It was however of no avail. They insisted on this schoolmaster descending. The magistrate went first, after him a trooper, the smith followed, then another trooper, and lastly I followed, lingering. Now when they all came out through the door of the church, I remained within, bolted the little door, and ran out of the other, and crept into a turnip pit. God help me! How woeful it was for me to be obliged to stoop and lie on all-fours for a whole hour! Thus I was saved, but my dear fellow-watchers were taken to a mill and obliged to fill the flour sacks. "On the Friday before Whitsuntide I came with many citizens to Coburg. A thief had carried off my shoes, and left me a pair of old bad ones instead; I had nothing else to wear for almost a week, and both soles had fallen out, and when it became necessary to take to one's heels, the shoes turned round hindforemost, so that often I could not help laughing outright. Thus I came to Coburg. The news of my torments had reached Coburg some days before, together with the report that I had been killed; when therefore I came myself, the citizens and my old acquaintance were much astonished. Dr. Kesler, general superintendent, _item_, consul Körner, invited me several times during the Whitsuntide festival, and for a whole month the Coburgers showed great kindness to me, my wife, and children, which I lauded in print on St. John's day. "Ah, how great was the grief and misery to be seen and heard in all the surrounding small towns at that time! the inhabitants of Eisfeldt, Heldburg, and Neustadt, together with the villagers, had to make shift miserably in the town. Asking and begging was no shame. Yet I did not wish to burden too much my good host, Herr Hoffman the apothecary. I went out into the wide world with the pastor of Walburg, Eisentraut, for three weeks, _victum quærendi gratia_, to Culmbach, Bayreuth, Hirschheid, Altorf, and Nuremberg, and again back to Coburg. I then found that my wife had returned to Poppenhausen, accompanied again by the Hasische trooper, but there was nothing to eat or reap there. What God had provided me with on my journey, I was obliged to carry to the town hall and give to the soldiers, and the children were well-nigh dying of hunger. They had not been able to buy bran enough for bread. My superintendent, Herr Grams, died from the effects of the Swedish drink, at the castle four or five weeks after this turbulent time.