recognised an old comrade, John Hillner.[Illustration: Conrad recognised an old comrade, John Hillner.]
'Do I look better now,' asked the newly-fledged soldier, 'than in my blue apron and coloured jerkin, in the days when I handled the plane and square?'
'Whoever could have guessed,' cried Conrad, heedless of the question, 'that you would be made a Defensioner! But are you a citizen, and do you know your drill? The Defensioners never admit a man unless he is a citizen and knows his exercises.'
'I know my drill all right enough,' replied John, 'and I daresay I shall get my certificate of citizenship. Your own eyes can tell you whether I am a Defensioner or not.'
'And you have got a beard coming too,' said Conrad, laughing. 'It's only a little one yet, but anybody can see that it is a beard. Hallo! Why, I declare you look uncommonly like that Swede who shot'—
Hillner's face darkened suddenly, as he interrupted Conrad with the abrupt question, 'Is the mistress in the house?'
'Here she comes,' said Conrad, pointing to the living-room door, through which the young widow was just entering the workshop. What wonders a uniform can work! Mistress Blüthgen coloured with pleasure when she saw her foreman in his new dress, asked how he was in very friendly tones, and sent the apprentice to fetch some refreshments for him.
On his way to the cellar Conrad said to himself: 'So at last he has let his beard grow, and he always used to shave it all off and hide every scrap of the hair. Bah! I knew long enough ago that it was as red as the beard of that ugly Swede who tried to shoot me. It's an uncommonly odd thing; coal-black hair and a red beard!'
When the lad reached the living-room again, he found the entire household, including the miller and his wife, with little Dollie and her father, gathered round the gaily dressed young guardsman.
'How do matters look as to the Swedes?' asked the miller.
'The marshal has sent a messenger to ask our commandant a question or two, and has had his answer.'
'And what were the questions and answers?'
The roar of cannon followed close on the words, and the women and children huddled together in alarm.
'You may give a pretty good guess by that what they were,' replied Hillner. 'That's Marshal Torstenson's way of telling us how he likes his answer.'
The thunder of the guns was heard again. While all were gazing in the direction whence the reports seemed to come, they saw a flash issue from the side of St. Peter's Tower, followed in a few seconds by a loud report.
'There you have question and answer again,' said Hillner. This exchange of shots had not gone on for very long, however, before the fire of the Swedes destroyed the topmost parapet of the tower. The gun planted there was silenced, and had to be moved down to a lower chamber. By way of covering this movement, the garrison opened a heavy fire with cannon and double arquebuses on the Swedes, who had ventured rather nearer to the town than was quite prudent.
'Now I must be off,' said John suddenly. 'The game has begun, and I must go and take my share in it. May God keep you all! Good-bye!'
As he hastened away the assembled household watched his retreating figure with very various feelings.
The next day, December 31, in spite of the snow and the heavy fire of the garrison, the Swedes opened their entrenchments before the Peter Gate, and planted three mortars there, which threw great stones, shells, and hundred-and-fifty pound shot into the town.
Thus closed the old year 1642, and the new year was not destined to open upon brighter or more joyful prospects.
The 1st of January, 1643, had hardly dawned, when the town servant Jüchziger presented himself before the new acting-Burgomaster, Herr Jonas Schönleben.
'Respected Herr Burgomaster,' he began humbly, 'permit the most unworthy of all your servants to be first in wishing you a happy new year, and congratulating you on the honour you have now attained. The new year promises to be a very hard one, and your new office will be harder still. I thank God that in these difficult times we are so happy as to have your worship for our Burgomaster.'
'I am obliged to you, Jüchziger,' replied Schönleben feelingly. 'I am obliged to you for all your kind wishes. Yes, these are indeed hard times in which I undertake the management of public business. The care of more than sixty thousand souls is laid on me at a time when even a Solomon would have had need of all his wisdom. This thought has been much in my mind, and last night I followed the wise king's example,—I commended myself earnestly to God, praying Him to teach me the right, and then to give me strength and courage to do it.'
'To maintain the right with strength and courage against all comers, against friends as well as foes,' said Jüchziger. 'For, alas! how many are there who would be only too glad to interfere with your worship's rights as Burgomaster, and put all your wise intentions aside to carry out their own selfish schemes,—men who would be only too glad, in a word, to leave you the mere name of acting-Burgomaster, and nothing more. I am quite sure it is your worship's kindly heart that has made you give ear to them until misfortune is hanging over the town, and the citizens and the rest are all bemoaning themselves, while your worship's false friends raise their heads like snakes, as they are, to sting you the moment your worship's back is turned.'
Schönleben stood silent, gazing thoughtfully on the ground.
'Did either your worship or any of our other worthy magistrates give orders for every armed journeyman to receive a gulden a week and two pounds of bread a day?' continued Jüchziger in an injured tone; 'or that on this very New Year's Day, eight hundred Freiberg citizens should tear up the pavement in the streets of their own city to protect the houses from the Swedish cannon? Do you know, respected Herr Burgomaster, that that young Swedish turncoat who was so impudent to you in the St. Peter's Tower, and demanded to be made a citizen, has been admitted by the commandant into the City Guard, contrary to all custom and right? Who will guarantee that the pretended Saxon is not really a spy, plotting to betray the city into the hands of the Swedes the first chance he gets?'
'Is this really so?' asked Schönleben with displeasure.
'If you doubt my word, your worship can easily see for yourself,' replied Jüchziger. 'The fellow struts about the streets every day in his Defensioner's uniform, until he nearly runs himself off his legs.'
'Tell Badehorn, the captain of the City Guard, to meet me here in an hour's time,' said Schönleben angrily; 'and bid him be ready to explain why he has admitted a stranger among his men in this irregular way.'
'The soldier,' continued Jüchziger, 'risks nothing in war but just his life. The citizen risks a great deal more, for he has a wife and children, hearth and home. When a town is taken, the soldiers are either made prisoners of war or allowed to march out unhurt; it is into the citizen's house that the enemy comes, to ill-use his wife, children, and servants. These Swedes now are pressing the siege of our town so hard that we cannot possibly hold out for long. They say that even if Torstenson offers us fair terms, the commandant means to refuse them without even asking your worship anything about it, and so to give the town up to be stormed and pillaged. Now I, in my humble way, should have thought your worship's voice ought to count for something in this matter. Your worship knows what is for the good of the town a great deal better than a soldier of fortune that has only been here a few weeks.'
The Burgomaster made no reply. His thoughtful air, however, as he stood absently drumming on the window-pane, showed that the mischief-maker had not spoken in vain. By way of striking while the iron was hot, Jüchziger continued: 'As I was on my way to your worship's house this morning, I saw the Herr Burgomaster Richzenhayn going to call on the commandant, no doubt meaning to offer him a new year's greeting. Are you going to do the same, most noble sir, or don't you think a Burgomaster of the free city of Freiberg—which, with refugees, now counts over sixty thousand souls—is at least as good a man as the commander of two hundred and ninety soldiers?'
Schönleben clasped his hands behind his back, and paced slowly and thoughtfully up and down his room.
If any reader mentally charges the author with exaggeration here, he does him an injustice. The writer has had many opportunities of knowing officials, both of high and low degree, who were, quite unconsciously to themselves, tools in the hands of their servants, the latter being permitted a freedom of speech that would never have been tolerated in equals. Such servants have always had the knack of making themselves indispensable, while preserving an outward appearance of the deepest humility; and thus it has often come to pass that a lord has been made to discharge a shaft aimed by his humble vassal.
When Jüchziger's crafty eye saw that the arrow he had thus been pointing was, so to speak, ready to be loosed from the bow, he adroitly changed the subject of conversation to something that lay much nearer his heart.
'You are aware, respected Herr Burgomaster,' he began again in a wheedling tone, 'that when I entered on my office I married the widow of Schmidt, my predecessor. I did it partly out of compassion for the poor woman, and partly to save the town the expense of keeping her and her son, who is now a boy of fourteen years old. My wife, a woman five years older than myself, all at once went stone blind, so that now I am forced to have a servant to wait on her. I had the good fortune to apprentice the boy to Mistress Blüthgen, the carpenter's widow, but his mother has petted and pampered him until he is a good-for-nothing, lazy young rascal. And now that the workshops are closed and the craftsmen and journeymen all take their turn at military duty, the boy's mistress threatens to send him home and put me to the expense of keeping him,—me that scarcely knows which way to turn for bread to feed my wife and her servant! The worst of it is that all my wife's little property, a small house outside the Peter Gate, has been levelled with the ground by order of Burgomaster Richzenhayn, and I have never had a single kreuzer[1] for my loss. The house was worth three hundred and fifty gulden.[2] Gracious Herr Burgomaster, take me and my small family under your powerful protection, help me to get proper compensation for my house, and I shall be your grateful servant all the days of my life.'
'My dear Jüchziger,' interposed Schönleben, 'be assured I will do all I can. The times are so bad that the town will want all its strength, and all its money, to defend itself against the Swedes, and we shall have to leave our private interests in the background for a while; but I will see that you suffer no actual want through this misfortune.'
Jüchziger concealed the disappointment he felt on hearing these words, thanked the Burgomaster for his kind intentions, and took his leave.
'Do not forget to send Badehorn here!' Schönleben called after him as he went out. In a comparatively short time he made his appearance again.
'Captain Badehorn presents his respectful compliments to the Herr Burgomaster, and begs to inform his worship that he cannot have the honour of waiting on him at the time mentioned.' Here Jüchziger discreetly paused.
'And why not?' asked Schönleben, starting up. 'Are the ties of obedience that bind citizen to magistrate broken already?'
'He cannot come,' continued Jüchziger, 'because the orders of Commandant von Schweinitz forbid it. They are every instant expecting an attack to be made by the Swedes, and the commandant has ordered every man to remain at his post.'
'Ah, of course! That is quite a different thing,' said Schönleben, as his angry brow grew smooth again. 'Badehorn could not act otherwise, and it becomes my duty to go and see him if I want my question answered.'
When Burgomaster Schönleben left his house somewhat later in the day, the death-like stillness that reigned throughout the usually busy city weighed on his spirit. Not a clock was striking, not a bell rang out its joyful peal in welcome to the new year. Only at long intervals did he see a human being pass along the street, and then it was in fear and haste. On the other hand, as he went on his way, he saw at various points large bodies of men standing silent in their ranks, waiting the call of duty and the word of command. Here were the vigorous journeymen of the different trades, and the stalwart country-people; there the trusty miners, some with nondescript weapons, others armed with pick-axes, mattocks, and long guns, or provided with ladders and great buckets of water, in readiness for an alarm of fire. In the streets adjoining the Erbis and Kreuz Gates, bustling activity was the order of the day. Hundreds of tireless workers were tearing up the paving of the roadways, while women and children carried away the stones, and piled them against the houses. Not a creature complained of the cold, though it was by no means small.
As Schönleben drew near to the city wall and the Kreuz Gate, one helmeted head after another came into view, rising above the battlements, and there was a certain comfortable sense of security in the knowledge that they were the heads of the armed citizens mounting guard. Men standing still feel the cold severely, and accordingly huge fires had been built in some of the sheltered corners, round which the armed burghers stood chatting, each with his firelock ready to hand.
On inquiring for Captain Badehorn, Schönleben was told that the captain had been summoned by the commandant, and that the lieutenant of the City Guard, Peter Schmohl, had command of the Defensioners in the absence of his superior officer. Schönleben tried to make out the Swedish deserter among the Defensioners present, but was obliged to return home without having done so. Hardly had he turned his back on the fortifications, when the Swedish cannon opened fire on the Peter Gate and the neighbouring defensive works. After firing a score of shots, however, Torstenson sent to the commandant, demanding the surrender of the town. He had, he said, paraded his army and fired a salute in his honour; should any further resistance be offered, he would the next day attack the town more vigorously, and destroy it. The commandant sent a polite but firm refusal, and on the following day Torstenson fulfilled the first part of his threat by opening a terrible fire against the town. In six hours his artillery discharged over thirteen hundred shots, by which the Peter Gate, the adjoining tower, and a portion of the city wall were all severely injured, while many shells, and a perfect hailstorm of large stones, passed over the ramparts into the town itself. Then the enemy drew near with flying colours, bringing ladders, for the purpose of scaling the ramparts. By way of rendering their task easier, they exploded their first mines, which, however, did not accomplish all that was expected from them.
Meantime the besieged, on their part, were by no means idle. To prevent the storming of the breach at the Peter Gate, two cannon were planted in Peter Street, the gaps in the ramparts were hastily repaired, the bastions and inner defences of the gate itself were strengthened, while large quantities of hand-grenades and other ammunition were laid in readiness. Thus prepared, the citizens confidently awaited the threatened attack, which, however, did not take place, partly, it was supposed, because of a violent snow-storm that came on, and partly through the failure of the mines. Scarcely had the Swedish troops withdrawn in the evening, when the besieged made a sortie, in which the miners cleared the moat of the rubbish that encumbered it, and picked up a considerable number of cannon-balls, which they carried into the town as valuable booty.
The Swedes maintained their fire throughout the whole of that evening, and far into the night, to prevent the Freibergers from rebuilding their fortifications; in the course of this firing a miner and a forester were killed in the city, and several others among the defenders severely wounded. On the next day, January 3d, the firing was renewed with heavy siege-guns in addition to the lighter pieces, and a second mine was sprung, making a breach seventy feet wide in the city wall. As soon as this result had been achieved, the Swedes, to the number of two hundred, delivered their first assault against the Peter Gate. The fighting, however, only lasted about a quarter of an hour, and ended in the complete repulse of the besiegers.
During the lull that followed, Jüchziger arrived at the house of Burgomaster Schönleben, to announce that Colonel von Schweinitz wished to speak with him, and requested his worship to come to him at once for that purpose.
Jüchziger's tone and look were carefully calculated to provoke the Burgomaster's pride, and Schönleben made a sign for the messenger to withdraw. 'Am I his slave?' he broke out angrily, as soon as the man was out of hearing. 'Have I not every bit as good a right to send for him as he has to send for me? I will soon let him know which of us has the best right to command here!'
But when the first heat of his anger had spent itself, quieter thoughts began to prevail.
Schönleben was at heart far too noble and conscientious a man to sacrifice the welfare of a great city, entrusted to his keeping, to a sense of his own offended dignity. 'One must not be too particular,' he said to himself, 'about an affront from a rough old soldier; after all, he may wish to speak about some matter of importance. At all events, I will just go and hear what he has to say.'
With thoughts like these working in his mind, Schönleben betook himself to the commandant, who laughed boisterously as he shook hands with his visitor, and began at once with: 'Torstenson has already sent a third time to demand the surrender of the city, as if he thought he had knocked us into a cocked hat by that assault we repulsed so easily. He has been kind enough, too, to remind me that Breisach, Regensburg, Gross-Glogau, and Leipzig have all been besieged and taken by the Swedes, and to add that it is quite out of the question for a badly fortified place like Freiberg to withstand his power. We are not to count on any assistance, and if I reject his present kind offers he will take the place by storm, and will not spare even the babe at its mother's breast.'
'And what answer do you propose to send to all this, Herr Colonel?' asked Schönleben. 'I suppose you sent for me to see what my opinion might be?'
'Not a bit of it, my dear Schönleben, I assure you,' replied von Schweinitz, laughing. 'The Swede has received his answer some time since, and there was not the smallest need to trouble you in any way about the matter. The enemy has received from me, take my word for it, the only possible answer a soldier could send to such a demand, and I now want to consult with you about pushing matters a little farther.'
'But,' said Schönleben in an offended tone, 'I should have thought that as acting-Burgomaster I ought at least to have had a word to say where the weal or woe of the thousands of families under my care was at stake. Pray, what is to happen when you and your soldiers are all killed, the citizens and other combatants worn out with their excessive duties in this bitter weather, the walls destroyed, the gates taken by storm, and the Swede bursts in at last to put his threats into execution?'
'What!' cried Schweinitz, astounded by this sudden outburst. 'Is it the Burgomaster of the loyal city of Freiberg I hear speaking such words as these?'
'Undoubtedly it is,' replied Schönleben; 'and when Leipzig chose of her own free will to open her gates to the Swedish forces, she was not branded as disloyal. I am not speaking now of surrender, but of my absolute right to have at least one word in all that concerns Freiberg.'
'Listen to me, Herr Schönleben,' said Schweinitz roughly, 'and hear my fixed determination. Our illustrious prince and lord, John George of Saxony, has entrusted to me, George Hermann von Schweinitz, the defence of this city of Freiberg, with orders to hold it to the last man. That being so, I stand in no need of advice from you, either now or at any other time. As commandant, I am here to give orders, and you are here to obey them. Whoever talks to me of surrender shall be considered a traitor to his country, and treated accordingly. Basta!'[3] And Schweinitz emphasized the close of his speech by a thundering blow of his fist on the table before him, and turned his back on the Burgomaster in high dudgeon. Schönleben himself, as he took his departure and returned home, was quite as angry a man as the indignant warrior.
'God is my witness,' said the Burgomaster to himself, when, somewhat later, he was thinking the matter over more quietly, 'that neither cowardice nor disloyalty to my prince made me speak as I did. But when I think that the town may yet share the awful fate that befell Magdeburg, then indeed I set the well-being of my thousands of fellow-citizens far above my own reputation for valour. Alas! who can give my fearful heart any assurance about these things?'
[1] A small German copper coin.
[2] A gulden is now worth about two shillings English.
[3] Enough.
On the following day Burgomaster Schönleben took his way to the council-chamber, which now, indeed, fully deserved its name. Both before and after the commencement of the siege, the magistrates had enough to do in devising necessary plans, even had not their time been fully occupied in carrying their plans into execution. Among other duties, they had to arrange for the accommodation of the wounded, the burial of the dead, and the bodily needs both of those who were defending the city and their families; while not neglecting, on the other hand, to guard against a wasteful use of the provisions, to preserve the strictest order in the city, and to arrange for many other things beside.
Schönleben did not give his fellow councillors the slightest hint about his quarrel with the commandant, but took care quietly to make out their several opinions, and he did not find one man among them who, either from fear of the Swedes or from personal inclination, was disposed to support his views.
After quitting the council-chamber, he could not help noticing, as he passed along the ranks of the auxiliary troops in front of the town hall, what an eager and even restless desire was manifest among them to be led against the enemy. He betook himself to the cathedral, where the church-superintendent, Dr. Paul Glaser himself, was conducting the daily service, and heard this aged servant of the Lord encourage his great audience to a brave resistance against the foe, and patient endurance of such trouble as the siege might bring. 'Call to mind, my brethren,' the good man was saying, 'what was done by the children of Israel when the wicked King Antiochus and his soldiers troubled them, and each one had to take refuge in the caverns and rocky clefts of the mountains. My hearers, Antiochus and his fierce soldiery did not torture the Jews of old one whit more unmercifully than these Swedes have tortured our Saxon brothers and sisters. And it is vain for you to think that you, at least, will escape torture and death by resigning yourselves into their hands; for their hearts are like the nether mill-stone, and they find an evil pleasure in hearkening to the groans of those who perish under their torments. Therefore defend yourselves, as did the Jews in the days of the Maccabees! And let not strong men alone bear their share in the work, but do you aged men, you women and children, aid with all your feeble might. Think of the brave women of the ancient days! And while you think of them, do not forget that in our very midst there dwells to-day a brave woman who has had to defend hearth and home against a murderous foe; not less truly a woman because this hard task was assigned to her, or because she was found, in the hour of need, capable of discharging it. While we pray to God that such terrible work may never fall to our lot, we cannot but honour this our brave, and now, alas! our bereaved sister.'
As it happened, the miller's wife from Erbisdorf was herself present among the worshippers, without the clergyman's knowledge. As the glances of those around turned naturally towards her where she sat, she endured their friendly scrutiny with blushing cheeks and downcast eyes.
The preacher's words had produced a deep effect in the mind of the worthy Burgomaster. 'If a Christian minister,' said he to himself, 'sees it his duty on this special occasion to encourage the weak, that they may make a valorous deface, surely I, who rule over strong men, should be the last to think of surrendering into an enemy's hands the city entrusted to my care.'
The thunder of the Swedish cannon, as it echoed and re-echoed through the lofty carved-work of the cathedral roof, made the Burgomaster too ill at ease to stay longer in the church. On reaching the open air, he found that the enemy had never yet poured in so heavy a fire as that of to-day. 'By it every building was shaken,' says the chronicle, 'and there was as great alarm in the town as if heaven and earth had been rolled together.'
This time the enemy did not content himself with merely letting his heavy guns play against the walls and gates, especially the Peter Gate, but used his mortars to pour large quantities of stones, balls, and shells directly into the town itself.
The sights and sounds that saluted Schönleben almost put his newly-formed resolutions to flight. He hastened back to the market-place.
'The enemy is pressing hard on the Meissen and Erbis Gates,' shouted a breathless messenger, sent in haste to summon assistance from the town hall, and immediately detachments of the auxiliaries drawn up there started at the double to strengthen the threatened points. As they went they uttered loud shouts of joy, and clashed their weapons till the market-place rang again.
The crash of bursting shells could now be distinctly heard above the thunder of the artillery, but happily most of these deadly missiles fell in the more open spaces and did but little harm. The miners were acquitting themselves of their dangerous duties courageously and well under the able leadership of their brave captain, George Frederick von Schomberg, and the master miner, Andreas Baumann. Whenever a column of smoke rose, or shells fell on a house, or the fearful cry of 'fire' was heard, their aid was speedily at hand. Beneath a continuous shower of stones and bullets they climbed upon roofs, handed buckets of water, and extinguished flames, heeding neither fire, choking vapour, nor falling rafters. Like boys playing at ball, they sprang on the smouldering shells the moment they touched the ground, and extinguishing the fusee, rendered them harmless before they had time to do their fatal work of death and destruction.
As Schönleben turned the corner by the butchers' stalls, some ponderous iron object fell with a heavy thud just in front of him, sank into the earth, and disappeared. At the same moment, two young people came out of a neighbouring house and ran across the street to the newly-made hole; they were Conrad Schmidt and Dollie. Close at their heels followed a man in a dusty coat, the miller of Erbisdorf.
'Out of the way directly!' he shouted to the thoughtless youngsters. 'Do you both want to be killed? This is no child's plaything.' So saying, he carefully poured into the hole a large bucketful of water he had brought with him, and then set about digging out the expected shell.
'Well, upon my word!' he cried, in a tone of such astonishment that the Burgomaster paused in curiosity. 'How long have they used bombs with iron rings to catch hold of them by? Why, as sure as I'm here, it is nothing in the world but a lumbering old iron hundred-weight, that the Swedes must have stolen out of some good Saxon's shop to batter our heads in Freiberg with.' While the worthy miller was still expressing his astonishment over this new kind of missile, Dollie's father, the miner Roller, appeared coming down the street, grasping some heavy object with both hands. When he recognised the Burgomaster, he let his burden drop on the ground, and proceeded respectfully to remove his hat.
'What have you got there?' cried the miller, who was near enough to hear Roller's salutation of the magistrate. 'A blacksmith's anvil?'
'The end of one, at all events,' replied Roller. Then, turning to Schönleben, he added, 'Only half a yard more, respected Herr Burgomaster, and my poor head would have been shattered by this same anvil. But it tells a welcome story too; for if the Swedes have to use things like these to feed their cannon with, they must be running pretty short of ammunition.'
'That seems to contradict you,' said Schönleben pleasantly, indicating the tremendous noise of the cannonade that filled the air on all sides.
'Ah, but it's beginning to slacken now, respected Herr Burgomaster,' shouted the miller joyfully the next minute. 'Don't you hear that the siege-guns have ceased firing?'
Roller looked thoughtfully up at St. Peter's Tower, from which a blood-red flag now floated in the air. In a moment, from all the hitherto silent towers and steeples, the bells clashed out an alarm.
'That is the signal of an attempt to storm,' said the Burgomaster; then concealing his own agitation as best he might, he hastened from the spot.
'A storm!' said Dollie wonderingly to Conrad. 'But there are no clouds, and no wind; how could there be a storm?' At this point the questioner was sent into the house by the miller, who followed her himself as soon as he had put the iron weight and the anvil away in a place of safety. Roller, although not on duty, hastened off to join his comrades at their work, and Conrad betook himself with all speed to the home where he knew his poor mother was left alone in her blindness.
The minister had just brought his service to a close, and was leaving the church; but on hearing the clang of the alarm-bells, he turned back into the sacred building with the women and children, who poured into it to beseech divine help in this new and pressing danger. Just as Schönleben was passing by the church door, such a frightful and furious shout arose at the Peter Gate as almost to curdle the Burgomaster's blood in his veins. This terrible shout was uttered by the Swedes, who, two brigades strong, with flying colours and rolling drums, were now advancing with their storming-ladders towards the moat before the Peter Gate. The determined energy with which the advance was made was as great as the noise of the battle-cry. The besieged watched the enemy's approach with stedfast and unshaken courage. They tightened their belts, and each man prepared his weapons to give the foe a warm reception.
'Always bellowing, you Swedish oxen!' shouted a soldier jestingly. 'Do you expect to frighten us with your noise, or do you think the walls of Freiberg are going to fall down like those of Jericho?'
A well-aimed cross fire was now poured into the ranks of the besiegers, as, in dense masses, they filled the moat and struggled to mount the breach. A murderous fight then began, in which neither side would yield an inch. Although successive volleys of balls decimated the Swedish ranks, their losses did not in the least deter them from pursuing their object with the most supreme indifference to death. Fresh men continually took the place of those that fell, and the forces of the besieged being thus either divided or broken, the Erbis and Meissen Gates were both assaulted at once. The storming-ladders of the Swedes, a hundred times hurled back into the moat, were as often replanted against the walls; and although every man who had as yet succeeded in setting foot on the ramparts had paid for his success with his life, others were continually ready to follow the same example.
While the enemy kept up their furious battle-cry, the besieged, on their side, did not fail to encourage one another with joyful shouts. There were even some rash spirits, who, deserting the sheltering breastworks, sprang into the breach, and saluted the dense ranks of the enemy with 'morning-stars'[1] and heavy broadswords. During this attack, which lasted a full hour, the Swedish fire was steadily maintained against gates, walls, and towers, occasionally even against the breach itself, where it inflicted some loss on besiegers as well as besieged. The former, under the command of Generals Wrangel and Mortainne, were led by these officers in person to storm the breach. Field-Marshal Torstenson, a martyr to gout, could only sit at the window of his quarters in the hospital, directing the attack, and chafing inwardly at its continued want of success. While the battle still raged round the Peter, Meissen, and Erbis Gates, and the Swedes fancied the Freibergers a prey to anxiety and fear, the undismayed miners made a sortie through the Donat Gate, destroyed the Swedish siege-works that lay in that quarter, slew a number of the enemy, and returned into the city, bringing with them several prisoners.
The general fight was still raging; the shout of battle, the thunder of the guns, the confused din of the storming-parties, and the showers of great stones and shot still filled the air, as the Burgomaster, agitated by growing anxiety, and unable to find rest anywhere, turned his uneasy steps towards the Peter Gate, the most threatened point of all. It must be remembered that to a brave man like Schönleben it was a far harder task to stand by, a mere spectator of this important battle, than it would have been to take an active share in its turmoil and danger. To him the assault on the gates, which had perhaps lasted an hour, appeared to have been going on for ever, while those who were actually engaged in the strife would have sworn it had been an affair of a few minutes at the most.
In no small danger of his life, the Burgomaster forced his way, through a storm of bullets and falling masonry, into the strong tower that protected the Peter Gate. Having at last succeeded in ascending the narrow stone stairs and reaching the vaulted guard-room, he was able to make out indistinctly, through the smoke and dust that filled the room, the forms of a number of men who were keeping up an incessant and almost deafening fire on the enemy through the narrow loop-holes with which the thick walls were pierced.
'They fly!' shouted one of these marksmen in a stentorian voice. 'Hurrah! Now to give them something to help them on their way.' So saying, he lighted one hand-grenade after another, and hurled them with all his force through the loop-hole. 'Now, here with the double arquebuses! Dippolt, have you loaded them all?' As he spoke, he seized one of the pieces that stood in readiness, and fired it after the flying Swedes.
The face was so blackened with gunpowder and smoke as to be almost unrecognisable, but Schönleben knew the voice at once for that of the brave Commandant von Schweinitz, who thus both by word and action encouraged his men to do their utmost against the enemy.
Hastily turning round, and catching sight as he did so of the Burgomaster's face, the soldier frankly stepped up to the new-comer and shook him kindly by the hand, saying in a hearty tone:
'So you are here, Burgomaster! There,' and he pushed the visitor good-humouredly towards a loop-hole; 'have a look at the vagabonds showing us their heels. They'll not carry more than a third of their storming-ladders back with them. So, now you have come, you can help us make merry, Schönleben. I feel so pleased I scarcely know how to contain myself.'
A great shout of joy rose from the ranks of the besieged at sight of the flying Swedes.
'Right, my children!' cried their commander. 'Shout "Victory" to your heart's content. Schönleben, I am proud of commanding your Freibergers. They have behaved like veteran and brave soldiers. I must give the palm to your City Guard, who have held the most dangerous post, the one at the breach by the Kreuz Gate, with such calm determination that the Swedes never once set foot on the ramparts. Victory, victory!' he shouted, as the jubilant cry rose again from the ranks below.
Then Schönleben spoke out honestly and heartily. 'Colonel von Schweinitz,' he said, 'I trust you will pardon the speech I made to you not long since; it might well annoy you. Henceforth I say with you, "Welcome death rather than surrender to the Swedes!"'
'Why, what is all this about?' said Schweinitz heartily; 'I was every bit as much to blame as you were. I'm a rough soldier that doesn't stop to pick his words. You mustn't take too much notice of my speaking out a bit hastily now and then.'
While the two worthy men were making up their quarrel, Schönleben noticed that the skirt of the other's coat was smeared with blood.
'You are wounded,' cried the Burgomaster in alarm.
'I had not noticed it,' answered Schweinitz carelessly, looking down at the splash of blood on his coat. 'Possibly a chip of masonry or some ball that has glanced aside may have grazed my hip. The Swedes have paid for it dearly enough, anyhow.'
With a brightened and almost joyful heart Schönleben took leave of the commandant. As the former left the tower and gate, he saw the besieged clambering down into the city moat to make prisoners the wounded Swedes who lay there, and to bring in the firelocks, pikes, and scaling-ladders the enemy had left behind. At the same time, men were set busily to work to repair and rebuild the walls and other defensive works that had suffered injury. The bells were silent, and the glorious words of the Te Deum—'We praise Thee, O God! we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord'—could be plainly heard as they sounded solemnly forth from the various churches,—words in which the Burgomaster joined with a most devout and thankful heart.