AFTER a short rest in a town which for the present was left in peace, the pastor determined to go back to Heldburg. He hoped, no doubt, to find that the invaders had passed on to other towns, and that his deserted family might yet be found alive.
As he entered the town he met a melancholy procession. A large cart, piled with dead bodies, was proceeding slowly to the " God's-acre "—the churchyard. The pastor joined the funeral train, and on arriving at the churchyard, perceived, in an open grave, the bodies of seventeen persons, one amongst them being his father-in-law. All the bodies were terribly disfigured by their ghastly wounds.
He then proceeded to the house of his sister-in-law, who lay almost speechless, pierced and wounded by pistol shots and sabre cuts. She gasped out that she was dying, and the pastor had best seek for his wife and children, who had been carried off by the enemy. The children were a little girl of five, and the baby Michael.
The pastor, however, who was in a starving condition, asked in the first place for something to eat. But neither food nor drink were to be found in the deserted town. Leaving the dying woman, he fled to his village of Poppenhausen, intending, he says, in the first place to get some food, in the second place to send out messengers to seek for his wife and children. He heard, however, on arriving there, that the village children had also been carried off, and that the troops had divided ; some had gone in one direction, and some in another, and, as no road was safe, no one was willing to undertake the dangerous task of pursuing them.
The pastor therefore, who possessed the better part of valour, however he may have lacked the remainder, proceeded to devour his share of a cow, the only one left behind by the enemy, which his parishioners had killed and roasted. " Neither salt nor bread," says the pastor, " were to be had ; but appetite is the best sauce."
In the midst of this Abyssinian feast arrived the pastor's wife, but all alone, and related her sad tale as follows:
She and her two children had been carried off by the soldiers to a place called Alterhausen. There, thinking that death would be preferable to the treatment she was likely to receive from the soldiers, she slipped out of their hands as they were crossing a bridge ; and seizing her two children, leaped with them into the water. The soldiers, however, dragged her out, and brought her into the village, where they ordered her to cook their supper.
Meanwhile a second and larger troop of soldiers arrived, and drove away the first detachment. In the confusion the pastor's wife managed to escape from the house, leaving the two children in the hands of the soldiers. An old beggar woman led her through back lanes and alleys out of the village into a wood, where was a cavern, in which she spent the night and all the following day. Then, finding that people were flying from the soldiers in the dusk of the evening, she too ventured out of her cave, and made her way to Poppenhausen.
The pastor enquired what had happened at Held-burg before she was carried away. Her tale of horrors was one of many hundreds, to be repeated again and again in many a town and village, with details even more sad and sorrowful.
As the town of Heldburg, she said, possessed a small supply of soldiers and ammunition, it was determined by the citizens that they would defend themselves against the enemy.
It was hoped that Duke Bernard's troops were advancing, and that the town could hold out till his arrival. But meanwhile the enemy set fire to the town in various places. The poor old father-in-law, wounded as he was, fled with other citizens from the burning streets. Frau Botzinger, who had recovered little Michael, led this helpless party to Poppenhausen, where she put her father into something like a bed, for some articles of furniture still remained in the parsonage. The house was already filled with the neighbouring noble families, who had been driven from their castles.
Next day arrived a troop of horsemen, who, having searched the house, ordered a plentiful supper, as times went, and meanwhile went out to plunder the village, returning late at night laden with goods and chattels.
All the women they could find were called in to boil and roast the plunder of the farmyards. When they were leaving they told Herr Bohme not to think himself out of the wood, for they meant to ransack the neighbourhood for a week longer. They advised him therefore, if he cared for a quiet life, to go to a village at some distance, the nearer villages being Catholic.
The poor old man, with his daughter and grandchildren, started afresh in the darkness and fog, and reached a village, where he was pursued by soldiers and Catholics from the neighbourhood, and the pillage began as before.
The unhappy party again escaped, and hid themselves in a wood, where they stayed several days and nights. From this wood a high road led to the town of Heldburg. For awhile troops were to be seen coming and going ; but at last the road seemed to be deserted ; and, moreover, Herr Bohme heard in the distance the sound of a bell at Heldburg, which was wont to ring whenever there was a christening. This confirmed him in the belief that all was again quiet there. He therefore took his daughter and grandchildren back to the town.
He was immediately surrounded by a rough mob, who dragged the whole party, including another daughter, to the house where the remainder of the soldiers were holding a savage feast. They were greeted with the wild yells of the drunken Croats, who were singing and shouting in deafening chorus.
The little money Herr Bohme had left was forced from him ; his eyebrows, beard, and moustache smeared with tallow, and set alight ; his daughter, Frau Botzinger, was seized by the soldiers, who shamelessly insulted her, till her shrieks were heard by her mother, who had been dragged off to another part of the house.
The old lady forced her way downstairs into the crowd. The outer door was locked, but the lower panel was broken. Frau Bohme, with desperate energy, smashed the panel, and pushed her daughter through the hole. Poor Frau Botzinger found outside a compassionate cook, who led her to a place of safety ; and when she had presented him with some ducats, which she had kept hidden in her sleeve, he returned to rescue her father, who was now half dead, and terribly disfigured.
Outside the town was an ancient pest-house, in which they took refuge. Many other citizens, men and women, had also betaken themselves to this pest-house, thinking it would be overlooked by the soldiers.
But they were mistaken. Scarcely had poor Herr Bohme been laid on a bed, covered with blood, and in terrible suffering, than some of the rabble rushed in, having been told he was a rich man. The pastor's wife was dragged back to the town with her two children. Her sister was left behind, stabbed in several places.
Frau Botzinger was at once set to work to make shirts for the soldiers. Her workroom was the churchyard. As she sat there looking ruefully at a piece of linen which a soldier brought her to cut up, she heard him say to his comrade, "Go and finish off that peasant man." He meant her father. His comrade ran off, and in a few minutes returned with the doublet and breeches of Herr Bohme. “I have done for your father," he remarked to Frau Botzinger.
The soldiers then went to the church in search linen, and having packed it in a bundle, left the town and carried with them the pastor's wife and her two children. It was on this journey that she escaped and fled, as has been related, to Poppenhausen. The children were afterwards found, and brought back their parents.