But as I thus plagued and tormented myself and yet could come to no plan, came Oliver back with our peasant, which guided us with the horses to another farm, where we did bait and, taking turn by turn, did each get two hours’ sleep. After midnight we rode on, and about noon came to the uttermost boundary of the Switzers, where Oliver was well known, and had us nobly entertained: and while we made merry the host sends for a couple of Jews, that bought the horses from us at half their price. And all was so plainly and clearly settled that there was little need of parley. For the Jews’ chief question was, were the horses from the emperor’s side or the Swedes’: and thereupon hearing they were from Weimar’s army, “Then,” said they, “must we ride them not to Basel but into Swabia to the Bavarians.” At which close acquaintance and familiarity I must needs wonder.
So we feasted like princes, and heartily did I enjoy the good forest-trout and the savoury crayfish. And when ’twas evening we took to the road again, loading our peasant with baked meats and other victual like a packhorse: with all which we came the next day to a lonesome farm, where we were friendly welcomed and entertained, and by reason of ill weather stayed two days: thereafter through woods and byways we came to that very hut whither Oliver did take me when first he had me to his companion.
XXII
How Oliver Bit the Dust and Took Six Good Men with Him
So as we sat down to refresh our bodies and to rest, Oliver sent the peasant out to buy food and also powder and shot. He being gone, he takes off his coat and says he, “Brother, I can no longer carry this devils’ money about with me alone”: and with that unbound a pair of bags like sausages that he wore on his naked body, threw them on the table, and went on, “Of these thou must take care till I come to my holidays and we both have enough, for the accursed stuff hath worked sores upon my body, so that I can no longer carry it.” I answered, “Brother, hadst thou as little as I, ’twould not gall thee.” But he cut me short. “How,” says he, “what is mine is also thine; and what we do further win shall be fairly-shared.” So I took up the two sausages and found they were indeed mighty heavy, being gold pieces only. Then I told him ’twas all ill-packed, and an he would, I would so sew the money in that it should not vex him half so much in the carrying. And when he agreed to this he had me with him to a hollow tree wherein he had scissors, needles, and thread: and there I made for him and me a pair of knapsacks out of a pair of breeches, and many a fine red penny I sewed therein. So having put the same on under our shirts, ’twas as if we had golden armour behind and before, by means of which we were become, if not proof against bullets, yet against swords. Then did I wonder why he kept no silver coin: to which he answered he had more than a thousand thalers lying in a tree from which he allowed the peasant to buy victuals, and never asked for a reckoning, as not greatly valuing such trash.
This done and the money packed, away we went to our hut, and there cooked our food and warmed ourselves by the stove all night. And thither at of the day, when we did least expect it, came six musketeers with a corporal to our hut with their pieces ready and their matches burning, who burst in the door and cried to us to surrender. But Oliver (that, like me, had ever his loaded piece lying by him and his sharp sword also, and then sat behind the table, and I by the stove behind the door) answered them with a couple of musket-balls, wherewith he brought two to the ground, while I with a like shot slew one and wounded the fourth. Then Oliver whipped out his terrible sword (that could cut hairs asunder and might well be compared to Caliburn, the sword of King Arthur of England) and therewith he clove the fifth man from the shoulder to the belly, so that his bowels gushed out and he himself fell down beside them in gruesome fashion. And meanwhile I knocked the sixth man on the head with the butt-end of my piece, so that he fell lifeless: but Oliver got even such a blow from the seventh, and that with such force that his brains flew out, and I in turn dealt him that did that such a crack that he must needs join his comrades on the dead muster-roll. So when the one that I had shot at and wounded was ware of such cuffs and saw that I
