The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck Volume I Part 7

I learned, meantime, that of the four men by whom we had been a.s.saulted, one only, and the coachman, returned to Glatz. The name of the officer who undertook this vile business was Gersdorf; he had a hundred and fifty ducats in his pocket when found dead. How great would our good fortune have been, had not that cursed coach and six, by its appearance, made us take to flight; since the booty would have been most just! Fortune, this time, did not favour the innocent; and though treacherously attacked, I was obliged to escape like a guilty wretch. We sold the watch to a Jew for four ducats, the hat for three florins and a half, and the musket for a ducat, Sch.e.l.l being unable to carry it farther. We left most of this money behind us at Pa.r.s.emechi. A Jew surgeon sold us some dear plaisters, which we took with us and departed.

Feb. 15.--From Pa.r.s.emechi, through Vielum, to Biala, four miles.

Feb. 16.--Through Jerischow to Misorcen, four miles and a half.

Feb. 17.--To Osterkow and Schwarzwald, three miles.

Feb. 18.--To Sdune, four miles.

Feb. 19.--To Goblin two miles.

Here we arrived wholly dest.i.tute of money. I sold my coat to a Jew, who gave me four florins and a coa.r.s.e waggoner's frock, in exchange, which I did not think I should long need, as we now drew nearer to where my sister lived, and where I hoped I should be better equipped. Sch.e.l.l, however, grew weaker and weaker; his wounds healed slowly, and were expensive; the cold was also injurious to him, and, as he was not by nature cleanly in his person, his body soon became the harbour of every species of vermin to be picked up in Poland. We often arrived wet and weary, to our smoky, reeking stove-room. Often were we obliged to lie on straw, or bare boards; and the various hards.h.i.+ps we suffered are almost incredible. Wandering as we did, in the midst of winter, through Poland, where humanity, hospitality, and gentle pity, are scarcely so much as known by name; where merciless Jews deny the poor traveller a bed, and where we disconsolately strayed, without bread, and almost naked: these were sufferings, the full extent of which he only can conceive by whom they have been felt. My musket now and then procured us an occasional meal of tame geese, and c.o.c.ks and hens, when these were to be had; otherwise, we never took or touched anything that was not our own. We met with Saxon and Prussian recruiters at various places; all of whom, on account of my youth and stature, were eager to inveigle me. I was highly diverted to hear them enumerate all the possibilities of future greatness, and how liable I was hereafter to become a corporal: nor was I less merry with their mead, ale, and brandy, given with an intent to make me drunk. Thus we had many artifices to guard against; but thus had we likewise, very luckily for us, many a good meal gratis.

Feb. 21.--We went from Goblin to Pugnitz, three miles and a half.

Feb. 22.--Through Storchnest to Schmiegel, four miles.

Here happened a singular adventure. The peasants at this place were dancing to a vile sc.r.a.per on the violin: I took the instrument myself, and played while they continued their hilarity. They were much pleased with my playing: but when I was tired, and desired to have done, they obliged me, first by importunities, and afterwards by threats, to play on all night. I was so fatigued, I thought I should have fainted; at length they quarrelled among themselves. Sch.e.l.l was sleeping on a bench, and some of them fell upon his wounded hand: he rose furious: I seized our arms, began to lay about me, and while all was in confusion, we escaped, without further ill-treatment.

What ample subject of meditation on the various turns of fate did this night afford! But two years before I danced at Berlin with the daughters and sisters of kings: and here was I, in a Polish hut, a ragged, almost naked musician, playing for the sport of ignorant rustics, whom I was at last obliged to fight.

I was myself the cause of the trifling misfortune that befell me on this occasion. Had not my vanity led me to show these poor peasants I was a musician, I might have slept in peace and safety. The same vain desire of proving I knew more than other men, made me through life the continued victim of envy and slander. Had nature, too, bestowed on me a weaker or a deformed body, I had been less observed, less courted, less sought, and my adventures and mishaps had been fewer. Thus the merits of the man often become his miseries; and thus the bear, having learned to dance, must live and die in chains.

This ardour, this vanity, or, if you please, this emulation, has, however, taught me to vanquish a thousand difficulties, under which others of cooler pa.s.sions and more temperate desires would have sunk. May my example remain a warning; and thus may my sufferings become somewhat profitable to the world, cruel as they have been to myself! Cruel they were, and cruel they must continue; for the wounds I have received are not, will not, cannot be healed.

Feb. 23.--From Schmiegel to Rakonitz, and from thence to Karger Holland, four miles and a half. Here we sold, to prevent dying of hunger, a s.h.i.+rt and Sch.e.l.l's waistcoat for eighteen grosch, or nine schostacks. I had shot a pullet the day before, which necessity obliged us to eat raw. I also killed a crow, which I devoured alone, Sch.e.l.l refusing to taste.

Youth and hard travelling created a voracious appet.i.te, and our eighteen grosch were soon expended.

Feb. 24.--We came through Benzen to Lettel, four miles. Here we halted a day, to learn the road to Hammer, in Brandenburg, where my sister lived.

I happened luckily to meet with the wife of a Prussian soldier who lived at Lettel, and belonged to Kolschen, where she was born a va.s.sal of my sister's husband. I told her who I was, and she became our guide.

Feb. 26.--To Kurschen and Falkenwalde.

Feb. 27.--Through Neuendorf and Oost, and afterwards through a pathless wood, five miles and a half to Hammer, and here I knocked at my sister's door at nine o'clock in the evening.

CHAPTER VIII.

A maidservant came to the door, whom I knew; her name was Mary, and she had been born and brought up in my father's house. She was terrified at seeing a st.u.r.dy fellow in a beggar's dress; which perceiving, I asked, "Molly, do not you know me?" She answered, "No;" and I then discovered myself to her. I asked whether my brother-in-law was at home. Mary replied, "Yes; but he is sick in bed." "Tell my sister, then," said I, "that I am here." She showed me into a room, and my sister presently came.

She was alarmed at seeing me, not knowing that I had escaped from Glatz, and ran to inform her husband, but did not return.

A quarter of an hour after the good Mary came weeping, and told us her master commanded us to quit the premises instantly, or he should be obliged to have us arrested, and delivered up as prisoners. My sister's husband forcibly detained her, and I saw her no more.

What my feelings must be, at such a moment, let the reader imagine. I was too proud, too enraged, to ask money; I furiously left the house, uttering a thousand menaces against its inhabitants, while the kind-hearted Mary, still weeping, slipped three ducats into my hand, which I accepted.

And, now behold us once more in the wood, which was not above a hundred paces from the house, half dead with hunger and fatigue, not daring to enter any habitation, while in the states of Brandenburg, and dragging our weary steps all night through snow and rain, until our guide at length brought us back, at daybreak, once again to the town of Lettel.

She herself wept in pity at our fate, and I could only give her two ducats for the danger she had run; but I bade her hope more in future; and I afterwards sent for her to Vienna, in 1751, where I took great care of her. She was about fifty years of age, and died my servant in Hungary, some weeks before my unfortunate journey to Dantzic, where I fell into my enemies' hands, and remained ten years a prisoner at Magdeburg.

We had scarcely reached the wood, before, in the anguish of my heart, I exclaimed to Sch.e.l.l, "Does not such a sister, my friend, deserve I should fire her house over her head?" The wisdom of moderation, and calm forbearance, was in Sch.e.l.l a virtue of the highest order; he was my continual mentor; my guide, whenever my choleric temperament was disposed to violence. I therefore honour his ashes; he deserved a better fate.

"Friend," said he, on this occasion, "reflect that your sister may be innocent, may be withheld by her husband; besides, should the King discover we had entered her doors, and she had not delivered us again into his power, she might become as miserable as we were. Be more n.o.ble minded, and think that even should your sister be wrong, the time may come when her children may stand in need of your a.s.sistance, and you may have the indescribable pleasure of returning good for evil."

I never shall forget this excellent advice, which in reality was a prophecy. My rich brother-in-law died, and, during the Russian war, his lands and houses were laid desolate and in ruins; and, nineteen years afterwards, when released from my imprisonment at Magdeburg, I had an opportunity of serving the children of my sister. Such are the turns of fate; and thus do improbabilities become facts.

My sister justified her conduct; Sch.e.l.l had conjectured the truth; for ten years after I was thus expelled her house, she showed, during my imprisonment, she was really a sister. She was shamefully betrayed by Weingarten, secretary to the Austrian amba.s.sador at Berlin; lost a part of her property, and at length her life fell an innocent sacrifice to her brother.

This event, which is interwoven with my tragical history, will be related hereafter: my heart bleeds, my very soul shudders, when I recollect this dreadful scene.

I have not the means fully to recompense her children; and Weingarten, the just object of vengeance, is long since in the grave; for did he exist, the earth should not hide him from my sword.

I shall now continue my journal: deceived in the aid I expected, I was obliged to change my plan, and go to my mother, who lived in Prussia, nine miles beyond Konigsberg.

Feb. 28.--We continued, tired, anxious, and distressed, at Lettel.

March 1.--We went three miles to Pleese, and on the 2nd, a mile and a half farther to Meseritz.

March 3.--Through Wersebaum to Birnbaum, three miles.

March 4.--Through Zircke, Wruneck, Obestchow, to Stubnitz, seven miles, in one day, three of which we had the good fortune to ride.

March 5.--Three miles to Rogosen, where we arrived without so much as a h.e.l.ler to pay our lodgings. The Jew innkeeper drove us out of his house; we were obliged to wander all night, and at break of day found we had strayed two miles out of the road.

We entered a peasant's cottage, where an old woman was drawing bread hot out of the oven. We had no money to offer, and I felt, at this moment, the possibility even of committing murder, for a morsel of bread, to satisfy the intolerable cravings of hunger. Shuddering, with torment inexpressible, at the thought, I hastened out of the door, and we walked on two miles more to Wongrofze.

Here I sold my musket for a ducat, which had procured us many a meal: such was the extremity of our distress. We then satiated our appet.i.tes, after having been forty hours without food or sleep, and having travelled ten miles in sleet and snow.

March 6.--We rested, and came, on the 7th, through Genin, to a village in the forest, four miles.

Here we fell in with a gang of gipsies (or rather banditti) amounting to four hundred men, who dragged me to their camp. They were mostly French and Prussian deserters, and thinking me their equal, would force me to become one of their hand. But, venturing to tell my story to their leader, he presented me with a crown, gave us a small provision of bread and meat, and suffered us to depart in peace, after having been four and twenty hours in their company.

March 9.--We proceeded to Lapuschin, three miles and a half; and the 10th to Thorn, four miles.

A new incident here happened, which showed I was destined, by fortune, to a variety of adventures, and continually to struggle with new difficulties.

There was a fair held at Thorn on the day of our arrival. Suspicions might well arise, among the crowd, on seeing a strong tall young man, wretchedly clothed, with a large sabre by his side, and a pair of pistols in his girdle, accompanied by another as poorly apparelled as himself, with his hand and neck bound up, and armed likewise with pistols, so that altogether he more resembled a spectre than a man.

We went to an inn, but were refused entertainment: I then asked for the Jesuits' college, where I inquired for the father rector. They supposed at first I was a thief, come to seek an asylum. After long waiting and much entreaty his jesuitical highness at length made his appearance, and received me as the Grand Mogul would his slave. My case certainly was pitiable: I related all the events of my life, and the purport of my journey; conjured him to save Sch.e.l.l, who was unable to proceed further, and whose wounds grew daily worse; and prayed him to entertain him at the convent till I should have been to my mother, have obtained money, and returned to Thorn, when I would certainly repay him whatever expense he might have been at, with thanks and grat.i.tude.

Never shall I forget the haughty insolence of this priest. Scarcely would he listen to my humble request; thou'd and interrupted me continually, to tell me, "Be brief, I have more pressing affairs than thine." In fine, I was turned away without obtaining the least aid; and here I was first taught jesuitical pride; G.o.d help the poor and honest man who shall need the a.s.sistance of Jesuits! They, like all other monks, are seared to every sentiment of human pity, and commiserate the distressed by taunts and irony.

Four times in my life I have sought a.s.sistance and advice from convents, and am convinced it is the duty of every honest man to aid in erasing them from the face of the earth.

They succour rascals and murderers, that their power may be idolised by the ignorant, and ostentatiously exert itself to impede the course of law and justice; but in vain do the poor and needy virtuous apply to them for help.