Item. When his Princely Highness had also inquired concerning myself and my cure, and heard that I was of ancient and noble family, and my salarium very small, he called from the window to his chancellor, D. Rungius, who stood without, looking at the sun-dial, and told him that I was to have an addition from the convent at Pudgla, item, from the crown-lands at Ernsthoff, as I mentioned above, but, more's the pity, I never have received the same, although the instrumentum donationis was sent me soon after by his Princely Highness chancellor.

Then cakes were brought for me also, item, a glass of foreign wine in a glass painted with armorial bearings, whereupon I humbly took my leave, together with my daughter.

However, to come back to my bargain, anybody may guess what joy my child felt when I showed her the fair ducats and florins I had gotten for the amber. To the maid, however, we said that we had inherited such riches from my brother in Holland, and after we had again given thanks to the Lord on our knees, and eaten our dinner, we bought in a great store of bread, salt, meat, and stock-fish: item, of clothes, seeing that I provided what was needful for us three throughout the winter from the cloth-merchant. Moreover, for my daughter, I bought a hair-net and a scarlet silk boddice, with a black apron and a white petticoat, item, a fine pair of ear-rings, as she begged hard for them; and as soon as I had ordered the needful from the cordwainer we set out on our way homeward, as it began to grow very dark; but we could not carry nearly all we had bought. Wherefore we were forced to get a peasant from Bannemin to help us, who likewise was come into the town, and as I found out from him that the fellow who gave me the piece of bread was a poor cotter called Pantermehl, who dwelt in the village by the roadside, I shoved a couple of loaves in at his house-door without his knowing it, and we went on our way by the bright moonlight, so that by the help of God we got home about ten o'clock at night. I likewise gave a loaf to the other fellow, though truly he deserved it not, seeing that he would go with us no further than to Zitze. But I let him go, for I, too, had not deserved that the Lord should so greatly bless me.

CHAPTER XI.

How I fed all the congregation: item, how I journeyed to the horse-fair of Gützkow, and what befel me there.

NEXT morning my daughter cut up the blessed bread, and sent to every one in the village a good large piece. But as we saw that our store would soon run low, we sent the maid with a truck, which we bought of Adam Lempken, to Wolgast to buy more bread, which she did. Item, I gave notice throughout the parish that on Sunday next I should administer the blessed sacrament, and in the mean time I bought up all the large fish that the people of the village had caught. And when the blessed Sunday was come I first heard the confessions of the whole parish, and after that I preached a sermon on Matt. xv. 32, "I have compassion on the multitude. . . . for they have nothing to eat." I first applied the same to spiritual food only, and there arose a great sighing from both the men and women, when, at the end, I pointed to the altar whereon stood the blessed food for the soul, and repeated the words, "I have compassion on the multitude for they have nothing to eat." (N.B. The pewter cup I had borrowed at Wolgast, and bought there a little earthenware plate for a paten till such time as Master Bloom should have made ready the silver cup and paten I had bespoke.) Thereupon as soon as I had consecrated and administered the blessed sacrament, item, led the closing hymn, and every one had silently prayed his "Our Father" before going out of the church, I came out of the confessional again, and motioned the people to stay yet awhile, as the blessed Saviour would feed not only their souls, but their bodies also, seeing that he still had the same compassion on his people as of old on the people at the Sea of Galilee, as they should presently see. Then I went into the tower and fetched out two baskets, which the maid had bought at Wolgast, and which I had hidden there

in good time; set them down in front of the altar, and took off the napkins with which they were covered, whereupon a very loud shout arose, inasmuch as they saw one filled with broiled fish and the other with bread, which we had put into them privately. Hereupon, like our Saviour, I gave thanks and brake it, and gave it to the churchwarden Hinrich Seden, that he might distribute it among the men, and to my daughter for the women. Whereupon I made application of the text, “I have compassion on the multitude, for they have nothing to eat," to the food of the body also; and walking up and down in the church amid great outcries from all, I exhorted them alway to trust in God's mercy, to pray without ceasing, to work diligently, and to consent to no sin. What was left I made them gather up for their children and the old people who were left at

home.

After church, when I had scarce put off my surplice, Hinrich Seden his squint-eyed wife came and impudently asked for more for her husband's journey to Liepe; neither had she had anything for herself, seeing she had not come to church. This angered me sore, and I said to her, "Why wast thou not at church? Nevertheless, if thou hadst come humbly to me thou shouldst have gotten somewhat even now, but as thou comest impudently, I will give thee naught: think on what thou didst to me and to my child." But she stood at the door and glowered impudently about the room till my daughter took her by the arm and led her out, saying, "Hear'st thou, thou shalt come back humbly before thou gett'st anything, but when thou comest thus, thou also shalt have thy share, for we will no longer reckon with thee an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; let the Lord do that if such be his will, but we will gladly forgive thee !" Hereupon she at last went out at the door, muttering to herself as she was wont; but she spat several times in the street, as we saw from the window.

Soon after I made up my mind to take into my service a lad, near upon twenty years of age, called Claus Neels, seeing that his father, old Neels of Loddin, begged hard that I would do so, besides which the lad pleased me well in manners and otherwise. Then, as we had a good harvest this year, I resolved to

buy me a couple of horses forthwith, and to sow my field again; for although it was now late in the year, I thought that the most merciful God might bless the crop with increase if it seemed good to him.

Neither did I feel much care with respect to food for them, inasmuch as there was a great plenty of hay in the neighborhood, seeing that all the cattle had been killed or driven away (as related above). I therefore made up my mind to go in God's name with my new ploughman to Gützkow, whither a great many Mecklenburg horses were brought to the fair, seeing that times were not yet so bad there as with us.* Meanwhile I went a few more times up the Streckelberg with my daughter at night, and by moonlight, but found very little; so that we began to think our luck had come to an end, when, on the third night, we broke off some pieces of amber bigger even than those the two Dutchmen had bought. These I resolved to send

to my wife's brother, Martin Behring, at Hamburg, seeing that the schipper Wulff of Wolgast intends, as I am told, to sail thither this very autumn, with pitch and wood for ship-building. I accordingly packed it all up in a strong chest, which I carried with me to Wolgast when I started with my man on my journey to Gützkow. Of this journey I will only relate thus much, that there were plenty of horses, and very few buyers in the market. Wherefore I bought a pair of fine black horses for twenty florins a-piece; item, a cart for five florins; item, twenty-five bushels of rye which also came from Mecklenburg, at one florin the bushel, whereas it is hardly to be had now at Wolgast for love or money, and costs three florins or more the bushel. I might therefore have made a good bargain in rye at Gützkow if it had become my office, and had I not, moreover, been afraid lest the robbers, who swarm in these evil times, should take away my corn, and ill-use, and perchance murder me into the bargain, as has happened to sundry people already. For, at this time especially, such robberies were carried on after a strange and frightful fashion on Strellin heath at Gütz

* The fief of Mecklenburg was given by the Emperor to Wallenstein, who spared the country as much as he could.

kow; but by God's help it all came to light just as I journeyed thither with my man-servant to the fair, and I will here tell how it happened. Some months before a man had been broken on the wheel at Gützkow, because, being tempted of Satan, he murdered a travelling workman. The man, however, straightway began to walk after so fearful a fashion, that in the evening and night-season he sprang down from the wheel in his gallows' dress whenever a cart passed by the gallows, which stands hard by the road to Wolgast, and jumped up behind the people, who in horror and dismay flogged on their horses, and thereby make a great rattling on the log-embankment which leads beside the gallows into a little wood called the Kraulin. And it was a strange thing that on the same night the travellers were almost always robbed or murdered on Strellin heath. Hereupon the magistrates had the man taken down from the wheel, and buried under the gallows, in hopes of laying his ghost. But it went on just as before, sitting at night snowwhite on the wheel, so that none durst any longer travel the road to Wolgast. Until at last it happened that, at the time of the above-named fair, young Rüdiger von Nienkerken of Mellenthin, in Usedom, who had been studying at Wittenberg and elsewhere, and was now on his way home, came this road by night with his carriage. Just before, at the inn, I myself had tried to persuade him to stop the night at Gützkow on account of the ghost, and to go on his journey with me next morning, but he would not. Now as soon as this young lord drove along the road, he also espied the apparition sitting on the wheel, and scarcely had he passed the gallows when the ghost jumped down and ran after him. The driver was horribly afraid, and lashed on the horses as everybody else had done before, and they, taking fright, galloped away over the log-road with a marvellous clatter. Meanwhile, however, the young nobleman saw by the light of the moon how that the apparition flattened a ball of horse-dung whereon it trod, and straightway felt sure within himself that it was no ghost. Whereupon he called to the driver to stop; and as the man would not hearken to him, he sprung out of the carriage, drew his rapier, and hastened to attack the ghost. When the ghost saw this he would have