This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
By Georg Ebers
Days and weeks had passed, July was followed by sultry August, and that,too, was drawing to a close. The Spaniards still surrounded Leyden, andthe city now completely resembled a prison. The soldiers and armedcitizens did their duty wearily and sullenly, there was business enoughat the town-hall, but the magistrates' work was sad and disagreeable; forno message of hope came from the Prince or the Estates, and everything tobe considered referred to the increasing distress and the terriblefollower of war, the plague, which had made its entry into Leyden withthe famine. Moreover the number of malcontents weekly increased. Thefriends of the old order of affairs now raised their voices more and moreloudly, and many a friend of liberty, who saw his family sickening,joined the Spanish sympathizers and demanded the surrender of the city.The children went to school and met in the playrounds as before, butthere was rarely a flash of the merry pertness of former days, and whathad become of the boys' red cheeks and the round arms of the littlegirls? The poor drew their belts tighter, and the morsel of bread,distributed by the city to each individual, was no longer enough to quiethunger and support life.
Junker Georg had long been living in Burgomaster Van der Werff's house.
On the morning of August 29th he returned home from an expedition,carrying a cross-bow in his hand, while a pouch hung over his shoulder.This time he did not go up-stairs, but sought Barbara in the kitchen.The widow received him with a friendly nod; her grey eyes sparkled asbrightly as ever, but her round face had grown narrower and there was asorrowful quiver about the sunken mouth.
"What do you bring to-day?" she asked the Junker. Georg thrust his handinto his game-bag and answered, smiling: "A fat snipe and four larks; youknow."
"Poor sparrows! But what sort of a creature can this be? Headless,legless, and carefully plucked! Junker, Junker, that's suspicious."
"It will do for the pan, and the name is of no consequence."
"Yet, yet; true, nobody knows on what he fattens, but the Lord didn'tcreate every animal for the human stomach."
"That's just what I said. It's a short-billed snipe, a corvus, a realcorvus."
"Corvus! Nonsense, I'm afraid of the thing—the little feathers underthe wings. Good heavens! surely it isn't a raven?"
"It's a corvus, as I said. Put the bird in vinegar, roast it withseasoning and it will taste like a real snipe. Wild ducks are not to befound every day, as they were a short time ago, and sparrows are gettingas scarce as roses in winter. Every boy is standing about with a cross-bow, and in the court-yards people are trying to catch them under sievesand with lime-twigs. They are going to be exterminated, but one oranother is still spared. How is the little elf?"
"Don't call her that!" exclaimed the widow. "Give her her Christianname. She looks like this cloth, and since yesterday has refused to takethe milk we daily procure for her at a heavy cost. Heaven knows whatthe end will be. Look at that cabbage-stalk. Half a stiver! and thatmiserable piece of bone! Once I should have thought it too poor for thedogs—and now! The whole household must be satisfied with it. Forsupper I shall boil ham-rind with wine and add a little porridge to it.And this for a giant like Peter! God only knows where he gets hisst