Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/524

 whatever you ask of the archbishop will be speedily granted."

"We shall ask nothing," cried the blacksmith, "but his blessing, and be deeply honored in receiving it."

Whereupon the blacksmith, seizing his hammer, went to the door of his hut, where there hung outside what seemed to be part of a suit of armor, which served, at the same time, as a sign of his profession and as a tocsin. He smote the hanging iron with his sledge until the clangorous reverberation echoed through all the valley, and presently there came hurrying to him eight of his stalwart sons, who had been occupied in tilling the fields.

"Scatter ye," cried the blacksmith, "over all the land where my name is known. Rouse the people, and tell them the Hungarians are upon us. Urge all to collect here at the smithy before midnight, with whatever of arms or weapons they may be possessed. Those who have no arms let them bring poles for pike-handles, and your brothers and myself will busily make pike-heads of iron until they come. Tell them they are called to action by a lord from the Archbishop of Treves himself, and that I shall lead them. Tell them they fight for their homes, their wives, and their children. And now away!"

The eight young men at once dispersed in several directions. The smith himself shod the envoy's horse, and begged him to inform the archbishop that they would defend the passes of the Eifel while a man of them remained alive.

Long before midnight the peasants came straggling to the smithy from all quarters, and by daylight the blacksmith had led them over the volcanic hills to the lip of the tremendous pass through which the Hungarians must come. The sides of this chasm were precipitous and hundreds of feet in height. Even the peasants themselves, knowing the rocks as they did, could not have climbed from the bottom of the pass below to the height they now occupied. They had, therefore, little fear that the numerous Hungarians could scale the walls and decimate their scanty band.

When the Hungarian army appeared, the blacksmith and his men rolled great stones and rocks down upon them, practically annihilating the advance-guard and throwing the whole army into confusion. The week's struggle that followed forms one of the most exciting episodes in German history. Again and again the Hungarians attempted the pass, but nothing could withstand the avalanche of stones and rocks with which they were overwhelmed. Nevertheless the devoted little band did not have things all their own way. They were so few, and they had to keep such close watch night and day, that before the week was out many turned longing eyes in the direction from which the archbishop's army was expected to come. It was not until the seventh day that help arrived; and then the archbishop's forces speedily put to flight the now demoralized Hungarians, and chased them once more across the Rhine.

"There is nothing now left for us to do," said the tired blacksmith to his little following; "so I will get back to my forge, and you to your farms." And this, without more ado, they did; the cheering and inspiring ring of iron on anvil awakening the echoes of the Alf-thal once again.

The blacksmith and his twelve sons were at their noon-day meal when an imposing cavalcade rode up to the smithy, at the head of which procession was the archbishop, and the blacksmith and his dozen sons were covered with confusion to think they had such a distinguished visitor, without the means of receiving him in accordance with his station. But the archbishop said:

"Blacksmith Arras, you and your sons would not wait for me to thank you, so I am now come to you, that in the presence of all these followers of mine I may pay fitting tribute to your loyalty and your great bravery."

Then indeed did the modest blacksmith consider he had received more than ample compensation for what he had done, which, after all, as he told his neighbors, was merely his duty; so why should a man be thanked for it?

"Blacksmith," said the archbishop, as he mounted his horse to return to Treves, "thanks cost little and are easily bestowed. I hope, however, to have a Christmas present for you which will show the whole country round how much I esteem true valor."