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Sidonia The Sorceress V2

W >> William Mienhold >> Sidonia The Sorceress V2




(But alas, most gracious God, it is one thing to promise and quite
another to hold! Where is his princely Highness at this time?
Wherefore let me ever keep in mind that "Thou only art faithful,
and that which Thou hast promised Thou wilt surely hold." Ps.
xxxiii. 4. Amen. [Footnote: Luther's version.]) _Item_.--When
his princely Highness had also inquired concerning myself and my
cure, and heard that I was of ancient and noble family, and my
_salarium_ very small, he called from the window to his
chancellor, D. Rungius, who stood without, looking at the
sun-dial, and told him that I was to have an addition from the
convent at Pudgla, _item_, from the crownlands at Ernsthoff,
as I mentioned above; but, more's the pity, I never have received
the same, although the _instrumentum donationis_ was sent me
soon after by his princely Highness' chancellor.

Then cakes were brought for me also, _item_, a glass of
foreign wine in a glass painted with armorial bearings, whereupon
I humbly took my leave, together with my daughter.

However, to come back to my bargain, anybody may guess what joy my
child felt when I showed her the fair ducats and florins I had
gotten for the amber. To the maid, however, we said that we had
inherited such riches from my brother in Holland, and after we had
again given thanks to the Lord on our knees, and eaten our dinner,
we bought in a great store of bread, salt, meat, and stock-fish:
_item_, of clothes, seeing that I provided what was needful
for us three throughout the winter from the cloth-merchant.
Moreover, for my daughter I bought a hair-net and a scarlet silk
bodice, with a black apron and white petticoat, _item_, a
fine pair of earrings, as she begged hard for them; and as soon as
I had ordered the needful from the cordwainer we set out on our
way homewards, as it began to grow very dark; but we could not
carry nearly all we had bought. Wherefore we were forced to get a
peasant from Bannemin to help us, who likewise was come into the
town, and as I found out from him that the fellow who gave me the
piece of bread was a poor cotter called Pantermehl, who dwelt in
the village by the roadside, I shoved a couple of loaves in at his
house-door without his knowing it, and we went on our way by the
bright moonlight, so that by the help of God we got home about ten
o'clock at night. I likewise gave a loaf to the other fellow,
though truly he deserved it not, seeing that he would go with us
no further than to Zitze. But I let him go, for I, too, had not
deserved that the Lord should so greatly bless me.




CHAPTER XI.

_How I fed all the congregation--Item, how I journeyed to the
horse-fair at Gützkow, and what befell me there._


Next morning my daughter cut up the blessed bread, and sent to
every one in the village a good large piece. But as we saw that
our store would soon run low, we sent the maid with a truck, which
we bought of Adam Lempken, to Wolgast, to buy more bread, which
she did. _Item_, I gave notice throughout the parish that on
Sunday next I should administer the Blessed Sacrament, and in the
meantime I bought up all the large fish that the people of the
village had caught. And when the blessed Sunday was come I first
heard the confessions of the whole parish, and after that I
preached a sermon on Matt. xv. 32, "I have compassion on the
multitude ... for they have nothing to eat." I first applied the
same to spiritual food only, and there arose a great sighing from
both the men and the women, when, at the end, I pointed to the
altar whereon stood the blessed food for the soul, and repeated
the words, "I have compassion on the multitude ... for they have
nothing to eat." (_N.B._ The pewter cup I had borrowed at
Wolgast, and bought there a little earthenware plate for a paten
till such time as Master Bloom should have made ready the silver
cup and paten I had bespoke.) Thereupon as soon as I had
consecrated and administered the Blessed Sacrament, _item_,
led the closing hymn, and every one had silently prayed his "Our
Father" before going out of church, I came out of the confessional
again, and motioned the people to stay yet awhile, as the blessed
Saviour would feed not only their souls, but their bodies also,
seeing that He still had the same compassion on His people as of
old on the people at the Sea of Galilee, as they should presently
see. Then I went into the tower and fetched out two baskets which
the maid had bought at Wolgast, and which I had hidden there in
good time; set them down in front of the altar, and took off the
napkins with which they were covered, whereupon a very loud shout
arose, inasmuch as they saw one filled with broiled fish and the
other with bread, which we had put into them privately. Hereupon,
like our Saviour, I gave thanks and brake it, and gave it to the
churchwarden, Hinrich Seden, that he might distribute it among the
men, and to my daughter for the women. Whereupon I made
application of the text, "I have compassion on the multitude, for
they have nothing to eat," to the food of the body also; and
walking up and down in the church amid great outcries from all, I
exhorted them always to trust in God's mercy, to pray without
ceasing, to work diligently, and to consent to no sin. What was
left I made them gather up for their children and the old people
who were left at home.

After church, when I had scarce put off my surplice, Hinrich Seden
his squint-eyed wife came and impudently asked for more for her
husband's journey to Liepe; neither had she had anything for
herself, seeing she had not come to church. This angered me sore,
and I said to her, "Why wast thou not at church? Nevertheless, if
thou hadst come humbly to me thou shouldst have gotten somewhat
even now, but as thou comest impudently, I will give thee naught:
think on what thou didst to me and to my child." But she stood at
the door and glowered impudently about the room till my daughter
took her by the arm and led her out, saying, "Hear'st thou, thou
shall come back humbly before thou gett'st anything, but when thou
comest thus, thou also shall have thy share, for we will no longer
reckon with thee an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; let
the Lord do that if such be His will, but we will gladly forgive
thee!" Hereupon she at last went out at the door, muttering to
herself as she was wont; but she spat several times in the street,
as we saw from the window.

Soon after I made up my mind to take into my service a lad, near
upon twenty years of age, called Claus Neels, seeing that his
father, old Neels of Loddin, begged hard that I would do so,
besides which the lad pleased me well in manners and otherwise.
Then, as we had a good harvest this year, I resolved to buy me a
couple of horses forthwith, and to sow my field again; for
although it was now late in the year, I thought that the most
merciful God might bless the crop with increase if it seemed good
to Him.

Neither did I feel much care with respect to food for them,
inasmuch as there was a great plenty of hay in the neighbourhood,
seeing that all the cattle had been killed or driven away (as
related above). I therefore made up my mind to go in God's name
with my new ploughman to Gützkow, whither a great many Mecklenburg
horses were brought to the fair, seeing that times were not yet so
bad there as with us. [Footnote: The fief of Mecklenburg was given
by the Emperor to Wallenstein, who spared the country as much as
he could.] Meanwhile I went a few more times up the Streckelberg
with my daughter at night, and by moonlight, but found very
little; so that we began to think our luck had come to an end,
when, on the third night, we broke off some pieces of amber bigger
even than those the two Dutchmen had bought. These I resolved to
send to my wife's brother, Martin Behring, at Hamburg, seeing that
the schipper Wulff of Wolgast intends, as I am told, to sail
thither this very autumn, with pitch and wood for shipbuilding. I
accordingly packed it all up in a strong chest, which I carried
with me to Wolgast when I started with my man on my journey to
Gützkow. Of this journey I will only relate thus much, that there
were plenty of horses, and very few buyers in the market.
Wherefore I bought a pair of fine black horses for twenty florins
apiece; _item_, a cart for five florins; _item_,
twenty-five bushels of rye, which also came from Mecklenburg, at
one florin the bushel, whereas it is hardly to be had now at
Wolgast for love or money, and cost three florins or more the
bushel. I might therefore have made a good bargain in rye at
Gützkow if it had become my office, and had I not, moreover, been
afraid lest the robbers, who swarm in these evil times, should
take away my corn, and ill-use, and perchance murder me into the
bargain, as has happened to sundry people already. For, at this
time especially, such robberies were carried on after a strange
and frightful fashion on Strellin heath at Gützkow; but by God's
help it all came to light just as I journeyed thither with my
man-servant to the fair, and I will here tell how it happened.
Some months before a man had been broken on the wheel at Gützkow,
because, being tempted of Satan, he murdered a travelling workman.
The man, however, straightway began to walk after so fearful a
fashion, that in the evening and night-season he sprang down from
the wheel in his gallows dress whenever a cart passed by the
gallows, which stands hard by the road to Wolgast, and jumped up
behind the people, who in horror and dismay flogged on their
horses, and thereby made a great rattling on the log embankment
which leads beside the gallows into a little wood called the
Kraulin. And it was a strange thing that on the same night the
travellers were almost always robbed or murdered on Strellin
heath. Hereupon the magistrates had the man taken down from the
wheel, and buried under the gallows, in hopes of laying his ghost.
But it went on just as before, sitting at night snow-white on the
wheel, so that none durst any longer travel the road to Wolgast.
Until at last it happened that, at the time of the above-named
fair, young Rudiger von Nienkerken of Mellenthin, in Usedom, who
had been studying at Wittenberg and elsewhere, and was now on his
way home, came this road by night with his carriage. Just before,
at the inn, I myself had tried to persuade him to stop the night
at Gutzkow on account of the ghost, and to go on his journey with
me next morning, but he would not. Now as soon as this young lord
drove along the road, he also espied the apparition sitting on the
wheel, and scarcely had he passed the gallows when the ghost
jumped down and ran after him. The driver was horribly afraid, and
lashed on the horses as everybody else had done before, and they,
taking fright, galloped away over the log-road with a marvellous
clatter. Meanwhile, however, the young nobleman saw by the light
of the moon how that the apparition flattened a ball of horse-dung
whereon it trod, and straightway felt sure within himself that it
was no ghost. Whereupon he called to the driver to stop; and as
the man would not hearken to him, he sprung out of the carriage,
drew his rapier, and hastened to attack the ghost. When the ghost
saw this he would have turned and fled; but the young nobleman
gave him such a blow on the head with his fist that he fell upon
the ground with a loud wailing. _Summa:_ the young lord,
having called back his driver, dragged the ghost into the town
again, where he turned out to be a shoe-maker called Schwelm.

I also, on seeing such a great crowd, ran thither with many
others, to look at the fellow. He trembled like an aspen leaf; and
when he was roughly told to make a clean breast, whereby he might
peradventure save his own life, if it appeared that he had
murdered no one, he confessed that he had got his wife to make him
a gallows dress, which he had put on, and had sat on the wheel
before the dead man, when, from the darkness and the distance, no
one could see that the two were sitting there together; and this
he did more especially when he knew that a cart was going from the
town to Wolgast. When the cart came by, and he jumped down and ran
after it, all the people were so affrighted that they no longer
kept their eyes upon the gallows, but only on him, flogged the
horses, and galloped with much noise and clatter over the log
embankment. This was heard by his fellows in Strellin and
Dammbecke (two villages which are about three-fourths on the way),
who held themselves ready to unyoke the horses and to plunder the
travellers when they came up with them. That after the dead man
was buried he could play the ghost more easily still, &c. That
this was the whole truth, and that he himself had never in his
life robbed, still less murdered, any one; wherefore he begged to
be forgiven: that all the robberies and murders which had happened
had been done by his fellows alone. Ah, thou cunning knave! But I
heard afterwards that he and his fellows were broken on the wheel
together, as was but fair. And now to come back to my journey. The
young nobleman abode that night with me at the inn, and early next
morning we both set forth; and as we had grown into good
fellowship together, I got into his coach with him as he offered
me, so as to talk by the way, and my Claus drove behind us. I soon
found that he was a well-bred, honest, and learned gentleman,
seeing that he despised the wild student life, and was glad that
he had now done with their scandalous drinking-bouts: moreover, he
talked his Latin readily. I had therefore much pleasure with him
in the coach. However, at Wolgast the rope of the ferry-boat
broke, so that we were carried down the stream to Zeuzin,
[Footnote: Now Sauzin.] and at length we only got ashore with
great trouble. Meanwhile it grew late, and we did not get into
Coserow till nine, when I asked the young lord to abide the night
with me, which he agreed to do. We found my child sitting in the
chimney corner, making a petticoat for her little god-daughter out
of her own old clothes. She was greatly frighted, and changed
colour when she saw the young lord come in with me, and heard that
he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more
beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nering the
forest-ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me
aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her
little godchild having lain on it that morning; and she could no
wise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would
willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why
not? she blushed scarlet, and began to cry, and would not show
herself again the whole evening, so that the maid had to see to
everything, even to the putting white sheets on my child's bed for
the young lord, as she would not do it herself. I only tell this
to show how maidens are. For next morning she came into the room
with her red silk bodice, and the net on her hair, and the apron;
_summa,_ dressed in all the things I had bought her at
Wolgast, so that the young lord was amazed, and talked much with
her over the morning meal. Whereupon he took his leave, and
desired me to visit him at his castle.




CHAPTER XII.

_What further joy and sorrow befell us; item, how Wittich
Appelmann rode to Damerow to the wolf-hunt, and what he proposed
to my daughter._


The Lord blessed my parish wonderfully this winter, inasmuch as
not only a great quantity of fish were caught and sold in all the
villages, but in Coserow they even killed four seals; _item,_
the great storm of the 12th of December threw a goodly quantity of
amber on the shore, so that many found amber, although no very
large pieces, and they began to buy cows and sheep from Liepe and
other places, as I myself also bought two cows; _item,_ my
grain which I had sown, half on my own field and half on old
Paasch's, sprung up bravely and gladly, as the Lord had till
_datum_ bestowed on us an open winter; but so soon as it had
shot up a finger's length, we found it one morning again torn up
and ruined, and this time also by the devil's doings, since now,
as before, not the smallest trace of oxen or of horses was to be
seen in the field. May the righteous God, however, reward it, as
indeed He already has done. Amen.

Meanwhile, however, something uncommon happened. For one morning,
as I have heard, when Lord Wittich saw out of the window that the
daughter of his fisherman, a child of sixteen, whom he had
diligently pursued, went into the coppice to gather dry sticks, he
went thither too; wherefore, I will not say, but every one may
guess for himself. When he had gone some way along the convent
mound, and was come to the first bridge, where the mountain-ash
stands, he saw two wolves coming towards him; and as he had no
weapon with him, save a staff, he climbed up into a tree;
whereupon the wolves trotted round it, blinked at him with their
eyes, licked their lips, and at last jumped with their fore-paws
up against the tree, snapping at him; he then saw that one was a
he-wolf, a great fat brute with only one eye. Hereupon in his
fright he began to scream, and the long-suffering of God was again
shown to him, without, however, making him wiser; for the maiden,
who had crept behind a juniper-bush in the field, when she saw the
sheriff coming, ran back again to the castle and called together a
number of people, who came and drove away the wolves, and rescued
his lordship. He then ordered a great wolf-hunt to be held next
day in the convent wood, and he who brought the one-eyed monster,
dead or alive, was to have a barrel of beer for his pains. Still
they could not catch him, albeit they that day took four wolves in
their nets, and killed them. He therefore straightway ordered a
wolf-hunt to be held in my parish. But when the fellow came to
toll the bell for a wolf-hunt, he did not stop awhile, as is the
wont for wolf-hunts, but loudly rang the bell on, _sine
mord,_ so that all the folk thought a fire had broken out, and
ran screaming out of their houses. My child also came running out
(I myself had driven to visit a sick person at Zempin, seeing that
walking began to be wearisome to me, and that I could now afford
to be more at mine ease); but she had not stood long, and was
asking the reason of the ringing, when the sheriff himself, on his
grey charger, with three cart-loads of toils and nets following
him, galloped up and ordered the people straightway to go into the
forest and to drive the wolves with rattles. Hereupon he, with his
hunters and a few men whom he had picked out of the crowd, were to
ride on and spread the nets behind Damerow, seeing that the island
is wondrous narrow there, [Footnote: The space, which is
constantly diminishing, now scarcely measures a bow-shot across.]
and the wolf dreads the water. When he saw my daughter he turned
his horse round, chucked her under the chin, and graciously asked
her who she was, and whence she came? When he had heard it, he
said she was as fair as an angel, and that he had not known till
now that the parson here had so beauteous a girl. He then rode
off, looking round at her two or three times. At the first beating
they found the one-eyed wolf, who lay in the rushes near the
water. Hereat his lordship rejoiced greatly, and made the grooms
drag him out of the net with long iron hooks, and hold him there
for near an hour, while my lord slowly and cruelly tortured him to
death, laughing heartily the while, which is a _prognosticon_
of what he afterwards did with my poor child, for wolf or lamb is
all one to this villain. Just God! But I will not be beforehand
with my tale.

Next day came old Seden his squint-eyed wife, limping like a lame
dog, and put it to my daughter whether she would not go into the
service of the sheriff; praised him as a good and pious man; and
vowed that all the world said of him were foul lies, as she
herself could bear witness, seeing that she had lived in his
service for above ten years. _Item,_ she praised the good
cheer they had there, and the handsome beer-money that the great
lords who often lay there gave the servants which waited upon
them; that she herself had more than once received a rose-noble
from his princely Highness Duke Ernest Ludewig; moreover, many
pretty fellows came there, which might make her fortune, inasmuch
as she was a fair woman, and might take her choice of a husband;
whereas here in Coserow, where nobody ever came, she might wait
till she was old and ugly before she got a curch on her head, &c.
Hereat my daughter was beyond measure angered, and answered, "Ah!
thou old witch, and who has told thee that I wish to go into
service, to get a curch on my head? Go thy ways, and never enter
the house again, for I have naught to do with thee." Whereupon she
walked away again, muttering between her teeth.

Scarce had a few days passed, and I was standing in the chamber
with the glazier, who was putting in new windows, when I heard my
daughter scream in the kitchen. Whereupon I straightway ran in
thither, and was shocked and affrighted when I saw the sheriff
himself standing in the corner with his arm round my child her
neck; he, however, presently let her go, and said, "Aha, reverend
Abraham, what a coy little fool you have for a daughter! I wanted
to greet her with a kiss, as I always used to do, and she
struggled and cried out as if I had been some young fellow who had
stolen in upon her, whereas I might be her father twice over." As
I answered naught, he went on to say that he had done it to
encourage her, seeing that he desired to take her into his
service, as indeed I knew, with more excuses of the same kind
which I have forgot. Hereupon I pressed him to come into the room,
seeing that after all he was the ruler set over me by God, and
humbly asked what his lordship desired of me. Whereupon he
answered me graciously, that it was true he had just cause for
anger against me, seeing that I had preached at him before the
whole congregation, but that he was ready to forgive me and to
have the complaint he had sent in _contra_ me to his princely
Highness at Stettin, and which might easily cost me my place,
returned to him if I would but do his will. And when I asked what
his lordship's will might be, and excused myself as best I might
with regard to the sermon, he answered that he stood in great need
of a faithful housekeeper whom he could set over the other women
folk; and as he had learnt that my daughter was a faithful and
trustworthy person, he would that I should send her into his
service. "See there," said he to her, and pinched her cheek the
while. "I want to lead you to honour, though you are such a young
creature, and yet you cry out as if I were going to bring you to
dishonour. Fie upon you!" (My child still remembers all
this--_verbolenus_; I myself should have forgot it a hundred
times over in all the wretchedness I since underwent.) But she was
offended at his words, and, jumping up from her seat, she answered
shortly, "I thank your lordship for the honour, but will only keep
house for my papa, which is a better honour for me;" whereupon he
turned to me and asked what I said to that. I must own that I was
not a little affrighted, inasmuch as I thought of the future and
of the credit in which the sheriff stood with his princely
Highness. I therefore answered with all humility, that I could not
force my child, and that I loved to have her about me, seeing that
my dear huswife had departed this life during the heavy
pestilence, and I had no child but only her. That I hoped
therefore his lordship would not be displeased with me that I
could not send her into his lordship's service. This angered him
sore, and after disputing some time longer in vain he took leave,
not without threats that he would make me pay for it. _Item_,
my man, who was standing in the stable, heard him say as he went
round the corner, "I will have her yet, in spite of him!"

I was already quite disheartened by all this, when, on the Sunday
following, there came his huntsman Johannes Kurt, a tall, handsome
fellow, and smartly dressed. He brought a roebuck tied before him
on his horse, and said that his lordship had sent it to me for a
present, in hopes that I would think better of his offer, seeing
that he had been ever since seeking on all sides for a housekeeper
in vain. Moreover, that if I changed my mind about it his lordship
would speak for me to his princely Highness, so that the dotation
of Duke Philippus Julius should be paid to me out of the princely
_ærarium_ &c. But the young fellow got the same answer as his
master had done, and I desired him to take the roebuck away with
him again. But this he refused to do; and as I had by chance told
him at first that game was my favourite meat, he promised to
supply me with it abundantly, seeing that there was plenty of game
in the forest, and that he often went a-hunting on the
Streckelberg; moreover, that I (he meant my daughter) pleased him
uncommonly, the more because I would not do his master's will,
who, as he told me in confidence, would never leave any girl in
peace, and certainly would not let my damsel alone. Although I had
rejected his game, he brought it notwithstanding, and in the
course of three weeks he was sure to come four or five times, and
grew more and more sweet upon my daughter. He talked a vast deal
about his good place, and how he was in search of a good huswife,
whence we soon guessed what quarter the wind blew from.
_Ergo_, my daughter told him that if he was seeking for a
huswife she wondered that he lost his time in riding to Coserow to
no purpose, for that she knew of no huswife for him there, which
vexed him so sore that he never came again.

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