The Blockade of Phalsburg: An Episode of the End of the Empire

I had only time to stoop, and I felt the wind from the lance as it passed along my body.

I never felt so in my life, Fritz; I felt the chill of death, that trembling of the flesh, of which the prophet spoke: "Fear came upon me and trembling; the hair of my flesh stood up."

But what shows the spirit of wisdom and prudence which the Lord puts into his creatures, when he means to spare them for a good old age, is that immediately afterward, in spite of my trembling knees, I went and sat under the first wagon, where the blows of the lances could not reach me; and there I saw the veterans finish the extermination of the rascals, who had retreated into the court, and not one of whom escaped.

Five or six were in a heap before the door, and three others were stretched upon the highway.

This did not take more than ten minutes; then all was dark again, and I heard the sergeant call: "Cease firing!"

Heitz, who had come down from his hay-loft, had just lighted a lantern; the sergeant seeing me under the wagon, called out: "Are you wounded, Father Moses?"

"No," I replied, "but a Cossack tried to thrust his lance into me, and I got into a safe place."

He laughed aloud, and gave me his hand to help me to rise.

"Father Moses," said he, "I was frightened about you. Wipe your back; people might think you were not brave."

I laughed too, and thought: "People may think what they please! The great thing is to live in good health as long as possible."

We had only one wounded, Corporal Duhem, an old man, who bandaged his own leg, and tried to walk. He had had a blow from a lance in the right calf. He was placed on the first wagon, and Lehnel, Heitz's granddaughter, came and gave him a drop of cherry-brandy, which at once restored his strength and even his good spirits.

"It is the fifteenth," he exclaimed. "I am in for a week at the hospital; but leave me the bottle for the compresses."

I was delighted to see my twelve pipes on the wagons, for Schweyer and his two boys had run away, and without their help we could hardly have reloaded.

I tapped at once at the bung-hole of the hindmost cask to find out how much was missing. These scamps of Cossacks had already drunk nearly half a measure of spirits; Father Heitz told me that some of them scarcely added a drop of water. Such creatures must have throats of tin; the oldest topers among us could not bear a glass of three-six without being upset.

At last all was ready and we had only to return to the city. When I think of it, it all seems before me now: Heitz's large dapple-gray horses going out of the stable one by one; the sergeant standing by the dark door with his lantern in his hand, and calling out, "Come, hurry up! The rascals may come back!" On the road in front of the inn, the veterans surrounded the wagons; farther on the right some peasants, who had hastened to the scene with pitchforks and mattocks, were looking at the dead Cossacks, and myself, standing on the stairs above, singing praises to God in my heart as I thought how glad Sorlé and Zeffen and little Sâfel would be to see me come back with our goods.

And then when all is ready, when the little bells jingle, when the whip snaps, and we start on the way – what delight!

Ah Fritz! everything looks bright after thirty years; we forget fears, anxieties, and fatigues; but the memory of good men and happy hours remains with us forever!

The veterans, on both sides of the wagons, with their muskets under their arms, escorted my twelve pipes as if they were the tabernacle; Heitz led the horses, and the sergeant and I walked behind.

"Well, Father Moses!" said he laughing, "it has all gone off well; are you satisfied?"

"More than I can possibly tell, sergeant! What would have been my ruin will make the fortune of my family, and we owe it all to you."

"Go along," said he, "you are joking."

He laughed, but I felt deeply; to have been in danger of losing everything, and then to regain it all and make profit out of it – it makes one feel deeply.

I exclaimed inwardly: "I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people; and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations.

"For thy mercy is great above the heavens, and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds."

XI

FATHER MOSES RETURNS IN TRIUMPH

Now I must tell you about our return to Phalsburg.

You may suppose that my wife and children, after seeing me take my gun and go away, were in a state of great anxiety. About five o'clock Sorlé went out with Zeffen to try to learn what was going on, and only then they heard that I had started for Mittelbronn with a detachment of veterans.

Imagine their terror!

The rumor of these extraordinary proceedings had spread through the city, and quantities of people were on the bastion of the artillery barracks, looking on from the distance. Burguet was there, with the mayor, and other persons of distinction, and a number of women and children, all trying to see through the darkness. Some insisted that Moses marched with the detachment, but nobody would believe it, and Burguet exclaimed: "It is not possible that a sensible man like Moses would go and risk his life in fighting Cossacks – no, it is not possible!"

If I had been in his place I should have said the same of him. But what can you do, Fritz? The most prudent of men become blind when their property is at stake; blind, I say, and terrible, for they lose sight of danger.

This crowd was waiting, as I said, and soon Zeffen and Sorlé came, as pale as death, with their large shawls over their heads. They went up the rampart and stood there, with their feet in the snow, too much frightened to speak.

I learned these things afterward.

When Zeffen and her mother went up on the bastion, it was, perhaps, half-past five; there was not a star to be seen. Just at that time, Schweyer and his boys ran away, and five minutes later the skirmish began.

Burguet told me afterward that, notwithstanding the darkness and the distance, they saw the flash of the muskets around the inn as plainly as if they were a hundred paces off, and everybody was still and listened to hear the shots, which were repeated by the echoes of the Bois-de-Chênes and Lutzelburg.

When they ceased Sorlé descended from the slope leaning on Zeffen's arm, for she could not support herself. Burguet helped them to reach the street, and took them into old Frise's house on the corner, where they found him warming himself gloomily by his hearth.

"My last day has come!" said Sorlé. Zeffen wept bitterly.

I have often reproached myself for having caused this sorrow, but who can answer for his own wisdom? Has not the wise man himself said: "I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly; and I saw that wisdom excelleth folly; and I myself perceived that one event happeneth to the wise man and the fool. Wherefore, I said in my heart, that wisdom also is vanity."

Burguet was going out from Father Frise's when Schweyer and his sons came up the postern stairs, crying out that we were surrounded by Cossacks and lost. Fortunately my wife and daughter could not hear them, and the mayor soon came along and ordered them to stop talking and go home quickly, if they did not want to be sent to prison.

They obeyed, but that did not prevent people from believing what they said, especially as it was all dark again in the direction of Mittelbronn.

The crowd came down from the ramparts and filled the street; many of them went to their homes thinking they should never see us again, when, just as the clock struck seven, the sentinel of the outworks called out, "Who goes there?"

We had reached the gate.

The crowd was soon on the ramparts again. The squad in front of the sergeant on duty flew to arms; they had just recognized us.

We heard the murmur, without knowing what it was. So, when, after a reconnoissance, the gates were slowly opened to us, and the two bridges lowered for us to pass, what was our surprise at hearing the shouts: "Hurrah for Father Moses! Hurrah for the spirits of wine!"

The tears came to my eyes. And my wagons rolling heavily under the gates, the soldiers presented arms to us, the great crowd surrounding us, shouting: "Moses! Hey, Moses! are you all right? you have not been killed?" the shouts of laughter, the people seizing my arm to hear me tell about the fight, – all these things were very pleasant.

Everybody wanted to talk with me, even the mayor, and I had not time to answer them.

But all this was nothing compared with the joy I felt at seeing Sorlé, Zeffen, and little Sâfel run from Father Frise's and throw themselves all at once into my arms, exclaiming: "He is safe! he is safe!"

Ah, Fritz! what are honors by the side of such love? What is all the glory of the world compared with the joy of seeing our beloved ones? The others might have cried out, "Hurrah for Moses!" a hundred years, and I would not even have turned my head; but I was terribly moved by the sight of my family.

I gave Sâfel my gun, and while the wagons, escorted by the veterans, went on toward the little market, I led Zeffen and Sorlé through the crowd to old Frise's, and there, when we were alone, we began to hug each other again.

Without, the shouts of joy were redoubled; you would have thought that the spirits of wine belonged to the whole city. But within the room, my wife and daughter burst into tears, and I confessed my imprudence.