I now resume my personal narrative. During the rebuilding of this new property, I was fetching and carrying all the while. One day my father sent me to our own house for the luncheon for himself and for the carpenters. The workmen were just knocking down a chimney; they were working higher than the chimney on a gangway made of boards which at each extremity overlapped the stays. A great number of large nails were strewn about the scaffolding. I climbed up, with my arms full of provisions, but scarcely did I set my foot on the gangway than the gangway toppled over and I was flung into space, the nails descending in a shower on my head. I just happened to fall by the side of the open chimney; half an ell more or less and I should have been through its aperture on the ground floor. As it was, the accident proved sufficiently serious. I had dislocated my right elbow and horribly bruised my arm. They took me home, whence my mother took me to Master Joachim Gelhaar. He was absent, and inasmuch as the case seemed urgent, they had recourse to the barber in the Old Market, who dressed the bruises without noticing that the bone was dislocated. Next morning Master Gelhaar came. A simple glance was sufficient for him; he grasped my arm, pulled and twisted it and put the bones back into their sockets. But the limb was bruised and swollen and twisted. I shall never forget the pain I suffered. In a little while, though, I was enabled to go about the house as usual with one arm in a sling, and the other available for our childish pastimes.
The old beams and rafters of the premises under repair were stacked at our place. One day, while perched on one of the piles, I struck out with a hammer in my left hand; one of the beams rolled down and my leg was caught between it and the other wood. The pain made me cry out lustily, but it was impossible to disengage my leg. My mother was not strong enough for the task, and making sure that my leg was crushed, she shouted and fetched the navvies and the brewery workmen; they delivered me. When she was certain that no harm had come to me, my mother, still excited, treated me to a good drubbing. On New Year's Day, 1533, my father was elected dean of the Corporation of Drapers.[[20]]
[CHAPTER III]
Showing the Ingratitude, Foolishness and Wickedness of the People, and how, when once infected with a bad Spirit, it returns with Difficulty to Common-Sense--Smiterlow, Lorbeer and the Duke of Mecklenburg--Fall of the seditious Regime of the Forty-Eight
The ecclesiastical affairs of Stralsund had assumed more or less regular conditions; the Gospel was preached in all the churches without opposition either on the part of the princes or of the council. Smiterlow had sanctioned the return of Rolof Moller. Nevertheless, peace was not maintained for long, Lubeck, Rostock, Stralsund and Wismar having revolted against their magistrates. In fact, at the death of King Frederick of Denmark, George Wullenweber,[[21]] burgomaster of Lubeck, having for his acolyte Marx Meyer, decided to declare war upon Duke Christian of Holstein.
According to Wullenweber, the conquest of Denmark was a certainty; and inasmuch as the magistrates of Lubeck, belonging to the old families, looked with apprehension on the enterprise, they were deposed and sixty burghers added to their successors.
Marx Meyer was a working blacksmith with a handsome face and figure. Being a skilful farrier he had accompanied the cavalry in several campaigns, and his conduct both with regard to his comrades and the enemy had been such as to gain for him the highest grades. He was created a Knight in England and amassed a considerable fortune. His rise in the world filled him, however, with inordinate pride and vanity. Nothing in the way of sumptuous garments and golden ornaments seemed good enough to emphasize his knightly dignity. He had a crowd of retainers and a stable full of horses, for like the majority of folk of low birth, he knew of no bounds in his prosperity. Odd to relate, he was courted by people of good condition; women both young, rich and well-born fell in love with this, and it would appear that he gave them no cause to regret their infatuation. I have read a letter written to him by one of the foremost ladies of quality of Hamburg: "My dear Marx, after having visited all the chapels, you might for once in a way come to the cathedral." May his death be accounted as an instance of everlasting justice.
In June 1534 the councillors of the Wendish cities,[[22]] apprehending a disaster and being moreover exceedingly grieved at this struggle against the excellent Duke of Holstein, foregathered at Hamburg to consider the state of affairs. Wullenweber, however, presumptuous as was his wont, became more obstinate than ever and rejected with scorn most acceptable terms of peace. Hence, the Stralsund delegate, Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, addressed the following prophetic words to him: "I have been present at many negotiations, but never have I seen matters treated like this, Signor George. You will knock your head against the wall and you shall fall on your beam end." After that apostrophe, Wullenweber, furious with anger, left the council-chamber, made straight for his inn, had his and Meyer's horses saddled and both took the way back to Lubeck, where immediately after his arrival Wullenweber summoned his undignified council and the aforementioned sixty burghers, who between them decree in the twinkling of an eye a levy of troops; dispatching meanwhile to the council of Stralsund a blatant sedition-monger, Johannes Holm, with verbal instructions and a missive couched substantially as follows: "Wullenweber is zealously working to bring principalities and kingdoms under the authority of the cities, but the opposition of Burgomaster Smiterlow has driven him from the diet. In spite of this, the struggle is bound to continue, so it lays with you to act."
Nothing more than that was wanted to stir the whole of the citizens against Smiterlow. The Forty-Eight came to tender their condolence to Burgomaster Lorbeer who was secretly jealous of his colleague. Pretending to be greatly concerned, he exclaimed: "This is too much, impossible to defend him any longer." His hearers took it for granted that Smiterlow was left to their discretion, while, according to Lorbeer himself, the ambiguous words merely signified: "Smiterlow has so many enemies that I can no longer come to his aid."
At Smiterlow's return, the fire so skilfully fed by Lorbeer broke into flame. People hailed each other with the cry, "Nicholas the Pacific is here." The delegate had to deliver an account of his mission to the burghers summoned to that effect at six in the morning, at the Town Hall, with the city-gates closed and the cannon taken out of the arsenal and placed in position in the Old Markets The crowd poured into the streets, and at the Town Hall itself people were crushing the life out of each other. When Nicholas Smiterlow came to his statement that he had opposed Wullenweber's warlike motions, there was a hurricane of cries, curses and insults; it sounded as if they had all gone stark mad at once. It was proposed to fling the speaker out of the window; an axe was flung at the Councillors' bench and in endeavouring to intercept the weapon the worshipful Master Kasskow was severely wounded. One individual placed himself straight in front of the burgomaster. "You scum of the earth," he yelled; "did you not unjustly fine me twenty florins? Now it is my turn." "What's your name?" asked Smiterlow. "That's right," he said on its being given; "it was a piece of injustice, he ought to have had the gallows. I was sheriff at the time and the council instructed me to fine you twenty florins. My register of fines can show you that I did not keep them for myself, but spent them for the good of the city." His interlocutor wished to hear no more and disappeared in the crowd.