XX
How It Doth Fare with a Man on Whom Evil Fortune Doth Rain Cats and Dogs
Now when Oliver had ended his discourse, I could not enough admire the Providence of God. Now could I understand how the good God had not alone protected me like a father from this monster in Westphalia, but had, moreover, so brought it about that he should go in fear of me. Now could I see what a trick I had played on him, to which the old Herzbruder’s prophecy did apply, yet which he himself expounded, as may be seen in the fourteenth chapter, in another way, and that to my great profit. For had this beast but known I was the Huntsman of Soest he had surely made me drink of the same cup I served to him before at the sheepfold. I considered, moreover, how wisely and darkly Herzbruder had delivered his predictions, and thought in myself that, though his prophecies were wont commonly to turn out true, yet ’twould go hard and must happen strangely if I was to revenge the death of one that had deserved the wheel and the gallows: I found it also good for my health that I had not first told him of my life, for so had I told him the way how I before had disgraced him. And as I thought thereupon, I did mark in Oliver’s face certain scratches that he had not at Magdeburg, and so did conceive that these scars were the tokens of Jump-i’-th’-field, when at that former time he, in the likeness of a devil, did thus scrabble his face, and so asked him whence he had those signs, adding thereto that, though he had told me his whole life, yet I must gather that he had left out the best part, since he had not yet told me who had so marked him.
“Ah, brother,” answered he, “were I to tell all my tricks and rogueries the time would be too long both for you and me: yet to show thee that I conceal from thee none of my adventures I will tell thee the truth of this, though methinks ’tis but a sorry story for me.
“I am fully assured that from my mother’s womb I was predestined to a scratched face, for in my very childhood I was so treated by my schoolfellows when I wrangled with them: and so likewise one of those devils that waited on the Huntsman of Soest handled me so roughly that six weeks long one could see the marks of his claws in my face: but the scars thou seest in my face had another beginning, to wit this. When I lay in winter quarters with the Swedes in Pomerania, and had a fair mistress by me, mine host must leave his bed, for us to lie there: but his cat that had been used to sleep therein would come every night and plague us, as one that could not so easily spare her wonted bed-place as her master and mistress had done: this did vex my wench (that could at no time abide a cat) so sore that she did swear loudly she would show me no more favour till I had made an end of this cat. So being desirous to have her society yet, I devised how not only to please her but so to avenge myself of the cat as to have sport therein. With that I packed the beast in a bag, took my host’s two great watchdogs (which at any time had no love for cats, but were familiar with me), and the cat in the sack, to a broad and pleasant meadow, and there thought to have my jest, for I deemed, since there was no tree hard by for the cat to escape to, that the dogs would chase her up and down for a while on the plain like a hare, and so would afford me fine pastime. But zounds; it turned out for me not only dogs’ luck, as people say, but cats’ luck (which sort of luck few can have known or ’twould assuredly long ago have been made a proverb of), since the cat, when I did open the bag, seeing only an open field and on it her two fierce enemies, and nothing high whereto she could escape, would not so easily take the field and so be torn to pieces, but betook herself to mine own head as finding no higher place, and as I sought to keep her away my hat fell off: so the more I tried to pull her down, the deeper she stuck in her claws so as to hold fast. Such a combat the dogs could not endure to see, but joined the sport themselves, and jumped up with open jaws in front, behind, and on either side of me to come at the cat, which yet would not leave my head, but maintained her place by fastening of her claws both in my face and my head, as best she could. And if she missed to give the dogs a pat with her glove of thorns, be sure she missed not me: yet because she did sometimes strike the dogs on the nose, therefore they busied themselves to bring her down with their claws, and in so doing dealt me many a shrewd scratch in the face: yea, and if I with both hands strove to tear the cat from her place, then would she bite and scratch me to the best of her ability. And thus was I, both by the dogs and the cat at once so attacked, so mauled, and so
