I went to the inn, more to give me the opportunity of spying out the land to see what we could steal that night than to fill my belly. And I was in luck. On my way there I saw a farmer plastering over the door to his oven in which were large loaves of pumpernickel bread which are baked slowly for twenty-four hours. Since I already knew where there was bread to be found I did not waste any time at the inn but just bought some white loaves to take to the captain. When I got back to the presbytery to tell my comrade it was time to go he had already eaten his fill and told the priest that I was a painter and on my way to Holland to perfect my art. The priest welcomed me warmly and asked me to go to the church so he could show me some paintings that needed repairing. I had to go with him to keep up my disguise. He took us through the kitchen and as he unlocked the heavy oak door leading out into the churchyard I saw a sight for sore eyes or, rather, empty bellies: hanging up in the chimney were hams, sausages and sides of bacon. They seemed to be smiling at me, so I gave them a come-hither look, wishing they would come and join my comrades in the woods, but in vain; the hard-hearted things ignored me and stayed hanging there. I tried to think of ways of getting them to join the above-mentioned oven-load of bread, but it was not that easy. There was a wall round the presbytery and garden and all the windows had iron bars; there were also two huge dogs lying in the courtyard and I was sure they would not be sleeping during the night when people would try to steal the food of which they would get a portion in reward for their faithful vigilance.
In the church we discussed the paintings and the priest was keen to hire me to restore some of them. I kept making excuses, in particular my journey to study in Holland, and eventually the sexton said, ‘You look more like a runaway soldier to me, you young rascal, than a painter’s apprentice.’ It was a long time since anyone had spoken to me like that, but I had to grin and bear it, so I just shook my head and replied, ‘Just give me a brush and some paint, you old rascal, and I’ll paint you the portrait of a fool in no time at all, if you’ll just keep still.’ The priest made a joke of it and told us both it was not proper to argue in a sacred place like the church. It was clear he believed both me and the student. He gave us another drink and we left, but my heart stayed behind with the smoked hams and sausages.
We were back with our companions before nightfall. I told the captain what had happened, put on my own clothes and arms and selected six good men to help carry the bread home. We got to the village about midnight and took the bread out of the oven without causing any noise, since there was one amongst us who knew a spell to keep dogs from barking. As we passed the presbytery I could not bring myself to go on and leave the bacon behind. I stopped and looked carefully to see if there was any way of getting into the priest’s kitchen. The only way in was the chimney, which would have to serve as a door. We stowed the bread and our arms in the charnel house, found a ladder and rope in a barn and, since I could climb up and down chimneys as well as a sweep, having practised from my earliest days in hollow trees, I climbed up onto the roof myself. It had a double layer of hollow tiles and was ideal for my purpose. I twisted my long hair up into a bunch on top of my head and had myself lowered down on one end of the rope to my beloved bacon. There I tied the hams and sides of bacon one after another to the rope, the man on the roof pulled them up and the others carried them to the charnel house. But, pox on it, after I had tied on the last sausage and was about to climb up again, the bar I was standing on broke and poor Simplicius tumbled down to the ground. Now it was the huntsman who was caught in a trap. My comrades on the roof let the rope down, but when they tried to pull me up it broke before they had even lifted me off the floor. The noise had wakened the priest, who told his cook to light a candle. I thought to myself, ‘Now, Wee Huntsman, you’re the one who’s going to be hunted and you could well be torn to pieces like Actaeon.’
The cook came into the kitchen in her nightgown, her dress slung over her shoulders, and stood so close to me it touched me. She picked up a glowing ember from the stove, held the wick of the candle to it and blew on it. But I blew much harder, startling the poor woman so that she dropped the ember and the candle and ran back to her master. That gave me some breathing space to think up a way of getting out of this, but nothing occurred to me. My comrades whispered down the chimney that they were going to break open the door and bring me out by force, but I forbade it. I told them to put their weapons away and leave only Tearaway on the roof to wait and see if I could get out quietly and unnoticed and not jeopardise our ambush. If, however, that were not possible, then they could do their worst.
In the meantime the priest had lit a candle himself, but the cook told him there was a dreadful ghost with two heads in the kitchen (perhaps she had seen my hair bunched up on top of my head and taken it for another head). Hearing this, I rubbed ashes, soot and coal over my face so that I looked a fearful sight and quite the opposite of the angel the nuns in Paradise had called me. If the sexton had seen me he would have readily agreed I was a quick painter. Then I set up a terrible clattering in the kitchen, throwing pots and pans all over the place. My hand fell on the cauldron handle and I hung it round my neck, but the poker I kept hold of, to defend myself if necessary.
The good priest was not put off by all this, however. He entered the kitchen in procession with his cook, who was carrying two wax candles and a stoup of holy water. He himself was arrayed in surplice and stole, with a sprinkler in one hand and a book in the other from which he began to read the exorcism, asking who I was and what I was doing there. Since he took me to be the devil, it seemed perfectly reasonable for me to play the Father of Lies, so I answered, ‘I am the devil and I have come to wring your neck, and your cook’s too.’
He continued his exorcism, telling me I had no business either with him or his cook and bidding my by the most powerful incantation to return to the place I had come from. That, I replied in a fearsome voice, was impossible, even if I wanted to. In the meantime Tearaway, who was a wily rascal and would stop at nothing, added some special effects of his own from the roof. When he heard what was happening in the kitchen, namely that I was pretending to be the devil and the priest believed me, he hooted like an owl, barked like a dog, neighed like a horse, bleated like a billy goat and brayed like a donkey; sometimes he sounded like a whole ruck of cats on heat in February, sometimes like a hen about to lay an egg. He could imitate any animal noise; if he wanted, he could howl just like a whole pack of wolves together. The priest and his cook were frightened out of their wits but I was somewhat conscience-stricken at letting myself be exorcised as the devil. I believe the reason he took me for the Arch-fiend was that he had read or heard somewhere that the devil likes to dress in green.
In the middle of these terrors, which affected all three of us, I fortunately noticed that the door out into the churchyard was not locked, only bolted. Quickly I pushed the bolt back and slipped out into the churchyard, where I found my companions stationed with their muskets cocked, leaving the priest to continue his exorcism for as long as he liked. Tearaway jumped down from the roof with my hat and we packed the food and set off back to our camp in the woods, since there was nothing left to do in the village, except that we should have returned the ladder and rope we had borrowed.
The whole party was reinvigorated by the provisions we had stolen and such was our continued good luck that not one of us got the hiccoughs. Everyone had a good laugh at my adventures, only the student was unhappy that I had robbed the priest who had filled his belly so generously. He swore blind that he would gladly pay him for the bacon if he only had the wherewithal, though that did not stop him eating as if he had the sole rights to it. We spent another two days there waiting for the convoy for which we had been lying in ambush so long. We did not lose a single man in the attack, took thirty prisoners and as excellent booty as I have ever helped divide up. Since I had done most, I got a double share, consisting of three handsome Friesland stallions, laden with as much merchandise as they could carry, given tha
t we had to make haste. If we had had time to look through the booty properly and bring it to a place of safety, each one of us would have been a wealthy man. We had to leave more behind than we carried off because we had to make all speed to get away, taking what we could with us. For security, we went back to Rheine, where the main body of our army lay and where we ate and shared out the booty.
While we were there I remembered the priest from whom we had stolen the bacon. You can imagine what a swaggering, conceited, honour-craving young man I was. Not satisfied with having robbed the good priest and frightened him to death, I wanted to come out of the affair with honour. I took a gold ring with a sapphire set in it that I had picked up on the expedition and sent it to the priest by a trustworthy messenger, together with the following letter:
Reverend Sir,
If, during the last few days, I had had enough food in the woods to keep me alive I would have had no cause to steal your bacon, during the course of which robbery I probably caused you great alarm. As the Lord is my witness, I had no intention of giving you that fright and hope you will therefore forgive me for it. As far as the bacon is concerned, however, it is right and proper that it should be paid for. I am therefore, in lieu of payment, sending this ring, given by those for whom your provisions were stolen, and ask your reverence to do with it as you see fit. I assure your reverence that you have an obedient and faithful servant in the one your sexton thought was no painter and who is generally known as
The Huntsman
To the peasant whose oven they had emptied, the party sent sixteen thalers from the common purse, for I had taught them that we must do this to keep the country people on our side, for then they will often help a party in difficulties, when otherwise they might well betray them and cost them their lives. From Rheine we went to Münster, from there to Hamm and then back to our quarters in Soest where, a few days later, I received a reply from the priest, which went as follows:
Most noble Huntsman,
If the man whose bacon you stole had known you would appear to him in such devilish form he would not have so often expressed the desire to see the celebrated Huntsman. The fact, however, that the borrowed meat and bread have been paid for at many times their value, makes the fright easier to forgive, especially since it was caused unintentionally by such a famous person. This pardon is coupled with the request that the Huntsman will not hesitate to return once more to visit the man who is not afraid to exorcise the devil.
Vale.
This is the way I behaved everywhere I went and I acquired a great reputation through it. The more I gave away, the more booty I took, and I thought that the ring, even though it was worth a hundred thalers, was a sound investment.
And that is the end of the Second Book.
Book III
Chapter 1
How the Huntsman strayed too far from the straight and narrow
You will have realised from the previous book how ambitious I had become in Soest, how I sought and found honour, glory and favour through actions which in others would have deserved punishment. Now I will tell you how I let my folly lead me even further astray so that I lived in constant danger to life and limb. As I have already mentioned, I was so desperate to gain honour and glory that at times it kept me awake at night, and when the mood was on me I would lie in bed thinking up new plots and ploys. The most bizarre ideas occurred to me. I invented a kind of shoe that you put on back to front, so that the heels came underneath your toes, and had some thirty pairs made at my own cost. I used to share them out among my men before we went on a raid, making it impossible to track us since we sometimes wore these, sometimes put them back in our knapsacks and wore our ordinary shoes. If someone came to the place where we had changed them, from the tracks it just looked as if two parties had met there then completely vanished. If, however, I kept my back-to-front shoes on, then it looked as if I were going to the place I had actually come from, or vice versa. Thus if we left tracks on an expedition they were more confusing than a maze, making it impossible for any pursuers to catch me. I was often right next to an enemy party that was setting off to look for me far away, and even more often miles away from the thicket they had surrounded and were searching in the hope of catching me. I did just the same when we were on horseback. It was not unusual for me to have the men dismount at junctions or crossroads and turn the horseshoes back to front. The usual tricks people employed to make a weak party appear strong from their tracks, or a strong party weak, were so common and I valued them so little that I do not think them worth recounting.
I also invented an instrument by means of which, during nights when there was no wind, I could hear a trumpet three hours’ march away, a horse neighing or a dog barking at two hours’ distance and people talking at one. I kept this a close secret and gained quite a reputation through it, since what I did appeared impossible. This instrument, which I usually kept in the pocket of my breeches along with my telescope, was not much use by day, unless we were in a very quiet, lonely place, since you could hear everything that made a noise, from the horses and cows to the smallest birds in the air or frogs in the water. It sounded just as if you were in a market place surrounded by people and animals, all making themselves heard, so that you could not distinguish the one from the other.
I know there are still people who do not believe this, but whether they do or not, it is the truth. Using it, at night I can recognise a person speaking normally from the sound of his voice when he is so far away that by day you would need a good telescope to recognise him from his clothes. However, I am not surprised if people do not believe what I have just written. Even those who saw me use the instrument with their own eyes refused to believe it. I would say, ‘I can hear cavalry coming, the horses are shod’, or ‘I can hear farmers coming, the horses are unshod’, or ‘There are carts coming, but it’s only peasants, I can tell by the way they speak’, or ‘There are musketeers coming, roughly so many, I can tell by the rattle of their bandoliers’, or ‘There’s a village over here or over there, I can hear cocks crowing, dogs barking etc’, or ‘Here comes a herd of cattle, I can hear sheep baaing, cows mooing, pigs grunting’, and so on. At first my comrades thought it was all just talk, then when they saw that I was right each time they assumed it must be magic, and that the devil had revealed to me the things I saw. That, I imagine, is what the reader will be thinking. Nevertheless it often helped me to escape the enemy when they had received information and were coming to capture me. I also think that if I had made my invention known it would have become very common as it is so useful in wartime, especially during sieges. But now back to my story.
If there was no foray for me to take part in, I would go out stealing on my own account and no horse, cow, pig or sheep was safe from me for miles around. I had boots or shoes I could put on horses and cattle until we came to a well-trodden road, so that they left no tracks to follow. There I would put the horseshoes on back to front; for cows and oxen I had specially made shoes that made them look as if they were going in the opposite direction with which I could bring them to a safe place. Fat porkers are so lazy they do not like to journey at night, but I had a masterly way of getting them to move, no matter how much they grunted and refused to stir at first. I soaked a sponge, to which I had attached a strong string, in a savoury mash of meal and water, then let the pig I was after eat the gruel-soaked sponge, keeping tight hold of the string. After that it would follow me unprotesting and give me hams and sausages for my trouble. Whenever I brought back something like this I always shared it with the officers and my comrades so that I was allowed to go off again, and if my plan had been betrayed, or I was spotted executing it, they would help me out. I thought far too much of myself to steal from poor people or to take chickens or other such trifles.
With all this gorging and guzzling I gradually started to lead a life of self-indulgence. I had forgotten what the hermit had taught me. I was still young and had no one to guide me, no one I could look up to. The officers joine
d in my gluttony, and those who should have been telling me off and punishing me, instead encouraged me to try out all the vices, with the result that I became so wicked and ungodly no villainy was too great for me. The consequence was that I was secretly envied on all sides: by my comrades because I was better at thieving and by the officers because I was so bold and successful at forays and had made a greater name for myself than they had. I am sure there were one or two among them who would have soon sacrificed me had I not been so liberal with my money and goods.
Chapter 2
The Huntsman of Soest gets rid of the Huntsman of Werl
I continued my depredations. I was having some devil’s masks made and frightening costumes with cloven hooves to go with them to help me terrify the enemy and also take goods from our friends unrecognised (it was the episode with the priest’s bacon that had given me the idea for this). At this point I heard there was a man in Werl who was an excellent raider, dressed himself in green and went round the countryside, though especially those areas that owed tribute to us, committing atrocities such as rape and pillage under my name. This brought serious complaints against me and would have cost me dear if I had not been able to prove I had been elsewhere at the time when he had carried out some of his attacks disguised as me. I could not let him get away with this and determined to stop him going round in my name, taking booty in my dress and bringing shame on me. With the knowledge of the commandant in Soest I challenged him to meet me in the field with swords or pistols. He did not have the guts to turn up, so I let it be known that I intended to take my revenge on him even if, to do it, I had to beard him in the lair of the commandant of Werl himself, who did not punish him. I publicly declared that if I met him out on a foray I would treat him as an enemy.
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