So when I asked him once what our regimental chaplain was, since he was distinguished from other folk by his apparel, “that,” says he, “is master Dicis et non facis, which is, being interpreted into German, a fellow that gives wives to others and takes none himself. He is the bitter enemy of thieves because they say not what they do, but he doth not what he says: likewise the thieves love him not because they be commonly hanged even then when their acquaintance with him is at its best.” So when I afterwards addressed the good priest by that name, he was laughed at and I was held to be a rogue as well as a fool, and at his request well basted. Further, the secretary persuaded me they had pulled down and set on fire all the houses behind the walls of Prague, that the sparks and ashes might sow all over the world the seeds of evil weeds: so, too, he said that among soldiers no brave heroes and hearty fighters ever went to heaven, but only simple creatures, malingerers, and the like, that were content with their pay: likewise no elegant à la mode cavaliers, and sprightly ladies, but only patient Jobs, henpecked husbands, tedious monks, melancholy parsons, devout women, and all manner of outcasts which in this world are good neither to bake nor to boil, and young children. He told me too a lying story of how hosts were called innkeepers only because in their business they endeavoured to keep in with both God and the devil. And of war he told me that at times golden bullets were used, and the more precious such were, the more damage they did. “Yea,” said he, “and a whole army with artillery, ammunition, and baggage-train can be so led by a golden chain.” Further, he persuaded me that of women more than half wore breeches, though one could not see them, and that many, though they were no enchantresses and no goddesses as was Diana, yet could conjure bigger horns on to their husbands’ heads than ever Actaeon wore. In all which I believed him: so great a fool was I.
On the other hand, my governor, when he was alone with me, entertained me with far different discourse. Moreover, he brought me to know his son, who, as before mentioned, was a muster-clerk in the Saxon army, and was a man of far different quality to my colonel’s secretary: for which reason my colonel not only liked him well, but thought to get him from his captain and make him his regimental secretary, on which post his own secretary before mentioned had set his mind also. With this muster-clerk, whose name, like his father’s, was Ulrich Herzbruder, I struck up such a friendship that we swore eternal brotherhood, in virtue of which we would never desert each other in weal or woe, in joy or sorrow; and because this was without his father’s knowledge, therefore we held more stoutly and stiffly to our vow. By this was it made our chiefest care how I might be honourably freed from my fool’s coat, and how we might honestly serve one another; all which however the old Herzbruder, whom I honoured and looked to as my father, approved not, but said in so many words that if I was in haste to change my estate, such change would bring me grievous imprisonment and great danger to life and limb. And because he foretold for himself also and his son a great disgrace close at hand, he deemed, therefore, that he had reason to act more prudently and warily than to interfere in the affairs of a person whose great approaching danger he could foresee: for he was fearful he might be a sharer in my future ill luck if I declared myself, because he had long ago found out my secret and knew me inside and out, yet he never revealed my true condition to the colonel. And soon after I perceived yet better that my colonel’s secretary envied my new brother desperately, as thinking he might be raised over his head to the post of regimental secretary; for I saw how at times he fretted, how ill will preyed upon him, and how he was always sighing and in deep thought whenever he looked upon the old or the young Herzbruder. Therefrom I judged he was making of calculations how he might trip and throw him. So I told to my brother, both from my faithful love to him and also as my certain duty, what I suspected, that he might a little be on his guard against this Judas. But he did but take it with a shrug, as being more than enough superior to the secretary both with sword and pen, and besides enjoying the colonel’s great favour and grace.
XXII
A Rascally Trick to Step Into Another Man’s Shoes
’Tis commonly the custom in war to make provosts of old tried soldiers, and so it came about that we had in our regiment such a one, and to boot such a perfected rogue and villain that it might well be said of him he had seen enough
