The Adventurous Simplicissimus being the description of the Life of a Strange vagabond named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim Part 22

"Now," says I to my dad, "ye have told me a pretty tale enough and yet forgot the best part: for ye have not told me the name of the lady or her husband or the child." "Your honour," he answered, "I thought not ye desired to know it: but the lady's name was Susanna Ramsay: her husband was Captain Sternfels, of Fuchsheim, and because my name was Melchior did I have the child baptized Melchior Sternfels, of Fuchsheim, and so inscribed in the book."

Now from that I knew clearly that I was the true-born son of my hermit and of Governor Ramsay's sister; but alas! far too late, for my parents were both dead, and of my uncle Ramsay could I learn nothing save that the Hanauers had rid themselves of him and his Swedish garrison, whereat he had gone crazy for rage and vexation. But I treated my G.o.dfather well with wine, and next day had his wife fetcht likewise: yet when I declared myself to them, would they not believe it, till I did shew them a black and hairy mole I had upon my breast.

_Chap. ix._: IN WHAT MANNER THE PAINS OF CHILD-BIRTH CAME UPON HIM, AND HOW HE BECAME A WIDOWER

Not long after this I did take my G.o.dfather with me, and ride into the Spessart to get certain news and certificate of my descent and n.o.ble birth; which I gat without difficulty from the book of baptisms and my G.o.dfather's witness: and presently thereafter visited the priest that had dwelt at Hanau and had taken care of me: which gave me a writing to declare where my late father had died, and that I had abode with him to his death and thereafter for a long time with Master Ramsay, the commandant at Hanau, under the name of Simplicissimus: yea, I had an instrument containing my whole history drawn up by a notary out of the mouth of witnesses; for I thought, "Who knoweth when thou wilt have need of it?" And this journey did cost me 400 thalers, for on my return I was captured by a party, dismounted, and plundered so that I and my dad or G.o.dfather came off naked and hardly with our lives.

Meanwhile things went ill at home: for as soon as my wife knew her husband was a n.o.bleman she not only did play the great lady, but did neglect all housekeeping; which I bore in silence because she was big with child: moreover, misfortune came on my cattle and robbed me of my chiefest and best: all which 'twould have been possible to endure, but O Gemini! misfortunes came not singly: for even then while my wife was delivered, the maid was brought to bed likewise: and the child she bore was indeed like to me, but that which my wife had was so like to the farm-servant as it had been cut on the pattern of his face. Nay, more!

for the lady of whom I writ above did in the same night cause one to be laid at my door with notice in writing that I was the father: and so did I get a family of three at once, and could not but expect that others would creep out of every corner, which caused me not a few grey hairs. But so will it fare with whoever doth follow his own b.e.s.t.i.a.l l.u.s.ts in such a G.o.dless and wicked way of life as I had led.

And now what to do! I must have the baptism and be soundly punished by the magistrate: and the government being then Swedish, and I an old soldier of the emperor, the score was the heavier to pay: all which was but the preface to my complete ruination the second time. And although all these manifold disasters did greatly trouble me, yet my wife contrariwise took all lightly; yea, did mock at me day and night about the fine treasure that had been laid at my door and for which I had paid so dearly: yet had she but known how 'twas with me and the maid she would have plagued me yet worse: but that good creature was so complacent as to let herself be persuaded with as much money as I should other ways have been fined for her sake, to swear her child to a fop that had at times visited me the year before and had been at the wedding, but whom otherwise she knew not. Yet must she go a-packing, for my wife did suspect what I thought of her and the farm-servant, yet dared not hint thereat: for else had I proved to her that I could not at once be with her and with the maid. Yet all the while I was tormented with the thought that I must rear a child for my servant, and mine own sons should not be my heirs, and yet must I hold my peace and be glad that none else knew of it: and with such thoughts did I daily torment myself, while my wife revelled every hour in wine; for since our marriage she had so used herself to the bottle that 'twas seldom away from her mouth, and she herself scarce went to bed any night but half-drunk: by which means she robbed her child of its nourishment and so inflamed her inward parts that soon after they fell out, and so made me a widower the second time, which went so my heart that I wellnigh laughed myself into a sickness.

_Chap. x._: RELATION OF CERTAIN PEASANTS CONCERNING THE WONDERFUL MUMMELSEE

So now did I find myself restored to mine ancient freedom, but with a purse pretty well emptied of gold, and yet a great household overburdened with cattle and servants. Therefore I took my foster-father Melchior to be as my father, and my foster-mother, his wife, to be my mother, and young b.a.s.t.a.r.d Simplicissimus that had been laid at my door I made my heir, and handed over to these two old people house and farm, together with all my property save a few yellow-boys and jewels that I had saved and kept hidden to meet extreme need: for now had I conceived such a loathing for the company and society of all women that I had determined, having fared so ill with them, never to marry again. So this old couple, which in matters rustic could hardly meet their likes for skill, presently arranged my housekeeping in different fas.h.i.+on. For they got rid of such cattle and servants as were of no use, and in their place had for the farm such as would bring profit. So my old dad and my mammy bade me be of good cheer, and promised if I would let them manage all to keep me ever a good horse in the stable and myself so well furnished that I could now and then drink my measure of wine with any honest companion. And presently I was ware of what manner of people now managed my estate: for my foster-father with the labourers tilled the ground, and bargained for cattle and wood and resin sharper than any Jew, while his wife gave herself to cattle-breeding and contrived to save the milk-penny and keep it better than ten such wives as I had had. In such wise my farmyard was in short s.p.a.ce furnished with all needful implements and cattle small and great, so that soon 'twas esteemed one of the best in that country-side: and I meanwhile took my walks abroad and gave myself up to contemplations, for when I saw how my foster-mother earned more by her bees alone, in wax and honey, than my wife had gained from cattle, swine, and all the rest together, I could well conceive that in other matters she would not be caught napping.

Now it happened on a time that I took my walk in the spa, more for the sake of a draught of fresh water than, according to my former usage, to make acquaintance with the fops: for I had begun to imitate the thriftiness of my parents, who counselled me I should not much consort with folk that so wantonly wasted their own and their father's goods.

Yet I joined myself to a company of men of moderate rank who even then were in discourse concerning a strange matter, namely, of the Mummelsee, which said they was bottomless, and which was situate on one of the highest mountains near by: and they had sent for several old peasants and would have them to tell all that one and the other had heard of this wondrous lake, to whose stories I hearkened with great delight, though I held them all to be as vain fables as be some of Plinius's tales.

For one said if any man should tie up an odd number of things such as peas or pebbles, or what not, in a kerchief, and let it down into the water, presently the number would be even. And if one should drop in an even number, at once it became odd. Others, and indeed the most part, declared, and confirmed what they said by examples, that if a man should throw in one or more stones, however fair the skies might be till then, at once there would arise a terrible storm with fearful rain, hail and hurricane. From that they came to all manner of strange histories that had happened there, and what wondrous appearances of earth- and water-spirits had there been seen and how they had talked with mankind. One told how on a time, as certain herdsmen were keeping cattle by the lake, there arose a brown ox out of the water that mixed with the other cattle, but there followed him a little mannikin to drive him back into the lake; who would not obey till the little man had sworn that if he did not come back he should suffer all the ills of human kind. At which words ox and man again sank into the lake. Another said it happened at a time when the lake was frozen over that a peasant, with his oxen and sundry trunks of trees, such as we hew planks out of, pa.s.sed over the lake without harm; but when his dog would follow him the ice broke, and so the poor beast fell in and was never seen again. And yet another swore 'twas solemn truth that a huntsman following in the track of game was pa.s.sing by the lake, and there saw a water-spirit sitting with a whole lapful of coined money and playing therewith; at whom when he would have shot, the spirit sank into the water, and cried, "Hadst thou but prayed me to help thee in thy trade, I would have made thee and thine rich for life."

Such and the like tales, which seemed to me all as fables with which we do amuse our children, did I hearken to, and never deemed it possible that there could be such a bottomless lake upon a high mountain. But there were other peasants, and those old and credible men, that affirmed that within their own and their father's memory high and princely persons had journeyed to behold the said lake, and that a reigning Duke of Wurtemberg had caused a raft to be made, and had put out into the lake thereupon to sound its depth: but that after the measures had already let down nine thread-cables (which is a measure of length better understanded of the peasants' wives of the Black Forest than of me or any other geometer) with a sinking-lead, and yet had found no bottom, the raft, contrary to the nature of wood, began to sink, so that they that were upon it must perforce give up their purpose and make all haste to land, and so to this day can be seen the fragments of the raft on the sh.o.r.e of the lake, with the arms of Wurtemberg and other matters carved upon the wood for a memorial of this history. Others called many witnesses to prove that a certain archduke of Austria had desired to drain the lake, but was by many dissuaded and at the pet.i.tion of the people of the land the plan given up, for fear lest the whole country might be drowned and destroyed.

Furthermore, the said n.o.ble princes had caused barrels full of trout to be put into the lake; all which in less than an hour died before their eyes and floated away through the outlet of the lake, notwithstanding that the stream that flows under the mountain on which the lake lies and through the valley that takes its name therefrom produces by nature such fish, and that the outlet of the lake is into the said stream.

_Chap. xi._: OF THE MARVELLOUS THANKSGIVING OF A PATIENT, AND OF THE HOLY THOUGHTS THEREBY AWAKENED IN SIMPLICISSIMUS

These last did so affirm what they said that I now began almost entirely to believe them, and they did so move my curiosity that I determined to visit this wondrous lake. But of those that with me had listened to the whole story one judged one way and another another, from which sufficiently appeared their different and contradictory ways of thinking. For my part I said the German name Mummelsee[40]

sufficiently declared that there was about the thing, as about a masquerade, some disguise, so that none might fathom either its nature or its depth, which had never yet been discovered, though such high personages had attempted it. And with that I betook me to the same place where a year before I had seen my departed wife for the first time and drank in the sweet poison of love. And there I laid myself down on the green gra.s.s in the shade, yet took no heed as I had done before to what the nightingales did sing, but rather pondered on the changes I had suffered since then. I represented to myself how in that very place I had begun to be in place of a free man a slave of love, and how since then I had become from an officer a peasant, from a rich peasant a poor n.o.bleman, from a Simplicissimus a Melchior, from a widower a husband, from a husband a cuckold, and from a cuckold a widower again; moreover, from a peasant's brat I had proved to be the son of a good soldier, and yet again the son of my old dad. Then again I reflected how fate had robbed me of my Herzbruder, and in his place had provided me with two old married folk. I thought of the G.o.dly life and decease of my father; the piteous death of my mother; and, further, of the manifold changes which I had undergone in my lifetime, till I could no longer refrain myself from tears. And even while I reflected how much good money I in my lifetime had possessed and squandered away, and began to lament therefore, there came two good soakers or winebibbers on whom the gout had fastened in their limbs, whereby they were crippled and needed both the baths and to drink the waters: these set themselves down by me, for 'twas a fair place to rest, and each bewailed to the other his sad case as thinking that they were alone. So said the one, "My doctor hath sent me here either as one of whose healing he despaired or else as one that with others might help him to repay my host here for the keg of b.u.t.ter he sent him: I would I had either never seen him in my life or else that he had at the first sent me to the spa, for so should I either have more money than now or else be sounder, for the waters suit my case right well." And "Ah" says the other, "I thank my G.o.d that He hath given me no more money to spare than what I have, for had my doctor known that I had more behind he had never counselled me to come to the spa; but I must have shared all between him and his apothecaries, that for this cause do oil his palms year by year--yea, even though I should have died and perished in the meanwhile. These greedy fellows send not men like us to so healthful a place till they be well a.s.sured they can help us no more, or else find us pigeons they can pluck no longer: and if the truth must be confessed, he that once deals with them, and of whom they know that he has money, must pay them only to this end, that they keep him sick."

And much more evil had these two to say of their doctors, but I care not to tell it all: otherwise might the gentlemen of that profession take it amiss and some time or other give me a dose that should purge my soul out of my body. Nay, I do but mention it for this cause, because this second patient, in giving thanks to G.o.d that He had given him no more wealth, so comforted me that I banished clean out of my mind all vexations and heavy thoughts that had a.s.sailed me on the score of money: and I did resolve to strive no more for honour nor gold nor for aught else that the world loveth. Yea, I determined to be a philosopher and to devote myself to a G.o.dly life, and in especial to lament mine own impenitence and to endeavour myself, like my dear departed father, to ascend to the highest degree of piety.

_Chap. xii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS JOURNEYED WITH THE SYLPHS TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH

Now this desire to visit the Mummelsee increased with me when I learned from my foster-father that he had been there and knew the way thither; but when he heard that I likewise would go, "And what will ye gain,"

says he, "by going thither? My son with his old dad will see naught else but the picture of a pond lying in the midst of a great wood, and when he hath paid for his present taste with sore distaste, he will have naught but repentance and weary feet (for a man can hardly come to the place by riding) and the way back instead of the way thither. Nor should ever any man have had me to go thither had I not been forced to flee there when Doctor Daniel (by which he meant Duc d'Anguin[41]) marched with his troops down through the country to Philippsburg." Yet my curiosity would not be turned aside by his dissuasion, but I got me a fellow that should guide me thither; so my father, seeing my fixed intent, said, since the oat-crop was gathered in, and there was neither hoeing nor reaping to be done on the farm, he would even go with me and shew the way. For he loved me so that he would fain not let me out of his sight, and since all the people of the country believed I was his true-born son, he was proud of me; and so behaved to me and to all others as a poor man might well do in respect of a son whom good fortune, without his own help and a.s.sistance, had turned into a fine gentleman.

So together we set off over hill and dale and came to the Mummelsee; and that before we had gone six hours, for my dad was as lively as a cricket and as good a traveller as any young man. And there we consumed what meat and drink we had brought with us, for the long journey and the high mountain on which the lake lieth had made us both hungry and thirsty. So having refreshed ourselves I did inspect the lake, and found lying in it certain hewn timbers which my dad and I took to be the remains of the Wurtemberg raft: and I by geometry took or estimated the length and breadth of the water (for 'twas far too wearisome to go round the lake and measure it by paces or feet), and entered the dimensions, by means of the scale of reduction, in my tablets. And having done this, the sky being completely clear and the air windless and calm, I must needs try what truth was in the legend that a storm would arise if any should throw a stone into the lake; having already found those stories I had heard, how the lake would suffer no trout to live in it, to be true, by reason of the mineral taste of the waters.

So to make trial of this, I walked along the lake to the left, where the water, which elsewhere is as clear as a crystal, doth begin, by reason of the monstrous depth, to shew as black as coal, and therefore is so dreadful of appearance that the mere look of it doth terrify.

And there I began to cast in stones as great as I could carry; my foster-father or dad not only refusing to help me, but warning and begging me to give over, as much as in him lay: but I went busily on with my work, and such stones as by reason of their size and weight I could not carry, I rolled down till I had cast more than thirty such into the lake. Then began the sky to be covered with black clouds, in which terrible thundering was heard, so that my dad, which stood on the other side of the lake by the outlet, lamenting over my work, cried out to me that I should escape, lest we be caught by the rain and the dreadful storm, or even a worse mishap chance to us. But in despite of all I answered him, "Father, I will stay and await the end even though it rained pitchforks." "Yea, yea," answered he, "ye act like all madcap boys, that care not if the world perish."

But I, while I listened to his scolding, turned not mine eyes away from the depths of the lake, expecting to see certain bladders or bubbles rising up from the bottom, as is wont to happen when stones are thrown into deep water whether still or running. Yet saw I naught of the kind, but was ware of certain creatures floating far down in the depths, which in form reminded me of frogs, and flitted about like sparks from a mounting rocket which in the air doth work its full effect: and as they came nearer and nearer to me they seemed to grow larger and more like to the human form: at which at first great wonder took hold of me, and at last, when I saw them hard by me, a great fear and trembling.

"Ah," said I then to myself in my terror and wonder, and yet so loud that my dad, that stood beyond the lake, could hear me, though the noise of the thunder was dreadful, "how great are the wondrous works of the Creator! yea, even in the womb of the earth and the depths of the waters!" And scarce had I said these words when one of these sylphs appeared upon the waters and answered me, "Aha, and thou dost acknowledge that before thou hast seen aught thereof: what wouldst say if thou wert for once in the Centrum Terrae and beheldest our dwelling which thy curiosity hath disturbed?"

Meanwhile there rose up here and there more of such water-spirits, like diving birds, all looking upon me and bringing up again the stones I had cast in, which amazed me much. And the first and chiefest among them, whose raiment shone like pure gold and silver, cast to me a s.h.i.+ning stone of the bigness of a pigeon's egg and green and transparent as an emerald, with these words: "Take thou this trinket, that thou mayst have somewhat to report of us and of our lake." But scarce had I picked it up and pocketed it when it seemed to me the air would choke or drown me, so that I could not stand upright but rolled about like a ball of yarn, and at last fell into the lake. Yet no sooner was I in the water than I recovered, and through the virtue of the stone I had upon me could breathe in water instead of air: yea, I could with small effort float in the lake as well as could the water-spirits, yea, and with them descended into the depths; which reminded me of nothing so much as of a flock of birds that so descend in circles from the upper air to light upon the ground.

But my dad having beheld this marvel in part (namely, so much of it as was done above the water), made off from the lake and home again as if his head were on fire. And there he told the whole history; but especially how the water-spirits had brought back those stones that I had cast into the lake, in the midst of the thunderstorm, and had laid them where they came from, but in exchange had taken me down with them.

So some believed him but most accounted it a fable. Others conceived that I had, like another Empedocles of Agrigentum (which cast himself into Mount Aetna that all might think, since he was nowhere to be found, that he was taken up to heaven), drowned myself in the lake, and charged my father to spread such tales about me to gain for me an immortal name: for, said they, it had long been marked by my melancholic humour that I was half-desperate.

Others would fain have believed, had they not known my strength of body, that my adopted father had himself murdered me to be rid of me (being a miserly old man) and so be master alone on my farm: so that at this time naught else but the Mummelsee and me and my departure and my foster-father could be talked of or discoursed on either at the spa or in the countryside.

_Chaps. xiii.-xvi._ contain merely a farrago of nonsense conveyed in conversations with the prince of the Mummelsee, who explains to Simplicissimus the construction of the "earth's crust" and the nature of sylphs, and in turn is treated by him to an account of earthly affairs, on which he makes the usual commonplace satirical remarks (see the Introduction).

_Chap. xvii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS RETURNED FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE EARTH, AND OF HIS STRANGE FANCIES, HIS AIRCASTLES, HIS CALCULATIONS; AND HOW HE RECKONED WITHOUT HIS HOST

Meanwhile the time drew near that I should return home; therefore the king bade me declare my wishes, whereby I understood he was minded to do me a favour. So I said, no greater kindness could be shewn me than to cause a real medicinal spring to rise on my farm. "And is that all?"

answered the king, "I had thought thou wouldst have taken with thee some of these great emeralds from the American Sea and have asked to bear them with thee back to earth. Now do I see that there is no greed among you Christians." Therewith he handed to me a stone of strange and glittering colours, and said, "Put this in thy pouch, and wheresoever thou layest in on the ground, there will it begin to seek the Centre of the Earth again, and to pa.s.s through the most fitting mineralia, till it come back to us, and for our part we will send thee a n.o.ble mineral spring, that shall work thee such good and profit as thou hast deserved of us by thy declaration of the truth." So thereupon the prince of the Mummelsee took me again under his charge, and pa.s.sed with me through the road and the lake by which we had come. And this way back seemed to me far longer than the way thither, so that I reckoned it at three thousand five hundred German-Swiss miles well measured; but doubtless the cause that the time seemed so long to me was that I had no speech of my escort, save that I learned from them they were from three to five hundred years old and lived all this time without the least disease.

For the rest, I was in fancy so rich with my spring that all my wits and all my thoughts were busied with this, to wit, where I should plant it and how turn it to profit. And first I had my plans for the fine buildings that I must set up that the bathing-guests might be properly accommodated, and I for my part might gain great hire for lodgings.

Then I devised already by what bribes I could persuade the doctors to prefer my new miraculous spa to all the others, yea, even to that of Schwalbach, and so procure for me a crowd of rich patients: in my fantasy I even levelled whole mountains lest they that came and went should find the way wearisome to travel: already I hired sharp-witted drawers, sparing cooks, careful chambermaids, watchful grooms, spruce intendants of the baths and springs, and already I thought of a place where in the midst of the wild mountains by my farm I might plant a fine level pleasure-garden, and there rear all manner of rare plants, that the bathing-guests and their wives that came from foreign parts might walk therein, where the sick might be cheered and the sound might be amused and exercised with all manner of sports and pastimes. Then must the doctors, for a reward, write me a n.o.ble treatise on my spring and set down on paper its healing qualities; and this I would have printed with a fine plate wherein my farm should be depicted and a ground plan thereof given; by reading which any absent patient might at once believe and hope himself in health again. Then would I have all my children fetched from Lippstadt, to have them taught all that was needful to know of my new watering-place; for 'twas my intent to scarify my guests' purses well though not their backs. With such rich fancies and overweening castles in the air I came again into the upper world, for this oft-mentioned prince brought me again to land from his Mummelsee with dry clothes; and there I must forthwith cast from me the talisman that he had at first given me when he fetched me away; else had I either been choked in the air or must have plunged my head under the water again, such was the effect of the said stone. Which being done, and he having taken it to him again, we commended each other to the protection of the most High, as men that should never meet again; so he with his people dived under and sank into his depths; but I with my stone which the king had given me went thence as full of joy as if I had fetched the golden fleece home from Colchis.

But alas! my joy, of which I vainly hoped for the everlasting continuance, endured not long, for hardly was I gone from that lake of wonders when I began to go astray in that rhonstrous wood, for I had not marked from what direction my dad had brought me to the lake. Yet I went some way on before I was aware of my mistake, ever making calculations how I could plant that n.o.ble spring on my farm, and build round it, and earn for myself a peaceful revenue as proprietor thereof.

In this way I unawares strayed further and further from the place whither I desired to come and, worst of all, I found it not out till the sun was sinking and I was helpless. For there I stood in the midst of a wilderness like Simple Simon, without food or arms, of which I might well have need during the night that was coming on. Yet I found comfort in my stone that I had brought with me from the very bowels of the earth. "Patience, patience!" said I to myself: "this will again repay thee for all sufferings undergone. All good things take time, and fine rewards be not won without great toil and labour: else would every fool need but to wipe his beard to get possession at will of even such a n.o.ble spring as thou hast in thy poke."

And having spoken thus I got with my new resolve new strength, so that I went forward with a bolder gait than heretofore, although night now overtook me. The full moon indeed shone on me brightly, but the tall fir-trees kept the light from me more than the deep sea had done that very day; yet I made my way on, till about midnight I was ware of a fire afar off, to which I straightway walked, and saw from a distance that there were certain woodmen about it, resin-gatherers; and though such folk be not at all times to be trusted yet my necessity compelled me and my own courage urged me on to speak to them. So I came quietly behind them and said, "Good night or good day or good morrow or good even, gentlemen: for tell me what hour it is that I may know how to greet ye." With that the whole six stood or sat there all a-tremble with fear and knew not what to answer me. For I, being of great stature and just at that time, by reason of mourning for my late wife, being in black raiment; and in especial having a terrible cudgel in mine hand, on which I leaned like a wild man of the woods, my figure seemed to them dreadful. "How," says I, "will none answer me?" Yet they stayed yet a good while in amazement, till at last one came to himself well enough to ask, "Who be the gentleman?" By that I heard they must be of the Swabian nation; which men esteem as simple-minded yet with little cause: so I said I was a travelling scholar, but newly come from the Venusberg, where I had learned a heap of wondrous arts. "Oho," quoth the eldest woodman, "Praise G.o.d; for now do I believe that I shall live to see peace again, because the wandering scholars are on their travels anew!"

_Chap. xviii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WASTED HIS SPRING IN THE WRONG PLACE

In this wise we came to converse with one another, and I found so much courtesy among them that they invited me to sit down and offered me a piece of black bread and thin cow's milk cheese, both of which I did thankfully accept. At last they became so familiar with me that they hinted I should, as a travelling scholar, tell their fortunes: and I, knowing somewhat of physiognomies and palmistry, began to tell to one after the other such stuff as I deemed would content them, that I might not lose credit with them; for in spite of all I was not at my ease among these wild woodmen. Then would they learn curious arts from me: but I fobbed them off with promises for the next day, and desired they would suffer me to rest a little. And having so played the gipsy for them. I laid myself down a little apart, more to listen and to perceive how they were minded than as having any great desire to sleep (though my appet.i.te thereto was not lacking); and the more I snored the more wakeful they appeared. So they put their heads together and began to dispute one against another who I might be: they held that I could be no soldier because I wore black clothing, nor no townsman-blade, that could so suddenly appear far from all men's dwellings in the Muckenloch (for so was the wood called) at so unwonted a time. At the last they resolved I must be a journeyman Latinist[42] that had lost his way, or, as I myself had declared, a travelling scholar, because I could so excellently tell fortunes. "Yea," says another, "yet he knew not all for that reason: 'tis some wandering soldier, maybe, that hath so disguised himself to spy out our cattle and the secret ways of the wood. Aha! if we knew that we would so put him to sleep that he should forget ever to wake again." But another quickly took him up, that held the contrary and would have me to be somewhat else. Meanwhile I lay there and p.r.i.c.ked up my ears and thought, "If these clodhoppers set upon me, two or three of them will need to bite the dust before they make an end of me." But while they took counsel and I tormented myself with fears, of a sudden I found myself lying in a pool of water. O horrors! now was Troy lost and all my splendid plans gone to naught, for by the smell I perceived 'twas mine own mineral spring. With that, for very rage and despite, I fell into such a frenzy that I wellnigh had fallen on those six peasants and fought them all. "Ye G.o.dless rogues," says I to them, and therewith sprang up with my terrible cudgel, "by this spring that welleth forth where I have lain ye well may see who I am; it were small wonder if I should so trounce ye all that the devil should fetch ye, because ye have dared to cherish such evil thoughts in your hearts," and thereto I added looks so threatening and terrible that all were afraid of me. Yet presently I came to myself and perceived what folly I committed. "Nay," thought I, "'tis better to lose the spring than one's life, and that thou canst easily forfeit if thou attack these clowns." So I gave them fair words again, and before they could recollect themselves: "Arise," said I, "and taste of this n.o.ble spring which ye and all other woodmen and resin-gatherers will henceforth be able to enjoy in this wilderness through my help."

Now this my discourse they understood not, but looked one upon another like live stockfish till they saw me very soberly take the first draught out of my hat. Then one by one they arose from beside their fire, and looked upon this miracle and tasted the water; but instead of being grateful to me as they should have been, they began to curse and said they would I had chanced on some other spot with my spring: for if their lord came to know of it, then must the whole district of Dornstett do forced-work to make a road thither, which would bring great hards.h.i.+p upon them. "But," says I, "on the contrary, ye will all have your profit therefrom: for ye can turn your fowls, your eggs, your b.u.t.ter, and your cattle and the rest more easily into money." "Nay, nay," said they, "the lord will put in an innkeeper that will take all the profit alone: and we must be his poor fools to keep road and path in trim for him, and earn no thanks thereby."

But at last they disagreed: for two were for keeping the spring and four demanded of me that I should take it away; which, had it been in my power, I had willingly done whether it pleased them or teased them.