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Zacharias Topelius
The King's Ring
Being a Romance of the Days of Gustavus Adolphus and the Thirty Years' War
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066230937
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. THE BATTLE OF BREITENFELD.
CHAPTER II. THE NOBLEMAN WITHOUT A NAME.
CHAPTER IV. LADY REGINA'S OATH.
CHAPTER V. JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES.
CHAPTER VI. THE FINNS AT LECH.
CHAPTER VIII. NÜRNBERG AND LÜTZEN.
CHAPTER I. A MAN FROM THE PEASANTS' WAR.
CHAPTER II. ASHAMED OF A PEASANT'S NAME.
CHAPTER III. THE SOUTHERN FLOWER COMES TO THE NORTH.
CHAPTER IV. THE PEASANT—THE BURGHERS—AND THE SOLDIER.
CHAPTER V. LADY REGINA ARRIVES AT KORSHOLM.
THE LOVE OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH.
CHAPTER VII. THE SIEGE OF KORSHOLM.
CHAPTER I. THE TREASURE FROM THE BATTLEFIELD.
CHAPTER II. TWO OLD ACQUAINTANCES.
CHAPTER IV. DUKE BERNHARD AND BERTEL.
CHAPTER V. LOVE AND HATE AGREE.
CHAPTER VI. THE BATTLE OF NÖRDLINGEN.
CHAPTER VIII. THE FUGITIVE LADY.
CHAPTER IX. DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA.
CHAPTER XI. THE PRISONER OF STATE.
CHAPTER XIII. AVAUNT, EVIL SPIRIT.
CHAPTER XIV. THE JUDGMENT OF THE SAINTS.
CHAPTER XV. BERTEL AND REGINA.
CHAPTER XVI. THE KING'S RING—THE SWORD AND THE PLOUGH—FIRE AND WATER.
INTRODUCTION.
WHICH TREATS OF THE SURGEON'S PERSON AND LIFE.
The surgeon was born in a small town of East Bothnia, the same day as Napoleon I., August 15th, 1769. I well remember the day, as he always used to celebrate it with a little party of relatives and a dozen children; and as he was very fond of the latter, we were allowed to make as much noise as we pleased, and throw everything into absolute confusion on this anniversary.
It was the pride of the surgeon's life that he was born on the same day as the Great Conqueror, and this coincidence was also the cause of several of his important experiences. But his pride and ambition were of a mild and good-tempered kind, and quite different from the powerful desires which can force their way through a thousand obstacles to attain an exalted position. How often does the famous one count all the victims who have bled for his glory on the battlefield, all the tears, all the human misery through which his way leads to an illusionary greatness, perhaps, doomed to last a few centuries at most?
The surgeon used to say that he was a great rogue in his childhood; but exhibiting good intelligence, he was sent by a wealthy uncle to a school in Vasa.
At eighteen, with a firkin of butter in a wagon, and seventeen thalers in his purse, he went to Abo to pass his examination. This well accomplished, he was at liberty to strive for the gown and surplice of an ecclesiastic. But his thoughts wandered far too often from his Hebrew Codex to the square where the troops frequently assembled.
"Oh!" thought he, "if I were only a soldier, standing there in the ranks, and ready to fight like my father, for king and country."
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