My Lady Rotha by Stanley J. Weyman — Read

After this it fared with us as it fares at last with the driftwood that chance or the woodman's axe has given to a forest stream in Heritzburg. After rippling over the shallows and shooting giddily down slopes -- or perchance lying cooped for days in some dark bend, until the splash of the otter or the spring freshet has sent it dancing on in sunshine and shadow -- it reaches at last the Werra. It floats out on the bosom of the great stream, and no longer tossed and chafed by each tiny pebble, feels the force of wind and stream -- the great forces of the world. The banks recede from sight, and one of a million atoms, it is borne on gently and irresistibly, whither it does not know. So it was with us. From the day we fell in with Count Leuchtenstein and set our faces towards Nuremberg, and in a greater degree after we reached that city, we embarked on a wider current of adventure, a fuller and less selfish life. If we had still our own cares and griefs, hopes and perils -- as must be the case, I suppose, until we die -- we had other common ones which we shared with tens of thousands, rich and poor, gentle and simple. We had to dread sack and storm; we prayed for relief and safety in company with all who rose and lay down within the walls. When a hundred waggons of corn slipped through the Croats and came in, or Duke Bernard of Weimar beat up a corner of the Burgstall and gave Wallenstein a bad night, we ran out into the streets to tell and hear the news.

Similarly, when tidings came that Tzerclas with his two thousand ruffians had burned the King of Sweden's colours, put on green sashes, and marched into the enemy's camp, we were not alone in our gloomy anticipations. We still had our private adventures, and I am going to tell them. But besides these, it should be remembered that we ran the risks, and rose every morning fresh to the fears, of Nuremberg. When bread rose to ten, to fifteen, to twenty times its normal price; when the city, where many died every day of famine, plague, and wounds, began to groan and heave in its misery; when through all the country round the peasants crawled and died among the dead; when Wallenstein, that dark man, heedless of the fearful mortality in his own camp, still sat implacable on the heights and refused all the king's invitations to battle, we grew pale and gloomy, stern-eyed and thin-cheeked with the rest. We dreamed of Magdeburg as they did; and as the hot August days passed slowly over the starving city and still no end appeared, but only with each day some addition of misery, we felt our hearts sink in unison with theirs.