The king's ring

BEING A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS OF
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH OF ZACHARIAS TOPELIUS BY SOPHIE ÖHRWALL AND HERBERT ARNOLD
With a Photogravure Portrait of Topelius (missing from source book)
Copyright London: Jarrold & Sons Boston: L. C. Page & Company
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER

WHICH TREATS OF THE SURGEON'S PERSON AND LIFE.
The surgeon was born in a small town of East Bothnia, the same day as Napoleon I., August 15th, 1769. I well remember the day, as he always used to celebrate it with a little party of relatives and a dozen children; and as he was very fond of the latter, we were allowed to make as much noise as we pleased, and throw everything into absolute confusion on this anniversary.
It was the pride of the surgeon's life that he was born on the same day as the Great Conqueror, and this coincidence was also the cause of several of his important experiences. But his pride and ambition were of a mild and good-tempered kind, and quite different from the powerful desires which can force their way through a thousand obstacles to attain an exalted position. How often does the famous one count all the victims who have bled for his glory on the battlefield, all the tears, all the human misery through which his way leads to an illusionary greatness, perhaps, doomed to last a few centuries at most?
The surgeon used to say that he was a great rogue in his childhood; but exhibiting good intelligence, he was sent by a wealthy uncle to a school in Vasa.