Already every house was full. The high-gabled warehouses on the riverside could not be used for barracks, for they too had been crammed from floor to roof with stores and arms. So the soldiers slept where they could. They bivouacked in the timber-yards by the riverside. The countrywomen found the Neuer Markt transformed into a camp when they brought their baskets in the early morning, but they met with eager buyers, who haggled laughingly in half a dozen different tongues. There was no lack of money, however.
Cartloads of it were on the road.
The Neuer Markt in Königsberg is a square, of which the lower side is a quay on the Pregel. The river is narrow here. Across it the country is open. The houses surrounding the quadrangle are all alike—two-storied buildings with dormer windows in the roof. There are trees in front. In front of that which is now Number Thirteen, at the right-hand corner, facing west, sideways to the river, the trees grow quite close to the windows, so that an active man or a boy might without great risk leap from the eaves below the dormer window into the topmost branches of the linden, which here grows strong and tough, as it surely should do in the fatherland.
A young soldier, seeking lodgings, who happened to knock at the door of Number Thirteen less than thirty hours after the arrival of Napoleon at Danzig, looked upward through the shady boughs, and noted their growth with the light of interest in his eye. It would almost seem that the house had been described to him as that one in the Neuer Markt against which the lindens grew. For he had walked all round the square between the trees and houses before knocking at this door, which bore no number then, as it does today.
His tired horse had followed him meditatively, and now stood with drooping head in the shade. The man himself wore a dark uniform, white with dust. His hair was dusty and rather lank. He was not a very tidy soldier.
He stood looking at the sign which swung from the doorpost, a relic of the Polish days. It bore the painted semblance of a boot. For in Poland—a frontier country, as in frontier cities where many tongues are heard—it is the custom to paint a picture rather than write a word. So that every house bears the sign of its inmate’s craft, legible alike to Lithuanian or Ruthenian, Swede or Cossack of the Don.
He knocked again, and at last the door was opened by a thickly-built man, who looked, not at his face, but at his boots. As these wanted no repair he half closed the door again and looked at the newcomer’s face.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“A lodging.”
The door was almost closed, when the soldier made an odd and, as it would seem, tentative gesture with his left hand. All the fingers were clenched, and with his extended thumb he scratched his chin slowly from side to side.
“I have no lodging to let,” said the bootmaker. But he did not shut the door.
“I can pay,” said the other, with his thumb still at his chin. He had quick, blue eyes beneath the shaggy hair that wanted cutting. “I am very tired—it is only for one night.”
“Who are you?” asked the bootmaker.
The soldier was a dull and slow man. He leant against the doorpost with tired gestures before replying.
“Sergeant in a Schleswig regiment, in charge of spare horses.”
“And you have come far?”
“From Danzig without a halt.”
The shoemaker looked him up and down with a doubting eye, as if there were something about him that was not quite clear and aboveboard. The dust and fatigue were, however, unmistakable.
“Who sent you to me, anyway?” he grumbled.
“Oh, I do not know,” was the half-impatient answer; “the man I lodged with in Danzig or another, I forget. It was Koch the locksmith in the Schmiedegasse. See, I have money. I tell you it is for one night. Say yes or no. I want to get to bed and to sleep.”
“How much do you pay?”
“A thaler—if you like. Among friends, one is willing to pay.”
After a short minute of hesitation the shoemaker opened the door wider and came out.
“And there will be another thaler for the horse, which I shall have to take to the stable of the wood-merchant at the corner. Go into the workshop and sit down till I come.”
He stood in the doorway and watched the soldier seat himself wearily on a bench in the workshop among the ancient boots, past repair, one would think, and lean his head against the wall.
He was half asleep already, and the bootmaker, who was lame, shrugged his shoulders as he led away the tired horse, with a gesture half of pity, half of doubting suspicion. Had it suggested itself to his mind, and had it been within the power of one so halt and heavy-footed to turn back noiselessly, he would have found his visitor wide-awake enough, hurriedly opening every drawer and peering under the twine and needles, lifting every bale of leather, shaking out the very boots awaiting repair.
When the dweller in Number Thirteen returned, the soldier was asleep, and had to be shaken before he would open his eyes.
“Will you eat before you go to bed?” asked the bootmaker not unkindly.
“I ate as I came along the street,” was the reply. “No, I will go to bed. What time is it?”
“It is only seven o’clock—but no matter.”
“No, it is no matter. Tomorrow I must be astir by five.”
“Good,” said the shoemaker. “But you will get your money’s worth. The bed is a good one. It is my son’s. He is away, and I am alone in the house.”
He led the way upstairs as he spoke, going heavily one step at a time, so that the whole house seemed to shake beneath his tread.
