WINTER came with hard times for the beasts of the forest and the birds of the fields. It was a poor Christmas within mud-walled huts and timbered ships. The Western Sea was thickly studded with wrecks, icy hulks, splintered masts, broken boats, and dead ships. Argosies were hurled upon the coast, shattered to worthless fragments, sunk, swept away, or buried in the sand; for the gale blew toward land with a high sea and deadly cold, and human hands were powerless against it. Heaven and earth were one reek of stinging, whirling snow that drifted in through cracked shutters and ill-fitting hatches to poverty and rags, and pierced under eaves and doors to wealth and fur-bordered mantles. Beggars and wayfaring folk froze to death in the shelter of ditches and dikes; poor people died of cold on their bed of straw, and the cattle of the rich fared not much better.
The storm abated, and after it came a clear, tingling frost, which brought disaster on the land—winter pay for summer folly! The Swedish army walked over the Danish waters. Peace was declared, and spring followed with green budding leaves and fair weather, but the young men of Sj?lland did not ride a-Maying that year; for the Swedish soldiers were everywhere. There was peace indeed, but it carried the burdens of war and seemed not likely to live long. Nor did it. When the May garlands had turned dark and stiff under the midsummer sun, the Swedes went against the ramparts of Copenhagen.
During vesper service on the second Sunday in August, the tidings suddenly came: “The Swedes have landed at Kors?r.” Instantly the streets were thronged. People walked - 29 - about quietly and soberly, but they talked a great deal; they all talked at once, and the sound of their voices and footsteps swelled to a loud murmur that neither rose nor fell and never ceased, but went on with a strange, heavy monotony.
The rumor crept into the churches during the sermon. From the seats nearest the door it leaped in a breathless whisper to some one sitting in the next pew, then on to three people in the third, then past a lonely old man in the fourth on to the fifth, and so on till the whole congregation knew it. Those in the centre turned and nodded meaningly to people behind them; one or two who were sitting nearest the pulpit rose and looked apprehensively toward the door. Soon there was not a face lifted to the pastor. All sat with heads bent as though to fix their thoughts on the sermon, but they whispered among themselves, stopped for a tense moment and listened in order to gauge how far it was from the end, then whispered again. The muffled noise from the crowds in the streets grew more distinct: it was not to be borne any longer! The churchpeople busied themselves putting their hymn-books in their pockets.
“Amen!”
Every face turned to the preacher. During the litany prayer, all wondered whether the pastor had heard anything. He read the supplication for the Royal House, the Councillors of the Realm, and the common nobility, for all who were in authority or entrusted with high office,—and at that tears sprang to many eyes. As the prayer went on, there was a sound of sobbing, but the words came from hundreds of lips: “May God in His mercy deliver these our lands and kingdoms from battle and murder, pestilence - 30 - and sudden death, famine and drouth, lightning and tempest, floods and fire, and may we for such fatherly mercy praise and glorify His holy name!”
Before the hymn had ended, the church was empty, and only the voice of the organ sang within it.
On the following day, the people were again thronging the streets, but by this time they seemed to have gained some definite direction. The Swedish fleet had that night anchored outside of Drag?r. Yet the populace was calmer than the day before; for it was generally known that two of the Councillors of the Realm had gone to parley with the enemy, and were—so it was said—entrusted with powers sufficient to ensure peace. But when the Councillors returned on Tuesday with the news that they had been unable to make peace, there was a sudden and violent reaction.
This was no longer an assemblage of staid citizens grown restless under the stress of great and ominous tidings. No, it was a maelstrom of uncouth creatures, the like of which had never been seen within the ramparts of Copenhagen. Could they have come out of these quiet, respectable houses bearing marks of sober every-day business? What raving in long-sleeved sack and great-skirted coat! What bedlam noise from grave lips and frenzied gestures of tight-dressed arms! None would be alone, none would stay indoors, all wanted to stand in the middle of the street with their despair, their tears, and wailing. See that stately old man with bared head and bloodshot eyes! He is turning his ashen face to the wall and beating the stones with clenched fists. Listen to that fat tanner cursing the Councillors of the Realm and the miserable war! Feel the blood in those fresh cheeks burning with hatred - 31 - of the enemy who brings the horrors of war, horrors that youth has already lived through in imagination! How they roar with rage at their own fancied impotence, and God in heaven, what prayers! What senseless prayers!
Vehicles are stopping in the middle of the street. Servants are setting down their burdens in sheds and doorways. Here and there, people come out of the houses dressed in their best attire, flushed with exertion, look about in surprise, then glance down at their clothes, and dart into the crowd as though eager to divert attention from their own finery. What have they in mind? And where do all these rough, drunken men come from? They crowd; they reel and shriek; they quarrel and tumble; they sit on doorsteps and are sick; they laugh wildly, run after the women, and try to fight the men.
It was the first terror, the terror of instinct. By noon it was over. Men had been called to the ramparts, had labored with holiday strength, and had seen moats deepen and barricades rise under their spades. Soldiers were passing. Artisans, students, and noblemen’s servants were standing at watch, armed with all kinds of curious weapons. Cannon had been mounted. The King had ridden past, and it was announced that he would stay. Life began to look reasonable, and people braced themselves for what was coming.
In the afternoon of the following day, the suburb outside of West Gate was set on fire, and the smoke, drifting over the city, brought out the crowds again. At dusk, when the flames reddened the weatherbeaten walls of Vor Frue Church tower and played on the golden balls topping the spire of St. Peter’s, the news that the enemy was coming down Valby Hill stole in like a timid sigh. Through avenues and alleys sounded a frightened “The Swedes! The - 32 - Swedes!” The call came in the piercing voices of boys running through the streets. People rushed to the doors, booths were closed, and the iron-mongers hastily gathered in their wares. The good folk seemed to expect a huge army of the enemy to pour in upon them that very moment.
The slopes of the ramparts and the adjoining streets were black with people looking at the fire. Other crowds gathered farther away from the centre of interest, at the Secret Passage and the Fountain. Many matters were discussed, the burning question being: Would the Swedes attack that night or wait till morning?
Gert Pyper, the dyer from the Fountain, thought the Swedes would be upon them as soon as they had rallied after the march. Why should they wait?
The Icelandic trader, Erik Lauritzen of Dyers’ Row, thought it might be a risky matter to enter a strange city in the dead of night, when you couldn’t know what was land and what was water.
“Water!” said Gert Dyer. “Would to God we knew as much about our own affairs as the Swede knows! Don’t trust to that! His spies are where you’d least think. ’Tis well enough known to Burgomaster and Council, for the aldermen have been round since early morning hunting spies in every nook and corner. Fool him who can! No, the Swede’s cunning—especially in such business. ’Tis a natural gift. I found that out myself—’tis some half-score years since, but I’ve never forgotten that mummery. You see, indigo she makes black, and she makes light blue, and she makes medium blue, all according to the mordant. Scalding and making the dye-vats ready—any ’prentice can do that, if he’s handy, but the mordant—there’s the rub! That’s an art! Use too much, and you - 33 - burn your cloth or yarn so it rots. Use too little, and the color will ne-ever be fast—no, not if it’s dyed with the most pre-cious logwood. Therefore the mordant is a closed geheimnis which a man does not give away except it be to his son, but to the journeymen—never! No—”
“Ay, Master Gert,” said the trader, “ay, ay!”
“As I was saying,” Gert went on, “about half a score of years ago I had a ’prentice whose mother was a Swede. He’d set his mind on finding out what mordant I used for cinnamon brown, but as I always mixed it behind closed doors, ’twas not so easy to smoke it. So what does he do, the rascal? There’s so much vermin here round the Fountain, it eats our wool and our linen, and for that reason we always hang up the stuff people give us to dye in canvas sacks under the loft-beams. So what does he do, the devil’s gesindchen, but gets him one of the ’prentices to hang him up in a sack. And I came in and weighed and mixed and made ready and was half done, when it happened so curiously that the cramp got in one of his legs up there, and he began to kick and scream for me to help him down. Did I help him? Death and fire! But ’twas a scurvy trick he did me, yes, yes, yes! And so they are, the Swedes; you can never trust ’em over a doorstep.”
“Faith, they’re ugly folk, the Swedes,” spoke Erik Lauritzen. “They’ve nothing to set their teeth in at home, so when they come to foreign parts they can never get their bellyful. They’re like poor-house children; they eat for today’s hunger and for to-morrow’s and yesterday’s all in one. Thieves and cut-purses they are, too—worse than crows and corpse-plunderers—and so murderous. It’s not for nothing people say: Quick with the knife like Lasse Swede!”
- 34 -
“And so lewd,” added the dyer. “It never fails, if you see the hangman’s man whipping a woman from town, and you ask who’s the hussy, but they tell you she’s a Swedish trull.”
“Ay, the blood of man is various, and the blood of beasts, too. The Swede is to other people what the baboon is among the dumb brutes. There’s such an unseemly passion and raging heat in the humors of his body that the natural intelligence which God in His mercy hath given all human creatures cannot hinder his evil lusts and sinful desires.”
The dyer nodded several times in affirmation of the theories advanced by the trader. “Right you are, Erik Lauritzen, right you are. The Swede is of a strange and peculiar nature, different from other people. I can always smell, when an outlandish man comes into my booth, whether he’s a Swede or from some other country. There’s such a rank odor about the Swedes—like goats or fish-lye. I’ve often turned it over in my mind, and I make no doubt ’tis as you say, ’tis the fumes of his lustful and bestial humors. Ay, so it is.”
“Sure, it’s no witchcraft if Swedes and Turks smell different from Christians!” spoke up an old woman who stood near them.
“You’re drivelling, Mette Mustard,” interrupted the dyer. “Don’t you know that Swedes are Christian folks?”
“Call ’em Christian, if you like, Gert Dyer, but Finns and heathens and troll-men have never been Christians by my prayer-book, and it’s true as gold what happened in the time of King Christian, God rest his soul! when the Swedes were in Jutland. There was a whole regiment of ’em marching one night at new moon, and at the stroke - 35 - o’ midnight they ran one from the other and howled like a pack of werewolves or some such devilry, and they scoured like mad round in the woods and fens and brought ill luck to men and beasts.”
“But they go to church on Sunday and have both pastor and clerk just like us.”
“Ay, let a fool believe that! They go to church, the filthy gang, like the witches fly to vespers, when the Devil has St. John’s mass on Hekkenfell. No, they’re bewitched, an’ nothing bites on ’em, be it powder or bullets. Half of ’em can cast the evil eye, too, else why d’ye think the smallpox is always so bad wherever those hell-hounds’ve set their cursed feet? Answer me that, Gert Dyer, answer me that, if ye can.”
The dyer was just about to reply, when Erik Lauritzen, who for some time had been looking about uneasily, spoke to him: “Hush, hush, Gert Pyper! Who’s the man talking like a sermon yonder with the people standing thick around him?”
They hurried to join the crowd, while Gert Dyer explained that it must be a certain Jesper Kiim, who had preached in the Church of the Holy Ghost, but whose doctrine, so Gert had been told by learned men, was hardly pure enough to promise much for his eternal welfare or clerical preferment.
The speaker was a small man of about thirty with something of the mastiff about him. He had long, smooth black hair, a thick little nose on a broad face, lively brown eyes, and red lips. He was standing on a doorstep, gesticulating forcefully and speaking with quick energy though in a somewhat thick and lisping voice.
“The twenty-sixth chapter of the Gospel according to - 36 - St. Matthew,” he said, “from the fifty-first to the fifty-fourth verse, reads as follows: ‘And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?’
“Ay, my beloved friends, thus it must be. The poor walls and feeble garrison of this city are at this moment encompassed by a strong host of armed warriors, and their king and commander has ordered them, by fire and sword, by attack and siege, to subdue this city and make us all his servants.
“And those who are in the city and see their peace threatened and their ruin contrary to all feelings of humanity determined upon, they arm themselves, they bring catapults and other harmful implements of war to the ramparts, and they say to one another: Should not we with flaming fire and shining sword fall upon the destroyers of peace who would lay us waste? Why has God in heaven awakened valor and fearlessness in the heart of man if not for the purpose of resisting such an enemy? And, like Peter the Apostle, they would draw their glaive and smite off the ear of Malchus. But Jesus says: ‘Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ ’Tis true, this may seem like a strange speech to the unreason of the wrathful and like foolishness to the unseeing blindness of the spiteful. But the Word is not like a tinkle of cymbals, for the ear only. - 37 - No, like the hull of a ship, which is loaded with many useful things, so the Word of God is loaded with reason and understanding. Let us therefore examine the Word and find, one by one, the points of true interpretation. Wherefore should the sword remain in his place and he who takes the sword perish with the sword? This is for us to consider under three heads:
“Firstly, man is a wisely and beyond all measure gloriously fashioned microcosm, or as it may be interpreted, a small earth, a world of good and evil. For does not the Apostle James say that the tongue alone is a world of iniquity among our members? How much more then the whole body—the lustful eyes, the hastening feet, the covetous hands, the insatiable belly, but even so the prayerful knees, and the ears quick to hear! And if the body is a world, how much more, then, our precious and immortal soul! Ay, it is a garden full of sweet and bitter herbs, full of evil lusts like ravening beasts and virtues like white lambs. And is he who lays waste such a world to be regarded as better than an incendiary, a brawler, or a field-robber? And ye know what punishment is meted out to such as these.”
Darkness had fallen, and the crowd around the preacher appeared only as a large, dark, slowly shifting and growing mass.
“Secondly, man is a microtheos, that is a mirror and image of the Almighty God. Is not he who lays hands on the image of God to be regarded as worse than he who merely steals the holy vessels or vestments of the church or who profanes the sanctuary? And ye know what punishment is meted out to such a one.
“Thirdly and lastly, it is the first duty of man to do - 38 - battle for the Lord, without ceasing, clothed in the shining mail of a pure life and girded about with the flaming sword of truth. Armed thus, it behooves him to fight as a warrior before the Lord, rending the throat of hell and trampling upon the belly of Satan. Therefore the sword of the body must remain in its place, for verily we have enough to strive with that of the spirit!”
Meanwhile stragglers came from both ends of the street, stopped, and took their place in the outskirts of the crowd. Many were carrying lanterns, and finally the dark mass was encircled with an undulating line of twinkling lights that flickered and shifted with the movements of the people. Now and then a lantern would be lifted and its rays would move searchingly over whitewashed walls and black window-panes till they rested on the earnest face of the preacher.
“But how is this? you would say in your hearts: Should we deliver ourselves bound hand and foot into the power of the oppressor, into a bitter condition of thralldom and degradation? Oh, my well-beloved, say not so! For then you will be counted among those who doubt that Jesus could pray his Father and He should send twelve legions of angels. Oh, do not fall into despair! Do not murmur in your hearts against the counsel of the Lord, and make not your liver black against His will! For he whom the Lord would destroy is struck down, and he whom the Lord would raise abides in safety. He has many ways by which He can guide us out of the wilderness of our peril. Has He not power to turn the heart of our enemy, and did He not suffer the angel of death to go through the camp of Sennacherib? And have you forgotten the engulfing waters of the Red Sea and the sudden destruction of Pharaoh?”
- 39 -
At this point Jesper Kiim was interrupted.
The crowd had listened quietly except for a subdued angry murmur from the outskirts, but suddenly Mette’s voice pierced through: “Faugh, you hell-hound! Hold your tongue, you black dog! Don’t listen to him! It’s Swede money speaks out of his mouth!”
An instant of silence, then bedlam broke loose! Oaths, curses, and foul names rained over him. He tried to speak, but the cries grew louder, and those nearest to the steps advanced threateningly. A white-haired little man right in front, who had wept during the speech, made an angry lunge at the preacher with his long, silver-knobbed cane.
“Down with him, down with him!” the cry sounded. “Let him eat his words! Let him tell us what money he got for betraying us! Down with him! Send him to us, we’ll knock the maggots out of him!”
“Put him in the cellar!” cried others. “In the City Hall cellar! Hand him down! hand him down!”
Two powerful fellows seized him. The wretch was clutching the wooden porch railing with all his might, but they kicked both railing and preacher down into the street, where the mob fell upon him with kicks and blows from clenched fists. The women were tearing his hair and clothes, and little boys, clinging to their fathers’ hands, jumped with delight.
“Bring Mette!” cried some one in the back of the crowd. “Make way! Let Mette try him.”
Mette came forward. “Will you eat your devil’s nonsense? Will you, Master Rogue?”
“Never, never! We ought to obey God rather than men, as it is written.”
“Ought we?” said Mette, drawing off her wooden shoe - 40 - and brandishing it before his eyes. “But men have shoes, and you’re in the pay of Satan and not of God. I’ll give you a knock on the pate! I’ll plaster your brain on the wall!” She struck him with the shoe.
“Commit no sin, Mette,” groaned the scholar.
“Now may the Devil—” she shrieked.
“Hush, hush!” some one cried. “Have a care, don’t crowd so! There’s Gyldenl?ve, the lieutenant-general.”
A tall figure rode past.
“Long live Gyldenl?ve! The brave Gyldenl?ve!” bellowed the mob. Hats and caps were swung aloft, and cheer upon cheer sounded, until the rider disappeared in the direction of the ramparts. It was the lieutenant-general of the militia, colonel of horse and foot, Ulrik Christian Gyldenl?ve, the King’s half-brother.
The mob dispersed little by little, till only a few remained.
“Say what you will, ’tis a curious thing,” said Gert the dyer: “here we’re ready to crack the head of a man who speaks of peace, and we cry ourselves hoarse for those who’ve brought this war upon us.”
“I give you good-night, Gert Pyper!” said the trader hastily. “Good-night and God be with you!” He hurried away.
“He’s afraid of Mette’s shoe,” murmured the dyer, and at last he too turned homeward.
Jesper Kiim sat on the steps alone, holding his aching head. The watchman on the ramparts paced slowly back and forth, peering out over the dark land where all was wrapped in silence, though thousands of enemies were encamped round about.