echoed the singers enthusiastically. Then others gathering about the rude minstrel took up the strain, till far and wide resounded the triumphant notes of the ballad of the battle of Granson. How every heart swelled as Werni, hoarse and weary, concluded:
“The Confederation, whate’er betide,
Doth ever fast and firm abide,
As this day well hath proven;
The fame of Granson’s martial band
Shall ring triumphant through the land,
With praises interwoven.”
Chapter IX
The Hero of Murten
Before midsummer Charles the Bold had repaired his losses as well as his means would permit, and levied a new army. His subjects had begun to murmur and lose faith in his success, but the Duke himself remained undaunted. He had advanced dangerously near to the Cantons of Berne and Freiburg, and was now laying siege to Murten, a strongly fortified town on the lake of that name. He expected it to share the fate of Granson; but the commander, Adrian von Bubenberg, was a very different sort of man from the leader of that ill-fated garrison. In vain the besiegers shot arrows into the town wound with slips of paper bearing such inscriptions as: “You are shut up here like rats in a hole. The Bernese churls cannot save you, and all the gold in the world would not buy you escape.”
Threats and promises were alike of no avail. “The perjurers of Granson will never find credence in Murten,” was the commander’s reply to all proposals of surrender; nor was he less firm in suppressing all signs of wavering within the walls. Summoning the citizens and soldiers before him, he addressed them sternly: