LITMIR.BIZ

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at the very same inn which the famous old robber-knight and rough fighter Goetz von Berlichingen, abode in after he got out of captivity in the Square Tower of Heilbronn between three hundred and fifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied the same room which he had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off the walls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full four hundred

       years old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. There was a hook

       in the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to hang his iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed. This room was very large--it might be called immense--and it was on the first floor; which means it was in the second story, for in Europe the houses are so

       high that they do not count the first story, else they would get tired climbing before they got to the top. The wallpaper was a fiery red, with huge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it covered all the doors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures of the paper so unbrokenly, that when they were closed one had to go feeling and searching along the wall to find them. There was a stove in the corner--one of those tall, square, stately white porcelain things that

       looks like a monument and keeps you thinking of death when you ought to be enjoying your travels. The windows looked out on a little alley, and

       over that into a stable and some poultry and pig yards in the rear of

       some tenement-houses. There were the customary two beds in the room,

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       one in one end, the other in the other, about an old-fashioned brass-mounted, single-barreled pistol-shot apart. They were fully

       as narrow as the usual German bed, too, and had the German bed's ineradicable habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time you forgot yourself and went to sleep.

       A round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the center of the room;

       while the waiters were getting ready to serve our dinner on it we

       all went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipal buildings.

       CHAPTER XII

       [What the Wives Saved]

       The RATHHAUS, or municipal building, is of the quaintest and most picturesque Middle-Age architecture. It has a massive portico and steps, before it, heavily balustraded, and adorned with life-sized rusty iron knights in complete armor. The clock-face on the front of the building is very large and of curious pattern. Ordinarily, a gilded angel

       strikes the hour on a big bell with a hammer; as the striking ceases, a life-sized figure of Time raises its hour-glass and turns it; two golden rams advance and butt each other; a gilded cock lifts its wings; but the

       main features are two great angels, who stand on each side of the dial

       with long horns at their lips; it was said that they blew melodious

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       blasts on these horns every hour--but they did not do it for us. We were told, later, that they blew only at night, when the town was still.

       Within the RATHHAUS were a number of huge wild boars' heads, preserved, and mounted on brackets along the wall; they bore inscriptions telling

       who killed them and how many hundred years ago it was done. One room in the building was devoted to the preservation of ancient archives. There

       they showed us no end of aged documents; some were signed by Popes, some by Tilly and other great generals, and one was a letter written and subscribed by Goetz von Berlichingen in Heilbronn in 1519 just after his release from the Square Tower.

       This fine old robber-knight was a devoutly and sincerely religious man, hospitable, charitable to the poor, fearless in fight, active, enterprising, and possessed of a large and generous nature. He had in him a quality of being able to overlook moderate injuries, and being able to forgive and forget mortal ones as soon as he had soundly

       trounced the authors of them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil's quarrel and risk his neck to right him. The common folk held him dear, and his memory is still green in ballad and tradition. He used to go on

       the highway and rob rich wayfarers; and other times he would swoop down from his high castle on the hills of the Neckar and capture passing

       cargoes of merchandise. In his memoirs he piously thanks the Giver of all Good for remembering him in his needs and delivering sundry such cargoes into his hands at times when only special providences could have relieved him. He was a doughty warrior and found a deep joy in battle.

       In an assault upon a stronghold in Bavaria when he was only twenty-three

       years old, his right hand was shot away, but he was so interested in the

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       fight that he did not observe it for a while. He said that the iron hand

       which was made for him afterward, and which he wore for more than half a

       century, was nearly as clever a member as the fleshy one had been. I was glad to get a facsimile of the letter written by this fine old German Robin Hood, though I was not able to read it. He was a better artist

       with his sword than with his pen.

       We went down by the river and saw the Square Tower. It was a very venerable structure, very strong, and very ornamental. There was no opening near the ground. They had to use a ladder to get into it, no doubt.

       We visited the principal church, also--a curious old structure, with a towerlike spire adorned with all sorts of grotesque images. The inner walls of the church were placarded with large mural tablets of copper, bearing engraved inscriptions celebrating the merits of old Heilbronn worthies of two or three centuries ago, and also bearing rudely painted effigies of themselves and their families tricked out in the queer costumes of those days. The head of the family sat in the foreground, and beyond him extended a sharply receding and diminishing row of sons; facing him sat his wife, and beyond her extended a low row of diminishing daughters. The family was usually large, but the perspective bad.

       Then we hired the hack and the horse which Goetz von Berlichingen used to use, and drove several miles into the country to visit the place

       called WEIBERTREU--Wife's Fidelity I suppose it means. It was a feudal castle of the Middle Ages. When we reached its neighborhood we found

       it was beautifully situated, but on top of a mound, or hill, round and

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       tolerably steep, and about two hundred feet high. Therefore, as the sun was blazing hot, we did not climb up there, but took the place on trust, and observed it from a distance while the horse leaned up against a fence and rested. The place has no interest except that which is lent it

       by its legend, which is a very pretty one--to this effect:

       THE LEGEND

       In the Middle Ages, a couple of young dukes, brothers, took opposite sides in one of the wars, the one fighting for the Emperor, the other against him. One of them owned the castle and village on top of the mound which I have been speaking of, and in his absence his brother came with his knights and soldiers and began a siege. It was a long and tedious business, for the people made a stubborn and faithful defense. But at last their supplies ran out and starvation began its work;

       more fell by hunger than by the missiles of the enemy. They by and

       by surrendered, and begged for charitable terms. But the beleaguering prince was so incensed against them for their long resistance that he

       said he would spare none but the women and children--all men should be put to the sword without exception, and all their goods destroyed. Then the women came and fell on their knees and begged for the lives of their husbands.

       "No," said the prince, "not a man of them shall escape alive; you yourselves shall go with your children into houseless and friendless banishment; but that you may not starve I grant you this one grace,

       that each woman may bear with her from this place as much of her most

       valuable property as she is able to carry."

      

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