it! Thus I had some joy in the midst of my trouble. But while I sat by the
fireside in the evening musing on my fate, my grief again broke forth, and
I made up my mind to leave my house, and even my cure, and to wander
through the wide world with my daughter as a beggar. God knows I had cause
enough for it; for now that all my hopes were dashed, seeing that my field
was quite ruined, and that the Sheriff had become my bitter enemy;
moreover, that it was five years since I had had a wedding, _item_, but
two christenings during the past year, I saw my own and my daughter's
death staring me in the face, and no prospect of better times at hand. Our
want was increased by the great fears of the congregation; for although
by God's wondrous mercy they had already begun to take good draughts of
fish both in the sea and the Achterwater, and many of the people in the
other villages had already gotten bread, salt, oatmeal, etc., from the
Polters and Quatzners, of Anklam and Lassan in exchange for their fish;
nevertheless, they brought me nothing, fearing lest it might be told at
Pudgla, and make his lordship ungracious to them. I therefore beckoned my
daughter to me, and told her what was in my thoughts, saying that God in
his mercy could any day bestow on me another cure if I was found worthy in
his sight of such a favour, seeing that these terrible days of pestilence
and war had called away many of the servants of his word, and that I had
not fled like a hireling from his flock, but on the contrary, till _datum_
shared sorrow and death with it. Whether she were able to walk five or ten
miles a day; for that then we would beg our way to Hamburg, to my departed
wife her step-brother, Martin Behring, who is a great merchant in that
city.

This at first sounded strange to her, seeing that she had very seldom been
out of our parish, and that her departed mother and her little brother lay
in our churchyard. She asked, "Who was to make up their graves and plant
flowers on them? _Item_, as the Lord had given her a smooth face, what I