Summa.—On the 9th February the princely corse was laid in the very sleigh which had brought it a living body, and, followed by a grand train of princes, nobles, and knights, along with a strong guard of the ducal soldatesca, was conveyed back to Stettin; and there, with all due and befitting ceremonies, was buried on Palm Sunday in the vault of the castle church.
CHAPTER XXII.
How Barnim the Tenth succeeds to the government, and how Sidonia meets him as she is gathering bilberries. Item, of the unnatural witch-storm at his Grace's funeral, and how Duke Casimir refuses, in consequence, to succeed him.
Now Barnim the Tenth succeeded to that very duchy about which he had been so wroth the day of the Diet at Wollin, but it brought him little good. He was, however, a pious Prince, and much beloved at his dower of Rügenwald, where he spent his time in making a little library of all the Lutheran hymn-books which he could collect, and these he carried with him in his carriage wherever he went; so that his subjects of Rügenwald shed many tears at losing so pious a ruler.
Item, the moment his Grace succeeded to the government, he caused all the courts to be reopened, along with the treasury and the chancery, which his deceased Grace had kept closed to the last; and for this goodness towards his people, the states of the kingdom promised to pay all his debts, which was done; and thus lawlessness and robbery were crushed in the land.
But woe, alas!—Sidonia can no man crush! She wrote immediately to his Grace, soliciting the proebenda, and even presented herself at the ducal house of Stettin; but his Grace positively refused to lay eyes on her, knowing how fatal a meeting with her had proved to each of his brothers, who no sooner met her evil glance than they sickened and died.
Therefore his Highness held all old women in abhorrence. Indeed, such was his fear of them, that not one was allowed to approach the castle; and when he rode or drove out, lacqueys and squires went before with great horsewhips, to chase away all the old women out of his Grace's path, for truly Sidonia might be amongst them. From this, it came to pass that as soon as it was rumoured in the town, "His Grace is coming," all the old mothers seized up their pattens, and scampered off, helter-skelter, to get out of reach of the horsewhips.
But who can provide against all the arts of the devil? for though it is true that Sidonia destroyed his two brothers, also his Grace himself, along with Philip II., by her breath and glance, yet she caused a great number of other unfortunate persons to perish, without using these means, as we shall hear further on; whereby many imagined that her familiar Chim could not have been so weak a spirit as she represented him, on the rack, in order to save her life, but a strong and terrible demon. These things, however, will come in their proper place.
Summa.—After Duke Barnim had reigned several years, with great blessing to his people, it happened that word came from Rügenwald how that his brother, Duke Casimir, was sick. This was the Prince whom, we may remember, Sidonia had whipped with her irreverent hands upon his princely podex, when he was a little boy.
Now Duke Barnim had quarrelled with the estates because they refused funds for the Turkish war; however, he became somewhat merrier that evening with the Count Stephen of Naugard, when the evil tidings came to him of his beloved brother (yet more bitter sorrow is before him, I think). So the next morning the Duke set off with a train of six carriages to visit his sick brother, and by the third evening they reached the wood which lies close beside Rügenwald. Here there was a large oak, the stem of which had often served his Grace for a target, when he amused himself by practising firing. So he stopped the carriage, and alighted to see if the twenty or thirty balls he had shot into it were still there.