Great God! what a mass of amber was there! The vein was hard upon twenty feet long, as near as I could feel, and the depth of it I could not sound. Nevertheless, save four good-sized pieces, none, however, so big as those of yesterday, we this day only broke out little splinters, such as the apothecaries bruise for incense. After we had most carefully covered and smoothed over the place, a great mishap was very near befalling us; for we met Witthan her little girl, who was seeking blackberries, and she asked what my daughter carried in her apron, who straightway grew red, and stammered so that our secret would have been betrayed if I had not presently said, "What is that to thee? She has got fir-apples for firing," which the child believed. Wherefore we resolved in future only to go up the mountain at night by moonlight, and we went home and got there before the maid, and hid our treasure in the bedstead, so that she should not see it. _The Tenth Chapter_ HOW WE JOURNEYED TO WOLGAST, AND MADE GOOD BARTER THERE Two days after, so says my daughter, but old Ilse thinks it was three (and I myself know not which is true), we at last went to the town, seeing that Master Rothoog had not got the box ready before. My daughter covered it over with a piece of my departed wife her wedding-gown, which the Imperialists had indeed torn to pieces, but as they had left it lying outside, the wind had blown it into the orchard, where we found it. It was very shabby before, otherwise I doubt not they would have carried it off with them. On account of the box, we took old Ilse with us, who had to carry it, and, as amber is very light ware, she readily believed that the box held nothing but eatables. At daybreak, then, we took our staves in our hands and set out with God. Near Zitze, a hare ran across the road before us, which they say bodes no good. Well-a-day! When we came near Bannemin I asked a fellow if it was true that here a mother had slaughtered her own child from hunger, as I had heard. He said it was, and that the old woman's name was Zisse; but that God had been wroth at such a horrid deed, and she had got no good by it, seeing that she vomited so much upon eating it that she forthwith gave up the ghost. On the whole, he thought things were already going rather better with the parish, as Almighty God had richly blessed them with fish, both out of the sea and the Achterwater. Nevertheless a great number of people had died of hunger here also. He told us that their vicar, his reverence Johannes Lampius, had had his house burnt down by the Imperialists, and was lying in a hovel near the church. I sent him my greeting, desiring that he would soon come to visit me (which the fellow promised he would take care to deliver to him), for the reverend Johannes is a pious and learned man, and has also composed sundry Latin _Chronosticha_ on these wretched times, in _metrum heroicum_, which, I must say, please me greatly.