Now as I entered the stricken field at my appointed end with my match alight at both ends, and saw my adversary before my eyes, I made as if I shook out the old priming as I walked. Yet I did not so, but spread priming powder only on the cover of the pan, blew up my match, and passed my two fingers over the pan, as is the custom, and before I could see the white of the eyes of my opposite, who kept me well in sight, I took aim, and set fire to the false priming powder on the cover of the pan. Then the enemy, believing that my musket had missed fire and that the touch-hole was stopped, rode straight down upon me pistol in hand, and all too anxious to pay me there and then for my presumption, but before he was aware I had the pan open and shut again, and gave him such a welcome that ball and fall came together.
Then I returned to my fellows, who received me with embraces; but his comrades, freeing his foot from the stirrup, dealt with him and with us as honest fellows, for they returned me my glove with all praise. But even when I deemed my reputation to be at its height, came five-and-twenty musketeers from Rehnen, who laid me and my comrades by the heels. Then presently I was clapped in chains and sent to headquarters, for all duels were forbidden on pain of death.
X
How the Master-General of Ordnance Granted the Huntsman His Life and Held Out Hopes to Him of Great Things
Now as our General of Ordnance was wont to keep strict discipline, I looked to lose my head: yet had I hopes to escape, because I had at so early an age ever carried myself well against the enemy, and gained great name and fame for courage. Yet was this hope uncertain because, by reason of such things happening daily, ’twas necessary to make an example. Our men had but just beat up a dangerous nest of rats, and demanded a surrender, yet had received a denial; for the enemy knew we had no heavy artillery. For that reason Count von der Wahl appeared with all our force before the said place, demanded a surrender once more by a trumpeter, and threatened to storm the town. Yet all he got thereby was the writing that here followeth:
“High and wellborn Count, etc.—From your Excellency’s letter to me I understand what you suggest to me in the name of his Imperial Roman Majesty. Now your Excellency, with his great understanding, must be well aware how improper, nay unjustifiable, it were for a soldier to surrender a place like this to the adversary without especial necessity. For which reason your Excellency will not, I hope, blame me if I wait till his means of attack are sufficient. But if your Excellency have occasion to employ my small powers in any services but those touching my allegiance, I shall ever be,
Thereupon was much discussion in our camp about this place; for to leave it alone was not to be thought on: to storm it without a breach would have cost much blood, and ’twould have been uncertain even then whether we should succeed or not: and if we had to fetch our heavy pieces and all their equipment from Münster and Ham, ’twould cost much time, trouble, and expense. So while great and small were hard at work a-reasoning, it came into my head that I should use this opportunity to get free: so I set all my wits to work, and reflected how one might cheat the enemy, seeing ’twas only the cannon that were wanted. And pretty soon I had devised a trick and let my lieutenant-colonel know I had plans by which the place could be secured without trouble and expense, if only I could be pardoned and set free. Yet some old and tried soldiers laughed and said, “Drowning men catch at straws; and this good fellow thinks to talk himself out of gaol.”
But the lieutenant-colonel himself, with others that knew me, listened to my words as to an article of belief; wherefore he went himself to the Master-General of the Ordnance and laid before him my plan, with the recital, moreover, of many things that he could tell of me: and inasmuch as the Count had already heard of the Huntsman, he had me brought before him and for so long loosed from my bonds. He was set at table when I came, and my lieutenant-colonel told him how the spring before, having stood my first hour as sentry under St. James’s Gate at Soest, a heavy rain with thunder and wind had suddenly come on, and when, each running from the fields and the gardens into the town, there was great press of foot and horse, I had had the wit to call out the guard, because in such a tumult a town was easiest to take. “At last,” said the lieutenant-colonel further, “came an old woman dripping wet, and said even as she passed by the huntsman, ‘Yea, I have felt this storm in my back for a fortnight.’ So the huntsman, hearing this and having a rod in his hand, smote her with it over the shoulder, and says he, ‘Thou old witch, couldst thou not let it loose before; must thou wait till
