village. A peasant enraged at the
forcible abstraction of his hay, had set his whole provision on fire,
and stole unmolested away. It was useless to think of extinguishing
the flames. With a grim laugh the laborers sat on the walls of the
church-yard and looked on at the little church burning down. "If these
people will not help themselves in any way," said the physicians, "let
us leave them. When the pestilence has raged itself out it will cease
of itself." Erastus urged them to make one more house to house
visitation. They shrugged their shoulders and left it to him. The well
intentioned physician met only with senseless objections or coarse
abuse on giving orders in the nearest house, that the infected objects
should be burnt. He at length lost all patience, and declared he would
hand over no provisions to those who refused to obey his directions.
He then together with his laborers began clearing out the empty
farm-yards, so that after this work had been completed, the healthy
could occupy them instead of their infected dens in the village. Here
and there large fires fed by the straw beds of the patients now flamed
up, and the disgusting smell of burnt linen filled the entire valley.
But Erastus' own people had had already enough of the affair. Nothing
was done as quick as he ordered it, or as he had ordered it. The
laborers took advantage of the evacuation of the sick-dens to pilfer,
as predicted by the peasants, and the villagers stood in angry groups
together consulting as to whether they could not resist by force the
attacks of these strangers. Finally Erastus was compelled to make the
humiliating confession to himself, that without priestly intervention
he could never attain his object among this debased population. Paul's
miracle on the Kreuzweg appeared to him now in a much milder light. So
he sat down on a stone and wrote a letter to the Magister. "Jurists and
medical men abdicate, and pray for help from the theologians," he began
his request to Paul, asking him whether he could not leave Schoenau to
itself for a short while, so as to place matters here on a better
footing. One of the laborers was despatched to the monastery with this
prayer to the miracle-monger, a request disagreeable enough to Erastus,
who himself returned once more to his thankless duties. The mood of the
peasants had now become belligerent. They stood around the carts in
groups and declared that the Kurfuerst had sent these provisions for