‘Denn fühllos wiedas Eisen war Das Herz in ihren Brust.'
SCHILLER.
NOT far from the town of Kuttenberg, in Eastern Bohemia, there stood in those days, by the wayside, a little country inn called the Silver Pickaxe. It was now the last day of February; but Winter as yet showed no sign of abdicating her throne. The snow was falling thickly; not the door only but the unglazed windows also, were closely shut and barred to exclude it. Within, a great fire of logs was blazing on the hearth, and on the settle near it a small, spare, insignificant-looking man, with dark Czech features, was lounging at his ease, and sipping a tankard of weak wine. At a press or dresser near the wall two women were standing, busily engaged in polishing the pewter vessels upon it until they shone like silver in the firelight. One of the women, though not really old, was wrinkled and gray-haired. Tall, and stout in proportion, she scoured her pewter with an air of energy and determination, as if she felt it meant to resist her efforts to the utmost, but intended to stand no opposition from it or from anything else. The rough, red-haired girl beside her, evidently a servant, imitated, at a humble distance, the activity of her mistress. On some straw in a corner a boy was lying asleep, with his head swathed, and a rug thrown over him. These constituted the human occupants of the great room, which formed the whole lower story of the wooden house; but a little flock of geese had also found shelter there from the inclemency of the weather.
A gust of wind blew the door open, letting in a shower of snow upon the sanded floor. The good man of the house shivered, drew his cloak about him, and said briefly, ‘Wife, shut the door.'
‘Get up and shut it thyself, lazybones,' was the polite reply. ‘I am busy, and thou art doing nothing. The usual way.'
The man looked from his wife to the open door, and from the open door to his wife again. Evidently it was not the usual way' for him to dispute her orders, nor yet to be over hasty in obeying them. While he hesitated, the girl slipped past her mistress, and quietly performed the service. ‘Shall I put the bolt in, mistress? ‘she asked.
‘That mayest thou. Such a day as this there is none like to come near us.'
‘Easy to rate me for doing nothing, and to call me out of my name,' grumbled the master of the house. ‘What can be done in a snowstorm, and without light enough for a man to see his hand before him? '
‘A man who was a man would chop firewood, or mend the ass's harness, or cobble his old shoes; anything rather than sit by the fireside the whole blessed day, drinking himself drunk.'
‘Drunk! Now, mistress, that is too bad! Thou knowest that never once has that been to say of me for the last six months. Nor would it then, only for those devils of miners—'
‘Ay, in a general way thou hast kept sober, that I will say for thee. No great credit to thee, however.' She paused a moment in her work, turned round to face her husband, and glanced significantly at a stout serviceable broom, which hung against the wall.
The little man cowered visibly, and through his dark features there came a tinge of red. ‘At least,' he muttered uneasily, ‘no man could get drunk on this hog-wash.'
‘Ay, I suppose it would like thee well to keep the key of the chest where the strong waters are. Then, the next time the miners came to us, there would be murder done in the house.'
‘God knows, I wish the miners had never crossed our threshold,' said the man earnestly. Probably he thought that for once he was saying something with which his wife would cordially agree.
‘He was mistaken. A fine word that for a man to say who has heavy dues to pay to the lord of the soil, and then to live himself, with a wife, a maid, and a crippled son! Who else can afford to pay us, these bad times, I should like to know? Good groschen from the Mint are not spoiled by coming to us through German hands.'
‘German hands? Ay, and German hands stained red with good Bohemian blood.'
‘That is none of our business,' said the woman, turning back to her work, and polishing a pewter basin with desperate energy, as if the bloodstains were upon it, and she could rub them out. 'This thou canst do, at least,' she resumed after a minute; take you poor child in thine arms, and carry him up to his bed.'
‘Why disturb him? He is fast asleep.'
‘Always excuses when one asks thee to do anything. Thou needest not waken him. He will sleep sound enough now for hours.'
‘Thanks to thy dose of poppy-juice. Heaven send thou hast not poisoned the child! '
‘Don’t be a fool!' was the courteous retort. ‘Was I to hear him crying all day with the pain of his tooth? If thou wert a man, thou wouldest set him tomorrow on the ass, and bring him to the town, for the barber to pull it out for him.'
‘He would cry louder for that,' said her husband, truly enough. ‘Hark! Is that a knock at the door?'
‘Nay, 'tis the wind. Go on with thy work, Maria. What ails thee? '
‘Mistress, it is a knock. There's another!’ Maria laid down the flagon she was burnishing, and hurried to the door.
She admitted a peddler with his pack, both well covered with snow. ‘Gott grüss such!’ said he in German as he entered. The housewife answered him in the same language, which she spoke fairly well, bidding him welcome, and asking him to come near the fire. Then, addressing her husband in rapid Czech, she bade him assist the stranger to unloose his pack, and to take off his dripping cloak.
‘I speak Czech also,' said the packman, although I am a foreigner. Pardon me for bringing all this snow and mud into your comfortable room,' and he looked with evident satisfaction at the blazing fire, the neatly-sanded floor, the dresser with its bright array of newly-polished vessels.
Propitiated by the compliment, the landlady bustled about to prepare a meal and a bed for the stranger, assisted by her handmaid. Meanwhile the landlord performed his share of the duties of hospitality, as he understood them, by heaping fresh logs on the fire, and inviting the guest to dry himself and his garments. He also thought it fell within his province to converse with him; but the stranger, though courteous and affable, was somewhat reserved; indeed, a stranger who showed himself otherwise would have been, in those days, a very imprudent person.
There was one subject, however, at once safe and interesting—the contents of his pack. He professed himself willing to exhibit them, but Meličia, as the housewife was called, interposed her veto. ‘Not till thou hast eaten and drunk,' she said. ‘Dost drink beer or wine, master chapman? 'At this delay Maria, who was setting a board upon trestles for the stranger's meal, heaved an audible sigh, for she was longing to choose a breast-knot for herself and a pair of buckles for her lover; while Matej, the landlord, observed sententiously, What is put off never comes to pass.'
For once he was in the right. While the peddler was washing down his meal of smoked goose and rye bread with a draft of much better wine than Meličia allowed her lord and master, some person or persons began to thunder for admittance at the door. The snow had prevented those within from hearing the approaching footsteps.
Maria opened it not a moment too soon, for the newcomers would have broken it in with scant compunction. Large as was the room, it seemed to be filled instantly. Fierce-looking men, in rough white coats and hosen, and with pickaxes slung from their leather girdles, passed in, leading or dragging with them a little group of peasants, strongly bound with ropes.
Then all was bustle and confusion. The women hurried to and fro, filling every cup or tankard they could lay hands upon with beer or wine, and serving their guests as quickly as they could, from fear, if not from goodwill.
The sleeping boy in the corner, awakened by the noise, began to scream, whereupon his father took him in his arms, and managed, though with much difficulty, to drag or carry him up the ladder to the loft.
The chapman—that is to say, Hubert Bohun—withdrew to the corner thus left empty, and, standing unnoticed in the shadow, surveyed the group of captives with a sad and pitying eye. This, then, was what he had heard. The Saxon miners of Kuttenberg, fierce and savage men, accustomed to wage war with the sternest forces of Nature, and hardened in the contest, ranged the surrounding country, making captive every Hussite they could lay hands on. What spoils were they bringing in this snowy wintry day?
Five persons, all peasants, composed the little band. There was an old man with silver hair, two young men, and a boy and girl of about fourteen or fifteen. The two last were sobbing bitterly, the girl with her head on the boy's shoulder; the younger men looked sullen and angry, the old man resigned and calm.
Meanwhile the miners were quarreling for places near the fire, and seating themselves as best they could on the settle, or on benches which Maria brought for them. They complained loudly, in German, of their ill-luck in only securing so poor a prey after a holiday spent in the chase. ‘Not one of them worth more than twenty groschen,' they said to one another. ‘And 'tis doubtful if the Town Council will pay us more than half-price for the girl and the boy.'
Presently Hubert saw Maria fill a cup with wine, and, watching her opportunity, give it, when no one was looking, to the weeping girl; but the child's bound hands could not take it, and Maria could not wait to hold it to her lips—already half a dozen rude voices were calling her. He came forward, took the cup, and held it until the poor child's thirst was satisfied; then he gave what was left in the same way to her brother. Without any interference from the miners—who seemed to care little what was done with their captives so that they did not escape—he refilled the cup once and again until all had had enough. One of the younger men said to him in Czech, ‘Master, you seem to have a compassionate heart. Can you speak German?'
‘Yes.'
‘Then for God's sake, master, will you tell these men that I and my companion here are not Hussites at all, but good Catholics? We have never taken the Cup, nor done any other thing which the Church forbids. We detest heresy and heretics. But these white devils cannot understand a word of good Bohemian; or if they do, they will not listen to it. The reward the Town Council (God's curse upon it!) gives them for every Hussite brought in has turned them into sheer highway robbers and murderers.'
‘What do they mean to do with you?'
‘They will bring us first into the city, to the Town Hall, that they may get their ducats. That is all they care about. Then—God help us!—they will drag us to the horrible pits they have dug in the bowels of the earth. Happy are those the fall makes an end of at once! Master, if you have any bowels of compassion, if you wish God to show you mercy in your own hour of need, speak a word for us now. Say we are no Hussites.'
‘I will do what I can,' said Hubert sadly. ‘And you, father, he added, turning to the old man; do you also suffer through a mistake?'
‘Not so,' was the calm reply. ‘I learned to know my Lord Jesus through the preaching of Master John Huss when he abode at the Welsh Castle, and therefore I am rightly called a Hussite. Those are my grandchildren,' he added, looking towards the girl and boy, 'and I will take them with me to God.'
“For if we suffer we shall also reign with Him,"' said Hubert, much moved; his heart went forth to this brother in the faith. ‘More really worthy of pity, it is true, were the two unhappy martyrs by the pang without the palm,' but with far less power to touch the nerve of sympathy, and make it quiver with passionate pain. ‘Can I do aught for thee, my father?' he asked in a broken voice.
‘Not much, though I thank thy good will. I and mine need little more now. Yet is there one thing, if thou wilt. They have led us a long way from our home, and we would fain rest our weary limbs ere they take us farther. The children are very tired.'
‘I will speak to the mistress of the house,' said Hubert. This was more easily said than done. However, at last he laid hold of the busy woman, and, by offering his help in broaching a barrel of ale, gained her ear for an instant. ‘Oh yes—take them to that straw where the boy was lying. I'll make it all right with the miners, who care nothing so long as they are safe. Prithee, master chapman, halt seen my man anywhere?’
‘No, mistress, not since he went upstairs with the boy.'
‘And stayed there, most like. One might as well have a broom-head for a husband and the master of a house! Wilt do the act of a Christian, master peddler, and fetch him down? Heaven knows, 'tis not for the work he does, but—think of it!—two lone women to wait upon all those ruffianly fire-eaters. 'Tis neither safe nor respectable.'
‘I will do thine errand, mistress,' said Hubert. First, however, he brought his new friends to the place which had been indicated to him. There was plenty of straw, and he shook it out to allow them to sit or lie at their ease, also helping them to remove a few soaking outer garments.
Meličia was as good as her word. She told the miners that the peddler was a German, like themselves, and no doubt a very good Catholic, but these people who wandered about the world had sometimes soft hearts—most like he pitied the girl and boy, who were not much more than children after all.
‘Perhaps, master miners, when you have rested and refreshed yourselves you may care to see the contents of his pack by way of diversion? '
Meanwhile Hubert disappeared up the narrow ladder which served for a staircase. It took him but a few seconds to ascend it, yet the thoughts that flocked through his busy brain might have filled a volume. There was one prevailing cry of passionate prayer: ‘O God, help me to save these Thy servants!’ But how was it to be done? How? He wore a small sharp poniard concealed beneath his vest, but what could one weapon, in one hand, avail against so many? Supposing he first cut the captives' bonds? Still, only the two young men would be able to do anything. Of course the people of the house were not likely to help him; they would probably (although not certainly) side with the miners. Again, should he cut the ropes, bid the captives run for their lives, and standing himself last at the door, delay the miners till their prey was beyond pursuit?—No. It could not be done! He abandoned the idea—not because for himself it meant certain death, but because, setting all other difficulties aside, he would be pushed and trampled down far too quickly. Once more, could he bribe the miners with the contents of his pack to let the captives go? But then, what was to hinder them seizing the goods by force and laughing him to scorn, as they surely would under the circumstance? Or could he lure them with promises?—They would not believe him.
By this time he was standing in the wooden upper chamber where the cripple boy lay, again fast asleep, and looking unnaturally flushed and heavy. His father was kneeling beside him, staring at him with a face of helpless anxiety.
Hubert gave him his wife's message, begging him to come down and help her to serve their customers.
Matej rose slowly to his feet. 'I am troubled about the boy,' he said; ‘the good wife, to take away his pain, hath dosed him with that strong decoction of poppies.'
‘He will sleep it off,' said Hubert, his head full of other thoughts. ‘Come down, man, and help thy wife. In truth, it is thy duty.'
‘Meličia is well able to help herself, and half the world besides,' returned Matej. ‘Everything she does has twice the strength in it of other folk's doings. Saints in heaven! when she gets a stick in her hand it is something to see—or to feel! Even when she undertakes the preparing of herbs, in the case of sickness, such as poppies and the like—' he glanced at a large jar, three-quarters full, which stood on a chest by the bed.
Hubert's eyes followed his; and the same instant a new thought, a new hope, sent the vibration of a sudden thrill through his soul and body. His plan was made in a moment. ‘Listen, friend,' he said, laying his hand on the arm of Matej: ‘if I make friends with the miners, and treat them to strong drink in plenty, the chances are they will buy half my pack, and pay well for it too, for I know they are well paid themselves, in the same good silver they dig out of the mine. Hast any strong waters in the house?'
‘My wife has—a little. She keeps the key.'
‘Get it from her, man. Whisper her in Czech. Tell her why I want it.'
‘No use, no use,' said Matej helplessly. ‘She would never give it to me. Speak to her thyself.'
‘Very well, then,' returned Hubert, hastily catching up the jar of poppy juice.
‘What wouldest thou with that?'
‘I will tell thy wife. I will explain things to her. Go thou to thy guests, and keep them in as good humor as thou canst, and by-and-by I will reward thee with a drink such as thou hast never tasted yet.'
Poor soul, to be bribed with such a guerdon! So low can our nature sink; and yet, thank God! the heights it can reach, through His grace, are still more wonderful. The old man who sat a few yards off calmly awaiting martyrdom, and in the meantime holding communion with his God and consoling his fellow-sufferers, was, like Matej, only a Bohemian peasant, who could neither read nor write.
Under the stress of emotion the mind acts with inconceivable rapidity. Almost before Hubert's descending feet touched the sanded floor all the details of his plan were fixed clearly in his mind. It was easier now to secure the ear of Meličia, and to speak to her apart as she set the board for the substantial supper her guests had ordered. Hubert communicated to her the hopes he pretended to entertain, and contrived to hint that if he did a good business the house' should profit by it. But it would be necessary to open the hearts and purses of the miners. The Saxons liked strong drink. So did the English, and he was himself half an Englishman. Moreover, he had been bred in Paris, and he had learned there the secret of compounding a certain drink, called Hippocras, most rare and delicious, which would but here Hubert's imagination failed him, and he was fain to conclude with one of the proverbs of Solomon—which would make the lips of them which were asleep to speak.' The necessary ingredients were strong waters and certain spices, which last, however, he carried in his pack. He had, in fact, a little pepper, ginger, and saffron.
At the mention of strong waters Meličia hesitated.
‘You will make the miners mad, and they will be for killing us all,' she said.
‘No fear, mistress. I shall put in plenty of fair water. But trust me for making your house famous through the country. If you will, I will tell you afterward how to compound the like.'
The end was that Hubert got what he wanted—a good supply of strong waters, and the services of Maria to wait upon him.
The miners were not indisposed to fraternize with their supposed countryman. They asked him to join them at supper. Hubert said he had supped already, but in return for their civility they must drink with him afterward.
Then, while the miners supped great mysteries went forward over the fire. Strong waters and honey were contributed by the house, and Hubert added what he styled ‘grandly rare spices.’ But in place of fair water he contrived surreptitiously to empty into the pan the whole contents of the great jar of poppy juice. The mixture was just ready when the miners had finished the substantial part of their repast. It was received with acclamation. And certainly on a snowy afternoon, when the thermometer, had such a thing been known, would have stood somewhere near zero, there was much to be said in its favor. Hot, at once with the heat of fire and the pungency of spice, sweet, and above all things strong, it tasted of everything the miners had ever known or liked. Had a Scotchman been among them, he would certainly have declared, in praise of it, ‘that it bites in the mou'! '
Hubert intended to administer his potion to the people of the inn, as well as to the miners, lest they should interfere with his plans. But it was not easy to do it, save to Maria. Meličia was habitually temperate; and poor Matej was just going to enjoy a cup of the fragrant mixture, when his spouse snatched it almost from his very lips, saying, ‘Drink when thy guests are gone, fool! Go, now and get some logs for the fire, else we shall be in darkness presently.'
The miners talked and jested, and drank success to themselves and their friends, and confusion to their foes. One of them proposed the health of the Ass of Kuttenberg, adding the wish that his ears might forever remain untouched. Hubert, as a stranger, asked for an explanation, and a miner told him, in reply, that the excavations for the silver mines underground were in the form of an ass, and that, whenever any luckless explorer should happen to touch the ears, the ground would fall in and the whole place come to ruin! ‘The—whole—place—come—to—ruin,' repeated his informant, nodding drowsily at every word.
His drowsiness seemed infectious. Hubert, with secret exultation, watched the band, as the poppy juice, aided by the potent spirit, the heat, and the spices, took effect upon them one by one. Some yielded fairly to the spell, and stretched themselves on the ground; others slumbered as they sat, in various attitudes, more or less uncomfortable.
Maria slept as soundly as any one; and, what was more to the purpose, the modest portion she had tasted, ‘just to see what it was like,' took effect upon Meličia, the rather because of her habitual temperance; having allowed herself to sit down in a corner for a moment's rest, she was neither seen nor heard any more. Hubert did not think much of Matej one way or the other, but supposed he was asleep also.
So; at last, the moment for action was come! Hubert sent up a strong, brief, silent cry to God for help. Then he took off his shoes, and stepped noiselessly through the sleeping miners to the corner where the captives lay. The girl and boy were fast asleep, and the old man's eyes were closed, though his lips were moving as if in prayer. The two younger men, however, were awake, and watching every movement with anxious and wondering eyes. ‘Now—now or never!’ whispered Hubert to them in Czech, as he drew out his poniard. ‘There's a chance for your lives. See! father, I begin with you,' and having gently touched the old man to arouse his attention, he severed the cords that bound his hands.
‘Now rouse your grandchildren without noise. For their lives and yours, not a word! The miners are all asleep. If God be with us, we can go forth unhindered.'
The girl awoke crying; but her brother, who understood the situation, put his hand promptly on her mouth. 'Now go, one by one,' whispered Hubert again; ‘keep close by the wall, in the shadow.'
Not a sound was heard, save the heavy breathing of the sleeping miners. Hubert led the way, then came the two young men, then the children, lastly the old man. The steps of all were slow, noiseless, cat-like. As their enemies had crowded round the hearth, they took care to keep close by the sides of the room.
They had well turned the corner—they had come within a few paces of the door, which had not been refastened since the entrance of the miners. Three steps more,—and then freedom and safety Those three steps were never taken. Suddenly the door itself burst in with a loud noise, and a chorus of rough voices shouted, ‘Are you all here dead or asleep? ' The flickering light of the fire showed the white garments of miners,—more miners, and ever more—who crowded in, nearly trampling on their sleeping comrades. The Silver Pickaxe was a common place of rendezvous for these fierce and formidable men.
If ever a living man felt the bitterness of death, Hubert felt it then. He knew in one moment that all was lost. Some of the new-comers stood between the fugitives and the open door, others were already rousing their comrades with kicks, shouts, and blows.
One of the young Bohemians incautiously made a step forward, and the light of the flame fell on him, showing a piece of knotted cord still hanging from his left arm. That was enough. There was a shout, a spring, a simultaneous rush upon the little band. Half a dozen hands at once seized each of them, including Hubert. The two young men struggled desperately with their new captors; but Hubert called on them to stop. Resistance was useless, and worse.
Then a strange thing happened. A stalwart miner had laid rough hands on the shrinking girl, and was going to bind her. She gave a piteous cry, and instantly someone wrenched her from his grasp, and dealt him a shrewd thrust with a knife in his right arm. It was Matej. He had seen much further into the business than Hubert suspected; he wished well to his countrymen, and their recapture nearly broke all the heart his idle, self-indulgent life had left in him. Besides, the girl bore a likeness to a child of his own, whom he had laid last year in the churchyard, and it filled the cup of his indignation to see her roughly used. He was beyond himself in more ways than one. Meličia, awakened by this time, was horror-stricken at the sight of her husband being laid hold upon by two or three furious miners. But neither her cries and protestations, nor even the blows of her strong right arm, availed anything now. Matej at last, as well as the others, was overpowered and bound; but he gave his captors more trouble than all the rest together. In fact, neither the old man, nor the children, nor Hubert, had resisted at all.
There seemed some likelihood, however, of a free fight among the miners themselves, such of the first comers as were by this time sufficiently awake claiming the captives as their own, and the others stoutly denying the claim. While they exchanged hard words and harder blows, Hubert, in his desperation, resolved upon one last effort for his own life and that of his companions. He succeeded in gaining the ear of a miner less excited than the others. Knowing their greed, he bade high, revealing the fact that he was not what he seemed, but of noble birth, and the squire of a baron who could, and would, reward his preservers handsomely.
But all the consolation he received was an exhortation to stick well to his story before the magistrates, as that would ensure his captors the larger recompense, while they, by way of thanks, would give him the best chance they could of a speedy end when they got to the mine. But as for sparing his life, or that of any of the accursed brood! what did he take them for? They were Christians, and Catholics, and they wanted to make their souls,' and to earn a place in Paradise. Moreover, they had taken a solemn vow to the Blessed Virgin never to let a Hussite leave their hands alive. If they were so wicked as to break it, and to bring the guilt of perjury upon their souls, Our Lady would know how to punish them.
So all Hubert's arrows fell idle and useless from the impenetrable shield forged of that strong mixed metal, greed and fanaticism combined. Both together are far harder than either by itself. Many a heart, not destitute of human softness, have they hardened so that neither groans nor cries, neither prayers nor tears, could avail to pierce it. Sorrowfully he recognized the fact that all was over now. Henceforth they had, not to struggle, but to suffer. Not conflict was before them, but martyrdom. He bowed his head in speechless agony. No prayer came from his lips-no prayer, in words, from his bleeding heart. Yet the God of his spirit, the Life of his life, was not far from him even then. The secret things of darkness are known to Him.
When, presently, the old man said meekly, ‘will of the Lord be done!’ Hubert Bohun was able to respond ‘Amen!'