The ice broke under the king's horse and he was going
down when two of his men caught him in the nick of time. He got away
with the loss of his sword, his pistols, and his gloves. "I will
remember you with a crust that shall do for your bairns too," he
promised one of his rescuers, a stout peasant lad, and he kept his
word. Thomas Larsson's descendants a generation ago still tilled the
farm the King gave him. When the trouble with Denmark was over for
the time being, he settled old scores with Russia and Poland in a
way that left Sweden mistress of the Baltic. In the Polish war he
was wounded twice and was repeatedly in peril of his life. Once he
was shot in the neck, and, as the bullet could not be removed, it
ever after troubled him to wear armor. His officers pleaded with him
to spare himself, but his reply was that Caesar and Alexander did not
skulk behind the lines; a general must lead if he expected his men
to follow.
In this campaign he met the League's troops, sent to chase him back
to his own so that Wallenstein, the leader of the imperial armies,
might be "General of the Baltic Sea," unmolested. "Go to Poland," he
commanded one of his lieutenants, "and drive the snow-king out; or
else tell him that I shall come and do it myself.
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