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Updated: June 7, 2025
In another minute Moretz found himself dragged from his pack-saddle by a couple of men, and looking up, he saw Johann Herder frowning down upon him. He struggled to free himself, for his muscles were well-knit, and he had lost but little of his vigour. He succeeded in getting near enough to Karl to whisper, "Fly away home and look after Meta. God will take care of me. Do not be afraid.
Aided by Karl, who now came up, Moretz took off Herder's clothes, and with the linen which he had collected from the slain, having first washed his wounds, he bound them carefully up. "We must carry you out of this, for the imperialists returning, will too likely kill all they find alive," said Moretz. "You cannot carry me," said Herder, faintly: "you would sink under my weight."
Scarcely had old Moretz returned to his hut, than he was visited by several of the peasants, small farmers and others, who came to urge him to join the band they were forming in the neighbourhood. His imprisonment and its cause had become known, as had also the way he had escaped. Among others, greatly to his surprise, his old enemy, Johann Herder, rode up to his door.
"A holy monk wishes to see you, and bade me tell you so." "I have no desire to see a monk," answered Moretz. "He cannot make me change my faith, and it would be time lost were he to come to me." "But he brings you a message from your grandchildren," said the gaoler. "He bade me say that if you refused to see him " Moretz thought an instant. "Let him come then," he answered.
At length, weary from his exertion, and having overrated his strength, he sat himself down to rest, as he thought in safety, for a few minutes. His eyelids closed in slumber, and, unconsciously to him, hour after hour had passed away. The sound of horns and the cries of huntsmen were heard in the forest. They awoke old Moretz from his sleep. He started up, but it was too late to conceal himself.
Moretz was asked how he dared stop and listen to an heretical preacher, and whether he thought the preacher was speaking the truth, or falsehood? "Had I thought he had been speaking falsehood, I would not have stopped to listen to him," answered the old man, boldly. "He spoke things, too, which I know are to be found in the word of God, and I am sure that all in that book is true."
I desire that our people should have their rights; but I am very sure that by the way you are proceeding you will not obtain them. A just cause cannot be supported by unjust means." Moretz, for it was he, spoke more to the same effect. Happily, Herder was not with the party, or his success might have been different.
Moretz quickly disposed of his fagots among his usual customers, and was about to return home when he saw a large crowd in the square assembled round a man who was addressing them from a roughly-raised platform. Moretz could not resist the temptation of joining the crowd, for a few words which reached his ears interested him greatly.
At length, so widely had spread the doctrines of the Reformation, that the authorities at Hornberg no longer ventured to persecute those who professed it, and Moretz did not, therefore, require the count's protection. Meta and Karl had remained at the cottage, notwithstanding the threats of Herr Herder. Every day, however, they had been expecting to receive another order to quit their home.
She provided a comfortable house for old Moretz, and watched over him affectionately till, in extreme old age, he quitted this world for one far better. Karl became the head steward of her estates, and ever proved himself a true and faithful man, as he had been an honest and good boy.
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