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+The Project Gutenberg EBook In The Fire Of The Forge, by Georg Ebers, v3
+#106 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+Title: In The Fire Of The Forge, Volume 3.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5545]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 26, 2002]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRE OF THE FORGE, BY EBERS, V3 ***
+
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+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
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+
+
+
+
+
+IN THE FIRE OF THE FORGE
+
+A ROMANCE OF OLD NUREMBERG
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 3.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+One person only besides Sir Seitz Siebenburg had not been deceived--the
+young knight Boemund Altrosen, whose love for Cordula was genuine, and
+who, by its unerring instinct, felt that she had invented her tale and
+for a purpose which did honour to her kindness of heart.  So his calm
+black eyes rested upon the woman he loved with proud delight, while Seitz
+Siebenburg twisted his mustache fiercely.  Not a look or movement of
+either of the two girls had escaped his notice, and Cordula's bold
+interference in behalf of the reckless Swiss knight, who now seemed to
+have ensnared his future sister-in-law also, increased the envy and
+jealousy which tortured him until he was forced to exert the utmost self-
+restraint in order not to tell the countess to her face that he, at
+least, was far from being deceived by such a fable.  Yet he succeeded in
+controlling himself.  But as he forced his lips to silence he gazed with
+the most open scorn at the bales of merchandise heaped around him.  He
+would show the others that, though the husband of a merchant's daughter,
+he retained the prejudices of his knightly rank.
+
+But no one heeded the disagreeable fellow, who had no intimate friends in
+the group.  Most of the company were pressing round Heinz Schorlin with
+jests and questions, but bluff Count von Montfort warmly clasped Els's
+hand, while he apologised for the bold jest of his young daughter who, in
+spite of her recklessness, meant kindly.
+
+Nothing could have been more unwelcome to a girl in so unpleasant a
+situation than this delay.  She longed most ardently to get away but,
+ere she succeeded in escaping from the friendly old noble, two gentlemen
+hastily entered the brightly lighted entry, at sight of whom her heart
+seemed to stop beating.
+
+The old count, who noticed her blanched face, released her, asking
+sympathisingly what troubled her, but Els did not hear him.
+
+When she felt him loose her hand she would fain have fled up the stairs
+to her mother and sister, to avoid the discussions which must now follow.
+But she knew into what violent outbursts of sudden anger her usually
+prudent father could be hurried if there was no one at hand to warn him.
+
+There he stood in the doorway, his stern, gloomy expression forming a
+strange contrast to the merry party who had entered in such a jovial
+mood.
+
+His companion, Herr Casper Eysvogel, had already noticed his future
+daughter-in-law, recognised her by an amazed shrug of the shoulders which
+was anything but a friendly greeting, and now eyed the excited revellers
+with a look as grave and repellent as that of the owner of the house.
+Herr Casper's unusual height permitted him to gaze over the heads of the
+party though, with the exception of Count von Montfort, they were all
+tall, nay, remarkably tall men, and the delicacy of his clear-cut,
+pallid, beardless face had never seemed to Els handsomer or more
+sinister.  True, he was the father of her Wolff, but the son resembled
+this cold-hearted man only in his unusual stature, and a chill ran
+through her veins as she felt the stately old merchant's blue eyes,
+still keen and glittering, rest upon her.
+
+On the day of her betrothal she had rushed into his arms with a warm and
+grateful heart, and he had kissed her, as custom dictated; but it was
+done in a strange way--his thin, well-cut lips had barely brushed her
+brow.  Then he stepped back and turned to his wife with the low command,
+"It is your turn now, Rosalinde."  Her future mother-in-law rose quickly,
+and doubtless intended to embrace her affectionately, but a loud cough
+from her own mother seemed to check her, for ere she opened her arms to
+Els she turned to her and excused her act by the words, "He wishes it."
+Yet Els was finally clasped in Frau Rosalinde's arms and kissed more
+warmly than--from what had previously occurred--she had expected.
+
+Wolff's grandmother, old Countess Rotterbach, who rarely left the huge
+gilt armchair in her daughter's sitting-room, had watched the whole scene
+with a scornful smile; then, thrusting her prominent chin still farther
+forward, she said to her daughter, loud enough for Els to hear, "This
+into the bargain?"
+
+All these things returned to the young girl's memory as she gazed at the
+cold, statuesque face of her lover's father.  It seemed as if he held his
+tall, noble figure more haughtily erect than usual, and that his plain
+dark garments were of richer material and more faultless cut than ever;
+nay, she even fancied that, like the lion, which crouches and strains
+every muscle ere it springs upon its victim, he was summoning all his
+pride and sternness to crush her.
+
+Els was innocent; nay, the motive which had brought her here to defend
+her sister could not fail to be approved by every well-disposed person,
+and certainly not last by her father, and it would have suited her
+truthful nature to contradict openly Countess Cordula's friendly
+falsehood had not her dread of fatally exposing Eva imposed silence.
+
+How her father's cheeks glowed already!  With increasing anxiety, she
+attributed it to the indignation which overpowered him, yet he was only
+heated by the haste with which, accompanied by his future son-in-law's
+father, he had rushed here from the Frauenthor as fast as his feet would
+carry him.  Casper Eysvogel had also attended the Vorchtel entertainment
+and accompanied Ernst Ortlieb into the street to discuss some business
+matters.
+
+He intended to persuade him to advance the capital for which he had just
+vainly asked Herr Vorchtel.  He stood in most urgent need for the next
+few days of this great sum, of which his son and business partner must
+have no knowledge, and at first Wolff Eysvogel's future father-in-law saw
+no reason to refuse.  But Herr Ernst was a cautious man, and when his
+companion imposed the condition that his son should be kept in ignorance
+of the loan, he was puzzled.  He wished to learn why the business partner
+should not know what must be recorded in the books of the house; but
+Casper Eysvogel needed this capital to silence the Jew Pfefferkorn, from
+whom he had secretly borrowed large sums to conceal the heavy losses
+sustained in Venice the year before at the gaming table.
+
+At first courteously, then with rising anger, he evaded the questions
+of the business man, and his manner of doing so, with the little
+contradictions in which the arrogant man, unaccustomed to falsehood,
+involved himself, showed Herr Ernst that all was not as it should be.
+
+By the time they reached the Frauenthor, he had told Casper Eysvogel
+positively that he would not fulfil the request until Wolff was informed
+of the matter.
+
+Then the sorely pressed man perceived that nothing but a frank confession
+could lead him to his goal.  But what an advantage it would give his
+companion, what a humiliation it would impose upon himself!  He could not
+force his lips to utter it, but resolved to venture a last essay by
+appealing to the father, instead of to the business man; and therefore,
+with the haughty, condescending manner natural to him, he asked Herr
+Ernst, as if it were his final word, whether he had considered that his
+refusal of a request, which twenty other men would deem it an honour to
+fulfil, might give their relations a form very undesirable both to his
+daughter and himself?
+
+"No, I did not suppose that a necessity," replied his companion firmly,
+and then added in an irritated tone: "But if you need the loan so much
+that you require for your son a father-in-law who will advance it to you
+more readily, why, then, Herr Casper--"
+
+Here he paused abruptly.  A flood of light streamed into the street from
+the doorway of the Ortlieb house.  It must be a fire, and with the
+startled cry, "St. Florian aid us! my entry is burning!" he rushed
+forward with his companion to the endangered house so quickly that the
+torchbearers, who even in this bright night did good service in the
+narrow streets, whose lofty houses barred out the moonlight, could
+scarcely follow.
+
+Thus Herr Ernst, far more anxious about his invalid, helpless wife than
+his imperilled wares, soon reached his own door.  His companion crossed
+the threshold close behind him, sullen, deeply incensed, and determined
+to order his son to choose between his love and favour and the daughter
+of this unfriendly man, whom only a sudden accident had prevented from
+breaking the betrothal.
+
+The sight of so many torches blazing here was an exasperating spectacle
+to Ernst Ortlieb, who with wise caution and love of order insisted that
+nothing but lanterns should be used to light his house, which contained
+inflammable wares of great value; but other things disturbed his
+composure, already wavering, to an even greater degree.
+
+What was his Els doing at this hour among these gentlemen, all of whom
+were strangers?
+
+Without heeding them or the countess, he was hastening towards her to
+obtain a solution of this enigma, but the young Burgrave Eitelfritz von
+Zollern, the Knight of Altrosen, Cordula von Montfort, and others barred
+his way by greeting him and eagerly entreating him to pardon their
+intrusion at so late an hour.
+
+Having no alternative, he curtly assented, and was somewhat soothed as he
+saw old Count von Montfort, who was still standing beside Els, engaged in
+an animated conversation with her.  His daughter's presence was probably
+due to that of the guests quartered in his home, especially Cordula,
+whom, since she disturbed the peace of his quiet household night after
+night, he regarded as the personification of restlessness and reckless
+freedom.  He would have preferred to pass her unnoticed, but she had
+clung to his arm and was trying, with coaxing graciousness, to soften his
+indignation by gaily relating how she had come here and what had detained
+her and her companions.  But Ernst Ortlieb, who would usually have been
+very susceptible to such an advance from a young and aristocratic lady,
+could not now succeed in smoothing his brow.  In his excitement he was
+not even able to grasp the meaning of the story she related merrily,
+though with well-feigned contrition.  While listening to her with one
+ear, he was straining the other to catch what Sir Seitz Siebenburg was
+saying to his father-in-law, Casper Eysvogel.
+
+He gathered from Countess Cordula's account that she had succeeded in
+playing some bold prank in connection with Els and the Swiss knight Heinz
+Schorlin, and the words "the Mustache" was whispering to his father-in-
+law-the direction of his glance betrayed it--also referred to Els and the
+Swiss.  But the less Herr Ernst heard of this conversation the more
+painfully it excited his already perturbed spirit.
+
+Suddenly his pleasant features, which, on account of the lady at his
+side, he had hitherto forced to wear a gracious aspect, assumed an
+expression which filled the reckless countess with grave anxiety, and
+urged the terrified Els, who had not turned her eyes from him, to a hasty
+resolution.  That was her father's look when on the point of an outbreak
+of fury, and at this hour, surrounded by these people, he must not allow
+himself to yield to rage; he must maintain a tolerable degree of
+composure.
+
+Without heeding the young Burgrave Eitelfritz or Sir Boemund Altrosen,
+who were just approaching her, she forced her way nearer to her father,
+He still maintained his self-control, but already the veins on his brow
+had swollen and his short figure was rigidly erect.  The cause of his
+excitement--she had noticed it--was some word uttered by Seitz
+Siebenburg.  Her father was the only person who had understood it, but
+she was not mistaken in the conjecture that it referred to her and the
+Swiss knight, and she believed it to be base and spiteful.
+
+In fact, after his father-in-law had told him that Ernst Ortlieb thought
+his house was on fire, "the Mustache," in reply to Herr Casper's enquiry
+how his son's betrothed bride happened to be there, answered scornfully:
+"Els?  She did not hasten hither, like the old man, to put the fire out,
+but because one flame was not enough for her.  Wolff must know it to-
+morrow.  By day the slender little flame of honourable betrothed love
+flickers for him; by night it blazes more brightly for yonder Swiss
+scoundrel.  And the young lady chooses for the scene of this toying with
+fire the easily ignited warehouse of her own father!"
+
+"I will secure mine against such risks," Casper Eysvogel answered; then,
+casting a contemptuous glance at Els and a wrathful one at the Swiss
+knight, he added with angry resolution: "It is not yet too late.  So long
+as I am myself no one shall bring peril and disgrace upon my house and my
+son."
+
+Then Herr Ernst had suddenly become aware of the suspicion with which his
+beautiful, brave, self-sacrificing child was regarded.  Pale as death, he
+struggled for composure, and when his eyes met the imploring gaze of the
+basely defamed girl, he said to himself that he must maintain his self-
+control in order not to afford the frivolous revellers who surrounded him
+an entertaining spectacle.
+
+Wolff was dear to him, but before he would have led his Els to the house
+where the miserable "Mustache" lived, and whose head was the coldhearted,
+gloomy man whose words had just struck him like a poisoned arrow, he,
+whom the Lord had bereft of his beloved, gallant son, would have been
+ready to deprive himself of his daughters also and take both to the
+convent.  Eva longed to go, and Els might find there a new and beautiful
+happiness, like his sister, the Abbess Kunigunde.  In the Eysvogel house,
+never!
+
+During these hasty reflections Els extended her hand toward him, and the
+shining gold circlet which her lover had placed on her ring finger
+glittered in the torchlight.  A thought darted through his brain with the
+speed of lightning, and without hesitation he drew the ring from the hand
+of his astonished daughter, whispering curtly, yet tenderly, in reply to
+her anxious cry, "What are you doing?"
+
+"Trust me, child."
+
+Then hastily approaching Casper Eysvogel, he beckoned to him to move a
+little aside from the group.
+
+The other followed, believing that Herr Ernst would now promise the sum
+requested, yet firmly resolved, much as he needed it, to refuse.
+
+Ernst Ortlieb, however, made no allusion to business matters, but with a
+swift gesture handed him the ring which united their two children.  Then,
+after a rapid glance around had assured him that no one had followed
+them, he whispered to Herr Casper: "Tell your Wolff that he was, and
+would have remained, dear to us; but my daughter seems to me too good for
+his father's house and for kindred who fear that she will bring injury
+and shame upon them.  Your wish is fulfilled.  I hereby break the
+betrothal."
+
+"And, in so doing, you only anticipate the step which I intended to take
+with more cogent motives," replied Casper Eysvogel with cool composure,
+shrugging his shoulders contemptuously.  "The city will judge to-morrow
+which of the two parties was compelled to sever a bond sacred in the
+sight of God and men.  Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to give
+your daughter the good opinion you cherish of my son."
+
+Drawing his stately figure to its full height as he spoke, he gazed at
+his diminutive adversary with a look of haughty contempt and, without
+vouchsafing a word in farewell, turned his back upon him.
+
+Repressed fury was seething in Ernst Ortlieb's breast, and he would
+scarcely have succeeded in controlling himself longer but for the
+consolation afforded by the thought that every tie was sundered between
+his daughter and this cold, arrogant, unjust man and his haughty, evil
+disposed kindred.  But when he again looked for the daughter on whom his
+hasty act had doubtless inflicted a severe blow, she was no longer
+visible.
+
+Directly after he took the ring she had glided silently, unnoticed by
+most of the company, up the stairs to the second story.  Cordula von
+Montfort told him this in a low tone.
+
+Els had made no answer to her questions, but her imploring, tearful eyes
+pierced the young countess to the heart.  Her quick ear had caught
+Siebenburg's malicious words and Casper Eysvogel's harsh response and,
+with deep pity, she felt how keenly the poor girl must suffer.
+
+The happiness of a whole life destroyed without any fault of her own!
+From their first meeting Els had seemed to her incapable of any careless
+error, and she had merely tried, by her bold, interference, to protect
+her from the gossip of evil tongues.  But Heinz Schorlin had just
+approached and whispered that, by his knightly honour, Els was a total
+stranger to him, and he only wished he might find his own dear sister at
+home as pure and free from any fault.
+
+Poor child!  But the countess knew who had frustrated her intervention in
+behalf of Els.  It was Sir Seitz Siebenburg, "the Mustache," whose
+officious homage, at first amusing, had long since become repulsive.  Her
+heart shrank from the thought that, merely from vain pleasure in having a
+throng of admirers, she had given this scoundrel more than one glance of
+encouragement.  The riding whip fairly quivered in her right hand as,
+after informing Ernst Ortlieb where Els had gone, she warned the
+gentlemen that it was time to depart, and Seitz Siebenburg submissively,
+yet as familiarly as if he had a right to her special favour, held out
+his hand in farewell.
+
+But Countess Cordula withdrew hers with visible dislike, saying in a tone
+of chilling repulse: "Remember me to your wife, Sir Knight.  Tell her to
+take care that her twin sons resemble their father as little as
+possible."
+
+"Then you want to have two ardent admirers the less?" asked Siebenburg
+gaily, supposing that the countess's remark was a jest.
+
+But when she did not, as he expected, give these insulting words an
+interpretation favourable to him, but merely shrugged her shoulders
+scornfully, he added, glancing fiercely at the Swiss knight:
+
+"True, you would doubtless be better pleased should the boys grow up to
+resemble the lucky Sir Heinz Schorlin, for whose sake you proved yourself
+the inventor of tales more marvellous, if not more credible, than the
+most skilful travelling minstrel."
+
+"Perhaps so," replied the countess with contemptuous brevity.  "But I
+should be satisfied if the twins--and this agrees with my first wish
+should grow up honest men.  If you should pay me the honour of a visit
+during the next few days, Sir Seitz, I could not receive it."
+
+With these words she turned away, paying no further heed to him, though
+he called her name aloud, as if half frantic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+It was after midnight when the servants closed the heavy door of the
+Ortlieb mansion.  The late guests had left it, mounted their horses, and
+ridden away together through the Frauenthor into the city.
+
+The moon no longer lighted their way.  A sultry wind had swept from the
+southwest masses of grey clouds, which constantly grew denser and darker.
+Heinz Schorlin did not notice it, but his follower, Biberli, called his
+attention to the rising storm and entreated him to choose the nearest
+road to the city.  To remain outside the gate in such darkness would be
+uncomfortable, nay, perhaps not without peril, but the knight merely
+flung him the peevish answer, "So much the better," and, to Biberli's
+surprise, turned into St. Klarengasse, which brought him by no means
+nearer to his distant lodgings in the Bindergasse.
+
+It was unfortunate to be warmly devoted to a master who had no fear, whom
+he was obliged to serve as a messenger of love, and who now probably
+scarcely knew himself whither this love would lead him.
+
+But true and steadfast Biberli would really have followed Sir Heinz, not
+only in a dangerous nocturnal ramble, but through all the terrors of.
+hell.  So he only glanced down at his long, lean legs, which would be
+exposed here to the bites of the dogs, with whom he stood on especially
+bad terms, raised his long robe higher, as the paths over which they must
+pass were of doubtful cleanliness, and deemed it a good omen when his
+foot struck against a stout stick, which his patron saint had perhaps
+thrown in his way as a weapon.  Its possession was somewhat soothing, it
+is true, yet he did not regain the pleasant consciousness of peace in
+which his soul had rejoiced a few short hours before.
+
+He knew what to expect from the irritable mood into which recent events
+appeared to have thrown his master.  Heinz usually soon forgot any such
+trivial disappointment, but the difficulty threatening himself and
+Katterle was far worse--nay, might even assume terrible proportions.
+
+These alarming thoughts made him sigh so deeply that Heinz turned towards
+him.
+
+He would gladly have relieved his own troubled breast in the same way.
+Never before had the soul of this light-hearted child of good fortune
+served as the arena for so fierce a struggle of contending emotions.
+
+He loved Eva, and the image of her white, supernaturally beautiful
+figure, flooded by the moonlight, still stood before him as distinctly as
+when, after her disappearance, he had resolved to plead his suit for her
+to her sister; but the usually reckless fellow asked himself, shuddering,
+what would have happened had he obeyed Eva's summons and been found with
+her, as he had just been surprised with her sister.  She was not wholly
+free from guilt, for her note had really contained an invitation to a
+meeting; yet she escaped.  But his needless impetuosity and her sudden
+appearance before the house had placed her modest, charming sister, the
+betrothed bride of the gallant fellow who had fought with him in the
+Marchfield, in danger of being misunderstood and despised.  If the finger
+of scorn were pointed at her, if a stain rested on her fair fame, the
+austere Wolff Eysvogel would hardly desire to make her his wife, and then
+this also would be his fault.
+
+His kind, honest heart suffered keenly under these self-accusations, the
+first which he had ever heeded.
+
+Hitherto the volatile young fellow, who had often gaily risked his life
+in battle and his last penny at the gaming table, had never thought of
+seriously examining his own soul, battling by his own strength of will
+against some secret longing and shunning its cause.  On the contrary,
+from childhood he had accustomed himself to rely on the protection and
+aid of the Virgin and the saints; and when they passed the image with the
+ever-burning lamp, where Katterle had just sought and found consolation,
+he implored it not to let his bold intrusion into the home of the maiden
+he loved bring evil upon her and her sister.  He also vowed to the
+convent and its saint--which, come what might, should also be his--a rich
+gift whenever the Emperor or the gaming table again filled his purse.
+
+The thought of being burdened his whole life long with the reproach of
+having made two such charming, innocent creatures miserable seemed
+unendurable.  He would gladly have given gold and blood to remove it.
+
+It was too late that day, but he resolved to go to the confessional on
+the morrow, for absolution had always relieved and lightened his heart.
+But how trivial his errors had been!  True, the wrong he had now
+committed was not a mortal sin, and would hardly impose a severe penance
+upon him, yet it burdened him like the most infamous crime.  He did not
+understand himself, and often wondered why he, reckless Heinz, thus made
+a mountain out of a molehill.  Yet when, after this reflection, he
+uttered a sigh of relief, it seemed as if a voice within commanded him
+not to think lightly of what had passed, for on that evening he had
+ceased to bestow pleasure on every one, and instead of, as usual, being
+helpful and agreeable, he had plunged others who had done him no wrong--
+nay, perhaps a whole household, whose daughter had given him the first
+love of her young heart-into misery and disgrace.  Had he considered the
+consequences of his act, he would still be merry Heinz.  Then he
+remembered how, when a boy, playing with other lads high up among the
+mountains just as it was beginning to thaw, he had hurled the work they
+had finished with so much toil, a snow man, down the slope, rejoicing
+with his playfellows over its swift descent towards the valley, until
+they noticed with what frightful speed its bulk increased as it sped over
+its snowy road, till at last, like a terrible avalanche, it swept away a
+herdsman's hut--fortunately an empty one.  Now, also, his heedlessness
+had set in motion a mass which constantly rolled onward, and how terrible
+might be the harm it would do!
+
+If Hartmann, the Emperor's son, were only there!  He confided everything
+to him, for he was sure of his silence.  Both his duty as a knight and
+his conscience forbade him to relate his experiences and ask counsel from
+any one else.
+
+He was still absorbed in these gloomy thoughts when, just before reaching
+the Walch, he heard Biberli's deep sigh.  Here, behind and beside the
+frames of the cloth weavers, stood the tents before which the followers
+and soldiers of the princes and dignitaries who had come to the Reichstag
+were still sitting around the camp fire, carousing and laughing.
+
+Any interruption was welcome to him, and to Biberli it seemed like a
+deliverance to be permitted to use his poor endangered tongue, for his
+master had asked what grief oppressed him.
+
+"If you desired to know what trouble did not burden my soul I could find
+a speedier answer," replied Biberli piteously.  "Oh, this night, my lord!
+What has it not brought upon us and others!  Look at the black clouds
+rising in the south.  They are like the dark days impending over us poor
+mortals."
+
+Then he confided to Heinz his fears for himself and Katterle.  The
+knight's assurance that he would intercede for him and, if necessary,
+even appeal to the Emperor's favour, somewhat cheered his servitor's
+drooping spirits, it is true, but by no means restored his composure,
+and his tone was lugubrious enough as he went on:
+
+"And  the poor  innocent  girl in  the Ortlieb house!  Your little lady,
+my lord, broke the bread she must now eat herself, but the other, the
+older E."
+
+"I know," interrupted the knight sorrowfully.  "But if the gracious
+Virgin aids us, they will continue to believe in the wager Cordula von
+Montfort----"
+
+"She! she!" Biberli exclaimed, enthusiastically waving his stick aloft.
+"The Lord created her in a good hour.  Such a heart!  Such friendly
+kindness!  And to think that she interposed so graciously for you--you,
+Sir Heinz, to whom she showed the favour of combing your locks, as if
+you were already her promised husband, and who afterwards, for another's
+sake, left her at the ball as if she wore a fern cap and had become
+invisible.  I saw the whole from the musician's gallery.  True, the
+somnambulist is marvellously beautiful."
+
+But the knight interrupted him by exclaiming so vehemently: "Silence!"
+that he paused.
+
+Both walked on without speaking for some distance ere Heinz began again:
+
+"Even though I live to grow old and grey, never shall I behold aught more
+beautiful than the vision of that white-robed girlish figure on the
+stairs."
+
+True and steadfast Biberli sighed faintly.  Love for Eva Ortlieb held his
+master as if in a vise; but a Schorlin seemed to him far too good a match
+for a Nuremberg maiden who had grown up among sacks of pepper and chests
+of goods and, moreover, was a somnambulist.  He looked higher for his
+Heinz, and had already found the right match for him.  So, turning to him
+again, he said earnestly:
+
+"Drive the bewitching vision from your mind, Sir Heinz.  You don't know
+--but I could tell you some tales about women who walk in their sleep by
+moonlight."
+
+"Well?"  asked Heinz eagerly.
+
+"As a maiden," Biberli continued impressively, with the pious intention
+of guarding his master from injury, "the somnambulist merely runs the
+risk of falling from the roof, or whatever accident may happen to a
+sleepwalker; but if she enters the estate of holy matrimony, the evil
+power which has dominion over her sooner or later transforms her at
+midnight into a troll, which seizes her husband's throat in his sleep and
+strangles him."
+
+"Nursery tales!"  cried  Heinz  angrily,  but Biberli answered calmly:
+
+"It can make no difference to you what occurs in the case of such
+possessed women, for henceforward the Ortlieb house will be closed
+against you.  And--begging your pardon--it is fortunate.  For, my lord,
+the horse mounted by the first Schorlin--the chaplain showed it to you in
+the picture--came from the ark in which Noah saved it with the other
+animals from the deluge, and the first Lady Schorlin whom the family
+chronicles mention was a countess.  Your ancestresses came from citadels
+and castles; no Schorlin ever yet brought his bride from a tradesman's
+house.  You, the proudest of them all, will scarcely think of making such
+an error, though it is true--"
+
+"Ernst Ortlieb, spite of his trade, is a man of knightly lineage, to whom
+the king of arms opens the lists at every tournament!" exclaimed Heinz
+indignantly.
+
+"In the combat with blunt weapons," replied Biberli contemptuously.
+
+"Nay, for the jousts and single combat," cried Heinz excitedly.
+"The Emperor Frederick himself dubbed Herr Ernst a knight."
+
+"You  know best,"  replied  Biberli modestly.  But his coat of arms, like
+his entry, smells of cloves and pepper.  Here is another, however, who,
+like your first ancestress, has a countess's title, and who has a right--
+My name isn't Biberli if your lady mother at home would not be more than
+happy were I to inform her that the Countess von Montfort and the darling
+of her heart, which you are:
+
+"The name of Montfort and what goes with it," Heinz interrupted, "would
+surely please those at home.  But the rest!  Where could a girl be found
+who, setting aside Cordula's kind heart, would be so great a contrast to
+my mother in every respect?"
+
+"Stormy  mornings merge into quiet days," said the servant.  "Everything
+depends, my lord, upon the heart of which you speak so slightingly--the
+heart and, even above that, upon the blood.  'Help is needed there,'
+cried the kind heart just now, and then the blood did its 'devoir'.  The
+act followed the desire as the sound follows the blow of the hammer, the
+thunder the flash of lightning.  Well for the castle that is ruled by
+such a mistress!  I am only the servant, and respect commands me to curb
+my tongue; but to-day I had news from home through the Provost Werner, of
+Lucerne, whom I knew at Stansstadt.  I meant to tell you of it over the
+wine at the Thirsty Troopers, but that accursed note and the misfortune
+which followed prevented.  It will not make either of us more cheerful,
+but whoever is ordered by the leech to drink gall and wormwood does
+wisely to swallow the dose at one gulp.  Do you wish to empty the cup
+now?"
+
+The knight nodded assent, and Biberli went on.  "Home affairs are not
+going as they ought.  Though your uncle's hair is already grey, the
+knightly blood in his veins makes him grasp the sword too quickly.  The
+quarrel about the bridge-toll has broken out again more violently than
+ever.  The townsfolk drove off our cattle as security and, by way of
+punishment, your uncle seized the goods of their merchants, and they came
+to blows.  True, the Schorlin retainers forced back the men from town
+with bloody heads, but if the feud lasts much longer we cannot hold out,
+for the others have the money, and since the war cry has sounded less
+frequently there has been no lack of men at arms who will serve any one
+who pays.  Besides, the townsfolk can appeal to the treaty of peace, and
+if your uncle continues to seize the merchant's wares they will apply to
+the imperial magistrate, and then:
+
+"Then," cried Heinz eagerly, "then the time will have come for me to
+leave the court and return home to look after my rights."
+
+"A single arm, no matter how strong it may be, can avail nothing there,
+my lord," Biberli protested earnestly.  "Your Uncle Ramsweg has scarcely
+his peer as a leader, but even were it not so you could not bring
+yourself to send the old man home and put yourself in his place.
+Besides, it would be as unwise as it is unjust.  What is lacking at home
+is money to pay the town what it demands for the use of the bridge, or to
+increase the number of your men, and therefore:
+
+"Well?" asked Heinz eagerly.
+
+"Therefore seek the Countess von Montfort, who favours you above every
+one else," was the reply; "for with her all you need will be yours
+without effort.  Her dowry will suffice to settle twenty such bridge
+dues, and if it should come to a fray, the brave huntress will ride to
+the field at your side with helmet and spear.  Which of the four Fs did
+Countess Cordula von Montfort ever lack?"
+
+"The four Fs?"  asked Heinz, listening intently.  "The Fs," explained the
+ex-pedagogue, "are the four letters which marriageable knights should
+consider.  They are: Family, figure, favour, and fortune.  But hold your
+cap on!  What a hot blast this is, as if the storm were coming straight
+from the jaws of hell.  And the dust!  Where did all these withered
+leaves come from in the month of June?  They are whirling about as if the
+foliage had already fallen.  There are big raindrops driving into my face
+too  B-r-r!  You need all four Fs.  No rain will wash a single one of
+them away, and I hope it won't efface the least word of my speech either.
+What, according to human foresight, could be lacking to secure the
+fairest happiness, if you and the countess--"
+
+"Love," replied Heinz Schorlin curtly.
+
+"That will come of itself," cried Biberli, as if sure of what he was
+saying, "if the bride is Countess Cordula."
+
+"Possibly," answered the  knight, "but the heart must not be filled by
+another's image."
+
+Here he paused, for in the darkness he had stumbled into the ditch by the
+road.
+
+The whirlwind which preceded the bursting of the storm blew such clouds
+of dust and everything it contained into their faces that it was
+difficult to advance.  But Biberli was glad, for he had not yet found a
+fitting answer.  He struggled silently on beside his master against the
+wind, until it suddenly subsided, and a violent storm of rain streamed in
+big warm drops on the thirsty earth and the belated pedestrians.  Then,
+spite of Heinz's protestations, Biberli hurriedly snatched the long robe
+embroidered with the St from his shoulders and threw it over his master,
+declaring that his shirt was as safe from injury as his skin, but the
+rain would ruin the knight's delicate embroidered doublet.
+
+Then he drew over his head the hood which hung from his coat, and
+meanwhile must have decided upon an answer, for as soon as they moved on
+he began again: "You must drive your love for the beautiful sleepwalker
+out of your mind.  Try to do so, my dear, dear master, for the sake of
+your lady mother, your young sister who will soon be old enough to marry,
+our light-hearted Maria, and the good old castle.  For your own
+happiness, your lofty career, which began so gloriously, you must hear
+me!  O master, my dear master, tear from your heart the image of the
+little Nuremberg witch, tempting though it is, I admit.  The wound will
+bleed for a brief time, but after so much mirthful pleasure a fleeting
+disappointment in love, I should think, would not be too hard to bear if
+it will be speedily followed by the fairest and most enduring happiness."
+
+Here a flash of lightning, which illumined the hospital door close before
+them, and made every surrounding object as bright as day, interrupted the
+affectionate entreaty of the faithful fellow, and at the same time a
+tremendous peal of thunder crashed and rattled through the air.
+
+Master and servant crossed themselves, but Heinz exclaimed:
+
+"That struck the tower yonder.  A little farther to the left, and all
+doubts and misgivings would have been ended."
+
+"You  can say  that!" exclaimed Biberli reproachfully while passing with
+his master through the gate which had just been opened for an imperial
+messenger.  "And you dare to make such a speech in the midst of this
+heavenly wrath!  For the sake of a pair of lovely eyes you are ready to
+execrate a life which the saints have so blessed with every gift that
+thousands and tens of thousands would not give it up from sheer gratitude
+and joy, even if it were not a blasphemous crime!"
+
+Again the lightning and thunder drowned his words.  Biberli's heart
+trembled, and muttering prayers beseeching protection from the avenging
+hand above, he walked swiftly onward till they reached the Corn Market.
+Here they were again stopped, for, notwithstanding the late hour, a
+throng of people, shouting and wailing, was just pouring from the
+Ledergasse into the square, headed by a night watchman provided with
+spear, horn, and lantern, a bailiff, torchbearers, and some police
+officers, who were vainly trying to silence the loudest outcries.
+
+Again a brilliant flash of lightning pierced the black mass of clouds,
+and Heinz, shuddering, pointed to the crowd and asked, "Do you suppose
+the lightning killed the man whom they are carrying yonder?"
+
+"Let me see," replied Biberli, among whose small vices curiosity was by
+no means the least.  He must have understood news gathering thoroughly,
+for he soon returned and informed Heinz, who had sought shelter from the
+rain under the broad bow window of a lofty house, that the bearers were
+just carrying to his parents' home a young man whose thread of life had
+been suddenly severed by a stab through the breast in a duel.  After the
+witnesses had taken the corpse to the leech Otto, in the Ledergasse, and
+the latter said that the youth was dead, they had quickly dispersed,
+fearing a severe punishment on account of the breach of the peace.  The
+murdered man was Ulrich Vorchtel, the oldest son of the wealthy Berthold
+Vorchel, who collected the imperial taxes.
+
+Again Heinz shuddered.  He had seen the unfortunate young man the
+day before yesterday at the fencing school, and yesterday, full of
+overflowing mirth, at the dance, and knew that he, too, had fought in
+the battle of Marchfield.  His foe must have been master of the art of
+wielding the sword, for the dead man had been a skilful fencer, and was
+tall and stalwart in figure.
+
+When the servant ended his story Heinz stood still in the darkness for a
+time, silently listening.  The bells had begun to ring, the blast of the
+watchman's horn blended with the wailing notes summoning aid, and in two
+places--near the Thiergartenthor and the Frauenthor--the sky was
+crimsoned by the reflection of a conflagration, probably kindled by some
+flash of lightning, which flickered over the clouds, alternately rising
+and falling, sometimes deeper and anon paler in hue.  Throngs of people,
+shouting "Fire!" pressed from the cross streets into the square.  The
+stillness of the night was over.
+
+When Heinz again turned to Biberli he said in a hollow tone:
+
+"If the earth should swallow up Nuremberg tonight it would not surprise
+me.  But over yonder--look, Biber, the Duke of Pomerania's quarters in
+the Green Shield are still lighted.  I'll wager that they are yet at the
+gaming table.  A plague upon it!  I would be there, too, if my purse
+allowed.  I feel as if yonder dead man and his coffin were burdening my
+soul.  If it was really good fortune in love that snatched the zecchins
+from my purse yesterday:
+
+"Then," cried Biberli eagerly, "to-night is the very time, ere Countess
+Cordula teaches you to forget what troubles you, to win them back.  The
+gold for the first stake is at your disposal."
+
+"From the Duke of Pomerania, you think?"  asked Heinz; then, in a quick,
+resolute tone, added: "No!  Often as the duke has offered me his purse,
+I never borrow from my peers when the prospect of repayment looks so
+uncertain."
+
+"Gently, my lord," returned Biberli, slapping his belt importantly.
+"Here is what you need for the stake as your own property.  No miracles
+have been wrought for us, only I forgot  But look!  There are the black
+clouds rolling northward over the castle.  That was a frightful storm!
+But a spendthrift doesn't keep house long-and the thunder has not yet
+followed that last flash of lightning.  There is plenty of uproar without
+it.  It's hard work to hear one's self speak amid all the ringing,
+trumpeting, yelling, and shrieking.  It seems as if they expected to
+put out the fire with noise.  The fathers of the city can attend to that.
+It doesn't appear to disturb the duke and his guests at their dice; and
+here, my lord, are fifty florins which, I think, will do for the
+beginning."
+
+Biberli handed the knight a little bag containing this sum, and when
+Heinz asked in perplexity where he obtained it, the ex-schoolmaster
+answered gaily: "They came just in the nick of time.  I received them
+from Suss, the jockey, while you were out riding this afternoon."
+
+"For the black?" Heinz enquired.
+
+"Certainly,  my lord.  It's a pity about  the splendid stallion.  But,
+as you know, he has the staggers, and when I struck him on the coronet
+he stood as if rooted to the earth, and the equerry, who was there, said
+that the disease was proved.  So the Jew silently submitted, let the
+horse be led away, and paid back what we gave him.  Fifty heavy florins!
+More than enough for a beginning.  If I may advise you, count on the two
+and the five when fixed numbers are to be thrown or hit.  Why?  Because
+you must turn your ill luck in love to advantage: and those from whom it
+comes are the two beautiful Ortlieb Es, as Nuremberg folk call the ladies
+Els and Eva.  That makes the two.  But E is the fifth letter in the
+alphabet, so I should choose the five.  If Biberli did not put things
+together shrewdly--"
+
+"He would be as oversharp as he has often been already," Heinz
+interrupted, but he patted Biberli's wet arm as he spoke, and added
+kindly "Yet every day proves that my Biberli is a true and steadfast
+fellow; but where in the wide world did you, a schoolmaster, gain
+instruction in the art of throwing the dice?"
+
+"While we were studying in  Paris, with my dead foster brother," replied
+the servant with evident emotion.  "But now go up, my lord, before the
+fire alarm, and I know not what else, makes the people upstairs separate.
+The iron must be forged during this wild night.  Only a few drops of rain
+are falling.  You can cross the street dry even without my long garment."
+
+While speaking he divested the knight of his robe, and continued eagerly:
+"Now, my lord, from the coffin, or let us say rather the leaden weight,
+which oppresses your soul, let a bolt be melted that will strike
+misfortune to the heart.  Glittering gold has a cheering colour."
+
+"Stop! stop!"  Heinz  interrupted  positively.  "No good wishes on the
+eve of hunting or gaming.
+
+"But if I come bounding down the stairs of the Green Shield with a purse
+as heavy as my heart is just now--why, Biberli, success puts a new face
+on many things, and yours shall again look at me without anxiety."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII,
+
+The thunderclouds had gathered in the blackest masses above the
+Frauenthor and the Ortlieb mansion.  Ere the storm burst the oppressive
+atmosphere had burdened the hearts within as heavily as it weighed
+outside upon tree, bush, and all animated creation.
+
+In the servants' rooms under the roof the maids slept quietly and
+dreamlessly; and the men, with their mouths wide open, snored after the
+labour of the day, unconscious of what was passing outside in the sky or
+the events within which had destroyed the peace of their master and his
+family.
+
+The only bed unoccupied was the one in the little room next to the
+stairs leading to the garret, which was occupied by Katterle.  The Swiss,
+kneeling before it with her face buried in the coarse linen pillow case,
+alternately sobbed, prayed, and cursed herself and her recklessness.
+
+When the gale, which preceded the thunderstorm, blew leaves and straws
+in through the open window she started violently, imagining that Herr
+Ortlieb had come to call her to account and her trial was to begin.  The
+barber's widow, whom she had seen a few days before in the pillory, with
+a stone around her neck, because she had allowed a cloth weaver's
+heedless daughter to come to her lodging with a handsome trumpeter who
+belonged to the city musicians, rose before her mental vision.  How the
+poor thing had trembled and moaned after the executioner's assistant hung
+the heavy stone around her neck!  Then, driven frantic by the jeers and
+insults of the people, the missiles flung by the street boys, and the
+unbearable burden, she could control herself no longer but, pouring forth
+a flood of curses, thrust out her tongue at her tormentors.
+
+What a spectacle!  But ere she, Katterle, would submit to such disgrace
+she would bid farewell to life with all its joys; and even to the
+countryman to whom her heart clung, and who, spite of his well-proven
+truth and steadfastness, had brought misery upon her.
+
+Now the memory of the hateful word which she, too, had called to the
+barber's widow weighed heavily on her heart.  Never, never again would
+she be arrogant to a neighbour who had fallen into misfortune.
+
+This vow, and many others, she made to St. Clare; then her thoughts
+wandered to the city moat, to the Pegnitz, the Fischbach, and all the
+other streams in and near Nuremberg, where it was possible to drown and
+thus escape the terrible disgrace which threatened her.  But in so doing
+she had doubtless committed a heavy sin; for while recalling the Dutzen
+Pond, from whose dark surface she had often gathered white water lilies
+after passing through the Frauenthor into the open fields, and wondering
+in what part of its reedy shore her design could be most easily executed,
+a brilliant flash of lightning blazed through her room, and at the same
+time a peal of thunder shook the old mansion to its foundations.
+
+That was meant for her and her wicked thoughts.  No!  For the sake of
+escaping disgrace here on earth, she dared not trifle with eternal
+salvation and the hope of seeing her dead mother in the other world.
+
+The remembrance of that dear mother, who had laboured so earnestly to
+train her in every good path, soothed her.  Surely she was looking down
+upon her and knew that she had remained upright and honest, that she had
+not defrauded her employers of even a pin, and that the little fault
+which was to be so grievously punished had been committed solely out of
+love for her countryman, who in his truth and steadfastness meant
+honestly by her.  What Biberli requested her to do could be no heavy sin.
+
+But the powers above seemed to be of a different opinion; for again a
+dazzling glare of light illumined the room, and the crash and rattle of
+the thunder of the angry heavens accompanied it with a deafening din.
+Katterle shrieked aloud; it seemed as if the gates of hell had opened
+before her, or the destruction of the world had begun.
+
+Frantic with terror, she sprang back from the window, through which the
+raindrops were already sprinkling her face.  They cooled her flushed
+cheeks and brought her back to reality.  The offence she had just
+committed was no trivial one.  She, whom Herr Ortlieb, with entire
+confidence, had placed in the service of the fair young girl whose
+invalid mother could not care for her, had permitted herself to be
+induced to persuade Eva, who was scarcely beyond childhood, to a
+rendezvous with a man whom she represented to the inexperienced maiden as
+a godly, virtuous knight, though she knew from Biberli how far the latter
+surpassed his master in fidelity and steadfastness.
+
+"Lead us not into temptation!"  How often she had repeated the words in
+the Lord's Prayer, and now she herself had become the serpent that
+tempted into sin the innocent child whom duty should have commanded her
+to guard.
+
+No, no!  The guilt for which she was threatened with punishment was by no
+means small, and even if her earthly judge did not call her to account,
+she would go to confession to-morrow and honestly perform the penance
+imposed.
+
+Moved by these thoughts, she gazed across the courtyard to the convent.
+Just at that moment the lightning again flashed, the thunder pealed, and
+she covered her face with her hands.  When she lowered her arms she saw
+on the roof of the nuns' granary, which adjoined the cow-stable, a
+slender column of smoke, followed by a narrow tongue of flame, which grew
+steadily brighter.
+
+The lightning had set it on fire.
+
+Sympathy for the danger and losses of others forced her own grief and
+anxiety into the background and, without pausing to think, she slipped on
+her shoes, snatched her shawl from the chest, and ran downstairs,
+shouting: "The lightning has struck!  The convent is burning!"
+
+Just at that moment the door of the chamber occupied by the two sisters
+opened, and Ernst Ortlieb, with tangled hair and pallid cheeks, came
+toward her.
+
+Within the room the dim light of the little lamp and the fiery glare of
+the lightning illumined tear-stained, agitated faces.
+
+After Heinz Schorlin had called to her, and Els had hurried to her aid,
+Eva, clad in her long, plain night robe, and barefooted, just as she had
+risen from her couch, followed the maid to her room.  What must the
+knight, who but yesterday, she knew, had looked up to her as to a saint,
+think of her now?
+
+She felt as if she were disgraced, stained with shame.  Yet it was
+through no fault of her own, and overwhelmed by the terrible conviction
+that mysterious, supernatural powers, against which resistance was
+hopeless, were playing a cruel game with her, she had felt as if the
+stormy sea were tossing her in a rudderless boat on its angry surges.
+
+Unable to seek consolation in prayer, as usual, she had given herself up
+to dull despair, but only for a short time.  Els had soon returned, and
+the firm, quiet manner with which her prudent, helpful friend and sister
+met her, and even tried to raise her drooping courage by a jest ere she
+sent her to their mother's sick room, had fallen on her soul like
+refreshing dew; not because Els promised to act for her--on the contrary,
+what she intended to do roused her to resistance.
+
+She had been far too guilty and oppressed to oppose her, yet indignation
+concerning the sharp words which Els had uttered about the knight, and
+her intention of forbidding him the house, perhaps forever, had
+stimulated her like strong acid wine.
+
+Not until after her sister had left her did she become capable of clearly
+understanding what she had felt during her period of somnambulism.
+
+While her mother, thanks to a narcotic, slept soundly, breathing quietly,
+and in the entry below something, she knew not what, perhaps due to her
+father's return, was occurring, she sat thinking, pondering, while an
+impetuous throng of rebellious wishes raised their voices, alternately
+asking and denying, in her agitated breast.
+
+How she had happened to rise from her couch and go out had vanished
+utterly from her memory, but she was still perfectly conscious of her
+feelings during the night walk.  If hitherto she had yearned to drain
+heavenly bliss from the chalice of faith, during her wanderings through
+the house she had longed for nothing save to drink her fill from the cup
+of earthly joy.  Ardent kisses, of which she had forbidden herself even
+to think, she awaited with blissful delight.  Her timorous heart, held in
+check by virgin modesty, accustomed to desire nothing save what she could
+have confessed to her sister and the abbess, seemed as if it had cast off
+every fetter and boldly resolved to risk the most daring deeds.  The
+somnambulist had longed for the moment when, after Heinz Schorlin's
+confession that he loved her, she could throw her arms around his neck
+with rapturous gratitude.
+
+If, while awake, she had desired only to speak to him of her saint and of
+his duty to overthrow the foes of the Church, she had wished while gazing
+at the moon from the stairs, and in front of the house door, to whisper
+sweet words of love, listen to his, and in so doing forget herself, the
+world, and everything which did not belong to him, to her, and their
+love.
+
+And she remembered this longing and yearning in a way very unlike a mere
+dream.  It seemed rather as if, while the moon was attracting her by its
+magic power, something, which had long slumbered in the depths of her
+soul, had waked to life; something, from which formerly, ere her heart
+and mind had been able rightly to understand it, she had shrunk with
+pious horror, had assumed a tangible form.
+
+Now she dreaded this newly recognised sinful part of her own nature,
+which she had imagined a pure vessel that had room only for what was
+noble, sacred, and innocent.
+
+She, too--she knew it now--was only a girl like those on whose desire for
+love she had looked down with arrogant contempt, no bride of heaven or
+saint.
+
+She had not yet taken the veil, and it was fortunate, for what would have
+become of her had she not discovered until after her profession this part
+of her nature, which she thought every true nun, if she possessed it,
+must discard, like the hair which was shorn from her head, before taking
+the vow of the order.
+
+During this self-inspection it became more and more evident that she was
+not one person, but two in one--a twofold nature with a single body and
+two distinct souls; and this conviction caused her as much pain as if the
+cut which had produced the separation were still bleeding.
+
+Just at that moment her eyes fell upon the image of the Virgin opposite,
+and the usual impulse to lift her soul in prayer took possession of her
+even more powerfully than a short time before.
+
+With fervent warmth she besought her to release her from this newly
+awakened nature, which surely could not be pleasing in the sight of
+Heaven, and let her once more become what she was before the unfortunate
+ramble in the moonlight.
+
+But the composure she needed for prayer was soon destroyed, for the image
+of the knight rose before her again and again, and it seemed as if her
+own name, which he had called with such ardent longing, once more rang in
+her ears.
+
+Whoever thus raises his voice in appeal to another loves that person.
+Heinz Schorlin's love was great and sincere and, instead of heeding the
+inner voice that warned her to return to prayer, she cried defiantly,
+"I will not!"
+
+She could not yet part from the man for whom her heart throbbed with such
+passionate yearning, who was so brave and godly, so ardently devoted to
+her.
+
+True, it had been peacefully beautiful to dream herself into the bright
+glory of heaven, yet the stormy rapture she had felt while thinking of
+him and his love seemed richer and greater.  She could not, would not
+part from him.
+
+Then she remembered her sister's intention of driving Heinz--Eva already
+called the knight by that name in her soliloquy--from her presence, and
+the thought that she might perhaps wound him so keenly that knightly
+honour would forbid his return alarmed and incensed her.
+
+What right had Els to distrust him?  A godly knight played no base game
+with the chosen lady of, his heart, and that, yes, that she certainly
+was, since she had named her colour to him.  Nothing should separate
+them.  She needed him for her happiness as much as she did light and air.
+Hitherto she had longed for bliss in another world, but she was so young
+she probably had a long life before her, and what could existence on
+earth offer if robbed of the hope of his possession?
+
+The newly awakened part of her nature demanded its rights.  It would
+never again allow itself to be forced into the old slumber.
+
+If her sister came back and boasted of having driven away the dangerous
+animal forever, she would show her that she had a different opinion of
+the knight, and would permit no one to interpose between them.  But,
+while still pondering over this plan, the door of the sick-room was
+softly opened and her father beckoned to her to follow him.
+
+Silently leading the way through the dusky corridor, no longer illumined
+by the moonlight, he entered his daughter's room before her.  The lamp,
+still burning there, revealed the agitated face of her sister who,
+resting her chin on her hand, sat on the stool beside the spinning wheel.
+
+Eva's courage, which had blazed up so brightly, instantly fell again.
+
+"Good heavens!  What has happened?" she cried in terror; but her father
+answered in a hollow tone:
+
+"For the sake of your noble sister, to whom I pledged my word, I will
+force myself to remain calm.  But look at her!  Her poor heart must be
+like a graveyard, for she was doomed to bury what she held dearest.  And
+who," he continued furiously, so carried away by grief and indignation as
+to be unmindful of his promise to maintain his composure, "who is to
+blame for it all, save you and your boundless imprudence?"
+
+Eva, with uplifted hands, tried to explain how, unconscious of her acts,
+she had walked in her sleep down the stairs and out of the house, but he
+imperiously cut her short with:
+
+"Silence!  I know all.  My daughter gave a worthless tempter the right
+to expect the worst from her.  You, whom we deemed the ornament of this
+house, whose purity hitherto was stainless, are to blame if people
+passing on the street point at it!  Alas! alas!  Our honour, our ancient,
+unsullied name!"
+
+Groaning aloud, the father struck his brow with his clenched hand; but
+when Els rose and passed her arm around his shoulders to speak words of
+consolation, Eva, who hitherto had vainly struggled for words, could
+endure no more.
+
+"Whoever says that of me, my father," she exclaimed with flashing eyes;
+scarcely able to control her voice, "has opened his ears to slander;
+and whoever terms Heinz Schorlin a worthless tempter, is blinded by a
+delusion, and I call him to his face, even were it my own father,
+to whom I owe gratitude and respect--"
+
+But here she stopped and extended her arms to keep off the deeply angered
+man, for he had started forward with quivering lips, and--she perceived
+it clearly--was already under the spell of one of the terrible fits of
+fury which might lead him to the most unprecedented deeds.  Els, however,
+had clung to him and, while holding him back with all her strength, cried
+out in a tone of keen reproach, "Is this the way you keep your promise?"
+
+Then, lowering her voice, she continued with loving entreaty: "My dear,
+dear father, can you doubt that she was asleep, unconscious of her acts,
+when she did what has brought so much misery upon us?"
+
+And, interrupting herself, she added eagerly in a tone of the firmest
+conviction: "No, no, neither shame nor misery has yet touched you, my
+father, nor the poor child yonder.  The suspicion of evil rests on me,
+and me alone, and if any one here must be wretched it is I."
+
+Then Herr Ernst, regaining his self-control, drew back from Eva, but the
+latter, as if fairly frantic, exclaimed: "Do you want to drive me out of
+my senses by your mysterious words and accusations?  What, in the name of
+all the saints, has happened that can plunge my Els into misery and
+shame?"
+
+"Into misery and shame," repeated her father in a hollow tone, throwing
+himself into a chair, where he sat motionless, with his face buried in
+his hands, while Els told her sister what had occurred when she went down
+into the entry to speak to the knight.
+
+Eva listened to her story, fairly gasping for breath.  For one brief
+moment she cherished the suspicion that Cordula had not acted from pure
+sympathy, but to impose upon Heinz Schorlin a debt of gratitude which
+would bind him to her more firmly.  Yet when she heard that her father
+had given back his daughter's ring to Herr Casper Eysvogel and broken his
+child's betrothal she thought of nothing save her sister's grief and,
+sobbing aloud, threw herself into Els's arms.
+
+The girls held each other in a close embrace until the first flash of
+lightning and peal of thunder interrupted the conversation.
+
+The father and daughters had been so deeply agitated that they had not
+heard the storm rising outside, and the outbreak of the tempest surprised
+them.  The peal of thunder, which so swiftly followed the lightning, also
+startled them and when, soon after, a second one shook the house with its
+crashing, rattling roar, Herr Ernst went out to wake the chief packer.
+But old Endres was already keeping watch among the wares entrusted to him
+and when, after a brief absence, the master of the house returned, he
+found Eva again clasped in her sister's arms, and saw the latter kissing
+her brow and eyes as she tenderly strove to comfort her.
+
+But Eva seemed deaf to her soothing words.  Els, her faithful Els, was no
+longer the betrothed bride of her Wolff; her great, beautiful happiness
+was destroyed forever.  On the morrow all Nuremberg would learn that Herr
+Casper had broken his son's betrothal pledge, because his bride, for the
+sake of a tempter, Sir Heinz Schorlin, had failed to keep her troth with
+him.
+
+How deeply all this pierced Eva's heart!  how terrible was the torture
+of the thought that she was the cause of this frightful misfortune!
+Dissolved in an agony of tears, she entreated the poor girl to forgive
+her; and Els did so willingly, and in a way that touched her father to
+the very depths of his heart.  How good the girls must be who, spite of
+the sore suffering which one had brought upon the other, were still so
+loving and loyal!
+
+Convinced that Eva, too, had done nothing worthy of punishment, he went
+towards them to clasp both in his arms, but ere he could do so the clap
+of thunder which had frightened Katterle so terribly shook the whole
+room.  "St. Clare, aid us!" cried Eva, crossing herself and falling upon
+her knees; but Els rushed to the window, opened it, and looked down the
+street.  Nothing was visible there save a faint red glow on the distant
+northern horizon, and two mailed soldiers who were riding into the city
+at a rapid trot.  They had been sent from the stables in the Marienthurm
+to keep order in case a fire should break out.  Several men with hooks
+and poles followed, also hurrying to the Frauenthor.
+
+In reply to the question where the fire was and where they going, they
+answered: "To the Fischbach, to help.  Flames have burst out apparently
+under the fortress at the Thiergartenthor."
+
+The long-drawn call for help from the warder's horn, which came at the
+same moment, proved that the men were right.
+
+Herr Ernst hastened out of the room just as Katterle's shriek, "The
+lightning struck! the convent is burning!" rung from the upper step of
+the stairs.
+
+He had already pronounced her sentence, and the sight of her roused his
+wrath again so vehemently that, spite of the urgent peril, he shouted to
+her that, whatever claimed his attention now, she certainly should not
+escape the most severe punishment for her shameful conduct.
+
+Then he ordered old Endres and two of the menservants to watch the
+sleeping-room of his invalid wife, that in case anything should happen
+the helpless woman might be instantly borne to a place of safety.
+
+Ere he himself went to the scene of the conflagration he hurried back to
+his daughters.
+
+While the girls were giving him his hat and cloak he told them where the
+fire had broken out, and this caused another detention of the anxious
+master of the house, for Eva seized her shoes and stockings and, kicking
+her little slippers from her feet, declared that she, too, would not
+remain absent from the place when her dear nuns were in danger.  But her
+father commanded her to stay with her mother and sister, and went to the
+door, turning back once more on the threshold to his daughters with the
+anxious entreaty: "Think of your mother!"
+
+Another peal of thunder drowned the sound of his footsteps hurrying down
+the stairs.  When Els, who had watched her father from the window a short
+time, went back to her sister, Eva dried her eyes and cheeks, saying:
+"Perhaps he is right; but whenever my heart urges me to obey any warm
+impulse, obstacles are put in my way.  What a weak nonentity is the
+daughter of an honourable Nuremberg family!"
+
+Els heard this complaint with astonishment.  Was this her Eva, her
+"little saint," who yesterday had desired nothing more ardently than with
+humble obedience, far from the tumult of the world, to become worthy of
+her Heavenly Bridegroom, and in the quiet peace of the convent raise her
+soul to God?  What had so changed the girl in these few hours?  Even the
+most worldly-minded of her friends would have taken such an impeachment
+ill.
+
+But she had no time now to appeal to the conscience of her misguided
+sister.  Love and duty summoned her to her mother's couch.  And then!
+The child had become aware of her love, and was she, Els, who had been
+parted from Wolff by her own father, and yet did not mean to give him up,
+justified in advising her sister to cast aside her love and the hope of
+future happiness with and through the man to whom she had given her
+heart?
+
+What miracles love wrought!  If in a single night it had transformed the
+devout future Bride of Heaven into an ardently loving woman, it could
+accomplish the impossible for her also.
+
+While Eva was gazing out of the window Els returned to her mother.  She
+was still asleep and, without permitting either curiosity or longing to
+divert her from her duty, Els kept her place beside the couch of the
+beloved invalid, spite of the fire alarm which, though somewhat subdued,
+was heard in the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Eva was standing at the open window.  The violence of the storm seemed
+exhausted.  The clouds were rolling northward, and the thunder followed
+the flashes of lightning at longer and longer intervals.  Peace was
+restored to the heavens, but the crowd and noise in the city and the
+street constantly increased.
+
+The iron tongues of the alarm bells had never swung so violently, the
+warder's horn had never made the air quiver with such resonant appeals
+for aid.
+
+Nor did the metallic voices above call for help in vain, for while a
+roseate glow tinged the linden in front of her window and the houses on
+the opposite side of the street with the hues of dawn, the crowds
+thronging from the Frauenthor to St. Klarengasse grew denser and denser.
+
+The convent was not visible from her chamber, but the acrid odor of the
+smoke and the loud voices which reached her ear from that direction
+proved that the fire was no trivial one.  While she was seeking out the
+spot from which Heinz must have looked up to her window, the Ortlieb
+menservants, with some of the Montfort retainers, came out of the house
+with pails and ladders.
+
+A female figure glided into the dark street after them.  A black shawl
+concealed her head and the upper part of her figure, and she held a
+bundle in her hand.
+
+It must be Katterle.
+
+Where was she going at this hour?  As she was carrying the package, she
+could scarcely intend to help in putting out the fire.  Was she stealing
+away from fear of punishment?  Poor thing!  Even the maid was hurled into
+misfortune through her guilt.
+
+It pierced her very heart.  But while she called to Katterle to stop her,
+something else, which engrossed her still more, diverted her attention--
+the loud voice of Countess Cordula reached her from the street door.
+With whom was she talking?  Did the girl, who ventured upon so many
+things which ill-beseemed a modest maiden, intend to join the men?  Eva
+forgot that she, too, would have hurried to the nuns had not her father
+prevented it.  The countess was already standing in the courtyard.
+
+After Eva had given her a hasty glance she again looked for the maid, but
+Katterle had already vanished in the darkness.  This grieved her; she had
+neglected something which might have saved the girl, to whom she was
+warmly attached, from some imprudent act.  But while attracted by the
+strange appearance of the countess she had forgotten the other.
+
+Cordula had probably just left her couch, for she wore only a plain dress
+tucked up very high, short boots, which she probably used in hunting, and
+a shawl crossed over her bosom; another was wound round her head in the
+fashion of the peasant women who brought their goods to market on cold
+winter days.  No farmer's wife could be more simply clad, and yet--Eva
+was forced to admit it--there was something aristocratic in her firm
+bearing.
+
+Her companions were her father's chaplain and the equerry who had grown
+grey in his service.  Both were trying to dissuade her.  The former
+pointed to a troop of women who were following the chief of police and
+some city constables, and said warningly: "Those are all wanton queans,
+whom the law of this city compels to lend their aid in putting out fires.
+How would it beseem your rank to join these who shame their sex----
+No, no!  It would be said to-morrow that the ornament of the house of
+Montfort had----"
+
+"That Countess Cordula had used her hands in extinguishing the fire," she
+interrupted with gay self-confidence.  "Is there any disgrace in that?
+Must my noble birth debar me from being numbered among those who help
+their neighbours so far as lies in their power?  If any good is
+accomplished here, those poor women yonder will make it no worse by
+their aid.  If people here believe that they do, it will give me double
+pleasure to ennoble it by working with them.  Putting out the flames will
+not degrade me, and will make the women better.  So, forward!  See how
+the fire is blazing yonder!  Help is needed there and, thank Heaven, I am
+no weakling.  Besides, there are women who want assistance and, to women
+in peril, the most welcome aid is woman's."
+
+The old equerry, his eyes glittering with tears, nodded assent, and led
+the way into the street; but the countess, instead of following
+instantly, glanced back for the page who was to carry the bandages which
+she had learned to use among her retainers at home.  The agile boy did
+not delay her long; but while his mistress was looking to see that he had
+forgotten nothing of importance, he perceived at the window Eva, whose
+beauty had long since fired his young heart, and cast a languishing
+glance at her.  Then Cordula also noticed her and called a pleasant
+greeting.  Eva was on the point of answering in the same tone, when she
+remembered that Cordula had spoken of Heinz Schorlin in the presence of
+others as if he were awaiting her in all submission.  Anger surged hotly
+in her breast, and she drew back into the room as if she had not heard
+the salutation.
+
+The countess perceived it, and shrugged her shoulders pityingly.
+
+Eva, dissatisfied with herself, continued to gaze down into the street
+long after the crowds of people flocking from the city had concealed
+Cordula from her eyes.  It seemed as though she would never again succeed
+in anything that would bring contentment.  Never had she felt so weak, so
+ill-tempered, so devoid of self-reliance.  Yet she could not, as usual,
+seek consolation with her saint.  There was so much here below to divert
+her attention.
+
+The roseate glow on the linden had become a crimson glare, the flickering
+light on the opposite walls a dazzling illumination.  The wind, now
+blowing from the west, bore from St. Klarengasse burning objects which
+scattered sparks around them--bundles of hay caught by the flames--from
+the convent barn to the Marienthurm opposite, and into the street.
+Besides, the noise above and behind, before and below her, grew louder
+and louder.  The ringing of the bells and the blare of trumpets from the
+steeples continued, and with this constant ringing, pealing, and crashing
+from above, mingled the high, clear voices of the choir of nuns in the
+convent, beseeching in fervent litanies the help of their patron saint.
+True, the singing was often drowned by the noise from the street, for the
+fire marshals and quartermasters had been informed in time, and watchmen,
+soldiers in the pay of the city, men from the hospital, and the abandoned
+women (required by law to help put out the fires) came in little groups,
+while bailiffs and servants of the Council, barbers (who were obliged to
+lend their aid, but whose surgical skill could find little employment
+here), members of the Council, priests and monks arrived singly.  The
+street also echoed with the trampling of many steeds, for mounted
+troopers in coats of mail first dashed by to aid the bailiffs in
+maintaining order, then the inspector of water works, with his chief
+subordinate, trotted along to St. Klarengasse on the clumsy horses placed
+at their disposal by the Council in case of fire.  He was followed by the
+millers, with brass fire engines.  While their well-fed nags drew on
+sledges, with little noise, through the mire of the streets now softened
+by the rain, the heavy wooden water barrels needed in the work of
+extinguishing the flames, there was a loud rattling and clanking as the
+carts appeared on which the men from the Public Works building were
+bringing large and small ladders, hooks and levers, pails and torches,
+to the scene of the conflagration.
+
+Besides those who were constrained by the law, many others desired to aid
+the popular Sisters of St. Clare and thereby earn a reward from God.  A
+brewer had furnished his powerful stallions to convey to the scene of
+action, with their tools, the eight masons whose duty it was to use their
+skill in extinguishing the flames.  All sorts of people--men and women--
+followed, yelling and shrieking, to seek their own profit during the work
+of rescue.  But the bailiffs kept a sharp eye on them, and made way when
+the commander of the German knights, with several companions on whose
+black mantles the white cross gleamed, appeared on horseback, and at last
+old Herr Berthold Vorchtel trotted up on his noble grey, which was known
+to the whole city.  He still had a firm seat in the saddle, but his head
+was bowed, and whoever knew that only one hour before the corpse of his
+oldest son, slain in a duel, had been brought home, admired the aged
+magistrate's strength of will.  As First Losunger and commander in chief
+he was the head of the Council, and therefore of the city also.  Duty had
+commanded him to mount his steed, but how pale and haggard was his shrewd
+face, usually so animated!
+
+Just in front of the Ortlieb mansion the commander of the German knights
+rode to his side, and Eva saw how warmly he shook him by the hand, as if
+he desired to show the old man very cordially his deep sympathy in some
+sore trouble which had assailed him.
+
+Ever since Wolff's betrothal to Els had been announced the Vorchtels had
+ceased to be on terms of intimacy with the Ortliebs; but old Herr
+Berthold, though he himself had probably regarded young Eysvogel as his
+"Ursel's" future husband, had always treated Eva kindly, and she was not
+mistaken--tears were glittering on his cheeks in the torchlight.  The
+sight touched the young girl's inmost heart.  How eagerly she desired to
+know what had befallen the Vorchtels, and to give the old man some token
+of sympathy!  What could have caused him so much sorrow?  Only a few
+hours before her father had returned from a gay entertainment at his
+house.  It could scarcely concern Herr Berthold's wife, his daughter
+Ursula, or either of his two vigorous sons.  Perhaps death had only
+bereft him of some more distant, though beloved relative, yet surely she
+would have known that, for the Ortliebs were connected by marriage both
+with the old gentleman and his wife.
+
+Tortured by a presentiment of evil, Eva gazed after him, and also watched
+for Heinz Schorlin among the people in the street.  Must not anxiety for
+her bring him hither, if he learned how near her house the fire was
+burning?
+
+Whenever a helmet or knight's baret appeared above the crowd she thought
+that he was coming.  Once she believed that she had certainly recognised
+him, for a tall young man of knightly bearing appeared, not mounted, but
+on foot, and stopped opposite to the Ortlieb house.  That must be he!
+But when he looked up to her window, the reflection of the fire showed
+that the man who had made her heart beat so quickly was indeed a young
+and handsome knight, but by no means the person for whom she had mistaken
+him.  It was Boemund Altrosen, famed as victor in many a tournament, who
+when a boy had often been at the house of her uncle, Herr Pfinzing.
+There was no mistaking his coal-black, waving locks.  It was said that
+the dark-blue sleeve of a woman's robe which he wore on his helmet in the
+jousts belonged to the Countess von Montfort.  She was his lady, for whom
+he had won so many victories.
+
+Heinz Schorlin had mentioned him at the ball as his friend, and told her
+that the gallant knight would vainly strive to win the reckless countess.
+Perhaps he was now looking at the house so intently on Cordula's account.
+Or had Heinz, his friend, sent him to watch over her while he was
+possibly detained by the Emperor?
+
+But, no; he had just gone nearer to the house to question a man in the
+von Montfort livery, and the reply now led him to move on towards the
+convent.
+
+Were the tears which filled Eva's eyes caused by the smoke that poured
+from the fire more and more densely into the street, or to disappointment
+and bitter anguish?
+
+The danger which threatened her aunt and her beloved nuns also increased
+her excitement.  True, the sisters themselves seemed to feel safe, for
+snatches of their singing were still audible amid the ringing of the
+bells and the blare of the trumpets, but the fire must have been very
+hard to extinguish.  This was proved by the bright glow on the linden
+tree and the shouts of command which, though unintelligible, rose above
+every other sound.
+
+The street below was becoming less crowded.  Most of those who had left
+their beds to render aid had already reached the scene of the
+conflagration.  Only a few stragglers still passed through the open gate
+towards the Marienthurm.  Among them were horsemen, and Eva's heart again
+throbbed more quickly, but only for a short time.  Heinz Schorlin was far
+taller than the man who had again deceived her, and his way would hardly
+have been lighted by two mounted torch bearers.  Soon her rosy lips even
+parted in a smile, for the sturdy little man on the big, strong-boned
+Vinzgau steed, whom she now saw distinctly, was her dearest relative, her
+godfather, the kind, shrewd, imperial magistrate, Berthold Pfinzing, the
+husband of her father's sister, good Aunt Christine.
+
+If he looked up he would tell her about old Herr Vorchtel.  Nor did he
+ride past his darling's house without a glance at her window, and when he
+saw Eva beckon he ordered the servants to keep back, and stopped behind
+the chains.
+
+After he had briefly greeted his niece and she had enquired what had
+befallen the Vorchtels, he asked anxiously: "Then you know nothing yet?
+And Els--has it been kept from her, too?"
+
+"What, in the name of all the saints?"  asked Eva, with increasing alarm.
+
+Then Herr Pfinzing, who saw that the door of the house was open, asked
+her to come down.  Eva was soon standing beside her godfather's big bay,
+and while patting the smooth neck of the splendid animal he said
+hurriedly, in a low tone: "It's fortunate that it happened so.  You can
+break it gradually to your sister, child.  To-night  Summon up your
+courage, for there are things which even a man--To make the story short,
+then: Tonight Wolff Eysvogel and young Vorchtel quarreled, or rather
+Ulrich irritated your Wolff so cruelly that he drew his sword--"
+
+"Wolff!" shrieked Eva, whose hand had already dropped from the horse.
+"Wolff!  He is so terribly strong, and if he drew his sword in anger----"
+
+"He dealt his foe one powerful thrust," replied the imperial magistrate
+with an expressive gesture.  "The sword pierced him through.  But I must
+go on  Only this one thing more: Ulrich was borne back to his parents as
+a corpse.  And Wolff  Where is he hiding?  May the saints long be the
+only ones who know!  A quarrel with such a result under the Emperor's
+eyes, now when peace has just been declared throughout the land!  Who
+knows what sentence will be pronounced if the bailiffs show themselves
+shrewder this time than usual!  My office compelled me to set the pack
+upon him.  That is the reason I am so late.   Tell Els as cautiously as
+possible."
+
+He bowed gallantly and trotted on, but Eva, as if hunted by enemies,
+rushed up the staircase, threw herself on her knees before the prie dieu,
+and sobbed aloud.
+
+Young Vorchtel had undoubtedly heard of the events in the entry, taunted
+Wolff with his betrothed bride's nocturnal interview with a knight, and
+thus roused the strong man to fury.  How terrible it all was!  How could
+she bear it!  Her thoughtlessness had cost a human life, robbed parents
+of their son!  Through her fault her sister's betrothed husband, whom she
+also loved, was in danger of being placed under ban, perhaps even of
+being led to the executioner's block!
+
+She had no thought of any other motive which might have induced the hot-
+blooded young men to cross swords and, firmly convinced that her luckless
+letter had drawn Heinz Schorlin to the house and thus led to all these
+terrible things, she vainly struggled for composure.
+
+Sometimes she beheld in imagination the despairing Els; sometimes the
+aged Vorchtels, grieving themselves to death; sometimes Wolff, outlawed,
+hiding like a hunted deer in the recesses of the forest; sometimes the
+maid, fleeing with her little bundle into the darkness of the night;
+sometimes the burning convent; and at intervals also Heinz Schorlin, as
+he knelt before her and raised his clasped hands with passionate
+entreaty.
+
+But she repelled every thought of him as a sin, and even repressed the
+impulse to look out into the street to seek him.  Her sole duty now was
+to pray to her patron saint and the Mother of God in behalf of her
+sister, whom she had hurled into misfortune, and her poor heart bleeding
+from such deep wounds; but the consolation which usually followed the
+mere uplifting of her soul in prayer did not come, and it could not be
+otherwise, for amid her continual looking into her own heart and
+listening to what went on around her no real devotion was possible.
+
+Although she constantly made fresh efforts to collect her thoughts, and
+continued to kneel with clasped hands before the prie dieu, not a hoof-
+beat, not a single loud voice, escaped her ear.  Even the alternate
+deepening and paling of the reflection of the fire, which streamed
+through the window, attracted her attention, and the ringing of bells and
+braying of trumpets, which still continued, maintained the agitation in
+her soul.
+
+Yet prayer was the sole atonement she could make for the wrong she had
+done her sister; so she did not cease her endeavours to plead for her to
+the Great Helper above, but her efforts were futile.  Yet even when she
+heard voices close by the house, among which she distinguished Countess
+Cordula's and--if she was not mistaken--her father's, she resisted the
+impulse to rise from her knees.
+
+At last the vain struggle was ended by an interruption from without.
+After unusually loud voices exclaiming and questioning had reached her
+from the entry, the door of her chamber suddenly opened and old Martsche
+looked in.  The housekeeper was seeking something; but when she found the
+devout child on her knees she did not wish to disturb her, and contented
+herself with the evidence of her eyes.  But Eva stopped her, and learned
+that she was searching for Katterle, who could neither be found in her
+room, or anywhere else.  Herr Ortlieb had brought Countess von Montfort
+home severely burned, and there were all sorts of things for the maid to
+do.
+
+Eva clung shuddering to the back of the prie dieu, for the certainty that
+the unfortunate girl had really fled was like strewing salt on her
+wounds.
+
+When Martsche left her and Els entered, her excitement had risen to such
+a pitch that she flung herself before her, as if frantic and, clinging to
+her knees, heaping self-accusations upon herself with passionate
+impetuosity, she pleaded, amid her sobs, for pardon and mercy.
+
+Meanwhile Els had been informed by her father of her lover's fatal deed,
+and as soon as she perceived what tortured her sister she relieved her,
+with loving words of explanation, from the reproach of being the cause of
+this misfortune also, for the quarrel had taken place so early that no
+tidings of the meeting in the entry could have reached young Vorchtel
+when he became involved in the fray with Wolff.
+
+Nor was it solely to soothe Eva that she assured her that, deeply as she
+mourned the death of the hapless Ulrich and his parents' grief, Wolff's
+deed could not diminish either her love or her hope of becoming his.
+
+Eva listened to this statement with sparkling eyes.  The love in her
+sister's heart was as immovably firm as the ancient stones of her native
+stronghold, which defied every storm, and on which even the destroying,
+kindling lightning could inflict no injury.  This made her doubly dear,
+and from the depths of dull despair her soul, ever prone to soar upwards,
+rose swiftly to the heights of hopeful exaltation.
+
+When Els at last entreated her to go to rest without her, she willingly
+consented, for her mother was comfortable, and Sister Renata was watching
+at her bedside.
+
+Eva kept her promise, after Els, who wanted to see the Countess von
+Montfort, had satisfied her concerning the welfare of the nuns and
+promised to go to rest herself as soon as possible.
+
+The stopping of the alarm bells proved that the fire was under control.
+Even its reflection had disappeared, but the eastern sky was beginning to
+be suffused with a faint tinge of rose colour.
+
+When her sister left her Eva herself drew the curtains before the window,
+and sleep soon ended her thoughts and yearnings, her grief and her hope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Countess Cordula von Montfort's room faced the east and looked out into
+the garden.  The sun of the June morning had just risen, filling it with
+cheerful light.
+
+The invalid's maid had wished to deny Els admittance, but the countess
+called eagerly to her, and then ordered the windows to be opened, because
+she never felt comfortable unless it was light around her and she could
+breathe God's pure air.
+
+The morning breeze bore the smoke which still rose from the fire in
+another direction, and thus a refreshing air really entered the room from
+the garden, for the thunderstorm had refreshed all nature, and flower
+beds and grass, bush and tree, exhaled a fresh odour of earth and leafage
+which it was a delight to breathe.
+
+The leech Otto, to whom the severely wounded Ulrich Vorchtel had been
+carried, had just left the countess.  The burns on her hands and arms had
+been bandaged--nay, the old gentleman had cut out the scorched portions
+of her tresses with his own hand.  Cordula's energetic action had made
+the famous surgeon deem her worthy of such care.  He had also advised her
+to seek the nursing of the oldest daughter of her host, whose invalid
+wife he was attending, and she had gladly assented; for Els had attracted
+her from their first meeting, and she was accustomed to begin the day at
+sunrise.
+
+"How does it happen that you neither weep nor even hang your head after
+all the sorrow which last night brought you?" asked Cordula, as the
+Nuremberg maiden sat down beside her bed.  "You are a stranger to the
+Swiss knight, and when we surprised you with him you had not come to a
+meeting--I know that full well.  But if so true and warm a love unites
+you to young Eysvogel, how does it happen that your joyous courage is so
+little damped by his father's denial and his own unhappy deed, which at
+this time could scarcely escape punishment?  You do not seem frivolous,
+and yet--"
+
+"Yet," replied Els with a pleasant smile, "many things have made a deeper
+impression.  We are not all alike, Countess, yet there is much in your
+nature which must render it easy for you to understand me; for,
+Countess----"
+
+"Call me Cordula," interrupted the girl in a tone of friendly entreaty.
+"Why should I deny that I am fond of you?  and at the risk of making you
+vain, I will betray----"
+
+"Well?" asked Els eagerly.
+
+"That the splendid old leech described you to me exactly as I had
+imagined you," was the reply.  You were one of those, he said, whose mere
+presence beside a sick-bed was as good as medicine, and so you are; and,
+dear Jungfrau Els, this salutary medicine benefits me."
+
+"If I am to dispense with the 'Countess,'" replied the other, "you must
+spare me the 'Jungfrau.'  Nursing you will give me all the more pleasure
+on account of the warm gratitude----"
+
+"Never mind that," interrupted Cordula.  "But please look at the bandage,
+beneath which the flesh burns and aches more than is necessary, and then
+go on with your explanation."
+
+Els examined the countess's arm, and then applied a household remedy
+whose use she had learned from the wife of Herr Pfinzing, her Aunt
+Christine, who was familiar with the healing art.  It relieved the pain,
+and when Cordula told her so, Els went on with her explanation.  "When
+all these blows fell upon me, they at first seemed, indeed, unprecedented
+and scarcely possible to endure.  When afterwards my Wolff's unhappy deed
+was added, I felt as though I were standing in a dense, dark mist, where
+each step forwards must lead me into a stifling morass or over a
+precipice.  Then I began to reflect upon what had happened, as is my
+custom; I separated, in my thoughts, the evil menacing in the future from
+the good, and had scarcely made a little progress in this way when morass
+and abyss lost their terrors; both, I found, could be left to take care
+of themselves, since neither Wolff nor I lack love and good will, and we
+possess some degree of prudence and caution."
+
+"Yes, this  thinking and considering!" cried the countess, with a faint
+sigh.  "It succeeds in my case, too, only, unluckily, I usually don't
+begin until it is too late and the folly has been committed."
+
+"Then, henceforth, you must reverse the process," answered Els cheerily.
+But directly after she changed her tone, which sounded serious enough as
+she added: "The sorrow of the poor Vorchtels and the grief my betrothed
+husband must endure, because the dead man was once a dear friend,
+certainly casts a dark shadow upon many things; but you, who love the
+chase, must surely be familiar with the misty autumn mornings to which I
+allude.  Everything, far and near, is covered by a thick veil, yet one
+feels that there is bright sunshine behind it.  Suddenly the mist
+scatters----"
+
+"And mountain and forest, land and water, lie before us in the radiant
+sunlight!" cried the countess.  "How well I know such scenes!  And how I
+should rejoice if a favourable wind would sweep the grey mist away for
+you right speedily!  Only--indeed, I am not disposed to look on the dark
+side--only, perhaps you do not know how resolute the Emperor is that the
+peace of the country shall be maintained.  If your lover allowed himself
+to be carried away----"
+
+"This was not the first time," Els eagerly interrupted, "that young
+Vorchtel tried to anger him in the presence of others; and he believed
+that he was justified in bearing a grudge against his former friend--it
+was considered a settled thing that Wolff and his sister Ursula were to
+marry."
+
+"Until," Cordula broke in, "he gazed into your bright eyes."
+
+"How could you know that?"  asked Els in confusion.
+
+"Because,  in  love and  hate, as well  as in reckoning, two and three
+follow one," laughed the countess.  "As for your Wolff, in particular,
+I will gladly believe, with you, that he can succeed in clearing himself
+before the judges.  But with regard to old Eysvogel, who looks as though,
+if he met our dear Lord Himself, he would think first which of the two
+was the richer, your future brother-in-law Siebenburg, that disagreeable
+'Mustache,' and his poor wife, who sits at home grieving over her
+dissolute husband--what gratitude you can expect from such kindred--"
+
+"None," replied Els sadly.  Yet a mischievous smile hovered around her
+lips as, bending over the invalid, she added in a whisper: "But the good
+I expect from all the evil is, that we and the Eysvogels will be
+separated as if by wall and moat.  They will never cross them, but Wolff
+would find the way back to me, though we were parted by an ocean, and
+mountains towering to the sky divided----"
+
+"This confidence, indeed, maintains the courage," said the countess, and
+with a faint sigh she added: "Whatever evil may befall you, many might
+envy you."
+
+"Then love has conquered you also?" Els began; but Cordula answered
+evasively:
+
+"Let that pass, dear Jungfrau.  Perhaps love treats me as a mother deals
+with a froward child, because I asked too much of her.  My life has
+become an endless battue.  Much game of all kinds is thus driven out to
+be shot, but the sportsman finds true pleasure only in tracking the
+single heathcock, the solitary chamois.  Yet, no," and in her eagerness
+she flung her bandaged hand so high into the air that she groaned with
+pain and was forced to keep silence.  When able to speak once more, still
+tortured by severe suffering, she exclaimed angrily: "No, I want neither
+driving nor stalking.  What do I care for the prey?  I am a woman, too.
+I would fain be the poor persecuted game, which the hunter pursues at the
+risk of breaking his bones and neck.  It must be delightful; one would
+willingly bear the pain of a wound for its sake.  I don't mean these
+pitiful burns, but a deep and deadly one."
+
+"You ought to have spared yourself these," said Els in a tone of
+affectionate warning.  "Consider what you are to your father, and how
+your suffering pains him!  To risk a precious human life for the sake of
+a stupid brute--"
+
+"They call it a sin, I know," Cordula burst forth.  "And yet I would
+commit the same tomorrow at the risk of again--Oh, you cautious city
+people, you maidens with snow-white hands!  What do you know of a girl
+like me?  You cannot even imagine what my child life was; and yet it is
+told in a single word--motherless!  I was never permitted to see her, to
+hear her dear, warning voice.  She paid with her own life for giving me
+mine.  My father?  How kind he is!  He meant to supply his dead wife's
+place by anticipating my every wish.  Had I desired to feast my eyes on
+the castle in flames, it would, perhaps, now lie in ashes.  So I became
+what I am.  True--and this is something--I grew to be at least one
+person's joy--his.  No, no, at home there are others also, though they
+dwell in wretched hovels, who would gladly welcome me back.  But except
+these, who will ask about the reckless countess?  I myself do not care to
+linger long when the mirror shows me my image.  Do you wish to know what
+this has to do with the fire?  Much; for otherwise I should scarcely have
+been wounded.  The lightning had struck only the convent barn; the cow
+stable, when we arrived, was still safe, but the flames soon reached
+it also.  Neither the nuns nor the men had thought of driving the cattle
+out.  Poor city cattle!  In the country the animals have more friendly
+care.  When the work of rescue was at last commenced the cows naturally
+refused to leave their old home.  Some prudent person had torn the door
+off the hinges that they might not stifle.  Just in front of it stood
+a pretty red cow with a white star on her face.  A calf was by her side,
+and the mother had already sunk on her knees and was licking it in mortal
+terror.  I pitied the poor thing, and as Boemund Altrosen, the black-
+haired knight who entered your house with the rest after the ride to
+Kadolzburg, had just come there, I told him to save the calf.  Of course
+he obeyed my wish, and as it struggled he dragged it out of the stable
+with his strong arms.  The building was already blazing, and the thatched
+roof threatened to fall in.  Just at that moment the old cow looked at me
+so piteously and uttered such a mournful bellow that it touched me to the
+heart.  My eyes rested on the calf, and a voice within whispered that it
+would be motherless, like me, and miss during the first part of its life
+God's best gift.  But since, as you have heard, I act before I think,
+I went myself--I no longer know how--into the burning stable.  It was
+hard to breathe in the dense smoke, and fiery sparks scorched my shawl
+and my hair, but I was conscious of one thought: You must save the
+helpless little creature's mother!  So I called and lured her, as I do at
+home, where all the cows are fond of me, but it was useless; and just as
+I perceived this the thatched roof fell in, and I should probably have
+perished had not Altrosen this time carried my own by no means light
+figure out of the stable instead of the calf."
+
+"And you?" asked Els eagerly.
+
+"I submitted," replied the countess.
+
+"No, no," urged Els.  "Your heart throbbed faster with grateful joy,
+for you saw the desire of your soul fulfilled.  A hunter, and one of the
+noblest of them all, risked his life in the pursuit of your love.  O
+Countess Cordula, I remember that knight well, and if the dark-blue
+sleeve which he wore on his helm in the tournament was yours--"
+
+"I believe it was," Cordula interrupted indifferently.  "But, what was of
+more importance, when I opened my eyes again the cow was standing
+outside, licking her recovered calf."
+
+"And the knight?" asked Els.  "Whoever so heroically risks his life for
+his lady's wish should be sure of her gratitude."
+
+"Boemund can rely on that," said Cordula positively.  "At least, what
+he did this time for my sake weighs more heavily in the scale than the
+lances he has broken, his love songs, or the mute language of his longing
+eyes.  Those are shafts which do not pierce my heart.  How reproachfully
+you look at me!  Let him take lessons from his friend Heinz Schorlin, and
+he may improve.  Yes, the Swiss knight!  He would be the man for me,
+spite of your involuntary meeting with him and your devout sister, for
+whom he forgot every one else, and me also, in the dancing hall.  O
+Jungfrau Els, I have the hunter's eyes, which are keen-sighted!  For his
+sake your beautiful Eva, with her saintly gaze, might easily forget to
+pray.  It was not you, but she, who drew him to-night to your house.  Had
+this thought entered my head downstairs in the entry I should probably,
+to be honest, have omitted my little fairy tale and let matters take
+their course.  St. Clare ought to have protected her future votary.
+Besides, it pleases the arrogant little lady to show me as plainly as
+possible, on every occasion, that I am a horror to her.  Let those who
+will accept such insults.  My Christianity does not go far enough to
+offer her the right cheek too.  And shall I tell you something?  To spoil
+her game, I should be capable, in spite of all the life preservers in the
+world, of binding Schorlin to me in good earnest."
+
+"Do not!" pleaded Els, raising her clasped hands beseechingly, and added,
+as if in explanation: "For the noble Boemund Altrosen's sake, do not."
+
+"To promise that, my darling, is beyond my power," replied Cordula
+coolly, "because I myself do not know what I may do or leave undone
+tomorrow or the day after.  I am like a beech leaf on the stream.  Let us
+see where the current will carry it.  It is certain," and she looked at
+her bandaged hands, "that my greatest beauty, my round arms, are
+disfigured.  Scars adorn a man; on a woman they are ugly and repulsive.
+At a dance they can be hidden under tight sleeves, but how hot that would
+be in the 'Schwabeln' and 'Rai'!  So I had better keep away from these
+foolish gaieties in future.  A calf turns a countess out of a ballroom!
+What do you think of that?  New things often happen."
+
+Here she was interrupted;  the  housekeeper called Els.  Sir Seitz
+Siebenburg, spite of the untimely hour, had come to speak to her about
+an important matter.  Her father had gone to rest and sleep.  The knight
+also enquired sympathisingly about Countess von Montfort and presented
+his respects.
+
+"Of which I can make no use!" cried Cordula angrily.  "Tell him so,
+Martsche."
+
+As the housekeeper withdrew she exclaimed impatiently: "How it burns!
+The heat would be enough to convert the rescued calf into an appetising
+roast.  I wish I could sleep off the pain of my foolish prank!  The
+sunlight is beginning to be troublesome.  I cannot bear it; it is
+blinding.  Draw the curtain over the window."
+
+Cordula's own maid hastened to obey the order.  Els helped the countess
+turn on her pillows, and as in doing so she touched her arm, the sufferer
+cried angrily: "Who cares what hurts me?  Not even you!"
+
+Here she paused.  The pleading glance which Els had cast at her must have
+pierced her soft heart, for her bosom suddenly heaved violently and,
+struggling to repress her sobs, she gasped, "I know you mean kindly, but
+I am not made of stone or iron either.  I want to be alone and go to
+sleep."
+
+She closed her eyes as she spoke and, when Els bent to kiss her, tears
+bedewed her cheeks.
+
+Soon after Els went down into the entry to meet her lover's brother-in-
+law.  He had refused to enter the empty sitting-room.  The Countess von
+Montfort's unfriendly dismissal had vexed him sorely, yet it made no
+lasting impression.  Other events had forced into the background the
+bitter attack of Cordula, for whom he had never felt any genuine regard.
+
+The experiences of the last few hours had converted the carefully
+bedizened gallant into a coarse fellow, whose outward appearance bore
+visible tokens of his mental depravity.  The faultlessly cut garment was
+pushed awry on his powerful limbs and soiled on the breast with wine
+stains.  The closely fitting steel chain armour, in which he had ridden
+out, now hung in large folds upon his powerful frame.  The long mustache,
+which usually curled so arrogantly upwards, now drooped damp and limp
+over his mouth and chin, and his long reddish hair fell in dishevelled
+locks around his bloated face.  His blue eyes, which usually sparkled so
+brightly, now looked dull and bleared, and there were white spots on his
+copper-coloured cheeks.
+
+Since Countess Cordula gave him the insulting message to his wife he had
+undergone more than he usually experienced in the course of years.
+
+"An accursed night!" he had exclaimed, in reply to the housekeeper's
+question concerning the cause of his disordered appearance.
+
+Els, too, was startled by his looks and the hoarse sound of his voice.
+Nay, she even drew back from him, for his wandering glance made her fear
+that he was intoxicated.
+
+Only a short time before, it is true, he had scarcely been able to stand
+erect, but the terrible news which had assailed him had quickly sobered
+him.
+
+He had come at this unwontedly early hour to enquire whether the Ortliebs
+had heard anything of his brother-in-law Wolff.  There was not a word of
+allusion to the broken betrothal.
+
+In return for the promise that she would let the Eysvogels know as
+soon as she received any tidings of her lover, which Els gave unasked,
+Siebenburg, who had always treated her repellently or indifferently,
+thanked her so humbly that she was surprised.  She did not know how to
+interpret it; nay, she anticipated nothing good when, with urgent
+cordiality, he entreated her to forget the unpleasant events of the
+preceding night, which she must attribute to a sudden fit of anger on
+Herr Casper's part.  She was far too dear to all the members of the
+family for them to give her up so easily.  What had occurred--she
+must admit that herself--might have induced even her best friend to
+misunderstand it.  For one brief moment he, too, had been tempted to
+doubt her innocence.  If she knew old Eysvogel's terrible situation she
+would certainly do everything in her power to persuade her father to
+receive him that morning, or--which would be still better--go to his
+office.  The weal and woe of many persons were at stake, her own above
+all, since, as Wolff's betrothed bride, she belonged to him inseparably.
+
+"Even without the ring?" interrupted Els bitterly; and when Siebenburg
+eagerly lamented that he had not brought it back, she answered proudly
+"Don't trouble yourself, Sir Seitz!  I need this sacred pledge as little
+as the man who still wears mine.  Tell your kinsfolk so.  I will inform
+my father of Herr Casper's wish; he is asleep now.  Shall I guess aright
+in believing that the other disasters which have overtaken you are
+connected with the waggon trains Wolff so anxiously expected?"
+
+Siebenburg, twirling his cap in confusion, assented to her question,
+adding that he knew nothing except that they were lost and, after
+repeating his entreaty that she would accomplish a meeting between the
+two old gentlemen, left her.
+
+It would indeed have been painful for him to talk with Els, for a
+messenger had brought tidings that the waggons had been attacked and
+robbed, and the perpetrators of the deed were his own brothers and their
+cousin and accomplice Absbach.  True, Seitz himself had had no share in
+the assault, yet he did not feel wholly blameless for what had occurred,
+since over the wine and cards he had boasted, in the presence of the
+robbers, of the costly wares which his father-in-law was expecting, and
+mentioned the road they would take.
+
+Seitz Siebenburg's conscience was also burdened with something quite
+different.
+
+Vexed and irritated by the countess's insulting rebuff, he had gone to
+the Green Shield to forget his annoyance at the gaming table in the Duke
+of Pomerania's quarters.  He had fared ill.  There was no lack of fiery
+Rhine wine supplied by the generous host; the sultry atmosphere caused by
+the rising thunderstorm increased his thirst and, half intoxicated, and
+incensed by the luck of Heinz Schorlin, in whom he saw the preferred
+lover of the lady who had so suddenly withdrawn her favour, he had been
+led on to stakes of unprecedented amount.  At last he risked the lands,
+castle, and village which he possessed in Hersbruck as his wife's dower.
+Moreover, he was aware of having said things which, though he could not
+recall them to memory in detail, had roused the indignation of many of
+those who were present.  The remarks referred principally to the Ortlieb
+sisters.
+
+Amid the wild uproar prevailing around the gaming table that night the
+duel which had cost young Vorchtel his life was not mentioned until the
+last dice had been thrown.  In the discussion the victor's betrothed
+bride had been named, and Siebenburg clearly remembered that he had
+spoken of the breaking of his brother-in-law's engagement, and connected
+it with accusations which involved him in a quarrel with several of the
+guests, among them Heinz Schorlin.
+
+Similar occurrences were frequent, and he was brave, strong, and skilful
+enough to cope with any one, even the dreaded Swiss; only he was vexed
+and troubled because he had disputed with the man to whom he had lost his
+property.  Besides, his father-in-law had so earnestly enjoined it upon
+him to put no obstacle in the way of his desire to make peace with the
+Ortliebs that he was obliged to bow his stiff neck to them.
+
+The arrogant knight's position was critical, and real inward dignity was
+unknown to him.  Yet he would rather have been dragged with his brothers
+to the executioner's block than humbled himself before the Swiss.  But he
+must talk with him for the sake of his twin sons, whose heritage he had
+so shamefully gambled away.  True, the utmost he intended was the
+confession that, while intoxicated, he had staked his property at the
+gaming table and said things which he regretted.  Heinz Schorlin's
+generosity was well known.  Perhaps he might offer some acceptable
+arrangement ere the notary conveyed his estate to him.  He did not yet
+feel that he could stoop so low as to receive a gift from this young
+upstart.
+
+If his father-in-law, who supported him, was really ruined, as he had
+just asserted, he would indeed be plunged into beggary, with his wife,
+whose stately figure constantly rose before him, with a look of mute
+reproach, his beautiful twin boys, and his load of debt.
+
+The gigantic man felt physically crushed by the terrible blows of fate
+which had fallen upon him during this last wakeful night.  He would fain
+have gone to the nearest tavern and there left it to the wine to bring
+forgetfulness.  To drink, drink constantly, and in the intervals sleep
+with his head resting on his arms, seemed the most tempting prospect.
+But he was obliged to return to the Eysvogels.  There was too much at
+stake.  Besides, he longed to see the twins who resembled him so closely,
+and of whom Countess Cordula had said that she hoped they would not be
+like their father.
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Abandoned women (required by law to help put out the fires)
+The heart must not be filled by another's image
+
+
+
+
+
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