But to the peasant whose oven they had emptied, the party sent out of the general booty sixteen rix-dollars: for I had taught them that in such wise they must bring the country-folk on their side, seeing that such could often help a party out of great difficulties or betray such another party and bring all to the gallows. From Rehnen we marched to Münster and thence to Ham, and so home to Soest to our headquarters, where I after some days received an answer from his reverence, as follows:
“Noble Huntsman—If he from whom you stole the bacon had known that you would appear to him in devilish guise, he had not so often wished to behold the notorious huntsman. But even as the borrowed meat and bread have been far too dearly paid for, so also is the fright inflicted the easier to forgive, especially because ’twas caused (against his will) by so famous a person, who is hereby forgiven, with the request that he will once more visit without fear him who fears not to conjure the devil.—Vale.”
And so did I everywhere, and gained much fame: yea, and the more I gave away and spent, the more the booty flowed in, and I conceived that I had laid out that ring well, though ’twas worth some hundred rix-dollars. And so ends this second book.
Book III
I
How the Huntsman Went Too Far to the Left Hand
The gentle reader will have understood by the foregoing book how ambitious I had become in Soest, and that I had sought and found honour, fame, and favour in deeds which in others had deserved punishment. And now will I tell how through my folly I let myself be further led astray, and so lived in constant danger of life and limb; for I was so busied to gain honour and fame that I could not sleep by reason of it, and being full of such fancies, and lying awake many a night to devise new plots and plans, I had many wondrous conceits. In this wise I contrived a kind of shoes that a man could put on hind part before, so that the heel came under his toes: and of these at mine own cost I caused thirty different pairs to be made, and when I had given these out to my fellows and with them went on a foray, ’twas clean impossible to follow our tracks: for now would we wear these, and now again our right shoes on our feet, and the others in our knapsacks. So that if a man came to a place where I had bidden them change shoes, ’twas for all the world, by the tracks, as if two parties had met together there and together had vanished away. But if I kept these new invented shoes on throughout, it seemed as I had gone thither whence in truth I had come, or had come from the place to which I now went. And besides this, my tracks were at all times confused, as in a maze, so that they who should pursue or seek news of me from the footprints could never come at me. Often I was close by a party of the enemy who were minded to seek me far away: and still more often miles away from some thicket which they had surrounded, and were searching in hopes to find me. And as I managed with my parties on foot, so did I also when we were on horseback: for to me ’twas simple enough to dismount at crossroads and forked ways and there have the horses’ shoes set on hind part before. But the common tricks that soldiers use, being weak in numbers, to appear from the tracks to be strong, or being strong to appear weak, these were for me so common and I held them so cheap that I care not to tell of them. Moreover, I devised an instrument wherewith if ’twas calm weather I could by night hear a trumpet blow three hours’ march away, could hear a horse neigh or a dog bark at two hours’ distance, and hear men’s talk at three miles; which art I kept secret, and gained thereby great respect, for it seemed to all incredible. Yet by day was this instrument, which I commonly kept with a perspective-glass in my breeches pouch, not so useful, even though ’twas in a quiet and lonely place: for with it one could not choose but hear every sound made by horses and cattle, yea, the smallest bird in the air and the frog in the water in all the country round, and all this could be as plainly heard as if one were in the midst of a market among men and beasts where all do make such noise that for the crying of one a man cannot understand another. ’Tis true I know well there are folk who to this day will not believe this: but believe it or not, ’tis but the truth. With this instrument I can by night know any man that talks but so loud as his custom is, by his voice, though he be as far from me as where with a good perspective-glass one could by day know him by his clothes. Yet can I blame no one if
